Smith & Falsmouth Company
My research paper will study the leadership style adopted by the management team of Smith & Falsmouth Company. It is going to examine the management changes introduced by management team so as to have a future success and explore the behavioural and cultural obstacles faces by the company’s team. Smith & Falsmouth Company is a tele-shopping and mail-order industry. It is a company which develops new and more convenient ways for their customers so as to purchase goods. In the past months, Smith & Falmouth Company had launched an e-tailing division which is crucial for its growth strategy.
The research will describe the problems and achievements of the simulation of leadership in action and how it is developed in the company through research based on questionnaires and individual visit to the company. The simulation is based on a company that requires assistance to provide conceptual information about the organization structure. It provides specific recommendation to be successful in the coming years. This paper will describe formal culture of Smith & Falsmouth Company and how the structure compares to other organizational structures and how the company’s informal culture manipulates the effectiveness of its leadership.
The leadership will involve the role of power and politics and the leadership style that is the most effective for the Chief Operational Officer (COO). Analysis Leadership Style The organization structure is a planned system that consists of arrangement of work and carries the roles, relationships, responsibilities, authorities and communications of individuals in the same department. The structure shows that the company’s leadership is high because it has a hierarchy divided into levels and mostly four levels and each level has well delineated responsibilities.
The company has a mechanical structure that is characterized by a high level of formalization and centralization. The company’s structures have many rules and procedures but the decision-making process and levels is limited but low. The company has a vertical communication rather than horizontally and the tasks are well defined but altered when approved by the hierarchy at the highest level. Culture Range Of Leadership Styles This is an important tool important tool that determines the organizational success.
It helps in developing a strong organizational culture that is essential for successful business organization. In this regard, the company has different social structures that link organizational culture and the effectiveness in an organization. The structures always drive individual behaviors in an organization and thereby becoming effective. Culture discusses what leaders perceive of the organization and the level of influence in the utilization of transactions and transformations of their leadership skills in relation to the behavior of the employees.
Culture recognizes personality as an individual moderator, a variable that is necessary in the relationship between managers and the interpretations of organizations’ context and perceived requirements and roles. In studying leadership, one will realize that the more a leader (an administrator) interprets a culture in terms of transactions, the more likely the leader will understand the transactional leadership role requirements and this helps the leader to interpret transformation in leadership as a role relation requirement.
Organizational culture is defined as a division of labor as well as a pattern of coordination, communication, workflow and formal power that helps in directing an organizational activity. The current leadership structure of S&F (Smith & Falsmouth) resembles a functional structure. This type of arrangement organizes employees in the order of precise knowledge or resources. This style can be seen from how Smith & Falsmouth is currently divided into the following workforce product divisions: They have a web development team, a logistic team and a marketing team.
The project managers are currently responsible for handling web operations team which currently has six members. This team is answerable to the maintenance of online sales which comprises of website and handling online payments. The program manager is in charge and works closely with the logistic manager who has three members in his logistic team. They are in charge of all the orders. Leadership in Action The formal organizational structure consists of a formal hierarchy consisting of logistics manager, COO, project manager, a CEO, logistics team, marketing manager, and a web development team.
The web development team reports its processes to the project manager while the logistics team reports theirs to the logistics manager. The project manager works closely with logistics manager but logistics manager and his team of staff report to the marketing manager. Finally marketing manager reports to the COO who ultimately reports to the CEO. This formal operation has a formal hierarchy with an extensive chain of command that starts at the CEO and ends at the lowest raking individual.
It comprises of a simple chain of command that is broken down into echelons, commands, units and geographical regions that allows it to operate daily at a lower level without the need of reporting everything directly to the CEO. Smith & Falsmouth Company in contrast to Microsoft is structured differently. The latter has applied decentralization principles to align its flatter and scattered management team concept including those that are in areas of feedback and inputs.
It has given autonomy to individuals on how to manage themselves, this is different from Classical Management. They are able to contribute and contribute in policy making. The result is a flexible and a responsive workforce of specialists driving themselves and relying on the core group for direction and leadership. Informal culture is thus embedded in its formal organizational structure although informal culture emerges spontaneously among its major operations. Effective Environment
It has been suggested that organic structures is likely to be effective in environments that are unpredictable because the structures allows for rapid growth of an organizational responses to the changing forces from without. On the other hand mechanistic structures are better in a stable environment where there is no requirement for an immediate organizational response. It is therefore expected that organic structure is more efficient in an organization operating in irregular and even hostile environments (Pieter, Drenth & De Wolff, 2001 ).
In this culture James Argyle the project manager and the management team should sought ways in which they will improve revenue. This they will accomplish by offering a wide range of product mix and believing that they would be able to increase their market capitalization to a stated figure which they see fit. It will be a favorable aspect since it is a conventional knowledge that companies with higher market capitalization always command and set up higher earnings (Schneider 1999). These strategies are largely successful because they increase shareholders value in a short period of time.
This was however is curtailed by claims that the company compromises its product quality, a claim which interferes with its once strong pool of human resources. They should therefore choose to diversify their product line for the simple reason of improving the shareholder value which is a priority for a publicly traded company. Internal Efficiency Each of its division should have a strategy of continuing to focus on making their own profit in performance through the provision of superior customer service.
This should be a tradition for many years so as to create a measure of available stock in time of order receipt creating a high target level that could help the to achieve stated goals so as to fill customer’s line on time and their delivery (Robert ,2004 ). The company should also try to minimize operation inconveniency in the product of delivery process. It should stick on knowledgeable and friendly staff and should create one of the lowest turnover rates among its employees and therefore it will pride itself for being one of the most efficient business outfits in the region.
Global Expansion and Strategic Management The company’s policy of acquisition is a favorable one which seeks to modify the operations of any acquired company to fit with the preset standards of their mother company, therefore James Argyles’ should organize annual general meeting following new acquisitions and developments. This is undertaken under the strict supervision of high ranking company personnel such as the CEO. The process therefore enables any acquired company to undergo transformation into adopting the management structure.
In the process of developing globally, the team should realize the benefits of developing an instrument that will help in assessing their managers’ perception of the organization and the structures of their department as organic and therefore implementing their relationships with the employee (Podolsky, 2007). For a company to accomplish this, they should have their managers on a seven-item scale which will require them to indicate the extent to which an item on the scale characterizes the organization structure or departmental structure.
These items should include whether a department has a highly structured culture and an open channels of communication between workers and the managers, a strong unit of a uniformed managerial style where the managers are allowed to operate on a range freely from being very formal one that is very informal and lastly, they should contain and insist on a strong emphasis on how to get a line and a staff personnel who will adhere or may try to closely adhere to formal descriptions of their jobs as well as those with strong tendency of letting the requirements of the situation of the institution define the behavior that is proper for a job in a company (Lee & Bolman ,2003 ). Organizational Structure and Culture A company should have a disciplined and an aggressive culture so as to have major acquisition and steady expansion. To maintain this, the chosen team should know that the company has in the resent past had a strategy that utilized and made possible a plan whose mandate was to create a vision for the team stating their expectations from individuals and ended up setting up an open door policy to help conduct an open house sessions to make it easy in addressing employees’ issues on satisfaction and therefore making clear goals for individuals and teams as a whole (Edwin & Margaret, 2007).
The team should also know that the good feedback from the CEO was as result of productivity which grew by nearly 80%. The team should be in a position to know that the previous plan of action was mix of leadership and transformation strategy and therefore identified the competencies of the employee and the gaps that were available then gave propositions on training more personnel to fill the gaps and then redesign the role of most jobs and augment skills. This led to established productivity measures which were comparable with industry figures. The former strategies was to call for team meetings, take inputs on achieved goals set and establish common goals for the team (Nelson, 1999).
It therefore became successful in influencing the web development tea, logistics team and functional heads so as to implement all decisions thus leading to an expansion of customer base as a result implementation of S&F Online which grew by 100% last quarter. The plan of action was a success because there was a use of transformational leadership style because the decision to identify crucial employees and empower the teams enabled the employees to have a focus on achieving goals because they were included in the decision making process and the setting of common subordinate goals helped the specialist to combine well with existing teams. All these made the company in the last quarter to acquire over 30 major businesses.
There target was companies that manufactured relatively low technology and non fashionable products and then transform them through streamlining and focus on improving efficiency and profitability. The team should focus on a strategy to increase operation margins of their company above the 15% mark of minimum expectation from each of its businesses (Charles, 2007). They should provide the company with a plan of a major organizational transformation to help in changing its once dominant system of centralization to reorganization into separate divisions. All these will be advantageous to the company in its bid to be the prime supplier to major retail outfits. Conclusion and Recommendations
In conclusion the set standards should have a salary scale with a uniform system across all of its sub-divisions were individual employees are well rewarded and therefore feel appreciated hence are motivated. Though it is critics view the CEO’s and other top management salary scale as being above the industry’s average. The inclusion of bonuses, ranging from (20-100%) dependent upon ones position in the company, further makes employees happier and more motivated. The Spartan policies of operation, although considered its undoing in terms of employee and customer acquisition and retention, favor its operational costs buoying its profit margin. Surely, as defined by its basic business statement the policies provide above will continue to help the company manufacture and distribute volume merchandise lines to volume merchandisers.
This paper has also made several contributions which include empirical tests and provided partial support for Smith & Falsmouth Company’s model of leader behavior and determinants, therefore accomplishing the role of episode model and mechanistic-organic structural distinction. It has also addressed the role of managers and their psychological context therefore creating an attention to the antecedents of several interpretations of transformation and transaction of different leadership roles that are required. The findings in the end have a number of implications in an organization which include a line of research that suggest that the locus of control has an impact on leadership as a role requirement through its different interactions which have a psychological context.
The findings therefore have various implications that influence managers’ interpretations of a context by re-designing the context of the organization. The aim is to introduce self-monitoring moderators in the relationship that exist between a leader’s interpretation of an organization’s structure and culture and their role requirements in their perceived transformation and transaction as a style of leadership. It thus provides an insight into reasons why managers should behave differently in similar structures of an organization. They should provide a way forward for marketing their produce since retail chains across the markets in which Smith & Falsmouth Company operates heavily rely on information technology in all their operations.
This provides Smith & Falsmouth Company with an opportunity to invest in modern technologically advanced equipment such as computers and other communications equipment so as to be in line with the demand of its customers. The company has to the present invested heavily on technology. For example it should adopt a modern electronic management system, the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), which will enable easy transmission, purchase of orders, invoices and making of payment from its retail customers across its markets. Reference Charles, P. (2007). The Next Catastrophe. Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters, Princeton University Press, 85-112 Edwin, G. B. , & Margaret, F. W. (2007).
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