Leadership Roles in the Human Resource Department - Essay Example

Topic: Management and Organizational Behavior Lecturer: Presentation: Introduction Leadership roles especially in the human resource department carry a lot of significance in determining the success and future of a business or organization. This is due to the fact that it deals with managing and leading people who are of different cultural backgrounds as well as different tastes and preferences especially in their motivational factors (Schermerhorn, 2002). In this essay, various methodologies of achieving results from team work have been discussed such as employee motivation through monetary reward as well as consequential reward. Improved competition among teams has been identified as the major resultant of motivation whereby employees put more effort in their activities so as to produce the expected results. The General Electric Company, which is an American business that has earned a high reputation internationally, has been used as an example to show the benefits that an organization can reap from good management and organizational behavior as was the case under Jack Welch who was the company’s CEO (Eckes, 2000). This essay is a critical evaluation of management and its role in the improvement of quality of leadership and teamwork in order to reach the set targets in performance and productivity. Ways of Increasing the Quality of Leadership and Improving Teamwork Success Leadership is different from management in that instead of imposing authoritative rule on the subjects, the role requires an approach that is aimed at convincing other people to follow in your ideologies and your way of doing things (Fincham, 2003). A good team work as discussed herein requires quality leadership due to the fact that leaders have the ability to bring people from different cultural and economic back grounds together to form a strong and productive team. It is therefore necessary to identify various ways of increasing the quality of leadership in an organization so as to ensure that there is harmony and professionalism in the execution of duties. A person may possess leadership qualities either naturally meaning that it is inborn, or through undergoing training (Fincham, 2003). People who are not used to leadership sometimes face various difficulties due to their lack of confidence and charisma to exercise their power without having to experience conflicts in the work place. In some of the cases, pressure from the top ranking officers in the organizational structure may inhibit effective leadership since the leaders may be compelled to adopt a leadership style that is dominating in nature thereby attracting resistance from employees (Cole, 2004). For example, top level managers may come up with a strategic plan outlining a period of time that a certain task is to be carried out for example in constructing a commercial building. At the same time, the budget allocated to the project may not be sufficient to employ the required number of employees meaning that those employed would have to over work in order to finish within the stipulated time. From this perspective, the team leaders may be compelled to assign extra work to the teams, which may not go well with the employees, who may decide to demand for salary increments or result to sabotage (Lidgoster, 2010). In view of this, it would be in the organization’s best interest for the top managers to ensure that they do not pressure team leaders by restraining the budget and at the same time imposing deadlines which are unrealistic. Leaders should be given a leeway to facilitate independent decision making based on the situation on the ground (Cole, 2004). In order to maintain a health organizational culture especially where leadership is concerned, the organization should ensure that leaders are prepared in advance within the organization’s workforce so that whenever there is a vacancy in the positions of leadership, there can be a smooth transition. This can be accomplished through on job training whereby delegation of duties is carried out by providing clear guidelines in various departments such that whenever the head of that section is not around, his deputy or someone else in the department can take responsibility of the operations in a full capacity. Once this is done, it would facilitate alternatives and stability of the departments such that the organization would not have to hire strangers who are not accustomed to the organization’s policies to come and take leadership roles. In addition, regular workshops prepared by the business community should be taken as a platform for exposing current leaders to different experiences which are shared in those meetings so that they can have a wider knowledge as well as to widen their scope of thinking facilitated by the workshops (Daft, 2003). As such, leadership should be taken as a lifelong learning in order to cope with the dynamic nature of issues related to workforce diversity and technology. As an advice to the leaders, it is always important to know the strengths of the organization especially those processes that are the foundation blocks for its success. Without these processes, a business cannot survive and therefore, they should be given priority at all cost especially when assigning teams to work on them. Only the best performers in terms of qualification and experience should be assigned the responsibility of serving in the positions. This is a weakness that leaders in organizations fail to understand, resulting to their assigning of positions through nepotism and corruption instead of out of merit (Ollins, 2001). As such, a leader should be a person of high moral integrity and a one who observes the ethical values of leadership. Leadership in the human resource management department is a role that has a lot of challenges due to the fact that it is responsible in ensuring that businesses are well prepared to offer stiff competition in the market. One way through which this department serves its purpose is by ensuring that existing talents are maintained in the work place as well as introducing new talents to the business (Ollins, 2001). This is essential due to the fact that employees play the greatest role in determining the success of a business due to their direct participation in the production processes as well as in the marketing of the products. Maintaining quality workforce calls for an understanding from the manager in charge of the department who is required to identify methods of motivating and maintaining discipline in the work place. This has been noted to be a difficult task especially where work force diversity is present. It is important to realize that we have different generations in the work place such as the baby-boomer, generation-x and generation-y which are defined through their demographic constituent (Gravvet, 2007). Human resource managers in the past have capitalized on this factor when hiring employees, with generation-y being left out due to stereotypic perceptions among the older generations that this group of youths born between 1977 and 1990 is characterized by indiscipline, laziness and lack of respect for their bosses. In addition, generation-y is denied opportunities to join organizations at the management and production levels due to their massive knowledge on communication as well as other digital technologies. It is said that the have the weakness of spending mush of their working hours in socializing with friends through interactive social sites such as face book and twitter among others (Gravvet, 2007). In fact, some of the managers admit to sidelining these individuals in their interviews regardless of their academic achievements while some of them credit their hiring of gen-y to lack of otherwise. This is evident for example in countries such as Australia whereby youths represent a low figure of 20% in the total workforce in industries while gen-x and baby boomers constitute the rest (Gravvet, 2007). In such circumstances, the workforce is thereby constituted by majority of people who are at or close to their retirement age. As such, human resource managers have a great responsibility in harmonizing their workforce such that there is an equal representation of employees from all generations. While at it, it is important first to realize that they cannot achieve best results from doing so without appreciating workforce diversity after which they would be able to enhance team work (Gravvet, 2007). Every generation has its way of doing things and as such, the manager in charge should ensure that every person works according to their job descriptions so as to avoid unnecessary conflicts in the work place while at the same time ensuring that they are comfortable in their positions in the organizational structure. For example, a manager may be prompted to award a person from generation-x a higher ranking position in the organizational hierarchy just because of the long experience he has in the organization, at the expense of a highly learned and vibrant youth, without considering their ability to institute change and development. According to observations which have been made by different researchers, people in generation-x, born approximately between 1946 and 1960, are result oriented meaning that they do not give much attention to the means of getting a task done as long as it yields while on the other hand, gen-y constituents rely on the means of accomplishing the task specifically technology (Gravvet, 2007). From this perspective, the manager should be able to set the goals of the business clearly by deciding the best option to take among the two without having to downplay the expectations of one group. Ensuring that these groups of people work together in harmony is beneficial to an organization (Ozbilgin, 2010). This is because it helps to prepare the younger generation so that there would be a smooth transition in case the elder ones reaches their retirement age. This will provide the business with continuity thereby minimizing the risk of losing grasp on the market share. The major factor behind the success of team work lies in the ability of the team members and their leaders to communicate effectively. This is due to the fact that different ideas and arguments will originate from all quarters of the parties involved. As the person in charge, it would be necessary to create an environment that allows interactive discussions (Cole, 2004). This is a weakness that has been identified in most of the leaders and managers, who make decisions on their own and expect them to be followed without being questioned. Where as this may speed up the process of achieving results, ideas from individual members of a team may assist in developing better results than when decisions are made by one person. Allowing interactive discussions concerning managerial decisions encourages employees to gain trust on the leadership as well as helping the leaders to know what his subjects are thinking (Frederique, 2007). One way to achieve this is through arranging brainstorming sessions whereby every member of the workforce is allowed to contribute freely without fear of intimidation (Pareek, 2000). During these sessions, the employees would also have a chance to socialize with each other over a cup of tea or meals which may be prepared for them so that they can get to know their common interests and differences. This helps to create a working environment with harmony since the employees will learn to appreciate the fact that they are from different back grounds and therefore, they should cohabit with their fellow workmates without having to experience unnecessary conflicts which may arise due to misunderstanding of petty issues. Team work cannot produce viable results without having clear expectations from their leaders. As such it is important for those in charge of the teams to ensure that every team member knows the details of what the group is expected to produce within a specified time frame (Fincham, 2003). For example, a team may be given the mandate to develop an information system for an organization. Without giving them the time frame, it may turn out to be an expensive project due to the fact that the members may decide to prolong the outcomes due to lack of pressure, which may in turn mean that the business would have to do with the current system and maybe the reason for creating the new system was to help in promoting the business in competition with other businesses which may be ahead in the new technology. With a clear guideline on the time and the expected results, the team would be forced to speed up their processes for example by assigning different modules to different people thereby achieving the desired results (Ollins, 2001). However, this cannot be accomplished without the availability of enough resources which are sufficient for the project. As such, the leadership should ensure that there are enough personnel in every team to avoid overworking as well as enough money to procure the necessary materials for the project development. It would also be a motivation factor to assign priority to the team work by the executive leaders such that a significant attention is given to the teams in terms of frequent visits and acknowledgement of their efforts so that they can realize the importance of the work they are doing to the organization (Bowen, 2004). Once they realize this, the team members will put more effort in their work either to please the leaders or out of understanding of the fact that their services are worthy to the success of the business. An example of a company that has passed the test of time due to its acknowledgement of employee efforts in team work is the General Electric Company, which is an American business. This company had a poor organizational culture, which viewed discouraged employee contribution in terms of questions and feedback such that there was no any interactive communication between the management and the employees and as such, all the decisions made by the managers were to be followed without questioning (Eckes, 2000). When Jack Welch took over as the chief executive officer in 1960, he changed the culture of the business to become friendlier to the employees, which he termed as an open collaborative work place (Eckes, 2000). By this he meant that employees were meant to participate in the formulation of strategies by contributing their opinions because he believed that to get the best out of the employees, they had to become active participants so that they can also learn in the process and be able to make their own decisions without necessarily having to depend on their leaders for guidance. Through his initiatives as the CEO of the company, Welch managed to drive the market capitalization from a low figure of approximately $12 billion during his entry to approximately $500 billion at the time he stepped from his position, which took a span of approximately 20 years (Eckes, 2000). From this example, it may be true to say that a business cannot achieve its goals through pure authoritative form of leadership. Effective leadership is one that acknowledges the input of all its associates regardless of the management hierarchy. However, Jack Welch did not forget to stress on the importance of constant assessment of employees so as to measure their output in order to value their significance in the progress of the business in the market (Eckes, 2000). This is a strategy that has been adopted by several organizations, which are putting it as a requirement for employees to sign performance contracts in order to show commitment to their responsibilities and also to help the leadership in evaluating their significance in the business. Whoever does not produce as expected is given a chance to defend himself or face the consequences which may include termination of contract. It is also advisable for leaders to understand that employee motivation is an element that can improve the performance of employees either at individual level or in team work (Mullins, 2005). This is due to the fact that it makes the employees to compete among themselves in terms of team output such that each group works hard to accomplish their tasks in the time specified as well as in the right quality and quantity. On the other hand, different persons have different motivation factors and therefore, it is the role of the leadership to take the necessary measures so as to understand the best ways through which they can motivate their employees. There are various methods of motivation such as awarding bonuses to the best performing team or department (Bowen, 2004). This could be in form of salary increment or gifts such as shopping vouchers which can be redeemed in a supermarket so that the holder can shop for any item provided it fits the budgeted figure. Employees can also be motivated by providing them with resources such as organization’s buses and food so that they can visit tourist attraction sites such as museums, game parks or even other organizations so as to learn more on organizational matters. By doing so, other teams would feel challenged such that they would be determined to put more efforts in their duties so that they can be rewarded in the next auditing of performances (Morrison, 2001). On the other hand, motivation can also be achieved by setting scores for each and every team so that the team with the lowest score is rewarded through punishment such as demotion or firing depending on the organizational policies. However, this should be communicated in advance for example at the early stages of recruitment so that the employees can sign an agreement which would bide them to the rules and regulations of the organization (Locke, 2004). By doing so, the employees would make sure that their results are always above the set score so as to avoid facing the consequences. This was one of the strategies that Jack Welch used to improve the performance of employees in the GE Company. Conclusion The success of an organization lies in the ability of the leadership to promote team work through effective leadership style and good management practices. Communication is one of the factors that have been stressed due to its ability to create a working environment that assigns importance to employee contributions in terms of ideas. This can be proved by the contribution it had on the success of GE Company which before Jack Welch took over as the CEO in 1960 had a low market capitalization but due to his approach, which valued input from employees, the market capitalization had risen significantly to approximately $500 billion at the time of his exit. Leaders should also lead by example but not by imposing draconic rules and regulations under which they themselves cannot work comfortably with. Motivation of employees is also another factor which can be used to motivate team work. Motivation can be in form of monetary reward or consequential reward which ensures that there is healthy competition between various departments, which works hard to achieve recognition by the leadership. Performance evaluation methods should also be adopted to ensure that various teams are committed to their duties and responsibilities. Leaders are also been advised to appreciate diversity in the workforce so as to achieve the best results from the cross generational interaction. This is as opposed to organizational cultures in the past that discriminate against people from certain demographic constitution such as the Gen-Y, which is stigmatized especially in countries such as Australia whereby the only constitute approximately 20% of the total workforce which is dominated by employees from generation baby boomer and the Generation-X, who are close to their retirement age. References Bowen, B. 2004. Recognizing and Rewarding Employees, McGraw-Hill Cole, A. 2004. Management: Theory and Practice, Thomson. Daft, L. 2003. Management, Thomson South-Western Eckes, G. 2000. General Electrics Six Sigma Revolution: how General Electric and Others Turned Process into Profits, Wiley. Fincham, R. 2003. Principles of Organizational Behavior, Oxford University Press Frederique, S. 2007. Creating a High-Trust Organization: An Exploration into Organizational Policies that Stimulate Interpersonal Trust Building, Journal of Management Studies, 45(5), pp 857-884 Gravvet, L. 2007. Bridging the Generation Gap: how to Get Radio Babies, Boomers, Gen Xers and Gen Yers to Work Together and Achieve More, Career Press Lidgoster, H. 2010. Negotiation and Conflict Management, the International Journal of Human Resource Management, 3(1), 28-48 Locke, A. 2004. Principles of Organizational Behavior, Malden: Blackwell. Morrison, E. 2001. Leadership Skills, Da Capo Press. Mullins, J. 2005. Management and Organizational Behavior, Prentice Hall Ollins, J. 2001. Good to Great: why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others dont, Harper Business. Ozbilgin, M. 2010. An international Forum Advancing Theory and Research, British Journal of Management, 21(7), 145-172 Pareek, U. 2000. Actualizing Managerial Roles, Studies in Role Efficacy, McGraw Hill Schermerhorn, J. 2002. 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