Galib Akash!

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Coursework Header Sheet 171341-94

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BUSI1315: Mngt Skills Course School/Level 2: Managing Effect Reflective Portfolio Assessment Weight CA Jones Submission Deadline

BU/UG 50.00% 19/11/2010

Coursework is receipted on the understanding that it is the student's own work and that it has not, in whole or part, been presented elsewhere for assessment. Where material has been used from other sources it has been properly acknowledged in accordance with the University's Regulations regarding Cheating and Plagiarism.

000566488

Galib Akash!

000566488

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LECTURE 1 In the first lecture of course, the concept of modern management, its expectations and standards are explained. Initially effective management is explained. Many different writers gave different interpretations about effective management. Henri Fayols (1916) attention was directed towards the activities of a manager and how efficient they were. He developed 14 principles of management which a manager would apply for effective management. Several views by different peoples was discussed in the lecture. Peter F. Druker (1988) argued of some of the problems in modern day manager which includes lack of will to introduce change, having a complaining attitude and spending a lot of their time in discussion about the organization rather than working with their staff. the last problem is also noticed by Stewart (1967) who pointed out that how manager spend almost 60% of their time in discussion. The lecture also included information about the key roles in performance management. Key roles of a manager include planning, leading, organizing and controlling.A manager should assume interpersonal roles where they have to lead, inspire and motivate employees. Sometimes managers should have decisional roles where he should accept responsibility to make decisions. A manager should also have some soft skills to effectively manage an organization. Some of the core soft skills are: problem solving, reasoning, mentoring, counseling, discussion participation and quantitative analysis.

Galib Akash!

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To be an effective manager one should be able to mentor other staff by coaching them, assisting them, counseling them and creating special bonds with the staff. Coaching involves teaching employees of new skills and helping them develop these newly learned skills. An effective manager should also act as facilitator by taking an action which smoothens the problems of the staff so that he is able to pursue his goals. Counseling involves the use of certain techniques and skills to create a broader and clarifying picture of the problems to the staff so that he himself can be able to solve it using his own resources. In the tutorial everyone were asked to writes of three different scenario where decision making was done. Then as a group of 3 or 4 task was formed and and by doing group discussion I learned some important points about management including the fact that time management is a key factor for effective management to take place. By participating in week 1 lecture and tutorial i learned that to be effective in managing an organization, one has to be firm yet approachable, have good mentoring skills and be able to manage his time properly. A good manager is one who is a leader as well as a negotiator and spokesperson.

LECTURE 2 In this lecture leadership is broadly discussed along withe the different types of leadership and different characteristics of leaders as well as the similarity between managers and leaders. According to Huczynski & Buchanan (1991) leadership is a social process in which one individual influences the behavior of others without the use of threat or violence and according to Alan Bryman (1986) leadership is the creation of a vision about a desired future state which seeks to enmesh all members of all organization in its net According to the lecture there are three different types of leaders. Autocratic leaders are ones who dictates work methods and makes all the decisions without consulting other employees. Such types of leaders are usually seen in the defence system and is usually effective when handling new unskilled staff who need a clear direction and guidance. Democratic leaders involve their staffs in decision making and delegation of authority as well as use the feedback of staff during new developments. In organizations following this type of leadership, job satisfaction is very good. Several companies including Walmart and IBM has democratic leadership. Lassez Faire leader is a leader who lets the employees have all the delegation power and right to make decisions. Employees are able to complete the work in whatever way they like. The capacity of the leader to influence work or decisions is based on four different powers which are Legitimate power: The power that a leader has as a result of his or her position in the organization. Coercive power: The power a leader has to punish or control the employees Reward power: The power a leader has to give positive rewards to its employees. Referent power: Power that has arise because of a persons personal traits. Another very new topic learned from the lecture is the situational leadership theory by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard. It describes of whether the leaders orders will be followed. This will depend on the readiness of the followers. Readiness refers to the extent to which people have the ability to and motivation to complete one specified task. This theory produced four different leadership styles: Telling: The leader defines the roles and tells people what task are needed to be done. Selling: The leader provides both supportive and directive behaviour. Participating: The leader and followers share decision making tasks while the leader communicates and motivates his followers. Delegating: The leader provides little attention to his followers.

Galib Akash!

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Another important theory taught in the lecture was the contingency theory by Fred Fiedler. This theory proposes that effective performance depends on the perfect mix of a leaders style and the extent of which the situation allowed the leader to control and influence. Fiedlers research produced three factors to determine leadership effectiveness: Leader-member relations: The degree of confidence and respect employees have for their leaders Task structure: The degree to which the jobs were structured. Position power: The degree of influence the leader has over specific activities. Blake and Moutons managerial grid was also briefly explained in the lecture. In the tutorial we were asked to make teams of five people. We were told to name an influential leader and we spoke of Sir Alan Sugar because he is a very influential democratic leader who because very successful. Also we had studied about him before in Context and Regulatory Framework of Business 1. During the end of class we all suggested one name and said why we thought they were good leaders. Everyone had similar thoughts that leaders have people to follow them, they had certain characteristics such as being attractive, motivating, compelling and inspirational, they also did activities for the well being of all his/her followers. After working out the Blake & Mouton questionnaire honestly, my answer was Team management which is 9,9 which made me content. In conclusion being a leader is something very attractive yet tough as the saying goes on that the bigger you are, the greater responsibilities you hold. However if according to the Fiedler contingency, if the perfect mix occurs then the company will be very productive.

LECTURE 3 Previously I studied a bit about business culture in my year one module of Organizational Behaviour 1. In this lecture culture in organizations is explained in more detail.Organization culture can be described as the shared values, principles and ways of doing things that influence the way the employees in the organization act. For each employees, it is the environment they create with fellow colleagues. One new thing learned from the lecture is the presence of four different types of culture as explained by Harrison and Handy(1985): Power culture is one in which power is concentrated to only a few people. It resembles a spider web with all the power lying in the centre. This type of culture has only few rules with swift decisions taking place in the organization. Such organizations are usually powerful and dynamic so can react to external changes quickly. Role culture is one where the employees have clearly stated delegation authorities within a detailed structure of hierarchal authority. People are selected to role based on their ability to complete their tasks with defined skills. This culture has a similarity to Max Weber bureaucracy. Role structure usually produce relatively stable environments. Task culture is one where the employees are divided in teams to solve particular problems. This culture represents a matrix structure with resources and decision making authority given to expertise people only. Team culture is flexible and adaptable since specific teams are created for specific purposes only. A person culture is where the individual is the centre power figure in the organization. The culture exists for only the people concerned concerned and survival can become difficult for the organization. There are several factors affecting culture within organization including history of the organization, goals and objectives,size, location and the environment.

Galib Akash!

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The lecture also recapped some old topics including Mcgregors theory X and Y, Strong and weak cultures as well as the factors affecting cultural change. In the tutorial everyone was split into separate groups. In each group the tutor asked us to discuss about the culture in organizations and the key factors in organizational culture. We were told to write down the factors which affect culture.It was done quickly since we were taught about this in the lecture. This lecture and tutorial taught me about how each organization is different from one another due to presence of different culture and ways to manage these different cultures. Managing different people is certainly an appalling task and if i can be a manager one day i would love to be in a power culture.

LECTURE 4 I had a bit of understanding of ethics in business due to attending business ethics lectures. So i thought this lecture would be easy for me to understand. Initially morality is explained in the lecture. Morality in business is used to describe the establishing and maintaining of relationships amongst employees, competitors and customers. The business is moral if the people involved in the business are obligated to be honest and tell the truth and honor agreements. Rachels (1993) stated For something to be moral it must be reasonable and impartial. The purpose of a business is clearly explained ( it was easy for me since i studied it in Business Ethics before). Trevino and Nelsons (1999) prescriptive theory of ethics is also explained. Utilitarianism is explained as a decision is only right if produces the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. Some of the ethical problems of the managers are also discussed. Managers have to be fair to all their employees since there are several conflicting values for managerial decisions including economic, political and spiritual factors. HR is briefly discussed in the lecture along with the ethical issues in HRM and the how discrimination is unethical. One form of discrimination discussed was harassment. This is where an employee feels uncomfortable due unsatisfactory behaiour or inappropriate comments referring to sexuality. This might be done by manager who hope to make sexual advances towards fellow staff. One new topic learned in the lecture is whistleblowing. This happens when an employee learns of an unethical activity done by a senior in the organisation. Internal whistleblowing is where the employee reports the unethical activity to the responsible person in the organisation while external whistleblowing is where the employee tells the situation to someone outside the company such as the press or the regulatory agency. In the tutorial we were divided in to groups and given a case study. The case study was bizarre and fascinating as it told us about how a successful company can meet its downfall due to its unethical behaviour. The company tried to stay afloat by even transferring money to international accounts to hide their debt and dodge paying tax. I enjoyed the tutorial especially the group discussion where we were told to discuss the how different stakeholders have different unethical issues.

LECTURE 5 From this lecture we were able to learn in-depth about groups, teams, formation of groups and two categories of groups mainly exist in organizational environment also importance of groups in effective organizational performances.

Galib Akash!

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The lecture firstly introduces us to the concepts by defining terms thereby making sure we grasped the fundamental facts thoroughly. The term groups can be explained in the context of the community as the two or more persons interacting with one another, accept expectations and obligations as members of the group, and share a common identity. Sharing a common identity or a shared purpose is important in avoiding conflict arising within the group. A team is a type of group that shares the same sense of acquaintance only differentiating by sharing a stronger common purpose than a group and having a stronger cooperation than being in a group. We were taught how to differentiate a team from the group by using the belbin model to look at the size or number of people involved in, by looking at the leadership provided, by looking at how selection were being done and also we looked at how perception, style and spirit effect in differentiating group and team . We were further was able to learn that groups can be identified as informal and formal by finding a clear definition on purpose of existence. Formal groups are such that, they are created in order to achieve specific organizational achievement. Formal groups are always goal oriented and focus on productive and efficient ways in realising set goals. Whereas informal groups are fewer goals oriented and does not focus on any efficient and productive methodology. Informal groups are more focus on building personal relationships and maintaining such relationships. In a formal group roles will be well defined and authority and accountability will be vested on such defined roles. In this lecture we were further taught the reasons for formation of groups. We understood that through formation of groups, it is able to delegate work and will enable the group members to achieve its set tasks and goals productively in contrast of achieving the same task individually. By working in groups will enable its group members to fragment the group tasks and these subdivision will be easily achieved. This fragmentation can be done in accordance with each individuals expertise there by working in groups each individual will given opportunities to contribute their own expertise in to the group. Problem solving will hence be easier when working in groups as each person will look at problems in different angles and thereby group can altogether able think out of the box. Working in groups, the group benefits by the different personalities, less likely to be making hasty decisions, integrate creativity, providing support to each group member and so forth. We further understood that there are three main factors that affect the effectiveness of the group. First is the Environmental factor which explains, about surrounding factors that affect the group such as physical location of the group members. Secondly membership factor which explains about the number of member and shared values and communication skills etc... Thirdly it is the dynamic factor which explains about how the group is formed, about the training given and the perceived success and failure. Concluding, I understood that groups with positive attributes can always work toward the betterment of organizational goals and when working in a group the most important factor is the communication skill of the group members. Through this lecture my knowledge of groups and its main contributing factors were deepened.

Galib Akash!

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Self Assessment Dialogue Document- Assignment 1. Please complete this sheet and submit it with your assignment. You will not be assessed on what you have written on this form, but if you dont submit it you will have less feedback. Tutor Colin

CourseManagement Skills 2 Jones.. Your nameGalib Akash number000566488 Question Your reply

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Tutors response.

The way i had the freedom to write What did you enjoy most in my own way. about completing this work ? The assignment was very lengthy. What did you enjoy least about completing this work? What aspect of the work do you think you did best ? The way I explained the lectures in detail

What aspect of this work I could not explain the tutorial in did you do least well ? detail.

What was the most useful thing you learnt from completing this work?.

Due to this task I learned some major management issues along with their theories.

What have you learnt about yourself in completing this work ?.

What mark (out of 100) do you think this deserves ?

I have learnt that if the management theories are followed in an effective and ethical way i myself will be able to become a successful leader leading an organisation. 65

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