Critical evaluation of theories PDF

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Leadership and Management Theories (BS4S16)

‘’ Critically evaluate the application of Leadership theories to a leader in an organisational context and management theories to a contemporary organisation’’

Student No: R1910D9569117 Leadership and Management Theories: BS4S16 Tutor’s name: Cornelia Nicolaou Date: 27 June 2020

ABSTRACT

This work explores and critically evaluate the application of leadership and management theories to today’s organizations with an example my current organisation Africa Improved Foods, a private manufacturing company producing fortified foods for infant and pregnant women. In this paper different classical research work was used to demonstrated the application of their work in contemporary management. The main focus for this work will be based on the Scientific management of Frederick Taylor because of the impact of his approach as it is still being used in many manufacturing today and as my current organisation Africa Improved Foods, we see a lot of usage of his approach in our daily work in the process line. As in his approach, Taylor focus was to standardize work activities to speed up activities by measuring how much time each production steep should take and find a way to reduce wasted time to increase efficiency of work and encreae productivity by eliminating unnecessary motion. In my organization we see a lot of his approach in action as the work is broken into different activity and harmonize to speed up the process line, many program are in place such as operational excellence which main objectives are to minimize the waste in term of material to increase efficiency and we have a single minutes exchange of die which is the process used to speed up the time different activities and reduce unnecessary motion to gain in time which in return turn into production output. This is a clear example of Taylor Approach as used in today organization. The work also related Fayol approach to my current company as he put forward a theory of management called administrative science, sometime called classical management which focus on have in place a proper planning which allow manager to look ahead and chart of course of the organization. He also focused in good coordination and control of resources and quality control. When we see in today’s organization and Africa Improved Foods in particular Fayol approach in being used every day in our routime activities.

In contemporary management, according to research, transformational management and transactional management are being used in different organization in the 20 th century in many ways.

Tableau of Contents

ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………..…….……2 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....5 1.2 Methods: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………..6 1.3 Structure: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………..………..……….7 CHAPTER 2: CLASSICAL AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT THEORIES 2.0 Management vs Leadership……………………………………………………..…………………….……………….8 2.1 Classical management theories……………………………………………………………………………………….9 2.1.2 Scientific managements ………………………………………………………………………………………........11 2.1.4 Administrative Science theory……………………………………………………..………………..……………14 2.1.3 Bureaucracy theory………………………………………………………………………………………….………...17 2.2 Contemporary managements theories 2.2.1 Transformational Leadership……………………………………………………………………………………..19 2.2.2 Transactional Leadership………………………………………………………………………………..…………20 CHAPTER 3: LEADERSHIP THEORIES AND APPROACHES 3.1 Treats approach……………………………………………………………….................………………..………..21 3.2 The skills approach………………………………………………………………………….……………….…….……21 3.3 Behavioural approach …………………………………………………………………………………………...…...22 3.4 Situational leadership Approach………………………………………….……………………………..…….…22 CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION: ………………………………………………………………………..……………..………23 REFERENCES: ……………………………………………………………………………….……………………….……….…25

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background This work evaluate the classical leadership and management theories as described by classical researches such a Henry Fayal, Frederick Taylor and Max Weber. It also touches on the contemporary approach of leadership being the transformation and transactional leadership approach. The main focus as given on Africa Improved Foods which is my current organization a manufacturing company producing fortified foods dedicated to children and pregnant mothers to fight against malnutrition and stating in Africa. Africa Improved Foods as a company, focus on personal and professional development of its employees. It also encourages equal opportunity for all and it is one of the most technological manufacturing company in East Africa. At Africa Improved Foods, the management focus more on building the juniors to be the leaders of tomorrow within the organisation through different mentoring and coaching programs in place. The company also has it unique well design succession plan at all level of the organisation which consist of Job rotation plan to learn what your superior manager does on the daily basis as a way of training to be the next manager in your department. These programs keep employees motivated and reduce employee turnover and also increase their level of motivation at work. In modern leadership and management, classical management approach is still being seen in many organisations in particular the manufacturing domain as Africa Improved Foods. Classical management include Scientific management as described by Frederick Taylor, Administrative management by Fayol and bureaucracy management by Max Weber. The classical management theories were popularized during the Industrial revolution as a way to enhance efficiencies and productivity in factories and other businesses. These types of management are still beneficial to many organizations even today in particular Africa Improved Foods Ltd.

In the next chapters as it will be discussed, the Scientific management as described by Taylor (1911) consist of looking for new way of doing different work activities by reducing unnecessary motion and reduce time used to perform a particular task to increase efficiency and productivity. Its method consisted of standardizing activities in such a way it reduces time and come up with the right way to do things. So each task was broken down into small steps and standardized to the one right way. Henri Fayol (1916) putted his focus on the Administrative management which basically focused on forecasting and planning activities, organizing, leading and control which is still being seen in many organization todays. On the other hand, Max Weber’s approach known as bureaucracy, he wanted to put in place guidelines and procedures that must be followed to make sure that the job is done. He wanted also to hire the best people to work in an organization and organize them in a logical, sensible way. 1.2 Methods. As introduced above, the purpose of this work is to evaluate critically the classical leadership and management theories and its transformation and use in a contemporary leadership and management style with focus on Africa improved foods the fortified manufacturing foods style of leadership and management. The report focuses on classical researches to evaluate and acknowledge their application to the modern organisation mode of leadership and management particularly Africa Improved Foods. In contemporary management theories, we see the transactional approach which focus on the relationship between the leader and the employee where the leader put in place a reward or recognition procedure in return to the effort and dedication to achieve the goals of the organisation for the employee. This approach also ensures a proper structure with clear requirement of what is expected from the employee is well defined and rewards or punishment accompanying the effort to follow orders and achieve to full potential is in place.

The other approach in the transaction is the ‘’laissez faire approach’’ which involve stepping down and avoid making decisions to give responsibility to subordinates. The transformation approach of the contemporary management on the other hand as described by Robbins and Coulter (2007) involve a leader and his team to work together to identify needed changes through inspiring his team to work and achieve the goals of the organisation and motivate the team to execute the changes with the high committed team. It serves to enhance the motivation and morale of the employees to perform to their best potential. It is characterized by inspiring, motivating, stimulating and consideration. 1.3 Structure This work consists of four different chapters. The first chapter is the introduction, the second is the literature on the classical and contemporary leadership and management theories, the third is different approach used in management theories and the last one is the concluding chapter.

CHAPTER 2: CLASSICAL AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT THEORIES

2.0 MANAGEMENT VS LEADERSHIP Management and leadership and critical and very important aspect for all organisation. Without a good management and a good leadership, many organisations will not be able to achieve its objectives and goals. Management and leadership theories knowledge is important as a prerequisite for a successful management and leadership. To be able to handle emerge problems faced in the contemporary organisations, to have a high competitiveness in the market, increase the efficiency and maximize the output, management and leadership theories plays a crucial role. According to Weijrick and Koontz (1993), the word management refer to the planning, organizing, leading, and controlling of human and other resources to achieve goals and objectives efficiently and effectively. Management also mean that the manager is involved in the activity by showing its followers where they want to go in achieving goals (Shield,2010). On the other hand, Drucker (1974) define management as activities of doing things with the help of other people and other resources. In order to have an effective management, a good and well-designed plan or program should be in place for a good execution (Shiled,2010). Weijrick and Koontz (1993), Murray (2011) describe management as putting in place a plan, set budget and control the progress of achievement of goals. As an overall definition, management can be defined as a process of strategically planning, setting of goals and objectives to pursue, the use of resources either human or financial needed to achieve goals and measurement and control of outcome. Leadership on the other hand are steps or process which are used to influence others to achieve the requires goals and objective of an organisation. According to Grey (2005) and Sheik (2018) leadership are the steps of social influence which cannot be without a leaders and followers with the objective of changing and sharpening follower’s behaviours

toward organisation vision and objectives. Management of changes within an organisation is the leadership team role. Warren Bennis (1989), in his book ‘’ On becoming a leader’’ come up with a number of difference between a manager and leader: o Managers as administrators while leaders innovate o Managers use rules regulations and apply them while leaders put in place those rules and regulations o Managers maintain the systems and environments while leaders develop those systems and regulations. o Managers focus on system and structure of an organisation while leaders focus on people o Managers control the system to achieve objectives while leaders create the trust and the purpose o Leaders set the vision and mission of an organisation while managers work toward the accomplishment of goals. o Managers answer the how and when while leaders answer the what and why o Managers follow rules and regulations while leaders formulate them o Managers accept the status while leaders look for ways to change it o Managers do things right while leaders do the right things.

2.1 CLASSICAL MANAGEMENT THEORIES The classical management theories started as a feedback to the industrial revolution in the late of 17 th century Industrial revolution to late 18th century. The rapid changes in industrial revolution, rapid changes and enormous changes in a way that people work and huge development of industries. People was looking for new ways of doing thing that increase daily productivity of workers in many ways. They were rapid changes from farming to industry or factories, from small shops to large company’s and organisation. The main hind of industrial revolution was the introduction of steam energy, power and hydropower.

The revolution was turning from hand work to machines that started being used in many factories and these machines and equipment were using power energy instead of hand work which was used to be done early. This energy revolution used by machines and equipment increased the speed of work and increase factories productivity as the speed of manufacturing increased dramatically. This speed up also was seen buy a dramatically increase of machinery innovation during that time. This machine revolution is shown in the invention of cotton gin by Eli (1973). This was a small equipment used to separate seed from cotton much faster that how this was being done by people. The invention of machines like this king sped up the work in factories. The industrial revolution was also seen in the speeding and growing in transportation at that time. One example of transport revolution was the invention of the rail ways. Cities and town were now connected to facilitate movement of input and output which increased the development of companies and factories in those time. Marine transport and roads were also developed in the 18 th as well. The industrial revolution and rapid changes started with development of power, machinery and transportation. With the industrial revolution a lot of problems was identified at the time and solutions were needed to handles these new issues. With the industrial revolution large number of people started working together, people were working with machines and equipment and the speed of working was growing fast because factories and companies were looking for new effective ways to handle manufacturing problems. At this time people were looking for ways to manage work to increase productivity and efficiency after all these changes. The most important people who brought changes in sorting and bring answers to all these challenges and changes were Frederick Taylor, Henry Fayol and Max Weber. These three people are the ones that revolutionize the classical management theories this these people are considered the father of classical management. Their theories are classified into three approaches which are Scientific management, Administrative management and Bureaucracy management. These approach are still being seen in many organisations even today aa a mean to increase productivity and efficiency our daily work, the example being Africa Improved Foods Ltd.

2.2.1 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT THEORIES Frederick W. Taylor (1856-1915) is generally known as the father of scientific management theory also known as time and motion theory. Frederick Taylor is considered to be the father of organisational studies. His research on scientific management approach has helped and revolutionize professional life in many aspects. As a mechanical engineer and a management consultant he was working with organisations to try and help them to find ways to do things better to increase productivity. Manufacturing industries were growing fast and standards way of doing thing was almost inexistent. Managing a lot of group of people and the increase work load was a big problem factories was facing at the time. So Taylor sees the need to handle all these problems and stepped in to make organisations more standardized in their way of working, efficient and productive by looking to their processes closely. Taylor’s theory also known as scientific theory is the term he used. He did a lot of studies and wrote a book’’ The principle of scientific management, ‘’which mean applying science to work. He looked closely and studies tasks carefully, systematically, at the shop flow level to come up with a way to speed up work. His research had a great impact in nineteenth century (Grey, 2005). Back them people used common sense to do their work so he wanted to break way that way of working that he judged inefficient. Workers had their own way of doing things that they would pass around and did studies to see if this was a good way of doing things. In his study scientific management or Taylorism, division of labor he proposed of doing only one thing or two instead of doing the whole project where do did it from beginning to the end, you would only do one step and the next step or task be done by the next step. So this is a very different way to do work at the time. He wanted to determine the one best way, a standard to do every step, every task, to boost productivity. That’s what he is known for, looking for one way to solve the complexity. Taylor also believed in hierarchy, his believed that they should be a chain of command which separate the shop flow employee at the bottom of the organization to the top management. The reason to have in place hierarchy is that he was looking at the role of managers being to design the work process and enforce how work should be performed. He believed that

employee on the other hand should follow direction putted in place by managers. In this way the manager would become thinkers and employees the executors. Taylor believed that organization should select the best people what he called first class employees, match them to a job that is best suited to them and then pay them a higher salary to the rest of employees. He also believed in training of people in order to have the best of the best. In his book Principles of Scientific Management”, he said: “A determinant effort in some way to change the system of management, so that the interests of the workmen and the management should become the same” (Taylor, 1911, pp. 52), which was a way to motivate people to the vision of the organization. He believed that on average most employee were not hard workers and didn’t have high opinions on employees. He wanted to get rid of non performing people and if they couldn’t meet high standard he would fire them and only the high performers would be left. In his method time and motion, Taylor’s studies wanted to know the least amount of time on average it took to do each task and even each part of each task. Taylor took tasks and broke then down into small task and determined the fewest time of motion a small task is required. Actually his idea was people should work like machines to accomplish tasks. With a mechanical engineering background, they design and build machines and he wanted people to work like that to enhance productivity at work. The shovel experience is a good example of his work where he wanted to determine how many poundages a shovel should hold to make work the fastest. After this experience he saw that in order to be more productive in shoveling that amount of poundage which a shovel should carry should be 21.5 bounds instead of 26 pounds as it used to be done in the past as this was the point where he saw a big peak in productivity where a pile of sand or coal was supposed to be carried from one place to another. With his experience work could be done faster because it was a little lighter. But it is not only shovels

but we still see every day in our daily work and even his theories are still being used in today’s organizations and in particular at Africa Improved Foods. At AIF (Africa Improved Foods), I use a lot of the scientific theory to carry out my daily work, for example, I am in charge of operational excellence program at my current company, AIF. The aim of Operation Excellence is to look for ways to increase productivity and efficiency by reducing the time it takes to perform certain tasks and reduce waste of production. A real example is the SMED operational ...