CMI Level 5: Management and Leadership: Diana Turea

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Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

CMI Level 5: Management and


Leadership

Unit 5013
Leadership Practice

Diana Turea

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 1


Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

CMI Level 5: Management and Leadership


Leadership Practice

The information in this assignment is based around a 3 stars Hotel


(The Monterey), part of a Group of Hotels, The Morvan Hotels, one of
the leading group of hotels on the island. The aim of the hotel group
is to provide quality accommodation and services in a friendly
environment, professionally run and of course to increase profitability.

The group is managed by a board of directors with each hotel having


an onsite Manager. I am the General Manager here at the Monterey
leading a team of 33 staff members.

Task 1:
1.1.Identify the key differences between Management and Leadership:

“The personal spark called leadership is frequently the difference between


average and great performance” (Mark Andreson, 2010, p.8)

Managing and leading are two different ways of organising people.


The leader uses passion while the manager uses formal methods.
They are not the same thing but they must go hand in hand for best
results.

The differences are highlighted in the table bellow:

MANAGEMENT LEADERSHIP
Follow rules Follow Instincts / Asks Questions
Focus on getting things done Focus on getting the right things
right done
Side with safety Side with risks

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Focus on delivering today Focus on articulating tomorrow


Take credit Take responsibilities
Have employees Have followers
React to change Create change
Communicate Persuade
Try to be heroes Make heroes everyone around
them

1.2. Take 2 examples from each list providing practical examples of effective leadership
in action and effective management in action in the running of a department:

If I take in consideration an unexpected busy weekend in our


restaurant department I can highlight both effective management and
effective leadership. As an effective manager I would organise the
rota in such a way that the restaurant is well covered staff wise so we
can provide the best costumer service, so I am focusing on delivering
now. As an effective leader I would think to the future and arrange
cross training for our front of house staff for situations where
unexpected busy days arise and they would then be able to help
(focussing on the future).

In our kitchen department I can give examples of efficient


management and leadership. Our head chef shows efficient
management skills when organising the cleaning rota for the kitchen
in such a way that every day a different area is given attention and
the kitchen is always clean and tidy. This way our chef is focused on
getting things done right. As an effective leader our chef doesn’t just
accepts any decision taken but asks questions.

Like for example when a decision was taken to keep the Room
Service Food available for guests till 12.00am instead of just following
the rules he asked way, knowing that after 10.00pm it is really
unlikely to get orders and it would have been a cost involved to keep

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 3


Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

a chef on duty after that time. As an alternative he suggested training


the bar staff on preparing some basic sandwiches in case there are
any food requests between 10.00pm and 12.00am.

1.3. Discuss why is important for those with management responsibilities to be able to
use both leadership and management skills effectively:

If in the past the manager conception could have been separated


then the leader one, on in this days economy, where values comes
from knowledge of people and where workers are not seen as just
machines anymore, the 2 concepts are not easily separated. In our
days people don’t just look at their managers to assign them tasks
but to define them a purpose. As managers we must organize staff
not only to maximize efficiency, but to nurture skills, develop talent
and inspire results. Both the manager and the leader involve working
with people, influence them to achieve effective goals. It is very
important for a manager to be able to use leadership skills when it
comes to influencing a group of employees to meet goals the same
way that is really important for a leader to be able to use
management skills when it comes to planning, organising and
controlling staff.

1.4. Identify some of the behavioural and skills challenges raised by this concept:

“Leaders should stand out from the crowd.” (Enda Larkin, 2008, p.35)

There are certain qualities that influence a leader’s performance and


the reaction to the challenges as well.

It is very important that a leader shows commitment even if he


doesn’t completely agree with the organisation views, that doesn’t

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Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

have to be passed on to staff as it will be harder to get the necessary


results after.

Self motivation and enthusiasm it can be really contagious in a team


and as leaders we should be the ones that set the example. As Edna
Larkin says “don’t be the dark cloud that enters the office every day ” ( 2008,
p.37) as the team will follow the lead.

Self control is very important as successful leaders can control their


responses and reaction and think first before they act. If we don’t
manage to auto control in difficult situations we risk of being seen
either to aggressive or lacking confidence and either way it will impact
negatively on our work.

There are many other skills that can affect our behaviour as leaders
like: competency, approachability, consistency, empathy, integrity.

A manager’s job becomes harder and harder this days as is not


enough to have technical skills but soft skills as well. A manager has
to be able to lead their team through change, to mange operations
and implement strategies. The challenge is to have the behaviour of a
leader which not every manger is born with. The ones that are not
born leaders need to work harder toward acquiring the necessary
skills for it. They have to not only get the job done but inspire their
team to be productive.

There are two aspects of leader behaviour. On one side we have a


concern for people where by this behaviour mutual trust and a two
ways communication is encouraged, and on the other side is a
concern for productivity which is task orientated behaviour where
managers will be highly directive.

1.5. Compare and contrast the differing demands of leadership and management and
discuss 2 working examples of occasions when managers have to strike a balance
between these demands in order to work effectively:

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 5


Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

According to Hannagan (2008, p.64) managers have a “social power”


over employees and this can be of different types:

- Expert power: This is based on the leader’s skills and knowledge, if


he is an expert in a certain field and this being recognized by others
gives the leader the power of making decisions;

- Positional power – this is based on the position held in the


organization and the employee would recognize the authority of the
individual.

- Reword power - this is based on leader’s ability to reword and is


highly supported by employees;

- Coercive power – this is based on fear, punishment and treats, and


is connected more to autocratic leadership;

- Personal power – is based on trust and respect and is needed to


influence people;

In order to make sure we manage effectively we always have to find


the balance between the powers and this is a lot based on the
situation as well.

When our hotel went throw change, the management changed, the
way some of the departments operated was changed (like reception,
bar and restaurant) in order to make sure we get the best out of the
process I had to find the balance between the powers. Positional
power was used to make sure all the staff was complying with
regulations and as well to make sure the new rules implemented
were followed even if they didn’t like it. It is not easy getting people to
accept change after they were used to work in a certain way and
personal power plaid an important role in the process. It takes time to
build trust and respect but once I’ve done that it was a lot easier for
me to influence the team. As well rewording power was used a lot as
I’ve started doing regular appraisals, introduced the employee of the
month reward, bonus schemes and that helped in gaining the staff
trust and respect too.

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 6


Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

Our chef in the kitchen, in his role of line manager uses a mixture of
the powers as well. When he gets a new member of staff he uses his
expert cooking powers to evaluate the new member’s knowledge , he
uses personal power building a relationship based on trust and
respect and rewording power when comes to passing him the
probation or not.

Task 2:
2.1 Describe your understanding of what the role of a leader should be in the creation
and communication of the organisation vision:

“Your objective as a leader is to ensure that Vision is seen to matter. You must
create a Vision which is clear and motivating – and you must be seen to
advocate it tirelessly. ” (Mark Anderson, 2010, p.48)

A leader should definitely be involved in the creation of the Vision as


it has to be based on personal believes and instinct. Only this way the
leader can properly embrace the vision. Once created it is very
important how is passed on. There is a high risk that after the vision
was created is not communicated properly. Communication is the key
and is not effective unless the staff buys into it. This selling process it
can be done through staff meetings, newsletters, website and
informal conversations. Repetition is very important in imprinting the
Vision in the team’s mind.

The Mission and vision are very important as they communicate the
organisation’s purpose to stakeholders, inform strategy development
and from them we can set measurable goals and objectives.

2.2. Use both external and worked based example to provide an illustration of where
principle has worked well and where it has not worked well:

If we take as an example my working place, our organisation mission


is “Friendly Hotels, professionally run” and the values we work by are
the following:

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 7


Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

- Best People - we recruit and develop best people for the business,
which the have a “can do” attitude and provide best possible
costumer service;

- Respect for the individual – we treat everybody equally and value


the diversity and individual contribution made by all members of our
team;

- Integrity – we are honest and want to inspire trust between staff by


saying what we mean.

- Grow your own – we consider our staff the most important asset and
we always encourage them to grow and develop themselves in their
roles.

We do have the Mission statement on all our documentation, in our


monthly newsletter, on the staff notice board, on the agenda of each
meeting, on our website and it’s always communicated to staff with
every single occasion (staff inductions, one to one meetings,
appraisals, investigation meetings, informal conversations, etc..).

A good example of communicating the vision (mission) is whit every


single member of staff that has been developed internally. I’ve only
started with the company as receptionist and been developed to the
role I hold today. In the unit I work at the moment since I am here I
am proud of have helped develop in their role a third of the staff
members.

A bad way to communicate the vision it will be not to get the team to
understand it and buy into but force it in.

Bad vision statements offer no direction or inspiration and a good


example here will be Coca Cola vision statement:

“Our vision serves as the framework for our Roadmap and guides
every aspect of our business by describing what we need to
accomplish in order to continue achieving sustainable, quality growth”

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 8


Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

The problem we have here is that is to general and it can be used for
any business of beverage as the fact that it’s Coca Cola’s vision is
not even mentioned.

2.3. Highlight the positive and negative points and suggesting reasons for success and
shortcomings:

A vision and the way are communicated will have a positive or


negative impact. The Vision should be:

- Personal: it has to be based on personal instinct and believes as if


it’s not something that we agree with and strongly believe it will be
hard to sell it to the team;

- Clear and simple: ideally it will be a short and clear phrase as


otherwise it will be harder for the team to understand it;

- tested: if it’s initially tested on a small group to find out their reaction
in order to find the best way to communicate it to the whole team;

- Communication is planned and intensive: ways of communicating


are well planned (written and verbal) and the repetition is very
important in making sure the team is buying in.

Task 3:
3.1. Describe the meaning of empowerment, trust and ethical leadership in a work
context:

“Empowerment is the process of unleashing the power in people – their


knowledge, experience and motivation – and focusing that power to achieve
positive outcomes for the organisation” ( Ken Blanchard. 2007, p. 68 )

Empowerment is the key of getting better results and it involves trust


not only in the staff member that we empower but in our own instincts
when we do that too.

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 9


Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

My restaurant team is empowered to solve costumer complains on


the spot and I feel that it benefits every one. If in the past they used to
call the duty manager for every single complaint, now they can offer
different solutions like , change the food, offer o complimentary drink
or do a refund if necessary, all options based on the situation at the
time. That benefits the guest as he is given a choice straight away,
the staff that feels confident on dealing with complains, knows what
the boundaries are and what is expected of them in that situation and
they gain experience and the management as is not taken away from
doing something else.

Trusting our staff to take good decisions will make them feel valued
and they will want to prove themselves even more. I had a waiter that
was the best in the restaurant, providing good costumer care and
services but he never showed any leadership skills. When the
position of supervisor became available and he showed interest I was
not sure if he will raise up to it, but after clearly explaining my
expectations and giving him trust he surprised everybody by growing
into his new role.
“Trust is a two-way street: your team members won’t trust you unless you trust
them – and more trust is certainly better then less.” (J. Keith Murninghan, 2012,
p.80)

Behaving ethically is doing what is morally right and in business it is


seen as good practice. I believe I behave ethical with my staff by
being fare in all aspects, like treating everybody equal and giving
them the same opportunities.

When I make sure we follow the rules and regulations (we have a
good Health & Safety policy, follow Corporate Social Responsibilities,
and we are aware of the impact our business has on the
environment- Green Tourism) this is another example of ethical
leadership.

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 10


Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

3.2 Provide one positive and one negative practical example on the impact these have
on organisational practice:

A positive example of trust and empowerment it will be encouraging


the reception team to deal with problems themselves, which helps the
guest’s satisfaction that their problem was dealt with promptly, busts
staff confidence and increases experience. Now I am not called so
often when a guest needs to change a room, guests are happier that
the get what they want or need straight away and staff members are
paying more attention not to make mistakes as they will have to
justify them directly to our guests.

A negative example will be when for example the bar staff is


empowered to deal with the complains in their department but without
setting clear boundaries and they will start giving more and more
complimentary drinks just to make guests happy. There will be a
financial loss, abuse of trust and it will end by loosing the trust they
were given.

Task 4:
4.1 Describe 2 different theories of leadership styles and highlight the key differences
between them:

“All theories describe the styles of leadership on the basis of wheatear the focus
of the leader is on the outcome or the people” (Edna Larkin, 2008, p. 67)

Based on leader’s behaviour, different situations, work tasks and


followers we have different leadership styles. Two of these are the
theories of Transactional and transformational leadership. A
Transactional leader focuses on exchanging one thing for another
while a transformational leader will motivate people to do better.

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 11


Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

In the table bellow I point the key differences between the 2 theories:

Transactional Leadership Transformational Leadership


Responsive Leadership Proactive Leadership
Works in line with the Works to change , to improve the
organisational culture organisational culture
Motivates the team by using their Motivates the team by
self interests encouraging them to put the
group interests first
Objectives are achieved through Objectives are achieved through
rewords and punishment set by moral values and higher ideas
the leader
Status quo is maintained Challenge the status quo

4.2. Provide an outline of two contrasting working situations and in each case select
which of the leadership styles you have previously described might be the best choice
for the manager to use in order to try to achieve a successful outcome for the
organization:

In order to increase our sales in bar and restaurant departments


we’ve introduced a bonus scheme where by the staff gets a
commission of their sales if they reach the target. Transactional
leadership is the best choice in this process as we’ve set specific
targets for the staff to reach and their results are rewarded based on
performance. Team members have their own interest in reaching the
target (being rewarded) and that will help increase sales and
automatically impacts positively on the organisation.

When our hotel was in the difficult situation to be left without a


general manager for over 6 months I was acting as a Assistant to
management and continued in that role for that period of time. It was
a hard time for the entire team and I like to think that I used

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 12


Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

transformational leadership skills even without knowing that at the


time. I’ve continued to do my job and made sure neither the hotel and
its guests or the staff were affected by the situation. I believe that by
being enthusiastic and motivating the team to prove that we can still
achieve good results without our manager’s guidance I’ve built a
relation based on trust and respect which ultimately benefit the
organisation which didn’t suffer during that difficult time, the team
achieved grate results and I’ve proved myself which lead to being
offered the position of General Manager.

4.3. Explain the reasons of your choice highlighting the practical values of the styles you
have selected:

Situational leadership it’s about adapting the leadership style based


on the task and the staff members involved. Different team members
require different management styles and different ways to motivate
them in getting the best results possible. It can be time consuming
but rewarding in the same time.

The reason I’ve chosen the transactional and transformational styles


is because I think there are quite distinctive and based on the
situation adopting the appropriate style can be really effective.

When trying to increase sales the transactional style is the best


because staff reacts quite fast and engages more when it comes to
having something to gain. It gives higher chances of reaching the
goal (sales target in this case) in a timely manner which benefits both
the organisation and the staff member.

When helping the team to outcome a difficult time transformational


leadership was the best choice as the team needed inspiration, a
positive model and encouragement to make it through. I think gaining
their trust and respect was easier by working alongside them and
encouraging them with every step. That proved to work really well
and it was very practical as not only we’ve made it together thorough
a difficult time but the relationship we built it benefits the organisation

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 13


Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

on a long term as we have a stable team, happy with what they are
doing, they feel valued and that transcends in everything they do and
it’s highlighted in our very good comment forms, Trip Advisor reviews
and AA Inspections reviews.

4.4. By means of 2 practical examples, one external and one worked based, discuss the
impact an individual’s personal energy , self-belief and commitment can have on their
ledeship styles:

If I take as an example a recent situation where by we had a really


busy Mother’s Day in our hotel, busier then usual and with quite a few
new staff members I believe that the way I behaved set the tone of
the team. The entire team was stressed not being sure if we will
manage to provide the high level of costumer service that we are
proud of on such a busy day under pressure. Of course I was a bit
stressed myself about it but I’ve made sure the team never sow that. I
was always positive about it encouraging the team helping them all
the time.

I do believe my personal energy influence them as I’ve tried to make


them feel confident as if not, if I would have shown doubts the team
would have been more nervous and automatically more exposed to
making mistakes. My confidence, positive energy and commitment to
help the team all the way influenced a Persuasive style I would say
and had a very good impact on the team.

A different example will be of a friend of mine whose manager is


known as being very moody. If he has a good day he comes to work
full of energy where on a bad day he brings misery into the office. My
friend says she tries to guess in what kind of mood he will be looking
out through the window before he enters the office so she can
prepare for what follows. This is an example of how personal energy

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 14


Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

and lack of commitment to his role affects this manager’s leadership


style.
4.5. Highlight both the positive benefits and the disadvantages of these factors in each
scenario used:

The benefits of the way I’ve influenced the team on Mothers day is
that stress and pressure didn’t affected the team in a negative way,
our guests were all happy as good costumer service was delivered, it
would increase the changes of getting similar or higher numbers next
year and we now have the confidence to do it all over again. As
disadvantages I would mention pressure was still there and if not
proper manage it can affect our results.

In the second example there are positive benefits only when the
leader manages to auto control and doesn’t let his energy affect the
staff members as the negative side is that working on an unpleasant
environment will make the staff ore exposed to make mistakes.

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 15


Diana Turea Learner Number: PO4356464

Bibliography:

Bright Hub (2010) How solid is your vision statement? At


http://www.brighthub.com/office/entrepreneurs/articles/98285.aspx
Accessed on 1st of April 2014;

Enda Larkin (2008) ,Ready to Lead, Great Britain, Pearson Education


;

Mark Anderson (2010), The Leadership Book, Great Britain , Person


Education;

Ken Blanchard (2007), Leading at a higher level, Person Education;

Conrad Lashely (2001), Empowerment, Butterworth Heinemann


Publications;

J. Keith Murninghan (2012), Do Nothing, Pearson Education;

Tim Hannagan (2008), Management Concepts and Practices,


Pearson Education;

Unit 5013: Leadership Practice 16

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