Managers, Leadership and Decision making

Question 1

What is Capacity Utilisation?

Answer 1

Maximising the amount of people that can use something.

Question 2

What is the formula for Capacity Utilisation?

Answer 2

Current capacity/Maximum capacity x100

Question 3

What is the formula for Average revenue per customer?

Answer 3

Revenue/Amount of customers

Question 4

What is Leadership?

Answer 4

Deciding on a direction for a company in relation to its objectives and inspiring staff to achieve those objectives.

Question 5

What is Management?

Answer 5

Getting things done by organising other people to do it.

Question 6

What are the factors that affect leadership styles?

Answer 6

-The task
-Tradition of the organisation -culture
-Type of labour force - skilled or unskilled
-The group size
-The leaders personality
-The group’s personality
-Time available to complete a task
-Company structure
-Particular situation

Question 7

What is the Autocratic leadership style?

Answer 7

-Leader makes decision without reference to anyone else.
-High degree of dependency on leader.
-Can create de-motivation and alienation of staff.

Question 8

What is the Democratic leadership style?

Answer 8

-Encourages decision making from different perspectives.
-Helps motivation.
-Improves sharing of ideas.

Question 9

What is the Laissez-Faire leadership style?

Answer 9

-‘Let it be’ - the responsibilities are shared by all.
-Can be motivational.
-Relies on good teamwork.
-Could be time consuming.

Question 10

What is the Paternalistic leadership style?

Answer 10

-Employees are consulted but the leader makes all the decisions.
-Leader acts as a father figure.
-Close supervision but attempts are made to gain respect of staff.
-Workers recognise that the manager is trying to support their needs.

Question 11

What is the formula for Market Share?

Answer 11

Revenue/Total revenue in market x100

Question 12

What is an Opportunity Cost?

Answer 12

The cost of one decision in terms of the next best alternative foregone.

Question 13

What are the strengths and weaknesses of Scientific decision making?

Answer 13

+Supported by quantifiable evidence.
+Encourages logical thought process.
-May require expensive data.
-Time consuming.

Question 14

What are the strengths and weaknesses of Intuition decision making?

Answer 14

+Allows for quick decision making.
+Encourages innovation and creativity.
-Difficult to justify.
-Reliant on experience and expertise.

Question 15

What are the steps in Scientific decision making?

Answer 15

1. Set objectives
2. Gather data
3. Analyse data
4. Make decision
5. Implement decision
6. Review decision
   Then back to the start

Question 16

What are the advantages of Decision Trees?

Answer 16

+They set out the problem clearly and encourage a logical approach to decision making.
+They encourage careful consideration of all options.
+They encourage a quantitative approach that might improve the results and also means that the process can be computerised.
+They take risk into account and encourage a quantitative assessment of such risk.
+They are useful when similar scenarios have occurred before.
+They are useful when making tactical rather than strategic decisions.

Question 17

What are the disadvantages of Decision Trees?

Answer 17

-They ignore the constantly changing nature of the business environment.
-It is difficult to get accurate and realistic data in order to estimate probabilities.
-It is quite easy for management bias to influence the estimates of probabilities and financial returns, and to manipulate data.
-They are less useful for completely new decisions.
-Few decisions can be made on a purely objective basis; they must include a subjective element based on experience and intuition.
-They make lead to managers taking less account of important qualitative issues.

Question 18

What is an example of Compulsorily Purchased?

Answer 18

The government has imposed that people in the way of the HS2 route need to sell their homes.

Question 19

What is the Tannenbaum Schmidt Continuum

Answer 19

-It is the leadership model based on a spectrum between two extremes of manager centred and subordinate (works for manager) centred approaches.
-It recognises that in reality leaders are unlikley to be at either extreme but some where along the spectrum.
-Not so much about leadership styles but how decisions are made.

Question 20

Where do the different leadership styles lie on The Tannenbaum Schmidt Continuum?

Answer 20

Autocratic - 1/2
Paternalistic - 3/4
Democratic - 5/6
Laissez Faire - 7

Question 21

What words are associated with each leadership style on The Tannenbaum Schmidt Continuum?

Answer 21

Autocratic - Tells
Paternalistic - Sells
Democratic - Consults
Laissez Faire - Participates

Question 22

What are each of the numbers on the scale of The Tannenbaum Schmidt Continuum?

Answer 22

1 - Manager takes and announces decisions.
2 - Manager sells decisions.
3 - Manager presents decision with ideas and invites questions.
4 - Manager suggests provisional decisions and invites discussion.
5 - Manager presents the situation, gets feedback and then decides.
6 - Manager explains, defines parameters and asks team to decide.
7- Manager allows team to develop options and decide on action based within managers limits.

Question 23

How do the forces in the manager (what drives them to manage that way) effect the approach that the manager will adopt?

Answer 23

-Personality and Characteristics.
-Experience.
-Attitude towards and trust in subordinates.

Question 24

How do the forces in the subordinates effect the approach that the manager will adopt?

Answer 24

-Personality and Characteristics.
-Experience.
-Attitude towards and trust in the leader.

Question 25

How do the forces in the situation effect the approach that the manager will adopt?

Answer 25

-The nature of the problem/situation.
-Resource constraints including time.
-The culture of the organisation.

Question 26

What is Employee Engagement?

Answer 26

The emotional commitment an employee has to an organisation and its aims.

Question 27

What are Stakeholders?

Answer 27

Anyone with an interest in the actions of a business.

Question 28

What are Primary Stakeholders?

Answer 28

They have a direct relationship with the business.

Question 29

What are Secondary Stakeholders?

Answer 29

They are affected by the actions of the business but are not directly related to the business.

Question 30

What is the Interest that Employees have in a business?

Answer 30

They want job security and promotional prospects. They want a decent wage and good conditions.

Question 31

What is the Interest that Shareholders/Owners have in a business?

Answer 31

They are the most important stakeholder. They decide what happens to the business and want to make a profit.

Question 32

What is the Interest that Suppliers have in a business?

Answer 32

They want good communication so they can ensure the right product is delivered at the right time. They also want to be paid on time.

Question 33

What is the Interest that the Local Community has in a business?

Answer 33

They want good jobs and improved local facilities but not at the expense of the environment.

Question 34

What is the Interest that Customers have in a business?

Answer 34

They want high quality products at a low price. They want a good service and fast delivery.

Question 35

What is the Interest that the Government has in a business?

Answer 35

They want to receive money from taxes when the business makes a profit.

Question 36

What is the Keep Satisfied strategy in Stakeholder Mapping?

Answer 36

High power, Low interest e.g. the government

Question 37

What is the Manage Closely strategy in Stakeholder Mapping?

Answer 37

High power, High interest e.g. local council

Question 38

What is the Keep Informed strategy in Stakeholder Mapping?

Answer 38

Low power, High interest e.g. local residents

Question 39

What is the Monitor strategy in the Stakeholder Mapping?

Answer 39

Low power, Low interest e.g. local companies

Question 40

What is Stakeholder Mapping used for?

Answer 40

-Stakeholder needs should be considered when making decisions
-It can help avoid resistance to change
-Businesses use stakeholder mapping to help inform decision making

Question 41

What are the steps to Managing Stakeholders?

Answer 41

Step 1 - Identify stakeholders
Step 2 - Decide who key stakeholders are