week 5 Leadership

  Identify the differences between management and leadership

The key differences between management and leadership are that managers have employees whereas leaders have followers. Leaders’ motives are to inspire and encourage their followers whereas managers need to maintain control and command, and this may lead to uninspired employees.
They both look for different things, for example, managers will plan, co-ordinate and achieve results by ordering whereas leaders tend to look for other ways of doing things that will suite their followers and this may lead to more efficient staff. Leaders look for flexibility and on the other hand managers looks for stability. Another way to define leaders and managers is that leaders are more compassionate and they are more involved with the organisation. Managers are more practical in having the tasks completed and reaching deadlines.


According to Kotter (1990), while management focuses more on problem solving and control, leadership focuses on motivation and inspiration. Leadership establishes a direction, which way to go, and management plans the way to the target. Management does more organising work and encourages order, while leadership encourages change and innovation. Management is rather impersonal and leadership more is personal, because their different aims. Leaders motivate, generate ideas and have quite big emotional connection with followers, while managers usually do not.

 Describe and explain the ‘managerial grid’ developed by Blake and Mouton. Think about someone you have worked for and identify the leadership style they used and where they would fit on Blake and Mouton’s grid and explain why



Reference: http://www.mindtools.com/media/Diagrams/BlakeMoutonGrid.jpg

The Blake and Mouton Managing Grid is one of the best ways to identify managers and leaders because it is split into five sectors which are: social, impoverished, middle of the road, authoritative and team manager.
This is a two dimensional chart – which means that if the managers score high on concern for people but score low on concern for production they care more about people then production.
These five sectors identify different styles of management, identified by Blake and Mouton (1964).

Social managers are positioned near the top of the grid but low on production which means they care about the staff more and they are quite relaxed on production.

Impoverished managers are positioned near the bottom of the grid which means that they require the minimum work (production) and concern of people.

Middle of the road managers are positioned in the middle of grid and have balance on the work load and people needs. These managers do not go the extra mile unless they have been ordered to.


Authoritative managers are positioned on the bottom of the chart which means they have low concern for people but care more on production because they want the work to be done and reaches the deadlines.

Team managers are positioned on the top of the chart on both sectors which means they care about both and try to develop a win-win situation. They are the ideal managers to work for.

Overall managers that score low on concern for production usually have weak organising skills and leave things to the last minutes.

In my case when I worked for Anthony Estate Agent as an office junior, the manager was very kind to me and I felt part of the team and after work we usually socialised with other members of staff. Also he listened to all our ideas and everyone felt motivated.


 Find an article/weblink that discusses a leader and briefly summarise what is has to say about them and their approach to leadership (include a link to the article in your blog) or choose an example of a strong leader from the exercise in the lecture, and explain why you believe he/she is a strong leader



Reference: http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/dec2008/3/9/88C6A182-E116-9250-26E2BD306BD5C253.jpg

A strong leader that I have chosen is Peter Jones because by the age of 16 he started his business and made it successful.
At a young age Peter Jones dreamed of being a chief executive operator of a big company and pretended in his dad’s office.
So at a young age he knew what he wanted in the future. In his school career he always wanted to do the best he could do and knowing that one day he could be a multi millionaire.
At the age of 16 he had completed the Lawn Tennis Association coaching exams and started his own tennis school.
In his twenties he moved into the computer industry and made it successful, but in his late twenties he lost most of his business through personal mistakes. Companies that associated with Peter Jones went bust so he was forced to sell most of his assets, for example, cars and house. He nearly became bankrupt.
In the same year Peter has joined Siemens Nixdorf and started Phone International Group in 1998. Now its become one of the leading brands in the UK. The business now generates over £200 million a year.
By the age of 40 Peter was considered to be one of the UK’s leading businessmen.
In 2002 The Times / Ernst and Young recognised his business as a up and coming entrepreneur and in 2003 he came in 13th of fastest growing business according to The Sunday Times.


http://www.peterjones.tv/index.cfm?fuseaction=PeterJones.About_Me

Remember to include a conclusion and evaluation at the end of this topic area on leadership.

In this conclusion every company has its own culture and everyone (person) is different. Every company has two different cultures which are hidden and visual. Every theory cannot identify all the areas in a company, for example hidden culture which can not be seen by customers only by staff. Putting companies into groups does not show how they work because all companies nowadays use and mixture of styles.



Bibliography and References

Benson, D (2003) Managers are not necessarily leaders [online] Available at: http://www.thefabricator.com/CEOs/CEOs_Article.cfm?ID=634 [Accessed 10 November 2009]

Callander, R (2009) Leadership [online] Available at: http://www.realbusiness.co.uk/news/leadership/5701436/win-the-chance-to-meet-dragon-peter-jones-thanks-to-bt-business.thtml [Accessed 10 November 2009]

Changing minds (2002) Leadership vs management [online] Available at: http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/articles/manager_leader.htm [Accessed 10 November 2009]

Jones, P (n.d) Biography [online] Available at: http://www.peterjones.tv/index.cfm?fuseaction=PeterJones.About_Me&content_id=27 [Accessed 10 November 2009]


Jones, P (2009) Seriously business entrepreneur [online] Available at: http://www.seriouslybusiness.co.uk/2006/11/23/peter-jones-dragons-den-special/ [Accessed 10 November 2009]

Week 4 Organisation Culture

1.Provide some examples of the ‘visible’ aspects of culture in an organisation of your choice – what are some hidden aspects? To gain this information use your own work experience or base it on a company you visited within The Eden Centre as part of the lecture.

In different countries have different culture and that goes for the same in companies.
The organisation that I have chosen is Beaver Brooks. The culture in there is relaxed and basically staff enjoy the working environment.
In Beaver Brooks there are two features which are visible and hidden. Visible features are things that anyone can see even customers, for example: uniform, shop floor space, working culture – communication and language style.
The hidden culture is behind the shop floor, for example training – team building exercise and how staff communicates to the head office.
Beaver Brooks is still family owned and they have just celebrated their 90th anniversary. Over the years Beaver Brooks has won numbers of awards and they are well recognised in their own field.
According to one of the managing directors their culture is based on creating a positive and caring culture and this makes their colleagues feel that they are being listened to and their opinions have been taken in to accounts and they are delighted to have achieved these honours.

2.Explain what Handy meant by the following in your own words:
 A power culture
 A role culture
 A task culture
 A person culture

with an organisational example of each

Charles Handy’s theory is one of the best known in is field and it has identified different cultures in different companies.
Here are the brief explanations for different culture that you can see in a company.

Power culture according to Charles Handy is based on family owned businesses for example Beaver Brooks, John Lewis and solo traders. All these companies are still family owned businesses. This suggests that all the important decisions are made by probably one person.

Role culture is based on rules and procedure. This is mainly used in large organisations and everyone knows their tasks, for example factory workers they will be told what to do and how.

Task culture is based on team work from different departments. This type of culture is more like a team work based and staff have different tasks to complete for example in Siemens the Research and Development Department and Marketing Department work together to design new technology that customers will wants. They will be given different tasks to complete, for example in the Marketing Department they will gather all the information on the customers’ needs and wants and the R and D Department will try to make it. This can also motivate their staff because they will have the chance to work with other departments of staff and it can make them feel they are not trapped in one department.
They have one goal in common which is to improve the company processes for that I meant communication, relationship between different department and market shares.

Person culture – you can usually find it in creative companies, for example advertising companies, for example Boost Marketing. This allows every person to come up and express their ideas and get involved in making decisions.
When staff are planning draft ideas every member of staff will come together and shows areas that they are good at, for example coming up with new ideas for slogans, and the other member of staff is good at creative drawings and every member has one goal is to satisfy their clients.




http://www.lindsay-sherwin.co.uk/guide_managing_change/html_overview/05_culture_handy.htm


3. What do you think are the problems of trying to classify culture into one of the four types described above?

Overall every company uses more than one style to keep the company going because in different departments or situations the theory may not work so they will need to merge different theories together and finding new ways to solve different situations.
Each classify culture does not give the full picture of organisation because in one organisations can fit in to different cultures e.g. by departments.

4. Provide a link within your blog to a company or organisation which you feel demonstrates a strong culture. Explain why you have chosen this company.

Beaver Brooks
The reason why in have chosen Beaver Brooks is because when I walked into the shop floor the atmosphere was very comfortable and the staff was very friendly and polite. There visual culture was very well presented and their staff was well knowledge in the products that they are selling.



5.Remember to end this topic with a summary of your findings in a conclusion and evaluation.

In this conclusion every company have different culture and member of staff is different from each other for example personality. Just by investigating the company culture does not give a clear picture of the company because there is hidden culture that not everyone is able to see.
Also in Charles Handy’s theory and other theories does not show all the aspect of the company because nowadays company uses mixture of styles to motivate their staff.


Bibliography and References

Beaver brooks the jewellers (n.d) About us [online] Available at: http://www.beaverbrooks.co.uk/index.cfm?event=showAboutUs
[Accessed 29 October 2009]

Free management library (2000) Organisational culture [online] Available at: http://managementhelp.org/org_thry/culture/culture.htm [Accessed 29 October 2009]

Week 3 Improving Staff Performance

Explain the differences between content and process theories.

The differences between these two theories are that content theories focus on individuals. Process theories focus on how the motivation process takes place.


Company examples – find TWO organisations and identify all the ways in which they motivate their employees. Use primary research and/or secondary sources for example by looking up an organisation such as Innocent, BA, John Lewis. This information can often be found within the careers section of the website.


One of the organisations that were chosen is Beaver Brooks and the other one is John Lewis. One of the reasons why I picked John Lewis is because I used to work for them, so I know the basics of the motivation theories they uses.
The reasons why Beaver Brooks the Jewelers retailer was chosen is because stated in The Time (2010) they are the top 100 companies’ best to work for in 2009 it came in first place and awarded by the Sunday Times.

Overall these two companies are well known in their own field and both use a mixture of motivation theories to get the most out of their staff (efficiencies) and cut down the number of unauthorised absences.
Here are a few examples that John Lewis and Beaver Brooks the Jewelers retailer use a to motivate their staff Maslow, Herzberg and other motivation theories
Maslow’s theory – John Lewis and Beaver Books provide the basic levels of Maslow’s theory. But this is not enough to motivate their staff to work harder so they will arrange activities outside the company time so they can socialise with each other.
Esteem and self actualisations keeps their staff motive. Esteem is where they will feel that they are part of the company because in John Lewis they are not only staff but they are also partners.
Beaver Brooks will make their staff feel as a part of a family and also being the top employer of the year they will have a reputation to keep up with so they will need to create shared of successes and overcoming challenges in the working environment.
Also the managers in both organisations will help and advise their staff where they need improvements and this will make their staff feel recognised for the work they have done. This will lead to self actualisation because the managers are trusting them and they are improving their wisdom and creating new opportunities for their staff
When I walked into Beaver Books and ask a member of staff about her job. She replied that she enjoyed working for Beaver Brooks because she get involve to do some activities based on team work and not just the staff but also the managers join in. Also it is a relaxed atmosphere so they would not feel pressured.
She feel pride working Beaver Brooks because she not just selling the products but actually creating happy moments for herself and others around.

All these theories help John Lewis and Beaver Brooks to understand their staff needs and how to improve their staff and on the same time increase their profitability.


In addition, take one of the organisations from your research above and review which motivation models they appear to use in practice. Are there any gaps (e.g. is the organisation satisfying Maslow’s physiological needs but not social, does the organisation predominantly concentrate on providing Herzberg’s ‘hygiene factors’ but not the ‘motivators’?)


When I were working for John Lewis they were some gaps in Maslow’s theory because when I was starting there I did not being fully introduced to my colleagues and one of my supervisors was planning to leave due to his education so it was a bit of a rush.

In Herzberg’s theory factors was mostly met because we have to keep the working conditions and stocks in a presentable manner.
The only factor that wasn’t quite met was quality of supervision because at that time there were not enough section managers around and it was one of the busiest timed of the year.



Your section on Motivation in your blog should finish with a brief conclusion which evaluates your findings of this topic.


I have found out that Beaver Brooks has reached the top of employer of the year for 2009.
All companies use a mixture of motivation theories to help them to improve their relationships and turnovers.
Also they will share the success of business by providing bonuses, promotions and understanding their staff needs for flexible working hours because have family members to look after.


Bibliography and References

Beaver brooks the jewellers (n.d) About us [online] Available at: http://www.beaverbrooks.co.uk/index.cfm?event=showAboutUs
[Accessed 22 October 2009]

John Lewis partnership (n.d) Working for us [online] Available at: http://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/Display.aspx?&MasterId=869aa67c-f6e6-42b4-98ca-0a1b16d906bb&NavigationId=547 [Accessed 22 October 2009]

The Sunday Times (2010) 100 best company 2010 [online] Available at: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/best_100_companies/best_100_tables/ [Accessed 22 October 2009]

Tutor 2u (n.d) Motivation in theory herzberg [online] Available at http://tutor2u.net/business/people/motivation_theory_herzberg.asp [Accessed 22 October 2009]

week 2 Motivation

Which content theory relates to me the most?

Motivation theory that wills suit me the most is Maslow’s because he has put all the basic needs at the bottom and we all need it from day to day. Also Maslow's theory can relate to working environment and even different stages of life.
One of the reasons why I have decided to choose Maslow’s theory is because he has identified five areas that we are all working toward, for example the bottom two levels are the most important which are physiological needs and safety. These two are the most important objects in life, for example physiological needs will be food, water, shelter and money. Then we move on to safety which can be defined as job security, safety at work and these will be basic needs.
Then we move on to the social needs which will help me to be comfortable / confident in any environment. Also this is one of the most important parts of the theory because being social can motivate me.

Esteem or Ego is about self respect and being recognised. How does it relate to me? When I was working for John Lewis, I was respected because I received good comments from my managers and customers. Also I felt appreciated and a sense of belonging.
The final stage of Maslow’s motivation theory is self actualisation which means feeling satisfied of what they have accomplished. I don’t feel I have achieved that so far because I have not got the time to do hobbies. The reason for this is that my working life is taking most of my time away. In a way it motivates me to complete the tasks that I set for myself.
On the other hand I have looked up other motivation theories, for example, Clayton Alderfer’s ERG: (E-existence, R-relatedness, and G-growth), Frederick Hertzberg’s, David McClelland’s and Abraham Maslow's. When I looked at Clayton Alderfer’s theory ERG, I feel that only two stages suited me. In Frederick Herzberg’s theory, the two factors he has mention I feel I can relate to it but most of it was at the moment when I started my career. David McClelland’s theory kinds of relates to me because all of us needs achievement, affiliation and power to enable me to keep going but I still feel that Maslow’s theory suited me the most because he has put them into a hierarchy of needs which applies to my working and social life.


What motivated me to study a degree in international management?

The reason why I’m here is because to help me to achieve my goals, for example accomplish my degree and building up my social networking, for that I mean people with experiences that can give me advices.
The reason why I started this course is because I want to achieve something that can help me to developed new skills and knowledge. Also help me to pursue a career in the future. Another reason is that I always admire families and friends who have comfortable lifestyle and also enjoyed their job. One of the most important points that motivate me is that I can prove to myself that I can achieve a degree and prove people with learning difficulties can also do the same. I don’t want to regret that I had a chance to go to university and my brother has effect to do better in my educations.
The next 2 – 3 years, there will be lots of things that will motivate me to go to the lectures, for example the course fee £££ that I have paid and one of the most important one is friends because on some projects we will be working together to accomplish.

In Maslow’s motivation theory I’m still at near the beginning / middle stage because at the moment now I have a regular source of income and still making new friends around the university.


Moment of de-motivation


When I was working for John Lewis I was de-motivated by one of my manager because she did not trust me to be responsible. I think she did not trust me to be responsible is because of my age and I was the youngest one in the team member. As time when on I have prove to her that I was responsible by being punctual, receiving good comments from customers and showing her that I good knowledge in my job role.
Also my colleagues has encourage me to talk to the manager about giving me more tasks in my job role and they have guided me on some areas that I was not sure on. When we was working together she has seen my performances and has decided to give me more responsibilities, for example cashing up the tills and locking up the front gate and this has motivated me because I now know that she trust me to be responsible.
In this section it relates to social needs because my colleagues has motivated me to speak the manager and it made me feel like I have achieve her trust.
If I could do it differently then I will pick another section department.

In conclusion, the research was very interesting and we all can relate to it in our experiences and plans in our life and all the theories are individual but it fits in their own ways.


Here are some web sites that I have visited
http://www.businessballs.com/davidmcclelland.htm http://www.learnmanagement2.com/DavidMcClelland.htm
http://www.businessballs.com/herzberg.htm
http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_alderfer_erg_theory.html