Staffing

 

Staffing is defined as filling, and keeping filled, the positions in an organization. It includes recruitment, selection, and placement, as defined below.

6. recruitment: attracting candidates that can meet the objectives of the organization.

(word of mouth is almost always the best recruiting tool,

and the most effective recruiting requires a long term commitment).

7. selection: hiring candidates that can meet the objectives of the organization

(i.e., fit the employee to the job)

8. placement: assigning positions to employees that can meet the objectives of the organization

(i.e., fit the job to the employee)

 

Staffing depends, or course, an on all the other managerial functions. Two principles are important in this regard:

9. objective of staffing: personnel must be willing and able to fill their organizational roles.

"Willingness" may be hard to measure, but ability can be measured and trained.

This is critical if the organizational role is rpaidly changing.

10.managerial appraisal: the clearer the objectives and required activities,

the better the appraisal of job performance.

 

 

Leadership

1. Leadership: the art of influencing people to strive toward objectives

Extensive trait analysis has shown that there are no universal traits of a great leader (other than the fact that they are a great leader...). For example, it's difficult to find common traits among such leaders as Kennedy, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Ghandi -- though they are all generally considered great leaders. If we add more controversial choices such as the Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, and Yassar Arafat -- each considered to be great leaders by their countries -- we can see that a search for universal traits of a great leader is futile.

Leaders must, however, understand motivation, and the following theories address motivation.

2. McGregor's theory:

Theory X -- assumes ordinary humans dislike work

and must be forced to work

Theory Y -- assumes ordinary humans want responsibilities

so work should be enjoyable

and managers must help stimulate creativity

However, Theory X and Y are assumptions and not based on research. They are often used to describe a leadership style, but there's no evidence that one approach always works best.

3. Likert's four systems:

exploitive authoritative: the autocratic, traditional leader

benevolent authoritative: leader shows patronizing confidence

consultative: leaders shows substantial but not complete confidence

participative-groups: leader shows complete trust and confidence

 

 

Research indicates that:
  • the traditional autocratic system was the least successful.
  • the participative-groups approach was the most successful
  • participative-groups depend on trust and confidence

However, it was unclear that the leadership style caused the success or whether other factors were relevant. Still, the "concern for people" was developed into a newer theory shown below.

4. managerial grid:

concern for production:

low

high

concern for people:

high

country club

team management

low

impoverished

task 

"Team management" shows a high concern for both production (i.e., tasks) 
and a high concern for people.  However, it is still unclear what is the 
best approach to leadership.  This leads to the next theory.

5. Fiedler's contingency approach:

leadership = function of: (leader, group, situation)

This approach says that in seeking out the best leadership style, "it depends." Specifically, it depends on the personality of the leader, the dynamics of the group, and the situation they are in. In this theory, the leader should use the previous models to develop the leadership style that works the best for their circumstances.

6. path goal approach:

managers should:

leadership behaviors under the path goal approach include:

 Again, the idea behind the path goal approach is that leaders should select the style that is best for their circumstances.

 

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