A large motivator to pursue my MBA is the desire to be a manager that effectively leads a team, responsibly uses authority, and to facilitate career growth through mentorship. I've witnessed the devastations of ineffective and hostile management on occasions in my career; it wounds organizations and can be costly to rehabilitate. Vast amounts of leadership opinions exist within the corporate organizational zeitgeist, so it is challenging to discern which advice contributes the most to scalability, ethical leadership practices, and harmonious team building. However, it was grounding to have Jone L. Pearce’s book Organizational Behavior; Real Research for Real Managers as a trusted source. Pearce’s book took ubiquitous management advice and tested largely popular management theories with evidence research, thus authoring objective management advice. Throughout the journey of exploring the book with my team and individually, I was thrilled to know that empathy, mentorship, and efficacy can coexist within successful management practices. The journey established my management ethos, summarized in these keys points:
Power is simply the ability influence others enthusiastically to perform job responsibilities; it should always be used ethically
To design a high performing dedicated team, managers must hire carefully and demographically diversely. Additionally, managers must learn about their subordinates on a personal level in order to understand their motivations in order to retain talent
To ensure scalability, a manager must have a clear vision, initiate structure, and analytically monitor the results of implemented directives. Feedback and reflective dialogue must occur continuously throughout execution
On Power
Throughout my work experience, I've witnessed these types of power exercised; autocratic and absentee.
An autocratic power dynamic in leadership shows in a leader that sets the rules, and objectives with no invitation of subordinate feedback nor operational flexibility. This dynamic typically fosters a work environment that disempowers, emotionally abuses, and drives away subordinates. Additionally, it is less than likely that subordinates will perform contextually. Growth and productivity heavily depends on contextual performance. Productivity is not at its optimal within this power dynamic.
Power in the absentee approach lacks structure; objectives lack definition and subordinates struggle to correctly interpret expectations due to the subjectivity. Processes and output are not carefully monitored and specific feedback is not often given. This power dynamic can allow subordinates to perform without the immense pressure from the autocratic approach. However, productivity and costly oversights happen frequently within this dynamic.
Both dynamics don’t successfully influence subordinates to perform responsibly. With the anxiety pressure from autocracy and the frustration and insecurity within the absentee approach, the ability to influence action fails.
For me, power best exercised through setting the directives and explaining their importance through an anecdote or a narrative allows subordinates to easily adapt and execute tasks exceptionally. A narrative connects others personally to a mission or objective, which increases the likelihood of enthusiastic completion. Employing narratives or storytelling is a great tool to enable clear understanding of objectives, to generate participation enthusiasm, and to build trust through being a personable leader. With trust and clarity, power is used ethically.
On High Performing Dedicated Teams
To assemble a high performing team, hire people that have the necessary skills to perform the job requirements. For personality that lends to dedication, autonomy, and high competence, hire candidates possessing the following traits; conscientiousness, emotional stability, and agreeableness. These traits foster employees that can understand and implement intellectually robust information, collaborate harmoniously with varying personalities, problem solve independently, and perform contextually.
Hiring diversely (racially and industry wise) invites unique perspectives, lending to a team that typically problem solves unconventionally. This allows for innovation and lends performance advantage over competing organizations.
High performing, conscientious and emotionally stable subordinates require interest and mentorship from their managers, which likely makes them stay within the organization and perform optimally. It is imperative to foster trust and organizational loyalty through getting to know them personally; learn their motivations, provide resources for desired performance, design a clear career growth path, and provide industry appropriate compensation.
On Scalability
Managerial power and storytelling lends to scalability. To achieve growth, a big picture vision must be established at the outset. The vision communicates the main objective. The story defines the reason, the role of employees in execution, and describes desirable customer reaction; why and how are subordinates achieving stated objectives, how will it foster inclusivity amongst employees, and what feelings that allows customers to continually support the business. The vision serves as the inertia, and the structure initiative is the fuel.
A structure initiative entails each person’s responsibility within the objective, resources needed, deadlines, scheduled process check-ins, and data systems to capture the objective’s progression.
Communication of any foreseeable obstacles during the vision and execution state must be stated at the outset and throughout the process. A feedback session should be facilitated after execution to communicate successes and insecurities of the process. Data supported successes are to be incorporated into SOPs and insecurities are to be tweaked or eradicated entirely.
Understanding & Personal ROE
Studying Pearce’s Organizational Behavior; Real Research for Real Managers, I've noticed my sensitivity to employee confidence and emotional well being within the workplace and how that directly impacts profitability. Societally, we spend a disproportionate amount of our lived experience in our workplaces, so that inevitably impacts our mental health the most. Managers set the tone of the work environment’s collective mental health, so it should be a priority to ensure subordinates have emotional safety, as this largely impacts the quality of work and scalability.
Noticing this sensitivity heightened my awareness that I perform best when my managers, myself, and my co workers are emotionally well, there's safety to ask clarifying questions, and freedom to submit optimizing suggestions. I noticed that having a work environment framed around respect, emotional safety, and career growth is the strongest resource to any organization, yet organizations often fail to maintain this. Organizations should look to unsubscribe from viewing employees as only profitability vehicles that can withstand hostility and pressure.
A healthy growth centered work environment can be emblematic of the foundation of a house, with the stable workforce as the bodied structure. The safety of this structure allows a space to yield optimal service to customers, thus contributing more resources for expansion.