Management

What is leadership and does it matter?

Management / By

What is leadership and does it matter?

Leadership describes a dynamic relationship between people in an organisation. It is not a one-way process as the popular press would have us believe and is strongly associated with other organisation factors such as power and culture. Most people prefer to attribute organisational success (or failure as in the banks) in terms of the actions of powerful leaders compared to external forces such as the environment over which we have little control. However the situation is more complex than this as the environment itself is shaped by the actions of leaders operating within all forms and scales of organisations.

How to define leadership

Leadership exists when a person exercises influence over others in an organisation and sets the everyday action and direction an organisation takes. To be effective a leader must understand the context in which she operates as well as the relationships between herself and the people who are led. Leadership is not a characteristic of an individual in isolation – leadership exists in the duality between leaders and followers.

Researchers and consultants have been trying various forms of definition of what constitutes and makes up a good leader and here are just a few.

* A Trait based view of leadership focuses on the make up of the leader in terms of general intelligence, intellectual ability or sociability.
* A Style perspective looks at what a leader does in terms of interaction with others inside and outside the organisation.
* Task oriented leadership approaches review how leaders organise the task – the scheduling and planning of resources and finance for example.
* Situational leadership was once a popular approach and is an extension of a contextual leadership style and meant that leaders have to adapt their style to the prevalent context and actual situation of the specific task.
* People oriented leaders busy themselves with the creation of environment conducive for action.
* Transformational leadership are those who transcend or seek to change the parameters of the situation – in vogue as it suits the aspirational managers and consultants buzzing around large corporations at the moment.

Participative in forms of leadership may be dependent on the context of the organisation with some professional groups such as teachers expecting to have their opinions polled and considered as do care workers. However when we look at the evidence for which of these above styles are more effective – actually there isn’t any – there is simply no clear evidence that any of these popular management styles are stronger. And whether leaders make any difference to organisational success is far from proved. There is also little evidence to decide whether any of the factors that make up so-called leaders are innate (leaders born) or acquired (made) and it may be that leadership is a happenstance and the attributes of a good leader are constructed in hindsight.

What we can say is that to be effective a leader must account for the complex societal context she operates within and be adept at managing the relationships between herself and the people she leads. The ability and capacity to articulate a change and to construct a vision are the more value laden aspects of leadership and are important parts of the job description.

Leadership is very popular at the moment especially in the public sector where all sorts of leadership development programmes are being launched. No-one it seems wants to be just a manager any more – we all need to be leaders. But this is a false dichotomy in part as we need people in organisations that can run them and pick up the mess after the charismatic leaders have been moved on or pensioned off. ‘Managership’ is just as important as ‘Leadership’ perhaps more so but as a closing point you can be a leader without being a manager but to be an effective manager you probably do need to be a good leader.

Royston

Planning to achieve business benefits from Outsourcing essential – free ebook on BizFace

Management / By

Why is Business Benefits Planning Essential

Benefits planning aims to deliver the benefits promised in the business case and ensures they are actually realised. Many projects although they complete successfully in project management terms fail to deliver any of the initial benefits that launched the initiative. I have seen countless examples of project teams and managers congratulating themselves with the success of the project, ‘how well it went’, ‘all the deliverables done’ and so forth – but with not one penny piece of value delivered for the organisation.

I have sat on project boards to go through the business case and been confronted many times with promises of 25% cost reductions or increased production that if taken in the round with all the other things on the go would mean we get a product that costs nothing to make and sell for millions by the millions – forgive me if I am cynical. The failure of many projects to actually deliver any benefit in real terms in part explains the reluctance to give the go-ahead for new projects. Senior management are getting (more cynical) about the benefits and are getting fed up with being confronted with yet another initiative that promises hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings, increased revenue or more customers for example but actually delivers nothing. We have low expectations from any activity and even of the ability of projects to pay for the outlay and our expectations are being met.

Cynicism borne of the experience of hundreds of pleadings from staffers that have come to naught and project’s launched that have promised benefits that in the end have failed to come up with the goods. Evidence show’s that the majority of projects (well over 60%) in such diverse areas as IT, Outsourcing and BPR fail to deliver any discernable improvement. I have found no Outsourcing project that has delivered anything of value – the only exception being when they closed half the department and we got half the service.

In projects I supervise I always fall back on the six faithful servants:

  • What benefits are being suggested and what is the scale and scope being promised and does it look reasonable?
  • Why do we need these benefits – what is the driver at this point in time?
  • Where will the benefits be realised in what department specifically?
  • When will the benefits be achieved? Remember back to the discounted cash flow exercises we did at business school – a benefit ten years away of four pence halfpenny is worth nothing.
  • Who is responsible for achieving the benefits? What department and the manager by name? I also ask if she knows that she will be responsible for achieving these benefits.
  • How will these benefits be released – what has to happen? For example if we have to cut staff this can take a lot of time and be difficult to achieve.

It should not be forgotten that the whole purpose of a project or initiative is to deliver something of value and if this does not occur then the project has failed completely. So now’s the time for a realistic appraisal of where we are. In any assessment of a business activity the expected outcome in terms of cash benefit forms the core of the go no-go decision. Managers must be more critical and evaluate for sure but just as important is to make sure a process is in place that will deliver the outcomes expected. It is simply not good enough to sit back and hope that a new IT system can bring in the money – it has to be planned for and people have to take on their responsibilities starting at the top – they are the ones who are in the end responsible for the money being delivered. I have put together an e-book explaining how to put together a benefits planning process that’s available to download for free on my forum – take a look at least we get some way along the road to delivering value for our organisations.

Free ebook on BizFace: Business Benefits Planning


How to Sack an Employee – good practice in firing a person ethically

Management / By

Firing an Employee – The Seven Steps of good management practice

Dismissing an employee can be difficult and has to be done carefully with consideration and following the rules. One can be very cavalier and not worry about the consequences but how this task is done is important not just for the person who will be leaving but for those who remain working for you. A poorly managed dismissal can break the trust and loyalty employees have for the organisation so its not just the employee going you have to worry about. Just as any management task it needs to be done well and although an emotionally charged job a competent manager can carry out this onerous duty whilst maintaining integrity and being seen as fair. Often managers who do this do not understand their own emotional responses and respond by being abrupt and aggressive – this is to be avoided. The process must be clear and legitimate and this will ensure that procedural justice is seen to be carried out and keeps focus on the issue of poor performance not on the people concerned.

Firstly you can dismiss an employee on one of the following grounds:

Conduct – including poor work related conduct with clients as well as you and the other staff

Capability – Insufficient qualification to do the job although this must be carefully managed and you must set down clear guidelines in a draft policy how this should be done (if you are in a sales environment for example its often best to set out performance criteria right at the start and monitor against them and discuss improvement objectives for example early on)

Legality – for example losing a driving licence if driving was a substantial element in the performance of the job

Redundancy – the work for which the person was employed has dried up or has been outsourced

Other substantial reasons – which is the catch-all for anything not covered by the above but is also a minefield as it has to be grounded in some substantive issue related to the job.

You cannot dismiss and employee of whatever service duration on any grounds of discrimination real or implied. If you feel that a dismissal is necessary follow a clear procedure to avoid any possible implications of a discriminatory nature. You should be aware that if you do not follow the correct procedure then in some countries you may put yourself liable for unfair dismissal proceedings which can leave you open to large amounts of compensation which in the case of a small business can be disastrous.

First rule of a disciplinary case is document everything in writing – even if you think it is an open and shut case it is good management practice to set things down so that if necessary these notes can be referred to should the need arise.

If an employee has been with you more than 12 months the following procedure would normally apply

The Seven Step Process:

1.0 Inform the person who is underperforming that you would like to have a meeting to discuss their performance as things are not going well (for example).
2.0 Tell the person the grounds for concern up front so they have had time to prepare – no ambushes and tell them they can be accompanied by a friend or union rep – if they chose bring along a relative make sure you are also supported just in case things get heated. You must tell the employee they have the right of appeal at any stage – if possible to another senior partner or independent person.
3.0 Hold the review meeting at your offices – reserve an office and ensure that all calls are held and you are not disturbed. Go through and explain the reasons for taking the action – state clearly that this meeting is about unacceptable performance and list out the issues. Allow the person their say – there will be defence obviously listen politely but be firm in your resolve. If this is a final meeting inform the person in clear terms that they are dismissed – leave no room for misunderstanding use a form of words like ‘ I have decided to terminate your employment’.
4.0 If this is not the final meeting in most cases it is advisable to agree a review period to give the person the opportunity to improve performance. Agree this review period and state what must be achieved by that time.
5.0 Document this meeting with the grounds and issues of concern and the agreed actions and send this in a letter to the person concerned copied to the HR department.
6.0 Hold the agreed follow-up review meeting and go through what has been achieved (or not) – hold the meeting even if performance has improved to your satisfaction and set down a new period of review to show the performance improvement is maintained.
7.0 Document this meeting in detail and copy to the HR Department to place outcome on file.

Common mistakes to be avoided.

* You need the document trail just in case you do end up in an unfair dismissal process – copy the documents to your advisor.
* A clear policy covering expected conduct, rules, dismissal procedures and performance requirements are a must no matter how small the company.
* Not applying the procedures to employees with less than one year’s service – they can suggest you fired them on unlawful grounds and claim compensation (you may have to settle because the cost of fighting it could be exorbitant when lawyers are involved! ).
* Failure to invite employees to disciplinary hearings in writing or supply adequate evidence before the disciplinary hearing – they are entitled to notice of the nature of the grievance in advance and a right of appeal
* Not appreciating the statutory requirement to proceed with each stage of the procedure without undue delay under UK law.
* Failure to appreciate that an employee may have right to appeal even if it is requested verbally rather than in writing and is after a timescale set down by the employer – not hearing grievances raised after termination of employment has occurred for example (be careful of this one if a letter is received even quite some time after the employee has left)

Of course there are circumstances where the above procedure can be truncated, for example in cases of gross misconduct but overall make sure you have a transparent procedure in place and you cannot go wrong.

Dismissing an employee is a task a manager will have to do at some time in her career and although a difficult and emotional time can be managed as long as a clear process is in place. It is very tempting to be bullish and ‘fire people’ as a sign of macho management but as well as holding the organisation potentially liable is poor practice and an indication of low management competence. Besides letting people go in a nonthreatening and honorable way, enabling them to leave with dignity, and allowing them to rationalize the process is good management style and a sign of stewardship for the people who work for you.

Royston

see more of my posts on the: BizFace Forum