Leadership and Decision-Making Initiatives at Gold Mold Inc - Essay Example

Report: Some critical perspectives of the leadership and decision-making initiatives at GOLD MOLD Inc. Table of Contents Introduction 2. Company profile 3. Current financial situation Last financial year 2006/07: 4. Part A: Ethical decision making: The dilemma of making a choice Reflection on the decision making and ethical issues 5. Part B :Decision making as a Leader: Issues of diversity and discrimination in the Human Resources management perspective. The Leadership and HRM crisis: Cultural issues at the GM outlets Conclusions on the HRM crisis 6. Leadership Crisis: Choosing a good leader(Management Executive selection at GM The resolution of Leadership problems 7. Towards some conclusions and the way ahead for GM Introduction This Report pertains to how the notions of leadership and decision -making as taught to us in the Management and Personal Development module apply to my vocation personally as the managing director of the “GOLD MOLD INC” (Real name withheld) which currently deals in Gold, Diamond and Jewellery outlets through out my city and internationally. As a managing director I have had to come across many situations where I experienced a leadership crisis or a decision vacuum .It is at these points sometimes I saw some laudable efforts taking place and at other times I saw ethically disappointing decisions. Company profile The company deals in gold jewellery, diamonds, silver and pearls. There are more than 14 outlets of all 3 categories. My role is of managing the business, staff and production decisions of Gold Mold Inc. (GM )The firm employs more than a hundred employees and I generally overlook the areas of staff problems and promotions, new designs and exhibitions for all these outlets. Current financial situation Last financial year 2006/07: The London branch Turnover Gross Profit Net Profit Balance Sheet: £89000 £34000 £10 000 Current Assets Current liabilities £24342 £18677 Fixed assets include goodwill, fixtures and fittings, alarms, car. Total £21 346. (c) Financial year 2007/08 Estimated turnover, profit and loss: Turnover Gross Profit Net Profit £120000 £49000 £20000 It is assumed that the stock figure is likely to be lower. The balance sheet will improve due to the purchase of the premises freehold, thus providing more equity. We will be also trying to reduce our overdraft. See below. (d) Working capital We have an overdraft facility of £21 000, and use this as working capital. Our overdraft facility has, in effect, become a fixed borrowing. We are considering taking out a loan account for £12 000 over a ten-year repayment period. (e) Current overdraft Our overdraft currently stands at £16500 and will rise to approximately £21 000 in July. Year end should see a fall to approximately £10 500. Part A Ethical decision making: The dilemma of making a choice The most recent crisis occurred in the past few months where I had been designated to choose a new factory and retail site for our group of companies. The site in question which was nominated by the consultants would appear to have everything. It was close to a railway station, bus services are fairly good from the middle and west of the district and was a popular area for professional staff to live. We could have drained the land (a small water feature would be an attractive low cost possibility). It was a prestige site in what is a very desirable part of the district. The large number of golf sites and good green space within walking distance further add to the attractiveness of the site as a commercial centre. However the only problem was that the nature reserve itself had been declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) due to the presence of Great Crested Newts in some of the ponds and wetlands. There have been recent instances where development still pressed ahead despite the presence of these creatures but this resulted in delays & bad publicity due to strong opposition from environmental and wildlife groups. One representative of a bank involved in the group of development consultants and an ardent supporter of this site has put forward the idea, in confidence, that for a small sum it might be possible to “rid ourselves of the Newts”. This is certainly an attractive site and must not be ruled out. If the problems can be resolved relatively quickly and without too much cost building a Jewellery retail and factory outlet here e should result in a very good return on capital. The site was owned by the local authority and, given an acceptable resolution of the Newt problem; it would not be averse to selling the land. Given that this is one of the more prosperous parts of the district there might be problems recruiting workers for the less skilled jobs but this would be the ideal site for professional workers. At this point I was presented with a dilemma. This would indeed be a good choice if I had wished to advance my career for there are some very powerful voices in the company management who were very much in favour of this option. However at this point my decision was that based on my personal ethics and professional values I would strongly oppose such a measure and although I would have chosen this site for what it offers I cannot approve of the means of procuring it. It is surprising that I missed my promotion which was long due but it was my duty to take an ethical decision. Reflection on the decision making and ethical issues In this section the aim is to reflect upon some of the theoretical premises upon which I have been able to base decision for the rejection of the site of the retail outlet.. It has long been recognised by the academia that decision theory does not lie entirely within any one discipline and draws upon a number disciplines like psychology, economics, mathematics, statistics and social sciences. Much of decision theory therefore does not sit comfortably within any one discipline. Furthermore it embraces work from philosophy in the form of work relating to ethics (Bacharach and Hurley, 1991) mathematics of decisions (French, S., 1986) economics and rational choice behaviour (Bacharach and Hurley, 1991) and politics and ethics (Sutherland, 1992).In this vein my decision is firmly based on ethics as I have refused to let “ bribery” being offered in the case of the potential retail site . The link between leadership, corporate social responsibility and business ethics becomes a pivotal concern here. Nisberg (1988:43) has defined business ethics as “a set of principles that guides business practices to reflect a concern for society as a whole while pursuing profits”. He further refers to ethics as what is right, good or consistent with virtue. Corporate Social Responsibility by the leadership is the degree of moral obligation that may be put upon corporations apart from the normal laws of the state. The leadership in the corporation has to realise that the corporation is an individual and is amenable to treatment as an individual under the law (Nisberg, 1988, p. 74).Academics have applied a number of different philosophies to business and leadership ethics as (e.g., Ferrell and Gresham, 1985). Social psychologists have also considered moral philosophies to play a pivotal role in the shaping of leadership decisions. Forsyth (1980) has argued that ethical decisions can be explained in terms of idealism and relativism and defined (1980, p. 175) relativism as “the extent to which an individual rejects universal moral rules” when making ethical judgments and idealism as the degree to which the individuals “assume that desirable consequences can, with the ‘right’ action, always be obtained” (Forsyth, 1980, p. 176). As a leader for the business decisions for my business design I would agree with the ideas of Vittel et al. 1993 who states that these two philosophies as determinants of Leadership have done differently in practical life.(Vitel et al 1993) has observed that corporate leaders who stressed on idealism tended to exhibit a higher level of honesty and deemed it essential for effective organisation to be based on ethics and social responsibility. Relativists on the other hand were reportedly exhibiting lower trends of integrity. Hunt et al. (1989, p. 79) have defined corporate ethical values as “a composite of the individual ethical values of managers and both the formal and informal policies on ethics of the organization.” Based on this it would seem that corporate values influence many aspects of an organisations decision making and this is how my decision followed the ethical route. Part B Decision making as a Leader: Issues of diversity and discrimination in the Human Resources management perspective. There has been an emerging complaint in GM Inc that there has been harassment and many problems of cultural diversity plaguing the good atmosphere of the workplace at our local outlet which due to the influence of the Japanese co-ownership employed a lot of Japanese workers and the areas main managing director was Japanese aswell. The problem as it was understood before arriving at a coherent strategy was the lack of a proper definition of diversity. Diversity as a concept was once explained by a beautiful quote by Jimmy Carter who once said, “ We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams”. The same hold true for the modern business environment. The key to success in any modern organisation is the efficient allocation of firms assets particularly its employees skills and capabilities. One of the ways of ensuring success within an organization is diversity which needs to be exploited to the full as it has its potential advantages. However the concept of diversity goes beyond race, gender or disability and there is a marked emphasis on factors of personality and perspective. Therefore there should be an integration of diversity into training programs where awareness is created of prejudices arising from stereotypes. Diversity has thus to be absorbed within the areas of recruitment , legislation and brand equity. In this vein it was felt that GM was failing to perceive the relationship between diversity and performance and diversity issues should now be incorporated into the employee training routine. The advantages of diversity cannot be emphasised upon enough for GM because a well planned diversity initiative can bring many positive results to an organization like improved recruiting and retention. For GM a well planned diversity initiative will focus on the core competencies which should underline the diversity initiative. Diversity management thus has to focus upon gaining the knowledge and abilities through its labour force to enable the organization to meet its long time objectives.For GM then diversity would thus also ensure that instead of a bored “affirmative action” plan there is an emphasis on recruitment of the most qualified people, and continuing professional development of the current employees. The Leadership initiative of Promoting better employee relations and recruitment practices As mentioned before GM has more than a hundred employees in each national and international outlet. This makes it imperative to understand the Sustainable competitive advantage is essential for the improvement and appraisal of a firms competitive position in the market and will enable a firm to survive against competition in the long run. Academic opinion has often spoken strongly in the favour of the achieving sustainable competitive advantage through an emphasis upon employee based management involving an increased contribution of employees in problem-solving and decision-making. After incurring a lot of unfair dismissal suits and employee litigation it was decided by GM that for success it would be necessary to recognise that employees are an important asset and where as data and technology is susceptible to theft and piracy a good employee is one of the most important assets of a firm.The employees will be central to a company’s competitive advantage. If the employee force is well qualified, trained and experienced this will play a critical role in the effective development and execution of strategies. It has to be recognised that the employees are the most important stakeholders of a company and therefore their role in corporate governance and achieving the sustainable competitive advantage which is the need of every modern firm.GM realised well in time the importance of recognising that every employee is important and not just the top executives of the firm who are often given the discretion to withdraw large amounts of remuneration for themselves. As important stakeholders if these employees will be able to share a company’s fortunes and achievements they will do much better.Based on the above now GM has changed its policy of bonuses and pensions to better suit it for all classes of employees. The Leadership and HRM crisis: Cultural issues at the GM outlets In 1995 things got very bad at the Japanese outlet of GM since there seemed to be a failure to communicate between our British employees and the Japanese employees.The same issues arose with the Japanese workers in the British outlets.The problem which needed to be understood was in the context of my capacity as the leader of employee relations. After careful observation of the situation I came to the following conclusions. 1. Management culture has been defined as ‘ a learned, shared compelling, inter-related set of symbols whose meanings provide a set of orientations for members of a society’(Terpstra and David 1991). Other academics have stressed in the aspect of “collectiveness” in this regard by regarding it as the “collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of the one human group from another’ (Geert Hofstede 1984). 2. Of much significance is the role of Trade Unions and the work hour differentials overall between the two countries. This is particularly so as UK displays a larger Trade union involvement than its Japanese Counterpart. The UK and Japan have significantly different HRM legislative frameworks. This is mainly due to the role of the trade unions and the political influence this has had on labour variables. To give an example if we consider the problems faced by radical modification in the UK HRM culture through the interaction and intersection of Western and Japanese techniques (Graham 1988, Yamashina 1996). More importantly if we look at the political atmosphere of the decade of the eighties made the United Kingdom a conducive political environment for the Japanese foreign manufacturers (Graham 1988, Yamashina 1996). This gave them a chance to transfer their highly competitive manufacturing processes and management techniques to the UK’s production culture and a unique permeation of their specialities (McDermott 1996). Although these technologies saved the ailing UK automobile industry in the mid-eighties there was a constant organisational tension. 3. For example if we take the example of Just In time technology (Brain Child of the Toyota Manufacturing Group) which was the reason Japan did exceptionally well by instilling a culture of cost reflective management of resources and better inventory methods is highly discouraged. Similar problems were faced in HRM practices during the Nissan experience in the UK was widely acclaimed yet a few academics like McDermott (1996) pointed out the obvious problem of compatibility with the British HRM system. The Japanese system was strictly team based and focused on peer evaluation results in intense stress on the predominantly male workforce. The recruitment policy was criticised as too choosy and ignored the disabled and (women which goes against the UK image of welfare and equal opportunity). Surprisingly the East meets West situation also brought with it an increased nature of job losses at the Cargo plants learning from the experience of Ford, General Motors, Peugeot and Rover who all chose adopt Japanese working practices in order to boost efficiency. 4. If we look at the current Japanese Work culture it is possible to glean a certain quality about the HR professionals and their HRM practices.This has more to do with its aging workforce and the robust pensions system but the work force is over stressed and occasionally suffers from “Karoshi” death from overwork (Gross.A John Minot L 2008). This has become a regulatory concern in stark contrast to the strong legislation in Britain in this regard already which regulates work hours for adults, students and the disabled. With regard to HR selection and recruitment schemes in Japan Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL) 1985 which was often criticised as “toothless lion” because it banned discrimination and harassment in theory, but did not actually establish legal penalties for them” (Gross.A John Minot L, 2008). 5. Based on the academic views of Edward Hall (1977), HRM culture can be said to be based upon values and norms which shape a people’s behavior and attitudes which is shared, communicated and transmitted by members of the group. Hall (1977) has also regarded the notions of HRM culture as based upon experience and values that feed into and influence behavior and responses of distinct groups. Keeping in mind the notions of the “Low” and “High culture” context it is thus possible to differentiate between UK and Japanese HRM models in the terms of communication, body language and levels of expression (corporate social culture). UK Japan Low context culture Communication is clear, explicit and unambiguous People will say precisely what they mean High context culture Important information conveyed beyond words spoken à e.g. body language Need to read between lines Knowledge of the unwritten or unspoken rules of communication All these factors can be translated in terms of the general work place culture as summarized in the following diagram (Hall 1977). . UK’s general culture Japan’s general culture Primacy of individuals Low regard for rules Open and transparent society Creative and versatile society Individual decisions over consensus Human relations oriented Respect for rules Closed society, lack of transparency Mono-cultural society Dependence on consensus Another way of understanding these corporate HRM cultural differences would be in terms of Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions who theorized that cultural and sociological differences between nations can be categorized and quantified, thereby allowing comparison of national cultures to take place. Therefore when we apply this analysis to the UK and Japanese HRM models in terms of power distance it is possible to see from the following diagram the extent to which power structures are hierarchical and reflect significant inequalities in power. UK Japan Small power distance Individuals regard themselves as equals Respect for individuals from their proven capacity to perform a role rather than the job title or their place in organization Flatter organization structures High power distance Wide inequalities in power Heavily centralized and hierarchical organizations. Individuals regard themselves as inherently unequal Clear position Secondly as evident from the diagram below it is possible to glean the differences between the measures the lack of tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity. UK Japan Low uncertainty avoidance Conduct business in a less formal manner, fewer standardized rules Individuals are willing to take greater risks and exert great independence in role performance High uncertainty avoidance Highly structured formal rules and limited tolerance for deviant ideas or behaviors. Structured hierarchies à clear position and regards strong leadership The third factor which would differentiate the HRM models are based upon individualism vs. collectivism that is the extent to which the individual takes priority over the notions of a “collectivist society”. UK Japan Individualist society Regard for individual rights and freedoms Assertiveness and competitiveness Collectivist society Groups will look after the interest of individuals and gives them their sense of identity Individuals are loyalty and work towards the attainment of goals of the groups The fourth factor is the “Masculine or Feminine context” in which these two models can be differentiated and compared. UK Japan Masculinity High premium on assertiveness, achievement and the acquisition of material possessions Favor conflicts and competition in workplace Femininity Place high value on social relationships, quality of life and sensitivity Exhibit high degree of cooperation, negotiations and compromise Finally, last but not the least we are looking short vs. long term orientation in terms of both countries. UK Japan Short-term orientation country Emphasis on the immediate gratification of needs Focus on the present and the attainment of the short-term goals Long-term orientation country Satisfaction of needs is deferred for the sake of long-term benefits and growth E.g. persistence and thrift As mentioned above in the general comparison of the two HRM models, in Stark contrast to the English position on diversity and gender protection the Japanese law does not directly help the disabled and female workers who still suffering from indirect discrimination which is a result of geographical immobility. It is only now that the legislative framework in paying attention to childrearing support based upon the Western (UK and US HRM models). Conclusions on the HRM crisis at GM Based on my conclusions above it was decided that the employee work force at but the Japanese and the British location needed to be better acquainted with each others norms and customs of each other’s HRM.This would involve workshops and more social opportunities for the employees to mix with each other. Leadership Crisis: Choosing a good leader (Management Executive selection at GM The former GM strategy for selecting executives and decision makers had to a large extent selected upon E-selection and personality tests.The challenge was and had always been that how reliable and cost effective such measures could be. No wonder a reliable and cost effective selection measure can do wonders for a company’s future especially for GM whose Managing Executive died recently in 2006.The process became very complicated as GM realised that the process of staff recruitment and selection bears a lot upon the job performance and organizational success of a firm.They tried to follow for a while the UK style method of using strategies like collecting biographical data as a predictor of applicants’ future work as well as the use of structured interviews which will inquire through a set of predefined questions already. These questions will have their certain scores etc to judge or predict performance. Also there will be certain assessment centres which will allow candidates to engage in situational exercises and think tanks where experts will evaluate and make further predictions as to their current and future work performance.Of more importance and relevant to this context are the Cognitive tests which have certain ways of testing aptitudes and achievements of the candidates. In a similar vein personality tests will judge candidates as to their performance based on their preferred activities and how these candidates perceive themselves. The reason these tests did not do well was due to the posing of moral dilemmas to the applicants and ask them to react .Another breed of selection criteria which we tried included realistic job previews where employers will leave the candidates in their future workplace to see whether they can adjust to it their future work environment. The reliability of these tests remained doubtful nevertheless.GM did go through a lot of trouble and expense to arrange these tests/procedures and had to hire large amounts of personnel just to analyse this data. Although the use of biographical data can to some extent predict a person’s performance for example the tendency to speak or deal in a certain way and has been used as a fairly reliable predictor of work performance there is always a risk of misjudging a person based on what is written on paper. It seems that the only way to judge a person is to interact with them for a while and judge their behaviour. In the US Cognitive job interviews have proved popular and people are most likely to be put in selection and training works for a deeper evaluation of their attitudes. The tests like the popular “Big Five test” (see below) may even be accurate in a sense however they are easy to tamper with too generalised. So sometimes even reliable tests can be “unreliable” because they tend to ignore the individual and stress on the group they belong to. Based on the psychological model devised by the eminent psychologist Goldberg it is said that the "Big five" personality traits are inherent in the population.This holds particularly true for achievement and work perfomance.The Big Five personality test (Goldberg 1981, 1993) identifies these five personality types as Extroversion (activity, sociability and emotional expressiveness), Agreeableness(trust, modesty), Conscientiousness(impulse control) Neuroticism(emotional stability) and Openness (complexity). These five dimensions have been used to account for variance in employee behaviour as well and their use of screening candidates for team building, selection, job analysis, training programs, coaching, is well known. GM soon discovered how weak this test was when questionnaires were accordingly distributed .The employees sensed that if they choose certain options they might be selected for high profile jobs. Therefore anyone with a little understanding of this test was able to get desired results. The test itself asks questions which ask you to agree disagree or give a medium response.The test ignores the influence of cultural and social influences on decision making.So two employees from different cultures in GM were feeling these problems.Last but not the least at the end of this test the employer might actually be baffled by the diversity within all five traits especially when all these different employees will have different levels of intensities. At the end if all these scores are computed GM selection team was stuck defining different personalities and wasted enough money at the cost and expense of certified professionals. So it might not be possible to see a similarity in two employees with similar scores due to their cultural or skill differences. Last but not the least using this test to judge employees brought with it the risk for GM of a “Monotonous Selection” where there is not even a high level of reliability in the data and a tendency to cluster some candidates into certain categories which may result in a good team but there will be a risk of missing out “diversity” in the employee base which accounts for different approaches, decision styles and intensities and can always be a cause of innovation. The resolution of Leadership problems Finally due to their unpredictability and unsoundness the above tests were discarded. A panel of interviewers decided to gather on the basis of the follwing criteria for the choice of the next management executive. 1. Someone who would be able to display and account for all the intrinsic technical and financial hurdles present in the decision making process. This necessitated the use of the PESTEL and Business scorecard approach. My aim was to arrive at a balanced Business Score Card approach to reach a decision for the outlet location and the retail outlets. 2. A good leader would be a good decision maker which is something which has been seen throughout as a recurring trend in the report above. 3. The better executive would be able to base his decisions upon a number of considerations like the PESTEL factors which are beyond the control of the companies or their board and management and have to be accepted for whatever they stand for.(PESTEL stands for political, economical, socio-cultural, technological, environmental and legal issues facing the managers and employees). 4. This will even be so if he does not have perfect information or the perfect skills but great experience in dealing with critical points of decisions.This would be very much like the situation faced with selecting a site for the new GM outlet discussed above. In this vein the GM hiring policy was subsequently revised and much more stress was placed upon the ethical and practical aspects of the candidate’s Performa. Towards some conclusions and the way ahead for GM Most of the situations in GM management discussed above have reflected how the meaning and usage of the notion of leadership as an ingredient of success and value in an organisations contemporary structure has received a mixed response from the business academia,where sceptics have gone as far as to say that “All definitions are arbitrary. They reflect choices that cannot be proved or validated” (Shamir and Eilam 2005:395).The main focus of this report was to see that to what extent leadership is an “influencing’ force for GM management decisions as Northhouse (2004) has stated that ‘Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences [another individual or] a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. In this vein we saw how the relationship between leadership and national culture has often been held to impact closely the success and failure of an organisation in terms of leadership style, motivation and employee performance(Bass, 1990; Collins and Porras, 1996).In the context of National culture at least academics have pointed out that transformational leadership attributes which pertain to empowerment and perception contribute to employee job satisfaction and commitment in a very positive way (Iverson and Roy, 1994). Finally it was seen in the arena of discrimination that the business academia has often focused upon the influence of gender on leadership and its various dimensions. When we are thus perusing the relationship between gender role and leadership style academics have pointed out towards a tendency of attaching “masculinity with task-oriented leadership styles and femininity with relationship-oriented ones”.(Oshagbemi and Gill, 2003).It is perceived by the researchers and the academia that if sexes are perceived so differently in organizations their leadership styles would also differ a lot and this would seem likely that leadership styles are also different. Finally the most important aspect in my own leadership decisions was the role of Ethics .Leadership is morality magnified”(Ciulla, 2006:17).In this regard this report sought to define the relationships between ethics and leadership in the organisational context. The modern leader has to weather and face a plethora of situations like financial and political scandals, international pressure, public image, regulation and the current business mood and in this context it is also worth noting that gender and national culture issues have also reflected upon the common problems versus cultural specificity.(Individual responsibility v Corporate conscience).Finally the report has also reflected that in the context of GM the term “Leadership”is subjectively constructed and the whole concept has many dimensions.For Gardner (1995, p. 292), “The greatest challenge the leaders face is to bring about significant and lasting changes in a large and heterogeneous group”. The link between leadership and ethics and gender has been accordingly explored to reflect cultural contexts as well and the major problem areas and their resolution has been discussed in the light of academic literature. List of references topic wise Cultural Issues in HRM 1. 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