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Level 7 Diploma in Management Studies Advanced Professional Development Level 7 Diploma in Management Studies Advanced Professional Development Contents Introduction5 Part 1 – Methods to Improve Personal and Professional Skills7 Management Development Techniques7 Coaching12 Mentoring15 Counseling 17 Stress Management19 Leadership24 Management Styles30 Professional Bodies 35 Chairing Meetings36 Effective Presentations38 Time Management43 Problem Solving46 Mind Maps49 Drill Down52 Decision Trees54 Thinking Hats60 Cost Benefit Analysis65 Part 2 – Personal Skills Audit69
Interpersonal Skills70 Multi-tasking 73 Learning Styles77 Basic Management Skills Audit95 Assignment 197 Assignment 2103 Advanced Professional Development Introduction This Level 7 Diploma in Management Studies Unit is based around your own work. The first management skill is the ability to manage yourself. This means recognising what you are good at, as well as your weaknesses. By taking an objective and systematic approach to developing your own management skills, you can then manage other people and work systems in a professional manner.
The Study Pack is comprised mainly of models for evaluating methods to improve personal skills, and to audit, plan and develop your own approach to management. They do not represent things that you have to do to complete the Unit, but avenues of self-development that you should consider when evaluating your own strengths and weaknesses and formulating a development plan. There are two assignments: The first asks you to explore and evaluate methods that could be used to improve management skills. It then asks you to carry out an audit of your own management skills and create a personal development plan
The second should completed after an appropriate time period; it asks you to monitor and evaluate the implementation of your development plan Suggested Reading Bailey K et alPursuing Professional Development Heinle & Heinle 2000 Earley P and Bubb S Leading and managing Continuing Professional Development Paul Chapman Publications 2004 Mumford and Gold Managing development CIPD 2004 Megginson – Continuing Professional Development CIPD 2003 Journals Management Today Chartered Institute of Management People Management Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
Websites CIPDwww. cipd. co. uk www. peoplemanagement. co. uk CMI www. managers. org. uk Assessment The Assignments are graded at Pass or Fail; there are no intermediate grades such as Merit or Distinction. The assessment is based on the outcomes stated on the front of each assignment, and the assignment tasks are worded to enable you to meet these outcomes. Part 1 – Methods to improve personal and Professional skills Management development techniques The techniques used for management development are varied. Each of the techniques summarised below is a subject in itself.
The list follows the distinction between work-based methods and formal training and education, although clearly there are links between them (for example, an individual may need to take a training course before being given additional responsibilities, and most management education courses include projects in which the student draws on experience at work or seeks to solve problems there). Although people skills are a key element of management, formal training interventions are rarely good at producing improvements in inter-personal behaviour. Work-based methods appear to be most effective here and in some other areas.
For this reason, they are listed first. Work-based methods: Competencies One of the outcomes of the concerns of the 1980s was the establishment of the Management Charter Initiative (MCI), which went on to produce occupational standards for managers. Although they have been criticised, these standards provide a specification of competencies, or abilities, which it is argued that managers in various roles and levels require. They can thus provide a starting point for determining development needs and for designing development programmes. Qualifications have been developed using this framework, which requires evidence of competence at work.
Many organisations have developed their own competence frameworks. Action learning Most people learn best by doing. If that process can be structured, so much the better. Action learning sets help to achieve this by making making managers focus on solving live issues in their normal working environments by trying out different approaches, with discussion and support from colleagues to help them reflect on their impact. Project working Increasingly, managers work in cross-functional teams, exposing them to different functions and enabling them to learn about different aspects of the organisation and ways of doing things.
Putting people on such teams is one way of broadening their experience and effectiveness. Secondments Taking a role in another organisation through secondments for a year or two – or sometimes, in the case of senior people, non-executive directorships – is another way of broadening experience. Appraisal Since the 1970s, many organisations have operated appraisals, in which an individual’s manager regularly – usually annually – records performance, potential and development needs in a top-down process.
Many of these systems have evolved into a more rounded process known as performance and development review meetings, in which the dialogue is more open and two-way (indeed, the person being reviewed should do most of the talking), enabling those involved to reflect on past performance as a basis for making development plans. The key difference between the traditional appraisal and the development review is that the former concentrates on performance, with development as something of an after-thought, while in the development review the main focus should be on the development of the individual.
Development centres The purpose of development centres (sometimes known as assessment centres) is to focus on opportunities for personal development, and to gauge potential and help make selections for promotion. Although they take place off the job, they include work-related activities and group work, as well as counselling and psychometric assessments, so they can be included under the heading of work-based methods. They are expensive to run, so are mainly for large organisations. 360-degree feedback
Appraisals and even performance and development reviews can be perceived as subjective and over-dependent on the views of the person doing the reviewing. The process of 360-degree feedback seeks views from a range of relevant viewpoints – peers, superiors and subordinates, and sometimes even outsiders like customers and suppliers – based on a framework of competencies. The aim is that the process will provide a more accurate assessment than a review from one individual and point to areas where development (or even simply behavioural change) is needed.
Succession planning Succession planning is a process by which one or more successors are identified for key posts (or groups of similar key posts), and career moves and/or development activities are planned for these successors. It usually covers only the most senior jobs in organisations, plus short-term and longer-term successors for these posts. The latter group are in effect on a fast-track, and are developed through job moves within various parts of the organisation.
This focus on the most senior posts – perhaps the top two or three levels of management – means that even in large organisations, usually only a few hundred people at any given time will be subject to the succession planning process Formal training courses In large organisations especially, formal training is given in the shape of courses, particularly at key transition points such as first management jobs and as preludes to promotion. Their content will vary according to the organisation and the role the individual is to fill, but in the private sector finance and business strategy is a key component.
Change management appears to be increasingly popular. In the past, such training tended to be delivered as long, single residential courses, but increasingly they are delivered in modules, with work-based projects and maybe coaching and mentoring in between. This is not only because it is easier to spare people from work for short periods but because there is growing recognition that people learn best in ‘chunks’, supporting the theoretical knowledge learned in courses with practical experience.
Such training might be delivered by in-house training specialists, by business schools, by large training consultancies, by individual freelance trainers, or by any combination of these. Outdoor development is sometimes used for team building purposes, while in-house providers or external deliverers can provide ‘one-off’ training to fill particular gaps which might be identified because of organisational needs or through the review and one-to-one processes mentioned above. An important aspect of getting people together away from the workplace is that hey can exchange ideas outside the classroom, while meeting people from elsewhere in the organisation helps in corporate networking. Increasingly, organisations are seeking to supplement traditional courses by e-learning, which is the use of computers to deliver training, often delivered through corporate intranets. It provides large populations with the same material, and access is flexible so that people can learn in their own time. Against this, e-learning does not appeal to everyone, and it works better for ‘hard’ knowledge than softer skills like communication or leadership.
But mixed with other forms of learning (as ‘blended learning’), it can be a valuable tool. Management education One of the most significant features of the past 20 years in the UK has been the growth in management education at university level. From just two business schools at the beginning of the 1970s, there are now over one hundred higher education institutions offering undergraduate and postgraduate courses, with about 20,000 first degrees and 11,000 higher degrees – mainly MBAs – awarded every year.
Over 80 per cent of MBAs are awarded from distance learning or part-time study. Some of these MBA graduates will be sponsored by their employers, but others will have decided to study for themselves as part of their own programme of career development. Some companies have what they call ‘corporate universities’ for the delivery of management education and seek to accredit the majority of their programmes so that learners can go away with a qualification.
With the growth of MBAs has come a similar increase in the number of people taking the Certificate in Management and the Diploma in Management Studies at a lower level, while about 20,000 people a year take the NEBS qualification for supervisors. Leading from the top Management is not an exact science. Despite what some of the literature may suggest, most management activity is unstructured, unplanned and uncoordinated. This always needs to be borne in mind by those who plan management development, as does the fact that not all managers are receptive to learning.
Methods that work in one organisation may not work in another, and management development can be undermined by short-term ‘faddism’. But in any organisation, successful management development will not take place unless the lead comes from the top, and the chief executive and directors not only give support but are seen to be continuously learning themselves. Line managers need to be trained and rewarded for their contribution towards developing their people. Management development is not a quick fix but a continuing process at all levels. Self Development – Improving Management Skills
There are several other ways in which management development can be fostered; some involve the intervention of other people, and some centre on individuals using techniques that help to clarify and develop their own management behaviour. Some of the most important are examined in the sections which follow. Counselling and Mentoring Coaching Coaching is an increasingly popular tool for supporting personal development. Almost eight out of ten respondents in the CIPD Learning and development survey 2006 reported that they now use coaching in their organisations.
Of these four fifths say that their organisation is seeking to develop a coaching culture. Although coaching has become a very widespread development tool, there are issues about how best to manage and deliver it in an organisational setting. These include confusion over exactly what coaching is, how best to manage the stakeholders in coaching, when coaching is, and is not, an appropriate intervention and how to work effectively with a complex coaching industry. What is coaching? There is some confusion about what exactly coaching is, and how it differs from other ‘helping behaviours’ such as counselling and mentoring.
Broadly speaking, coaching is ‘developing a person’s skills and knowledge so that their job performance improves, hopefully leading to the achievement of organisational objectives. It targets high performance and improvement at work, although it may also have an impact on an individual’s private life. It usually lasts for a short period and focuses on specific skills and goals. ‘ (CIPD) Although there is a lack of agreement among coaching professionals about precise definitions, these are some generally agreed characteristics of coaching in organisations: It is essentially a non-directive form of development.
It focuses on improving performance and developing individuals’ skills. Personal issues may be discussed but the emphasis is on performance at work. It can be difficult to distinguish between coaching, mentoring and counselling. In practice, ‘mentoring’ for example is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘coaching’. Traditionally, however, mentoring in the workplace has tended to describe a relationship in which a more experienced colleague used their greater knowledge and understanding of the work or workplace to support the development of a more junior or inexperienced member of staff.
Similarly, it can be hard to draw a clear distinction between coaching and counselling, not least because many of the theoretical underpinnings of coaching are drawn from the worlds of counselling and therapy. For the purpose of managing coaching the key distinction to be drawn is that coaching is for those who are psychologically well; a coach should be able to recognise where an individual is so distressed by personal or social issues that he or she needs to be referred to specialist counselling or other support. Developing a coaching culture
Clutterbuck and Megginson describe a coaching culture as one where ‘coaching is the predominant style of managing and working together and where commitment to improving the organisation is embedded in a parallel commitment to improving the people’. Coaching services are delivered by: external coaches, full-time and part-time internal coaches who may be line managers, or members of the HR department. Megginson and Clutterbuck have argued that it is helpful to enable internal and external coaches to share supervision arrangements and to have opportunities to discuss coaching generally.
This enables external coaches to get a better understanding of the organisation and also enables them to share their perspectives on what is happening within the organisation. Coaching supervision The primary relationship in any coaching activity is between the coach and the individual, but this is not the only important relationship. Other key stakeholders include the person representing the organisation’s interests – most frequently an HR practitioner and the individual’s manager. Both of these parties are interested in improving the individual’s performance and therefore their contribution to the organisation.
The four-cornered contract [pic] In situations where the manager is the coach, the other stakeholders are depicted by the central triangle of relationships. It is very important to establish guidelines on confidentiality and information flow early on to develop trust between the individual and coach, and the other multiple stakeholders. When is coaching the best development intervention? The first step will be the identification of some kind of learning or development need, either by the individual themselves, their line manager or some one from the HR department.
Once this has been identified, the next step is for the manager and the individual to decide how best the need can be met. [pic] Some examples of situations where coaching is a suitable development tool include: • helping competent technical experts develop better interpersonal or managerial skills • developing an individual’s potential and providing career support • developing a more strategic perspective after a promotion to a more senior role It is important to remember that here are some individuals who may not respond well to coaching.
This may be because their needs are best dealt with by another type of intervention, or it may be because their attitude may interfere with the effectiveness of coaching. So before coaching is begun, organisations need to assess an individual’s ‘readiness’. Mentoring Coaching and Mentoring share many similarities so it makes sense to outline the common things coaches and mentors do: • Facilitate the exploration of needs, motivations, desires, skills and thought processes to assist the individual in making real, lasting change. Use questioning techniques to facilitate client’s own thought processes in order to identify solutions and actions rather than takes a wholly directive approach • Support the client in setting appropriate goals and methods of assessing progress in relation to these goals • Observe, listen and ask questions to understand the client’s situation • Creatively apply tools and techniques which may include one-to-one training, facilitating, counselling & networking. • Encourage a commitment to action and the development of lasting personal growth & change. Maintain unconditional positive regard for the client, which means that the coach is at all times supportive and non-judgemental of the client, their views, lifestyle and aspirations. • Ensure that clients develop personal competencies and do not develop unhealthy dependencies on the coaching or mentoring relationship. • Evaluate the outcomes of the process, using objective measures wherever possible to ensure the relationship is successful and the client is achieving their personal goals. • Encourage clients to continually improve competencies and to develop new developmental alliances where necessary to achieve their goals. Work within their area of personal competence. How is mentoring different to coaching? Mentoring is a relationship in which learning and experimentation can occur, potential skills can be developed, and in which results can be measured in terms of competencies gained rather than curricular territory covered; it is a relationship rather than an activity. Mentors maintain a genuine interest in at least one other persons’ continued development. The advantage of mentoring over other forms of development activity is that it when it works well, it focuses on real learning needs on a specific and personal level.
A deep irony is that often, the more organised and structured we make mentoring, the less likely it is to really work. Thus, even the best intentioned efforts to make mentoring work, can founder as it will have it’s most positive effect when it evolves naturally, often without consciously considering mentoring is happening at all. Who are the mentors? Mentoring, like management, is a function, not a title – we earn the label by our deeds, and not just what we call ourselves. Mentor competencies: • Does not blame – stays neutral. • Will give honest answers. • Not intimidating – easy to approach at any time. Knows what they are talking about – good at own job. • Actively questions. • Enabling, caring, open and facilitative. • Gives constructive and positive feedback. • Provides subtle guidance, but does not take decisions. • Interested, genuine concern. • Willing to debate, argue, discuss. Mentors worthy of the title somehow get the balance right between over and under helping, and do this deliberately. Thus a mentor will know when they are providing more guidance than they “should” and will do this only when it prevents the mentee from floundering, or becoming needlessly frustrated.
That said, the most competent mentors know when to “under” help, to avoid unhealthy dependence upon them, and when best to allow the mentees to find their own way. It is possible to develop mentor competence, but only with those who possess a platform of existing or potential interpersonal skills that provides the basis for further development. Thus mentors have to possess a real interest in others, and specifically in their development and learning. This is crucial, as it is this that drives their ability to put the issues and concerns of their mentees ahead of the other things.
The mentors’ role is essentially to accelerate the rate at which a person learns. Counselling Counselling is NOT in Your Job Description The above applies to most managers. It is not your job to be a therapist to your team members. Spending your time dealing with people problems has its limits. Although we have all had to deal with unexpected emotions like tears, silence or outright anger, it really should not be part of your duties. What is in the Mentors/Manager’s job description is having the ability and insight to know when to leave it to the pros.
Because Mentoring is becoming a large part of our contemporary business culture, many consultants have added Executive Coaching to their repertoire. In addition, numerous psychotherapists (most with no business experience) have also become “Executive Coaches”. Where Mentoring and Coaching are similar to each other, counselling is a completely different line of work. It involves dealing with people’s emotions and helping to heal their neurosis. Just because someone calls himself or herself a coach, does not mean that they have the ability to counsel.
Before you refer someone to counselling, make sure that the person they see has some training in psychology. Mentoring is not Counselling Being a Mentor means setting an example, listening to your team members, discussing their issues, and giving them leadership. Sometimes this means challenging them. A trained counsellor, on the other hand, understands that if you challenge someone who is emotionally vulnerable or unstable, they may breakdown right in front of you, a counsellor is prepared and educated for that. In addition, they are cautious about challenging someone who is very angry or unable to articulate their thoughts.
This is a possible sign of instability. This is why it’s so important to understand the risks of counselling, and why a Mentor needs to stay within certain boundaries. If someone comes to their Mentor with a work related issue, which may involve communication problems with a co-worker, it falls under a Mentor/Manager’s job description to help them resolve the issue. If a staff member is asking for help with a domestic issue, a substance abuse problem, or controlling their anger, they should be referred to a counsellor, or to your organisation’s EAP (Employee Assistance Program), if you have one.
If a Mentor or Manager tries to deal with highly charged emotional issues, they could be putting themselves and the company at risk. They could also give inappropriate advice to the staff member and cause them personal harm. Determining the Objectives When a team member comes to you with an issue that you think may cross the personal/professional line, you must first determine their goal in bringing the issue to you. Do they just want to unload – to have someone listen to them? Do they need your help in dealing with a co-worker? Are they looking for advice or in need of counselling?
Asking them directly what their objectives are can save both of you time and energy, not to mention grief. Once you (and they) understand their needs, you can decide if this is an issue you are comfortable dealing with. If you are not comfortable, you need to be honest and direct them to someone who can help them deal with the issue. Don’t just ignore it, it’s part of your responsibility as a Mentor to help them locate assistance. Responsibility and Benefits Be careful not to fall into the Father/Mother confessor trap. Sometimes it is tempting to want to be the all-knowing Mentor and take on problems that you on’t have the training to deal with. Mentors like to be helpful, it’s part of what motivates them to take on the role. Sometimes Mentors don’t want to admit that they may be in over their heads, and will continue to try to help a staff member without realizing they haven’t got the skills. This isn’t helpful to anyone, and it can result in actually making the problem worse. Mentors have a responsibility to the people who come to them for guidance. This responsibility is one of the benefits of being a mentor; it makes them better leaders. Understanding boundaries and limitations gives the Mentor a greater ability to help others.
It also allows them to grow personally and professionally. Stress Management A lot of research has been conducted into stress over the last hundred years. Some of the theories behind it are now settled and accepted; others are still being researched and debated. During this time, there seems to have been something approaching open warfare between competing theories and definitions: Views have been passionately held and aggressively defended. What complicates this is that intuitively we all feel that we know what stress is, as it is something we have all experienced.
A definition should therefore be obvious…except that it is not. Hans Selye was one of the founding fathers of stress research. His view in 1956 was that “stress is not necessarily something bad – it all depends on how you take it. The stress of exhilarating, creative successful work is beneficial, while that of failure, humiliation or infection is detrimental. ” Selye believed that the biochemical effects of stress would be experienced irrespective of whether the situation was positive or negative. Since then, a great deal of further research has been conducted, and ideas have moved on.
Stress is now viewed as a “bad thing”, with a range of harmful biochemical and long-term effects. These effects have rarely been observed in positive situations. The most commonly accepted definition of stress (mainly attributed to Richard S Lazarus) is that : “stress is a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize. ” This is the main definition used, although we also recognize that there is an intertwined instinctive stress response to unexpected events.
The stress response inside us is therefore part instinct and part to do with the way we think. Fight-or-Flight Some of the early research on stress (conducted by Walter Cannon in 1932) established the existence of the well-known “fight-or-flight” response. His work showed that when an organism experiences a shock or perceives a threat, it quickly releases hormones that help it to survive. In humans, as in other animals, these hormones help us to run faster and fight harder. They increase heart rate and blood pressure, delivering more oxygen and blood sugar to power important muscles.
They increase sweating in an effort to cool these muscles, and help them stay efficient. They divert blood away from the skin to the core of our bodies, reducing blood loss if we are damaged. As well as this, these hormones focus our attention on the threat, to the exclusion of everything else. All of this significantly improves our ability to survive life-threatening events. Not only life-threatening events trigger this reaction: We experience it almost any time we come across something unexpected or something that frustrates our goals.
When the threat is small, our response is small and we often do not notice it among the many other distractions of a stressful situation. Unfortunately, this mobilization of the body for survival also has negative consequences. In this state, we are excitable, anxious, jumpy and irritable. This actually reduces our ability to work effectively with other people. With trembling and a pounding heart, we can find it difficult to execute precise, controlled skills. The intensity of our focus on survival interferes with our ability to make fine judgments by drawing information from many sources.
We find ourselves more accident-prone and less able to make good decisions. There are very few situations in modern working life where this response is useful. Most situations benefit from a calm, rational, controlled and socially sensitive approach. In the short term, we need to keep this fight-or-flight response under control to be effective in our jobs. In the long term we need to keep it under control to avoid problems of poor health and burnout. There are very many proven skills that we can use to manage stress. These help us to remain calm and effective in high pressure situations, and help us avoid the problems of long term stress.
These skills fall into three main groups: Action-oriented skills: In which we seek to confront the problem causing the stress, often changing the environment or the situation; Emotionally-oriented skills: In which we do not have the power to change the situation, but we can manage stress by changing our interpretation of the situation and the way we feel about it; Acceptance-oriented skills: Where something has happened over which we have no power and no emotional control, and where our focus must be on surviving the stress. Identifying sources of short-term stress
Stress Diaries are important for understanding the causes of short-term stress in your life. They also give you an important insight into how you react to stress, and help you to identify the level of stress at which you prefer to operate. The idea behind Stress Diaries is that, on a regular basis, you record information about the stresses you are experiencing, so that you can analyse these stresses and then manage them. This is important because often these stresses flit in and out of our minds without getting the attention and focus that they deserve.
As well as helping you capture and analyse the most common sources of stress in your life, Stress Diaries help you to understand: • The causes of stress in more detail; • The levels of stress at which you operate most efficiently; and • How you react to stress, and whether your reactions are appropriate and useful. Stress Diaries, therefore, give you the important information that you need to manage stress. Using the Tool: Stress Diaries are useful in that they gather information regularly and routinely, over a period of time.
This helps you to separate the common, routine stresses from those that only occur occasionally. They establish a pattern that you can analyse to extract the information that you need. Also make an entry in your diary after each incident that is stressful enough for you to feel that it is significant. Every time you make an entry, record the following information: • The date and time of the entry. • The most recent stressful event you have experienced. • How happy you feel now, using a subjective assessment on a scale of -10 (the most unhappy you have ever been) to +10 (the happiest you have been).
As well as this, write down the mood you are feeling. • How efficiently you are working now (a subjective assessment, on a scale of 0 to 10). A 0 here would show complete inefficiency, while a 10 would show the greatest efficiency you have ever achieved. • The fundamental cause of the stress (being as honest and objective as possible). You may also want to note: • How stressed you feel now, again on a subjective scale of 0 to 10. As before, 0 here would be the most relaxed you have ever been, while 10 would show the greatest stress you have ever experienced. The symptom you felt (e. g. “butterflies in your stomach”, anger, headache, raised pulse rate, sweaty palms, etc. ). • How well you handled the event: Did your reaction help solve the problem, or did it inflame it? You will reap the real benefits of having a stress diary in the first few weeks. After this, the benefit you get will reduce each additional day. If, however, your lifestyle changes, or you begin to suffer from stress again in the future, then it may be worth using the diary approach again. You will probably find that the stresses you face have changed.
If this is the case, then keeping a diary again will help you to develop a different approach to deal with them. Analysing the Diary Analyse the diary in the following ways: First, look at the different stresses you experienced during the time you kept your diary. List the types of stress that you experienced by frequency, with the most frequent stresses at the top of the list. Next, prepare a second list with the most unpleasant stresses at the top of the list and the least unpleasant at the bottom. Looking at your lists of stresses, those at the top of each list are the most important for you to learn to control.
Working through the stresses, look at your assessments of their underlying causes, and your appraisal of how well you handled the stressful event. Do these show you areas where you handled stress poorly, and could improve your stress management skills? If so, list these. Next, look through your diary at the situations that cause you stress. List these. Finally, look at how you felt when you were under stress. Look at how it affected your happiness and your efficiency, understand how you behaved, and think about how you felt.
Having analysed your diary, you should fully understand what the most important and frequent sources of stress are in your life. You should appreciate the levels of stress at which you are happiest. You should also know the sort of situations that cause you stress so that you can prepare for them and manage them well. As well as this, you should now understand how you react to stress, and the symptoms that you show when you are stressed. When you experience these symptoms in the future, this should be a trigger for you to use appropriate stress management techniques.
Summary Stress Diaries help you to get a good understanding of the routine, short-term stresses that you experience in your life. They help you to identify the most important, and most frequent, stresses that you experience, so that you can concentrate your efforts on these. They also help you to identify areas where you need to improve your stress management skills, and help you to understand the levels of stress at which you are happiest, and most efficient. Leadership – theories and styles Leadership can be defined as encouraging and inspiring others to give their best.
To do this a leader must: • Gain commitment and co-operation • Get things moving so that plans become action • Make the best use of the talent available The armed forces are an area where leadership is particularly important. Most military experts agree that leaders can be trained and that leadership is not a quality that people are born with. John Adair was a military trainer at Sandhurst and has taken his leadership training ideas into the private sector. John Adair – Action Centred Leadership Adair claims that leaders must perform 3 functions all at the same time: Task Functions |They must constantly work | | |towards clear objectives | |Group Functions |They must maintain an effective team | | | | |Individual Functions |They must fully utilise each person’s | | |potential | In the diagram above, the leader’s functions are meeting the needs of the 3 areas of responsibility. Adair claims that this will ensure effective leadership. If one area is neglected, the leaders performance will be impaired. The following diagram illustrates this. In the example shown, the leader is devoting attention to maintaining team spirit and focussing on the objectives of the task, but is failing to look after each individual.
Individuals with problems or complaints will adversely affect the leader’s overall performance. In the same way if the task function is ignored, the leader will have happy individuals, high team spirit, but will fail to meet objectives. Leadership, like management, can be performed in a variety of ways. Lippitt and White are typical of many researchers who have identified a range of leadership styles: | | | |Authoritarian |A leader who takes all decisions and expects staff to obey without question. | | | |Persuasive |A leader who takes all decisions and then seeks to persuade staff that they are correct. | | | | |Consultative |A leader who listens to staff views before announcing any decisions. | | | | |Democratic |A leader who presents a problem to staff and then carries out their decisions. | | | |Laissez Faire |A leader who makes no decisions and does not | | |help staff to make them themselves. | Lippitt and White do not recommend any of these as being “correct”. For example, the Laissez Faire style may be appropriate in a college or research institute, but probably not in a prison. Tannenbaum and Schmidt These researchers have developed Lippett and White’s ideas into a diagrammatic model. The “continuum of leadership styles” shows that leaders have to choose how much freedom they will give to their subordinates.
They do not advocate a “correct” style, but stress that the adoption of a style should be a conscious decision, based on the nature of the task and the value of team member’s experience. 123456 7 The model describes leadership styles in a similar fashion to Lippett and White, but identifies seven distinct ‘styles’. The last two models do not appear to help us to become better leaders in the same way that the Adair model does, but they are a development of it. They offer choices of management style, rather than recommendations. The Adair principles still hold true in all of the seven situations above. The authoritarian leader needs to pay attention to the task, the team and the individuals just as much as the democratic leader. Adair is concerned with what leaders have to do, rather than how they do it.
What makes managers better at their jobs is choosing the right application of the theory to the right situation. Transactional Leadership This style of leadership starts with the idea that team members agree to obey their leader totally when they take on a job: the “transaction” is (usually) that the organization pays the team members in return for their effort and compliance. You have a right to “punish” the team members if their work doesn’t meet the pre-determined standard. Team members can do little to improve their job satisfaction under transactional leadership. The leader could give team members some control of their income/reward by using incentives that encourage even higher standards or greater productivity.
Alternatively a transactional leader could practice “management by exception”, whereby, rather than rewarding better work, he or she would take corrective action if the required standards were not met. Transactional leadership is really just a way of managing rather a true leadership style as the focus is on short-term tasks. It has serious limitations for knowledge-based or creative work, but remains a common style in many organizations. Transformational Leadership A person with this leadership style is a true leader who inspires his or her team constantly with a shared vision of the future. Transformational leaders are highly visible, and spend a lot of time communicating. They don’t necessarily lead from the front, as they tend to delegate responsibility amongst their team.
While their enthusiasm is often infectious, they generally need to be supported by “details people”. In many organizations, both transactional and transformational leadership are needed. The transactional leaders (or managers) ensure that routine work is done reliably, while the transformational leaders look after initiatives that add value. Management styles Contingency Theory Some of those who saw the limitations of the human relations school in the1930s began to develop more sophisticated approaches in the 1940s and 1950s. The first ideas were called Systems Theory. These writers saw the organisation as a complex organism made up of interacting parts.
The ‘system’ reacts both to changes within itself, and external changes. . The systems theorists suggested, for the first time, that there was not one ‘right’ method of management, but that management should change as the situation demands. The main contribution of systems theory was that it emphasised the need for managers to plan ahead and predict when changes in management were necessary. By the 1960s systems theory had given birth to contingency theory. Here, the variables involved in a management situation were reduced to those most relevant to the situation. Burns and Stalker belong to this school of thought, as does Frederick Fiedler; the best known of the contingency theorists.
Fiedler set out to identify the characteristics that would lead to cohesiveness and a team approach between workers and manager – he called it the level of situational control.. He saw this as being created through a match between a manager’s style of leadership and a given situation. Fiedler’s research findings were that manager’s effectiveness depends on: • The manager’s position (how powerful they are) • The managers personal relationship with the work group • The extent to which the task is structured (clear goals, limited ways of achieving the task, easy to measure success) Exercise Contingency Theory Fiedler identified three clearly different situations: |Situation 1 |Situation 2 |Situation 3 | |Structured Task Unstructured Task |Unstructured Task | |High Manager Power |Low Manager Power |Low manager Power | |Good Relationship |Good/Moderate |Poor Relationship | |with workers |working relationship |with workers | Which of the management styles below is the best match in each case? |There is a lot of uncertainty here. A |The manager needs |The manager can be task-centred.
The | |people centred |to develop good relationships and |task is structured and working | |manager will be seen as weak and a human |concentrate on |relationships are good, there is no need | |relations policy will |human relations. The unstructured task |to develop | |not work. The only option is to |will need teamwork and |human relations or people skills. | |be task centred. |the elimination of | | | |conflict. | | Exercise Answer Situation 1 |Situation 2 |Situation 3 | |Structured Task |Unstructured Task |Unstructured Task | |High Manager Power |Low Manager Power |Low manager Power | |Good Relationship |Good/Moderate |Poor Relationship | | |Relationship | | |The manager can be task-centred. The |The manager needs |There is a lot of uncertainty here. A | |task is structured and working |to develop good relationships and |people centred | |relationships are good, there is no need |concentrate on |manager will be seen as weak, and a human| |to develop |human relations. The unstructured task |relations policy will | |human relations or people skills. |will need teamwork and |not work.
The only option is to | | |the elimination of |be task centred. | | |conflict. | | Fiedler’s view was that the situation was more likely to change than the manager’s style, a view challenged by those who studied it. Contingency theory has, in turn, given birth to Normative Theory. Here writers such as Vroom and Yetton argue that it is up to managers to change their style according to the situations; being task centred where decisions do not have a big impact on the workgroup, and people-centred when decisions have a big effect on people. What do Managers Do?
This is a broad question and is difficult to answer. Manager’s jobs usually exist because the owners of an organisation do not take part in running it and need someone to make sure that the objectives of the organisation are met. This applies to both the public and private sectors; taxpayers and politicians do not want to run the National Health Service (although they play a role in setting its objectives). Shareholders own large companies, but they do not run them. Managers have to achieve things through other people. What they achieve should meet the objectives of the owners, but will involve setting goals and creating strategies to meet those objectives. We can divide managers into
Senior Managers, who decide the strategic objectives, and Junior Managers who implement the strategy, often by setting departmental objectives that contribute towards those of the organisation. The contributions of writers from the whole of the twentieth century are relevant. Henri Fayol was already an old man when he produced his important work before the First World War. Peter Drucker changed management thinking in the 1940s and 1950s. Henry Mintzberg is still challenging established management thinking in the twenty first century. Henri Fayol The first writer to attempt an analysis of what managers do was Fayol (1841-1925). Working in France at the beginning of the twentieth century he categorised the varied functions of managers into what he called “elements of management”.
Unlike Taylor he was not just interested in factory production workers, but the “universality of management” as it applied to all types of work. Fayol’s work is still relevant today, and we can recognise his five Elements of Management: |Planning |Setting the objectives, and the strategies, policies | | |and procedures for achieving them. | |Organising |Setting tasks that need to be carried out to achieve | | |the objectives. The tasks are grouped for individuals or departments, and authority is delegated | | |to those responsible for the tasks. |Commanding |Giving instructions to those who will carry out the | | |tasks. | |Co-ordinating |Harmonising the activities of different groups in | | |order to ensure a common approach to meeting the goals of the organisation. | |Controlling |Measuring and correcting the performance of individuals and groups to ensure that it fits in with | | |plans | Fayol’s work was not published in America until 1949. It had a big impact on the teaching of management and he is known there as “The father of modern management theory”. Peter Drucker
In the 1950s Drucker popularised the idea of “Management By Objectives” (MBO). His work is a development of Fayol’s ideas. His five categories of “Management Operations” are: |Setting Objectives |Senior Managers organise the objectives of the organisation into targets. These | | |are communicated to Junior Managers. | |Organising |The work must be divided into manageable activities and jobs. | |Motivating |Communicating and creating the conditions | | |in which the targets can be met. |Measurement |Compare actual performance with targets | | |and explain the significance of their findings. | |Development |Managers should enable people to use their talents | Drucker gave the objective-setting aspects of the job a harder edge by introducing the concept of measurable targets. These ideas were further developed in the late 20th Century when Performance Related Pay (PRP) linked pay to the meeting of targets. Drucker also promoted the human relations aspect by emphasising communication and the development of people. Continuing self development Professional bodies
Professional bodies are industry sector associations that exist for a variety of reasons – all of them positive for their members. Some, such as the Chartered Management Institute, exist to increase the professional standing of their members and to promote the job that they do as a “profession”. Others, such as Accountancy and Medical bodies, function partly to restrict the flow of entrants into a profession, and thus secure high incomes for the few who are admitted. Examples of Professional Bodies include: Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Chartered Institute of Marketing Association of Chartered Certified Accountants Chartered Institute of Building Institute of Electrical Engineers
Joining professional bodies is sometimes viewed as an expensive luxury – there are always annual subscriptions to be paid. From a Professional Development viewpoint, these memberships do have value; the Journals that these organisations produce are a major source of up-to-date thinking, legal changes and developments in other organisations. Most professional bodies have levels of membership; some have an employment requirement, but most have educational routes with examinations to be passed. Some organisations will accept other qualifications already achieved in lieu of there own examinations. Completion of this DMS qualification will qualify you to join the Chartered Management Institute.
Membership of professional bodies not only tells other people about your achievements and standing, but may help to remind you to maintain your own development as a live issue. Chairing meetings While meetings are wonderful tools for generating ideas, expanding on thoughts and managing group activity, this face-to-face contact with team members and colleagues can easily fail without adequate preparation and leadership. The Importance of Preparation To ensure everyone involved has the opportunity to provide their input, start your meeting off on the right foot by scheduling a meeting time that allows all participants the time needed to adequately prepare.
Once a meeting time and place has been designated, make yourself available for questions that may arise as participants prepare for the meeting. If you are the meeting leader, make a meeting agenda, complete with detailed notes In these agenda notes, outline the goal and proposed structure of the meeting, and share this with the participants. This will allow all involved to prepare and to come to the meeting ready to work together to meet the goal(s) at hand. The success of the meeting is hinged on the skills displayed by the meeting leader. To ensure the meeting is successful, the leader should: • Generate an agenda to all involved in the meeting Start the discussion and encourage active participation • Work to keep the meeting at a comfortable pace – not moving too fast or too slow • Summarize the discussion and the recommendations at the end of each logical section • Circulate minutes to all participants While these tips will help ensure your meeting is productive and well-received, there are other important areas that need to be touched on to make sure your meeting and negotiation skills are fine-tuned and ready to take to the boardroom. Managing a Meeting Choosing the right participants is key to the success of any meeting. Make sure all participants can contribute and choose good decision-makes and problem-solvers. Try to keep the number of participants to a maximum of 12, preferably fewer. Make sure the people with the necessary information for the items listed in the meeting agenda are the ones that are invited.
If you are the leader, work to ensure everyone’s thoughts and ideas are heard by guiding the meeting so that there is a free flow of debate with no individual dominating and no extensive discussions between two people. As time dwindles for each item on the distributed agenda, you may find it useful to stop the discussion, then quickly summarize the debate on that agenda item and move on the next item on the agenda. When an agenda item is resolved or action is agreed upon, make it clear who in the meeting will be responsible for this. In an effort to bypass confusion and misunderstandings, summarize the action to be taken and include this in the meeting’s minutes. Issuing Minutes
Minutes record the decisions of the meeting and the actions agreed. They provide a record of the meeting and, importantly, they provide a review document for use at the next meeting so that progress can be measured – this makes them a useful disciplining technique as individuals’ performance and non-performance of agreed actions is given high visibility. The style of the minutes issued depends on the circumstances – in situations of critical importance and where the record is important, then you may need to take detailed minutes. Where this is not the case, then minutes can be simple lists of decisions made and of actions to be taken (with the responsible person identified).
Generally, they should be as short as possible as long as all key information is shown – this makes them quick and easy to prepare and digest. It is always impressive if the leader of a meeting issues minutes within 24 hours of the end of the meeting – it’s even better if they are issued on the same day. Effective presentations Presentation Planning Checklist Who are you speaking to? What are their interests, presuppositions and values? What do they share in common with others; how are they unique? What do you wish to communicate? One way of answering this question is to ask yourself about the ‘success criteria’. How do you know if and when you have successfully communicated what you have in mind? How can you best convey your message?
Language is important here, as are the nonverbal cues discussed earlier. Choose your words and your nonverbal cues with your audience in mind. Plan a beginning, middle and end. If time and place allow, consider and prepare audio-visual aids. When? Timing is important here. Develop a sense of timing, so that your contributions are seen and heard as relevant to the issue or matter at hand. There is a time to speak and a time to be silent. ‘It’s better to be silent than sing a bad tune. ‘ Where? What is the physical context of the communication in mind? You may have time to visit the room, for example, and rearrange the furniture. Check for availability and visibility if you are using audio or visual aids. Why?
In order to convert hearers into listeners, you need to know why they should listen to you – and tell them if necessary. What disposes them to listen? That implies that you know yourself why you are seeking to communicate – the value or worth or interest of what you are going to say. Presentation: Does your introduction grab participant’s attention and explain your objectives? Do you follow this by clearly defining the points of the presentation? Are these main points in logical sequence? Do these flow well? Do the main points need support from visual aids? Does your closing summarize the presentation clearly and concisely? Is the conclusion strong? Have your tied the conclusion to the introduction? Delivery:
Are you knowledgeable about the topic covered in your presentation? Do you have your notes in order? Where and how will you present (indoors, outdoors, standing, sitting, etc. )? Have you visited the presentation site? Have you checked your visual aids to ensure they are working and you know how to use them? Appearance: Make sure you are dressed and groomed appropriately and in keeping with the audience’s expectations. Practice your speech standing (or sitting, if applicable), paying close attention to your body language, even your posture, both of which will be assessed by the audience. Visual Aids: Are the visual aids easy to read and easy to understand?
Are they tied into the points you are trying to communicate? Can they be easily seen from all areas of the room? Speaking to an Audience Speaking to an audience can be exhilarating. However, lack of preparation or not clearly defining the presentation’s goals and its audience can make even the best-intended presentation a complete disaster. To ensure your presentation is effective, first determine your objective. Ask yourself: • Why am I giving the presentation? • What do I want the audience to take away from the presentation? Second, determine your audience. Their familiarity with the presentation topic will determine the level at which you present your speech. How to Structure Your Presentation
Once you have determined your presentation’s objective and overall goal, as well as the audience, it’s time to structure your presentation. You will need to start this process by determining the length of the presentation. Take the allotted time and break it into smaller segments, with each segment tackling a specific task (all of which reflect the overall objective of the presentation). For example, the fist segment should be the presentation introduction. In this segment, you should give an overview of your presentation, or a short summary of your speech, explaining the topic, why you are covering this topic, and what you hope to accomplish.
The next segment should tackle the first item on your agenda, with the following segment tackling the following item on your agenda, and so on. Once you have developed the introduction and outlined the following segments, spend some time thinking about the conclusion of the presentation. The introduction of the presentation and the conclusion of the presentation are the most important parts and should have the strongest impact. Achieving Clarity and Impact Keep your presentation short and simple. Your audience will not remember every point of your presentation, so highlight the most important parts. The longer the presentation, the higher the risk of boredom. When in doubt, use the “tell ’em” structure: Tell them what you are going to tell them (For instance, “In this presentation I will show you…”). • Tell them the key points, expanding and illustrating each one, clearly and concisely. • Tell them what you have told them (For instance, “In closing…” or “In summary…”) and conclude. Reinforce Your Message With Visual Aids Next, consider the use of visual aids. Slide projectors, data projectors, video machines and computers should be tested out beforehand to make sure they are operating correctly and that you know how to use them. Make sure you do not cram too much information onto any single visual. A good rule of thumb to follow is to keep each visual to six lines or less.
Also, make sure any type or graphics are large enough the audience can see it clearly (from all seats) and make sure the colours used are easy on the eyes, taking into account the lighting. A sad fact is that much of your authority will be judged by the quality of your slides – you need to make sure that their design supports the style of your message. Overheads/PowerPoint pages should be clearly marked and arranged in order beforehand. Flip charts should be prepared in advance when possible. When used during the presentation to take notes, make print large enough for all participants to see. When using these various visuals, do not turn your back to the audience.
Position yourself so you can use the visuals while facing your audience. Arranging the Room If possible, visit the room in which you will make the presentation well in advance. Determine seating (circle seating encourages interaction, rows of seats discourages interaction, etc. ) and determine how the visual aids you choose will work. Consider lighting, space, even the temperature of the room. Consider placing notepads and pencils at each seat if participants need to take notes. While you do not need to memorize your entire presentation, make yourself very, very familiar with it through several practice runs. Rehearse the presentation in its entirety as often as you can before delivering it to a live audience.
The more you rehearse, the more confident you will be and the more fluent you will seem to your audience – if you know your subject matter and have adequately prepared, you will be able to deliver your message loud and clear. When in doubt or nervous, stay focused on your purpose – helping your audience understand your message. Direct your thoughts to the subject at hand. The audience has come to hear your presentation and you will succeed! Time management If effective use is to be made of available time it is necessary to establish plans, identify priorities and create an awareness of how time is spent. Organising Activities Planning is an important part of the management process and leads to control over the use of time.
Planning is deciding in advance: • What to do • Where to do it • How to do it • Who is going to do it • How long it will take A lack of planning usually means a degree of aimlessness and a lack of co-ordination. Effective Planning involves: Setting Work Objectives An objective should be specific and measurable so that the attainment and progress towards the objecti