Hello Dear, I’ve received my order last week and the professor didn’t accept it because you missed a few questions of the requirements. so can you please add these answers to the writing, I would be more than happy!
In Q1, you need to focus on the training methods that you think the leaders in your country need and why do you think they need these methods in specific.
For example: Do they need in-the-job-training? or off-the-job-training? or other types of training? and why?
In Q2, you need to tell me what type of a leader do you want to be in the future and why; you also need to elaborate on the forms of training that you will need to move from your current leadership style to where you want to be.
One more thing, I need to see some personal reflections of who you are as a person and how this impacts your leadership style.
that what I received from the professor. please if you didn’t understand clearly ask me and I will explain more
Thank you
Meshal
BA4854
Assignment #1
PERSONAL MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Meshal Alhawas
#3409934
University of New Brunswick
Dr. HayfaaTlaiss
October 14, 2014
Personal management and leadership development
Introduction
The development of leadership is an important management aspect in any business organization. As a business grows and the range of activities increases, a need arises to create new leadership positions to meet the demands raised by the expansion. New leadership positions can be filled using staff from within or outside the organization. The process of leadership development requires careful planning and execution since getting the correct human resource for business activities lies at the center of the achievement of the business objectives. I carried out an analysis on a case study of leadership development carried out in a business organization with the aim of assessing the leadership models adopted in the organization, the challenges encountered and the success. In conducting the analysis on the case study, I seek to compare the leadership types presented by the author to the leadership types present in Saudi Arabia, a largely Muslim country where businesses are run by families. This is a country where the government maintains a strict regulation of the business enterprises as
Background information of the case study
Natalie Shope Griffin has developed a case study entitled “Personalize your management style” in which she conducts a comprehensive analysis of the various business leadership types and the potential alternatives available to improve the performance for each business leadership type. The author bases the case study on the Nationwide Financial Company. This is a company that offers financial services to its clients and is based in Ohio. The company has a staff population of more than 5000 placing it squarely in the league of large corporate players. Management of more than 5000 staff members needs a well-organized and efficient human resource management system (Griffin, 2003).
Challenges of staff development
In the opening remarks, the author attributes the leadership and managerial challenges faced by numerous business organizations to the adoption of what “one size fits all” leadership development approach by many business organizations (Griffin, 2003). The author describes the challenge posed by this mode of staff promotion to senior management without accompanying this with comprehensive training for the new role. Employees promoted from junior positions to senior management positions find themselves in an unfamiliar work environment, which comes with new roles, fresh challenges and new targets to be met. These employees are normally offered a few weeks or months of leadership training workshops and seminars based on curricula developed to cover many classes of manager. There is usually no personalized approach to their training.
Putting these managers in their new roles without comprehensively preparing them for the new challenges they are going to encounter is likened to throwing them to the wolves where, according to the author, a Darwinian process follows. Those who are competent enough succeed in the new positions and get awarded through further promotion while those who do not adjust well are reassigned or they are given discipline measures (Griffin, 2003).
The author proposes that success in leadership development for a business organization lies in the development of individualized training programs. There is need to understand the role that individual character, behaviors and ideology play in the prospective leaders’ ability to take up leadership roles. The developers of the staff leadership training programs need to carry out an assessment of the success of the program based on the needs of every single trainee and not on the whole group because his gives an inaccurate representation of the potential of each participant. In my view, this assertion is well presented since each individual has strengths and weaknesses. It is therefore necessary that training enhances the strengths of a trainee while improving the same individual’s weakness areas.
The author justifies the success due to adoption of individualized training approach by presenting a case study of a training program that was developed for Nationwide Financial and which was applied in leadership development training for the company. The program was necessitated by low staff morale due to the recruitment of senior managers from outside the organizations and the nonperformance of the staff who had been promoted from within the organization. The training managers began by identifying four types of organization leaders. In this paper, I am going to analyze the four types of business leaders and compare the same with the leadership types in Saudi Arabia.
Types of business leaders
The reluctant leaders:
This category of leaders have the skills required for leadership but do not present themselves for the positions of leadership. They have a reservation for playing the lead role in a group and are more interested in being team player in a group. These leaders need to be trained with a focus to changing their attitude towards leadership in order to see themselves as potential leader who can lead a group to achieve success. Due to the fact that they are reluctant to apply for leadership positions, these employees fail to rise through the management ranks. For them to apply for the leadership positions, this category of employees requires a lot of prodding. They are sympathetic and form good interpersonal relationships with their colleagues. The main challenge in preparing them for successful leadership lies in improving their confidence as team leaders and not just as team players. They also require training in conflict management skills since they appear as risk averse. This category of leaders made up 20% of the leaders in the case study.
This category of employees is common in Saudi Arabia. The society in Saudi Arabia is generally conservative. The business leaders are not averse to taking risks in their decisions. Although the country is widely considered to be populated by wealthy people, the highest percentage of the population is comprised of middle income earners (Raston et al., 2008). Most businesses in the country are family owned, but the government has developed policies that generally shield the businesses from risks.
This kind of leadership can also be expected in countries with conservative societies where the corporate culture is laced with a socialist inclination. In a country like Japan, many homegrown companies have employees who focus on putting in quality work in place of quantity. Whereas the corporate culture in the U.S puts emphasis on the reward of personal effort, the Japanese corporate culture emphasizes on collective responsibility, therefore diluting an individual’s desire to rise to management position. The Japanese also have a mentorship program that is referred to as “sempai-kohai” that emphasizes on the persons in leadership positions supporting the persons in the lower positions (McClelland &Boyatzis, 2002).
The cultural tradition in Saudi Arabia does not advocate for individual success and therefore makes the employees in to aim for the collective rise for the whole group. In the U.S, the capitalist culture appreciates individual success and wealth (Jung et al., 2009). Various business awards are organized to reward outstanding performers making the employees in the organizations that run such awards to be motivated to rise through the ranks of management. For the efficient development of this category of employees, I support the strategy proposed by Griffin, (2003).
The reluctant leader employees in Saudi Arabia can be trained to be more risk averse which would encourage them to examine their potential in management. The effects of globalization are expected to transform these employees to more competitive leaders, but the limitations of religion, culture and tradition may hinder an increase in the proportion of arrogant leaders. Unlike the low proportion stated in the case study, I believe this type of leader will be significantly in Saudi Arabia and might actually form the highest proportion of employees.
Arrogant leaders:
The second group of leaders that has been identified is the arrogant leader. This kind of a leader is described as being overconfident. They feel that they can fit well in any management positions and mostly focus on rising through the ranks. They willingly present their skills and qualification for any senior management position that arises in the organization. Based on the description of these leaders as presented in the case study, they appear to be very visible to the management. They are aggressive in seeking recognition especially through promotion. Their aggression gives them bloated confidence in their abilities.
This is a category of employees that is not common in a conservative country like Saudi Arabia. The Saudi culture advocates for politeness, and also encourages people to put the interest of the others first. This can be expected in corporations without proper human resource appraisal systems where employees would be promoted based on individual lobbying. The risk created by this kind of attitude is the sacrifice of team work as a vehicle for better organizational success. It may also end up creating unhealthy competition among the employees and silent discord as can be seen through the negative appraisal given to Steve by his colleagues and his unethical practice of exaggerating figures.
Arrogant leaders are not easy to train as they approach the possibility of promotion with an arrogant attitude and feel that they have a right to be in leadership position based on their superior performance. This category of leaders requires a training approach that emphasizes the important role that team work plays in the potential for success in the organization. The author identifies this category of leaders as making up 10% of the population in an American company but they would be rare in Saudi Arabia especially since the society does not allow for women to rise to management positions. Arrogant leaders require a training program that would build on their team work skills while scaling their overconfidence which stem from intrinsic insecurities to reasonable levels (Ajami, 2002).
Unknown leaders:
These are leaders who are very reluctant in forming relationship with their colleagues. They seem to mind their business all the time. They perform their tasks well and prefer working alone or in very small groups. They get passed a lot during promotions since they are hard to notice. These employees may end up resenting the company since they feel ignored for lack of promotion. These employees are hard to assess based on the feedback from their colleagues since they are not known by many people, choosing to maintain a tight circle of friends in the organization.
This category would make the highest proportion of women employees in Saudi companies.
The key to effective training these employees for effective leadership lies in helping them to recognize the importance of networking with colleagues in the working place.
This category of employees is different from the first two and must be uniquely handled. In my view, training this category of employees together with the group comprising of arrogant leaders would farther alienate them from the prospect of rising in the organization. Arrogant leaders are considered as “take-it-all” characters who sweep every opportunity that comes along, with the bloated confidence which may get to bullying levels. They expect the support of their colleagues in rising to available positions of authority and aggressively endeavor to create relationships with colleagues.
The unknown leader on the other hand has very few friends, does not speak up and expects that their great performance would make them noticed. The bottom side is that they leave their bosses to take credit for all their hard work. Since this case study was carried out in the U.S which is a capitalist society, the number is expected to be significantly higher in Saudi Arabia which has a conservative society.
The workaholic:
This is the fourth category that is described by the author of the case study on Nationwide financial, where they discovered this as the largest category of employees. Making up 45% of the population, this is a huge group of potential leaders. These are leaders who have been brought up through the corporate culture of “hard work pays” where they feel that success in the organization is directly related to the amount of work that the employee puts in. this is the convention litany that guides most business organization, in my, opinion where your benefits are proportional to the effort that you put into the organization.
The workaholic manager is very common in capitalist countries like the U.S. in the U.S wealth is valued and directly determines the quality of life that a person will lead. The business environment is one that rewards hard work. This leads to the managers opting to put in extra hours in order to ensure the organization grows to the highest potential. More production is considered as greater success. The concept of working smart is sacrificed on the altar of hard work through more hours at the work place. Saudi Arabian countries however value a balanced employee and the work policies favor a balanced lifestyle. In fact, it is mostly the men in the society who seek employment (McClelland &Boyatzis, 2002).
Personal appraisal
Based on the four types of managers that have been described by Griffin, (2003) I can categorize myself as a workaholic. Although I am yet to be engaged in a full time employment situation, I have had several employment engagements albeit on temporary basis. During most of these engagements, I have found myself possessed by the desire to make a good impression to the bosses and my colleagues hoping that someone somewhere will notice my great effort and consider me as a valuable asset for the organization. This might be because I have a desire to be considered for full time employment in the organizations.
However, on a deeper analysis, I find that this is also influenced by the capitalist corporate culture in North America that instills in us a desire to amass wealth. My desire, however, is to become a well-rounded manager with a perfect balance in the social religious and professional aspects of my life. In reading the case study for Nationwide financial, I found myself relating to the same situation that Mark finds himself in. I desire to be the kind of manager who inspires others to rise in their careers and to give their best for the organization. A training in proper interpersonal relations and time management would be beneficial in the achievement of these objectives.
Conclusion
The case study for Nationwide Financials proposes a very practical approach to leadership development. The categorization of the managers allows their unique characters and training needs to come out clearly. It also enables the human resource management team to properly analyze training needs for individual managers. In analyzing the training program for the company the author allows the reader to appreciate the great role an individual’s personality plays on the success of their training for leadership.
References
Ajami, R. A. 2002. The Multinational Firm and Host-Arab Society: Areas of Conflict and Convergence.Management International Review 20:16–28.
Griffin, N. S. 2003. Personalize your management style. Harvard Business Review.
Jung, D., Yammarino, F. J. & Lee, J. K. (2009). Moderating role of subordinates’ attitudes on transformational leadership and effectiveness: A multi-cultural and multi-level perspective. Leadership Quarterly, 20, 586-603.
McClelland, D., &Boyatzis, R.E. (2002). Leadership motive pattern and long term success in management. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67(6), 737-743.
Ralston, D. A., Holt, D. H., Terpstra, R. H. & Cheng, Y. K. (2008). The impact of national culture and economic ideology on managerial work values: a study of the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and China. Journal of International Business Studies.39, 8-26.
Attachment
PERSONAL MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
As stated on the course outline, a personal reflections paper is required for the course. This assignmentwill count for 30% of your final grade. Your specific assignment includes answering the followingquestions after critically reading and analyzing “Personalize Your Management Development” case, byNatalie Shope Griffin that is in your course pack of cases(Attached). To complete this assignment and answer the following questions you are expected to reflect on the status of management and leadership in your owncountries. You are also expected to perform some in-depth thinking and personal reflection on who youare as a person, and as a potential future leader. While answering the questions, you are highlyencouraged to be “your own person” and “an independent thinker”. Although you are expected to applyconcepts from class, readings, and the textbook, you are strongly encouraged to reflect on your localcontext, backgrounds, and culture. Hence, you are expected to “write your own case” and answer the questions in a manner that reflects your own logic, rationale, and approach to life and career.
After critically analyzing the previously mentioned Harvard Business Review Case, please reflect on the following questions:
1. What types of leaders are most common in your own countries? business environment? Why doyou think this is the case? What type of training and development approaches or methods do youthink is needed and why?
2. What type of a leader do you think you currently are and why? What type of a leader would youaim to be and why? What training and development approaches or methods do you think will beneeded to facilitate your progress towards your intended leadership style?
This is an individual assignment. The body of your report must use 1ó line spacing with 12-point,Times New Roman font, must not exceed 10 pages. Title Pages, outlines, and reference pages will not count towards your 10 pages. The paper should have a title page, with a title, your name, and studentnumber as well as an outline. You can use any form of referencing as long as you are consistentthroughout.
You will be required to hand in an electronic version of your report by Email Word or Adobe and a paper copy at the beginning of class.
Words/phrases you are highly encouraged to use:
– The following statements could be used in your personal reflections paper: “I think that”, “I see that”, “It seems to me that”, “In my opinion”, “In addition”, “For example,”, “Moreover,” “However,”,
“Consequently,”, “Finally,”, “In conclusion,”.
Jermaine Byrant
Nicole Johnson
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