Approaches To Leadership And Management

Task 1

Functional areas ofArden Constructionand its Management Hierarchy

There are various organisations which have different functional areas and effective hierarchy of management which allows them to carry out various tasks appropriately and systematically and each individual within the organisation is clear about their roles and responsibilities. Arden Construction Ltd. is a UK medium-sized organisation which offers construction services to its clients within the country. The firm is situated in Warwickshire, UK and is recognised well within the country. The functional areas of Arden Construction is mentioned below:

• Marketing:

As one of the most important functional areas, the firm's marketing department is responsible to develop a strong and positive perception of the image in front of customers. This functional unit promote and advertise the offerings of the firm. It is crucial for Arden Construction as it helps the firm present itself in a strong and competitive manner in the market.

• Finance:

This unit emphasises in providing financial support to the company. It handles the flow of money within and outside the company and ensures a smooth running of operations by providing sufficient amount of finance to carry out day-to-day tasks. In addition, it allows the company to find suitable and long term sources for acquisition of funds to carry out their managerial and operational activities.

• Human Resources:

It is the driving force for Arden Construction. The human resources within the firm manage their activities and effectively help the company to stand ahead in the market and provide effective services to the clients like high quality construction and innovative solutions to its customers in the country.

The hierarchy of management of Arden Construction is quite effective and is necessary within a company. This is because a strong and effective structure within an organisation helps the firm to establish effective internal control and proper delegation and acquisition of duties. It also helps a firm to develop defined and certain level of leadership within the firm. The hierarchy of management for Arden Construction 

As per the structure, there are various levels of employment where each individual plays a crucial role within the company. While the upper level management consists of construction officers like civil engineer, safety director, construction engineer, etc., the middle level contains construction manager. These managers report to their supervisors and senior level managers regarding the managerial positions within the company. The lower level contains worker that are required to function within operational level and carry out various activities associated with the construction. There are immediate supervisors and managers above them to which they report regarding their operations. It is a defined structure within the company where each individual is clear about their powers, responsibilities and duties. Each worker is clear about their leaders and there is a very lean and defined leadership structure which helps the firm to achieve maximum success and effective accomplishment of tasks.

Such hierarchy of management and functional areas help a company in managing themselves in the most competent and successful manner possible. In addition to this, such effective structure assists the firm to define responsibilities to individuals even during complex situation and delegate authorities likewise. Thus, management hierarchy and various functional areas are necessary for a company.

Task 2

Communication central for Leadership and Management

Communication means exchange of ideas and information within and outside an organisation which satisfies the agenda of enhancing organisational profitability (Boies, Fiset and Gill, 2015). It is one of the most important aspect within an organisation which enhances the scope of its success by establishing appropriate channels through which useful and important information is exchanged. Regardless of the industry or the nature of any organisation, communication is important for the company to ensure success.

There are two types of communication within a company, internal and external. Internal communication is when the sharing of information happens internally, i.e., within the company. Whereas, external communication is when the information is shared externally, i.e., with customers, suppliers, partners, investors and other parties outside the company. Internal communication is very important as it helps companies to integrate their goals with that of customers. Moreover, it also helps them to create a better and contributing work environment within the organisation as it would help managers to allot clear and effective instructions to employees and they would also be clear about their roles and responsibilities. On the other hand, external communication aids companies in exchanging quality information with its external stakeholders. For instance, companies could inform suppliers regarding required materials, customers regarding product specifications and so forth. External information also helps in managing negative information to the external stakeholders (Ziek and Anderson, 2015).

However, it is very crucial to ensure interdepartmental communication within a company. There are various examples as to when poor communication led to negative consequences. For instance, Nokia, one of the most biggest companies in the world is known to have poor communication within its infrastructure which increased unfocused decisions regarding strategy and unfortunately caused the firm out of the market (A failure to communicate, 2017). Another example is the poor external communication in the NHS that had negative impact on patient care within the firm (Poor communication damages patient care, 2017). Thus, it is imperative for leaders and managers to focus on establishing effective communication to enhance the scope of organisational success.

Within Marriott, the interdepartmental communication is quite effective and allows the hotel to manage its daily activities with utmost ease and appropriate employee and customer engagement. Each department is interlinked with each other and ensure effective and accurate flow of information with one goal to achieve success.

Thus, it is imperative that organisations to centre communication within their leadership and management. This is because accurate and contributing flow of information allows companies to build effective core strength internally and competitiveness externally.

Task 3

Current Drivers of Globalisation

Globalisation is a process which is driven by investments and international trade in which companies integrate with economies, governments and customers of different nations (Søndergaard, Oehmen and Ahmed-Kristensen, 2016). With ease of movement and enhancements in awareness of business opportunities, many big as well as small scale companies are rooting for globalisation.

However, this aspect has various drivers which impact businesses. These drivers and their impact are discussed below:

• Competition Drivers:

For achieving consistencies in their position and market share, it is very important for a company to effectively follow their competitors' strategies to stay ahead in foreign markets. One big example of these drivers is Vodafone. This company is one of the biggest telecommunication company and still, the firm develops effective strategies in various different markets as per the moves of its competitors. Such is the impact of competition drivers where companies, in order to attain a certain position in the market is required to analyse the strategies of its competitive firms in order to enhance the level of competency within its offerings and services.

• Technological Drivers:

Perhaps one of the biggest drivers of globalisation, technology has quite major impacts on the companies who have international business ventures. These drivers help companies enhance their market size and economies of scale. One such company is Jaguar Land Rover Automotive. There are various ongoing advancements in technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Automation. These changes are also influencing different social trends which are effecting and influencing this company to invest more in technology and bring favourable changes in the organisation.

• Cost Drivers:

The impact of these drivers depend on the level of fixed costs which is required by companies to enter an industry (Dobele and RundleTheile, 2015). For instance, the operating costs in transportation and telecommunication is lower, which encourages companies to enter global markets. On the other way, in aviation industry, the cost of acquisition of equipments and facilities is very high in aviation industry and thus, there are handful of companies which are recognised on global levels like British Airways.

• International Investment:

This driver is based on the ease of a company to expand in global markets. There are various countries and foreign markets like USA and India which encourage foreign companies to invest in their countries and contribute in enhancements of their GDP (Hanson and et. al., 2016). Such favourable drivers of globalisation have a very good impact on companies like Cadbury to effectively provide its products in these markets. However, where there are restrictions due to political tiffs or unfavourable economical conditions, where these companies get a very hard time to establish themselves.

Task 4

Comparison of two different styles of leadership

Leadership refers to the aspect which is considered to lead an organisation and its people towards success. Managers and leaders are responsible of driving companies towards achieving profitability. There are mainly two types of leadership styles that are adopted by various leaders of different companies.

The first style is Autocratic Leadershipstyle under which the power and authority lies with a single person and very few authority is accessed by the subordinates. The overall decision-making power lies completely with a single entity within the organisation. One of the most prominent example of Autocratic leadership is Howell Raines, who was the executive editor of The New York Times from 2001 to 2003. The firm during his leadership experienced callousness. He is known to be a sarcastic, dismissive and contemptuous leader who used to assume every member as lethargic and thus, was fired after 21 months of his post (A Review of Companies with Autocratic Leadership, 2019).

Other leadership style is Democratic Leadership, where individuals within the organisation are involved in decision making process within the company. In addition, effective access of power lies with the employees of organisation. Apple Inc., during Steve Jobs is known to effectively adopt a significant level of democratic leadership. Even Tim Cook currently is exercising this leadership style and has significant confidence in his team members. Such style effectively paves way for innovation and creative solutions to problems within the company and ensures more employee engagement.

There are various similaritiesbetween these two leadership styles which are mentioned below:

• Both the leadership styles tend to ensure clarity within the company. The emphasis of autocratic style is on focus, speed and certainty and the democratic leadership style values participation, consensus and thoroughness.
• Each of these style have significant impact on stakeholders and company's success and profitability are the major agendas of both the styles.

There are certain differenceswithin these styles too. These are as follows:

• The authority in autocratic leadership style is centralised, i.e., it lies with a single individual. However, in democratic leadership, the authority is decentralised and it is distributed effectively within the company.
• The behaviour followed by the organisation is task oriented in autocratic leadership style, however, in democratic leadership style, the behaviour orientation is relation oriented.

Both of these styles have significant importance within organisations and it is necessary to effectively adopt the style which best serves the situation (Storey, 2016). In my opinion, in modern day organisations, leaders must use democratic leadership style as it would effectively help the company boost its performance through innovative ideas by the employees. It would also ensure effective employee engagement and thus, benefits of this style are much more than that of autocratic leadership style.

Conclusion

Thus, it is concluded that management and leadership are appropriate aspects of an organisation. It is crucial for companies to determine hierarchy of management and define appropriate functional areas for smooth running of operations. Communication is very essential in leadership and management and ensures long term success of a company. Drivers of globalisation impacts companies in various manner and it is important for organisations to develop their strategies likewise. Lastly, it is important to adopt the most favourable styles between Autocratic and Democratic Leadership for long term success and effective management of a firm.

References

Books and Journals

• Boies, K., Fiset, J. and Gill, H., 2015. Communication and trust are key: Unlocking the relationship between leadership and team performance and creativity. The Leadership Quarterly. 26(6). pp.1080-1094.
• Dobele, A.R. and RundleTheile, S., 2015. Progression through academic ranks: A longitudinal examination of internal promotion drivers. Higher Education Quarterly. 69(4). pp.410-429.
• Grint, K., and et. al., 2016. What is leadership. The Routledge companion to leadership, p.3.
• Hanson, D., and et. al., 2016. Strategic management: Competitiveness and globalisation. Cengage AU.
• Søndergaard, E., Oehmen, J. and Ahmed-Kristensen, S., 2016. Extension of internationalisation models: drivers and processes for the globalisation of product development–a comparison of Danish and Chinese engineering firms. Production Planning & Control. 27(13). pp.1112-1123.
• Storey, J., 2016. Changing theories of leadership and leadership development. In Leadership in Organizations (pp. 33-58). Routledge.
• Thorpe, R., 2016. Gower handbook of leadership and management development. CRC Press.
• Ziek, P. and Anderson, J.D., 2015. Communication, dialogue and project management. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business. 8(4). pp.788-803.

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