Leadership Styles of an Effective Manager
A manager’s approach can seriously affect his effectiveness and performance in the work place. There are a number of factors that may lead to effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the manager in any given organization. These include communication whereby the manager should enhance effective communication in the work place by ensuring that all the channels of communication are working accordingly. He should also ensure that messages get delivered and decoded accordingly and in the right time. He should avoid distorting information to suit his own needs or earn favors from the organization.
Influence of Leadership Styles in the Work Place
A manager with a democratic leadership style is effective in the work place. This is because he gives opportunities to the employees to exploit their talents and do the best they can. Limiting employees and confining them to routine duties creates monotony and limits the productivity of the employees. The morale of the employees also decreases (Ayman, Chemers & Fielder, 1995). As a result, then, managers should give employees freedom to exercise new skills and talents. They should also organize training programs and seminars where the employees learn new skills and gain new knowledge in different areas.
The knowledge acquired should then be put into practice in the work place. The manager should also conduct reshuffles in the work place. This is to ensure that the employees gain knowledge in almost all areas of the organization which will improve their expertise and productivity to a great extent (Gary Yukl, 2010). The manager should also be able to embrace technology, for example, by installing computers for use by the employees and availing sites such as e-commerce. This helps in expanding their knowledge and increasing their creativity.
Dells Leadership Style
Dell is a multinational company in America that deals with computer technology. The company supports and sells computers. Dell is among the leading companies in the universe and has approximately 103,300 employees. Some of the products that the company sells include laptops, desktops, servers, monitors, electronics, accessories and technical support systems. As an IT company, Dell uses a number of management styles and techniques to enhance efficient running of the organization.
This involves use of the internet to manage most of the work of the human resources. The employees in the company can also use the Internet to manage and monitor their plans (Selznick, 1984). This greatly simplifies the work to a significant extent as well as reduces management costs.
According to the company’s traditional Human Resource Manager, work could be divided into pieces of content which included recruitment, remuneration and training. Each of the branches had a body of staff, which dealt with given tasks and critical decisions according to the strategy of the organization. The human resource manager in this organization established a centralized call centre which coordinated all the management functions. This enabled all the departments in the company handle a large number of routine matters effectively. It also enhanced distribution of work which not only improved efficiency, but also streamlined the staff who could be dedicated to their work.
If the structure of management of Dell went through drastic change, I think the manager would handle the condition, and implement the new structure appropriately. This is because he has acquired a lot of experience in the organization as a manager and a leader. He has also gone through education programs and attended seminars on effective management and ways of enhancing proper management in the work place (Yammamiro & Bass, 1991). The manager has also interacted with other managers from other companies, and seen what strategies they implement in their companies and how they do that.
Collaborations that would affect Operational Change
There are a number of collaborations between employees and management that facilitate smooth and efficient running of the organization (Stephen & Timothy, 2011). In team collaboration is a collaboration that would affect the success of the operational change. This mainly applies to a situation whereby the structure changes from an in team collaboration to a network collaboration. This is because, in the former case employees may be divided up into groups where all the group members may be known and perform certain tasks independently.
However, there could be expected reciprocity and goals to be met within strict deadlines. This is not the case in network collaboration as the employees socialize through sites in the Internet. In this collaboration, some members may be hardly known as duties get performed independently. As such, it becomes relatively hard for an employee who may be accustomed to in team collaboration to fit in the network collaboration and may affect the production and consequently performance of the organization.
Use of Team Work and Groups to Facilitate Operational Change
Organizations can make use of work teams and groups in order to facilitate upcoming operational change by ensuring that all employees in the organization belong to certain groups. These groups should then be assigned activities which call for active contribution of all the members (Hogan, Curphy and Hogan, 1994). On completion of the activities, the group members should then be reshuffled and different activities assigned to the groups. This helps in ensuring that all the employees know each other, as well as their duties in the work place. This knowledge enables them become flexible and helps them fit effectively in any management structure.
References
Ayman, R., Chemers, M. M. & Fielder, F. (1995). The contingency model of leadership effectiveness: it’s level of analysis. Leadership Quarterly, 6 (2): 147- 168.
Gary Yukl. (2010). Introduction: The Nature of Leadership. Leadership in Organizations (7th ed.). United State: Pearson Education.
Stephen, P., & Timothy, A. J. (2011). Leadership. Organizational Behavior (14th ed.). United State: Financial Times Prentice Hall.
Hogan, R., Curphy, G. J. and Hogan R. (1994). What we know about leadership: effectiveness and personality. American Psychologist, 49: 493-504.
Selznick, D. (1984). Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Yammamiro & Bass, M. M. (1991). Person and situation views of leadership: A multiple level of analysis approach. Leadership Quarterly, 2: 121-139.