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Business - Mr Simpson > Topic 2 - Managers > Flashcards

Topic 2 - Managers Flashcards

1
Q

What does it mean by democratic leaders?

A
  • Type of leadership style which involves members of the group to part-take in decision making.
  • Leader more open to any suggestions/opinions that staff or members of his team have.
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2
Q

What types of examples of communications do democratic leaders follow?

A
  • Involve staff in decision making
  • Tend to listen to members or staff inputs to situations
  • Allow staff/members to contribute
  • Focus on power is more with the group as whole
  • Emphasis on delegation and consultation - but leader has final say
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3
Q

Advantages of democratic leadership

A
  • Creates job satisfaction
  • Strong teams are built
  • Greater participation from employees
  • Greater innovation to address problems
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4
Q

Disadvantages to democratic leaders

A
  • Time consuming
  • Takes long to process decisions
  • It encourages no one to take responsibility for failure
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5
Q

Delegation

A

Is assigning responsibility and authority in order to complete task that’s agreed upon. While leader retain ultimate responsibility if task is successful.

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6
Q

When might democratic leadership be appropriate?

A
  • When leader working with highly qualified and experienced staff/members/workers
  • Allows leaders to capitalise on workers strengths and talents whilst benefitting from power as a whole.
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7
Q

Paternalistic leadership

A

Managerial approach that involves dominant authority figure who acts as a patriarch and treats employees and partners as though members of large extended family.

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8
Q

Advantages of paternalistic leadership

A
  • Better employee motivation
  • Loyalty
  • More emotional and personal
  • More communication and feedback between manager and worker
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9
Q

Disadvantages of paternalistic leadership

A
  • Bad decisions mean dissatisfaction
  • Workers becomes dependent on manager
  • Issue with workers rights legislation
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10
Q

Appropriate times to use paternalistic leadership

A

Where no creative thinking needed from employees and if business is formal and has hierarchal structure

  • Teacher or institutions
  • Branch manager
  • Director
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11
Q

Tannenbaum and Schmidt - Continuum of leadership behaviour

A

Devised their continuum that illustrates range of potential leadership and management styles.

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12
Q

What does the Tannenbaum and Schmidt recognise?

A

That the chosen leadership style depends on variety of factors, including leader’s personality, perceived qualities of subordinates. Allows for “situational” factors such as need to urgency in leadership and decision-making.

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13
Q

What are the 5 key tasks Peter Drucker identified for a manager in a business?

A

1) Setting objectives
2) Organising a group
3) Motivating and communicating
4) Measuring performance
5) Developing people

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14
Q

What 5 key tasks did Henri Fayol identify as important for a manager?

A

1) Planning
2) Organising
3) Commanding
4) Coordinating
5) Controlling

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15
Q

What are the 3 core levels of management in a business?

A

1) Senior management
2) Middle management
3) Junior management

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16
Q

What does Senior Management do?

A
  • E.g. Board of Directors
  • Set corporate objectives & strategic direction
  • Board responsible to shareholders; led by CEO
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17
Q

What does Middle Management do?

A
  • Accountable to senior management

- Run business functions and departments

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18
Q

What does Junior Management do?

A
  • Supervisory role, accountable to middle management

- Monitor & control day-to-day tasks, and manage teams of workers.

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19
Q

What are leadership styles essentially about?

A
  • Way that functions of leadership carried out

- Way leader behaves

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20
Q

What are the 4 styles of leadership?

A

1) Authoritarian
2) Democratic
3) Paternalistic
4) Laissez-Faire

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21
Q

Key points of Authoritarian leadership

A
  • Hold onto much power and decision-making as possible
  • Very little delegation
  • Use of rewards & penalties
  • Focus of power is with manager
  • McGregor Theory X approach
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22
Q

Key points of Paternalistic leadership

A
  • Leader decides what’s best for employees
  • Akin to parent/child relationship
  • Softer form of authoritarian leadership, which often results in better employee motivation and lower staff turnover
  • Typical paternalistic leader explains specific reason as to why he’s taken certain actions
    Links with Mayo: addressing employee needs.
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23
Q

Key points of Democratic leadership

A
  • Focus of power more with group as whole
  • Leadership functions shared within group
  • Employees have greater involvement in decision-making - but potentially this slows-down decision-making.
  • Likely to be most effective when used with skilled, free-thinking and experienced subordinates.
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24
Q

Key points of Laissez-faire leadership

A
  • Leader has little input into day-to-day decision-making
  • Conscious decision to delegate power
  • Managers/employees have freedom to do what think is best
  • Effective when staff ready and willing to take on responsibility, they’re motivated,and can be trusted to do their jobs.
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25
Q

What are the possible reasons for a gradual shift away from autocratic leadership?

A
  • Changes in society’s values
  • Better educated workforce
  • Focus on need for soft HR skills
  • Changing workforce legislation
  • Pressure for greater employee involvement
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26
Q

What does the Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum recognise?

A

That the chosen leadership style depends on variety of factors, including leader’s personality, perceived qualities or subordinates.

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27
Q

The continuum represents a range of action related to the?

A
  • Degree of authority used by leader/manager

- Area of freedom available to non-managers

28
Q

What are the 4 main styles of leadership identified in the Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum of Leadership?

A

1) Tells
2) Sells
3) Consults
4) Joins

29
Q

What is the ‘TELLS’ leadership style?

A

Leader identifies problems, makes decision and announces to subordinates; expects implementation.

30
Q

What is the ‘SELLS’ leadership style?

A

Leader still makes decision, but attempts to overcome resistance through discussion & persuasion.

31
Q

What is the ‘CONSULTS’ leadership style?

A

Leader identifies problem and presents it to group. Listens to advice and suggestions before making decision.

32
Q

What is the ‘JOINS’ leadership style?

A

Leader defines problem and passes on solving & decision-making to group.

33
Q

Describe the Concern for People (High = 9, Low = 1) in the Blake Mouton Grid

A

This is degree to which leader considers needs of team members, their interests, and areas of personal development when deciding how best to accomplish task.

34
Q

Describe the Concern or Task (High = 9, Low = 1)in the Blake Mouton Grid

A

This is degree to which leader emphasises concrete objectives, organisational efficiency and high productivity when deciding how best to accomplish task.

35
Q

What are the names in the Blake Mouton Grid?

A
  • Impoverished Management
  • Country Club Management
  • Task Management
  • Team Management
  • Middle of the Road Management
36
Q

What do opportunity costs represent?

A

Benefits that could have been gained by taking different decision.

37
Q

What does opportunity cost measure?

A

Cost of a choice made in terms of the next best alternative foregone or sacrificed.

38
Q

When do trade-offs arise?

A

Where having more of one thing potentially results in having less of another.

39
Q

How do businesses and managers reduce uncertainty?

A

By applying logic to decision-making, supported by relevant data.

40
Q

What does scientific decision-making involve the use of?

A
  • Data mining and big data to source relevant data to inform decisions
  • Application of software logic and predictable models to analyse scenarios
  • Forecasts to consider possible implications of business decisions.
41
Q

What type of models are linked to scientific decision-making?

A
  • Decision trees
  • investment appraisal
  • Sales forecasting
  • Sensitivity analysis
  • Network analysis
42
Q

Why is scientific decision making becoming more popular?

A
  • More widespread availability of data
  • Greater sophistication of data analytics & skills/experience of data analysts
  • Management expectations that data will be used wherever possible, particularly where decision is significant to business.
43
Q

The potential advantages of hunch and intuition in decision-making include:

A

Speed: decision-making must be instant
Based on personal experience: data isn’t always reliable and manager may feel more comfortable with gut feeling if seems to contradict results suggested by data.

44
Q

When is intuition and hunch pretty unsuitable for certain business decisions?

A

Those that involve higher degree of risk for business (e.g. new product, takeover or other major investment).

45
Q

What’s investment appraisal?

A

Involves identifying and quantifying investment costs and returns. Intuition based on determining appropriate discount factors to apply and managerial judgement to interpret results.

46
Q

What’s a decision tree?

A

Mathematical model used to help- managers make decisions.

47
Q

What does a decision tree use?

A

Estimates and probabilities to calculate likely outcomes.

48
Q

What does a decision tree help to decide?

A

Whether net gain from decision is worthwhile.

49
Q

Expected value:

A

Financial value of outcome calculated by multiplying estimated financial effect by its probability.

50
Q

Decision trees

Net gain:

A

Value to be gained from taking a decision.

51
Q

Decision trees

How is net gain calculated?

A

By adding together expected value of each outcome and deducting costs associated with decision.

52
Q

Benefits of using decision trees

A
  • Choices set out in logical way
  • Potential options & choices considered at same time
  • East to understand & tangible results
  • Likely costs considered as well as potential benefits
  • Use of probabilities enables ‘risk’ of options to be addressed.
53
Q

Drawbacks of using decision trees

A
  • Probabilities just estimates - always prone to error
  • Uses quantitative data only - ignores qualitative aspects of decisions
  • Assignment of probabilities and expected values prone to bias
  • Decision-making technique doesn’t necessarily reduce amount of risk.
54
Q

What influences are there on decision making?

A
  • Business objectives/budgets
  • Organisational structure - who makes decisions?
  • Attitude to risk
  • Availability & reliability of data
  • External environment
55
Q

What does business objectives/budgets do?

A
  • Sets scene for how decisions made

- Culture of strong budgetary control should encourage more data & evidence-driven decisions.

56
Q

What does an organisational structire - (who makes the decisions?) do?

A
  • Who has authority to take decisions?
  • Are employees to empowered to take decisions to deliver more responsive customer service
  • Is decision-making centralised or decentralised?
57
Q

What would having an attitude to risk mean?

A
  • Close link to business culture
  • Is risk-taking encouraged?
  • What are the penalties for poor decisions?
58
Q

What would having availability & reliability to data mean?

A
  • Is data available to support scientific approach?

- Are management comfortable with using scientific methods? Do they have the right skills and experience?

59
Q

How would decision making be influenced by the external environment?

A
  • How fast is external environment changing?

- Do the uncertainties in external environment make scientific approaches less reliable.

60
Q

What are stakeholders?

A

Groups or individuals that are affected by and/ or have an interest in operations and objectives of business.

61
Q

How do you respond to a stakeholder with a high level of power and high level of interest?

A

Key players. Take notice of them. Engage directly with them.

62
Q

How do you respond to a stakeholder with a high level of power and a low level of interest?

A

Keep them satisfied

63
Q

How do you respond to a stakeholder with a low level of power and a high level of interest?

A

Communicate regularly with them

64
Q

How do you respond to a stakeholder with a low level of power and low level of interest?

A

Communicate only when necessary

65
Q

If there was a decision to cut jobs to reduce costs, who would this likely to be supported and opposed by?

A

Supported: Shareholders, banks
Opposed: Employees, local community

Business - Mr Simpson (4 decks)

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