Administrative office management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Administrative office management - Essay Example Advances in telecommunication have changed managerial and administrative duties in the office environment.Leadership styles adopted are largely due to these pressures. Administrators no longer handle conflict management and group dynamics the way thy used to Career development, legal issues and ethics have also taken a shift from the conventional approaches. These changes will be examined in detail below. (Scholtes, 1988)There are three main schools of thought that determine leadership styles adopted. Some researchers claim that certain people are simply born with it. They have the ability to influence other people naturally. On the other hand, other experts suggest that leadership styles are dictated by the given situation facing a group. Groups will change their leadership styles to fit into these ideals. Lastly some people believe that strategies will define the leadership path taken in relation to the leadership traits present within the group.Depending on the three factors discu ssed, supervisors have the option of choosing one of four leadership styles. An autocratic leadership style is one characterized by leaders who utilize their positions to affect decision making processes. On the other hand, there are also Democratic leadership styles where members of a group or those being led have a say in leadership decisions; authority is not exclusive to one individual but is shared equally among all other stakeholders in the group. In 'Laissez faire' type of leadership, the group largely determines decisions made. Specific leaders play little or no role in the decision making process; tasks and objectives lay in the hands of the people. Lastly, there is the abdacratic leadership style. Here, no single individual takes up the role of a leadership and the group does not also bother with authority. Consequently, such a leadership style has been deemed as the most ineffective because it eventually leads to the breakdown of the group. However, because of the pressures exerted by the up rise in telecommunication and the effect that this has on office work, there is a need to adopt a more proactive approach to leadership. This was brought forward by MacGregor (1978). He asserts that true leadership is achieved through transformational leadership. The latter term means uniting members of an organization through a common vision. It also means applying the following processes; Value Integrity Trust The concept of transformational leadership became very relevant to the office environment due to advances in telecommunications. The latter changed people's role in the office from being mere tools to becoming part of the organizational strategy. Changes in telecommunications brought about shift from the conventional transactional leaders. These are leaders who focus only on making other people follow their strategic will. Such leaders are bale to make large numbers of employees follow them but lack the ability to yield quality results. Transformational leaders are those ones who focus on quality of work even when they do not have many numbers rallying behind them. Bass (1990) and Avolio (1995) developed a method of quantifying the extent of transformational leadership within nay one organization. It was achieved through five dimensions: intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, idealized influence in both the behavioral and attributes realms. Telecommunications have also created more emphasis on the issue of employee satisfaction. This is because many workers now have access to vast amounts of resources about their rights through the internet. Consequently, employers have to ensure that they satisfy those needs. On the other hand advanced telecommunications have assisted leaders in the process of satisfying their staff. They now place a lot of emphasis on the path-goal model of leadership. In this approach, leaders aim at achieving organizational goals by eliminating all the