Leadership and Leadership Theories

8/2/2019 Leadership and Leadership Theories

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INTRODUCTION:

The set of people working together in a coordinated and structured approach to achieve

one or more objectives is the Organisation.(Barney and Griffin 1992) This analysis is about

the leadership and the management of a medium sized hospital in the UK Rossette NHS

Trust hospital, its income is 70 million a year. It comprises over 2800 personnel; the total

headcount of which is 250 people and over 80 percent of all staff are female. The

organisation provides acute and midwifery services to million people.

Anita Patel who is the Director wanted to introduce a new change in the organisation which

is Generic worker concept (GWC) a change to improve the services provided by the

organization. The present system is pilot scheme in which there is uncertainty of jobs,

confusion in work rotas, discrimination issues and lack of team works so this was rejected by

the majority of the staff. This analysis critically overview the different theories regarding

management roles, leadership style, approaches and motivation factors which helps to

achieve the goals of any organisation. In order to perform better, organisations always

depends on the human resources. This fact is researched by many researchers and

according to (Rayner and Smith2009) any organisation has a strategic advantage which is

its employees as they cannot be imitated by its competitors. The management wanted to

introduce a rational change in the organisation which represents a strategic transformation

highly focused on issue of human resources. This paper includes the Maslow hierarchy,

Herzberg factor model, Adair, Hersey and Blanchard Theory, Fiedler, Goleman, Adams

theory of equity, conclusion and recommendations which could be adopted for the efficient

management system in NHS Trust Hospital.

LEADERSHIP AND LEADERSHIP THEORIES:

TRAIT THEORIES: According to Stogdil, 1974, the value of the different combination of traits

relies on the specific situation of the leader and the need of steadiness between the traits.

These traits and skills distinguish him from the others. However, it is not essential that a

person will be a leader only after having these traits. The finance director Selwyn fisher

emphasised on implementation of the new concept and said that this would provide good

value for money and make cost savings.

CONTINGENCY THEORIES:

The nature of assistant staff is the major variable which determines the style of

leadership. Hersey and Blanchard theory is based on this view. The appropriate style of

leadership is a combination of relationship behaviour and task behaviour.


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Task behaviour: Leader provides instruction to the followers for theperformance, set goals and defines their objectives and how to commence them.

Relationship behaviour: Leader follows two way communication with followers,motivates them through support and encouragement and listen to them

Within the case, managers wanted to bring change which is generic concept which favours

the combination of task behaviour and relationship behaviour. Porters would be under the

formalise control. There would be single grade and pay spine which decrease the status

differential and simplify the bonus schemes. It also even out the work pressure for porters

and the Director also emphasised on the encouragement and the motivation of the porters

by rewards and consideration of their needs and recognition. Four styles of leadership then

derived from this combination.

Telling: Emphasises more task behaviour than the relationship behaviour. Selling: Emphasises both task and relationship behaviour. Participating: Emphasises high amount of relationship behaviour and two way

communications.

Delegating: Emphasises less support with low levels of both relationship and taskbehaviour.

According to this theory within the case the style is selling in proposed generic concept.

TRANSACTIONAL/TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP:

The leader having the skills and abilities to recognise the need for change and be able to

identify the action to bring the change. (Kuhnert and Lewis 1987). In this case, Anita Patel is

transformational leader, she is a good initiator or as she proposed a new method of introducing

teams of generic hotel services assistants at ward level by combining the jobs of domestics, porters

and catering staff to improve the flexibility and to satisfy the needs of the patients. The generic

concept was one of the seven key changes in the Trusts plan. Bernard bass and Bruce Avolio gave a

model of 4 Is.

Idealised influence: According to GWC, the managers have a mission and vision for the betterment

of the organisation, there would be no status difference so gains respect from everyone.

Inspirational motivation: In the case, leaders decided to motivate the employees by the different

kinds of rewards.

Intellectual stimulation: The leadership planned a rational change GWC to solve the current

problems in the current system.

Individual consideration: currently they arranged awareness sessions but no one come in those and

in future they planned to train employees for different tasks.

After the implementation of the GWC the leadership is observed to be transactional as it favours the


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STYLE APPROACHES:

According to (Adair) the effective leadership is dependent upon three areas of needs within

the group.

The need to achieve the common job. The need of the maintenance of the group. The individual needs of members of the group.These needs are connected to one another and a leader needs to focus and meet these

needs in every situation.

Task functions: Within the case, achievement of the goals of the group which are

flexibility, operational planning will be better, efficient service to the patients. Defining

the task; the leader defined that there is no ownership of task; everyone has to do each

and every job. Planning the work; the management was planning for the implementationof the change. Organisation of the duties: the change reallocates the duties of porters,

domestics and other staff. Review the performance, quality control: The goal of this

change is to improve the quality of the service of the organisation.

Team maintenance: Maintenance of the morale and team spirit: the management wanted

to maintain the team spirit and morale in the case. The cohesiveness of the the group as a

working team, training the group: They planned to train the domestics for the extension of

their jobs. Meetings of the sub leaders were organised.

Individual functions: Fulfilling the needs of the members, giving rewards and praises;the management decided to give chocolates, plan for night outs as rewards. Settlement of

the conflicts between groups needs and needs of the member.

The most effective leadership is the one which is able to meet all these three needs within

the team and organisation. Specific leadership functions should be performed in order to

meet these three areas of needs. These are not required in all times.

Awareness: The members of the group know the group process, the actual content of the

discussion, behaviour and everything which is happening within the group. In current

system the managers arranged awareness sessions and they organised many meetings toupdate the staff.

Understanding: Awareness of the specific task and then the ability to do it efficiently

which can be judged by response of the group or changes. They all have understanding of

the change going to take place and they also gave their response in resistance to that

change.

According to the given case study shows, the leadership style is in the start autocratic

where the power is with the management when porters and other staff are not listened by

the mangers and their opinions are not considered as porters and domestics weretransferred from central pool to ward level. According to (Tannanbaum and Schmidt 1968)


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it is boss centred continuum, who sells their ideas to its employees. Before the

implementation of the change the style is democratic (Hersey and Blanchard). At the ward

base the managers have not much control on the domestics. Porters are also fire fighters

which were also not in control of the management.

.MOTIVATION:

if you want people to be motivated to do a good job, give them a good job to do

job.(Herzberg,1968).Motivation is a driving force which stimulates the certain behaviour to

attain the desired goals to fulfil the needs. Effective leadership enhances the motivation to the

employees. In the Trust Hospital the leadership was not as much effective to motivate the

employee thats why the hospital could not provide best services. The various needs at work

can be categorised in various ways (Mullins 2006)

Extrinsic motivation: tangible benefits such as salary, security, promotion, fringebenefits, work environment.

Intrinsic motivation. Comprises psychological rewards such as appreciation, caringatmosphere.

MOTIVATION THEORIES: There are two kinds of theories on motivation.(Froster 2005)

CONTENT THEORIES :( Maslow 1943) presented hierarchy model in which he highlighted

human needs. These needs are also emphasised by Alderfer(1972) in his ERG Theory called

existence needs. Maslow said that the unsatisfied need is the motivator which motivatesthe specific behaviour to satisfy that need. In this case, the HRM Director, Patrick

Davenport, felt that if porters would feel part of a team, they would feel pride in the work

so it satisfies the social needs of the porters; but their self esteem is reduced as the change

omits the status differential and one porter commented that they are understaffed and

suffering from low self morale with a poor sickness record .On the other hand domestics self

esteem and job satisfaction has been raised by the change At different life stages, there are

different motivators (Maslow).

According to Herzberg two factor model the managers have to deal with hygiene factorswhich are pay, company policy, administration, job context, status and security. In this case

administration is not so good, as Thomas Alban (DGM) said that the goalposts have been

continuously moving and it changes with the wind and the job rotas are fixed only for

specific people. The formal status and pay differentials between members of Hotel services

would be removed. All the staff would be upgraded, domestic pay would be raised up to 8

percent and porters pay would be by 2 per cent. Second factor is Motivators which are

achievement, recognition, responsibility and growth. In Trust hospital, the implementation

of the generic worker concept would make it clear to the employees that there is no

ownership of the duties which would increase the job satisfaction but at present they donthave it there. As everyone has to do each task so the job satisfaction of the nurses and


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porters reduced but domestics were satisfied as they were given training and also due to the change

in their job description.

PROCESS THEORIES:

Stalker suggests that the success of the company is in the balance between the unwritten

needs of the employees and the needs of the company. Such companies utilise the formula

of Caring, rewarding, communicating, listening, and knowing.(1997)argues that if the

employee is valued, this would result in increase in the productivity and their efficiency

raises which results in the achievement of goals, values of the organisation. Rewards

motivates the employees such as manager proposed that if the chocolates are give out and

nights out are organised, this would motivate the employees. Many variables influence the

motivation. Equity theory proposed the main variable; perceived reward of equity. The main

focus of this theory is on the feelings of the employees that how fairly managers treat them in

comparison to others. (Adam 1965).After the change porters salary was increased by 2%

though they have to perform cleaning and other duties but domestics pay was increased by 8

% and their status was actually upgraded. Therefore for porters it was unfair system for the

porters. Employees normally evaluate how they are treated fairly by others in the same

circumstances. Whether the rewards to motivate them are same or not.

GROUPSAND TEAM LEADERSHIP:

A group of people who decisively interacts towards achievement of the objectives is a team.

(S.R Robinson1999) There are two types of groups; formal and informal group. A team is a

formal group which is created by the management to direct members towards some specific

goals. In the given case the domestics are alienated into teams which were under the charge

of supervisor. Informal group is created by the members to seek union representation to

protest for their rights. The staff comes under the authority of the managers in the unit

which was the reason of frustration sometimes. The ward managers have little control over

the domestics. The hospital has groups of nurses, physiotherapists, doctors, professionals

allied to medicine but it was hard to make them works in teams.there are five stages of the

group development and relationships (Tuckman1977) Forming:

Storming:

Norming: According to Riches there is one way to make the team effective is to establish the agreed

values or norms within the team and then consistently stick to them. Performing:

Adjourning: They planned that by introducing the generic worker concept, the staff would take

wider array of tasks and team work is required. In this case, a small domestic team was introducedwhich includes Director of Site Services, deputy and the mangers of domestic and potering staff. This


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was devoted and energetic about their job. They are committed with conviction to achieve the

benefits of the pilot scheme. The original goal of the scheme was to employ the team leader who

would allot the duties. One manager commented that the main hindrance to the attainment of the

aims of the Hospital is the boundaries between the employees and the lack of teamwork. At present

the managers do not have all power over domestics that mean they are having team leadership. But

the main cause of the failure is the inefficient leader who failed to motivate the team through

communication and motivation to the staff. Other reasons are there is deficiency in the cohesiveness

of the staff; employees were unable to solve the problems and disputes between them and gender

discrimination. A team role is; there is a specific way to behave, contribute and interrelate with one

another.Belbin

CONCLUSION:

Emmot points out that managers at all levels influences the perceptions of employees of theirpsychological contract. Their relationship influences the framing of the expectations of the

employees. In the hospital there was no relationship between the management and the followers;

autocratic style did not work well to fulfil the goals of the organisation as employees did not have

job satisfaction ,status issue, gender discrimination problem, confusion of work rotas but they were

not listened and properly communicated by the management. In response to that employees could

not fulfil the tasks of the organisation. Cloke and Goldsmith also suggests that (Taylor, 1912) gave

the concept of multilayered management control to supervise the teams to attain maximum

efficiency. But in the given case due to the multilayered management frustration was found

regarding their jobs.there should be

As McGregor states that every managerial role is based on assumptions, generalisations and

hypothesis. Here the whole management also had a hypothesis of generic concept. The assumptions

were the benefits of the employees from the job enrichment and the increase of the cost savings.

There was the absence of the leader so there was no clear direction to the followers and the female

management was a big failure; as the management failed to achieve its goals and it could not

motivate the followers to work in co operation with them as well as a strong team. As female leaders

are more capable to remove the hindrances and helpful for the followers to perform well and fulfil

their potential but they were unsuccessful. Female leaders are supposed to identify the problems as

the tools of learning but the result was opposite. (Applebaum et al 2003).As many issues are raised

in the pilot scheme so it is rejected by the majority of the employees.

REFERENCES:

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Leadership and Leadership Theories