Principles of Business Reflective Report

Principles of Business Reflective Report

Introduction

Having come to the end of the principles of business module, I consent that the module has been not only educative and informative but also interactive and enjoyable. The professor met the aims and objectives of the module. Through the module, I was able to advance my knowledge and understanding of the different principles of management and how they can be applied to practice. Doing various personal assignments and research has helped me gain a substantial amount of knowledge on the topic. Through integrations with principles of business theories, I was able to relate them and learned how to apply them to real examples of business situations. The key areas learned in the module were topics on effective leadership, elements of good management,   ethics, and integrity, as well as influences of behavior within an organization. In this preceding reflective paper, I will be reflecting on the knowledge I have acquired throughout this course and showing how I can apply the theories in practice and real organizations.

Effective Leadership

Effective leadership is not something you can define using a statement or just a line of words. Effective leadership is a combination of many factors and qualities put together. It is about being able to execute the vision of an organization as well as setting the tone of the organization’s culture. Effective leadership is about securing, creating, and planning the resources of an organization and ensuring that little errors are being made. It is about motivating the people and ensuring cooperation between employees so that they can work as a team towards the achievement of the organization’s goal. Leadership is often mistaken to mean the same thing as management, although the two discipline s are very different.

Good leaders need to have particular qualities for them to be effective in the organization. They have to model the way and set an example for others to follow. To be effective, leaders also need to inspire a shared vision so that everyone is on board and is motivated and passionate about achieving the goal. They should also engage the people, ensure proper communication, and enable the people to act. Organizations, too, have a significant role to play in enabling effective leadership as good leaders cannot maximize their potential without a sound support system from the organization. The organization, for instance, should be open to doing things differently to accommodate the ways of the leader. Organizations should provide the right tools for the leaders to be able to efficiently achieve their objectives. Accessing the performance of leaders can be a challenging task for organizations. However, there are different ways in which effective leadership can be measured.

The first method is through critical evaluation by conducting assessments through direct observation and employee surveys. Leadership effectiveness can also be measured by the use of an external audit where the organization hires external consultants to access effectiveness. The consultants perform an analysis of the leadership systems, the process, and communications methods. They also conduct interviews with employees and supervisors. The use of external contractors is beneficial because their perspective is not biased, and employees may also open up to them without feeling intimidated. Leadership effectiveness can also be measured by accessing the results of the organization. Over time, ineffective leadership usually results in poor organizational results such as reduced profits and declining morale of employees. Leaders sometimes have to make decisions that have direct impacts on customers. Customers can, therefore, be used as a tool to access the leader’s effectiveness.

Elements of good management

The key elements of management in an organization include activities in controlling, planning, coordinating, organizing, and motivating. Good management practices can be identified in different organization functions such as finance, marketing, and legal principles. Finance plays a huge role in strategic planning, decision making, formulation, implementation, and monitoring. Asset management is one of the key areas in finance that requires good management. It requires efficient management of the organization’s assets and liabilities. Generally, finance involves the management of the organization’s money. Managers have to make decisions on the best ways of using the funds available to the firm and how to acquire additional funding.  The key elements of a manager include proper planning, making a profitable investment decision, and financing the firm. The main goal of the manager is to maximize the value of the organization.

The marketing concept is another principle in an organization that requires good management to efficiently implement. Management function in marketing entails planning, organizing, controlling, and implementing policies and strategies that have been designed by the organization to satisfy demand and generate profit (Brown 2019). Marketing management involves different functions, such as setting the market goals and objectives and developing the market plan. This is followed by organizing the marketing function and putting the marketing plan into action. Key elements of a good manager include good communication and analytical skills, as well as the ability to maintain positive relationships with the customers (Brown 2019). This enables the marketing managers to be able to plan and execute the set marketing strategies. Identifying customer needs and developing products in line with them requires good management skills.

It is one of the responsibilities of a manager to understand and practice legal and ethical behavior. Managers also need to ensure that their subordinates understand the laws and regulations that govern the organization so as to meet the organization’s expectations for conduct. The majority of a manager’s time in the workplace is spent managing subordinate staff. It is the responsibility of the managers in an organization to hire, train, and fire staff. A good manager should have an understanding of the laws as they pertain to these responsibilities. The law, as it applies to business, is very detailed and complex. Good managers, therefore, do not have to be experts in legal matters. However, it is critical for a manager to have a basic knowledge of labor and discrimination laws. It is also important to constantly seek the advice of the company’s legal department when in the question of a certain regulation.

Impacts of ethics, sustainability, and integrity on the success of an organization

Some managers argue that ethics is a personal matter and has to do with the individual’s conscience. However, ethics is, in all ways, a management issue as a company can bear a lot of consequences due to the wrongdoings of only one employee. Managers need to acknowledge their role in shaping up an organization’s ethics to create a sustainable climate for the organization’s success. Managers who fail to focus on ethics run the risk of both personal and corporate liability in the increasingly tough legal environment. They also deprive their organizations of the benefits for sentencing organizations convicted of misconduct, as provided by the new federal guidelines. Effective managers must, therefore, design compliance-based and ethical programs to prevent, detect, and punish legal violations. Integrity based approaches to ethics management combine the concern for the law with an emphasis on managerial responsibility for ethical behavior.

Sustainability means development that meets present needs without compromising the long-term needs or future needs of the organization. To ensure sustainability, organizations should ensure that they operate in accordance with the ethical principle to ensure they do not harm others in society (Wesarat 2017). Ethical issues have significant implications for the success of a business or organization. Failure of employees or the organization to adhere to the set code of ethics results in significant financial losses as well as a damaged reputation, which affects the future success of the organization. 21^st Century Fox is one company that has been recently faced by issues of ethical misconduct by its employees. In 2016 and 2017, sexual allegation scandals plagued the entertainment giant 21^st Century Fox.  The first happened when a former employee by the name Gretchen Carlson filed a lawsuit against Roger Ailes, an employee of Fox News Channel, alleging sexual assault.

The following year, there were other allegations that another employee, Bill O’Reilly, had paid five women so that they would not report cases of sexual allegations in the company. This news upset a lot of shareholders who terminated their ties with the company (Shen 2017). Most of the shareholders considered multiple allegations as an indication of a company’s culture that allowed for sexual harassment. Although the company and O’Reilly denied the allegation, the company had to settle Shareholder’s claims by payment of $90 million, causing a significant impact on its finances (Shen 2017). Although they settled the case, the cases were eventually settled, the company felts the effects to this day as it lost its once esteemed reputation. This resulted in the loss of quite several shareholders who felt that they could no longer be associated with a company with a culture that supported sexual harassment.  The company has since then created a management council that focuses on maintaining a good working environment where employees work in accordance with the code of ethics.

Influences of behavior within an organization (how this differs between larger and smaller organizations)

Many factors influence the behavior of employees within organizations. Culture, and how it is defined, is one of the major influences of behavior in an organization. Organizational culture plays a significant role in giving an organization its identity and distinguishing it from the other organizations. It also helps transform the attitude of the employees so that they are aligned with the goals of the organization. Culture creates attachment to the organization, hence creating a sense of royalty by employees to the organization (Buchanan 2019). Additionally, organizational culture helps forge employee relationships through the social behaviors it promotes. Employees are able to form common behaviors and values. This creates emotional attachment and teamwork, which enables employees to work in unity towards the achievement of a common goal, which is achieving the organization’s goals and objectives.

Leadership and how it is implemented also play a great role in influencing the behavior of an organization. Leaders are responsible for setting the direction of the employees. How leaders implement their decisions and plans has a great influence on organizational behavior (Dutta 2017). For instance, employees whose bosses are too strict have reduced morale at work. However, leaders who stand by their employees and guide them in performing day to day tasks make employees feel more motivated to go to work. Leaders’ behavior reflects on their teams. If a leader is always late to get to work, then the team members behave in the same way. Rituals values of an organization also have a great impact on influencing the behavior of an organization. Additionally, rules and regulations have a great impact on employee behavior as they align their behaviors to the rules and regulations.

The factors that affect behavior in organizations differ in a start-up business and larger organizations in various ways. For instance, start-ups have a small organization structure in terms of hierarchy and leadership. This reduces the power distance between the leaders and subordinates. Decision making, leadership, and communication are therefore made easier, and it is easier to monitor employee’s behaviors. Larger organizations, on the other hand, have higher power distance, and this limits communication and monitoring of individuals’ behavior. Larger organizations also have a larger number of employees, which results in behavioral influences among employees. Employees can form social groupings within the organization, which are informal and not focused on organizational goals and objectives. These types of groups are hard to form in start-up businesses as the small number of employees enable leaders and managers to monitor employees.

References

Brown, D., Foroudi, P., & Hafeez, K. (2019). Marketing management capability: the construct and its dimensions. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal.

Buchanan, D. A. (2019). Organizational behavior. Pearson UK.

Dutta, S., & Khatri, P. (2017). Servant leadership and positive organizational behavior: The road ahead to reduce employees’ turnover intentions. On the horizon.

Nuseir, M. T., & Ghandour, A. (2019). Ethical issues in modern business management. International Journal of Procurement Management, 12(5), 592-605.

Shen, L. (2017). The ten biggest business scandals of 2017. Retrieved from fortune. com/2017/12/31/biggest-corporate-scandals-misconduct-2017-pr.

Wesarat, P. O., Yazam, M., & Majid, A. H. (2017). Role of organizational ethics in sustainable Development: A conceptual framework. International Journal Sustainable Future for Human Security, 5(1), 67-76.