Blog 4: My Development as a Future Leader (680)

As far as I am concerned that leadership is an essential element for management. Particularly, transformational leadership is the most suitable pattern for the current society (Mullins, 2016). The reason why could be the old-fashioned and conservative thought is rooted into last generations and their business whatever it is successful or not. In order to maintain the organization within the effective development, transformational leadership is a process that has the ability to generate higher levels of motivation and commitment among followers, rather than the previous single leadership styles like automatic, democratic or laissez-faire leadership (Burns, 1987). Hence, I would like to choose the transformational leadership to reflect my vision and value in further careers.

According to a longitudinal, random range experiment, invite 54 military officers, 90 direct followers and 724 indirect followers to get on three types of training. The results indicated that direct followers have the best performances, the leader’s group is the worst (Bruce and Boas, 2002). Leaders influence their subordinates through their actions and thoughts, when these impacts become a positive environment, it would subtly influence on people around; when there is not leader’s impact, people would performance worse than before.

Every role’s power would influence the whole organization, but the leadership is the most powerful one even as its culture, especially in circumstance, confidence and so on. For instance, Ma Huateng starts with transactional leadership and then try to shift to transformational leadership in Tencent for years that leading their staffs either in the company or in outside activities. Through the development of technology in games, social media and other aspects become one of the most competitive firms. Afterwards, he still not satisfied enough, and start planning penetrates his products into Asian even the world as the final achievements (Stone and Chen, 2017).

Compared with my surrounding people, I am good at observation, creative and problems solving. Once our class have an activity for building a tower with Lego, the request is the teammates help a ‘blind’ builder to build the highest tower with various colour layers. According to my colleague‘s feedback, I played a role that is thinking about building small square as a base, rather than only listen to my teammate suggestion but it is not a command, what I do is providing the idea of the group to get the task start (Bass and Avolio, 1994). Eventually, though we lost the game in the end, the whole process is still memorable now. There is one more example when the new term starts, I attended a workshop with my classmates, and we received a task which requires us to finish the information puzzle. All of us have to join the activities with collaboration, I am trying to engage them to think about solutions like tightening two long strings to transfer the balls, cross the fingers to move the stick and so on. Actually, my leadership cannot leave my colleagues; working with them is my biggest motivation.

This type of leadership inspire me in innovation aspect when encouraging people into a positive environment successfully, the organization or group is like a magnet attract the talents continuously (Bass, 1985). Conducts a positive recycle bring the business better than better, this is what I am assuming for the future career circumstance.

On the other hand, I also exist a few weaknesses which are lack communication skills and planning. For the reason of the first disadvantage, maybe my reading scopes not broadness enough which let me lack the community topic. I should read more newspaper and books especially the current trend of the markets’ dynamic state. The reason for the second disadvantage is usually begun when the work almost due. I understand it is a bad hobbit but if the thing is starting early is no motivate me, I think I may still do that caused by run out lots of time to make a plan is not pretty helpful for me to improve work. Since I have been to the UK, I recognize planning makes my life and studying not only more relaxed but also more regular.

References

Burns, J. M. (1987) Leadership, Harper & Row

Mullins, L.J. (2016) Management and Organisational Behaviour, 11th Edition, Pearson Higher Education

Bass, B. M. (1985) Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations, Free Press

Bass, B. M. and Avolio, B.J. (1994) Improving Organisational performance through transformational leadership, Sage

Bruce, J. A. and Boas, S (2002) ‘IMPACT OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP ON FOLLOWER DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE:A FIELD EXPERIMENT’.  Academy of Management Journa, Vol. 45, No. 4, 735-744 Stone, S. and Chen, Y. (2017) Tencent Dominates in China. Next Challenge Is Rest of the World. Bloombery Businessweek [online] Available from<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-28/tencent-rules-china-the-problem-is-the-rest-of-the-world>[07 January 2019]

Blog 3: Change Management (693)

Due to the Brexit Referendum, Britain decided to leave the European Union within 3 years which means it might lose the non-tariff and tariff conditions from EU. The related documents and agreements have not announced yet, which triggered Toyota suffered the high risks from distributions and trading issue in the European market (Berg, 2018). It plans to suspend Bernalton factory even relocates outside of the UK because the vast profits lost. This factory has generated 150,000 cars in last year and 90 percent of them are for the purpose of exporting to Europe.

Because of the ‘JUST IN TIME’ principle, Marvin Cooke, managing director at Burnaston and other suppliers who claimed they require definitely continue this very successful supply chain to keep their performances effective which delivered the components only take 37mins from either the United Kingdom or EU countries(Berg, 2018). However, with the high-speed production lines, they can’t stop working due to the warehouse capacity problems, which will increase its costs. Moreover, the plant generates cars worth around 12m pound each day, also needs to spend large amount money and time to process the daily operation due to the potential risks of importing and exporting goods. Besides, increasing the costs of expenditure also make the price raise in the European market, Toyota will reduce part of the market competitiveness. According to the above states, it is hard to achieve the action-centred leadership again, the whole plant could not achieve their common goal- JIT. Due to shutdown makes employees worry about the future, lead to low morale and even complete tasks with negative completion (Adair, 1984).

There is certain potential risks exists for the same industry, many business giants have made their own views on this. Such as Honda started to plan their components storages in UK branches; Jaguar Land Rover indicated if the government cannot take any measures, may cost 1.2bn sterling annual; BMW seeks the stopping place from either boundary.  Britain has to make any further decisions more seriously, otherwise they will be abandoned by considerable income and the automobile industry may go back more than 5 years (Inman, 2018).

Thus, the United Kingdom government should positively intervene caused by the above claimed may conduct the advanced firms exit UK, leading depression of the peripheral industries. From this circumstance, Toyota only chases the UK government to deal with the new trading document is not enough for surviving in the UK market. It should be looking for the new distributions and production line which is the most suitable to current situation. If the organization seeks out how to alive in the current crisis, Toyota will be achieve the height never reached.

In order to make it successfully, I would like to recommend that the top hierarchy leaders could adopt a several actions for Toyota in today’s UK situation in the followings states:

1. keep the high pressure on the UK government; let them deal with EU regulations and trading agreements as soon as possible. And according to these documents, redeploy new UK development directions and policies.
2. If there is no confirmation of the new policy or a policy that is not conducive to development, the company should choose to change JIT strategy to reduce losses, such as: Reduce bonuses, move inventory to cheaper places, actively sell around the UK and so on.
3. Through these measures, reduce the impact of losses on the company. Then, inspecting Europe as a new base in a synchronized manner. Slowly shift the factory caused by UK government would provide the subsidy to the company who solve the employee problems for them.

To summarize this blog, I would like to draw a conclusion leadership is so significant that contemporary companies cannot give up with it. It drives the employees and through different methods to motivate their potential into jobs. However, leadership cannot be used directly through learning, need to improve with the actual situation of the company and the company to become a kind of leadership. These types of leadership are fixed, but as human beings we have unlimited possibilities, we should change ourselves for the social environment and other factors, let ourselves continue to improve.

References

BBC News. (2019) No-deal Brexit ‘would disrupt Toyota plant’. [online] Available from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45676633> [07 January 2019]

Trade Justice Movement. (2019) Trade, Brexit and the European Union | Trade Justice Movement.

[online]

Available from <https://www.tjm.org.uk/trade-issues/brexit> [07 January 2019]

McCurry, J. (2018) No-deal Brexit must be avoided at all costs, says Toyota president. [online] the Guardian. Available from <https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/19/no-deal-brexit-must-be-avoided-at-all-costs-says-toyota-president> [07 January 2019]

Adair, J. (1979) Action- Centred leadership, Gower

Inman, P. (2018) Car industry leaders blame Brexit for UK collapse in investment | Phillip Inman. [online] the Guardian. Available from < https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/26/car-industry-leaders-blame-brexit-for-uk-collapse-in-investment > [08 January 2019]

Mullins, L.J. (2016) Management and Organisational Behaviour, 11th Edition, Pearson Higher Education

Blog 2:  Contemporary Leadership Styles: How relevant are they in today’s changing world? (739)

Leadership is one of the essential and important factors in organizational behaviour and management which leads employees toward the organizations aims and stimulates them to conduct all activities efficiently. In addition, the theoretical leadership styles in relation to the realistic situation that is impossible to apply mechanically to all organizations (Mullins, 2016).

In 1997, Belbin claimed that leadership could be fulfilled into their work as one type of quality rather than as a component of the job. For instance, automobile management plays the role that collects the tasks and resources, afterwards reallocate them to the workers, in other words, employees passively assign work and schedule their working hours. Following this situation, the job leader do is not distributive but comes naturally.

Before the discussion of the contradiction between the leadership in reality and the leadership theory put forward by previous scholars, people can recognize the distinction between management and leadership by the bellowing table (Kent, 2005):

Management	Leadership
Managers do things right	Leaders do the right things
Managing is an authority relationship	Leading is an influence relationship
Managing creates stability	Leading creates change

As a leader who must have two functions in the corporation, there are motivate subordinates and create a suitable working environment for employees to complete the entire organization activities efficiently (The Advanced Institute of Leadership research, 2005). Like Charler Silva, Regional Vice President of the Western Region who always maintain communication with customers and different hierarchy of colleagues, meanwhile, took advantage of their opinions and improved BMW’s customer orientation, operations, customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty from different angles (Sparks, K., 2016).

However, a difference between a leader and a manager is not accepted by Mintzberg (2009) who asked the rhetorical questions how you expect to be managed by someone without leadership or give a reason why you want to be led by someone with no management skills. In a general way, leadership and management can be divided into two parts in theoretically. But in fact, we cannot really separate them as two independent sectors. Such as the two arguments that Moorcroft makes about the debate between the two are presented in extreme form in 2015: hierarchical relationships with top leaders; the two are on an equal footing, but just like the two ends of a seesaw.

As above mentioned their distinguishes that management is employees passively wait to be assigned to work, when the job is in a short-term period, management-oriented leaders can use power to force subordinates to effectively achieve task performance; and the leadership is the use of their own personal charm to make subordinates willing to work and follow the leader, when the job is in long-term runs, leadership-oriented leaders successfully completed effective team building through long-term teamwork and interaction with members .

Approaches to leadership

In order to analyze the complexity and diversity of origins, we can examine the impact of management leadership on different industries and societies from different leadership perspectives according to the leading theory proposed by scholars.

Nowadays, leadership styles are no along recognized as four fixed essential characteristics, and they are constantly growing and changing, some of them even incorporate one or several kinds of features. And I will use the Managerial Leadership Framework to analyze and evaluate the modern leadership compare with the experience of our predecessors in the following statement.

In 1989, Drucker indicated that leadership is innate and self-confidence became a public symbol for them. This is known as Traits Theory, through the assumption of leaders generate naturally, not developed by learning. It could be composed by familial inheritance or personality trait. In addition, it shows that people are concerned about the choices of leader instead of leadership training.

Subsequently, Kotter (1990) points out Functional Approach Leadership that contrary to Drucker’s theory, successful corporations actively seek out people with leadership potential and put them in the right place to be fostered. The former focuses more on the personal development of leadership to lead the team responsible for effective performance. According to this notion, Benne and Sheat (2007) conducted an experiment in which they recruited a group of volunteers and then asked them to complete different types of tasks in groups. The following conclusions: task roles (prosocial) work together to determine the character’s completion; Group building and maintenance roles (prosocial)  modify the way they work to bring the team unity; The more anti-social (individual) roles do nothing, seriously affecting the quality and efficiency of the task.

Reference

Belbin, R. M. Changing the Way We Work, Butterworth– Heinemann (1997), p. 98.

Hamel, G. (2011), ‘FIRST, LETS FIRE ALL THE MANAGERS, Harvard Business Review, 89, 12, pp. 48-60. Available through Locate

Mullins, L.J. (2016), Management and Organisational Behaviour, 11th Edition, Pearson Higher Education

Sparks, K. (2016). BMW of North America Announces Management Change.BMW Group [online] Available at: https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/usa/article/detail/T0262748EN_US/bmw-of-north-america-announces-management-change?language=en_US [Accessed 1 Jan. 2019].

Mintzberg, H. Managing, Financial Times Prentice Hall (2009), p.8.

Moorcroft, R. ‘To Lead or to Manage? That Is the Question’, Manager, The British Journal of Administrative Management, November 2005, p. 4.

Drucker, P. F. The Practice of Management, Heinemann Professional (1989), p. 156.

Benne, K. D., & Sheats, P. (2007). Functional roles of group members. Group Facilitation: A Research & Applications Journal, 8, 30-35. Kotter, J. P. ‘What Leaders Really Do’, Harvard Business Review, May– June 1990, p. 103.

Blog 1: Can cultures be managed within organizations? (766)

In spite of huge amount people have their own understanding for the organizational culture, and as an ordinary notion which could be identified or interpret in various senses depend on different circumstance. According to Atkinson (1990), a culture of organization is involved to reflect the basic assumption for the performance of the working methods, whether it is acceptable or not even the stimulation or disputation of the behaviours and actions. As a broadly speaking, organizational culture is mainly manifested in the spirit and values of the entire company that it approaches from its daily operations and undertake practices (Johnson, 2013). Last but not least, the organizational culture usually seems like the personality of an individual (Oswick, Lowe and Jones, 1996).

I came from a business background family in China and its cooperative companies throughout the country. Furthermore, as an MBA student concentrating on Global Business, it is significant for me to recognize how to manage the culture in various business scenarios. Since I was little, I have loved cars especially when they were racing on the road so that I really look forward to joining a famous firm in the automotive industry aspects in the future. I wrote this blog which is mainly focused on the number of assessments of the challenges suffered by automobile companies with utilizing different patterns and implementing the strategies for the cultural management. Furthermore, managing the organizational culture of BMW not only could figure out the existing problems even the potential risks but also could comprehend the emotion and perception of organizational members conduct promoting the efficiency and effectiveness of the operation.

Culture exists only in the comparison of two or more societies, and culture varies with people’s geographical location on the basis of Hofstede Organizational Cultural Dimensions (Hofstede, 2014). It was initially divided into four elements: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and masculinity/ feminine, and later added long-term orientation and indulgence/ restraint. Particularly, BMW as a worldwide company which has 30 production facilities over 14 countries, meanwhile, creates around 150 global network selling points. Thus, it might generate lots of conflicts and misunderstandings between organizations, groups, even individual as potential risks conduct have a negative impact on the enterprise.

In the Power Distance aspect, although the entire organization consists of the rigorous hierarchies, both team spirit and individual initiative still are the most significant features to drive the corporation to develop continually. It means the effects of the style of management, the structure of the hierarchy, the level of education and subordinates’ willingness those factors to form the social distances between people through the unique business model, creative initiatives and sustainable leadership of BMW shrinks gradually.

In the Uncertainty Avoidance aspect, the economic crisis has been a sensitive topic among employees that indirectly threatening their positions and benefits since 2008. In order to resolve this issue, BMW continued to adopt its creative initiatives which keep the outflow rate of talent of full-time staffs within 2.7 %. The decline was not due to layoffs but to incentives for early retirement, willing to leave and not fill vacant occupations or renew temporary contracts. Furthermore, the company changed the working week to a four-day week and worked with the German government to give employees a one-day subsidy for achieving the purpose of expenditure reduces.

In the Individualism aspect, the firm prefers the collectivist ethics caused high regard for either individual freedom or commitment to team members.

In the Masculinity aspect, BMW retains its strong market position even in the face of financial crisis, meanwhile is good at observing market changes and making relative strategies—NUMBER ONE. Afterwards, planning to create a digital model city where provide the end-to-end mobility services, connectivity of network and new project ‘BMW Vision E³ Way’.

In the long-term orientation aspect, the corporation announced their 2011 report about ‘Honeybee (sustainable) leadership’ in strategy that follows the rules found by Hofstede and Bond. The locust (unsustainable) leadership model was used in the past, but over time, employees’ negative emotions gradually intensified and seriously affected their work efficiency, until managers recognized how important it was to focus on the balance between tradition and innovation.

Underlying four types of organizational culture (Harrison, 1972) that Handy enhanced and categorized them in 1993 as below: power culture, role culture, task culture and person culture. Moreover, I realized the culture of BMW belong to task culture that the small goals are achieved from the bottom up through the Sustainable Leadership Pyramid model. At the same time, it also is work- hard/ play- hard culture, subordinates have flexible working hours and concentrate on the customers’ requests.

References

Mullins, L.J. (2016), Management and Organisational Behaviour, 11th Edition, Pearson Higher Education

Atkinson, P. E. (1990) ‘Creating Cultural Change’, Management Services, vol. 34, no. 7,  pp. 6– 10.

Johnson, R. ‘Changing corporate culture’, Governance & Compliance, June 2013, p. 3.

Oswick, C., Lowe, S. and Jones, P. ‘Organisational Culture as Personality: Lessons from Psychology?’, in Oswick, C. and Grant, D. (eds) Organisation Development: Metaphorical Explorations, Pitman (1996), pp. 106– 20.

Hofstede, G. and Bond, M. H. ‘The Confucius Connection: From Cultural Roots to Economic Growth’, Organisational Dynamics, Spring 1988, pp. 4– 21.

Hofstede, G. Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values, Sage (1980).

Harrison, R. ‘Understanding Your Organization’s Character’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 50, May/June 1972, pp. 119– 28.

Handy, C. B. Understanding Organizations, fourth edition, Penguin (1993).

Avery, G.  and  Bergsteiner, H. (2011), How BMW successfully practices

sustainable leadership principles, Strategy and Leadership 39(6):11-18. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235304256_How_BMW_successfully_practices_sustainable_leadership_principles Bmwgroup.com. (2019). Corporate Strategy [online] Available at: https://www.bmwgroup.com/en/company/strategie.html [Accessed 2 Jan. 2019].