Management Leadership and Change Management – individual reflective account

 

 

 

Contents

Management Leadership and Change Management – individual reflective account 1

The sessions of the first, second and third meeting respectively. 3

Experiences. 4

Conclusion. 7

References. 9

 

 

 

 

The sessions of the first, second and third meeting respectively

On the first meeting the chairperson Yang Pei introduced himself to the members. Then Paul took the Minutes. Minutes are documentation that records the topics discussed in group meetings. This is a proof of the decision taken in the meeting. They are helpful for the members who tend to not remember the decision that was taken at the meeting. Moreover it provides information about the entire discussion and the ultimate decision taken that helps those who were absent at the meeting, get an overall idea of the topic of the meeting. The group members were asked to keep note of the key points that were discussed throughout the session and the upcoming sessions. We were further told that a minute includes the names of the people who were absent at the meeting. Then the remaining minute is used for recording the details. The conclusion and the time of next meeting should be written at the end of the minute. The members were asked to switch off their phones and there were several other guidelines which the members were supposed to follow. The agenda of this meeting were important points on the conduction of meetings, the extent to which the distinctions made between Leadership & Management are important (or not) and situational approach to leadership. In the second meeting Jingchen Yang was the chairperson and Yang Pei took the minutes. A questionnaire was distributed among the members in the second meeting, which contained some questions that were aimed at bringing out the emotional intelligence and self-management aspects from within a member. Also the questionnaire was aimed at testing the leadership skills within us. Then we were shown a video and were asked to identify the leadership style that was emphasized within that video. Finally a discussion was conducted on the River Café case. The third meeting dealt with the issues like leadership style, organizational culture and performance and the links among these three.

Experiences

We learnt from first the meeting that the Situational Leadership style is based on the attitude of people towards the work delegated to them & their response towards the act of being led by a leader. The concept of situational leadership is dependent on the key elements of relationship behavior & task behavior. The relationship behavior refers to the amount of emotional & social support provided by the leader. It indicates the communication flow between the leader & his followers. Task behavior refers to the direction & guidance provided by the leader. It is highly work- centered & focuses on the efficient accomplishment of the objectives. In the situational style of leadership, four basic situations have been identified by the leadership experts that are based on task behavior on one axis & relationship behavior on the other axis of the graph. Situational leadership model follows a framework that includes four distinct styles which are-

• Style 1 (S1 or Directing): High task/low relationship

This leader is considered to be very strict who only focuses on the accomplishment of the task & maintains very low level of relationship with the followers.

• Style 2 (S2 or Coaching): High task/high relationship

This leader is highly committed towards the task as well as towards maintaining a healthy relationship with the employees.

• Style 3 (S3 or Supporting): High relationship/low task

This leader puts more emphasis on dealing with the followers & maintaining better relations with them.

• Style 4 (S4 or Delegating): Low relationship/low task (Northouse, 2012)

Some of the essential qualities of a leader as discussed in the meeting were-

• A leader must have a principled character and must be compassionate always while offering gallant service.
• A leader must be consistent, and must be capable of offering dependence and self-reliance to his or her followers.
• A leader must be competent in communicating with his or her followers efficiently and clearly. Proper management is necessary by a leader which can only be done an effective leader.
• A leader must be self-effacing, obliging and helpful seeing that since he or she has to show the way to a group of followers.
• Dictatorship is a significant trait of a leader, but it requires being just and fair. Overconfidence and dominating attitude has a pessimistic impact on the followers.
• A leader must be proficient of managing responsibilities and make strategic judgments as per the prerequisite (Maxwell, n.d.).

The link between the concepts of management and leadership were also discussed throughout the session. It was noted that both management and leadership had their own domains. Leadership involves transformations, guiding people, creating strategies and visions, predicting the future and motivating the staff. The styles discussed in the situational leadership model are adapted by the leaders at different times depending on the condition of their followers. Aligning is much of a challenge concerning communications than a devising problem. Aligning consistently takes into account conversing with many more individuals than categorizing does (Torrington, Hall and Taylor, 2007). It can help put into practice the strategies and visions of an organization. It was pointed out management and leadership concepts are different from each since leadership focuses on adjusting with change and management focuses on adjusting with complexity.

The second meeting taught us that the meaning of self-awareness is that when we centre our awareness on own selves we assess and contrast our present behavior to our inner standards and principles. We turn out to be self-conscious while purposefully evaluating ourselves. On the other hand self-awareness is not to be mixed up with self-consciousness. Some individual might seek to amplify their self-awareness by the means of these channels. Individuals are more prone to align their behavior with their principles when made self-aware. Individuals will be pessimistically impacted if they don’t live up to their own values (Goleman, 2000).

The video shown through the meeting involved a big tree that had fallen on the road creating complications and confusions. This tree represented the issues faced by the organizations and the people creating chaos were regarded as the general people within the organization. The video demonstrated that whenever an organization faces challenges and difficulties, the general people tend to get confused while the leader among them finds out the solution himself and directs the general people to follow his path. The same thing happened in the video where a smart, young kid showed the general people that the only way to get rid of the problem is to remove the tree. As he was small enough to do it alone, he asked for the support of others and in this way with collective efforts the tree was removed successfully. The video revealed two styles of leadership, which were pacesetting and authoritative. The 1st one deals with difficulty, and showcases how a kid is giving the grownups a strong mental encouragement to take part in a tough job. In situational leadership theory, these circumstances are related to the 2^nd stage ‘selling’ and the 3^rd stage ‘participating’. In reality, the pacesetting style obliterates ambiance. The boy directed others for dealing with the problem and then more and more adults started following and sharing the task with him. From the River Café it was clear that leadership style involved a combination of authoritative, democratic and affiliative style. The work of the employees there expects them to master the leadership skills. They are good at social awareness, self awareness, relationship management and self management.

The third meeting dealt with leadership, culture and performance. Leadership can efficiently influence performance of the employees in a positive as well as negative manner. When a leader acts as a friend, philosopher and guide for his employees then certainly the employees get motivated by the help and support of the leader. Moreover if the organizational culture allows direct communication between the employees and their leader then most of the issues faced by the employees can be directly resolved by their leaders (Ogbonna and Harris, 2011).

Conclusion

Situational Leadership has both benefits and limitations to it. Situational leadership is easy to understand and use. According to the Situational Leadership, when leaders adapt this leadership style to influence their employees’ works and fulfill their needs, work gets done, relationships are built up, and company gets moved forward to the right direction quickly. In my opinion, there is also a limitation to this model, situational leadership. It would be how the managers have to act different to each of the employees, which could make some of them think that they are treated by the managers differently. For example, for the ones work well, the manager leaves them alone working on their own, but for the ones that still struggle, manager lay a bunch of structure on to them. Other employees could see the different between each ones’ relationship easily, and might not think in a positive way about it. Moreover it can also be concluded from the meetings that leaders must put great deal of emphasis on organizational change and culture. One of the most excellent current articles on the topic of change was issued in 1986 by Sara Fine. One of Fine’s extremely pertinent factors is that resistance to change is unavoidable, and organization must be equipped to deal with it. Fine’s study exhibits that “human beings tend to resist change, even when change represents growth and development … [and will lead to] greater efficiency and productivity. [Since] changes in an organization affect the individuals within that organization and individuals…have the power to facilitate or thwart the implementation of an innovation” (Baker, 1989) Organizational change tends to happen at a soaring rate in contemporary firms. Accordingly, organizational change can be referred to as amendment of existing work strategies and routines that affect an entire firm (Block, 2003). Changes and leadership affects the performance of the employees to a great extent.

 

 

References

Baker, S. L.1989. Managing Resistance to Change. [Pdf] Available at < https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/7649/librarytrendsv38i1h_opt.pdf>

Ogbonna, E. and Harris, L.C. 2011. Leadership style, organizational culture and performance: empirical evidence from UK companies. The International Journal of Human Resource Management. Cardiff Metropolitan University: Routledge

Goleman, D. 2000. Leadership that gets result. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW.

Block, L. 2003. The leadership-culture connection: an exploratory investigation. Leadership and Organization Development Journal. 24/6. Available at Emerald Insight.

Torrington, D.  Hall, L.  and Taylor, S. 2007. Human Resource Management. FT Prentice Hall: London.

Northouse, P. G. 2012. Leadership: Theory and Practice. UK : SAGE

Maxwell, J.C. n.d. The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow [Pdf] Available at < http://www.ansc.purdue.edu>