Topic 2 - Managers Flashcards
(65 cards)
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.
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
3
Q
Advantages of democratic leadership
A
- Creates job satisfaction
- Strong teams are built
- Greater participation from employees
- Greater innovation to address problems
4
Q
Disadvantages to democratic leaders
A
- Time consuming
- Takes long to process decisions
- It encourages no one to take responsibility for failure
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.
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.
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.
8
Q
Advantages of paternalistic leadership
A
- Better employee motivation
- Loyalty
- More emotional and personal
- More communication and feedback between manager and worker
9
Q
Disadvantages of paternalistic leadership
A
- Bad decisions mean dissatisfaction
- Workers becomes dependent on manager
- Issue with workers rights legislation
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
11
Q
Tannenbaum and Schmidt - Continuum of leadership behaviour
A
Devised their continuum that illustrates range of potential leadership and management styles.
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.
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
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
15
Q
What are the 3 core levels of management in a business?
A
1) Senior management
2) Middle management
3) Junior management
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
17
Q
What does Middle Management do?
A
- Accountable to senior management
- Run business functions and departments
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.
19
Q
What are leadership styles essentially about?
A
- Way that functions of leadership carried out
- Way leader behaves
20
Q
What are the 4 styles of leadership?
A
1) Authoritarian
2) Democratic
3) Paternalistic
4) Laissez-Faire
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
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.
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.
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.
25
What are the possible reasons for a gradual shift away from autocratic leadership?
- Changes in society's values
- Better educated workforce
- Focus on need for soft HR skills
- Changing workforce legislation
- Pressure for greater employee involvement
26
What does the Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum recognise?
That the chosen leadership style depends on variety of factors, including leader's personality, perceived qualities or subordinates.
27
The continuum represents a range of action related to the?
- Degree of authority used by leader/manager
| - Area of freedom available to non-managers
28
What are the 4 main styles of leadership identified in the Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum of Leadership?
1) Tells
2) Sells
3) Consults
4) Joins
29
What is the 'TELLS' leadership style?
Leader identifies problems, makes decision and announces to subordinates; expects implementation.
30
What is the 'SELLS' leadership style?
Leader still makes decision, but attempts to overcome resistance through discussion & persuasion.
31
What is the 'CONSULTS' leadership style?
Leader identifies problem and presents it to group. Listens to advice and suggestions before making decision.
32
What is the 'JOINS' leadership style?
Leader defines problem and passes on solving & decision-making to group.
33
Describe the Concern for People (High = 9, Low = 1) in the Blake Mouton Grid
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
Describe the Concern or Task (High = 9, Low = 1)in the Blake Mouton Grid
This is degree to which leader emphasises concrete objectives, organisational efficiency and high productivity when deciding how best to accomplish task.
35
What are the names in the Blake Mouton Grid?
- Impoverished Management
- Country Club Management
- Task Management
- Team Management
- Middle of the Road Management
36
What do opportunity costs represent?
Benefits that could have been gained by taking different decision.
37
What does opportunity cost measure?
Cost of a choice made in terms of the next best alternative foregone or sacrificed.
38
When do trade-offs arise?
Where having more of one thing potentially results in having less of another.
39
How do businesses and managers reduce uncertainty?
By applying logic to decision-making, supported by relevant data.
40
What does scientific decision-making involve the use of?
- 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
What type of models are linked to scientific decision-making?
- Decision trees
- investment appraisal
- Sales forecasting
- Sensitivity analysis
- Network analysis
42
Why is scientific decision making becoming more popular?
- 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
The potential advantages of hunch and intuition in decision-making include:
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
When is intuition and hunch pretty unsuitable for certain business decisions?
Those that involve higher degree of risk for business (e.g. new product, takeover or other major investment).
45
What's investment appraisal?
Involves identifying and quantifying investment costs and returns. Intuition based on determining appropriate discount factors to apply and managerial judgement to interpret results.
46
What's a decision tree?
Mathematical model used to help- managers make decisions.
47
What does a decision tree use?
Estimates and probabilities to calculate likely outcomes.
48
What does a decision tree help to decide?
Whether net gain from decision is worthwhile.
49
Expected value:
Financial value of outcome calculated by multiplying estimated financial effect by its probability.
50
Decision trees
| Net gain:
Value to be gained from taking a decision.
51
Decision trees
| How is net gain calculated?
By adding together expected value of each outcome and deducting costs associated with decision.
52
Benefits of using decision trees
- 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
Drawbacks of using decision trees
- 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
What influences are there on decision making?
- Business objectives/budgets
- Organisational structure - who makes decisions?
- Attitude to risk
- Availability & reliability of data
- External environment
55
What does business objectives/budgets do?
- Sets scene for how decisions made
| - Culture of strong budgetary control should encourage more data & evidence-driven decisions.
56
What does an organisational structire - (who makes the decisions?) do?
- 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
What would having an attitude to risk mean?
- Close link to business culture
- Is risk-taking encouraged?
- What are the penalties for poor decisions?
58
What would having availability & reliability to data mean?
- Is data available to support scientific approach?
| - Are management comfortable with using scientific methods? Do they have the right skills and experience?
59
How would decision making be influenced by the external environment?
- How fast is external environment changing?
| - Do the uncertainties in external environment make scientific approaches less reliable.
60
What are stakeholders?
Groups or individuals that are affected by and/ or have an interest in operations and objectives of business.
61
How do you respond to a stakeholder with a high level of power and high level of interest?
Key players. Take notice of them. Engage directly with them.
62
How do you respond to a stakeholder with a high level of power and a low level of interest?
Keep them satisfied
63
How do you respond to a stakeholder with a low level of power and a high level of interest?
Communicate regularly with them
64
How do you respond to a stakeholder with a low level of power and low level of interest?
Communicate only when necessary
65
If there was a decision to cut jobs to reduce costs, who would this likely to be supported and opposed by?
Supported: Shareholders, banks
Opposed: Employees, local community
