Article Critique: The Critical Challenges Facing New Zealand’s Chief Executives: Implications For Management Skills

Survey on critical challenges and implications for management skills

Discuss about the Article Critique for New Zealand Chief Executives.

In the article, ‘The critical challenges facing New Zealand’s chief executives: implications for management skills’, authors reported on a 2012 survey of 265 New Zealand chief executives. The survey was done with audience that were executives and leaders in the large organizations. The objective of the survey was to examine their most critical challenges in the current environment, discusses the implications for New Zealand’s management skills. The output or the result of the survey suggests that that there are three fundamental skills that human resource managers should have to manage the workforce and to overcome the environmental challenges in the large organization. These three skills are managing uncertainty and renewal, managing stakeholders and business partners, and managing people and limited resources. The article is an interesting read as it provides a lot of insights about the contemporary human resource management practices in the large organizations (Hechanova, 2013). Authors argued that the large organizations must have the leaders that can take the organization forward. Leading is about the social and informal sources of influence that leaders and mangers use to inspire action taken by others. A challenge for managers in this function is to not understanding their subordinate personalities, values, and emotions. As well as insufficient knowledge about ways in which workers can be energized to make a productive work (Carpenter, Bauer & Erdogan, 2014). A challenge for leaders in this stage is to not understand what it takes to motivate, engage, and actively listen to people in their organization.

Authors continued their discussion for the organizations in the New Zealand market. However, the discussion could be generalized to various industries in the global market. It can be inferred that planning for leaders can be tricky as short term goals are hard to reach in the beginning of a working relationship. In the article, authors presented various challenges that managers and leaders can have while managing the large team.  Leadership takes time to develop cohesive relationships with staff and short term goals may not allow enough time for the relationship to build (Kowalski & Redman, 2015). A manager will understand the metrics of what needs to be done, but may struggle with organizing participation with staff if he or she doesn’t have a solid relationship with his or her reports. A leader will be able to organize his or her reports, however there may obstacles understanding the metrics needed to accomplish goals.

Leadership versus management

In the article, authors have discussed about the role of senior executives and leaders. There is a long way for managers to reach the targeted state of leadership where they can manage the challenges. Between Managers and Leaders that it would be wonderful if all of our managers were truly good leaders, but the harsh reality is that manager/leaders are rare. Plucknette explained the functional differences of how a leader and manager differ in their approach to getting the job done. In short, Plucknette describes a leader as who has a broad vision of the future and will work and adjust to obtain long term goals. Leaders motivate people and engage them on a personal level, willing to learn about the individual and develop a relationship. Leaders are risk takers and gamble on the long term outcomes (Fischer, 2015). Leaders are willing to engage in debates and are not afraid to ask or answer open ended questions. Managers on the other hand function in a much smaller environment and focus on the production goal of the short time as a day or week. Managers oversee the daily grind of the production team and are in charge of the results. Managers risks are taken on a much smaller scale and can be measured either positive or negatively very quickly (Searle, 2013). Managers work closely with individuals but are mainly interested in getting the job done quickly, safely and efficiently. Not a lot of personal involvement is done at this level by a manager. It would be a great benefit for any organization to possess several leader/managers. The many differences in job needs, functions and diversity proves this to be far to difficult for many individuals.

I would agree with author that a leader will feel comfortable in this role and understands the need to maintain motivation and mentor individuals through changes or challenges.  Again, the details of how and holding individuals accountable won’t come as easily as it will be for the manager type of supervisor. The leader will begin the organization of a project team by either heading the project themselves or delegating a project manager. The leader oversees the development of teams with diverse individuals who possess the skill sets needed to ensure the project critical in the success and overall performance of the project (Chuang & Jiang, 2016). The article is a good article as authors have also discussed about the role of various stakeholders. Managers have to ensure their leaders are getting the job done, that they are organized and ready at all times. Managers are not as personal with heir employees as leaders. They will create the plan as to what needs to be organized and delegated but will leave the duties to the leaders. The bottom line form the learning from the article is that developing trust and respect is vital to successfully managing and leading an organization.  I do agree that leaders are better organizers and managers are better at controlling and planning.  It is very challenging for both leaders and managers to effectively maintain the vision, mission and values of the organization (Bolman & Deal, 2014). I believe that the ability to communicate effectively is the most important quality a leader should possess and is vital to success. A leader should be trusted by their employees so they can gain their cooperation.  A leader should behave with consistency so others can count on the leaders' intentions and direction.  If employees don't feel the leader has their best interests in mind, they will not be as likely to follow them.  Workplace trust guides how everyone operates and fosters a culture of growth and success.

Role of senior executives and stakeholders

One of things that stand out to me in this article is that leader are people that “motivate with, measuring performance”.  True motivation will only come when a leader leads by example. This can be a short-coming of a great leader. Leadership can provide great encouragement where it brings the best out of people. Yet, in some situations they can leave boundary lines blurred. Where in such situations it can cause problems and loss of money. In today’s business world, I believe possessing management skills is not enough or sufficient to be successful as an executive. It’s important to understand the difference between leading and managing and integrating the two in order to be able to influence change or influence others to follow. A good leader is admired by many, they stand out and people like them because they know those leaders will support their efforts within the organization (DuBrin, 2015). When leading employees, either by motivation, role modeling or as a manager leading employees to meet production goals. The challenge of employees not buying into and believing in the goals can be felt by both a leader and a manager. I do agree with authors what indicated about what a leader must manage balance. They must manage balance the needs of the people and that of the organization. In many instances, they are not very distinct in nature. For example, in order for a company to be successful in whatever realm it functions, it must first have an effective team that is aligning with company goals. The team will only align when they find a way to feel and know they are part of the company and not an item that gets the job done. Innovation greatest impact is needed in controlling the direction of staff and organizational goals.  Leadership is essential to drive performance (Solomon, 2016).  An effective leader has willing followers which in turn helps control the climate and environment in which an organization operates. In the first management function of planning, a leader can integrate leadership by reflecting on where the company is and where it would like to be.  Leaders should seek ideas from all employees and take time to reflect and plan which ideas to implement.  Employees are a great source for innovative ideas and when ideas come from within, promote comradery, empowerment, and acceptance.  In the second management function of organizing, leadership can be demonstrated by developing a strategic plan, organizing people, and assigning tasks. 

References

Bolman, L. and Deal, T., 2014. Leadership and management. Christian Youth Work in Theory and Practice: A Handbook, p.245. Carpenter, M, Bauer, T & Erdogan, B (2014) Principles of Management: Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling, retrieved from https://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/reader/6?e=fwk-127512-ch01_s03

Chuang, C.H., Jackson, S.E. and Jiang, Y., 2016. Can knowledge-intensive teamwork be managed? Examining the roles of HRM systems, leadership, and tacit knowledge. Journal of management, 42(2), pp.524-554.

 DuBrin, A.J., 2015. Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Nelson Education.

Fischer, M.D., Dopson, S., Fitzgerald, L., Bennett, C., Ferlie, E., Ledger, J. and McGivern, G., 2015. Knowledge leadership: Mobilizing management research by becoming the knowledge object. Human Relations, pp 273

Hutchinson, A. & Boxall, P. (2014), ‘The critical challenges facing New Zealand’s chief executives: implications for management skills’, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol.52, pp.23-41.

Hechanova, R.M. and Cementina-Olpoc, R., 2013. Transformational leadership, change management, and commitment to change: A comparison of academic and business organizations. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 22(1), pp.11-19.

Kowalski, T., Loretto, W. and Redman, T., 2015. Special Issue of International Journal of Human Resource Management: Well-being and HRM in the changing workplace. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 26(1), pp.123-126.

Plucknette, D. (2014). 4 Differences between managers and readers. Plant Engineering. 68(10), p.16-18.

Searle, R.H., 2013. HRM and trust, or trust and HRM? An underdeveloped context for trust research. Handbook of advances in trust research, pp.9-28.

Solomon, I.G., Costea, C. and Nita, A.M., 2016. Leadership versus Management in Public Organizations. Economics, Management and Financial Markets, 11(1), p.143.