Managing People Through Change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Managing People Through Change - Essay Example However, employees cannot be expected to perform to the highest standard without competent management. Problems such as low employee morale, high turnover rates, and poor performance of job duties can result from inadequate people management. People management, which encompasses both formal performance evaluation and compensation strategies and informal leadership practices and techniques, is one of the determining factors in employee morale and the resulting work quality, as well as determining other factors such as workplace loyalty. While there are many approaches to leadership, from Goleman's basis of leadership in primal intelligence to Wren's group dynamics view (Goethals and Sorensen, 3), all hold in common that leadership is one of the most basic elements of successful people management. However, people management practices in isolation are not enough to ensure the success of the firm or even of the management practice - the ideals that are embodied by the people management practice must be embedded in the corporate culture in order for them to be successful. In essence, people management theory argues that if management implements a specified set of employment as well as work practices, it is going to lead to better performance (Boxall and Purcell 47-70). A lot of the practices such as teamwork, redesigned jobs, employee participation, teamwork as well as communication and information sharing - have been shown to improve performance, but not in a consistent manner (Appelbaum et al. 737-775). Although there are various stakeholders in an organization, the chief strategic goal of any business is higher financial performance or maximization of wealth for the shareholders (Becker and Huselid, 53-101). Financial performance of an organization depends to a large extent on effective operational performance. The operational performance of an organization is a function of people, process and technology. 2.0 Qualities of a Leader A leader influences others by his qualities, viz. confidence, communicative ability, awareness of his impact on others as well as perceptions about the situation and his subordinates. The effect of a leader's background experiences, his communication ability, self-awareness, confidence, his perceptions of subordinates, the situation and the self are shown below (Prasad, 2006, p. 264). SOCIAL VALUES ECONOMIC CONDITIONS LEADER STRUCTURE FOLLOWERS POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS [Source: Taken from, Prasad LM, (2006) Organizational Behavior, Fig 26.1 p 287] All these factors interact together to determine the leader's ability to influence others. 3.0 Leadership Styles in People Management A fundamental question that needs to be addressed