Challenges Managers or Leaders Face and Recommendations on Dealing with Them

Leadership and Management Portfolio
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Leadership and Management Portfolio
Introduction
Leadership and management are needed to run organizations. Both play a crucial role in ensuring that staff members do what is expected. Marketing relies heavily on leadership and management. The paper will focus on six topics: underpinnings of management (classical and empirical theories), motivation (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s two-factor theory), leadership (laissez-faire and the great man theory), situational leadership (Fiedler’s contingency theory and the Hersey-Blanchard model.), recruitment and selection, and team dynamic and toxic leadership. The topics and theories will demonstrate what marketers need to do to achieve better results. The paper will explore each topic with key themes/theories/models. Each topic will outline the challenges managers or leaders face and recommendations on dealing with them.
Topic 1: Underpinnings of Management
The chosen theories of management include classical and empiricist. Classical theory management emerged during the Industrial Revolution to address problems related to the factory system. Managers were faced with an increasing level of labor dissatisfaction. The assumption was that workers had only physical and economic needs. Managers did not consider other factors like social needs or job dissatisfaction. The theory advocates for the specialization of labor, organizational hierarchy, and incentives (Őnday, 2016). Specialization entails viewing the workplace as an assembly line view where tasks are broken down into smaller ones that are easy to accomplish. The hierarchical structure divides the management into distinct layers. At the top are the owners and executives who set the business’s long-term objectives. The middle management oversees the implementation of the organizational goals. The workers form the lowest level and manage the day-to-day activities. The classical theory considers that employees are motivated by financial rewards. It indicates that staff will work harder and become more productive where they are awarded incentives based on the work done. On the other hand, the empirical school considers management a study of experience (Hossain, 2014). Here, managers are required to analyze the experience of successful managers or the mistakes of poor managers and learn how to implement effective management. After learning the experience, managers are expected to transfer the knowledge to practitioners and students.
The seminar activity for the topic is a case study of Ellie and The Oasis Concert. A line manager required advice on dealing with Ellie, a member of his department, who was absent from work the day before. Ellie has indicated that she had a “stomach upset” and could not attend work. However, evidence suggests that she participated in a music concert featuring Oasis. The line manager wants input on how to deal with the issue, considering that it has implications for the organization in terms of precedence. The empirical school can solve the problem by considering how the organization has dealt with a similar issue in the past. It would also be important to study how other organizations deal with such a case. The empirical school would also ensure that the HR officer decides to set precedence in the organization.
When managers use the classical management theory, they overlook the essence of human relations and creativity. The theory views workers as machines and fails to consider their input and morale. Management overlooks the importance of job satisfaction by emphasizing increased output. This reduces the workers’ morale and eventually reduces productivity in the long term. Additionally, using the empirical school ignores that managers work under dynamic conditions. The assumption that history repeats itself assumes that conditions are the same. Hence, what worked in the past may not work in the present.
Managers can deal with the challenges of classical theory by making organizations flatter. In addition to undertaking day-to-day activities, low-level workers can participate in making decisions affecting the company. For instance, the top management can consult workers when making significant changes and incorporate their input accordingly. Additionally, managers can consider the importance of job satisfaction in increasing productivity. A financial incentive is not the only reason workers perform better (Aslam, 2014). A better working environment can improve job satisfaction and increase output. Addressing the problem of the empirical school would require managers to rely on the knowledge they have received training as opposed to learning management through experience, which is time-consuming.
Topic 2: Motivation
Motivation is a huge success factor in marketing. Motivation for employees and customers can make or break a marketing plan. Managers need to motivate their workers towards attaining organizational goals (Aslam, 2014). The inability to motivate workers means that they will be discouraged from promoting the company’s products and services. Sales are essential for any company, and so is the marketing team. Special attention must be given to motivating marketers to drive sales. At the same time, marketers should understand the customer’s motivations. A business should be aware of the internal drive of its clients. This is because motivations are the primary drivers of purchasing decisions. Without motivation, customers would not purchase products from a particular business.
The seminar activity describes how Tesco utilizes motivational theory to improve the workers’ productivity. Tesco is the largest British retailer with more than 2,200 stores. It has grown to over 468,000 workers. With such a kind of workforce, Tesco needs to motivate its workers. The company appreciates that employee motivation is critical for continued growth. Tesco encourages the workers by offering training opportunities to increase their knowledge. The business acknowledges that staff are diverse and have unique lifestyles outside work. The company supports its workers with a work/life balance. It also offers reward programs like competitive salaries, staff discounts, and company share options.
The theories that demonstrate motivation in marketing are Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s two-factor theory. Maslow’s theory of motivation indicates that motivation originates from an individual’s attempt to fulfilling five basic needs. These are physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization. Physiological needs like food and water are at the bottom of the pyramid and motivate individuals to work. Once workers’ psychological needs are met, people move higher in the pyramid to satisfy safety needs by demanding good working conditions. They then move to satisfy social needs, which entail having a sense of belonging. The self-esteem needs can be satisfied through promotion. The highest category is self-actualization, which is an area of creativity and interest (Taormina & Gao, 2013). On the other hand, Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory considers motivational and hygiene factors instrumental in satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Motivational factors like recognition, growth opportunities, and meaningfulness of the work, among others, motivate workers towards superior performance. Hygiene factors do not lead to higher motivation, but their absence causes dissatisfaction (Yusoff, Kian & Idris, 2013). These include physical working conditions, status, and company policies.
Using Maslow’s theory of motivation is problematic because individuals are different. For some workers, social needs may come before safety needs. For instance, an employee may purchase an expensive car without getting an insurance plan for the family. Further, the theory is bound to cultural differences; hence managers cannot apply it uniformly across all the workers (Taormina & Gao, 2013). Similarly, when managers use Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory, they may be disappointed to learn that satisfied employees do not need to be more productive. Managers may find that productivity remains constant or reduces despite improving job satisfaction. Additionally, different workers have different meanings of what job satisfaction entails. For example, some employees may consider flexible working hours to constitute job satisfaction, while others may value a salary increment.
Managers can overcome the limitations of the two theories by undertaking surveys to identify what the individual workers consider as important. The survey will outline what the individual workers consider valuable (Vance, 2006). The management can customize the motivation to suit the individual needs of the workers. For instance, it can offer flexible working hours to some workers and give others more power. Increasing the range of motivations is critical in catering to the workers’ diverse needs. For instance, managers can make the environment hygienic, provide flexible working hours, and increase salaries, among other ways.
Topic 3: Leadership
The success or failure of the marketing team largely depends on leadership. Without proper leadership, employees cannot work towards the organization’s goals and objectives. When managers provide leadership, they create an enabling environment to thrive. Good leadership motivates workers, which increases their productivity.
The chosen leadership theories are laissez-faire and the great man theory. Laissez-faire employs a hands-off approach where workers set the rules and make major decisions. The leader trusts and relies on the employees. Laissez-faire leaders do not micromanage or become too involved (Tosunoglu & Ekmekci, 2016). Instead, the leader allows the workers to employ their creativity and experience to attain goals and objectives. Additionally, the great man theory advocates that some individuals are born with some attributes that set them apart and allow them to assume positions of power and authority (Nawaz & Khan, 2016). A leader is someone who accomplishes extraordinary stuff against all odds. The theory advocates that those in leadership are there courtesy of their special endowment.
The challenge with the laissez-faire approach is that it can create a lack of cohesiveness within the group. Laissez-faire leaders tend to appear withdrawn and uninvolved, weakening unity within a team (Tosunoglu & Ekmekci, 2016). The leaders are not involved in the group’s progress, making the workers less concerned about a major project. The problem with the great man theory is its assumption that leaders are born. This removes the possibility of ambition of working towards becoming a leader. The theory can be misused to deny aspiring leaders an opportunity to lead, especially when they are not considered to have exceptional traits. It disadvantages women and other marginalized groups and considers them unfit for leadership.
The shortcoming of laissez-faire can be addressed where managers constantly check on the group performance. The managers can allow employees to make major decisions, but they should implement what they say. Employees know the leader will hold them accountable and take their roles seriously (Tosunoglu & Ekmekci, 2016). For the problem presented by the great man theory, organizations can continually encourage employees to aspire for leadership positions. They can present leadership as something that someone can learn instead of one inborn.
Transformational leadership would be critical where the organization needs to embrace a new marketing strategy. In marketing, responding to change is crucial in enabling a business to remain ahead of its competitors. A manager with transformational leadership skills would manage change and improvement. A new marketing strategy would need someone flexible enough to support employees to embrace a better way of marketing. Transformational leadership will empower the workers to make changes themselves and attain their full potential (Crews, Brouwers & Visagie, 2019). The marketers would hence embrace the new marketing strategy and perform beyond expectations. Moving to the new marketing strategy is risky, and a transformational leader would be willing to take the risk for the organization’s benefit.
A transactional leadership approach would be required to provide order and structure in the marketing team (Crews, Brouwers & Visagie, 2019). There are times when an organization’s business cycle requires proper structures that workers can follow. Transactional leadership would ensure the maintenance of order and structure. Any activity that threatens predictability would be dismissed. The management team would have clear instructions and be required to follow a chain of command. The marketers would be aware that they will be punished for following the structure and penalized for violating the order.
A laissez-faire leadership would be needed where the marketing team needs to become more creative. Under laissez-faire, employees feel...