Personal Development

Introduction

This analysis focuses on personal development needs assessment. In this regard, a person needs to improve his/her leadership management skills. The problem of poor leadership, especially in a team, hinders the productivity and effectiveness of the entire members of that group; since strong leadership skills are necessary for one to be rewarded in a team, it is a critical need that must be decently assessed. Moreover, practical and visionary leadership skills are recipes for both the individual and organizational success. Therefore, this individual development needs assessment is on a leader of a well-known organization, and in this case the Starbuck Company has been chosen for the practical situation analysis. Starbucks Corporation was chosen due to its position as one of the global, successful companies; more could be desired on establishing the cause of its success, leadership styles and structures. Of most notable is the definite leader or leaders who worked hard to make the corporation successful as will be analysed in the subsequent sections. In the organization, decision making, culture and communication are prioritized as the key pillars of success and the leaders must, at all times, promote integrity in the organization. Success at Starbucks Corporation is directly attributed to efficient communication and practical leadership. This has created transparency in the organization because the communication channels are sound and solid (“SeaZone”, 2009). The leader identified for this study was Howard Schultz who was the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and the President of Starbucks Company. This leader was chosen because he transformed the organization under different situations through adopting practical leadership styles, throughout the company (“SeaZone”, 2009). Since the organization offers consumable goods, managing it might not be an easy task because the consumer preferences normally change, necessitating a prompt action from the management.

According to organizational theory, a non-situational leader may not run a company whose operations are vulnerable to the market dynamics (Robbins & Judge, 2009). Often, the market variations may lead to the dissolution of the business as the business could be rendered irrelevant. The moment that the company cannot respond to the market dynamics and find a workable solution for the problem it cannot survive the competitive local and international market (Senior & Swailes, 2010).

The analysis employs relevant concepts, models, and theories in describing the leader. It also considers the effectiveness of the person’s leadership and the reasons for considering his management style as effectual. In short, the essay is a typical application of the contingency theories of leadership on the management practices of the selected person’s development needs.

Analysis of Leadership Development Needs Assessment

Indeed, proper leadership skills ought to be prioritized among the personal needs for individual development since it leads to the organizational productively and one’s promotional rewards for hard work. A careful analysis of organizations unveils that the employees normally revolt was against the oppression by poor leaders. One notes that the organization’s leader can give detailed explanations of management’s perception about the symbolic administration. By means of using symbolism, the leader might portray anti-Calvinist tradition (Robbins & Judge, 2009). Furthermore, the employee might perceive the leader as a reprobate, thus influence characterization in the organisation. In addition, it can be claimed that the employees’ victimization of the leaders is itself reprobation. In this case, the evidence that the leader can use in creating behaviors, seem to portray the implicitly of the cosmic evil in its hopeless form in the organisation. Under this concept, he revisited his traditional opposition to Calvinism (Robbins & Judge, 2009). Indeed, the leader has to be decisive in making his sophisticated remarks about the company management that subsidiary to thematic aspects of the organisation. In fact, it sounds extra-ordinary and an over-exaggeration of human nature. As a practical leader, one who has been given the authority to be in the leadership position must lead the team of managers to make extraordinary products that could appeal to users. Indeed, the management structure that a leader needs to implement should be one that is successful in promoting development in the company. Furthermore, a leader needs to understand and practice more of contingency leadership theories in carrying out his/her managerial duties as the only way to make sure that the organization achieves its main objectives (Burnes, 2009).

Moreover, a leader is required to have the necessary skills and expertise in making efforts to revive an organization that is showing a downward trend in its performance. In this regard, the leader needs the skills to create a relaxed environment that will serve the workers after they have completed the day’s duties. Typically, that is a unique environment between the workplace and home, where the customers would stop-over for a cup of coffee before either proceeding to the workstation or on their way back home. The organizational operations are directed to respond to the different customer needs under different situations thus called for situational leadership that Howard effectively offered (Burnes, 2009). Notably, organization preferably uses such aspects to portray their humorous appeal to the audience. The interpretation of the organizational theories continues to elicit mixed reactions about his artistic nature, though he rejected this mantle. However, the organisation is ultimately transformative, evocative and fantastically playful. A leader may need to use Ishmael to depict the conflicting context under which the organisation is set, and this becomes apparent in the leader’s remark when he/she wants, possibly a famous invocation that many organizations can use in attracting the audience or readers (Robbins & Judge, 2009).

In some organizations, one may notice a magnified and transformed work of an artist whose creativity is relatively inspiring; owing to strong leadership skills. This fascinating and creative approach is used in the organization, so as to depict an unusual setting as many organizations would do their work. Indeed, the leaders’ creativity is needed to make the organisation reasonably attractive and educative.

Furthermore, a person can enhance his/her leadership development by creating changes in the organization structure, especially re-organizing a team. As a result, the team goes through several changes due to new expansion programs, which may lead to the recruitment of the new members into the organization. First, there is need to re-organize the whole team. This is done to incorporate the new members into the team. This would mean that the old employees are to be transferred to other departments of the organization (Senior & Swailes, 2010). It can be evidenced that only few members are supposed to remain with the new ones in the newly created department. This group of the old employees has the sufficient knowledge and operations of the organization. In essence, this group of the old members is essential in the team that comprised of the new employees due to the requirement that they are meant to guide and teach the new ones. In fact, at the initial stages when one has just been hired into the organization, he/she is not yet acquainted with the procedures and the daily operations of the company, and would need someone with adequate leadership skills to be the personal mentor. Moreover, the re-organization of the team leads to the replacement of the employees. For example, this can be witnessed when the Chief Executive Officer requires the Human Resources Management to replace each of their two employees with other two new ones who have just been recruited into the team. It is necessary to note that the new employees might interfere with the existing culture of the company, to some extent. This might be seen in case whereby the new employees might give some cold receptions to the customers. In such instances, a team leader might be required to exercise his/her leadership skills and advise the top management on issues regarding the re-organization strategy (Dalton, 2010).

Indeed, it can as well be said that there is a change of attitude towards work, which come as a result of poor leadership skills and management. This might occur due to demoralization among the team members. They could be demoralized, since not all employees embrace the elements of changes, which take place within the organization. For instance, some employees might be unwilling to move to the other areas of the organization or business units. Such reluctance to move to the new areas of work might as well de-motivate the team members. Such changes of incidences affect the levels of performance and work output among the team members. It is also possible that the new members of the team cannot find it possible to interact and effectively work with the old employees as a unified team (West, 2012). Such inconsistency in work cohesion could finally lead to poor work performance. The new recruits in the team could also feel that they are being intimidated by the old employees. This could be witnessed in situations whereby the existing staff members of the team sit on the job, and make the newly recruited employees do most of the work. This change might adversely affect the productivity of the company, because when the new recruits, especially when fresh graduates who have just come from colleges and universities are given tasks to perform alone, they are bound to make numerous mistakes. Such mistakes and errors could be attributed to lack of the necessary skills, competence, and experience. These skills, especially the experience among the employees, are something that is gained on the job, after working for several years in the organization. Therefore, it is necessary to realize that the old staff members should not leave everything to be done by the new recruits since they will be challenged to provide the best quality to the clients of the company. This is due to the need that they are still training to know more about the processes and operational procedures of the organization. In fact, they need the older members to provide the necessary leadership skills and guidance as they carry out their daily duties (Keast & Towler, 2009).

In essence, it is necessary for a team leader to implement sound strategies and procedures, which are geared towards improving the team performance in the organizations. First, motivate employees to work hard. This can be done through the provision of bonuses based on performance. This will motivate the team members to work hard so as to earn extremely attractive bonus pay packages. This might be a form of discouragement to those members of the team who might tend to work lazily on the jobs assigned to them. Firstly, introduce competition wards among the team members. The team that performs well can be given free holiday trip to the recreational sites, and expenses paid by the company. The outstanding member of the team who has excelled in his/her area of duty can be given some neat trophy to take home, and this will be a source of encouragement to the other team members to work even harder. Secondly, the leader needs to provide some decent schemes to the team members who excel in their areas of duty. These schemes can incorporate the use of defined benefit schemes where the employer contributes certain percentages of money towards the employees benefit (Yukl, 2010). The winning team can be assigned the highest percentage as a form of encouragement to keep up with the good spirit of outstanding performance.

In essence, all members in an organization should be periodically appraised on their performance or quality of output. The following checklist can be developed to record the observations of the team members who are engaged in performing their daily activities and tasks. This information will be of sound importance during the performance appraisal (Pettigrew & Whipp, 2009).

Title: Team Checklist

A person needs to take some training on leadership so as to improve on his/her weak areas. The training required can be determined based on the person’s knowledge, skills, and experience. These elements form the fundamental determinants on what variety of training to adopt and develop since they directly impact on the performance of the team and the quality of output derived from the employees. People who perform poorly require some thorough training that can involve the hiring of consultancy services of the human resources and management consultants. This group of people can be taken for some outdoor seminars that may take a longer time than the teams that are showing some outstanding performance. On the other hand, the individual who are already doing well in their areas of work require less training programs. They can be trained by the internal human resources department (Grint, 2010). Besides, they can just be given the human resources manual to go through on the company’s work procedures.

In order to be successful in attaining the best improvement on one’s personal leadership skills, appropriate ways for obtaining input and feedback must be designed and implemented.The following provides listings of obtaining input and feed back from the team members. First, this can be done through discussions and interview sessions. Second, this can be achieved through weekly meetings, where the team members openly express their views. Finally, questionnaires can be provided for members, so that they complete and return to management. Moreover, carrying out scenario analysis is necessary.

In the scenario analysis, it is advantageous to engage the team members in coming up with viable solutions that are crucial to the organization. It is essential to note that there will be less resistance to changes in the work procedures and management from the team members, if they are engaged in finding solutions. This is also necessary for the implementation processes since the team members are going to find it easy to understand and adopt the solutions made (Zapeda, 2003). Another crucial aspect to focus on is the leadership style to be implemented in managing the other members of the team.

Democratic leadership style can be currently adopted in managing the team. This enables the team members to express their views freely, without any form of fear and intimidation. Though, this leadership style gives the possibility to the members of the team to interact and participate in the decision making processes freely, it has some of its disadvantages. The limitation of this style has been witnessed in situations, whereby the employees reluctantly take commands from their leaders or even excuse themselves from work at their own will. In this regard, it can be argued that the most appropriate leadership style for the organization is the autocratic one. This is important since the leaders are going to have autonomy over their team members. Though, this might be met with a lot of resistance it would promote effectiveness and productivity among the team members. Besides, the decision making would be faster, under this leadership style. Therefore, the most suitable leadership style for this scenario is the autocratic one, especially when many of its employees seem to be sleeping on the job. For example, this can be seen from the several complaints made by the customers about the quality of services offered to them. In fact, this leadership style will put the employees on their toes in order to enhance quality performance (Senior & Fleming, 2006). Moreover, leadership is essential in an organization since it provides direction to the team members on how to execute their tasks appropriately and in a timely manner. This will eliminates wastage of resources of the organizations. Consequently, efficiency in productivity will be enhanced.

However, risks of poor leadership skills can be seen in the mismanagement of the organizations. Such mismanagements are risky since they lead to losses of funds and the resources of the organization. Financial losses are risky to the organization because they can lead to bankruptcy and solvency. Many organizations, which are not capable of settling their debts, are put under the receivership. In such situations, the investors’ controls in the company are fully interfered with since they might not receive the expected returns on their investments. In such cases, proper leadership skills need to be enhanced to maintain the interests of all the stakeholders in the organization. Indeed, such mismanagements due to poor leadership skills lead to conflicts and issues in the organization (Northouse, 2010).

There are a number of conflicts or issues that can emanate from the given situation. This is evidenced when the team members engage in a conflict with their leaders. The conflict could be on the job descriptions since some of the duties might be conflicting as a result of role duplication. Another conflict that can ensue is one that is between the team members themselves since some of them may feel that they are burdened with a lot of work, while others are just doing some light duties. This scenario is likely to be witnessed between the old and the newly recruited employees. In order to avoid these conflicting scenarios, proper conflict management strategies must be put in place (Dainty & Anderson, 2008).

These conflicts can be resolved through open discussions and dialogues. First, the team members will notify their leaders through a written mail. After discussion on the conflicting issues, the team leader plans for a meeting and invites the conflicting parties to engage in an open dialogue or discussion. An arbitrator might be invited to listen to the views and arbitrate between the members who have been engaged in the conflict. Finally, a resolution is reached, using the learnt leadership skills and both parties who were conflicting are advised to co-exist peacefully (Rickards & Clark, 2006).

Conclusion

Summing up, personal leadership needs assessment and it must incorporate the qualities of honesty and competency. Honesty would be crucial since the leaders need to deal with their subjects in fair and honest manner. Besides, the qualities of honesty will prevent the leaders from stealing the resources of the organization. They can as well embrace honesty to avoid engaging in fraudulent activities that lead to losses of resources. On the other hand, competency is crucial to be embraced among the leaders of the organization. Leaders who have competent skills are capable of steering the organization to the greatest height. This is achieved when the competence skills and knowledge have been employed in coming up with new and viable products, which are highly competitive in the market. This will enable the company to realize the increased revenue from sales. Consequently, such competence skills in the management can help the company to succeed and grow in the long run. Indeed, the individual leadership needs assessment involves training, getting feedback from the subjects through questionnaire interviews, and performance appraisal. These are all essential in facilitating improvements, in a person’s leadership skills. Finally, the leader-member relations should be improved to make it possible to increase the leader’s influence on the team so that he/she can be in the best position of tackling the rising tensions in the organization. As a result, this facilitates the development of cordial relationships with members of the management team, who in turn accept their opinion regarding the expansion and developmental initiative in the organization. This acceptance created a favourable situation for the formulation and articulation of the organization policies.