Developing Personal and Management Skills - Reflection on Personal Styles

Developing Personal and Management Skills

Leadership is one of the elementary functions of an organisation's management for directing its resources for ensuring its efficacy. The efficient leaders of any company provide its employees with clarity concerning the organisational purpose and motivate them to realise the company's mission. The present report is an attempt for evaluating my leadership, as well as management skills by using various frameworks related to the subject. At the same time, a Personal Development Plan is attached for achieving optimum success regarding leadership and management skills.

Reflection on Personal Styles

The Reflection Model

I have used Gibb's Reflective Style for gaining a better insight into my leadership and democratic style.

The main stages of this model are described concerning the experience, feelings concerning the experience, evaluation regarding the experience, analysis regarding the situation, conclusion and the development of an action plan.

Leadership Style

Scholars have identified various styles of leadership such as participative or democratic, autocratic, transformational, laissez-faire, transactional, and many others.

Transformational leadership: This is one of the most popular leadership styles focused by the leaders of many organisations at present. It emphasises creating positive and valuable changes in the subordinates with an end goal of developing future leaders. The fundamental characteristics of this leadership are inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, idealised influence, as well as individualised consideration (Kotamena et al, 2020). The main skills of transformational leaders are openness, empathy, creativity, communication skill, and the ability for motivating others. It increases the performance of the employees and diminishes the potential turnover.

Transactional leadership: Transactional or managerial leadership relies on punishment or rewards or accomplishing optimal performance from the subordinates (Odumeru and Ogbonna, 2013). Such leaders focus on short-term goals and structured policies. However, their inflexible attitude and opposition towards change could appear as disadvantages. On the other hand, it could be highly productive and useful for the achievement of short-term objectives.

Laissez-faire leadership: It emphasises the reliance and trust of the employees to a considerable extent. Such leaders do not engage themselves in the micro-management of the organisation or guide their employees. It encourages the development of a more contractual and impersonal relationship (Buch et al, 2015). It also focuses on creativity, constructive feedback, encouraging the employees for solving their problems, and taking charge whenever necessary. However, a lack of guidance from the leaders could create confusion regarding the clarity of goals. Furthermore, it could lead to low accountability and passivity of the employees.

Autocratic leadership: It emphasises the imposition of expectation on the subordinates, as well as defining their outcomes (Hogg and Adelman, 2013). The basic features of this leadership are limited stakeholder input, clarity regarding procedures and rules, and a structured environment. The main qualities of autocratic leaders are ability regarding significant decisions and dictating necessary methods concerning such decisions. On the other hand, they do not prioritise motivating other employees.

Democratic or participative style: It is a specific leadership style that involves the members of a group undertaking a participative role in the decision-making procedure. Both private and government organisations could implement this leadership style. It encourages the employees of an organisation to freely share their opinions regarding any issue (Bhatti et al, 2012). A democratic style of leadership has a positive impact on communication with different consumers (Allafchi, 2017). This leadership style is satisfactory as it enhances the potentials concerning the operationalisations of the Company to a great extent.  The primary attributes regarding this leadership style are creativity, effective communication with employees, innovation, competence, fairness, providing necessary feedback to the employees, and many others. It increases the productivity of the staff, establish diverse ideas and innovation in the workplace and improve awareness concerning the values of the Company.

The reflection on my style reveals the focus on democratic or participative leadership. For example, I prefer sharing the decision-making procedure with other members of the organisation (Lojpur et al, 2015). At the same time, I focus on the engagement of the employees and provide them opportunities related to brainstorming. Additionally, I encourage teamwork and emphasise creativity, innovation, competence, and fairness. However, I am aware of a few disadvantages regarding democratic leadership such as the slow process related to decision-making, and the potential threat of not giving value to others.

Management Style

The three early writers of management had been Fayol, Taylor, and Weber. The Classical Management Theory of Fayol focused on the division related to work, discipline, scalar chain, remuneration, unity of command and direction, discipline and centralisation (Health Knowledge, 2022). On the other hand, Taylor focused on the concept of Scientific Management Theory focused on the breaking down of elements regarding manual tasks in different manufacturing environments. At the same time, he emphasised the improvement of work methods for enhancing productivity, stimulating management into the adoption of positive roles related to leadership at the shop floor level, and improvement of physical condition regarding work in the workplace.

Max Weber’s Bureaucratic Management Theory also gained popularity amongst scholars. As per Weber, the organisation was a segment of the wider society (Ferdous, 2016). The main characteristics of the bureaucracy are continuous functions sported by rules and the desired functioning of the employees within the boundary of the specialised framework, as well as a hierarchical structure. It focuses on ensuring authority on the official positions instead of individuals.

Hawthorne Studies: This model developed by Mayo focuses on four stages that are carrying out a study regarding the physical surroundings, relaying assembly room stage regarding the analysis of the output, the stage regarding the analysis of the attitude of the employees, and the “bank winning observation room” (Health Knowledge, 2022). The theory undertook the first attempt for undertaking genuine research on the social arena related to an industry setting. It focuses on the needs regarding supervisors, the function of the group members, as well as the informal behaviour of various workers.

Theory X and Y by McGregor:  Theory X focuses on the close supervision of the employees and the hierarchical structure coupled with an authoritarian or autocratic leadership style (Hattangadi, 2015). On the other hand, Theory Y focuses on the participative style and maximisation of the commitment of the employees by moulding them. However, the blurring organisational goals could act as obstacles regarding the implementation of Theory Y.

Motivation theory of Herzberg: The Two Factor Theory promoted by Herzberg focuses on the hygiene factor as the rudimentary factor for the job satisfaction of the employees (Chiat and Patnaik, 2019). He believed that the job satisfaction of an employee could be achieved by achievement, recognition, responsibility, work, advancement, as well as personal growth. On the other hand, job dissatisfaction depends on the hygiene of the working condition such as the condition of the workplace, relations with the workers, rules and policies, quality of the supervisors, as well as salary and base wage. 

Hierarchy of Needs by Maslow: Maslow focused on the satisfaction of the employees at every level before moving to the next standard. It is also regarded as a Neo-Human Relations Theory. Maslow focused on the physiological needs of an individual such as food, shelter, and other requirements (Hopper, 2020). Besides, he focused on the safety needs such as health conditions, social needs such feelings of acceptance, esteem needs such as the achievement of a goal, as well as self-actualisation such as the optimum utilisation of an individual's potential. The reflection on my style reveals the focus on this theory as I prefer the fulfilment of all these needs to motivate them.

Personal Development Plan

The following plan would help me enhance my skills in management and leadership.

Table 1: Personal Development Plan

The analysis reflects my preference for the democratic style of leadership and the adoption of the hierarchy of needs propagated by Maslow related to the management of the employees. I have developed the short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals for increasing different skills related to leadership and management. The above plan regarding Personal Development would help me to develop motivation, communication, as well as creative skills essential for enhancing the performance of the subordinates and ensuring organisational growth to the optimum extent.