My vision of leadership

As I have already mentioned in my previous blogs, teams reflect their leaders as a mirror (Mullions 2010). The leadership style influences on the relations between the group and the organisation. A group leader gives guidance, help and support to the team, provides opportunities for team members, solves conflicts and pays attention to employee problems and decision making (Mullions 2010). It is very important, that a leader must establish a level of trust among the group and help them in understanding of the behaviours to build trust (McKenna and Maister 2002). McKenna and Maister (2002) argue that “The job of the group leader is to encourage people to earn the trust of others in their group and then show them how it can translate into greater commitment, greater creativity, greater professional satisfaction, and better performance”.

This blog shares my preferred style of leadership, type of leader I would like to be, leader who I am inspired by and my present feedback and strategies to improve for my future leadership.

In the previous blog 3 I considered “transformational leadership as one of the best leadership styles in business” (Zhambyl 2016). So, I would like to be a transformational leader and work with team members having capabilities to create and execute a guide vision of the needed change through inspiration and cooperation with team members. Under transformational leadership people have the opportunities for enhancing the motivation, morale, job performance. My dream is to become a role model for my team members and inspire them to become a team with great interest in the common projects.

Bass (1990) considered transformational leadership style in the framework of the leader’s influence on the team members due to his qualities. They trust, admire and respect for the leader, trying to work harder than usually. Transformational leaders give followers identity, providing with vision and inspiring mission, transform and motivate team through influence, intellectual stimulation and individual consideration (Bass 1990).

 In order to become a transformational leader, four specific components are necessary. They are: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation (Riggio 2009).

• Idealized influence – when the leader “serves as an ideal role model for followers”;
• Inspirational motivation – means the transformational leader’s charisma, constituting the inspire ability and the ability to motivate team members and people;
• Individualized consideration – means a great concern for the needs and feelings of his team and people, “personal attention to each follower” serves one of the important elements for achieving best results;
• Intellectual Stimulation – when the leader requires the team members to be “innovative and creative”, and challenges to “higher levels of performance” (Riggio 2009).

I am inspired by Steve Jobs, CEO, Chairman, and co-founder of Apple Incorporation. He had important “personal characteristics of a transformational leader: creative, passionate, and visionary” (Steinwart & Ziegler 2014).  In his leadership, Steve Jobs had four above-mentioned elements of a transformational leader. Thus, he treated his team members equally, with a lot of flexibility; being a transformational leader, he concentrated on the “transforming others” in order to take care and help each other to imagine success and opportunities. He always knew the direction to lead the company and how to attract people with similar vision.  Steve Jobs headed as an inspirational leader to his team  and always knew what do people needed,  so he  experienced innovative technologies  and applied them to the personal computer whereas nobody could even guess about it.

In the blog 3 (Zhambyl 2016) I shared the idea, that “best leader needs to combine different leadership styles and skills”. Steve Jobs, used also a participative leadership style in encouraging his followers to suggest new ideas and mentioned only “We” instead of “I” in his speech. Some people also considered him as a charismatic leader, who influenced people with the help of his speaking. Therefore, Apple was revitalized by Steve Jobs and the Apple Inc. developed a great number of new devices, such as the iPod, the iPhone,as well as iTunes and iPad.

Along with making computers revolution and technology accessible all around the world, once he said: “Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them”.  This definitely explains the reason why a successful leader Steve Jobs is inspired by me and millions of people (Business News Daily 2016).

I do not consider myself as a leader yet. Vince Lombardi’s quote, which sucks me, is that “Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve anything worthwhile” (Walter 2013).This statement is very powerful to me and shows something I must work towards. I believe that in order to be a successful leader I need to work and learn more. My lectures and seminars on “Leading in a changing world” taught me a lot about leadership theories, its styles and nature. The knowledge, I got due to this course, as well as literature review, allowed me analyzing my own abilities to become a leader, on the basis of different leadership models.

I have learnt, that organisations needs to “make use of the various strengths of employees” in order to survive and thrive (ACAS 2007). Belbin’s nine team roles model defines me as a “teamworker”,“co-operative, mild, perceptive and diplomatic”, having weakness to be easily influenced. (Mullins 2010).This is true, my strength is in close cooperation with other team members in a teamwork, with the use of perceptive and diplomatic way of suggesting new ideas, conviction and decision making. Buy I have to be more strong in some crunch situations and combine my present democratic style of leadership with transformational one (Mullins 2010) in order to become an effective leader in my business activity. I have also known a lot about ethical leadership, which includes such leader’s qualities as charismatic sociality, honesty, trust and fairness (Brown, Trevino,& Harrison 2005). I absolutely agree with the Nahavandi’s position (2009) that ethical leadership depends greatly on the cultural background of the leader. Moreover, working in a team, doing joint projects or presentations with groupmates, who came from different countries and represent various cultures, I began more familiar after learning about managing diverse teams, in understanding that only “full use of people’s individuality can bring mutual benefit of the group as a whole” (Mullins 2010).

Before my class on “Leading in a changing world” I had some difficulties in defining feedbacks for myself and colleagues. I have known the Situation-Behaviour-Impact model, which is very helpful for giving effective feedback. This model focuses on giving feedback on specific behavior situations and determines the impact of this person’s behavior on others (Wietzel 2000). Now I became more confident to give feedback to my colleagues and used to get constructive feedback, which made me more conscious about my strengths and weaknesses.

My colleagues recognised me as a very sociable and communicative person, able to work in a team, demonstrating reliability and confidence, but it is necessary to be more initiative in decision making. This feedback made me to be more brave and insistent in suggesting my own ideas to my colleagues, and decision making. For this purpose, I try to develop persistence, check my ideas, build self-confidence and potential improvements. And I do hope that MBA will provide me necessary skills to become more initiative in generating a vision in order to be an effective leader, to be able to inspire people for meeting challenges and to motivate people for better changes in organizations.

The course “Leading in a changing world” taught me to distinguish management and leadership. Now I understand, that management means “coordinating the activities of people and guiding their efforts towards the goals and objectives of the organization” (Mullins 2009), while leadership is “relationship through which one person influences the behaviour or actions of other people” (Zhambyl 2016).

I imagine to be a leader, who determines the goals and direction of the organisation, motivates and leads employees to achieve them (Zhambyl 2016). I am sure, that the knowledge I got from the leadership course, will allow me to “do right things” as a leader (Bennis 1989).

References

Bennis, W. (1989) On Becoming a Leader. New York: Addison Wesley

Bernard, M. (1990) Bass transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to share the vision, Organizational  Dynamics, Vol. 18, , no. 3, Pp. 19-31.

Brown, M. (2005) Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing’. Organizational behavior & human decision processes 97(2), 117-134

Business News Daily (2016) [online] available from http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4195-business-profile-steve-jobs.html   [8 March 2016]

Guirdham (2007) ACAS Teamwork: Success :Through People advisory booklet, M. Interactive Behaviour, p. 4 and p. 6.4

McKenna, P. & Maister, D. (2002) Building Team Trust’, Consulting to Management, vol. 13, no. pp. 51–3.

Mullins, J. (2010) Management and Organisational Behaviour. Pearson Publication.

Marlane C. (2014) Transformational Leader”: Implications for Pedagogy. Journal of Leadership Education, p. 52

Nahavandi, A. (2009) The Art and Science of Leadership. N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Riggio, R. (2009) Cutting-edge leadership, are you a transformational leader? [online] available from  <https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/200903/are-you-transformational>  [7 March 2016]

Walter, E. (2013) 5 Myths of Leadership [online] available from <http://www.forbes.com/sites/ekaterinawalter/2013/10/08/5-myths-of-leadership/#420038e6584b> [9 March 2016]

Wietzel (2000) Feedback that works: How to build and deliver your message. Centre for Creative Leadership

Zhambyl, A. (2016) Blog 3 Most effective leadership and management style [online] available from <https://wordpress.com/post/culczhambyla.wordpress.com/30> [7 March 2016]

Leadership & Change

 

“Change is nothing new and a simple fact of life. Some people actively thrive on new challenges and constant change, while others prefer the comfort of the status quo and strongly resist any change. It is all down to the personality of the individual and there is little management can do about resistance to change” (Mullins 2010: 753).

Business world has become extremely competitive. In order to survive in the rapidly changing conditions and to meet customers’ needs the organisation must have all possibilities to make changes quickly.  Today, organisations need to make strategic changes relating to customer demand, competitiveness and innovative technologies. Organisation’s structure and processes must be familiarized flexibly, in regard “to change management”. This concept is known in most business organisations, and the results of business change depend on many factors, including nature of organizations, involved employees and people, understanding of the change process by people.

On the other hand, these changes may cause stress and uncertainty among employees (Callan 1993; Terry & Jimmieson, 2003).  According to statistics about 60 percent of organizational changes fail (CIPD 2011). This happens because employees are not involved in the planning and implementation processes and suffer from stress, consequences of which are very cost for organization (McHugh 1997). Thus, people resist the process of change giving preferences to status quo (Mullins 2013).

According to Klepper (1997), organizations normally have four main changes to go throughout their growth: Formative Period, Rapid Growth Period, Mature Period and Declining Period.

• Formative Period – when an organization starts its activity, and changes as   creativity and discovery are necessary.
• Rapid Growth Period –means changes, focusing on the goals and business strategy of the organization.
• Mature Period –changes are necessary for maintaining established markets and achieved gains.
• Declining Period – in order to survive, changes are directed to tough objectives, to get something new.

Some organizations follow these four stages of growth very quickly, others needs decades. In contrary, the organization stops its activity, if it fails to follow with the needed changes of the four growth periods.

 K. Lewin’s Change Management Model

Kurt Lewin (1950) developed one of the important models of organizational change. This model includes the three-stage change process: Unfreeze – Change – Refreeze.

Figure 1: K. Lewin’s Change Management Model

1. Unfreeze- is used in order not to resist change. It must be initiated by means of motivation.
2. Change– After first change, the organisation has a transition stage for some time. To have success in this process, an adequate leadership is necessary.
3. Refreeze – is the stage, when the organization has become stable after change implementations and employees refreeze, operating under new guidelines.

This change management model needs time for implementation and it is widespread, due to its easy use to many changes.

While this remains widely used today, it is takes time to implement. Of course, since it is easy to use, most companies tend to prefer this model to enact major changes.

McKinsey 7-S Model

The McKinsey 7-S model suggests an integrated approach to organization. This model was created by Robert Waterman, Tom Peters, Richard Pascale, and Anthony Athos and introduces 7 factors for collective change. They are as follows: shared values, strategy, structure, systems, style, staff and skills. According to Joseph and Mohapatra (2009), “the essence of McKinsey’s 7S model is that a firm is the comprehensive sum of its parts, and that the internal dynamics of an organisation clearly determine that organisation’s ability to compete, the premise being that both the strategy and the structure of the organisation determine management’s effectiveness”. The model can be usefully used for reviewing different types of business organisation in implementation of strategic direction and marketing operations.

Figure 2: McKinsey 7-S Model

Benefits of the McKinsey 7-S Model’s use

1. It allows understanding and diagnosing an organisation with highly effective method;
2. It supports an organisational change;
3. It integrates emotional and rational parts;
4. All components are compound in a unified manner

There are some disadvantages of the McKinsey 7-S Model. This model is complex and changes in one part lead to the changes of all parts, because they are closely connected and interrelated with each other. Some differences can be ignored and organisations can meet failure.

Starbucks Corporation

Hard elements

Starbucks Corporation is the example of rationalized changes relating to the McKinsey 7S framework. McKinsey 7-S Model has hard and soft elements.  Hard elements are strategy, structure and systems, while soft elements include shared values, skills, style and staff. Corporation management influences directly and controls the hard factors of the framework, while soft factors are more difficult to control, because of the influence by corporate culture.

Strategy

Starbucks management main strategy is improving quality of products and high level of customer services. Corporation aims to increase revenues by means of effective placing Starbucks stores.

Structure

Management structure suggests the elimination of the assistant managers within the stores, and only three positions of management, including store manager, shift manager and customer assistants. This will save the amount of costs and increase the organisational efficiency.

Systems

 The rotation system of duties must be introduced for reducing workface conflicts and development of the work process.

 Soft Elements

Starbucks promoted set of values to be shared by the workforce.

Skills

Starbucks organizes raining programs to master necessary skills by workforce for achieving a customer satisfaction.

 Style

Corporation changed management style of stores from Laissez Faire style to inspirational management.

 Staff

Starbucks employs only capable employees, providing growth potential.

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I believe that change is very necessary for organizations activity. Only those organisations which regularly have changes to gain the market share are successful and well developed. To do change management well, the organizations require effective communication, involvement of employees, planning and analysis, full support, and the need for the implementation of changes.

 

References

Callan, V. (1993). Individual and organizational strategies for coping with organizational change. Work & Stress, 7, 63-75.

CIPD. (2011) Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development [online] available from <http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/factsheets/change-management.aspx> [02 March 2016]

Joseph, S.  & Mohapatra, S. (2009, Management Information Systems In Knowledge Economy, PHI

Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science. New York: Harper & Row.

McHugh, M. (1997). The stress factor: another item for the change management agenda? Journal of Organizational Change Management, 10(4), 345-362.

Mullins J. (2013) Management and Organisational Behaviour. Pearson Publications.

Terry, D. & Jimmieson, N. (2003). A Stress and Coping Approach to Organisational Change: Evidence From Three Field Studies. Australian Psychologist, 38, 92-101

 

Most effective Leadership & Management styles & approaches

“Which personal style should managers adopt to ensure success? What is the most effective approach to managing the work of subordinates? These questions have been extensively researched and debated over the last century, and while the general consensus has moved away from ‘command and control’ to management and leadership towards more consultative and participative approaches, there is no single ideal, as the best approach may vary according to circumstances and individual characteristics” (CMI 2013).

“Leadership and Management equal in status, but at opposite ends of a continuum”

Ray Moorcroft

 

Leadership and management are necessarily connected and interchangeable things, and must go hand in hand. Both leadership and management deal with people. They are different from each other in their styles to motivate teams and people to reach objectives. “Management is more usually viewed as getting things done through other people in order to achieve stated organisational objectives” (Mullins 2010). In this blog, we will consider effective leadership and management styles, and give some recommendations how to use knowledge of leadership skills to produce better results.

The process of management means, “Coordinating the activities of people and guiding their efforts towards the goals and objectives of the organization”, while leadership is “relationship through which one person influences the behaviour or actions of other people” (Mullins 2010). Leaders determine the goals and direction of the organisation, motivate and lead employees to achieve them. On the other hand managers maintain organisation standards, directing teams to reach set tasks.

A manager must encourage subordinates in their aspirations to work willingly, to be high morale and involved into cooperation in order to reach the best results in organisation. For these purposes, a manager must behave according to leadership style, i.e. the “way in which the functions of leadership are carried out, the way in which the manager typically behaves towards members of the group” (Mullins 2010). Zaleznik determined differences between leadership and management regarding to “goals, conceptions of work, relations with others, self-perception and development” (Mullins 2010).

Managers	Leaders
Adopt impersonal or passive attitudes towards goals.	Adopt a more personal and active attitude towards goals.
Need the necessity to coordinate and balance.	Creates excitement in work and develops choices.
Maintain a low level of emotional involvement.	Have empathy with other people and give attention to what events and actions mean.
Conservators and regulators of the existing order of affairs.	Work in, but do not belong to, the organisation.

 Figure 1 : Differences between leadership and management according to Zaleznik (1977) Source: Mullins (2010)

Leadership styles

 K. Lewin (1939) determined three major styles of leadership towards subordinate staff, such as autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire.

Figure 2: K. Lewin Leadership styles

Autocratic leaders do not consult any of their team members while making decisions. This style cannot be appropriate in the organisation, because it can demoralize the team and lead to staff turnover (Lewin 1939).

Democratic leaders usually include members of the team in the process of decision making. On one hand this style encourages creativity, high engaging in projects and reaching objectives. It increases productivity and job satisfaction. On the other hand, it is not appropriate in quick decision-making (Lewin 1939).

Laissez-faire leaders can give a lot of freedom to the team members in their activity, supporting with resources. In case, if the team members do not have enough knowledge and professional skills, this leadership style can prevent the productivity and development of organisation (Lewin 1939).

 A typical representative of the autocratic leadership style was Andrew Rosenthal, who presided the New York Times in 1970s. His autocratic leadership style increased the efficiency of the company in newspaper industry. To reach these results the company managed due to regular autocratic control in publishing newspaper.

Howell Raines, the executive editor of the New York Times at the period from 2001 to 2003, is another representative of the autocratic leadership style. Initially, his autocratic authority allowed the company winning a Pulitzers Prize in a year. However, his desire to reach goals at any cost made him sarcastic to journalists and arrogant. His autocratic leadership style led a decline in quality and information quantity, creating discord among the staff (Kellerman 2004).

Path-Goal Theory

This theory includes four different types of leadership (EPSI 2012), such as supportive leadership, directive leadership, participative leadership and achievement-oriented leadership.

Figure 3: Model of Path-Goal Theory of Leadership

Supportive leadership focuses on relationships and pays much attention to the best interests of the team members. Directive leadership deals with setting tasks relating to goals and expectations. Participative leadership focuses on mutual participation and consulting with your team members before making decisions. Achievement-oriented leadership means setting of the challenging purposes for the team members, maintaining high standards for each team member.

Indra Nooyi, the CEO and chairman of PepsiCo, is a good example of the participative leadership style. She is able to attract and endear herself to employees, because she is always interested in employees’ personal lives. Indra Nooyi has also the capacity of company’s vision in future.

Best leadership style

CMI 2013 says that “there is no single ideal, as the best approach may vary according to circumstances and individual characteristics”. I fully agree with this statement. Modern leadership can be associated “not with command and control but with the concept of teamwork, getting along with other people, inspiration and creating a vision with which others can identify” (Mullins 2016). There is a diversity of leadership styles with different skills and traits. However, there is not any leadership style to be appropriate in all situations. Internal and external factors may also influence on the leadership style, as well as personalities, environment, interaction with people, and culture. To my mind, leaders and managers in their work with subordinates should adopt different leadership styles.

 I consider transformational leadership as one of the best leadership styles in business. According to Burns (1978), it is a process of high motivation and adherence among followers. This leadership style creates trust, loyalty, justice, as well as gives the opportunities for leader to appeal to followers’ values and ideals.

How would you like to be led?

As a member of a team, I would like to be led by transformational leaders, as I have already mentioned, to my mind this style is one of the best leadership styles. A transformation leader is a leader:

• Who sets clear aims and objectives.
• Encourages other members of a team.
• Has high expectations.
• Provides support of team members and other people.
• Inspires people to reach for the unbelievable.
• Gets people to go ahead, despite their self-interest.

One of the good examples of transformational leader was Steve Jobs, Apple founder, who successfully transformed business processes to   high-speed microprocessors. Nelson Mandela is another example of transformational leadership, who canceled apartheid and enforced change in South Africa.

Recommendations how to use knowledge of leadership skills to produce better results

 

 “One of the keys to Apple is Apple’s an incredibly collaborative company.” Steve Jobs

Leaders can be taught and learned. A successful leader should have the capability to inspire, and to increase leadership skills. It is a person of integrity and needs to trust and to be trustworthy and willing to follow. It is necessary for leader to believe in yourself and organization, and to have an open leadership culture and charisma. I believe that the best leader needs to combine different leadership styles and skills, as Steve Jobs did.

Apple between 1970s and 1980s was a prosperous company, before failing in 1990s. After that, Apple became a successful company again and survived. This happened, because Steve Jobs became a participative leader. Initially Jobs began as a charismatic and laissez-faire leader, and Apple raised at that time. When he began an autocratic leader the company requested his resignation. He returned after 10 years later, and his activity combined different leadership styles, including participative, charismatic, laissez-faire, transformational, supportive and achievement-oriented (Brennan 2013).

Dearlove (2001) argues that “It is one thing for a leader to propound a grand vision, but this is redundant unless the vision is managed so it becomes real achievement”. Management and leadership are complementary connected with each other, and it is impossible to extricate one from the other. In business, a manager plans and coordinates, while a leader motivates and inspires. Therefore “Leadership, is doing the right things; management is doing things right” (Drucker 2011).

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References

Brenna, C. (2013) The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs P. 23

Dearlove, D. (2001) Reinventing Leadership’, in Crainer, S. and Dearlove, D. (eds) Financial Times Handbook of Management, second edition, Financial Times Prentice Hall p. 538.

 EPSI, (2012) Leadership in Organizations: Concepts and Theories [online] available from < http://www.epsi-inc.com/leadership-organizations-concepts-theories-2/> [26 February 2016]

Peter, F. (2011) 22 Quotes on Management Published in: Affaires, Education Mullins, L. (2010) Management and organizational behavior 9^TH ad Pearson p.148

Kellerman, B.  (2004) Bad leadership: what it is how it happens, why it matters. Harvard Business Press.

Moorcroft, R. (2005) To Lead or to Manage? That Is the Question’, Manager, The British Journal of Administrative Management, November, p. 4.

Lewin, R. & White, R. (1939). Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created social climates_. Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 271-301.

Zaleznik, A. (1977) Managers and Leaders: Are They Different?’ Harvard Business, pp. 67–78.

The challenge of managing diverse teams

“Research has consistently shown that diverse teams produce better results, provided they are well led. The ability to bring together people from different backgrounds, disciplines, cultures, and generations and leverage all they have to offer, therefore, is a must-have for leaders” (Ibarra and Hansen 2011: 71).

 At present, organisations have become extremely cosmopolitan due to identities, different cultures and lifestyles. Globalization and modern economic conditions require the organisations to interact closely with people from diverse backgrounds in order to be competitive within a global world. Therefore, workplace diversity has become an extremely important challenge for organization’s management. Leaders and business managers of today need to find the ways of working with multicultural teams for their evolving and changing. This blog will discuss the opportunities and challenges of the diverse team management, and present some effective strategies to manage diverse workforces.

‘People value their individuality and enjoy the right of self-expression. Membership of a group means giving up some of that personal identity. The real skill of management is therefore to make full use of people’s individuality for the mutual benefit of the group as a whole. Laurie J. Mullins

Managing diverse teams in organisation

Managing diversity means to manage people in terms of the employee’s and employers’ best interests. Today, many companies realize that properly managed diversity can provide organization’s creativity, effectiveness and successful development. It causes innovative ideas, which generate the creation of new products and services to meet the needs of the customers. Functioning with diverse team enhances the motivation in the organisation. Team diversity in the organisations influences on the better image and reputation of the company, and impacts on the extension of business. Moreover, management team diversity allows multiplying motivation and productivity due to the employees’ satisfaction in terms of fairy treatment, dignity and equality at workplaces (Green 2015). Many organisations use diversity initiative for high recruitment of the workforce and their retention (Esty 1995). Globalization has connected heterogeneous teams capable to create solutions for markets extension.

Tuckman’s Model

In order to face challenges and solve problems in diversity teams management the Tuckman’s Model is used for developing teams. It provides such stages as forming, norming, storming and performing to become one team (Laurie 2015).

Figure 1: Tuckman’s Model (Proulx 2012)

Bass’ Transformational Leadership Theory.

“Research evidence clearly shows that groups led by transformational leaders have higher levels of performance and satisfaction than groups led by other types of leaders” Ronald E. Riggio

Another model, which is called transformational leadership model, was created by Dr. Bernard Bass and includes 4 components, such as idealised influence, individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation and inspirational motivation (See Figure 2) (EBA 2016). According to Bass, transformational leadership is based on the leader’s impact on followers.

Figure 2: The transformational Leadership Model (EBA 2016)

 Diversity faces different challenges 

In managing diverse teams challenges are inevitable. Managers have to overcome such difficulties as the loose of personnel and work productivity and create a successful diverse workforce (Green 2002). Among challengers for managers there also legal actions against the organisation and complaints (Devoe 1999).

Diversity can be the reason of open conflicts and chaos, in case if there are misunderstanding, discrimination, prejudice and mistrust in the organization. Unfortunately, it happens when the organization becomes more diverse and employees are not able to work effectively together. Long existed organization culture can resist prospering and surviving of the diversity teams in corporation. Furthermore, most of communication in the organisation may be segmental, i.e. between people with similar backgrounds. This situation may be the reason of subgroup separation and “perceiving other groups as a threat to their values” (Garden 2008). With this in mind, the leader needs to explain their common task, making the team members to be involved to the project, better communicate and feel the significance of each other (Knippenberg 2013).

The examples of best companies, successfully managed diversity teams

Best business companies successfully work with diverse workforces and have financial benefits. Thus, in Google about 36 percent minority people and 33 percent of women work and this company is in the first place according to the rank “Work for fortune 500 magazines”. (fortune 2016).

Edward Jones and Starbucks employ about 60 percent women and have fourth and seventh position respectively in the same rating.

Procter & Gamble (P&G) has been a leader of people’ development from diverse backgrounds more than 12 years. The diversity mission of the company is “Everyone valued. Everyone included. Everyone performing at their peak”. (Lafley 2016).

Chairman, President and Ceo of P&G

Chairman, President and CEO of P&G says: “At P&G, our focus is on creating brands and products that improve the lives of the world’s consumers. When we truly leverage the strategic value of diversity and inclusion, we understand consumers better, we innovate more consistently, and we develop each other and ourselves much better, much faster, and much stronger.”

This mission is fulfilled by senior executives, cross-cultural mentors and leaders through marketing, communication and development of multicultural employee resource groups. Moreover, P&G is also a constant leader in the work with disable people, supplying multicultural marketing and managing diversity teams.

Recommendations for successful diversity teams managing

Leaders and managers of the organisations have to learn certain skills about managing diversity in the workplace for successful business development (Flagg 2002).This knowledge includes:

• The understanding of discrimination and its consequences.
• Knowledge of Laws and regulations.
• Recognition of their own cultural prejudices (Koonce 2001).
• The desire, in case of necessity to change the organisation (Koonce 2001).
• Creation of a work environment and Roosevelt (2001).
• Providing access to opportunities and information; equal employment and affirmative action (Losyk 1996).

Managing diverse teams as a reflection of the increasing process of globalization is extremely beneficial to both organizations and employers. If diversity managed in a good way in organisation, it increases its creativity and productivity. In case, if diversity is managed imperfectly, the organisation will face more difficult problems in communication, interpersonal conflicts, working relationships, as well as work productivity.

References

Bass, M. & Riggio, E. (2008) Transformational Leadership. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Devoe, D. (1999( Managing a diverse workforce. San Mateo, CA: InfoWorld Media Group.

 EBA (2016) Transformational Leadership: Leading Change Through Growth and Empowerment [online] available from <http://www.educational-business-articles.com/transformational-leadership/> [20 February 2016]

Esty, K. & M. S. (1995) Workplace diversity. A manager’s guide to solving problems and turning diversity into a competitive advantage. Avon, MA: Adams Media Corporation [online] available from <https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/HR/HR02200.pdf > [22 February 2016]

 Fortune, (2016) 100 Best Companies to Work For [online] available from <http://fortune.com/best-companies/> [22 February 2016]

Flagg, A. (2002) Managing diverse workgroups successfully. United Behavioral Health.

Gardenswartz L. & Rowe A. (2008) Diverse Teams at Work : Capitalizing on the Power of Diversity’. Virginia : Society for Human Resource Management

Green K. (2015) ‘Diversity in the Workplace : Benefits, Challenges, and the Required Managerial Tools’.  Food and Resource Economics Department, UF/IFAS Extension

Knippenberg D. (2013) Diversity mindsets and the performance of diverse teams’. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decisions Processes 121, 183-193

Koonce, R. (2001) “Redefining diversity: It’s not just the right thing to do; it also makes good business sense.” Training and Development.

Laurie J. Mullins (2013) Management and Organisational Behaviour 134

Lafley, (2016) Procter Gamble [online] available from <http://www.diversityinc.com/procter-gamble/A.G.Lafley [22 February 2016]

Loysk, B. (1996). Managing a changing workforce: Achieving outstanding service with today’s employees. Davie, FL: Workplace Trends Publishing.

Riggio, R, (2009) Are you a transformational leader. Psychology Today [online] available from <http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/200903/are-you-transformational-leader> [23 February 2016]

Roosevelt, T. (2001) Elements of a successful diversity process. The American Institute for Managing Diversity. Society for Human Resource Management

Leadership & Ethics

 

“Ethical Leadership is defined as “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement and decision-making”… [and] the evidence suggests that ethical leader behavior can have important positive effects on both individual and organizational effectiveness” (Rubin et al 2010: 216-17).

Present corporations and organization have to face ethical leadership as one of the burning issues to conduct beneficial business. The issue of ethical leadership is often misunderstood in business.  The number of corporate scandals has been recently increased along with financial crisis. For instance, Lay and Skilling, Enron’s leaders, were far away from ethical leadership, trustful relations and ethical behavior as well. As the result of the accounting cooperation with Enron, a big accounting company Arthur Andersen was destroyed.

People do not trust business leaders in building sustainable institutions (Bill 2010). In this blog, I will discuss what is necessary for a good ethical leader, providing the effective leadership and the stable development of organization.

Deontological and teleological perspectives

Normative ethical theories are divided into deontological and teleological perspectives. A deontological theory is based on the specific moral obligations and duties, which are self-evident and have intrinsic value. According to the deontological theory, moral actions can be evaluated due to rightness or wrongness (Ethics at a Glance 2015).

These approaches consider the ethical leadership as “good” phenomenon in connection with moral principles (Lakshmi 2014). The Confucian approach supports the moral leadership, and argues that leadership bases equally on “moral principles and the ethical vision of a good life” (Becker 2009).

According to Immanuel Kant moral universal principles should be acted without any exception and people need to do “what is morally right, regardless of the consequences” (Johnson 1952).  Holmes (1993) described strong deontological theories, in which “goodness is irrelevant to the rightness of an act”, and weak deontological theories, in which “goodness is relevant”.

In contrast, a teleological theory states the rightness or wrongness of actions and is based on the “goodness or badness of their consequences” The examples of teleological theories are ethical egoism and utilitarianism. (Ethics at a Glance 2015).

4 V model of ethical leadership

For better understanding the relations between leadership and ethics, it is necessary to describe the 4 V model of ethical leadership. It was created by B.Grace as a framework that balances the “internal beliefs and values with the external behaviors and actions” in order to achieve the common good. To implement this model it is necessary to follow 4 steps.

                        Figure 1:  4 Values model of ethical leadership (Ghuman 2010).

• Values: The ethical leaders have to understand the core values for identifying themselves.
• Vision: The ethical leaders need to think and shape a future for goals’ achievements.
• Voice: The ethical leaders need to articulate the vision in order to motivate others to action.
• Virtue: The ethical leaders need to behave virtuously in order to do well for common goal (Ghuman 2010).

Examples of Good ethical leaders and unethical leadership

Despite so many examples of ethical and unethical leadership at present, in this part of the blog we will discuss the experience of Jim Skinner, McDonald’s CEO, as one of the best examples of a good ethical leadership. In contrary, another negative example of unethical leadership will be also shown.

Jim Skinner, the ex Chairman of the McDonalds Corporation (2008)

Jim Skinner applied a coaching leadership style, and he is seen as a leader and symbolic promoter of the company’s ideas and initiatives (McDonald’s Corporation 2008). He is a really “charismatic and transformational leader, who “reinvented” the corporation “with a new vision and direction” (Hume 2007). His successful leadership focuses on customer satisfaction, creativity, the way how people present themselves and do not lose the primary objectives (Hume 2007).

On the other side, such leaders as Bruno A Kaelin, the former vice president of Alstom and  David Colby the former CFO of Wellpoint can be characterized by unethical and immoral influence on the corporations, full of professional flubs (Kostigen 2009). Bruno A Kaelin was accused of a bribery case, while David Colby had relations with 30 women.

Recommendations of a good ethical leadership

Leadership means to be responsible and ethical in private and professional life. Ethical leaders are the models of behavior for their followers both in the organization and group. (Phil 2015). An ethical leader should have various peculiarities and characteristics, such as honesty, the ability to make decisions in favor of the leading organization, to use the power according to ethical norms and requirements.

Jaramillo, Bande, & Varela (2015) consider the leadership as phenomenon related to ethical climate. According to (Russell and Stone 2002) ethical leaders follow the principles of integrity. Leaders play a significant role in preserving an ethical climate in organization (Reed 2011). Bart (2011) argues that ethics is extremely important and should be widely used in business in order to conduct moral principles.

George (2010) argues that aligned employees need to commit values of the organization being “the part of something greater than themselves”. A good example of an aligned organization is Johnson & Johnson, which uses their Credo values in leading the company. According to George (2010) in order to be an effective leader, he should be able to sustain excellent results during the extended period of time and focus on the customers. Only “authentic leaders”, as well as aligned, empowered and collaborative employees will be able to lead the organization to long-term and profitable business results (George 2010).

A strong ethical leadership, with articulated values, culture and vision, adherence to ethical standards and responsible norms as well as honesty and trust to customers, employees and stockholders provide organizations with a strategic advantage and sustainable development.

References

Assumptions in Normative Ethics [online] available from <http://rhchp.regis.edu/hce/ethicsataglance/DeontologicalTeleological/DeontologicalTeleological_01.html> [12 February 2016]

Bart, C. (2011) ‘Ethics: The Key to Organizational Culture’, Canadian Manager, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, 36, 3, pp. 4-6

Bill, G. (2010) The New 21^st Century Leaders [online] available from <https://hbr.org/2010/04/the-new-21st-century-leaders-1/> [11 February 2016]

Ethics at a Glance. `(2016) Deontological and Teleological

Hume, S. (2007) McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner – R&I’s , Executive of the Year [online] available from <http://www.rimag.com/article/CA6553963.html> [13 February 2016]

Jaramillo, F. & Varela, J. (2015) Servant leadership and ethics: a dyadic examination of supervisor behaviors and salesperson perceptions’, Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, 35, 2, pp. 108-124.kkk

Johnson, C. (1952) Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership: Casting Light or Shadow. New Delhi: Sage 4^th ed.

Karminder, K. (2010) Management: Concepts, Practice & Cases [online] available from <https://books.google.kz/books?id=QfxemvtRxo4C&pg=PA406&dq=4+V+model+of+ethical+leadership&hl=ru&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi634LN0c3LAhWrj3IKHbgUBQYQ6AEILTAC#v=onepage&q=4%20V%20model%20of%20ethical%20leadership&f=false> [14 February 2016]

Kostigen, T. (2009) The 10 most unethical people in business [online] available from <http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-10-most-unethical-people-in-business> [08 February 2016]

Lakshmi, B (2014) Leadership Ethics in Today’s World: Key Issues and Perspectives’, ASCI Journal Of Management, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, 44, 1, pp. 66-72

McDonald’s Corporation (2008) [online] available from <http://www.mcdonalds.com/corp.html> [11 February 2016]

Phil, R. (2015) Article leadership [online] available from <http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/leadership-ideas/ethical-leadership/main> [12 February 2016]

Reed, L. & Scott R. (2011) A New Scale to Measure Executive Servant Leadership: Development, Analysis, and Implications for Research. Journal of Business Ethics 101 (3): 415 – 4 34. doi : 10.1007/ s10551-010-0729-1.

Robert L. Holmes (2013) The Ethics of Nonviolence [online] available from<https://books.google.kz/books?id=0XbHAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Ethics+of+Nonviolence:+Essays+by+Robert+L.+Holmes&hl=ru&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiitIjRzs3LAhWp_HIKHY68CQQQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Ethics%20of%20Nonviolence%3A%20Essays%20by%20Robert%20L.%20Holmes&f=false> [14 February 2016]

Russell, F. (2002) A Review of Servant Leadership Attributes: Developing a Practical Model. ” Leadership & Organizational Development Journal 23 (3): 145 – 157. doi : 10.1108/01437730210424

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How I developed and priorities for term 2.

By the end of Term1 I improved my skills, which I prioritized in Personal Development Plan. I always experienced the lack of time and could not realize all my plans. But now, I began to use time more efficiently, avoiding something that distract me. I used to plan, prioritize important tasks and make some notes.

As for my written communication skills, no doubt that I developed this skills, by reading many books and enriching my vocabulary, writing assignments and research projects. I also improved my English grammar, and this fact makes me feel happy. Moreover, communication with my lecturers and groupmates in English had a huge value for developing my communicative ability.

Especially I would like to tell about team working abilities. Working in a team this term I learned how communicate efficiently, to share ideas and to find effective ways of approaches, to participate in discussions respecting the ideas of team members. These abilities are very useful for me, and I am proud that I have many friend at the university, we have our team and I am an indivisible part of it.

During my first term at the university, I also learned and improved my presentation skills, because before I always was afraid of public speaking. But now, due to my classes I do not have any inconvenience in body language, using verbal and nonverbal means of communication. I have become more confident in communication (speaking) and expressing my ideas, as I had a good practice in debate participation and discussions.

Therefore, I have developed many skills during the first term, necessary for my personal and professional development. Nevertheless, for my Term 2 I also set the priority for my personal development. This priority concerns the development of my initiative and skills to be a leader.  I am sure that these skills will help me in my professional and personal life.

Presentation Experience

For any professional, presentation capability and skill is the key to excel.

The following is the experience of presentation with my group regarding “Opening franchised night club in Liverpool Street”.

A group of eight members had to present a presentation of fifteen minutes on the above mentioned topic, the given fifteen minutes were to be divided among all the group members, Hence it was two minutes per person. Since the given time was very short, it was very challenging to complete the whole research presentation. A lot of practice and planning was done before the presentation and all the group members contributed to their best and delivered according to the plan successfully. Presenting in front of a huge audience required a lot of confidence, but because of earlier experiences confidence level was managed. Some of the Academic and professional skills like, Team work, time management, Organising and planning were improved. Team effort was beyond the expectation and it was realised that, a well-planned, organised team can complete any given task successfully.

During the presentation, pointing out the most relevant information seemed to be more demanding but every group member was familiar with the research and its contents.

Besides all the positive feedback that was received, I hope to advance in my skills because I believe that learning is a never ending process.

Analysis of experience of collecting and analyzing data

It is a known fact that data analysis and data interpretation is one of the major section for all the reports, projects and Organisations. Hence in order to deliver an effective data analysis report, a lot of skills are required and simultaneously a lot of skills can be learnt and improved.

For instance, while evaluating the data, handling so much information at the same time can be a challenging task, Though I had a experience of data analysis during my APS research project, a master level survey and the questionnaire was a demanding task but with much effort and dedication I have managed to do it effectively, On a parallel note, interesting part of data analysis is that, every information has to be well organised and finding has to be done with accordance of time. The most important skill I have developed while working on data analysis was, being critical about essential information, to be specific in finding required data and so on. Further, I have advanced in my decision making skills and data interpretation skills, I see improvement in these area’s because, while analysing it was necessary to keep and discard some data depending on how relevant the information was, Initially I had to take suggestions but later on I managed to do it by myself.

Further, I have improved on structuring the results in an effective way, So as to highlight the insight dataset.

Analysing experience to create questionnaire

As early mention from my previous blog, we as a group had couple of  obstacles that nearly drag our time in order to complete the questionnaire on time. Because, we had eight members in this group, so the idea of having a clear thought towards one target was a bit difficult due to different understanding. For that reason, to come up with a question took a quite some time. In this particular questionnaire, we have created seven questions. Those question are meant to be asked towards the residence in the Liverpool street, London in order to obtain the answers and analyse according to it. For that reason, we have divided the group to forward our questionnaire and acquire it as soon as possible. Moreover, we have attained at least 50 answers from different people around that location.

While creating those questionnaire, it really builds an interest towards this task. Furthermore, it really helped me to understand the system, which helps to create certain questions. Sharing ideas and knowledge was a hard task than I thought, since we had to argue or to be in a clear thought towards that task. Nevertheless, it really boosts my confidence the moment I share my knowledge with the other members. The idea of having an international group is to understand their behavior and type of knowledge that they will assess in this group success.

Analysis of my experience of writing a Literature Review

This work was tasked by eight members in this group. The task requirement, is to open a new nightclub in Liverpool street, London. But, as a group we favored to open a franchise instead of a nightclub due to its benefit rather than obtaining new nightclubs in the business.

In my previous degree, the education system was different and the requirement was quite hard to understand. It creates many obstacles to obtain the right information nor the appropriate way to start the literature review. At the beginning of the research process, it was hard to figure the right process, but due to individual research’s and through group discussion (APS Seminar). It enables us as a whole to guide and to have clear thoughts towards the literature review.

After couple of meetings with the group, we have decided to create a plan that relates to the literature review. Even during that time, some of the group members had a hard time to figure their task. But nevertheless, we act as a group and support each other in order to recognize and to follow their task.

Through my line of writing the literature review, I have come to understand that it required a lot of research from different scholars in order to comprehend the relation of nightclub franchises.

Overall, through the process of this research, I was able to attain certain abilities that will assess my knowledge and improvement towards the literature review. It was privilege to go through these process.