My class was Principles of management which was taught by Steven Farmer. What is it about and the benefits of being an exceptional manager. What managers do with the four principal functions. The levels of the pyramid power of management with the explanation of the four levels. The links between entrepreneurship and management. Then we discussed the classical viewpoints of scientific and administrative management where its divided into three historical viewpoints. Then the three contemporary management perspectives were discussed further. Then we learned about the stakeholders whose important to us outside of the company where the external environment of stakeholder made up of two types which is the task and general environment. Also, we learned about the six forces including general environment.
We had a deep discussion about Carroll’s global corporate social responsibility pyramid. The study of the global economy which we talked about the positive effects and the negative effects to us followed by how the companies expand internationally with the help of the 5 reasons which has to do with saving money. The four steps of the perceptual process and the five distortions in perceptions were being discussed then the work-related attitudes and behaviors were being taught. Motivating for performance is defined as the psychological process that direct peoples goal-directed behavior and had a brief discussion about the simple model of motivation. Leadership skills are required to create and communicate a company’s strategies, vision, and goals. Also, leadership skills are needed to execute these plans and goals. Leadership is the capability to influence the employees to willingly follow organizational goals. Leaders use the power of persuasion to get the subordinates to follow them. Power is the ability to gather people, information and other resources to get a job done. In simple power is nothing but influencing people and the more influence you gain the more power you have.
In an organization, there are five types of power leaders. First, legitimate power which is results from the formal position of a person holds in the company. Second, reward power, the authority to reward his subordinates. Third, coercive power, the power to punish their subordinates. Fourth, expert power, the power you gain from the knowledge and the experience you have. Last, referent power, the power you get from your personal attraction. Leadership is about making people to understand and have confidence in your vision and to work along with you to accomplish goals. An individual with good leadership skills encourages the employees for economic and non-economic rewards and thereby gets the work from the juniors or subordinate. Moreover, a leader is a person who begins the work by acknowledging the policies and plans with the subordinates from where the job starts and guiding the subordinates the way they have to perform their job effectively and efficiently. Successful leaders will tend to have a high necessity for power and a low need for affiliation. Whereas an effective management will wisely plan the goals of an organization, recruits the needed staff and organizes them, and thoroughly supervises them to make sure that the initial plans and targets are accomplished properly.
A leader will take risks where the payoff will make it worthwhile while a manager will minimize the risks with the idea of ‘Time is money’ which makes it better the sooner the job is done. When an organization faces an unstable environment, it demands a solid leadership where on the other hand, when an organization faces internal operative complications, it needs a strong management. And I believe a leader will carve new roads to achieve goals while a manager will stick to the usual directions. A good manager will also plan, organize and control the company’s resources. The strengths of my leadership skills when working with the subordinates is to communicate clearly and succinctly explain everything from the goals to the specific task. A key strength I see in myself is listening which allows maintaining a steady flow of communication between me and the subordinates where you can discuss the issues and concerns with them. Furthermore, inspiring my teammates to move an extra mile towards the goals or tasks by motivating by building self-esteem through providing rewards and recognition for the effort they make on the job. Thanking the teammates for the effort they make itself simply gives them respect and recognition within the team which encourages to keep pushing their limits better than before. Positivity does a major role in teamwork because every task has its own ups and downs.
When the tasks are done smoothly, then there’s nothing to worry, but when you come across problems and conflicts in a task or within in the teammates, then it’s something to consider. My positivity skills kept the pressure away without stressing the teammates which made them overcome the barriers and complete the given tasks. Sometimes encouraging, being friendly and respecting and conflict management kept the team on track when there were issues which had the potential to stress the teammates to bring the working process to a halt. As weak leadership skills what I saw was being arrogant and directive which made the teammates work against me or not willing to listen to my guides which resulted to lose track of our goals and efficiency. And I was being unrealistic by making them do the task in shorter deadlines which applied too much pressure among the teammates. And at times I wasn’t being responsible for the mistakes or downfalls what the team went through. I realized that the weak leadership skills are slowing down the process of the completion of a task and making issues between the teammates. So, I must make changes on my weak management skills which I have to improve into strong skills. Since communication is a vital factor in leading a group of people, the first thing I changed was being a good listener which opens the subordinates to make comments on the work and also bring their ideas to the group. So, there was a continuous exchange of information which brought up new ideas which also increased team performance. With the teammates who are slow in their work, I was being more motivative towards them keeping them on track which increased their performance. As a result, I was feeling confident on them which I don’t have to make tight deadline on them. These new democratic leadership skills increased the overall performance and were able to finish the task on time which showcased ourselves as a strong team. Hewlett Packard is a company which produces printers and computer hardware.
Back in 2011, Hewlett Packard faced a declining share in a commoditized market and a rising competitor base where Meg Whitman made changes to bring the company up again. She had a five-year plan which she estimated to save $4.5billion by making various changes including 40000 layoffs. Her first plan was to separate the company into two businesses where one business will compromise HP printers and computer hardware. And the other business was an enterprise business which prioritizes on services and business to business software. Even though it was a roller coaster ride after Whitman taking over HP, her vision and the execution of her plans made the HP stock to rise in 26 percent in 2014 which made the company strong enough to split which had a value for both hardware business and the software/ service enterprise. She was able to make new plans to merge a few HP software enterprises with British vendor with a deal valued at $9 Billion. And now Hewlett Packard enterprise has a share price increased to 60 percent since the company was split. She was able to make these changes because she was a firm delivery of inspiring and motivating her team members which describes how much she’s supportive as a leader and this is one of her principles too to inspire and motivate since the subrogates can perform well. And, Meg Whitman also has faith in the importance of giving the chance for her employees to speak out their opinions and learn new strategies from it. Also, this is something I believe what Meg Whitman did was the most important thing where she became the CEO of HP she knew that she must work with the other employees including managers.
She had the ability to adapt to the new changes in the organization. She recognized the senior managers will either stay with her or let it go while the young executives knew their needs. She knew the importance of evaluating and do the right thing to get the subordinates on track by motivating or letting them go which will lead the company to have the right people at the right position in the perfect time. This was during Spring 2018 at Nair we were given to carry out a series of stress/strain analysis for composites with a group of students. So, at the beginning, where I was appointed as the team leader, my behavior was more towards autocratic leadership which was not making any issues at the time because it was basically the project briefing and appointing the teammates with certain tasks to be completed followed by deadlines. But down the line, the teammates felt they were being controlled, losing trust on me as a leader, and reluctant to listen to my tasks and deadlines which partially split the team losing the efficiency of the job done. With this issue, we were unable to move forward as a team. After that, I thought of changing my ways of leading my team and then I learned more democratic leadership skills and put them in to practice which I started with listening to my subordinate’s views and suggestions which increased the level of communication and the level of respect among the team. We did not focus on what was done wrong by the team. Finding errors was not the case what was important was to identify what measures and actions must have done better to keep the job done.
This lead the team to listen to my tasks and deadlines work as a team. In our case, successful test results followed by a report is what Nair needs from us which is to be done before the given deadline, so I have kept a track on everyone’s work and motivate and inspire the team members, so they perform at their best. So, I set myself as an example for my subordinates to encourage to be productive and confident than forcing them to report on their work over and over. Because as a leader in my team it was very important to keep the teammates engaged and happy because they will be more productive and enthusiastic at the work. Appreciating the work done and paying rewards verbally increased their moral and interest towards the tasks. With this change, everyone felt they were respected and have equal power as the leader in the group. I understood the problems and the complaints of the teammates and should have a complete idea of the needs and objectives of the teammates which are also known as being empathetic or ‘stepping into their shoes’. I took the responsibility and accountability towards their work which I believe it’s very important to bring a sense of inspiration. I hold the responsibility towards the team goals because that’s the way we can achieve the highest skills exploited in a realistic manner. For this, I must motivate myself and awaken and wish to provide the best of my abilities. At first, I had trouble keeping the teammates together to work efficiently since I followed autocratic leadership skills. After that, I practiced some democratic leadership skills.
This way I was able to get my subordinates to work as a team with good communication, team spirit and interest towards the tasks where we were able to complete our tasks on time with a successful finish where I had the confidence in having this team to do my future tasks without looking for another team or replacing team members. What I understood was there is no fixed way to lead a group or a set of people in an organization. We meet different kinds of people who need different ways of leadership to keep the teamwork as one. Therefore, it’s a mixture of autocratic and democratic leadership skills which makes the group of people or an organization work to achieve success. So, in the future, I’ll be leading a team of people of an organization with a mixture of the above-mentioned leadership styles depending on the people I work with.
