Theories and classification of management styles have taken various turns and bends over centuries past; from being two-tiered to being multi-tiered, to being an amalgamation of previous theories and different schools of thoughts. Considering all kinds of classifications and their definitions, the most common ones that apply to management styles in most scenarios are as follows:
Democratic style: The manager delegates tasks to the employees to be completed within a stipulated time limit. The employees have the freedom of decision making and also on the method.
Autocratic style: On the other end, as autocratic manager decides everything for the employees, the employees are there only to implement what the manager wishes.
Consultative style: This is a hybrid of the aforementioned. Here the manager asks for views and opinions form the employees, but the final decision is taken by the manager.
Laissez-Faire Style: This approach is more liberal than the democratic one. Here the manager delegates tasks to the employees, who choose to complete it in a method as they see fit. The managers have minimal involvement with employees, thus giving them more freedom.
1.2 Leadership Characteristics:
According to Murray Johannsen, there are nine characteristics of leadership, which have been explained in the following:
Self-Esteem: Confidence in one's own ability is essential in being a good leader. If a person realises and recognises worth of self, he or she will always be prepared to take on challenges.
Need for Achievement: Ambition is also a key characteristic of a good leader. Need for achievement not only encompasses ambition, but also the drive to perform at the best of their ability.
Opportunistic: Being at the right place at the right time can have created many rags to riches story. A good leader always tries to identify these opportunities and capitalise on it.
Locus of Control: Any task is prone to external and internal influences that may shape and change its method and outcome. Leaders with a good internal locus of control perceive that these influences are mostly internal, and can be controlled therefore.
Goal Orientation: a good leader is always focused on achieving his or her goals, and tries to minimise the effect of any distraction and also achieves it in the most efficient way possible.
Optimism: The glass is always half full for a good leader. Any problems are viewed thus as challenges, and any obstacles as a temporal problem that can be solved.
Courage: It takes guts to take risks, which is essential for a good business venture to stand out form the mediocre. A good leader will take a risk when necessary, or even when it is not, but has the potential to reap great benefits.
Tolerance to Ambiguity: This characteristic refers to the quality of a leader to take on and accept the uncertain. This prepares a leader to venture out of their comfort zone and explore new avenues.
Strong Internal Motivation: The internal drive to strive and excel is the most important attribute of a good leader. Internal motivation serves as the best fuel for a good leader, allowing them to always go for it.
1.3 Communication Processes:
There have been a significant number of theories and models on the communication process and they have their own sets of strengths and weaknesses. One of the models that capture the basic understanding of communication process is known as Schramm's Model of Communication.
Figure 1 Schramm's Model of Communication
Schramm's Model of Communication: According to this model, there is no specific sender or receiver as such. People both send and receive message and thus the communication process is always two-way. He has also divided the various stages of message filtration, which include decoding, interpreting and then encoding. This model therefore successfully incorporated the context and the cultural orientation of the parties involved. The message sent is not always the message received; it depends on how it is interpreted, which in turn depends on the context and the cultural perception. This model, although a very good graphical representation of a typical two way communication process, does not account for a communication among various sources.
1.4 Investigating Organisational Culture and Change:
Organisational culture
Organisational culture is, simply stated, the personality of an organisation. It is the set of values, norms, beliefs and practices of the members of that specific organisation. Although a comprehensive description of culture is not easy, the effect of it is quite visible. The casual culture in most California based IT company is quite different from the 'Power Tie' culture of Wall Street, and the differences are quite obvious.
Organisational culture and change
Culture by its very nature is strong and deep rooted. Therefore changing or even amending bits of it is quite difficult. The process can be explained via the following steps:
Finding out the core values and beliefs of the organisation. These not only include the stated values or the mission statement, but also metaphors, myths, opinion leaders' attitudes, and general behaviour.
Acknowledging and respecting these values and beliefs.
Looking at the cohesiveness among these and find out the best possible sets of values and beliefs. Establish these new sets through behaviour.
Repeat the aforementioned steps over a long period of time, and ensure new members also get oriented with these sets of values and beliefs.
Part B - Customer Service Team Leader
Context: I am an employee in McDonalds, currently working in the branch near Highbury and Islington station. Although not as busy as the ones in Oxford Street, this branch gets its fair share of customers. The longer trading hours attracts a lot of customer after 11 PM, especially when the nearby KFC closes. I work in the evening shift, which finishes at 12 AM.
2.1 Self-assessment as a management potential:
The assessments of my own management skills in terms of a fast food outlet are as follows:
Interpersonal skills: I am a friendly person and can earn the trust of people fairly quickly. This helps me in developing the interpersonal skill that is needed of a manager. However, the firm approach of getting things done without making a bad impression is something I have never tried as a crew member has rare opportunities to do exercise this. However, I have observed that people tend to listen to me as they if I can show confidence in my know-how and that if I am friendly.
Communication skills: I am fairly communicative, in fact a bit more than usual in my work place. I always inform my manager even if I take a miniscule decision that does not affect our normal operation. My manager finds this very useful. I am a good listener as well, although I sometimes tend to shut down if I think that someone is speaking to me without a rationale. This can be a bad thing as it is important to listen first and to interpret later.
Decision making skills: This is an area where I need more work done. I am quite task oriented, which sometimes prevents me from being contingent and change my work, or prioritise accordingly. This affect my decision making, as sometimes I don't see the need to do something else while leaving my task at hand unfinished.
Leadership skills: I believe in a democratic style of management. I am good at finding out what people think about how a work should be done, and act accordingly. This skill is important as McDonalds is gradually working towards empowering crew members with more responsibility. My skill will thus help me to fit in with the style of leadership that McDonalds is looking for.
Technical skills: I have found out that my prevailing knowledge about computers and networking is more than enough to carry out technical tasks, and even trouble shooting.
2.2 My SWOT analysis:
My SWOT analysis can be summarised in the following chart:
Table 1 SWOT analysis
Strength
Friendly
Task oriented
Focused
Trustworthy
Weakness
Not strict when needed
Have a problem with multi-tasking
Have problem with prioritising
Opportunities
Fast track Management programmes in McDonalds
Management recommendation
Threats
Lack of job in the UK market
Competition from other crew members
2.3 My Objectives:
Based on my analysis of skills and my SWOT, I have identified the areas where I would need to improve. I have come up with a set of objectives that will eventually help me in building up my skill set. After speaking to our branch manager and consulting with him; the following objectives have been set for me:
Work with a shift manager as his or her apprentice (8 weeks): I will train under my line manager and learn the necessary on-the-job tricks of the trade. I can also ask questions whenever a manager changes a decision, or discards a few decisions, thus getting a better view of the cues that leads to prioritising according to the need of the business.
Work a various number of shifts in different time slots (4 weeks): As of now, I only work in the evening shift. My branch manager has advised me to work in various time slots and in various days to understand the true nature of our outlet, our customers and our services, as well as getting acquainted to more colleagues who will in turn train me up in certain things that they are adept at.
Run a shift under supervision (3 evenings, 1 off-peak day): I was told that I will have to run the outlet for half an hour for 3 evening and an off-peak day. This will help me in actually getting to know what a manager's job involves. I will have to work under supervision in all of these times.
My Manager has agreed to these objectives whilst I carry out my normal routine.
3.1 Management skills on test:
Achieving goals and objectives by leading a team: After the aforementioned objectives were agreed upon, I was trained up by my line manager in the evening shift. Not only this helped me in understanding the job better, it also built my leadership skills, which I put to test during my 2nd shift running.
It was a particularly busy night and to my dismay, I found out that the soft drink fountain was broken. As I was running the shift, my manager was in his office catching up on some paperwork. I was pressed for time to go back up to find him. Therefore I decided that we need to act calmly, and fast. I asked my colleague who was cleaning up to come to the counter. I myself went in the food preparation area, and I also put a hand written notice on top of the fountain that said 'out of order, please select a drink of your choice from the refrigerator'. This reduced a bit of the hassle of explaining to customers why they are not getting their drinks. I also asked colleagues to communicate the same message to them. After around 20 minutes the customer influx died down a bit, and I went back to the counter, whilst sending my colleague back to her cleaning duties.
I found out that my experienced colleagues needed little instruction as to how to act, which made my job easier. I also found out that I have grown the ability to prioritise, and that I can drive a team to achieve a goal, in this case which was to give the customers quick service whilst acknowledging our lack of providing everything they needed. Thus the objective of running a shift on my own was fulfilled through this sudden emergency.
3.2 Demonstrating appropriate product and service knowledge:
I already knew as a crew member about the products we sell, the ingredients that we use and also, the method by which these ingredients themselves were produced. I was also good at customer services. In my training session, I also learned how to run the back office, how to check and order stock, how to audit for a hygiene check and the likes.
3.3 Rationale behinds my decision:
I decided against calling my manager downstairs because the need was immediate. My colleagues are normally trained to serve at the counter; therefore I decided to use all available colleagues for queue busting. I myself went to the kitchen to show colleagues that when needed I am there to give them a hand, as well as to my expertise in the food preparation area to deal with the situation. I also put up the notice as this has happened before, and I have seen that customers might seem a bit picky about the drink, but in reality they are not, they take a drink as an accompaniment to their main meal.
4.1 Managerial and personal skills:
As seen from section 2, my interpersonal skills and my commitment to the task at hand will be valuable in my personal career development. With the facility of on-the-job training, I have also learned new skills and have thus become ready to be a team leader in my outlet, or in any other outlet for that matter. This set of trained and natural skills can be deemed as a first step towards a career in fast food. My experience will also become pivotal. Although my technical skills have little effect on the job at the moment, it might become critical in a more responsible role in the future. I aim to be a branch manager within the next 4 to 5 years.
4.2 Development plan:
To achieve the target, I have thought out of a Development plan. This is as follows:
Learn to Run: In this stage, I will learn how to get a job done. This includes learning how to plan and organise, how to motivate employees and how to direct them to their tasks. As I have already trained to become a team leader, I have an idea about these, although for efficient implementation, experience is necessary.
Learn to teach: I will then learn how to train employees. This involves having in-depth knowledge of the day to day operations of the front end and the back end of the outlets. As of now, I have adequate idea about the front end. I still need to learn quite a lot more about the support service.
Learn to improve: in this stage I will have to train myself to understand how to manage time efficiently, as well as how to manage myself. In this phase I hope to develop my own style of management, and preferably a very good and successful one at that.
Part C - Report on another McDonalds branch
Introduction:
The importance of good customer service is absolutely critical. It is no longer considered an added feature: it is now an imperative. The following is a report on how the customer service of Stratford High Street Branch of McDonalds is.
Methodology of collecting data:
This type of report requires that I observe employees while they are serving. I have therefore abided by that format. I have chosen different time frames to observe how the employees behave with the customers; evenly balanced between off-peak and peak hours. The observations are written down. There is no strict guideline. The data collection is open to ensure that the findings are more comprehensive rather than formatted and restrictive.
Findings:
General cleanliness of the branch is good. There are two floors in this branch, and both the floors are maintained regularly by a colleague in regular intervals.
The peak time queues are difficult to handle. I have seen customers come in the store and then walk out because of the queues, and because there are quite a few options around the area, which includes KFC and Burger King. We have lost many customers during peak times.
Colleague motivation is not exceptional. Colleagues just ask and get on with their job due to the pressure they are in, and the customers are normally in a rush to get the food as quickly as possible. However, there is room for a higher morale in colleagues.
Colleagues are well informed about offers and services. Customers query about a new menu or a new meal deal is satisfied almost instantly.
Colleagues can deal with difficult customers in a calm and cool manner. There was only one instance of this, when a drunken customer was ushered gently by a security guard outside the branch.
Conclusion:
This branch needs more tills to deal with the heavy queues in peak times. This is the only way to prevent customers form walking away.
Colleague morale should be boosted up a bit by positive reinforcement or training. After speaking to a few colleagues, I found out that performance bonus is a popular choice of positive reinforcement among them.
