Management success through Kolb's learning model and organizational practice

Management Theory According to Experience The capacity for managerial success is not exclusive. Every individual has the opportunity to integrate the qualities necessary to move an organization in a satisfactory direction. This can be achieved by an assimilation of the four functions of management: organization, planning, leadership and controlling. To a large part, these are four distinctive elements of what it is to be the central engine for an effectively maintained vehicle. This is something that I have come to understand through my own personal experiences as I have evolved to accept managerial and leadership challenges. As I have come to understanding management theories with greater acuity, I have also come to appreciate that applicability of Kolb's Model of Learning, which denotes that all individuals possess and display different preferences in terms of the receipt of and action upon information. As I have sought to understanding which of the learning style categories I might fall into, I have also gained great insight into that which is demanded of the competent leader.

Certainly, I have learned that the organization of any functional entity must first be built on a firm base of organizational dexterity. It falls upon a manager to determine that this is a policy which is executed appropriately. This can be achieved through personal efficiency at balancing schedule demands, responsibility, inter-dynamic structural relationships and a sensible distribution of tasks. In smaller organizations, this may be accomplished by one central manager or management team which then devises instructions for its staff thereto. In larger organizations, such responsibilities may be filled from a top-down approach, with central authority delegating organizational demands to lower tiers of management. In either instance, Kolb denotes that an organization will tend to exude the qualities of its leadership. Therefore, where leadership is prone toward what he describes as concrete experience, for instance, management will tend to "have the most hands-on approach, with a strong preference for doing rather than thinking. They like to ask 'what if?' and 'why not?' to support their action-first approach." (Kolb, 1) When this is combined with the processing dimension of what Kolb refers to as an active experimenter, the organization is likely to experience a management style that is aggressively proactive, with risk-taking behaviors and innovation being likely. This is especially a prominent management style in very small organizations, where management is expected to provide a certain degree of active guidance to day to day operations. At the root, I have learned from my experience that organizational development is the process by which an organization comes to identify with a specific procedural orientation, approach to personnel management, collective identity and internal culture. This is a process which occurs both naturally over time and under the guided leadership of an organization's key decision-makers. Through these figures, the whole of the organization can come to reflect its developmental goals. In particular, human resources have been essential to a strategy of organization which is effective and which can even improve the flow of the organization. In a field such as healthcare which is considered here, for instance, personnel and personnel management must be regarded as valuable human resources in which are contained a vast wealth of knowledge regarding the most optimal ways in which to divide responsibilities amongst organizational members, the most sensible distribution of tasks along a time-line and what the ideal way might be to complete any number of functions necessary to the operational effectiveness of the organization. Therefore, in the process of organizational development, it is crucial to bring into consideration the input and perspective of organizational members at every level. This will induce greater knowledge economy and stimulate motivation through a sense of individual involvement amongst employees. Additionally, this will allow organizational leadership a greater latitude for the execution of managerial responsibilities by unburdening it of some less integral but nonetheless organizational duties. The application of such principles to my uniquely situated and unusually small organization will require some careful analysis My organization is particularly small, with my role as sole managerial authority of the household for which I was a live-in aid and primary caregiver to an elderly man defining my responsibilities to said household's organizational functionality in total. I was responsible for maintaining that careful balance of demands through a simple method of lucid organization. This also defined my approach to planning. It was often necessary for me to schedule months in advance to ensure that the elderly gentleman to whom I was responsible received his appropriate medical attention, prescription fillings, exercise routines and entertainment. I learned that an organization can only function properly if its central management offers a defined vision for the organization's immediate and long-term future. Naturally, even as I sought to define a well-planned schedule on which to facilitate the health of the man with whom I worked and the functionality of the household, I found that the position subjected me to constant strategic changes. My plans were never rendered useless but instead, they became a fluid framework for the definition of my leadership responsibilities. When the organization was beset by unexpected changes, sometimes incurred by external factors such as a doctor's unavailability or the rare instance of a banking error, it fell upon me to take control of the plans and adapt them to the new needs as might the active experimenter described by Kolb. Sometimes this means drafting a plan with the flexibility to be fused with necessary modifications. Learning how to plan accordingly also endowed me with the opportunity to take control of circumstances which may have otherwise fallen outside the pale of my control. It was also common that internal circumstances demanded a quality of leadership in me that was absolutely essential to my ability to fulfill my important duties as a managerial authority. I refined my own definition of leadership as I evolved into the role, recognizing nuances such as flexibility, sensitivity to the needs of an organization's members and a well-outlined presence of authority. This also causes us to consider Kolb's conception of the abstract conceptualizer as one whose preference dimension inclines a way of critical thinking that is inherently meant to content with the situations which are daily in flux in such an organization as mine. This is to suggest that while there is value in achieving a confluence of these nuances, by way of the specific needs of the organization and my own personal managerial style, I learned how to actualize leadership as the dominant focus in fulfilling my manifold duties. In addition to planning and adapting to changes, I made an effort to imbue the organization with a daily spontaneity that would keep us ahead of the challenges that can be developed by allowing it to fall into a rut. It is healthy for the elderly to enjoy a normal, functional life and it became one of my primary goals to see that this was a part of the organization's overarching accomplishments. In order to do so, it was required of me to develop a rational sense of ingenuity with regard to the manners in which this could be achieved. I took a position of leadership in determining how we spent our days and how our various mutual goals could be met. Overall, I learned that the integration of these above mentioned skills was equally as important as their individual applications, helping to underscore the value in Kolb's theory, which inherently merges the principles of action and theory into leadership development skills. Given the organization's perpetually changing needs, as well as the unique daily challenges of assisting a man in his 80's through the basic functions of living, I learned that an equanimity of approach is every bit as crucial as the refinement of skills. A good manager will learn to weigh these skills against one another to determine how and when to execute them. Balance is a key element to managerial success, which I learned as I implemented each function to its prescribed degree. Effective management is embodied by the process of honing this balance and applying it to the everyday demands of organizational success. I would find in my experience that a successful organization is one which is molded to meet its goals through internal efficiency. Though there are possibly infinite circumstances which can effect the day-to-day and long-term outlook for any organization, it is in the hands of competent administrative direction that such an organization can poise itself to drive toward its goals regardless of the outlook. Such administration can be achieved by a sensible and pragmatically derived balance between the four functions of management. This is an accomplishment which can be met by implementing a strategy specifically applicable to the needs of the organization, with measures of planning, organizing, leading and controlling meted out to reflect that application. Of these functions, perhaps leadership is the term most difficult to discern from the overall roles of a management. But in fact, leadership is a concept unto itself and a quality which can often mean the difference between effective management or authoritative impotence. Leadership is an ability which, either inborn or developed through hard work and ingenuity, presents the members of the organization with a paragon to forging action toward rational goals. While it is the responsibility of managerial personnel to issue directives, instructions and clarifications on goal- orientation, it is only a leader who can find ways to motivate the members of his organization. By finding ways to personally and professionally invest these members into the shared goals of the organization, a manager can evolve into a credible leader while positively impacting internal practice. Another quality which differentiates management from leadership is that the former carries with it implications of top-down authority. Leadership is instead a process of give-and-take, where one's effectiveness may be inclined by his susceptibility to the counsel and talent of others within the organization. Again, I have found that this has a variety of effects on the dynamics of interpersonal relations therein, the most significant being the indication that the input and talents of all members is valued. Such a virtue can be crucial to establishing an internal culture of collective goal-orientation. It is also central to ensuring that a manager is making use of all the resources which he has at his disposal. Something which separates a manager from a leader is that the latter finds ways not just to utilize employees but to encourage them to develop and make use of their unique skills as they relate to the mission of the organization. Of course, in my very small organization, those who play key internal roles are usually not everyday members of the organization, but physicians, therapists, pharmacists, family members and friends who play a role in my client's lifestyle. Therefore, many of the challenges to internal leadership are compounded by the demand to interact with those whose roles and presence are significantly diverse. This type of organizing around roles is part and parcel of the creation of an organization which is sound in both its infrastructure and personnel. Such a status can be attributed to healthy organizational culture. This is something which is formulated through an ongoing effort to sustain and even renew the drive toward staying on mission course. In my experience, it is incumbent upon the leadership of even the smallest organization to employ strategies of goal-orientation that are closely aligned with its needs and capabilities. Multi-directional communication is a method which can yield such results if accommodated to function within the structural framework of the organization. In my personal experience as the manager of a household and the primary healthcare assistant to the elderly and infirm man who owns this house, a two-way path of communication has been the most reliable route to maintaining operational flow. As the manager, I take it upon myself to both defer to the counsel of either my client or his adult children who, also serve as functional members of the organization, and to offer my insight to responsibilities which they must attend to individually. By integrating what I learn through open dialogue with other members of the organization, I am always developing a more intimate understanding of the various intricacies that set my organization apart from others. This helps me to make decisions, issue directives and dispatch members of the organization to responsibilities which are most suited to their particular skills and knowledge. As this relates to interaction outside the parameters of the organization, my capacity to represent my client's needs in medical contexts, with respect to living demands and in terms even of social interaction is centered on the externality of my management interests. Often, I find that in my external organizational demands, I must make use of all the human resources at my disposal. This characterizes another important element of maintaining a healthy organizational culture through the functional delegation of charges. A good leader will know when to apply his skills to a responsibility and when to transfer the responsibility to others. Certainly, this is also something that one learns by experience. Returning to the discussion of Kolb, which is divided according to strategic individual responsibilities within an organizational structure, we learn that some individuals are inherently driven toward concrete action. As one such individual, I have often been challenged to find ways to utilize the skills of those around me. Delegation is a crucial route to bringing to the surface the leadership skills of non-managerial personnel. By authorizing others within an organization to chair certain responsibilities or initiatives, a manager can more effectively divest his attention. And by orienting others toward roles of leadership, one can facilitate the development of natural group dynamics. Members of the organization will tend to gravitate toward effective non-managerial leaders and may experience a greater intimacy with the collective goals. One thing which a good leader can do make sure that such a culture is achieved is to continually implement processes of internal review. It is important to audit an organization in order to keep it on the path toward the various aspects of its vision. In our organization, the vision is centered around the health and well-being of my client. Our mission is therefore composed to most optimally address all the tasks and charges which must be daily executed to assure success. As the leader of the organization, I am always attempting to find ways to keep the mission fresh and the attendance to its clauses consistent. I have found it very helpful to initiate a review of my scheduled demands at the end of each calendar week. By taking stock of the ways in which various necessities have been met over the course of each week, I can adequately evaluate our overall competence in striving for our goals. It is also a useful way to assess whether or not current operational structures are properly designed to do this. Another suggestion for which I have found meaningful grounds both through course-work and personal experience is the institution of shared organizational values. It is the province of leadership to ensure that there is a generally high inter-organizational morale and such can be established through a reasonable adherence to a refined set of ethics. The employment of an ethical system is not simply a supplemental luxury of effective management. Rather, it is a much needed element of the organization's cultural fabric.