Management and leadership in organizational contexts

¶ … management viewpoints consider how effective they will be in determining the success of a company largely depends on the style of the leader over the employees. At the core of successful businesses is customer satisfaction; businesses must realize this goal cannot be accomplished if leaders are poorly managing employees. Employees drive a company's profits and this is why the type of leadership style is important when managing people (Drucker, 1994). The effectiveness of the organization is determined by the way work is organized and by the way people work with or against each other. The way people cooperate with each other and leadership, an extent of their commitment to their organization, depends on the style of leadership/management. Businesses in the last fifteen years have realized that the role of employees is very critical to the entire operation of their company and the individuals selected to be leaders of a company are even more critical. Therefore, businesses are looking beyond the basic principle of productivity and focusing more on the humane treatment of employees and the value these people bring to the organization. Businesses look to the measurement of management style in individuals and relate it to their effectiveness. Businesses need to truly understand the role leadership plays in their business because changes in management style impact effectiveness. Therefore, the aim of this research is to determine the effectiveness the leadership style has over employees and how this effects the operation and the overall success of businesses.

Leaders' primary role is to be true to self and, in turn, this will enhance their ability to be true to the company and its employees. In ancient Greece, leadership was ascribed only to leaders who "posited themselves." Today, leaders' authenticity is described as taking responsibility for personal freedom and organizational and communal obligations so that leaders make choices that help construct themselves as moral individuals. Issues of executive leaders are quite salient in post-Enron times, just as these issues were in Barnard's time of the post-Depression era. Exploring the cultural meanings of management styles strives to develop an alternative, post-hoc approach to inquiry of true leadership, which may facilitate new possibilities of reinventing theory, reinterpreting evidence and rediscovering voices and issues. When leaders' social systems are threatened by discrepancies, leaders become a social threat to others and stakeholders and sometimes even to themselves (Bryson, 2002). When leaders face change, it widens the moral gap between individual responsibilities to follow the shared norms of the community. Leaders are constantly faced with internal challenges and the ever-changing dynamics of businesses that make it important for them to search for progressive ways of managing the demands of personal self-development along with the need to develop such capacity in others. Although there are many obligations that a leader has to the organization and its employees, leaders must first understand themselves to become effective. It is only then that successful leaders can understand their responsibility to employer and employees.

The best and perhaps the most productive interpersonal relationships and communications occur when two individual styles become complementary with each other's strengths, compensating for the weaknesses of the other. Towne defines leadership as a process of guidance that is carried out in order to achieve goals and improve the organization. The impact and outcomes of organizational decisions are considered as variables of leadership style. Research suggests that the extent to which an organization achieves benefits is directly influenced by strategies and leadership styles. Although there is no universal rule to follow when leaders are managing, there are many factors that leaders should consider in order to be effective (Bryson, 2002). This is determined by the nature of the business they are in and the types of relationships they have developed over the course of time. There is no one leadership style that is better than the next because certain situations require different approaches. However, how leaders approach, resolve and handle situations is what makes them successful as leaders. Individuals want to be respected, heard and treated fairly and when leaders fail to do this they have failed as leaders. Staying focused and respecting others even when they have a different opinion are leadership skills that are highly marketable and successful. Although communication, customer satisfaction and how leaders motivate employees are important, the key factor in being an effective leader is largely how they treat others. People skills are the essential element in determining effective leadership in companies today. It is so important that companies make these a requirement in job vacancy notices when seeking leaders. People are what make up an organization and to have someone managing them effectively relieves an organization from various liabilities.

Conflict resolution skills determine how effective leaders are. Top management teams (TMTs) make strategic decisions that influence the performance of the organization. Because of the complex and consequential nature of strategic decision making, some conflict occurs within the TMT. Research shows that this conflict is multidimensional, with both functional and dysfunctional forms. Cognitive conflict, which is task oriented and focused on discussing and challenging diverse perspectives, is functional. Affective conflict, which is emotional and focused on such things as personal incompatibilities and disputes, is dysfunctional. Given these definitions, many researchers have concluded in their studies that the most effective TMTs are those gaining the benefits of cognitive conflict while avoiding the costs of affective conflict (Cockburn, 2004).

Leaders' styles of communication differ from leader to leader, but effective communication is a strong characteristic of an excellent leader. Towne states, "Different leadership styles impact the way leaders communicate and this impacts organizations." Communication is interactive and requires feedback. Employees will provide feedback to their leaders if the environment is not intimidating. Sometimes this requires the leader to be insightful and to put practices in place to welcome feedback. This will strengthen the relationship between leaders and their subordinates. Face-to-face feedback is important, so the provisions of more intimate techniques such as breakfasts, lunches and "open-door sessions" are excellent practices to develop. A fixed time when leaders are available to talk to employees in a more casual and informative setting is another practice to develop. It is very important to provide anonymous feedback channels, as employees may feel nervous about giving their true opinions. The key is for leaders to be aware of their employees' concerns and needs because this fosters healthy work relationships and makes for a successful business.

Communication promotes changes and broadens support for the company's goals. Communication is emphasized throughout research as a key to successful leadership roles. Effective leaders understand the importance of communicating company values and making sure that these values connect with followers and their needs (Bryson, 2002). Leaders must articulate values to mobilize followers to pursue them. Communication is not only verbal, but it can be an attitude or a behavior in the way that leaders perform their responsibilities. Unless leaders effectively communicate to their subordinates in all areas, employees may fail to adopt a new attitude and behavior towards their responsibilities in a company. Effective leaders communicate to the heart of their employees, making them want to get involved with carrying out the company's values. Leaders must possess the ability to communicate personally, demonstrate trustworthiness, display respect and take risk. Effective leaders invest a considerable amount of time in networking with people both inside and outside their organization to gain trust and consensus for their objectives. These leaders are consciously aware of the assignments they give to a certain employee, making sure they assign tasks according to the employee's abilities to perform the task. This all feeds into the primary objective of the research, to understand people and self.

Leaders need information to make decisions, but reliance on retrieved information often does not satisfy management information needs and managers turn to those they have relationships with. One reason is that business information systems are often designed to contain a plethora of precise data, rather than summary organizational information that is often required. These systems also do not sort out extraneous data, accentuate essential data, or enable the manager to think strategically. Formal quantitative tools emphasized in business schools seem not to be central to successful management; tools to acquire information about other functions of the division and for network building are more helpful. For all these reasons, effective general managers predominately gather information from discussions with persons with whom they have relationships (not necessarily, however, people with the greatest expertise), rather than from books, magazines or reports. Information continuously reaches managers in response to a few critical questions they pose within the flow of the workday, rather than at formal planning meetings. The best managers "aggressively seek information from others (including 'bad news') by more skillfully asking questions..." (Lei, 2006). The best managers also network extensively. Less effective managers don't network as extensively as effective managers do. A broad network, therefore, should contain experts with information required to make good decisions. These findings suggest that if managers do not have the needed expert in their network, they may make decisions lacking critical information (Hitt, 2005). These may either be wrong decisions, or decisions that do not maximize the organization's competitive advantage or effectiveness.