Introduction: Organization Overview
Vantagon, Inc. is the American IT company which is located in New York, NY, and specializes in developing different types of software and applications. Vantagon’s reputation within the market segment of software and applications depends on the realization of such projects as Taskflight and Semple.
Taskflight is the company’s most popular product. Vantagon designed and implemented Taskflight as the service to manage persons’ tasks and objectives.
The application provides a person with an opportunity to create objectives, tasks, and predict important results with the focus on significant milestones, deadline aspects, and priorities.
The popularity of the product depends on the connection of the effective methods of self-management with the elements of the modern business culture.
From this point, the company follows the principle of focusing on innovation and benefits while proposing new models and paradigms, establishing standards, and overcoming any drawbacks in systems.
The management and business strategies promoted with the help of company’s products are also actively used in addressing the organization’s issues.
The company’s staff can be discussed as rather small, and it includes the leadership team, designers, programmers, and marketers. Referring to the principles of the project management, Vantagon often chooses to invite external specialists in order to work at the current projects.
This approach influences the choice of managerial strategies and the whole company’s performance. I am the Business Development Manager in the company, and I am interested in increasing the company’s productivity with references to improving the employees’ performance.
The company’s task is to create the effective and productive team to design and develop new applications and software that is why the questions of the employees’ job commitment, satisfaction, and performance should be addressed while developing the management strategy.
Problem Statement
The market segment within which Vantagon operates became rather competitive during the recent years because of the business world’s focus on the advantages of contemporary applications and business software.
As a result, the competitive advantage and performance of the company depend on the effective work of the creative and productive team. Vantagon’s managers focus much on empowering and motivating employees while responding to their job satisfaction.
However, the specifics of the company’s work make the managers focus more on the strategies and perspectives of the project management and encouragement of the part-time employees work.
The observed problem is in the necessity to choose the effective management style and strategy which can contribute to the improving the employees’ performance to compete within the industry.
Moreover, it is important to analyze and evaluate the current management style to conclude about its role in increasing the employees’ job satisfaction and performance.
How can the management style followed in the company contribute to the improvement of the company’s performance and employee satisfaction? And what strategies and approaches can be used to improve the employees’ motivation, while keeping their job satisfaction high?
Literature Review
The aspects of the psychological contracts and different types of leadership are discussed in the article by McDermott, Conway, Rousseau, and Flood. The researchers focused on proposing the effective framework for managers which could be used to improve the organizational behavior and the employees’ performance.
Discussing the concept of the psychological contract, McDermott and the group of researchers pay attention to the fact that psychological contracts as the references to “what employees believe they owe their employer as well as what they believe they are owed in return” play an important role in stimulating the employees’ motivation and job satisfaction (McDermott et al., 2013, p. 290).
The authors of the article connect the concept of psychological contracts with the leadership styles which are different in relation to their effectiveness to encourage employees and to contribute to their high job satisfaction and performance.
As a result, the effectiveness of the manager’s strategy depends significantly on the chosen leadership style and on creating the positive psychological contracts with employees.
The researchers state that to contribute to employees’ motivation and performance, it is necessary to combine the elements of different leadership styles such as transformational and transactional ones and to build positive psychological contracts (McDermott et al., 2013, p. 294).
Thus, the research provides the important guidelines on choosing the effective manager’s strategy based on the leadership pattern to contribute to improving the employees’ job satisfaction and performance.
In their article “The Theory of Purposeful Work Behavior”, Barrick, Mount, and Li aim to state the connections between the personality’s behavior, job characteristics, and further performance.
The authors conclude that the employees’ motivation plays the most important role in influencing the job performance, and to contribute to improving the outcomes, managers should focus on the employees’ vision of their meaningfulness.
According to the authors, if the employees experience meaningfulness associated with their motivation, they perform better (Barrick, Mount, & Li, 2013, p. 147).
This research is important to refer to while proposing the solution for the situation in Vantagon because the authors discuss such different types of motivation as status-striving, autonomy-striving, and achievement-striving motivation (Barrick, Mount, & Li, 2013, p. 142-146).
The focus on these types of motivation is necessary to provide the employees with the individualistic approach to contribute to their job satisfaction.
The purpose of Adler and Reid’s article is to discuss the impact of the leadership styles on job satisfaction and performance with references to the budget issues.
The authors found that the relationships between the leadership style and employees’ job satisfaction and performance are rather simple and direct (Adler & Reid, 2008, p. 22).
The researchers’ conclusions are significant to decide on the effective managerial strategy to be used in Vantagon while being discussed without references to the budget issue.
From this point, the effects of the leadership styles on employees’ performance are obvious, and to develop the effective managerial strategy to implement in the company, it is necessary to discuss the concept of leadership in detail.
In her article, Pipas is inclined to state the interdependence between management, communication styles, organizational behavior, and employees’ performance.
The author chooses to concentrate on the role of communication to affect the organizational behavior and employees’ performance positively while discussing the issue in the context of management.
Associating the concept of motivation with communication and performance, Pipas notes that one of the manager’s task is to motivate employees and to “create an ambience of psychosocial leadership style, an attitude towards daily problems of people, climate, cohesion, moods up to current interpersonal relationships and the whole preparation and living arrangements, that will generate self-motivation, the strongest form of motivation” (Pipas, 2013, p. 1558).
The researcher concludes that self-motivation caused be effective managerial strategy leads to employees’ job satisfaction and improved performance. These results are important for the project to discuss the strategies to influence the employees’ satisfaction.
The purpose of the study conducted by Zelnik and the group of researchers is to present the analysis of the effectiveness of quality management systems to influence the employees’ job performance.
The authors state that quality management systems provide not only standards for managers to assess the employees’ performance, but they also can be used to make the managerial approach to working with employees more individualistic (Zelnik et al., 2012, p. 45).
Thus, the research shows how to use quality management systems effectively to improve the employees’ performance, and the authors’ conclusions can be used to develop the methods to improve the communication channels in relation to the case of Vantagon.
In their article “Performance Improvement Strategies Used by Managers in the Private Sector”, Ratiu and Suciu discuss the effective managerial strategies which can be used to increase the employees’ motivation and job satisfaction.
The researchers focused on the discussion of such strategies to increase satisfaction and improve performance as the employees’ development, the focus on rewarding employees, the modification of the job description, and the focus on intensive involvement of employees in the organization (Ratiu & Suciu, 2013, p. 1617).
The authors’ findings are important for the current project because the most effective strategies can be implemented in the company to improve the employees’ job satisfaction and performance.
Analysis
Vantagon’s current performance within the industry can be discussed as rather good. The new projects are developed, and the company’s products attract clients because of their high quality.
However, the current company’s management style can be considered as not effective to respond to the requirements of the project management and modern trends within the industry.
To create the effective team that demonstrates the high productivity and focus on innovation, the company’s managers should pay more attention to using modern effective managerial strategies to encourage the employees’ motivation, job satisfaction, and activities.
The necessity of modifying and improving the current management style depends on the fact that the creation of the effective team is closely associated with the question of employees’ motivation and job satisfaction. These concepts are closely connected with the idea of increasing performance and productivity.
As a result, to choose the solutions for the problem observed in the company, it is necessary to state the connections between the management and leadership styles, employees’ motivation, job satisfaction, and job performance.
To choose the most appropriate solution to cope with the management issue, it is necessary to discuss the above-mentioned concepts as the parts of the causal relationships. The improved job performance is the expected outcome of creating the effective team in which employees collaborate to complete the goal.
Thus, the employees’ improved performance is usually the result of the employees’ increased motivation and job satisfaction (Adler & Reid, 2008, p. 23).
However, the generator of the team’s effective work is the manager who plays the role of the leader in this situation in order to help the employees demonstrate more motivation and perform better.
Various leadership and management styles can influence the employees’ behavior in a different manner, and this impact will also be observed with references to the company’s performance (Zelnik et al., 2012, p. 46).
From this perspective, the manager’s task is to increase the employees’ motivational resources while following the effective management and leadership style.
In this case, the current management style followed in Vantagon can be improved with the focus on choosing the elements and strategies which lead directly to increasing the employees’ satisfaction and performance.
According to McDermott and the group of researchers, it is impossible to state that only one leadership and management style can lead to improving the employees’ performance.
Thus, managers need to combine the leadership styles in order to contribute to the individual needs of the employees (McDermott et al., 2013, p. 291). From this point, the possible cause of the problem in Vantagon is the impossibility of managers to combine and adapt different managerial approaches and leadership styles.
Thus, “good leaders adapt their behaviors, signals, and commitments in line with strategic goals in order to convey appropriate and realistic expectations to their employees” (McDermott et al., 2013, p. 291).
While referring to the concept of psychological contracts important for building the relations between managers and employees, it is important to note that Vantagon uses some elements of this strategy, but the implementation of the approach is rather incomplete.
Transformational leadership addresses the employees’ motivation directly because the manager builds positive relations with the individual, and he aims to inspire the employee to achieve the higher goals (McDermott et al., 2013, p. 291).
In this case, individual consideration contributes to increasing the employee’s job satisfaction and performance. The employee begins to experience meaningfulness (Barrick, Mount, & Li, 2013, p. 134).
The managers in Vantagon pay little attention to the different types of motivation which can affect the employee’s vision of his or her meaningfulness, job satisfaction, and performance.
It is also important to note that employees are ruled by different types of motivation such as status-striving motivation, autonomy-striving motivation, and achievement-striving motivation (Barrick, Mount, & Li, 2013, p. 142-146).
As a result, the individual approach to address these types of intrinsic motivation is necessary to be followed in the company.
Transactional leadership is closely associated with the concept of reward as the stimulus for the employee motivation. Inappropriate focus on rewards can be discussed as one of the causes for problems in the company’s management. Job satisfaction is the result of appraising the employees’ job and achievements.
Thus, referring to the idea of job satisfaction, people make such decisions as “the decision of belonging – to join and to stay within an organization”, and “the decision to be performing – to work to achieve high levels of performance” (Pipas, 2013, p. 1559).
This aspect is extremely important to be addressed in Vantagon because of the tradition to invite part-time employees and external specialists to work at the projects. From this point, rewards are the most obvious signs of the positive appraisal (Ratiu & Suciu, 2013, p. 1614).
That is why, the focus on rewards leads to job satisfaction which leads to improved job performance in order to achieve higher results and receive more rewards. The current management strategy used in Vantagon lacks the development of this aspect.
The combination of the elements of transactional and transformational leadership has the most obvious effects on the employees’ motivation and performance because such managers address the employees’ needs and interests directly (McDermott et al., 2013, p. 294).
Thus, it is reasonable to combine the transformational leadership with the specific reward element which is typical for the transactional leadership.
Solutions to the Problem
Vantagon’s performance and competitive advantage depend significantly on using the effective management style which can contribute to increasing the employee motivation and job satisfaction.
The current management style should be modified to contribute to creating the effective team of employees oriented to cooperation and development of successful projects.
Three possible solutions to improve the management style and strategies should be analyzed in detail.
The combination of the transactional and transformational leadership styles as the basis for the management style and approach.
- The pros of the solution are in the opportunity to combine the most effective elements of two strategies to use them for increasing the employees’ motivation and job satisfaction with the help of individual approach, inspiration, focus on intellectual development, and rewards.
- The cons are in the risks to combine the elements of two opposite leadership styles inappropriately to the situation in Vantagon.
The implementation steps include the focus on psychological contracts, development of reward policies, use of employee training and development programs, and the focus on implementing the contemporary strategies of team building to increase cooperation and job satisfaction.
The implementation of motivational strategies to add to the current management style followed in the company.
- The pros of the solution are in addressing the employee’s individual type of motivation to increase the persons’ job satisfaction and performance.
- The cons are in the difficulties associated with adapting the motivational strategies to the company’s current management style.
The implementation steps include the design of programs and procedures to address the employees’ individual vision of their career development and their use in the working process.
The focus on new training and development programs to improve the employees’ knowledge and skills.
- The pros of the solution are in increasing the employees’ motivation and association of their further career development with the company to attract part-time employees.
- The cons are in the fact that the solution addresses only one aspect of the problem.
The implementation steps include the development and use of new training and development programs in the form of workshops and seminars.
The first proposed solution should be chosen as the most effective approach to resolve the problem because the solution addresses all the aspects of the issue associated with changing the company’s management style and improving the employees’ performance.
The company’s manager working with human resources should become responsible for implementing the strategy in Vantagon.
The development of the management style which combines the elements of transactional and transformational leadership styles is the challenging process which includes such stages as the building of positive relations with the employees according to the principles of transformational leadership with the focus on psychological contracts and contemporary strategies of team building to increase motivation, inspiration, cooperation, and job satisfaction.
The next stage is associated with the idea of transactional leadership. The manager should develop effective reward policies to address the employees’ motivation. The final stage is the implementation of employee training and development programs to increase the employees’ job satisfaction and performance.
Reflection
The completed assignment influenced my personal, academic, and professional leadership and managerial development significantly because I learnt how to analyze and use the scholarly resources to improve the leadership and managerial style.
Furthermore, I received the opportunity to assess my personal leadership style and compare it with the requirements for improving the management style used in Vantagon. In addition, I studied the ways how to solve the problem in Vantagon with references to analyzing my personal contribution to the solution.
References
Adler, R., & Reid, J. (2008). The effects of leadership styles and budget participation on job satisfaction and job performance. Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Journal, 3(1), 21-46.
Barrick, M., Mount, M., & Li, N. (2013). The theory of purposeful work behavior: The role of personality, higher-order goals, and job characteristics. Academy of Management Review, 38(1), 132-153.
McDermott, A., Conway, E., Rousseau, D., & Flood, P. (2013). Promoting effective psychological contracts through leadership: The missing link between HR strategy and performance. Human Resource Management, 52(2), 289-310.
Pipas, M. D. (2013). The interdependence between management, communication, organizational behavior and performance. AUO: Economic Science Series, 22(1), 1554-1562.
Ratiu, P., & Suciu, L. (2013). Performance improvement strategies used by managers in the private sector. AUO: Economic Science Series, 22(1), 1613-1624.
Zelnik, M., Maletic, M., Maletic, D., & Gomiscek, B. (2012). Quality management systems as a link between management and employees. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 23(1), 45-62.