Week 5: Leadership

Week5 Leadership

Leadership

Firstly, I will be looking at what are differences between leadership and management. Then I shall be looking into Blake and Moutons management grid and look into my experience with managers and how they fit into this grid. After this is will look at a article on leadership and a leader then finish with a brief evaluation and conclusion.

What is the difference between Leadership and Management?

(Forrest and Tolltree 1996)

Managers	Leaders
·         Plan ·         Control ·         Co-ordinate ·         Implement structure, policy ·         Achieve results	·         Motivate ·         Generate ideas ·         Enthuse and Inspire

(Kotter 1990)

Managers	Leaders
·         Control and solve problems ·         Plan and Budge ·         Organise ·         Encourage order & Predictability	·         Motivate and Inspire ·         Establish direction ·         Align people with vision ·         Encourage change

(Mullins,2007)

Managers	Leaders
·         Impersonal ·         Low level of emotional involvement ·         Plan, control, organise ·         Results	·         Personal ·         Empathy ·         Communicate, motivate, encourage ·         Transforms

These three theories on the differences between leaders and managers are similar and they all generally think managers are more formal and deal with the control, planning, organising of a team/ company and are driven to get the results where as leaders are more informal and deal with the motivation, making sure the team/ company are happy and enjoy their work.

Blake and Mouton Management Grid

M.Simpson(2010).

The management grid places managers in a position using the concern for people and concern for results. The grid look into the style of management they use. The 5 main styles are:

·         Social- this is where the are mainly concerned about the people and not concerned about results. This I believe is a leadership style if you refer back to theories on the differences as a social style will be looking to motivate staff making sure they are happy with their work and generally put people over production.

·         Impoverished- this style of management is a poor management style. A manager in the section would not be to concerned with people or production and will be in danger of losing job or have dissatisfied employees.

·         Middle of the road- a manager who has split the concerns equally. This I believe will be a manager who is at a comfortable position in their career and enjoys their work and the  people they work with. By using the middle of road style they are just trying to keep things as they are. However this is also could be a new manager who is just using the middle of the road section until they find their style to suit them or the role of their work.

·         Authoritative- This style is purely results driven. This style would not suit a leader and is purely a management style as  they don’t have concern for employees just the production and getting high results.

·         Team- this is the idea style for both managers and leaders as they have high concerns for both people and results. This is what both companies and employees would like to find in their managers and leaders. This style is very hard to find the balance but if it can be done then it will build a strong team of employees and also bring the best results and production for the company.

Whilst studying I have a part time job as a barman. The pub is small pub in a rural town and has its local regulars. The landlord i.e. my boss I believe had a middle of the road style of management as he is concerned about the staff and how the customers and other staff treat them, making sure they all have equal opportunities to get shifts but he obviously also has to be concerned with production as the pub is his company and his home. However as the pub has its regulars and its in a stable condition my boss seems to be happy with its results and at the moment is not planning any changes to the style of how its run or the staff.

ARTICLES

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8393427.stm

This article/ news video is showing David Beckham leading England’s world cup 2018 bid. DB (David Beckham is icon round the world and using he fame as one of his leadership qualities. DB is seen a professional leader and a democratic leader as he talks to all ranges of people and does a lot for England football and many more charities. In this video you hear that the person being said when he talks to DB you can feel his passion coming through and when DB talks to FIFA they listen. I believe DB falls into the Team style on the Blake and Mouton management grid as he his hugely concerned with people involved in the bid but also he driven by getting the 2018 world cup in 2018. DB I believe will be a leader rather than a manager as his fame and personality can not help but motivate and inspire people he is also well known for building personal relationships with the people he works with. If you look at the title of the articles it says DB leads the bid rather than manages the bid. This I believe is because DB does not yet hold the qualities of plan and organise such a huge bid but has all the qualities of leading it.

Evaluation

Form this blog and my research I believe to get the best from a company a good manager needs a good leader and a good leader needs a good manager. I also believe that good leaders have the traits and are natural where as mangers can be trained and moulded into manages . I also belive that different situations need different styles and leadership so a person or teams style of management can change on Blake and Moutons management grid.

Week 4: Culture

Organisation culture:

Visual aspects

Visual aspects of a organisation culture will be aspects that appear on the surface of the company. These aspects will often involve the company goals, strategies, systems , structure and day to day running of company. Organisations with a strong culture and employees who follow the culture and share the same views and the company culture follow a trend of being more successful than those who do not have a strong culture.

In  my time in work i worked for BOC (British Oxygen Company) I worked in the HOC (helium operative centre). The visual aspects of this company was all about safety. BOC culture was safety was the key throughout the whole business. BOC There were other visual aspects as well such as:- 

Team work: The set us was shift work and each shift had a set team. Over time you begin to build friendships with people on your shift and the HOC centre would always be pushing team work and the idea of working together is easier safer and more efficient.

Work Ethics: the work ethics in the HOC Centre was that you make sure you are working safely first and then you can think about getting a high level of production done. 

Achievements: As well as team achievements BOC would also recognise individual achievements. The team achievements were rewarded through regular bonuses (each year Quarter) the bonuses were judged on weather there were no accidents which resulted in people have time off work, no. Of complaints with products e.g. empty cylinders sent out, and amount of production last. Individual rewards “Merkat Rewards” were often small shop vouchers and were issued to individuals who put a little extra into their work such as stayed to help other shift, produced a lot of work, but were mainly given out for people highlighting potential health and safety issues and coming up with a solution. 

Handy (1993)

Handy culture theory is that there are 4 different cultures. These cultures are :

Power:  the power culture is a culture where one person comes up with the rules and the company culture is similar to this personality.  This is often found in small companies with a head at the top and a small team beneath them and a very flat structure. This type of culture leads very little rules and decisions being made quickly by as the power is coming from one person

Role: This culture is very bureaucratic. The organisations have very clear structure and rules to follow. The power in this culture tends to follow a hierarchy so the higher your role or position the more power and influence you have. This is very common in the public services. The organisation is controlled by the roles they need and people work to fit a role and follow a job description.

Task: Tasks cultures are work/ organisations which revolve around the task at hand rather than people involved such as projects and project based companies. These cultures and organisations often involve a lot of team work which is made up of a range of personalities to get the most efficient team and cover all the tasks at hand.

Person: This culture exists within companies with a flat structure and where roles are created to fit the individuals working their. Theses can often be small family business of business with a specific profession such as Barristers, solicitors.

The issue with this theory is that is categorises companies into one culture. In cases of large companies such as BOC each site/ centre will have a different site manager, require different operations and staff. This means that not only will the company as a whole have a culture but each site/ centre will also have a culture depending on the style of work and employees. This example shows than a organisation can have two different cultures.

Also when to companies merge such the two cultures will come together. The culture will not match straight away and the newly merged organisation will take time for the cultures to merge and form a new culture. Organisations can change their culture over time. This can be done through changing the core beliefs of the company and ethics, this can be branched out to all staff with new systems structures and rules. A organisations may want to change its culture due to new technology, new legal/ political reasons or change of management/ owners.

Evaluation & Conclusion

An organisations culture is the core beliefs and the foundations of the companies rules and every day running of the company. A the strong culture can lead to employees having a basic understanding of the company as a whole and the why rules and systems are in place. The visual culture aspects that people see are small formal aspects that are their also to help with publicity and to give customers employees and the public a view of what the company beliefs are. The core culture is made up of the original beliefs of the people who built the company and they are passed down to who takes over from the core roles. Over time the culture can change as the core mangers, staff, customers, stakeholders change.

Week 3: Process Theories

 Week 3 Process Theories

Content and Process Theories

Motivational theories can be split into two categories, these categories are Content and Process theories.

Content Theories = Assume people have a set of need which they peruse = What motivates

Process Theories = Assumes people have a goal and choose a process to get them = How does it motivate

Content theories look at what motivates people i.e. there needs and expectations. Process theories look further into how people are motivated through goals and rewards.

How a Process theory is put into place

The expectancy theory is a basic process theory where you put effort in to reach a certain level of performance in order to receive a reward. The basic mode is:

 EFFORT-----------PERFORMANCE-----------REWARD

The extended expectancy theory diagram is

Simpson,M (2010)

This more complex diagram adds in other factors in order for the theory to work such as ability and skill as well as effort in order to reach a certain level of performance.

Innocent.

Innocent Drinks Company are well known for motivating their staff and treating them well.  Innocent use the expectancy theory to motivate their staff through out the whole company. Innocent do this by offering a lot of rewards to staff based of performance and reaching a goal set b the company. By doing this they are using the expectancy theory innocent are providing a reward for high levels of effort and performance, but also they are using the goal setting theory (locke & Lathem 1990). This theory suggest that difficult goals will get the company a better performance than easier goals and that staff receiving feedback on reaching their goals is critical.  However from the secondary research I have done on innocent I believe that the main process theory they follow is the expectancy theory. This is because they offer such a large range of rewards to motivate them to perform there work to best of their ability. The rewards consist of:

• ·         Nature weekends away
• ·         Clubs- sports, book, cheese etc.
• ·         Gyms
• ·         Ride to work (if you ride to work you do not pay the tax on money spent on bike)
• ·         Weddings (if a employee gets married or civil partnership the receive a extra 5 days off)
• ·         Childcare (if employee has a child born they will receive a extra £243 tax free on top of wage to go towards child care)
• ·         Breakfasts: Innocent provide free breakfasts to al its staff every day.
• ·         Member of month (person who put in extra work into their performance receive a reward and has other people wait on them for the day)
• ·         Free Smoothies to all staff

(innocent, 2010)

All these rewards are based on staff putting effort into there performance and reaching goals. This links back to expectancy theory and innocent are rewarding them for there performance.  Innocent also look into the more complex expectancy theory as they also look to arm their staff with the high levels of knowledge, ability needed on top of effort in order for their staff to have high levels of performance. Some of the ways they do this are through :

• ·         Innocent Academies- innocent set up the academy where they get people into teams and have the teams solve problems and present their findings and work back to other innocent staff and often outside quests.
• ·         2 week warm up induction- this induction period allows new staff to meet people and see the day to day running of innocent. This makes staff feel more relaxed and in a friendly environment for when they begin their work.
• ·         Feedback- innocent feedback is always constructive. They do this as they believe that positive and constructive feedback will motivate their staff to further their work i.e give a better performance.
• ·         Setting objectives- in January innocent set objectives to its entire staff. These objectives are both team and individual objectives. The staff then receive feedback in May and November.
• ·         Development chats- the developments chats are for informal feedback and are done more frequently. These chats are in place to give extra feedback on individuals and team performances innocent say “these are things you are going to do to raise your game”

Innocent (2010)

If you look at the information above again its linking back to more complex theory and some a directly linked such as Feedback, Development chats, objectives. These are key factors in the expectancy theory and are their to help staff improve their performance and give the best they can to the company. Innocent also state that these systems are there to help employees raise their game i.e improves performance.  

Evaluation

In this blog I have explored how a large company such as innocent use a process theory through the company and its entire staff to motivate them. Innocent has grown quickly and is a now a strong company in the drinks market, a key factor in them being able to do this is I believe is they have dedicated and motivated staff. Innocent have done this and built a reputation of dong this through there rewards to staff and using the expectancy theory to motivate staff and get the best performance from everyone. T his is proof that if  the expectancy theory is put into place with a good structure and set out clearly it can have a huge positive impact on a company.

References

M.Simpson, 2010, powerpoint presentation.

Innocent, 2010,LondonW6 0BA,[s.n]

Week 2: Motivation

Week 2 : Motivation

Objective:

This post will be looking into motivational theories and how they have affected me. It will also be looking to challenge, compare and contrast aspects of the theories.

Hertzberg

Hertzbergs theory of motivation is a two-factor theory. This theory states that there are Hygiene & Motivational factors, for the motivational factors to come into play Hertzberg believes that you must have the hygiene factors fulfilled. The hygiene factors are not in the context of hygiene in the term of health and hygiene as we know today but they are there to prevent dissatisfaction.

	MOTIVATORS
	Achivement
	Recognition
	Work itself
	Responsibility
	Advancement
	Growth
HYGIENE
Salary
Security
Working Conditions
Supervision
Company Policy & Admin
Relationships

This is a basic diagram of Hertzbergs theory. Note the hygiene factors below the motivators to show that to move up to motivators you have to complete the hygiene factors. The contents In the factors where taken from (ref: Mullins L, 2010, Management & Organisational Behaviour, Ninth Edition, Essex CM20 2JE, Pearson Education ltd.)

Background

“Herzberg's survey work, originally on 200 Pittsburgh engineers and accountants” (ref: Alan Chapman,[n.d], Leicester LE7 7FN, [s.n] available from:   http://www.businessballs.com/herzberg.htm). This evidence indicates that its believed that Hertzberg originally used a group of 200 engineers and accountants to conduct his survey in which he built his theory. At the time of this survey (20th century) these people would have been higher educated. In the 20^th century higher education was not as easily accessible as today which resulted in fewer people being higher educated. This indicates that hertzberg survey would have been on a narrow field of people’s views of work, motivation and would not take into consideration views from all people across all jobs and all social classes. Due to the poor background hertzbergs theory often becomes questioned as to how relevant the theory is to people in all situations and jobs.

I would challenge the theory as I believe that in certain situations the two-factors can work in the reverse, for example I have had a personal experience in sport where a team and I had the skills to play at a higher level so we used our achievements of winning and advancement through the leagues to get to a level where the conditions were better and the we had better qualified supervision i.e. coaching which then made our sport more enjoyable and motivated us more.

My Motivation

My motivation for studying a degree in Accounting & Finance is that I believe that the degree is the foundations to progress onto professional qualification which then opens the door to well paid and challenging job where I can have a lot of influence on people and a business. My motivation to have a challenging job with a high salary is so I can have a enjoyable and interesting career and also can live a good lifestyle. A key factor to me wanting to get here was in my year out of education where I quickly realised the difficulty in getting into a organisation that can provide high levels of training and can offer security and a successful future. This relates to hertzbergs hygiene factors as I have experienced a life without security, a good salary, poor training offers i.e. Company admin/ policy and working conditions. Not having these factors resulted in me not being motivated to carrying working and resulted in me making the decision to use university as a new option.

De-motivation

During my studies in 6^th form I was de-motivated due to too much time and found the work not challenging which resulted in becoming board. This relates to hertzberg's theory as the working conditions were not challenging and the supervision became slack which made it easier for me to fall behind, dissatisfied and left me with no motivation to reach my potential grades.

This also relates to Maslows hierarchy theory as he believes that you have to full fill one level to move onto the next. Due my lack of interest and boredom I could not move onto a level of esteem and the achievement of my potential grades. This resulted in me being stuck at a social level and was interested in friendships, social activities, instead of my A levels. As the Maslow and Alderfers theory are similar my situation in 6^th form also fits to Alderfers hierarchy theory as in his theory suggests I would have relatedness needs and was concerned with affiliation with friends, social environment/ groups and could not move onto the next level of growth which would been me being motivated to stud for my A levels in order for my personal growth and reach my potential.

Me not reaching my potential and realising I had to move on from 6^th form and feeling dissatisfied with my performance then became my motivator to go back to college and gain qualifications I needed to move on higher education. This challenges the 3 theories I have referred to as I did not have all the hygiene factors and had not full filled all the levels but still become motivated to go back to college. This has also given me the experience of feeling dissatisfied with myself which I believe will be a positive to use in the future to help me stay motivated in order not to be in the same situation.

Conclusion

My findings is that the three motivation theories are relevant and co inside with each other but I also believe they have there floors. These floors may be a result that times have changed from when the theories were written too today and the working world is constantly changing. Another factor to take into consideration is the way people work and their motivations change with time. The biggest variable to take into consideration when applying the theories is the personality of the individual and there situation. I do believe when Hertzberg, Maslow, Alderfers wrote their  theories they were to designed to be used as a foundation to work on, which is also why I believe  they can come across vague and categorise people and the theories are all about building onto of a previous layer in hierarchy and building from one set of factors to another.