Management And Organization For Business Behavior: Literature Review And Strategies Essay.

Literature Review

Describe about the Management and Organization for Business Behaviour.

This report is discussing about the management, organization behaviour, leadership etc. For achieving any target, an organization always relies on its employees. Individuals have to come together as a team for performing a particular task. However, there is always a need of motivation to enhance the work quality of employees and perform the task smoothly. The motivation work is done by a leader or an individual. The leader is very important as he has to ensure that the goal and targets of an organization must be achieved within the time limits and by using minimum resources.  A leader is the one who can influence and motivate all the people around him. This report will explain my personal experience in an organization on leadership.

Literature Review:

This section of this report is describing literature review of the team work and leadership. I am going to discuss many research articles and my personal experience in context of relationship, team work, management theory and organization. Although there are huge organizational behaviour article available, but my literature review is going to focus on 5 areas as following which are Transformational Leadership, Blanchard's Situational Leadership Model, Tuckman's Model to Team Development,  Lewin's Leadership Styles and Thamhain's Nine Ways to Influence on Projects. Some addiitional published materials are also used to understand the concept of team strategy, organizational behaviour, management and leadership.

According to the theories implies into the literature review, type of leadership which my peer possessed will be discussed by me. In this section, I am going to discuss leadership style, strategies, team work; me and my colleague used for completing the task. A discussion will be done upon motivation, inflation, strategies, team work etc. There are positive and negative aspect of leadership and some recommendation are also there, that will be discussed in this section.

In next section, my whole team performance will be reflected based upon literature review and strategies. The process will reflect on the process on tuckman’s group development process and how it was useful for developing my work group. Importance of a good and effective team will also be discussed and how my team was an effective team will also be described.

In last section, conclusion of this report based upon my personal experience, findings and observations on the team process and leadership qualities. The opportunity of doing work as a team member has also expanded my perspective of having a good and effective team and leadership.

Leadership Style Theory

Literature Review:

Leadership is a key element of every business, organization, group etc. It is required to achieve any kind of success and goals. Leadership is defined as a process in any work environment for guiding and directing attitude, behaviour of an individual (Nelson & Quick, 2006). Leaders are even able to change ability, perception of an individual regarding anything. They change their ability for the purpose of inspiration, motivation, information and communication effectively. There are huge number of strategies and leadership styles for accomplishing organization’s objectives and goals. Every time a leader use different strategy, based on situation.

This section is discussing literature review upon leadership theories. This is based on many printed article, instructor, search engine, electronic database etc.

Leadership style theory:

According to Nelson & Quick (2006), a research was conducted by Kurt Lewin earliest, he identified that there are 3 basic style of leadership. That are: autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire. These styles are used on a team according to situation. The autocratic leader is the one who is of controlling nature and apply many rules and regulations. This leadership style is basically used by a leader when group is new and there is lack of direction. The democratic leader is the one who is responsible in nature and consider subordinate’s idea also. A leader with democratic nature, encourage its group member to take actively participation in group activities. The Laissez-free style leader don’t implement responsibility and authority and free their group member to work in their own way. This style is only useful if all the members of group are skilled.

Leadership strategy is basically describes that how a leader can influence its group member and their performance. The leadership model described by Paul is the best approach for leadership. Model can be changed at any time as the project progress. Task and relationship behaviour are the 2 characteristics of leadership, due to which leadership style get change (Dubrin, Dalgish & Miller, 2006).

A leader must use telling style for members who don’t want to do task and unable to do. Selling style helps a leader when a member is unable to do but want to do the task. Participating leadership style helps a leader to involve all the members in decision making process. And when a leader delegates all the responsibilities to members is and tell them to progress further comes in Delegating style.

However, great number of research has been done on Situational leadership model, in reality it doesn’t work. This model was introduced in 1969 for the first time. Mr. Graeff (1997) discovered that there is inconsistence between situational leadership models which is the cause of confusion.   Thompson and Vecchio (2009) done research on comparison of existing one and new one.

Leadership Strategy Theory

Liz Lee-Kelly (2002) discussed about the situation approach in her published article, she suggested that there is not any single leadership style for a leader every time.  Research in this field is continuously happening as it is most important aspect of an organization. Recently two types of leadership have been introduced: Transactional and Transformational. Transactional leadership is used by leaders when they have to give rewards or punishment. Transformational leadership relies more on inspiration and performance.

Management Strategies Theory:

Employees always have any options in front of them. If they find job less interesting, they can leave the job or switch it anytime. So it is very important for an organization to make their employee satisfy and retain them. Schwalbe (2007) develop an approach for project manager to deal with their subordinates. It is found that projects are failing on a higher rate if project manager is totally relying on higher authority.  However, if project mangers use their skills and their experience to motivate and influence the people, there are more chances for a project to get succeed.    

A project manager must develop leadership qualities (Veal, 2004). Veal describes 4 process of project management to promote success. This guidelines defiantly helps project manager to evaluate own capability and get success.

Team Work Theory:

For achieving the success in an organization, each employee has to work in a team. An effective team works faster and even with higher quality. Hayward (1998) defines a work team as 2 or more people in a group who have some responsibilities to achieve the goal and completing their task.

Tuckman (1965) introduced a model of team development in 4 stages. That are: forming, storming, norming and performing. At the earlier stage, members meet to each other and try to know each other and learn to work together. At storming level, conflicts and differences appears. Actions for managing the conflicts are taken on norming level and at the last stage, all the group members work together to achieve their goal (Dubrin, Dalgish & Miller, 2006). In 1977, this model was modified by adding an additional stage, called adjourning (Tuckman & Jensen, 1977). At adjourning stage, the group is dissolved.

Tudor, Rickards & Susan (2000) describes that for creating any innovative product, Tuckman model don’t explain that what are the loose points of innovative and creative leadership.

Parker (2008) explains about 4 team player styles for success of nay team, which are challengers,  contributors, communicators and collaborators.

Management Strategies Theory

First of all, it was quite complicated to choose one of the group members as project manager. It was hard because we all were strangers. But for completing the task, we had to work as team and so it was important to choose a one as our leader. According to me, a leader is one who must have respect and faith from all the group members (Weber & Camerer, 2003).

On the basis of Belbin’s personality assessment, we all have agreed to elect our project manager from categorized coordinators. We all believe that a leader must be well organized person and trustworthy.  According to description of Belbin’s test, our group leader had to perform well in managing and keeping all the group activities and documentation. He introduced us with a website www.zoho.com, where we all were able to upload all the resources and documents. All the edited and modified documents were strictly had to versioned correctly so no one needed to read older or outdated information.  He encouraged all the group members to discuss everything related to topic via a web forum so there was no need to make call to team members.

From my point of view, he was a great influencer and motivator, who motivated us timely to furnish the best ideas. We all were       able to give good suggestions and ideas through his directions. As my product manager was an experienced guy and aged one. His knowledge, skills, expertise etc were unbeatable; he was able to share his knowledge on every aspect of organization. His ability of communicating about the overall project requirement used to help each member in understanding exactly that what was expected to us.

According to my observation, democratic leadership style was adopted by our project manager; he used to make overall direction for our team. He always encouraged to us to make a participation in all the activities actively and vote for decision making process. Although decisions were always based on all the team members, but still he had the right to the final say. However as he permitted all of us to raise our ideas, but all ideas given by team was not relevant and due to it, much time had been wasted (Brooks, 2003).  There, according to me he lacked, in controlling the members of group. He used to apply old techniques which were not as much as effective as new one.

Team Work Theory

For completing the task, project manager had broken up the task and outlined in several sections. And this process is done by him before the meeting. He didn’t even feel bother to ask team members about their area of interest. And when members asked him about it, he used his old school techniques. However, the entire task assigned to group members and additional task were also given them to check other’s work, based upon their ability (Parker, 2000). Project manager was the last person to consolidate and check everything. He putted his eyes on every member and their task. Wherever he felt like work is not going in a proper manner, he personally used to look into the work and helped the members to accomplish their work.

During the meetings, I had absorbed that manager’s leadership style changed timed to time. In first few weeks, he adopted telling style where all the documentation, strategies etc were made by him. At a later stage, he used selling style, where we all members assigned a task individually. Because of this styles, every team member feel worthy in a team (Armstrong, 2003).

In our first meeting, we tried to know each other and make a bond. This phase is known as forming stage. (Tuckman’s Group Development Model). In this stage, we all were tried to meet and talk to others very carefully and not to offend with each other. Questions were asked to us was totally based upon our experience. There were some questions related to project and education (Mullins, 2005).

Once we all started knowing each other, we progressed to the next level that is storming. Conflicts start appearing in this stage like who will become leader, project manager etc. however, my all team were able to think collectively with the help of tutor. We all were able to be in a team. In this stage, we were still not able to agree on same timing for meeting as every team member had different commitments (Fincham & Rhodes, 2005).

As the time passed, we entered in the norming stage. We all were able to make directions for the team. We started understanding each other’s strength, weakness any with the help of it, we worked on our project. We all were enough open to each other and argued for the project’ s goals (Fraser & Bosanquet, 2006).

Once everything has settled down, our group was ready and we all were thinking collectively for achieving project goal and objectives. This stage was performing stage, where we actually started working for our project.

After working with that team for a longer time, I can say that it was an effective team. According to parker (2008) all the 12 characteristics were in my team. We all had a clear purpose of goals, objectives, vision and mission etc. and we all were able to finish our assigned task in provided time limit. Our meetings used to be in an informal way, so that everybody could comfortably share their views (Bolton, 2005). We all used to listen, argue and understand each other’s ideas. If anybody felt disagree with ideas, we tried to resolve it. Most importantly all the decisions made were by a general agreement.

In our group, each individual was assigned a task and asked to upload the solution on collaborative website. Once an individual uploaded the solutions, others were permissible to check it and make comment on forum. This feedback policy helped a team member to know about his work and it was a convenient way to make a reply of the comments (Forster, 2005). . This policy also helped in gathering all the opinions towards an issue. A positive feedback towards any task helps in reducing conflicts.

In our team, we had some good team players who used to complete their task in time and with high quality. They also used to help other members in their task to complete on time and with a good quality. Some members were even able to find out the resources which were not in their job scope (Thomson, 2002).

Each member’s hard work and understanding nature made it possible to complete the task within time limits. Each member was ready to help another one in finishing their task on time (Schein, 2004).

In this project, we all could complete our project before the time. Although draft version was prepared few week earlier but still we all were failing to finalize it. It was because of the fact that we had to ensure that any kind of fault was not in that project.

Earlier all the members were not able to manage the time because of other commitments and it was creating a problem for others. But after interpretation of project manager all started doing their work properly.

Conclusion:

In most of the organization, at today’s time, all the individuals work together as a team to discuss and identify solutions of any task or project. Every individual needs direction and support timely. It totally depends on a project manager that how he leads to his team. Leadership style, strategy, motivation strategy etc of a leader affects the total outcome of project of an organization. Leadership style is always getting change according to time and situation. At earlier stage, project manager has to be autocratic, at this phase he has to set directions, goals and also manage his team.  Once team members start having a bond, the leader can change his style to democratic style and allow all the members for participating in decision making process. A leader is the one who is able to encourage his team to think out of the world.

Our group leader had applied some leadership style mentioned in literature review. He used to change his leadership style according to situation and timely. Earlier he adopted autocratic style, but as the time passed he shifted to democratic style. A leader’s personality is also an important factor for success of any project.

For an effective team, all the members must be clear about all the direction and objective of team. The main aspects of a team are work together and communicate with each other freely.

In our team, I found that we all were doing a great job as a team and there was an open communication among all of us. We were able to discuss on anything related to project very freely. As every individual assigned a work load and time for completing and delivering that task, all were feeling worthy. By using social websites like Skype, the team were in contact even in late night for completing the work on time.

As a conclusion, I would say that leader plays as a key factor in achieving the task on time as well as retaining the employees for a longer time.

References:

Armstrong, M. (2003) A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, Kogan Page, London.UK

Bolton, G., (2005), Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development, 2nd Edition, Sage, London.

Brooks, I. (2003) Organisational Behaviour: Individuals, Groups and Organisation Second Edition, Prentice Hall, Pearson Education Limited, London UK.

Dubrin, A., Dalgish, C. & Miller P. (2006). Leadership: Second Asia Pacific Edition. Australia: John Wiley & Sons.

Dubrin, A., Dalgish, C. & Miller P. (2006). Leadership: Second Asia Pacific Edition. Australia: John Wiley & Sons.

Fincham, R. and Rhodes, P., (2005), Principles of Organizational Behaviour, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Forster, M., (2005). Maximum Performance: A Practical Guide to Leading and Managing People at Work,Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.

Fraser, S. & Bosanquet, A., (2006), ‘The curriculum? That is just a unit outline, isn't it?', Studies in Higher Education, 31, pp.269-284.

Mullins, L. (2005). Management and Organisational Behaviour Seventh Edition, Pearson Education Limited, UK

Nelson, D.L. & Quick J. C. (2006). Organizational behaviour: foundation, realities & challenges. Thomson South-Western. 

Nelson, D.L. & Quick J. C. (2006). Organizational behaviour: foundation, realities & challenges. Thomson South-Western. 

Parker, M. (2000). Organisational Culture and Identity, SAGE Publications Ltd, London.UK

Paul H., Blanchard K. H. & Johnson D. (2008). Management of organization behaviour: leading human resource. Pearson prentice Hall.

Parker, M. (2000). Organisational Culture and Identity, SAGE Publications Ltd, London.UK

Thomson, R. (2002). Managing People. 3nd Edition, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford UK

Schein E. H (2004). Organizational culture and leadership. 3rd Edition, Wiley Imprint

 Weber, R.A and Camerer, C.F. 2003. Cultural conflict and merger failure: An                    Experimental Approach. Management science, Vol 49, Issue 4, p 400-415

Armstrong, A., and Baron, A.,(2005), Managing Performance: Performance Management in Action, CIPD, London