A leader refers to the person who helps in influencing a group of individuals towards achievement of a common goal (Chesterton 2013) . In addition, they also help in setting a direction, build a vision of inspiration and lead to the creation of something new. Leaders not only set the direction but also use the management skills for guiding people to the right destination in a smoother and an efficient manner.
The characteristics of a leader include honesty, ability of delegation, communication, sense of humor, commitment, confidence, creativity and positive attitude (Cashman 2017).
Role:
Leaders help in influencing the employee behaviors in several manners. Leaders not only helps in setting clear vision for the organization but also motivates the employees and guides them through work process while building their morale (Robertson and Barling 2013).
Manager:
A manager represents an individual who remains responsible for a set of tasks. He/she is an individual who is responsible for the reporting of the staffs (Quinn et al., 2014). Thus, managers hold the responsibility for a particular department or function inside the organization. The manager of an organization either leads the team directly or leads the group of supervisors who leads various teams that ranges from accounting, marketing, sales, customer support, engineering and quality.
Characteristics:
The characteristics of manager in a chosen organization include creativity, intuition, knowledge, commitment, versatility, positive attitude, ability to prioritize, empathy, accountability, patience and honesty (Hassan and Hatmaker 2014).
Roles:
The manager however wears many hats since he is not only responsible for managing a team but is also an organizer, planner, cheerleader, problem solver, a decision maker and a coach (Cascio 2018). They are also responsible for scheduling employee meetings and resolves unexpected problems or undertaking strategic sessions. Managers left with little extra time for sparing. Thus, the manager undertakes an interpersonal role involving the interactions with the humans. They also play an informal or decisional role involving sharing and analysis of information and decision-making.
Comparison (Similarities):
Both the leaders and the managers help in influencing and organizing the authority. Although leaders and managers serve different roles but they are both essential and companies need them both (Algahtani 2014). Both the leaders and managers are competent and provide an insight for driving the business in the proper direction for ensuring the smooth running if the day to day projects. A business cannot move ahead with sole a strong management and no leaders. This will lead to things getting bogged down and prevent the company in reaching the goals on a daily basis. On the other hand, a business with only leaders and no management is also not feasible. In this case, there would be envisioning of the steps but they could not be forwarded in the absence of a manager. Thus, in other words, management is doing things right for an n organization whereas the leadership implies on doing right things to keep the company moving.
Contexts in the Organization
A leader represents some who is responsible for providing directions, guidance and instructions to the group of individuals, usually known as the team, for achieving a common goal(Ma Prieto and Pilar Perez-Santana 2014). They also undertake communication with the team members and thereby monitor them.
Examples of Roles of Leaders in Different Situation Context:
The roles played by a leader are either formal or informal. In the formal roles, the leader designates responsibilities within the position thereby encouraging the employees in following them (Miner 2015). However, informal roles are situations where the leaders make use of personal traits like charisma, empathy, compassion and inspiration for motivating others.
Role of the Supervisor: This is the common role of leader in an organization. This involves monitoring of the deadlines and the work performance, delegation of the task and entailing proper communication before, during and after the completion of the work. Thus, effective supervision acts as a key to the high functioning company.
Role of a Coach: Leaders undertakes this role for mentoring and coaching the employees. This involves selection of the right kind of people for the work, getting the employees acclimated for the work culture, developing, and training them for an optimum performance level. They also work with the employees for helping them set a job, a career goal, point out opportunities for development and offer necessary feedback.
. Role of a Decision Maker: In this role, the leaders represent the primary decision makers, who help in establishing and implementing the company’s direction. Here they make critical decisions that have an impact on the organizational success as well as job satisfaction of the employees. Thus, in the role of a decision maker, a leader not only makes sound decisions under a lot of pressure but also ensure efficiency of its implementation.
Role of a Visionary: This leadership role helps the organization in creating of a vision and motivates people for following them. Employees are only able to achieve when there exists a connection between them and the organizational success. It is therefore, the duty of the leader for determining the objectives for success and communicates in a manner that helps in developing stronger organizational culture with necessary employee commitment at all levels.
Manager however performs five basic functions that include planning, staffing, organizing, controlling and directing (Block 2016). Thus, they should plan and narrow down goals from the broadest to the minutest form. In addition, they should also create and organize a structure for daily communication and task.
Example of Function of Manager in the Organization:
The managers of an organization cannot perform the responsibilities haphazardly. The examples of the function of a manager in an organization are as follows (Rice 2013):
Planning: This involves the mapping for achieving a specific goal. For instance if the goal lies in improvement of the sales of the company then the manager must decide on the steps like inventory , advertising and sales staff necessary for accomplishing such goals. These steps incorporated as a part of the plan.
Organizing: After the implementation of the plan, it is necessary for the manager in organizing the materials and the team as per the plan.
Staffing: After deciding on the required needs, he might decide on beefing up the staffing including selection, training, recruitment and development of the employees. In larger organizations, the manager undertakes such decision in coordination with the human resource department.
Leading: The manager must also lead a team towards the desired goal. This involves motivation, guidance, communication and encouragement. In addition, the manager must assist, coach and solve problem of the employees.
Controlling: A manager’s job is not yet over since he constantly needs to evaluate the results against the goals and undertake actions needed for making sure that the decided plans remains on the track.
Situational Leadership Theory
Situational leadership defines a leader who is able to adjust his style of leadership in order to ensure the development of the followers whom he tries influencing (Thompson and Glasø 2015). According to this theory, it is the utmost duty of the leader for changing his style and not the other way round where the follower adapts to the style of the leaders. Thus, in situational leadership the style might continuously change for meeting the needs of the others in the organization based on the situations. In other words, situational leadership is an adaptive leadership style that is flexible. Here the leaders make a move from a particular leadership to another for meeting the changing needs of the employees and the organization. However, the leaders following the situational leadership style must have the intuition for understanding when to change the management style and determine the leadership that fits into each of the newer paradigm. There exists two model of the situational leadership, one explained by Daniel Goleman while the other described by Ken Blanchard and Paul Hershey. According to Daniel Goleman, there exist six styles of situational leadership while Blanchard and Paul Hershey base the theory on two concepts that includes leadership and the development of the followers.
System Leadership Theory:
System Leadership does not represent singular heroic figures but refers to those who facilitate conditions within which others are able to make progress towards a social change (Boylan 2016). Thus, any person in any of the organization across the sectors and the formal authority level is categorized as a system leader. Thus, System Leadership entails working behind scenes for achieving success. The profound commitment towards the health of whole helps in nurturing similar commitment towards the others. These leaders possess the ability of seeing the reality through the eyes of the people who are completely different from them thereby encouraging others to be more open. According to system leadership these leaders helps in building relationships on the basis of network of trust, deep listening and collaboration from the beginning till the end. When they become increasingly convinced with something to be done, they execute it without even a development plan thereby releasing others in moving forward and ensure learning by doing. The greatest contribution of the leaders comes from the strength of ignorance that provides them with the permission of asking obvious questions and thereby embodying commitment and openness to their ongoing growth and learning that helps in infusing the larger efforts of change.
Contingency Leadership Theory:
This theory is an organizational theory that helps in claiming that there does not exist any defined ways for organizing a corporation, leading an organization and making decision (Zulaihah 2017). According to this theory, the optimal course of action remains dependent on the external and internal situation. In other words, the contingency theory goes beyond trait and behavioral approaches and posits which no particular psychological makeup be linked to the effective leadership. However, the interaction between psychological profile, external conditions and individual traits results in effectiveness of the leadership. Hence, effective leadership depends on the factors that are independent of the individual leader.
Defining Operations Management
Operations Management refers to the area of management that is concerned with the controlling and designing the production process along with redesigning the business operations in producing goods and services (Galindo and Batta 2013). This includes responsibility that ensures that the business operations are efficient based on using limited resources as required and in meeting the requirements of the customers. Operations management deals with a complete production system that involves the process of converting the inputs into the outputs thereby delivering a product or service. Operations management is applicable in sectors like organizations that deals with customers, suppliers and makes use of technology. This is the prime function of an organization along with the marketing, finance, human resource and supply chain. The operations however requires the management to involve in both strategic and the day-to-day production of the goods and services. Operation Management is thus critical to the success of the organization.
Approaches:
Craft Manufacturing:
Craft manufacturing represents the process through which the skilled craftspeople leads to the production of the goods of lower volume, with a higher degree of variety for meeting the requirements if the individual customers (Qureshi et al., 2015). A general trend is that, over the years, skills were transferred from the masters to apprentices and journeymen, under the control of the guild. The craftspeople worked at their houses and in smaller workshops. Such kind of system worked well for a smaller scale local production with much lower level of competition. There are certain industries like the furniture and the clock making that still includes a major portion of craft making
Mass Production and Modern Period
The mass production is applicable until the time when higher volume of mass produced goods were produced and sold in a slowly but predictable changing markets (Caradonna 2014). The markets during the 1970s were highly fragmented with dramatic reduction of the product cycles and with a wider choice. An unanticipated scenario emerged in Japan that became a challenge for the western manufacturers. However, the newer Japanese means of production involving techniques such as total quality management (TQM), employee involvement and just in time emulated in the developed countries with a mixed result. However, recently, the mass production paradigm has undergone replacement although there has not been any single approach for managing the operations that have become dominant on a similar scale. The varied approaches for managing the operations that seems currently popular are:
Flexible Specialization: This is a method where smaller firms focuses on the separate portions of the process of value addition and collaborate within the network for producing wholesome products. Such kind of an approach requires highly developed networks, effective processes for the development and collaboration for long-term relationships between the firms.
Lean Production: This development of this type of production emerged from highly successful system of the Toyota production. This method focused on the elimination of the form of waste from the production system. The focus on driving the levels of inventory down also exposed inefficiencies thereby reducing the cost and the lead times.
Mass Customization: This focuses on combining higher volume as required in the process of mass production thereby enabling adaptation of the products for meeting the requirements of the customer. The advent of automated process and newer technology determined the feasibility of mass customization.
Agile Manufacturing: This emphasizes the need for the organization for switching frequently from a single market driven objective towards another. However, the feasibility of agile manufacturing has become possible on a larger scale with the advent of the enabling technology.
Six Sigma: This represents a set of tools and techniques for the improvement of the processes. Bill Smith introduced the approach during his work with Motorola in the year 1986. The approach helped in improving the quality of output of process through identification and removal of the causes.
The approaches seek to combine the higher volume and the lower cost associated with the mass production, customization of product, higher innovation and quality levels in association with the craft production.
Role of Operation Manager in the above Approaches:
The operation manager holds direct responsibilities including management of the operations process, embracing the design, ensuring control, planning, improvement of performance and the strategy for operations (Sundtoft Hald and Mouritsen 2013). They also had certain indirect responsibilities that included interaction with the managers in the functional areas within the organization that had a direct influence on the operations including finance, accounting, marketing and engineering. However, the role of the manager in the mentioned approaches included decision in designing of the operations system, management of the operation system and improvement of the operations system.
Definition and Importance of Operation in an Organization
The operation of an organization is primarily concerned with the conversion of the materials and the labour into feasible goods and services in an efficient manner for maximizing the organizational profit (Griffin 2013).
Key Factors Driving the Operations of an Organization
The key factors driving the operations of the organization involve:
Role of Operation Manager in Creation of Value
The operations manager of an organization creates a value through quality, dependability, speed, cost and flexibility. The operations manager plays a pivotal role in the business of an organization (Brown, Bessant and Lamming 2013). However, the exact task of the operations manager also depends on the size and nature of the business within the organization along with the required interpersonal skills. Moreover, an operations manager helps in planning, overseeing and smoothening out the communication process.
Defining Business Environment and Its Impact on Organizations
Business environment refers to all the internal and external factors that affect the function of the company including the customers, employees, supply and demand, business regulations and management (Goleman2017).
External (PESTEL) Factors
Various outside influences affect the business in a manner that hinders the ability of the business environment in achieving the objectives and strategic goals. These external factors include competition at the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal, often represented by the acronym PESTEL (Bolman and Deal 2017). These variables influence the operations of the company despite their inherent inability to undertake a change. Good business management refers to the matter as to how individuals dealt with the factors they are able to control and their response to the things they could not.
Internal Factors
The internal factors remain within the business environment and comprises of factors that affects the success and the approach of the operation. In addition to the culture, management and operations the internal factors included financial resources like funding, opportunities and investment along with sources of income( Camisón and Villar-López 2014). It also included the location of the company, equipment, facilities, target audience, employees, and the volunteers.
Decision Making:
Corporate Social Responsibility of Shareholders
This has become one of the vital components of the corporate strategy and has acted as a crucial instrument for minimizing the conflicts with the shareholders.
Employees
Employees represent valuable assets in the organization and are important for its success. It is necessary for the employees to be understanding and motivated because it is only then that they will be able to make a significant contribution towards the organization (Crane, Matten and Spence 2013). However, the employees help in exemplifying ways that changes employee roles based on their involvement. Employees find working in teams to be more effective since it gives them a voice of how the work is done, decisions are made and goals set.
The government represents an appointed commission that is responsible for administering specific functions for smoothly carrying out the operations of the company (Cortina et al., 2013).
Community and Business Ethics
Community and business ethics are an integral part of the business organization. There should be implementation of ethics through all the aspects and operations of the organization (Crane and Matten 2016). Irrespective of the size, profit levels or industry of the organization, business ethics represents the vital aspects for the long-term success of the company including the ability for attracting and retaining the highly talented employees along with maintaining a positive reputation within community.
References:
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Block, P., 2016. The empowered manager: Positive political skills at work. John Wiley & Sons.
Bolman, L.G. and Deal, T.E., 2017. Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. John Wiley & Sons.
Boylan, M., 2016. Deepening system leadership: Teachers leading from below. Educational management administration & leadership, 44(1), pp.57-72.
Brown, S., Bessant, J.R. and Lamming, R., 2013. Strategic operations management. Routledge.
Camisón, C. and Villar-López, A., 2014. Organizational innovation as an enabler of technological innovation capabilities and firm performance. Journal of business research, 67(1), pp.2891-2902.
Caradonna, J.L., 2014. Sustainability: A history. Oxford University Press.
Cascio, W., 2018. Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill Education.
Cashman, K., 2017. Leadership from the inside out: Becoming a leader for life. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Chesterton, A.K., 2013. Portrait of a Leader. Black House Publishing Ltd.
Cortina, L.M., Kabat-Farr, D., Leskinen, E.A., Huerta, M. and Magley, V.J., 2013. Selective incivility as modern discrimination in organizations: Evidence and impact. Journal of Management, 39(6), pp.1579-1605.
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Galindo, G. and Batta, R., 2013. Review of recent developments in OR/MS research in disaster operations management. European Journal of Operational Research, 230(2), pp.201-211.
Goleman, D., 2017. Leadership That Gets Results (Harvard Business Review Classics). Harvard Business Press.
Griffin, R.W., 2013. Fundamentals of management. Cengage Learning.
Hassan, S. and Hatmaker, D.M., 2014. Leadership and performance of public employees: Effects of the quality and characteristics of manager-employee relationships. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 25(4), pp.1127-1155.
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