Management and Leadership: Literature Review

a) Identify from research and academic theory, two of the paired topic areas from parts 3 of the module that apply an organisations effectiveness.

Work groups and teams

Management and Leadership

Power and Politics

Conflict and Negotiation

b) Analyse and critically discuss the impact that your topic areas have on the culture of an organisation and the way in which employees are managed.

Snap-on UK holdings limited is the organization selected for the purpose of this research assessment. The organization has been used to identify from research and literature three, 2 areas that influence this organization’s effectiveness  as per the opinion of De Wit et al. (2012). The two areas selected are,

management and leadership

Conflict and negotiation.

The scope of this paper further lies in critically discussing the influence that the selected areas have on the selected organizations culture and the way in which employees are appropriately managed.

Definitions

Even though leadership has been conceptualized from several perspectives as per Northouse (2010), the key to these conceptualizations lies in the following 2 features of leadership:

It is a process that involves influence

It occurs in groups, involves general goals, aims, and requires managing the workforce to lead them in the right direction (Eden et al. 2013).

Based on these characteristics, leadership is a process wherein individuals influence individual groups by managing them to achieve a general goal. Leadership according to Kelloway and Barling (2010) is defined as a process that offers societal influence generally enacted through people in power based formal positions such as supervisors or managers.

According to De Wit et al. 2012, leadership does not hold management tantamount to it even though both share general features. For example, both have their focus on influence, working with individuals and meet with the desired goals. The management function, however, is distinguished from that of leadership. Specifically, management focuses on making plans, budgets, organizing, recruiting staff and managing them as well as controlling and solving problems. As per Eisele et al. (2013) Leadership, on the other hand, involves the establishment of control and direction, alignment of individuals with the goals of an organization, motivating them and inspiring them to achieve the goals of the organization. Even after these distinct functions, often leaders are involved in tasks organizing and planning so as to get the tasks done and, in the same manner, managers often help in the achievement of group goals.

Influence of Leadership and Management on Organizational Effectiveness: Case of Snap-on UK Holdings Limited

According to De Wit et al. (2012) the theory of flexible leadership depicts the way in which top management and other leaders influence business organization’s financial performance. Two essential financial performance determinants are efficiency, adaptation and human capital. Large range of behaviours in leadership, programs of management, structure forms and external initiatives can be used for influencing the determinants of performance.

Eisele et al. (2013), believes that the theory of flexible leadership is conceptualized at the levels of organizations and includes four variable sets inclusive of effectiveness, determinants of performance, variables of a situation and decision and actions taken under leadership. Organization effectiveness, on the other hand, can be defined as the range until which it is possible to survive and perform missions as well as maintain favourable income, resources of finances and value of assets. Essential indicators for firms doing business are inclusive of the growth rate of profitable nature in the long term, investment return and return for stakeholders as mentioned by De Church et al. (2013). Effectiveness furthermore is dependent upon the 3 key determinants of performance inclusive of reliability in process and efficiency, capital in human resource form and the ability to adapt to the external environment. Such performance determinants are impacted through firm leader’s decision and action. As per the opinion of (Parris and Peachey 2013), the amount of profit this company makes depends upon the decisions of its leaders. The performance determinants are essential for this company and it is problematic to influence these determinants as they are subjected to external environment turbulence.

Walstrom (2012) opines that leaders can improvise the organization performance through performance determinants influence. One way of influence used at Snap-on UK holdings limited is using specific behaviors of leadership when interacting with subordinates and outsides. A second influence form involves decisions on programs of management and systems as well as structure of the organization. Eden et al. (2013) stated another form of influence evident at Snap-on UK holdings limited involves decisions taken about organization’s competitive strategy. These forms of influence should be used collectively in a consistent manner for effective leadership to strategically foster.

In several years of research over leaders and managers, various behavior types for leaders and managers have been recognized. Griffin (2011) has stated that a difficult barrier for researchers lies in organizing the various types of behaviors into hierarchical taxonomies that are implied with regard to behavioral influence. Task oriented behaviors are inclusive of planning in the short term and work activities scheduling, determine resources and staffing needs, assign tasks, clarify objectives and priorities, focus on efficiency and reliability, direct and coordinate activities, operations monitoring and deal with everyday operational issues. As per Eisele et al. (2013), Behaviors oriented on tasks are used for improving productivity and reducing costs through the removal of not required activities, effort duplication, managing wasted resources, errors, and risk. Kehinde (2011) mentioned that relationship oriented behaviors include to show support and positive respect, provide achievement recognition and contribution, provide training and to coach, consult with individuals on their decisions that will individually influence them, delegate and empower the managers, encourage collaboration and working in the team along with building an informational source network internally and externally.

Behavior Types for Leaders and Managers

At Snap-on UK holdings limited, the main leadership behavior evident was the change oriented attitude. This was involved in making a maximum influence on the organization and enhancing its effectiveness. According to Macdonnell (2012), these behaviors are inclusive of monitoring environment to understand threats, opportunities, interpret events and explain why main change is required, articulate a vision to inspire, take risks for promoting change, build supporters coalition for the main change and determine the way in which new initiatives should be implemented. Jones and Brinkert (2007) stated that such leadership according is termed as transformational leadership as it offers inspiration based motivation and intellect stimulation showing that such behavior results in enhancing people and their performance when working in teams. Such behaviors oriented to change are particularly essential for top executives and management. Various recent researches have depicted that relationship between transformational CEO or charismatic leader with their company’s relationship and effectiveness cannot be side-lined. According to , the behavior of a leader influences not just one determinant of performance but many at the same time when leaders know to manage along with lead. For example, at Snap-on UK holdings limited, consulting with team members for top executives is essential when formulating a new product based action plan. This, in turn, influences the commitment of the employees and makes then enhance their productivity at the individual level. This results in organizational effectiveness.

As stated by Griffin (2013), diagnostic tools are mediums to measure the improvement areas of leaders to enhance their effectiveness and the organizational effectiveness of the whole. An example of such a diagnostic tool is organizational effectiveness diagnostic which is a tool based on the survey. This is used for assessing with rigor and systematics, the relative strengths and weaknesses in every area specific to organization effectiveness. Israel (2012) opined,this tool is essential for organization’s ability to enhance and implement its strategy and create influence. This tool has been implemented by Snap-on UK holdings limited in order to gain insight into five essential areas inclusive of leadership, making decisions and structure, individuals, work processes and systems as well as culture.

According to Aziz et al. (2013), there are several ways by which leaders and managers can influence organization culture, especially through their actions and behaviors.Organization culture according to various researches is the shared beliefs, values or perceptions that employees hold in an organization. The culture of an organization reflects beliefs, behaviors norms and values that are utilized by employees of an organization to give implication to a situation they find themselves in. According to Jones and Brinkert (2007), this can influence the staff’s attitude and behavior. Understanding the core values of organizations can lead towards preventing internal conflict possibility as well. Moore (2014) said that culture is learned in the society and can be transmitted among members by providing the rules for behaving within an organization. Organizational culture from this perspective is the belief that can guide staff to know what has to be done and what not inclusive of values and assumptions on their task. As stated by Macdonnell (2012), oorganization based key values within leadership evolve into the style of leaderships. The subordinates working under these leaders are led through the values and leaders behaviors such that the behavior of the parties involves becomes in alignment to each other. When behavior depicts strong unification of values and beliefs, the organizational culture of the organization becomes equally strong. According to Meslec et al. (2015), leaders need to appreciate their operational activities to maintain the culture of an organization. This, in turn, helps in ensuring consistent attitude between organizational members, reduce conflicts and create a health work environment for all those involved within the organization.

Conflict and Negotiation

There are primary mechanisms according to several studies required for embedding culture which is inclusive of:

Leaders paying attention to measuring and controlling

Leaders reacting to essential situations

Resource allocation criteria

Modeling role, training, and coaching

Observed way to allocate rewards and position

Observed criteria to recruit, select, promote, retire and excommunicate

If the starting point of a leader is culture then the major determinate lies in understanding whether the leader has managed to gain organizational effectiveness.

Snap-on UK holdings limited focuses on evolving its leaders through an open communication culture. The company has set up technological advancement based systems and applications to make communication across the levels of organization simple. As mentioned by Israel (2012), this allows the company the benefit of effective leaders as they are able to coordinate and bring cooperation among the team members in the organization. As a leader, the Snap-on UK holdings limited top management brings forward various management programs that help the company to motivate employees and enhance their trust in the leaders. In turn, this leads towards a positive influence on the entire organization. 

This section has elaborated the significance of effective leadership in order to sustain a positive environment of culture and management. Such theories and diagnostic tools as addressed in this section depending upon the right behavior style are essential to attain organizational effectiveness and cultural effectiveness.

Definition

According to Jones and Brinkert (2007), conflict is a process that starts when a party perceives that other party is negatively influencing them or is about to negatively influence them. It is the point in a consistent activity when interaction crosses over to become a conflict between parties. It encompasses wide conflicting ranges that individuals experience within organizations such as goals incompatibility, the difference in facts interpretation and disagreement depending upon behaviour expectations. Moore (2014) stated several types of conflict are inclusive of task conflict (over content and working goal), relationship conflict (based on relationships of interpersonal nature) and process conflict (conflict on how work is getting done).

According to Meslec et al. (2014), intergroup conflict involves functional and dysfunctional conflict. Functional conflict leads towards enhancing the performance of organizations. It happens when groups are in disagreement over the best way to reach goals rather than over the goal itself. This conflict generally results in selecting better alternative means. Positive functional conflict contributions are as follows:

Playing an essential role in group stagnation prevention and preventing resistance over change

Impact on Organizational Culture and Employee Management

Has the ability to lead towards enhanced problem awareness that requires being addressed

Can result in broad and highly productive solutions search

Can lead towards facilitating change, adaptation and innovating

Wang et al. 2014 have mentioned about dysfunctional conflict, which is a conflict that hinders organizational goal achievement. Management then looks into eliminating this conflict. Functional conflict can also turn into this type of conflict. The consequences of dysfunctional conflict are highly negative inclusive of changes in the groups and changes between groups.

As stated by Aziz et al. (2013), negotiation, on the other hand, is a method to manage conflict and is also known as the conflict negotiation process. Using resolution and techniques for stimulation can help in achieving desired conflict management. Negotiation can be defined as an exchange of goods and services between parties and attempts at agreeing over the exchange rate to bring an end to the conflict. It is a process wherein an attempt is made to reach agreements of acceptable nature in a circumstance that is characterized by disagreement based same level. According to Pedler et al. (2013) there are 4 elements characterizing negotiations inclusive of trying to solve a conflict present, interdependence level between the parties involved, the circumstance is conducive to the interaction opportunities and there exists some agreement possibility without which negotiation cannot bring over positive conflict negotiation.

Adopting a win-win approach according to David et al. (2012), is the best approach to gain conflict resolution as it offers both the parties something different.

According to Robins and Judge (2013), conflict is a dynamic process. In modernized organizations, conflict is helpful for enhancing the effectiveness of organizations. There are various stages involved in the process of conflict from starting to end inclusive of a conflict situation, situational awareness, realization, conflict manifestation, suppressing conflict to resolve it and conflict situation after effects. These are described in the following figure:

Source: (Robins and Judge 2013, p. 370)

In each of these stages, the organization effectiveness is influenced. The influence is at times positive and mostly negative. When negative, the influence results in hampering effectiveness in the following ways:

Diverting energy from tasks

Threatening well-being of psychological nature

Wasting resources

Creating a negative atmosphere

Interfering with communication

Breaking down cohesion of group

Increasing hostile nature and aggressiveness

Leading towards increasing politics that is efforts for acquiring power for advancing their individual efforts

Leading groups towards stereotyping one another

Conclusion

Snap-On UK Holdings Limited benefitted from one of the functional conflicts that took place in the company. The positive influences, in turn, led towards organizational effectiveness because:

It led towards newer thoughts

It further led towards stimulating innovation and creativity

The conflict motivated to change and took into consideration different approaches and ideas

Promoting organizations strength through enhancing vitality

The conflict helped individuals and teams to establish particular identities

Increased loyalty and performance were evident in each group

The conflict served as a safety aid as it led towards creating a positive environment where individuals and leaders are committed towards the company they work for rather than their individual self.

According to Pondy (2006), it can be said that leaders played an efficient role and a significant role when dealing with the conflict as already stated, functional conflict can lead towards non-functional conflict that could hamper effectiveness gravely.

In order to deal with the negotiation process effectively, the leaders as top managers of the company chose to adopt diagnostic tools that can help ease out the negotiation process and enhance the effectiveness of an organization. The tools were inclusive of Belbin inventory and Big 5 model.

According to Rahim (2002), providing a general, non-threatening and positive atmosphere where individuals are allowed to communicate with each other and work collaboratively with enhanced knowledge. Such knowledge can be utilized for bringing new teams together or for making current teams motivated as well as effective. The use of this tool furthermore helped in providing a base from which Snap UK Holding Limited could follow a consistent approach to building an effective team based on systems of management. However this model does not often work as literature illustrates this model to have several limitations:

In cases where conflict is not involved between teams but conflict involves employees and top management, this model will not work for Snap-On UK Holdings Limited as this model is limitedly designed for teams only

The model can be utilized for predicting the performance of a group when used within settings at work but at times, businesses face conflict within social settings as well

Personality is not measured through this model, rather focus is over personality

According to Robbins et al. (2013), different cultures have different perspectives on conflict and its management. An old man may negotiate in a different way than a young entrepreneur. Such differences are present in organizations ever since the advent of globalizations. Negotiation as well is influenced by cultural differences such as desiring for long-term relationship rather than a one-time relationship, preferring to win, having informal or formal attitude, communicational style differences (either direct or indirect), some cultures foster showing emotions while others prefer hiding it and in some cultures decisions are made through groups while in others it is through leaders.

References

Conclusion

At Snap-On UK Holdings Limited, the cultural effectiveness of the firm lies in the leadership capabilities that solve conflict using open communication style. As per Robbins et al. (2013), the company undertook research on different culture based negotiation styles so as to deal with conflict in alignment with the cultural differences present. In order to gain positive influence on its culture, the company uses cultural approaches to negotiation when in a conflict in order to in turn positively influence its effectiveness. Some of these approaches are:

Time orientation: According to Riemann (2010), there are 2 distinct orientations to time existing across the world inclusive of monochromic and polychromic. Approaches that are monochromic have time in linearity and require a focus on only one thing at a time. Such approaches are common in cultures influenced by European region evident in U.S, Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavia. Negotiators from polychromic cultures such as those at Snap-On UK Holdings Limited, have a tendency to start and end meetings in flexible timing, take appropriate breaks, have comfort with free flow of information, expect to read and listening to others minds, overlapping talk at times and taking punctuality of time personally. Sustaining power distance: Negotiations are essential but they should not fail to consider power distance sustainability between them. Wang et al. (2014) utilized the power distance idea for describing the deference degree and unequal power acceptance among people. According to Tafel-Vija et al. (2009), cultures wherein there is comfort with higher power distance are those wherein some people are regarded more than the others due to status in the society, their gender, education, their personal rewards and related factors. Snap-On UK Holdings Limited is a company with low power distance with a tendency to assume equality between people.

Such a culture helps Snap-On UK Holdings Limited from the perspective that when in conflict, all parties know that they are at an equal level without any partiality. Aziz et al. (2013) opined this confidence of the employees leads towards the positive effectiveness of the organization and a strong organizational culture.

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