General management

Ingredients of Leadership

It is a fundamental understanding of people; the ability to inspire followers to apply their full capabilities; the leader's style and the development of a conducive organisational climate.

-The first ingredient is the ability to use power effectively and in a responsible manner.

-The second ingredient is the ability to comprehend that human beings have different motivating forces at different times and in different situations. A manager who at least knows the present state of motivation theory and who understands the elements of motivation is more aware of the nature and strength of human needs and is better able to define and design ways of satisfying them and get the desired responses.

-The third ingredient is the ability to inspire followers to apply their full capabilities to a project. While the use of motivators seems to centre on subordinates and their needs, inspiration comes from group heads.

-The fourth ingredient is the ability to act in a manner that

will develop a climate conducive to responding to and arousing motivations. The strength of motivation greatly depends on expectancies, perceived rewards, the amount of effort believed to be required, the task to be done etc…

John Gabarro and John Kotter added another ingredient: effective managers must develop a healthy relationship with their boss. It means that this relationship is based on mutual dependence; thus, the manager must understand the boss's goals and pressures and give attention to his or her concerns.

Principle of Leadership-> since people tend to follow those who, in their view, offer them a means of satisfying their personal goals, the more manager understand what motivates their subordinates and how these motivators operate, and the more they reflect this understanding in carrying out their managerial actions, the more effective they are likely to be as leaders.

TRAIT APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP

Before 1949, studies of leadership were based largely on an

Attempt to identify the traits that leaders possess. Starting with the "Great Man" theory that leaders are born and not made, a belief dating back to ancient Greeks and Romans, researchers have tried to identify the physical, mental, and personality traits of various leaders. In general, the study of leaders' traits has not been a very fruitful approach to explaining leadership; the theory lost much of its acceptability with the rise of the behaviorist school of psychology.

Leadership Behavior and Styles

There are several theories on leadership behavior and style:

1. Leadership based on the use of Authority:
• The autocratic leader commands and expects compliance, is dogmatic and positive, and leads by the ability to withhold or give rewards and punishment. Some autocratic leaders are seen as "benevolent autocrats", although they listen considerately to their followers' opinions before making a decision, the decision is their own.
2. The democratic leader consults with subordinates

On proposed actions and decisions and encourage participation from them. A variation of the participative leader is the person who is supportive; he supports subordinates in accomplishing their duties.

The free-rein leader uses his power very little, if at all, giving subordinates a high degree of independence in their operations.

The Managerial Grid:

The grid has 2 dimensions; concern for people and concern for production. Blake and Mouton recognize four extremes of styles:

1.1 Impoverished Management -> managers concern themselves very little with either people or production and have minimum involvement in their jobs.

9.9 Team Managers-> who display in their actions the highest possible dedication both to people and to production.

1.9 Country Club Managers-> in which managers have little or no concern for production but are concerned only for people. They promote an environment in which everyone is relaxed, friendly and happy and no one is concerned about to accomplish enterprise goals.

9.1

The interactions between leaders and group members can be influenced by several situational characteristics. According to Fiedler, there are three critical dimensions of the leadership situation that determine the most effective leadership style:

1. Position Power: This refers to the degree to which the power of a position enables a leader to get group members to comply with directions. A leader with clear and considerable position power can easily obtain good followership.
2. Task Structure: This dimension refers to the extent to which tasks can be clearly spelled out and people held responsible for them. When tasks are clear and structured, performance quality can be controlled more easily, and group members can be held more accountable for their performance.
3. Leader-member relations: This dimension refers to the extent to which group members like and trust a leader and are willing to follow their guidance.

4. Achievement-Oriented Leadership involves setting challenging goals, seeking improvement of performance, and having confidence that subordinates will achieve high goals.

Chapter 18: The System and Process of Controlling

Controlling is the measurement and correction of performance in order to make sure that enterprise objectives and the plans devised (escogitati) to attain them are being accomplished.

Control techniques and systems are essentially the same for controlling cash, office procedures, morale, product quality, and anything else. The Basic Control Process involves three steps:

1. Establishing standards - since plans vary in detail and complexity, and managers cannot usually watch everything, special standards are established.
2. Measuring performance against these standards - it should be done on a forward-looking basis so that deviations may be detected in advance of their occurrence and avoided by appropriate actions.
3. Correcting variations from standards and plans - if

performance is measured accordingly, it is easier to correctdevotions. Managers may correct deviations by redrawing their plans or by modifying their goals.

CRITICAL CONTROL POINTS, STANDARDS AND BENCHMARKING

The principle of critical point control-> effective control requires attention to factors critical to evaluatingperformance against plans.

Types of Critical Point Standards:

1. Physical Standards-> are non monetary measurement and are common at the operating level, where materials areused, laboured is employed, services are rendered, and foods are produced. They may reflect quantities such aslabor-hours, units of production per machine hour; they can also reflect quality such as hardness of bearings, closenessof tolerances, rate of climb of an airplane, durability of a fabric or fastness of a colour
2. Cost Standards-> are monetary measurement and, like physical standards, are common at the operating level. Theyare such widely use measured as direct and indirect costs per unit produced,

labor cost per unit or per hour,