What type of leader am I?

 

Leadership is a pivotal position in any organization, especially when the organization is facing a difficult situation. So the more high risk taking, the more importance of leadership is.

 

A great leader should be able to face any difficulties or challenges even in the inadequate of information they have been given. They need to have ability to make right decision quickly and decisively, help to other employees to build their confidence of the company when the company is collapsing, leading them to the right direction until the organization becomes more secure. Moreover, when the organization crosses over all the difficult barriers, the leader should make the long-term strategy for the company and getting a well thought out strategy of any possible risk they might face for in the future.

 

Richard Branson for example, has inspired me by his effective leadership. Branson believes that the pleasure is the main reason for him to involve in business. It is also a key point for Virgin became success. Pleasure lets Branson always maintained the passion of entrepreneurship, put him threw into the work, seize good ideas and opportunities in time and overcome all difficulties constantly. Enjoy the joy through your work but also to be able to face fame and money calmly, because the purpose is to find the happiness rather than power. This is an important point to help Virgin gone thought any difficulties and became successful. “Entrepreneurial business favours the open mind. It favours people whose optimism drives them to prepare for many possible futures, pretty much purely for the joy of doing so” (Richard Branson, 2009).

Want to be a successful leader, we must be honest to face ours strengths and weaknesses then collaborate with others. As Branson said, leaders are not born to be leaders, they learn by doing, and by falling over to learn how to solving problem. Then, they learn by the exploration and experience from work as well as access information and knowledge from different angle. Furthermore, learning decision-making by providing insights. Using communication and coordination abilities to leading other team members working for the same belief. Finally, finding new opportunities through self-reflection and willing to correct errors.

 

Bennis, W (1997) states that the good leaders have the following characteristics:

(1) Shaping a vision: A good leader should have a looking- forward vision and to set the right direction or priorities for the organization to archive goals.

(2) Professional competence: Having a full knowledge with the industrial environment and status, also ability for strategic thinking.

(3) Courage and insight: When facing any challenges daring combined with superior judgement to make decision even lacking of information, and willing to take risks.

(4) Employment and authorization: By sharing authority and responsibility to cultivate a new successor.

(5) Communication and coordination: A clear expression communication skill, listening to different opinions and the ability to create the environment for employees to tell the truth.

(6) Inspiring: To boost the morale of colleagues or employee’s contributed.

 

Finally, these qualities of leaders must have ethical behaviours and integrity personality, in order to ensure to lead the organization and working partners on a right path.

 

My colleagues always gave me feedback of ‘always smiling, easy to communicate and responsibility’; those are my strengths of being a leader, especially in my chosen industry ‘International Marketing’. Being a good leader in this area, firstly should have a good communication skill. Good communication skill can help me to work effectively between clients and other team members. Another strength of me is responsible, as to become a good leader must be responsible for their duty and work, in order to win other members respect.

However, I still have other weaknesses which I hope one day I would be able to develop in the near future after my MBA degree. How to face any disapproval or accusations from other members, and willing to take risks to make decision those will be my development list. By ‘Leading in A Change World’ module, build management knowledge to enhance my strengths and filling up the gaps with my weaknesses, I could be a good leader one day in the future.

As Richard Branson said “If you’re hurt, lick your wounds and get up again. If you’ve given it your absolute best, it’s time to move forward”. Study MBA would not be easy, trying to face any difficulties and finding solutions to conquer it all. Being a good leader I have to learne how to lead my team to overcome any problems and trying our best in every tasks even in the end we could not get the result which we expecting for. Moreover, ethic management would be essential for me to lead my team, also could build the good reputation for the company.

 

 

Reference:

1. Richard Branson (2009). Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur. Great Britain: Virgin Books. P332.

2. Bennis, W. (1997). Managing people is like herding cats. Utah: Executive Excellence Publishing.

3. Jack Preston. (2013). 10 inspirational Richard Branson quotes. Available: http://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/10-inspirational-richard-branson-quotes. Last accessed 3rd April 2014

 

Ethical business, leadership and management

Ethical leadership, defining it as “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement and decision-making”… [and] the evidence suggests that ethical leader behavior can have important positive effects on both individual and organizational effectiveness (Rubin et al 2010: 216-17)

Why ethics are playing major role in any organization? According to Brown & Mitchell, they states that“Ethical leaders are relevant role models because they occupy powerful and visible positions in organizational hierarchies that allow them to capture their follower’s attention” (Brown & Mitchell 2010: 585). The leader of any organization should be a good model for their employee especially by their ethical conduct, as employees tend to follow their leader and expect to learn from those role models. Furthermore, a number of evidence shows that the organization’s financial performance related to the company’s goodwill.

The company has high reputation also representing the ability to maintain or obtain above-average return on their assets.

 

We can not deny that the ethics play a significant role between leader and team’s relationship. The ethical leader behaviours not only effects on individual teamwork but also can bring positive effects to the organisation (Rubin et al 2010). Organizational ethics is the cornerstone of organizational culture and organizational culture’s operation platform. If the organization lack of organizational ethical would be unlikely to survive. Organizational ethics as an ideology, in order to meet the needs of society naturally occurring under certain circumstances it is made ​​moral demands on the organization reflects the intrinsic values ​​and organizational awareness.

Thus, people hold higher standards to look at any organization. The organization will subject stricter oversight of their ethical than in the past. Nowadays in the business society, the reputation is everything. American public relations firm Hill & Knowlton has recently done a survey. The research shows that more than 36% customers consider the company’s reputation before they purchase. The research also indicates that more than 7% of investors will take into the reputation of organization as the main fact for them to make decisions.

Furthermore, the study found that business leaders from the U.S., UK and across Europe believe that corporate social responsibility will become more important in the future, especially in the creation of sales as well as in recruitment and retention of their staffs.

 

The company’s internal dynamics are vision, mission, culture, policy and strategy, and the business ethics plays a key driving force in the enterprise. As Martin (2006) stated that customers always create an image in their minds by the organization’s reputation as its offer them more information of the company. In addition, it is a key point and represent its management of the company’s strategy.

 

The relationships formed between leader and other team members; the main reason is to effective leadership lies with them. Leader is a model for other staffs.Corporate ethics not grasps solely by the higher position member to execute. In the organization, reputation management is the responsibility for the company to execute, but implementation is the responsibility for every member in the organization. Moreover, if the company loses reputation, the employees loss would be the most, because it also means they might loss their job.

 

Primark is a great example for executing ethical business practices. Their business aim is “Primark is committed to provided the best possible value for our customers, but not at the expense of the people who make our products.” If a company who only focuses to sell low prices products for their customers, it would be easy to lack of strategy on their ethical business. Simplify they would consider the weak labor laws in developing countries to make the most profits for them. However, being such an international supplier, you need to put more effort on building brand recognition and company’s reputation. Ethical business practices are only key point to build a company’s reputation and brand image for their customers.

Primark’s through partnerships with organizations like the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) to improve their workers living standards and care about their working conditions by created ‘real world’ experiences for their employees. Primark not only set high ethical business standards for themself but it also requires their suppliers to follow Primark’s ethical business rules, such as working hours, working conditions are safe and hygienic, no child labour to be used, living wages are paid… etc. Especially the legal requirements are needed to be met. Primark ensures their business partners having the same goal to maintain their ethical business objectives.

 

In conclusion, ethical leadership can create a good atmosphere for employees to work for as they will enjoy the work environment to work together and respect each other, share same aim to work for the company. As William Blake said ‘To see a World in a grain of sand’. The reputation of a company as this principle. The organization’s reputation among different parts. From the basic employee to higher position member’s behaviours and the business partners they all reflect the company’s reputation in all aspects.

 

 

 

Reference:
1. Brown, M, & Mitchell, M 2010, ‘Ethical and Unethical Leadership: Exploring New Avenues for Future Research’, Business Ethics Quarterly, 20, 4, pp. 583-616, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, accessed 29 March 2014.

2. Rubin, R, Dierdorff, E, & Brown, M 2010, ‘Do Ethical Leaders Get Ahead? Exploring Ethical Leadership and Promotability’, Business Ethics Quarterly, 20, 2, pp. 215-236, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, accessed 29 March 2014.

3. Martin, G. (2006). Managing People and Organisations in changing contexts. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

4. Hedgecoe, Guy. (September 21, 2012). Confident Primark bucks downturn with eye-catching expansion in Spain. The Irish Times. Retrieved from < http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0921/1224324230951.htm&gt> accessed 29 March 2014.

 

Would change be a good way for your company?!

“Change is nothing new and a simple fact of life. Some people actively thrive on new challenges and constant change, while others prefer the comfort of the status quo and strongly resist any change. It is all down to the personality of the individual and there is little management can do about resistance to change” (Mullins 2010: 753).

 

When we talk about change, what is the first word that comes to mind?! Some of people say that change is a great idea when you are facing difficulty, however others say that change means that you need to face more challenges while you reform something. Especially when we talk about Organisational change, it seems harder than what we thought.

 

Let me make it more specific, when we talk about the ‘change of organisational culture’, this means whole management of the organisation, whenever it relates to the small organisation, banking or even more big organisation such as UK’s National Health Service.

You might wonder what is organisational culture?! The organisational culture refers to the sum of material and spiritual civilization construction and development companies formed. Including the organisation and management of hardware and software in two parts, explicit and implicit culture. More specifically, organisational culture refers to all members of the organisation commonly accepted values, codes of conduct, teamwork, thinking, work style, a sense of belonging and other psychological expectations and sense of community groups in general.

 

As our case study the JC Penney company, they has been hold long tradition in their organisation for over hundred years and their management was too The company was too formal and rigid. They have faced losing employees and tried to make new revolution of their organisation management in 2004.

It was a huge challenging for their new CEO, Myron E. Ullman, to change JC Penney’s deep structure of their organisational culture.

 

Ullman believed only change can bring JC Penney forward in the retail industry.

He realised that the reason why JC Penney has high staff turnover was their work environment and rigid organizational culture. After his changed of JC Penney’s organizational culture, he tried to motivate their employees toward customer service, focused on the customer culture, changed the old dressing code to be relaxation, dismiss what they call as office police, created new stronger bond between employees by ‘Retail Academy’ training and made JC Penney turnaround to effective implementation in a short period with Wining together principles change management event (Purkayastha 2007).

 

However, not everyone can accept change in their life. Marcus Buckingham believes that as it is difficult to change people’s standpoint or personality in a short period of time (Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman 1999).

 

Because the most difficult thing is people usually hard to accept any changing in their life especially after they have been living a certain tend for a long- term.

Uncertain and unsecure feeling would be a potential threat for them. It also identifies in Hofstede’s framework that in some culture are highly concerned about uncertainly.

In addition, some unacceptable situations may come along with the change. For instance, in Taiwan people get used to do the same daily routine or work for a long time, because they simply feel comfort with it. If they are facing any change in their life, it would mean they required more effort with it and it might not as success as before. Thus, avoid any threatening situations in their life. Also it would take some times for people to accept the change.

As a result, people more tend to withstand any changes (Mullins 2012: 28).

 

In Kurt Lewin developed model has three stage process of change which are unfreeze, change and refreeze (Schein 1999).

Lewin used a block of ice shape analogy his theory of change process. Before you try to change the shape of block of ice, first you need to melt it or break down the actual structure of block of ice. It can be changed or you can give any direction for it once it’s unfrozen. Using a mold, you can make a different shape from its original state, then you freeze the liquid within the mold to crystallize it into its new shape.

Lewin advocates for successful change process, the best way is to understand the reasons of the change and find the motivation of change. Unfreezing stage, is t to identify the initial problem and knowing the needed of change. All the change processes would be not easy and also could be very stressful. However, the management need to be ready to accept strong feedback from the people for the change. The management should remember the main motivation of the change is for the company to have a successful management (Mullins 2010, Levasseur 2001).

 

In conclusion, when company needs to make some change to their organisation, they should be concerned about the culture of organisation and charasteristics of their employees. The managers or leader can explain the reason of the change also give them a new vision of the company clearly. So the employee would be more happy to accept the change of the organization. On the other hand, the managers should know that they are not trying to change the employee. The change is for the environment of an organisation and the employee would be willing to help all managers to bring down any rebellion between them and follower (Gossage 2010).

 

Reference:

1. Buckingham, M. and Coffman, C. (1999) First, Break All the Rules.New York: Simon & Schuster

2. Mullins, Laurie J. (2010) Management & Organizational Behavior, 9th Edition, England: FT Prentice Hal

3. Purkayastha, D. (2007) Remaking JC Penney’s Organizational Culture. Hyderabad: ICMR

4. Schein, Edgar H. (1999) ‘Kurt Lewin’s Change Theory in the Field and in the Classroom: Notes toward a Model of Managed Learning’. Reflections [online]  1(1), 59-74 available from < http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&sid=0f7b4294-855f-4308-9841-8831666e3e62%40sessionmgr10&hid=28&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=bth&AN=6798038 > [23rd March 2014]

5. Gossage, G., Silverstone, Y. and Leach, A. (2010) ‘The Change capable Organization’, (Accenture; Outlook). 10

 

What is the effect way to manage your team?!

“Which personal style should managers adopt to ensure success? What is the most effective approach to managing the work of subordinates? These questions have been extensively researched and debated over the last century, and while the general consensus has moved away from ‘command and control’ to management and leadership towards more consultative and participative approaches, there is no single ideal, as the best approach may vary according to circumstances and individual characteristics” (CMI 2013)

.

 

Leadership and management must work together as they both are the main function for organization. However, management and leadership are two different roles, although some how they are similar. Management and leadership are all linking to each other to make the organization working function well. Henry Fayol has given the definition of management “is to forecast, to plan, to organize, to command, to coordinate, and to control” (Henry Fayol ). Also Koontz has stated that “Management is the art of getting things done through and with people in formally organized group”.

Leadership is defined as “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” by (Yukl cited in Still 2004: 434).

 

Manager is a main foundation of an organization. Like a communication center or messenger, managers should have a good contact network, as they need to communicate between subordinates, colleagues and superiors. In addition, they have to keep in touch with clients and government agencies to find out important information for the organization.

 

Being a manager the most difficult task is to learn how to motivate employees and make them to approach their job duties effectively. Owing to every employee is differ from one another, the measure of motivation or job standard also need to vary. We must encourage employees to enable working toward of their goal. However, we could not use the same method to motivate all employees.

According to the previous blog, the diverse team is a good management to make organization operating effectively. The team may have various style of management, owing to the team consists of various type of team member.

 

So what is leadership in the organization?!

Leader is a back bone of an organization. Leaders should vary with the different circumstance to change their roles. Sometimes the leader should be like “designer” capable of specific planning to express the vision, strategy and values of the company. Furthermore, they need to know all the details of the execution of the process which their company are going through. The staffs will understand the company’s function and strategy and feeling they are an important of the organization, willing to follow and respect the leader. Therefore, the leader should also need to be a teacher and cheerleader in the organization. Knowing every employee’s ability, guiding them into the right position to maximize their combat power with the suitable management. Sometimes the leader should be a cheerleader to encourage employees and motivate them to archive the goal. Then thanks for your employees after they reaching the goal.

 

“If you ask people what they want in a leader, they usually list three things: direction or vision, trustworthiness, and optimism. Like effective parents, lovers, teachers, and therapists, good leaders make people hopeful.” — Warren Bennis, An Invented Life: Reflections on Leadership and Change.

According to Goleman D. in 2000 has mentioned that the leadership has six styles but only affiliative, democratic, pacesetting and coaching, those four styles could have a positive effect for the result (Goleman D. 2000).

 

Moreover, those types of leadership should have flexibility which means not every situation will have fit the same leadership style as it all depends on the different situation. Sometimes the leadership style need to change every year. (Northouse 2013).

 

Lots of theories have already proved that leadership style should approach their subordinate which could give leader time to adjust their leadership style. In Hersay’s theory refers to this kind of leadership model which helps manager to demand and diagnose their situation. (Hersay 1969).

 

Google is a very good example here. They focus on their employee’s creativity and relationship between people in the organisation. Google claims their leader should be adjustable and adaptable their leadership particularly base on their team member’s skills and behaviors.

Google gives people who are working there an independent, comfortable and a pleasure work environment. So being a leader should know how to develop, support or motivate their subordinate.

I’ve been both experience being managed and managing others. It would be difficult for me to use particular leader style to lead all the people, as different team member has different abilities and personality. Thus, try to understand their thought is very important. If people willing to do something with their pleasure this would lead the team effectively.

 

In conclusion, leader must know how to motivate subordinates through reward to avoid direct leadership and knowing the potential of all team members to create more benefit for the organization.

Moreover, leaders should always find out new opportunities to make the long-term achievement through the organisation.

 

 

 

Reference:

1. Goleman, D. (2000) “Leadership that gets the results”. Harvard Business Review, 78-90
2. Northouse, P.G. (2013).  Leadership: Theory and Practice.  Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
3. Hersey, P. & Blanchard, K. (1969), Life-cycle theory of leadership, Training & Development Journal 2, 6-34

Will Diverse teams bring more benefits?!

“Research has consistently shown that diverse teams produce better results, provided they are well led. The ability to bring together people from different back grounds, disciplines, cultures, and generations and leverage all they have to offer, therefore, is a must-have for leaders” (Ibarra and Hansen 2011:71).

In recent years with the financial downturn, the European debt crisis and rise China and other emerging markets the global economy is facing new changes and upgrades. Innovative thinking and encouraging creativity with entrepreneurial spirit becomes the key to improving competitiveness. A team is also a group under the same goals work for the organization by support each other in short-term and long-term collaboration (Heathfield 2013).

The recently research shows that the big organisation usually has more diversity. Although there might have some conflicts, the divers team work still has more productive and creative compare with others. If the leaders could create a nice work environment for them, they can work effectively and very well (Saitharn, K. 2013). Barton (2003) has stated that diverse team work could provide effectively communicate for their customer. He also mentioned that diverse team usually can offer better result.(Barton H, Jack A, and Hideo Owan, 2003)

In the increasingly fierce competition in the market environment, customer service has become one of the advantages of enterprise widening differences with competitors. Companies are battling for the highest place in the market and must not ignore the importance of customer service.

As consumers have become more diversified, organizations have tried to understand the needs of consumers as they call in to call centres, growing a need for different departments each with different trained staff with different skills.

With years of industrial development, the customer service model has produced many different variations for each stage, while playing an important role in the organizational structure of the enterprise.

These diverse teams with different training and skills becomes vital in any industry, for example, if the first line customer service staff can not handle the problem, they will transfer to another agent to deal with that specific service person responsible to help the customer.

As the customers wants, needs and requests are always different, having a diverse team with different skills helps, while customer satisfaction will increase with the professionalism and ability of the company and ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty.

According to Tuckmen model (2005) has pointed out how to develop the team in five stages, forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. These stages are most commonly used framework for a team’s stages of development. Each stage of team development has its own recognizable feelings and behaviors. Team members will work as a group also care about each other or support each other. This would be a main point in a diverse teams.

In the cosmetics marketing industry where beauty and image is very important there are many different types of consumers with different needs.

 

As the cosmetics industry emphasizes on the beauty, marketing emphasizes creativity and free-thinking. Understanding how to satisfy all these different customers is a major challenge for the cosmetics industry, as they want to hear the voices of their consumers so the company must accept differences and make sure they encourage diversified thinking with staff with a right mix of different talents.

 

According to the L’OREAL’s human resource’s statistical analysis about the ability of their employees. The results shows that the employees who have graduated from top universities and have organizational and digital concept skills, usually make better leaders when they work in a team, however may lack creativity. In contrast, employees who have graduated from secondary colleges or universities, their creativity and aesthetic performance ability are better while being able to bring out ideas for the team.

 

Many MBA students from Taiwan may think that if they study abroad and have good command of the English language will walk into a good job , however L’OREAL likes to hire a much wider range of staff with a good mix of different qualities, views and ideas that may stimulate thought and ideas in the work place.

LANCOME like to encourage diversification of thinking about how to re- shape the makeup brand. LANCOME’s brand manager has MBA background, the public relations manager and assistant manager in charge of the business, one has graduated from the drama department another one has graduated from media communications. The manager responsible for training the Beauty Consultants has an MBA in mechanical engineering .

To improve the diversity of talent, L’OREAL wanted ” from the male’s point of view of women ‘s make-up.” So L’OREAL employed more males to join their marketing team. The public relations assistant manager Vincent is one example, his major was drama Department and Vincent said he was not very confident when he was at the interview because of his academic background. However was happily surprised when L’OREAL choose to hire him.

 

Vincent brought the concept of drama into LANCOME’s brand marketing using theater to create a press conference and he also wrote the script and designed the scene into a theater venue. This was a new concept for LANCOME.

 

The Education Manager in the LANCOME team Runny who has come from a mechanical engineering background is very different from Vincent, and has a straight personality, he asks for the exact nature of science and engineering into the training of their Beauty Consultants to develop a high-quality LANCOME Beauty Consultants team. So though very different Runny and Vincent complement each other in their different roles within LANCOME.

 

It seems that a company is better to hire employees with different backgrounds with different strengths to make a team, have the ability to attract a variety of consumer groups and the language they used will be more businesslike.

Moreover, a team leader is very important to be able to accommodate every team members to open discussion.

 

In conclusion, though LANCOME has a long traditional history, in order to inject new thinking, to keep up with new trends and also to understand their different consumers, they embraced the differences in people and their ideas with modern thinking and innovation.

 

Reference:

1. Jia-Yin, Wu. (2003). Diverse thinking. Available: http://media.career.com.tw/%5Cepaper%5Cpaperfile%5Ctrend%5C%A6h%A4%B8%A4%C6%AB%E4%A6%D2%A1%D7%C4A%C2%D0%A6%A8%B3W%AA%BA%B2%A7%BD%E8%B3%D0%B7N.htm. Last accessed 15th Feb 2014.

2. Saitharn, K. (2013), Strategy in the organisation research, available from http://www.stou.ac.th/Schools/Shs/upload/%2012%20ชุ%2058708.pdf viewed 10 February 2014

3. Smith, M. K. (2005), Bruce W. Tuckman forming, storming, norming and performing in groups, Available:

http://infed.org/mobi/bruce-w-tuckman-forming-storming-norming-and-performing-in-groups/. Last accessed 15th Feb. 2014