Meier HR Management & Leadership

MBA Essentials
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-7534-2887-1
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 208 Seiten

Every organisation, whether for profit or as non-profit, needs motivated employees. HR Management is often not seen as a core function and most managers do not receive a systematic and sustainable leadership training either. In this book, the essential basics of modern HR Management and Leadership are presented systematically and always with practical examples. The focus is on the scope of action as a manager responsible on any hierarchical and process level or in HR Management. Step-by-step, to understand HR Management and Leadership policy, strategies and concepts as well as for current challenges in International Management, in 4.0 and in Social Business. The target group are graduates and specialists who are systematically preparing for a new management position (e.g. in a General Management or MBA program), consultants, management trainer and lecturers.

As the author of numerous management publications, Professor Harald Meier has decades of experiences as a manager and entrepreneur, management trainer and consultant, and as a certifier in private Business, NGOs and Business Schools world-wide. The income of the books in this series of publications got to the charity foundation (www.meierstiftung.de) to provide shelter and education for street children in DR Congo.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Meier, Harald

Leseproben

2. Leadership

• 2.1 Organisational Psychology and Leadership
• 2.1.1 Organisational Theory, Behaviourism and Work
• 2.1.2 Motivational Theory
• 2.1.3 Leadership Roles
• 2.1.4 Leadership Theory
• 2.1.5 Leadership Styles
• 2.2 Operational Leadership Instruments
• 2.2.1 HR Policy related Leadership instruments
• 2.2.2 Personnel Planning, Job Profile and Staff Selection
• 2.2.3 Work Introduction and Onboarding
• 2.2.4 Staff Dialogue and Team Supervisory
• 2.2.5 Employee Evaluation Report
• 2.2.6 Team Development
• 2.3 Leadership Development
• 2.3.1 Action Maze: Leadership case
• 2.3.2 Leadership Development

2.1 Organisational Psychology and Leadership

2.1.1 Organisational Theory, Behaviourism and Work

A starting question is: Why do people perform through work? It was a long way in our culture until we became a performance-oriented society so that employees can shape their motivation individually and which is rewarded individually. Basic social rights of employees such as the protection against discrimination according to gender or religion, the right to a free choice of occupation and to vocational training in our constitution and in the Community Charter of the EU are in some cases only a few years old.

Organisational Theory

Three epochs up to today's organisational theory:

• with the beginning 20th cent. it was possible to increase work efficiency through scientific-systematic work analysis with the resulting technical-rational division of labour. Scientific management (Taylorism) viewed workers as rationally acting production factors and motivated by economic incentives The consequences were clear hierarchies, functions (planning, organising, motivating, controlling) with the sole aim of making the organisation efficient.
• mid-20th cent. employees were seen as social man, motivated by social needs, seeking for relationships to other employee and social recognition. In addition to the variation in physical working and psycho-social conditions of work were also analysed, and working groups and leadership styles with recognition, belonging and identity features were created by Mayo).
• regards the employees as complex personalities and looking for self-fulfilment, as same as organisations are complex and interdisciplinary social structures with diverse demand of each involved. The integration of classic and neoclassic organisational theory shows that there is no generally correct organisation. Managers have to analyse the work situation according to the needs of the individuals (see also chap. 2.1.5).

Work and Job performance motivation

Even in ancient Greece, the question of where the motivation for achievement comes from was asked, and achievement was rated positively: ... (according to the writer Hesiod, 700 BC).27 And later: ... (philosopher Aristotle, 350 BC).28

Even class society in the early medieval times (400–800 AD) already knew that people were rewarded for special social achievements. Knight and raised to nobility, e.g. who had done a good military service or particularly successful job as a tax collector for a prince. Lower class simple people who did not belong to the nobility or clergy could only achieve social recognition because of such special merits.

It was not until the late medieval time and the Renaissance (14th/15th cent.) that humanism created the image of natural people who are all equal before God. The critical comparison of the previously religious-dogmatic social system with the poor living and working conditions of the people changed the clerical-feudal relationships of violence in favour of political systems. Equality and achievement are the natural laws of society that replace the inherited rights of the nobility and the church. The Reformation, one of the initiators of political change, established the principle of achievement in Protestant ethics: (Calvin).29

And at the beginning 20th cent., sociology analyses (Max Weber, 1904).30 Because according to the Protestant view, the individual personality is dependent on God's grace, which is also shown in earthly goods. From this it was deduced that the competition between people is good and e.g. wealth through achievement is a form of God's grace. The Catholic social doctrine also gave an explanation for the performance principle and the associated capitalist form of society. The Protestant explanatory approach was expanded to incl. the proof that performance principles and capitalist-oriented systems have also emerged in regions without Protestant influences, e.g. by social minorities such for example, the Jews in the Christian Europe, the Huguenots in France or the Scots in the catholic England – without political rights, they could only gain social recognition in those areas of society where they were tolerated (e.g. in trade and production).

Behavioural Psychology

Behavioural research in the first half of the 20th cent. initially came to the conclusion that human reactions (e.g. work performance) can be traced back to external stimuli. The processes inside the person are irrelevant and are accordingly excl. as a black box. These research results were already known from animal experiments and have now been transferred to humans. The basic assumption was:

After first social science studies on management (first half 20th cent.) the physician and psychologist Elton Mayo transferred results from animal experiments to work systems as Stimulus-Response Model: reactions follow external stimuli – internal organic processes must be excl. as a black box – triggered by the problem of rational organisational models that do not work in practice because people do not work according to plan. This led to the desire to understand how and why people behave in a group or an organisation – managers who have this understanding should be able to lead successfully.

Fundamental communication and cooperation deficits among young professionals today, incl. the disappearance of family socialization (large proportion of single and patchwork families), value orientations through mass media and so-called Social Media incl. elimination of personal face-2-face communication. But personal communication and cooperation skills are essential for today's group work systems, customer relationship management and intercultural communication.

Individual behaviour is based on:

• conscious thinking controls only part of our personality, way of life and behaviour. Mainly we are shaped subconsciously (driven by hunger, sleep, sexuality, power ...).
• Every behaviour has a motive or need with the aim of satisfaction (e.g. a high need for social recognition leads to particularly recognized achievements).
• We are controlled by Id (unconscious drives), Ego (consciousness) and Super-Ego (social norms, education). For example: Whenever the Id wants something, Super-Ego forbids it and the Ego stands in between (as a buffer) to compromise or to choose a side.

Group behaviour is often different from individual behaviour, due:

• In a group of people there are, no matter how well they understand each other or are led, always group dynamic processes triggered and shaped by the individual personalities. This takes place consciously or unconsciously, e.g. pair- and sub-group formation, struggle for informal leadership, emergence of group norms, role selection of the participants (e.g. leader and/or informal leader, clown, oppositionist or opportunist, silent supporter).
• People are living in groups to survive. Therefore, they adopt (consciously or unconsciously) group's moral and social norms to adapt to the group by assuming roles. For this, they get e.g. social affection and recognition.

Communication helps to shaping group's goals and find a role that is satisfactory for them. Group dynamic processes are superficially conscious through rationally based behaviour or subconsciously through unspoken wishes or fears.

2.1.2 Motivational Theory

Just as new technologies constantly improving...