Question
• Conduct a 30-minute, semi-structured interview with a manager
• Identify common challenges and issues that arise in the workplace
• Evaluate strategies for addressing these challenges
• Integrate your findings with evidence-based literature from journal articles, textbook, and additional scholarly sources.
Sample paper
Management Challenges
Appendix
Questions
- What are some of the common problems that you have experienced with employees?
- How have you responded to the problems?
- What solutions has worked out for your organization and which ones failed?
- What is the practicality level of the strategies such as regarding cost and are they short term or long term strategies?
The paper is designed to attempt and identify corporate problems faced by managers in their day to day roles such maintaining positive relationships with employees, evaluating employee performance and credibility and the recruitment of employees. Consequently, several challenges are embedded on such tasks, and it is crucial for cooperation’s and stakeholders to find relevant resolutions to the occurrences. The paper will also examine the efficacy and practicality of the solutions from the perspective of research in organizational psychology.
The interview began with a brief summary of what exactly management entails. The interviewee gave a description of what his role in the organization is, from his perspective, management entails the process of getting things done effectively and efficiently through a channel of other people (Ledlow, 2014). Three crucial management roles dictating the day to day activities include interpersonal role, decisional role, and informational role. Subsequently, challenges are mostly attached in decisional role concerning the firm’s operation. Some of the determining factors that shape the effectiveness of the manager include the size of the organization and the level of the organization. For my specific case study, I am the senior manager at Belt constructions and my main responsibility is to act as a spokesperson for the business. In relation, management concepts can be accessed as similar but diverse regarding culture. The same explains management practices are not the same across the world.
Problems and solutions
As a general manager some of the key challenges that may be perceived simply from an outlook include:
Managing Internal Stakeholders and Politics
The same is a common challenge for most managers. In this situation, the head leader is faced with the challenge of managing politics, stakeholders and the image of the company. The leader will also be faced with the challenge of gaining the support from the managers and managing up. In this case, managers can try out delegating more; this is because it has worked well for our firm. For the leaders to solve some of the problems intertwined in the same, allocation of work to various employees can empower the employees. The effect of a delegation of will make the workers in the organization more productive (Williams, 2012). Another relevant solution to the same includes organizing for a clear vision and mission of the organization. This mission and vision describe what the organization is determined to achieve. For the organization to attain certain achievement and progress the leaders and the stakeholders must share a common view, and that is the vision and mission of the organization (Anderson, 2013). This vision and mission are to guide all the stakeholders, managers, supervisors and the laborers in the organization as all of them are working to achieve a common goal.
Developing Managerial Effectiveness
The leaders face the challenge of developing relevant skills for the organization’s employees that may help in the prioritization, time management, decision making, strategic thinking, and to be more effective at work. Leadership in the modern organization is not easy; the head manager has the mandate to lead and motivate people with a diversified culture and background. Consequently, this is an overwhelming task hence requires outstanding efforts. Furthermore, the leader needs to work across organization boundaries, improve organizational efficiency and bring growth to the organization. A manager faces some external factors that when not handled carefully can lead to the downfall of the organization (Ackerman & Anderson, 2010). These external factors include the management of government requirements, meeting the expectation of other stakeholders and keeping relevant especially in the midst of competitors. With this globalized environment, leaders are also facing the challenge of many cultural considerations hence finding an adequate balance for all this diversity complicates the probability of the potentiality of the organization. The leader will have to work across various cultural boundaries, and on many occasions, they are to work hand to hand with some people with a totally different culture with the different way of ensuring the completion of the jobs. This is the most difficult challenges that the most managers face and most of them are not always aware that this is a crucial challenge for the organization.
The perspective of I/O psychology
From a general outlook, an individual difference is a concept that should be carefully analyzed by those in managerial position to upgrade the productivity of employees. In relation, research shows that for organizations that cater for cultural diversification amongst its workers, productivity is most likely to be enhanced by 50% as compared to the firms that do not take this into accountability. Though it is a long-term strategy, the effort should be inclined towards streamlining a more culturally mixed cooperation. Just as employees need to prioritize, it is crucial to inculcate a culture that is customer oriented but still goal directed.
For most of the organization challenges to be addressed, the organization needs to focus on the values instead of the methodology. Most of the organization are known to articulate their methodology forgetting about their value. For example, the company may advertise itself as the best producer of a certain commodity. Forgetting that what is needed is to determine the effect of that commodity on the clients. By concentrating on the methodology, the organization only focuses on the quality and quantity of the commodity. This is the determination on increasing the amount of the commodity in the market (McCarthy, & Milner, 2013). The direction that the organization should follow is by giving the client the priority. The organization should be focusing on how to attract more clients to buying the commodity by understanding what value addition does the commodity add to the clients. This will build the confidence of the client in the commodity. Focusing on the value will result in creativity, greater opportunity, and innovation in the organization
References
Ackerman-Anderson, L. S., & Anderson, D. (2010). The change leader’s roadmap how to navigate your organization’s transformation. San Francisco, CA, Pfeiffer.
Anderson, V. (2013). A Trojan horse? The implications of managerial coaching for leadership theory. Human Resource Development International, 16(3), 251-266.
Gentry, W. A., Eckert, R. H., & Stawiski, S. A. (2014). The Challenges Leaders Face Around the World More Similar than Different. Center for Creative Leadership White Paper. Retrieved January, 6, 2015.
Ledlow, G. R., Coppola, M. N., Birtcher, k., & O’donnell, M. (2014). Leadership for health professionals: theory, skills, and applications.
McCarthy, G., & Milner, J. (2013). Managerial coaching: challenges, opportunities and training. Journal of Management Development, 32(7), 768-779.
Williams, C. (2012). Effective management: a multimedia approach. Mason, OH, South-Western/Cengage Learning.
