Unit 2- Managers, leadership & decision making Flashcards
Who is a manager?
A manager is a person who is responsible for a business’ activities & its workers.
What does a manager do?
-Sets objectives
-Organises
-Motivates and communicates
-Develops people
-Measures (performance/completion of tasks)
What are the 3 types of leadership style?
-Autocratic (or Authoritarian)
-Democratic
-Laissez-faire
What is the autocratic leadership style?
Makes decisions without consulting staff
What is the democratic leadership style?
Involves staff making decisions
What is the lasseiz-faire leadership style?
Lets staff make decisions
What is the Tannenbaum-Schmidt continuum?
Categorises the range of behaviours from being manager-centred leadership, where managers make all the decisions and inform subordinates to being subordinate-centred leadership, here managers give workers a large degree of autonomy
What are the different categories in the Tannenbaum-Schmidt continuum?
Manager Centred Leadership
-Tells
-Sells
-Suggests
-Consults
-Joins
Subordinate Centred Leadership
What happens at the tells stage?
Manager makes decision and announces it, team has no input.
What happens at the sells stage?
Manager sells the decision, still no input from the team.
What happens at the suggests stage?
Manager presents the ideas and invites questions.
What happens a the consults stage?
Manager presents tentative decision subject to change
What happens at the joins stage?
Manager presents problem, gets suggestions then takes decision
What is the Blake Mouton Grid?
The Blake-Mouton grid classifies management and leadership styles depending on their focus or priorities
On a scale of 1 to 9, how concerned is the manager about production (x axis) and how concerned is the manager with the people (y axis).
What is the Produce or Perish management style?
(9,1)
Autocratic leadership with clear emphasis on tasks and little concern for people. It is meat to enable the business to meet targets and deadline but staff are likely to be unhappy.
What is the Team management style?
(9,9)
Focuses on both tasks or targets and people. It is likely to be the most effective with emphasis on empowerment, trust and teamworking.
What is the Country Club management style?
(1,9)
Focuses on people with little concern for tasks or targets. Unless staff are motivated and dedicated, performance measures may be weak
What is the Impoverished management style?
(1,1)
Ineffective leadership with little concern for either tasks or people
What is the Middle-of-the-road management style?
Compromised leadership style with some focus on both tasks and people but could lead to average performance
Benefits of autocratic management style?
-Faster decision making
-Improves productivity
-Provides clarity on structure and roles
Drawbacks of autocratic management style?
-Results in micro-management
-Creates dependency on leaders skills
-Lowers employee morale
Benefits of democratic management style?
-Applicable to almost any business
-Problem solving ability for complex situations
-Encourages creative environment
Drawbacks of democratic management style?
-Cane lead to procrastination
-It is time consuming
-It becomes regretful
What are the benefits of laissez-faire management style?
-Boosts employee morale
-Employees use their expertise
-Departments decide faster
Drawbacks of laissez-faire management style?
-Lowers role awareness
-Employees may need direction
-Conflict may increase
Key decision-making factors
-Risk
-Reward
-Uncertainty
-Opportunity cost
What is scientific decision making?
the systematic approach of collecting facts/data and applying logical decision making techniques such as decision trees, to the decision making process
Some managers may also consider the opportunity cost which is the cost of the next best alternative.
What is intuition decision making?
Intuition refers to decisions that are made based on gut feeling or instincts rather than on evidence and rational processes. Data may not always be be correct or available.
Key benefits to Scientific decision making?
-Reduces risk of making mistakes
-Using data provides guidance for managers who may have limited intuition
Key drawbacks of Scientific Decision making?
-Time consuming
-Relying on data means expertise is overlooked
-Out of date or unreliable data can affect quality of the decision made.
Key benefits of intuition decision making?
-Some managers have a hunch following years of experience
-Decisions can be made quickly
Key drawbacks of intuition decision making?
-New situations of staff that are lacking experience
-Decisions can be made for illogical reasons
What are decision trees?
A model that represents the likely outcome for a business of a number of courses of action showing the financial consequences of each action
Steps to make a decision tree
-Calculate the EV (Multiplying value of each outcome with its probability and adding them up.
-Calculate the net gain (Subtract the initial cost from the EV
-The NG for the launch of the new product is the highest therefore it is the option that should be selected
What are the benefits of decisions trees?
-Way of comparing different options for financial gain
-Forces managers to consider the probabilities of failure
-Consider the initial costs
What are the drawbacks of decision trees?
-Figures based on predictions
-Depends on how optimistic/pessimistic the manager is
-Only considers financial data, needs other factors like PESTLE + C
What are the influences on decision making?
-Mission
-Objectives
-Resources
-External environment
What are the different stakeholders in a business?
-Employees
-Shareholders
-Customers
-Suppliers
-Local Community
-Government
What do employees expect?
Salary, job security, career progression
What do shareholders expect?
Survival, growth, profit maximisation
What do customers expect?
low prices, quality product/service
What do suppliers expect?
High sales, steady growth
What does the local community expect?
Safe place to live, low noise disruption and pollution
What does the Government want?
Growth, high turnover, high profits, increased tax revenue
What is stakeholder mapping?
Stakeholder mapping is split into four categories, keep satisfied, key players, minimal effort, keep informed. It all depends on the power and interest of stakeholder either High (H) or Low (L)
What do you do with stakeholder who has high power but low interest?
Keep satisfied (Meet their needs)
What do you do with stakeholder who has low interest and low power?
Minimal effort (Least important)
What do you do with stakeholder who has high power and high interest?
Key players (Most important)
What do you do with stakeholder who has high interest but low power?
Keep informed (Show consideration)
