Essays on DEVELOPING STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP SKILLS

Impact of management and leadership styles on strategic decisions
Strategy and business processes involve complex processes of higher-level which integrate and coordinate all known business processes, thus performing strategic value creation. Allocated to strategic processes are rather a set of requirements and policies of the firm than a rigid set of operations.

It is important to note that a leader is a person in a group (organization), which enjoys a large, recognized authority, having the effect, which manifests as control actions. In psychology, there have been adopted different classifications of leaders. The leader can be both the official head of the group. There can be distinguished: formal leadership – the process of influencing people to positions of office; and informal leadership – the process of influencing people with their abilities, skills or other resources. Also it is possible to identify such leadership styles: Authoritarian – establishing a rigid discipline, a clear division of responsibilities, the leader does not enter into the discussion, not listening to the group, imposing their views. Democratic ”“ a leader consults with colleagues, listening to their arguments, encourages their initiative, focused on the opinion of the group, some of the powers delegated to other team members. Anarchist – the leader makes no claims to the team, no matter what does not insist, take all suggestions of members of the group, not conflict.

In contrast to the head, who sometimes deliberately elects and appoints more often, and who, being responsible for the situation in his team, leader has the official right to promotion and punishment of participants in joint activities, the informal leader is put forward spontaneously.

With regard to effect of strategic decisions, it is possible to determine four leadership styles: transactional, empowering, directive and transformational. Research has shown that the application of these styles depends on the educational level and managerial position of an individual, and with increase of age and educational level, directive and empowering styles are used less, while transactional and transformational approaches dominate. Although in general the latter styles generate more weighed and effective strategic decisions, modeling of leadership styles shows the optimal approach is to combine all four styles of leadership, depending on the situation and on internal organizational factors, and experienced managers vary their leadership styles according to the circumstances.

1.3. Evaluation of methods of adapting leadership styles to different situations
If the leader of the group and the leader himself are not the same person, the relationship between them may contribute to effective collaboration and harmonization of the group’s life or, alternatively, to acquire the character of conflict, which ultimately determined by the level of group development. For example, in the pro social and antisocial associations there are usually functions of a leader and manager have different group members. In this case, most often the leader in this community-level social and psychological development, is a team member is responsible primarily for the preservation and maintenance of a positive emotional atmosphere in the group, while the head, being aimed primarily at improving the effectiveness of group activities, often does not account for how this will affect the socio-psychological climate community.

Personal Knowledge Management, synonymously referred to as individual knowledge management, is a self-management concept that aims to handle stocks of knowledge and learning on their own responsibility and skill.

In contrast to knowledge management at the organizational level it is the personal knowledge management is not about knowledge in a team or in an enterprise, but the perspective of a single individual – irrespective of whether professional or private life.

Personal knowledge management integrates contributions from different disciplines tohigher-level concepts and methods. Embedded in this framework are particularly time management, self-management, information management, educational psychology, learning strategy, stress and fault management, competency management, networking and communications management.
With regard to the restaurant case, two types of leadership, transformational and conventional, can be selected as most appropriate ones. The concept of transformational leadership was introduced by J.M. Burns, who viewed transformational leadership as the leadership of mutual stimulation which could convert follower into leaders and subsequently into moral agents. Transformational leadership implies social changes, encourages behavioral changes and might even result in change of the organization’s vision and objectives. This type of leadership is also directed to release human potential, deals with strategies, missions and long-term goals, and aligns organizational structure in accordance with these goals.

Contingency leadership represents a more flexible leadership style. According to Fiedler’s theory of contingency, there is no “one-size-fits-all” leadership strategy, and the manager should perform the solutions based on the situation. This approach gives more power to situational control and to analysis of the environment, including such factors as leader member relations, task structure and the position power. In general, transformational leadership should be chosen when complete reorganization and reconsideration of the company’s goals should take place, while contingency leadership is more appropriate for gradual and continuous changes.