Reflective Essay On Management, Leadership, And Stewardship Practices.

Major Tensions in Management, Leadership and Stewardship

Question:

Write about the Managing, Leading and Stewardship for Management.

In the assignment three, a self-reflective portfolio has been developed. It is an individual assignment related with collection of thoughts, concerns, ideas and reflection on our (student’s) learning as we take development journey over the course of the subject. In this assignment, we are asked to reflect on our assumptions and biases related with management, leadership and stewardship practices. In this reflective portfolio, we have to discuss about what we are learning, what are changing and how we put the learning into practices. This reflective portfolio serves as the base to recognize the significance and value of ongoing learning. This reflective portfolio has been divided into three major sections. They are such as pre-subject reflection, mid-subject reflection and post-subject reflection. All these sections are discussed below.

According to Bolton (2014), reflective practice can enable discovery of who we are and what we are and why we act as we do and how we can be more effective. It is the process of education related with perceiving and developing our own searching questions, rather than responding to responding given question. I know the main subject of the assignment is to analyze management, leadership and stewardship practices. As all of our team members have diverse background, we have diverse set of perspectives on leadership. In my point of view, effective stewardship practices can help a company to adjust and develop its business according to the ever-changing world. I understand that leadership is temporary role that is outlasted by lifespan of a company. Leaders can perform the act of stewardship when they start to focus on a company’s future vitality.   According to Brink et al. (2016), leaders are the stewards at the team level, when they ensures that individuals within a company interact or communicate properly with each other. A leader can become an effective steward by implementing appropriate management skills to control different aspects of various business operations.

I have identified the major tension related with management, leadership and stewardship. It has been found that various organizations follow various questionable practices for various reasons (Mujtaba 2013). They often violate business ethics to increase productivity, efficiency and to gain higher market shares. Discrepancies and discriminations within the management of organizations often give rise to ethical issues related with business operation. Discrepancies and discriminations can also be found in small cases like handling a team to develop a project.  I had also experienced this type of tension while developing a previous project. I acted as the team leader to conduct this project. I noticed that, due to discrepancies by some of our senior team members, most of the other team members were losing their motivation. For this reason, tension grew within the team and team spirit got hampered (Solomon et al. 2016). When as the team leader I tried to talk with them personality conflicts (another tension) aroused. These issues have affected our performance severely. Hence, I believe that lack of motivation and team conflicts should be handled properly so that they can affect the overall team performance.

Effective Communication and Team Management

In my point of view, development of effective communication system can help to decrease any kind of discrepancy or discrimination within the team. Team leaders must have the capability to motivate all the team members. They have to take care of all the issues faced by the team members. It will help a team leader to become an effective steward. According to Brink et al. (2016), stewardship starts with ensuring well-being of individual. In order to manage the team and its operation, a team leader needs to explain the mission or objective of a team. In addition, the team leader also needs to discuss why it is important for the team to achieve the target.  It will in term increase the morale of the team, increase tem spirit and motivate them. Overall, it will increase the overall efficiency of a team.

In this section, I will discuss about the mid-subject learning. I learned about the changes occurred in this topic and the tensions arise in organizations from various in-class and out-class discussions, materials and experiences. In the in-class discussion our teacher told us about various questionable practices of different organizations and their reasons. For example, we learnt about supply chain and ethics of Apple and Foxconn. From the text book written by Ann Cunliffe, I came to know more about managing. According to Cunliffe, managing is ethical, reflective and rational process. I came to understand from in-class discussion that management is not just something we do but is more about who we are and how we are related with others. Our teacher showed us that life in organization is often become messy and complex due to their different interpretations.  In-class discussion helped me to find out that managing is about connecting with different individuals, recognising and respecting their differences and developing meaning for them.

Previously I think that management is all about how leaders can increase productivity and efficiency of team members. However, my point of view about management changed after the in-class discussion. We came to know about different management theories during the class. They were such as management by objectives, theory of constraints, Six Sigma, reengineering and group management theories such as Cog’s ladder. From this discussion, I came to understand that management is a huge term, which is not only about increasing productivity and efficiency (Guardabassi and Prescott 2015). It is related with all the aspects of business such as employee motivation, conflict management and change management (Ha-Vikström and Takala 2016). Presently, due to the changing business environment management is divided into six major categories. They are such as human resource management, financial management, and information technology management, marketing management, operation / production management and strategic management (Sashkin 2014). Every category of management has different requirements. Understanding these requirements can help a leader to develop future growth plan for an organization (Barlam et al. 2016). It will help a leader to become a steward. I have integrated my knowledge from the in-class discussion and implemented them out-of-class peered discussion and role play.

Mid-Subject Learning

We have developed a role play on “managing a restaurant.” In this role play I acted as the general manager of the restaurant. There were four other team members participated in the role play. One of them was waiter, two of them were cook and one of them was head cook. In addition, three other team members played the role of customers. It had been found that conflict occurred between the head chef and the two cooks related with food quality and hygiene. Moreover, the waiter is not feeling well during the mid hours. However, as there was no other waiter hired in the restaurant, it was not possible for me (the general manager) to grant half-day leave for the waiter. In addition, I was also unable to solve the conflict aroused between the chefs. Ineffective communication system and inappropriate strategy of business operation had given rise to tension and conflict. After the end of the role play, we were engaged in out-of-class peered review. Form the discussion and role play we came to understand that theoretical knowledge about management, leadership and stewardship is not enough to solve real life conflicts and tensions. A manager must have to develop effective communication within the team and motivate employees to work hard. In addition to that, they have to take care of the welfare of employees as well.  

After completion of my learning about the topic management, leadership and stewardship practices, I came to understand that there are great, good and bad leaders. Stewardship is the common themes that can different good, bad and great leaders. Great leader often show high level of stewardship towards a company and the people who comprise it Knight and Landres (2013). On the contrary, in every case of bad leadership, we can likewise found the complete absence of stewardship gene. In my point of view Steve Jobs is the example of great leader, while Tim Cook is the example of good leader. However, there is still a question remained open. That is whether there is any basic difference can be found in good leadership and stewardship. In future, I will try to find out the answer of this question.

I came to understand that there are various types of issues can arise while managing and leading a team. They are such as ethical issues, communicational issues, conflict development and lack of motivation. I came to understand from the role-play and out of class peer discussion that managing and leading a company towards success is not that easy as it looks like. A leader must have the motivation skill to inspire as the employees. Leaders often have to take critical decisions in emergency situations, considering the future vitality of the organization. In case of multinational companies (MNCs), managers and leaders have to develop a specific communication system within the team.   In order to motivate employees, they have to remind them of their targets constantly and made them understand that they can achieve that target easily. I have also come to understand that rewards and recognitions can help to solve issues related with lack of motivation among employees.

Conflict can be considered as another major issue in business management. Goetsch and Davis (2014) stated that, in an organization, different people come from different cultural background. For this reason, they often have different point of view about a certain topic, which can lead to conflict. From the in-class discussion I came to know that management is term related with various aspects of business such as employee motivation, conflict management and change management (Shin et al. 2015). I came to understand that, as a leader I have to respect the point of view of others. I have to listen to them carefully and consider all the options available. We need to take the best option, which is both beneficial for the organization and employees. Hence, in this way, conflict can be managed properly within a specific team.  However, despite of all our efforts we will never be able to achieve 100% in business operation and we will not be able to make everyone happy. Despite of all our efforts conflicts will still arise as the business environment is changing rapidly. It is the responsibility of the management team to cope up with the changing business environment. 

Conclusion

After the completion of my learning related with management, leadership and stewardship practices, I have developed on action-guiding principle for myself. I understood that, it is the role of leaders and managers to increase efficiency and productivity of employees as well as taking care of their wellness issues. Hence, I have planned to follow democratic leadership style and try to always respect others while working with them.

Reference List

Barlam, T.F., Cosgrove, S.E., Abbo, L.M., MacDougall, C., Schuetz, A.N., Septimus, E.J., Srinivasan, A., Dellit, T.H., Falck-Ytter, Y.T., Fishman, N.O. and Hamilton, C.W., 2016. Implementing an antibiotic stewardship program: guidelines by the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. Clinical Infectious Diseases, p.ciw118.

Brink, A.J., Messina, A.P., Feldman, C., Richards, G.A., Becker, P.J., Goff, D.A., Bauer, K.A., Nathwani, D., van den Bergh, D. and Alliance, N.A.S.S., 2016. Antimicrobial stewardship across 47 South African hospitals: an implementation study. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 16(9), pp.1017-1025.

Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

Guardabassi, L. and Prescott, J.F., 2015. Antimicrobial stewardship in small animal veterinary practice: from theory to practice. Veterinary Clinics of North America: Small Animal Practice, 45(2), pp.361-376.

Ha-Vikström, T. and Takala, J., 2016. Knowledge Management and Analytical Modelling for Transformational Leadership Profiles in a Multinational Company. Successes and Failures of Knowledge Management, pp.151-174.

Knight, R.L. and Landres, P. eds., 2013. Stewardship across boundaries. Island Press.

Mujtaba, B.G., 2013. Managerial skills and practices for global leadership.

Sashkin, M., 2014. Management and leadership in HRD. Handbook of human resource development, pp.62-79.

Shin, Y., Sung, S.Y., Choi, J.N. and Kim, M.S., 2015. Top management ethical leadership and firm performance: Mediating role of ethical and procedural justice climate. Journal of Business Ethics, 129(1), pp.43-57.

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.