CHANGE MANAGEMENT, DELEGATION AND TEAM LEADERSHIP ALL QUESTIONS IN THIS SECTION
ID: 426513 • Letter: C
Question
CHANGE MANAGEMENT, DELEGATION AND TEAM LEADERSHIP ALL QUESTIONS IN THIS SECTION MUST BE ANSWERED IN RELATION TO CASE STUDY 1. Imagine that you are the owner of Billy’s Awesome Seafood Company Limited. The company, with 60 staff (49 full-time and 11 part-time) is one of the major suppliers of seafood in the Southern North Island. They supply major retailers, restaurants and independent fast-food outlets. They also have their own retail store at the front of their processing plant, where they sell raw fish and other seafood products, as well as traditional `fish and chips`. Recently, you have noticed there has been an increase in the number of complaints you are receiving. These appear to be across all areas of the business, and across all of your different customer groups. As far as you can tell, there doesn’t appear to be any common cause, nor does there appear to be any consistent pattern to the complaints. One thing is clear – unless you take action – quickly – you will probably start losing customers and money. You think that involving the staff in investigating the problem might make it easier to come up with some innovative ideas to improve service and product quality. This is very different to the way the company has been run in the past, where you have made all the critical decisions yourself. Moving from this way of managing the company to having other staff more involved in decision-making represents a major change and will need to be carefully managed if this is to be successful.
Question 4 Group Leadership (9 marks) When delegating tasks to groups, managers recognise that individuals in the group will take on one or more membership roles within the group. Their role will fall into the category of either a Group-task role, Group-maintenance role, or Self-orientated role. Knowing the roles that their people are likely to feel most `comfortable` performing may be a factor in who you delegate to be on the group in the first place. Show how one (1) specific role from each group of roles could be played as your group works to come up with plans to improve the future of the business. (3 x 3 marks = 9 marks)
Explanation / Answer
The type of change required within the Delta Pacific Company, is of the transformational kind as the vision of the organization requires to be modified, and the goals reinvented to match the current global environment the company is operating within. Basically the company requires an absolute overhaul of its principles, mode of operation, the processes in place, as well as, the products and services. It needs to evaluate areas to focus monitoring and control required, for efficient management and optimal results. Successful implementation of the transformational model requires a dynamic organizational setup such as, adhocratic, led by a visionary and strategic leader who will ensure inclusive management, and motivation through exemplary performance. The transformational change requires significant involvement of staff at every level of the organization, control structure being top down with effective flow of communication throughout. It is essential to ensure that the entire organization understands the requirement for the transformation, the objective it is to achieve, the impact on every employee and the importance of the entire organization moving forward as a whole.
For any change to be effective it is essential that the leadership be extremely exemplary to ensure motivation of the entire organization and successful implementation of the change at every level. Therefore top management which institutes the change has to be dynamic and not only initiate the change but be the change itself. Considering the shifting product and its marketing strategy it is very important that the marketing team and the Salesforce be changed into a cross functional unit to be able to better meet customer requirements, as well as optimize sales. The sales and marketing managers need to understand the importance of leading the team, effectively and delivering excellent results by keeping them motivated. The leaders need to be focused on the results to be achieved while, charting a roadmap for the team to be able to achieve the required results. Effective utilization of input data of customer feedback and implementing the required control to change in plan, should be a part of any transitional management. The technical managers are an important profile for the organization considering the dependence on the supremacy of the product for their success in the Global Arena. Technical managers therefore should understand the requirement for innovation as well as ideas which require out of the box thinking along with talent. The manager should be highly motivational as creativity requires motivation as a primary input.
In any organization, it is necessary for employees to understand the reason behind anything happening in the organization that directly or indirectly impacts them. It should be one of the major responsibilities of any organization to address employee concerns and treat them as an integral part of the corporate structure. Inclusive management is a must not an option in today's competitive world and every capable management understands the need for retaining employees and inspiring loyalty. If we want an employee to give their best output and implement change which is quickly adapted to without losing employees or work days, we need to make them part of that change and address their fears and apprehensions on how this would impact them. Achieving this would mean guaranteed success in implementation of the required changes.
The Laissez Faire leadership style in the organization is recommended as it is most adaptable to change and is most adaptable with maximum delegation of responsibility and resultant accountability at every level in each department.always responsible for the organization and carrying it forward with implementation of a well-planned strategy and a focused approach, along with, effective management. He is a major motivating force exemplifying the attitude required for successful transformation and ensuring that the change becomes a challenge rather than a fear. The managers of each department of sales, marketing, as well as, technical are motivated by such a leader and many of the qualities as well as tactics are copied by these leaders. Each department implements the required changes and there is a perfect flow of communication within the organization enabling informed and strategic planning, as well as, control and subsequent action, in case of deviation.
Each leader is required to be most effective at the level of his responsibility and accountability structure. Chief executive officer is responsible for the entire organization and accountable to the shareholders, his effectiveness is most prominent in strategic planning of the goals of the organization and implementation to ensure objective are successfully obtained. Along with this leader is responsible for performance of every other department and employee within the organization, through exemplary performance. Managers of each department need to be most effective in maintaining focus on the objective to be achieved by the department and ensuring the required output is achieved in the most efficient manner. Sales targets need to be met or exceeded, marketing strategy framed through adequate market research and analysis, technical developments should be innovative and superior to the products existing in the market. Therefore, each manager and leader needs to be effective, in achieving the respective goals, as well as, assure effectiveness of all below them.Transformational leadership is a contrast to transactional leadership, in the sense that, it is highly proactive and focuses on achievement of goals through motivation of the employees and Organization as a whole. This is a dynamic form of leadership and proposed to implement constant changes within the organization, through introduction of new ideas, as well as, dynamic analysis of the goals and the plans set to achieve them, with implementation of changes within them whenever and wherever required. This dynamic approach believes in motivating every individual and group to achieve personal goals through excellence in performance. This is the form of leadership embodies change and encourages individual growth is everything in developing future leaders. The goal of the organization is projected as the goal of every individual as inclusive management is a hallmark of this leadership style. As a result entire organization operates as one and becomes motivated to achieve organizational goals as part of personal goals because an individual grows along with the organization and relationship between the organization and the workers is cooperative and the growth of one simultaneously benefits the other. Such leaders always lead both from the front and from within, meaning they represent all the required leadership qualities, they exemplify leadership by themselves being super achievers and motivate the rest to follow by example. Thus, it promotes an environment of growth and learning within the organization which mimics growth for the organization externally. This leadership is extremely popular presently and works well in organizational structures such as adhocratic and market.
Group task roles are fulfilled by individuals completely focused on achieving the groups goal successfully and every action and interaction is aimed at accomplishing this. Task roles are fulfilled by coordinators who may co-ordinate communication within the group former energisers who motivate a group to take action relevant to the bone comma elaborate who expands upon ideas of and others and enhances them comma evaluator critic who analyses all communication and actions of the group and ensures that performance is finally maximized. Energizers and evaluator critics would be an essential part of my group as these are crucial for implementation and management of change within any organisation. The optimistic and balanced approach ensures that the change is successfully implemented.
Maintenance roles are based on enhancing communication through improvement of interpersonal relationships and ensuring harmonious environment within groups and the organisation. Some of the maintenance roles are an encourager who constantly provides positive feedback to all involved group members, whenever possible, regarding their actions. Followers accept ideas of all other members of the group and try to convince others to follow the same Idea, a compromise tries to identify a solution which may be acceptable to all harmonizer focuses on reducing conflict and resultant stress within groups by diffusing stressful situations through humorous comments light hearted camaraderie. I would want to have encourages and harmonizers within the groups, considering that focuses on implementation of and adaption to change.
Within every group and Organisation the negative exist to balance the positive in the form of self centred roles which are focused on creating obstacles to achievement of the goals and disruption of activities to achieve this. An example of self centred roses an aggressive who always tends to display antagonistic behaviour towards all other group members and always criticizes ideas all other members even when they are innovative. Dominator who tends to always monopolize all group interactions and activities by refusing to allow others to participate and speak through interruption. The blocker who refuses to corporate and allied successful implementation of ideas of others how about the idea maybe. The help seeker who constantly pretence to be helpless in order to avoid completing the work or taking on any responsibility. Given the fact that the presence of such individuals can seriously hamper achievement of group as well as organisational goals and result in failure to implement changes in organisational structure effectively and successfully, it is essential that these roles be minimised through identification, and if possible through positive training of concerned individuals.