managing people assignment

8/18/2019 Managing People Assignment

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Organizational Behaviour 26th Nov 2010

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Coursework on the module, ‘MANAGING PEOPLE’

Course Code: MAN4230M

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I certify that this assignment is the result of my own work and doesnot exceed the word count noted below.

Number of words: 1500

(Excluding references/tables/figures and title page)



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A critical analysis of leadership in an organization:With reference to Accenture

Introduction:

1. Leadership is crucial for the success of an organisation. Leadership can be

found at different levels in the organisation other than executive level (Buchanan and

Huczynski 2010). Walt Disney once said: “You can dream, create, design and build

the most wonderful place in the world... but it requires people to make the dream a

reality” (Hamzah and Zairi 1997). People are the most important asset of anyorganisation; driving, influencing and handling individuals of an organisation towards

a common goal is a challenging and interesting job in the current increasingly

competitive world. This review focuses on team management issue that occurred

among management, team leader and team members of Accenture. Accenture is a

global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company.

This review explores situational leadership, team leadership model and finds

apt model to Accenture‟s context. This review stresses the importance of individual

traits, motivation and also suggests a solution to leaders/managers on leading teams to achieve best results.

Real life problem:

Value addition to the client by delivering efficient (quality & quick) output was

the focus in the project to gain confidence of the new client that Accenture has

acquired and thus acquiring more business from the client. Team leader has to

achieve efficient and effective results from the team members; however team

members are not motivated towards this goal as they would get their salaryirrespective of their performance. There was no significant difference in the salary

structure and bonus for a high and a medium performer and not many employees

get high performance rating in the project. This clearly shows the criticality of a team

leader in Accenture who handles teams to meet management expectations with

stringent deadlines. Organisational groups or work teams leadership has become

Comment [BU1]: BROAD ISSUE

Comment [BU2]: SPECIFIC TOPIC ?

Comment [BU3]: ORG. PROBLEM



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one of the most popular and rapidly growing areas of leadership theory and research

(Northhouse 2010).

Implications:

When targets are high and no incentives are being offered for such

achievement employees lose focus, motivation, interest and can lead to many

problems in the team. This is what exactly happened in Accenture‟s project. Few

team members were performing at bare minimum level knowing the fact that there

would not be any monetary benefits for high performance. This has shifted burden to

other team members in the team resulting stress on these individuals. As a result

conflicts among team members cropped up and the performance levels of all the

employees dropped down significantly and most importantly employee attrition had

started. Project started with an aim of acquiring new business from the client by

gaining confidence in the form of delivering efficient output but ended up closely

towards loosing the client as the project deadlines were continuously missed.

Leadership training and its relevance:

Each individual in a team is unique and factors that influence the behaviour of an

individual can be many, few of them are listed below.

Experience Level

Behaviour/attitude

Personal Background

Technical skills etc.

As a result team leader needs to be flexible enough to handle each individual

accordingly. Northhouse (2010 p.92) in his book refers to the work of Blanchard et al

(1985) states that, four different leadership styles that can be chosen based on the

experience of the team members as shown in figure 1. We can observe that as the

knowledge and experience of the team increases, leader should shift his focus from

directive behaviour to coaching followed by supportive and eventually allow the

individual to act independently. As part of leadership excellence training program all

Comment [BU4]: PROBLEMDESCRIPTION / DETAIL

Comment [BU5]: FIRST MODEL



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team leaders in the project have received situational leadership training in

Accenture.

Team leaders in the project focussed on experience aspect of the team

members and ignored all other aspects of an individual; and also team was not

looked as a whole rather the focus was much on individual basis. There were hardly

any opportunities for the team members to meet and share their experiences and

build relationships with other team members or other teams in the same project; due

to lack of such environment e.g. frequent knowledge sharing sessions, team outings,

and fun activities etc. Team co-ordination consistently lacked and this directly

affected performance of each team member in the project. Situational leadership is

helpful in handling individuals but this theory ignores team concept and all other

aspects of individual except experience. In organizations where team work is pivotal

to reach strict deadlines, situational leadership in itself is inadequate to handle the

team; as this theory focuses on selecting the leadership style as per the individual‟s

experience alone. Also, several authors do criticize this approach due to its

ambiguity in defining development levels of subordinates, its credibility is questioned

as only few research studies have been conducted etc. (Northhouse 2010).

Comment [BU6]: MODEL ALREADYIN PRACTICE

Comment [BU7]: PRACTICECRITIQUING THEORY

Comment [BU8]: OTHERTHEORISTS (ONLY ONE ?)CRITIQUING MODEL



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Figure 1:

(Source: The KenBlanchard Companies 2010).

Choosing appropriate Leadership Model:

In organisations like Accenture where team co-ordination is the paramount,

team leaders and management need to focus on team building activities regularly, to

build positive relationships among team members and work towards the

organizational goal. Project members hardly get such opportunities to interact with

all the team members as the management is keen in task accomplishment ignoring

all others that contribute indirectly to the task in hand. In order for the project to be

successful project has to adopt a leadership style that covers all aspects of a team

such as coaching, managing conflicts among the team members, providing an

environment to share information, training required to accomplish the tasks etc. All

aspects discussed for the team success are covered in Team leadership model. This

model presents leaders with a detailed road map to diagnose team problems and

appropriate action to correct identified problems.

Comment [BU9]: RATIONALE FOR AN ALTERNATIVE MODEL



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This model (See Figure 2) is based on functional leadership claim that

leader‟s job is to monitor and take necessary action to ensure team‟s effectiveness

(Northhouse 2010).

Figure 2:

(Source: Northhouse 2010)

Other Aspects worth considering:

Team leaders, Managers in the project were completely blinded by

deliverables and deadlines. This made management to overlook basic roles of

management such as understanding individuals, knowing interests of individuals etc.

Leadership Decisions

Monitor or Take Action

Task or Relational

Internal or External

External Leadership ActionsInternal Leadership Actions

Environmental

Networking

Advocating

Negotiating Support

Buffering

Assessing

Sharin Information

Task

Goal Focusing

Structuring for Results

Facilitating Decisions

Training

Maintaining Standards

Relational

Coaching

Collaborating

Managing Conflict

Building

Commitment

Satisfying Needs

Team Effectiveness

Performance

Develo ment



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Hogan (1991), as summarised by Clegg and Hardy (1999 p.153) states that

individuals can be characterized by observing dispositional qualities which can be

used for the employee development and organizational effectiveness. Each

individual can be classified into one of the 30 traits under 5 headings identified by

Costa and McCrae as depicted in Table 1 (Buchanan and Huczynski).

Table 1:

High

Low

Explorer (O+) Openness

Preserver (O-)

Creative, open-minded, rigidity of beliefs & range of interests not

receptive to new idea,

Intellectual

narrow-minded

Focussed (C+) Conscientiousness

Flexible (C-)

Organized, self-disciplined, desire to impose order and precision

disorganized, frivolous,

Achievement-oriented

irresponsible

Extravert (E+) Extroversion

Introvert (E-)

Sociable, talkative, assertive level of comfort with relationships less

sociable, irritable, uncooperative

Adapter (A+) Agreeableness

Challenger (A-)

Good-natured, compliant the ability to get along with others

quarrelsome, irritable, Sympathetic

uncooperative

Comment [BU10]: FURTHERTHEORETICAL IDEAS OFRELEVANCE TO ORG.



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Reactive (R+) Neuroticism

resilient (N-)

Anxious, depressed, tendency to maintain a balanced emotional state

calm, contented, self-conscious

self-assured

High

Low

(Source: Buchanan and Huczynski)

Six traits (fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas, values) relating to

openness vary from „explorer‟ at one extreme to „preserver‟ at the other. Explorer

(O+) traits are useful for purely creative sectors such as entrepreneurs, architects,

artists etc. Preserver (O-) traits are useful for project managers, stage performers

etc. Those in the middle are named „moderates‟ who are interested in novelty when

there is a requirement but not for too long (Buchanan and Huczynski). In the same

way traits related to other 4 headings are useful in various fields.

It is time consuming to understand or judge individuals and deal accordingly;

another problem here is employee turnover . By the time team leaders understand an

employee; he/she might start looking for other opportunities or might have already

filed resignation. This is the major problem in any IT industry in India and Accenture

is no exception to this. Key point here is no attempt was being made by the team

leaders or management to understand employees and their interests.

Understanding personality traits and realising that each individual falls in one

of these categories helps leaders to delegate jobs accordingly. This inculcates

intrinsic motivation to employees thus, maximising team‟s performance. Employees

with intrinsic motivation are high performers (Deci et al 2001).

Resolution:

Training on leadership and other aspects relevant to the team leaders is the

pivotal in Accenture to handle teams efficiently and effectively. Trainings are

conducted on leadership but are not abreast and training programs need to

incorporate the latest and useful models/styles such as team leadership model,

charismatic and transformational. Leadership styles like charismatic and

Comment [BU11]: PRACTICALISSUES WITH IMPLEMENTINGRELEVANT THEORY

Comment [BU12]: NONETHELESS,FURTHER RATIONALE FOR

USEFULNESS OF ALTERNATIVE,THEORETICAL APPROACH



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transformational can bring a positive impact to the organisation by following them

(Yukl, 2002). In addition leadership team needs to be aware of personality traits and

Hertzberg‟s motivation theory, which stresses hygiene factors and motivators in the

work environment (Chell 1988). If the management was aware of the existence of

team leadership model and had implemented, this situation would not have occurred

in Accenture as this is the apt model to the current situation. As a short term solution

team leaders can concentrate on relationship building (team leadership model) to

bring the situation under control and then can concentrate on all other aspects of the

team leadership model. From Accenture point of view training programs need to be

abreast and train the leadership teams as per the project requirement. Though the

solution incurs costs, it is worth spending in training rather than losing or delivering

inferior output to the client, which is disastrous to the company in many aspects.

Conclusion:

Team performance issues exist in almost every company but the problem in

Accenture has become worse due to the leadership team‟s ignorance to handle the

situation. This review highlighted the importance of team leadership in a global

organisation, and found training system to be irrelevant to real life situation. This

review found team leadership model as the apt model to resolve organisation‟s

existing problems, explored relevance of individual traits and factors that affect

employee motivation; which helps leadership team to manage teams effectively.

Finally this review suggested a solution to the leadership and organisation.

Comment [BU13]: AUTHOR‟SPOSITION = RECOMMENDATIONSBASED ON PRECEDING ARGUMENT

Comment [BU14]: VALUE OFTHEORY FOR PRACTICE

Comment [BU15]: SUMMARY OFMAJOR POINTS COVERED



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References:

Chell, E. (1988). The psychology of behavior in organizations, 1st edition. London: The Macmillan

Press Ltd.

Clegg, R. and Hardy, C. (1999). Studying Organization 1st edition. London: Sage publications.

Deci, E. et al (2001). ‘Extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation in education: Reconsidered

once again’. Review of Educational Research, Vol. 71, pp. 1-27.

Hamzah, A., and Zairi, M. (1997). ‘Best practice in people Management’, Management

Development Review. Vol. 10, No. 4/5, pp. 17*9–182.

Huczynski, A. and Buchman, A. (2010). Organizational Behaviour , 7 th edition. Harlow: Pearson

Education.

Northhouse, G. (2010). Leadership, 5th edition. California: Sage Publications.

Yukl, G. (2002). Leadership in organizations, 5th edition. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.

The Ken Blanchard Companies (2000).Situational Leadership II Teaching Others. Escondido CA:

The Ken Blanchard Companies. Available at:

http://kenblanchard.net/files/pdf/SLII_Teach_Others.pdf [Accessed 23 Oct 2010].

Bibliography:

Blackler, F., and Shimmin, S. (1984). Applying psychology in organizations, 1st edition. London:

Methun & Co. Ltd.

Blanchard, H. and Johnson, S. (1983). The one minute manager . New York: Berkeley Publishing

Group.

Duck, S. (1992). Human Relationships, 2nd edition. London: Sage publication.

Smith, I. (2008). ‘People management – be bold!’, Library Management Vol. 29 No. 1/2, pp. 18-

28.

Vigoda-Gadot, E. (2007). ‘Leadership style, organizational politics and employees

performance’. Leadership Style. Vol. 36 No. 5, pp. 661-683.

http://kenblanchard.net/files/pdf/SLII_Teach_Others.pdf

http://kenblanchard.net/files/pdf/SLII_Teach_Others.pdf

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