Management Dynamics Management Dynamics

A new IBM (May 22, 2012) study of more than 1,700 Chief Executive Officers from 64 countries and 18 industries worldwide reveals that CEOs are changing the nature of work by adding a powerful dose of openness, transparency and employee empowerment to the command-and-control ethos that has characterized the modern corporation for more than a century. Leadership is about understanding people, and especially about the process of making a real connect with potential workforce. Corporate leadership is perceived in divergent ways. Some explain success in terms of profit, productivity, and capacity utilization; others relate it to the market share, sales-growth, turnover and yet others to human satisfaction. The concept of Role-Efficacy purports to generate a feeling ofpleasantness in performing one's role and meeting the demands of the role. Perhaps, endeavor of this study is to examine relationship of role efficacy with leadership practiced by executives /senior managers. Difference in philosophies of various organizations put a limit on the person being a good manager or a good leader, or both. The primary data was collected by means of structured questionnaire canvassed among the sample drawn for the purpose, which comprised of 54 respondents holding senior managerial cadre, out of which 26 respondents on the first day and 28 managers on the second day participated in the HRD workshop belonging to private sector, Indian organization of repute .Data has been statistically treated and complemented by correlation-analysis. Conclusion drawn from the study gives an impression and hint towards the existing state of affairs in the organization and poses a question about the organizational culture and prevailing practices, which perhaps may not be conducive to appreciate the new ideas of corporate transformation. Finally the paper concludes by emphasizing that role efficacy of senior managers must be enhanced by promoting the practice of corporate leadership (both transactional and transformational) by them.


INTRODUCTION
Today's competitive environment calls for systematic and rational policies and practices to manage employees in any organization.The direction of the policies ought to be planned in a scientific manner to execute them effectively and enhance the effectiveness of the roles.This article discusses the importance of a role perspective and how leadership practices of managers /executives focused on enhancing its efficacy would facilitate individual self (role) efficacy which leads to organizational productivity.
Leadership is the process of influencing the behavior of others to work willingly and enthusiastically for achieving predetermined goals.The successful organization has one major attribute that sets it apart from unsuccessful organization is dynamic and effective leadership.Success depends directly upon the style and role efficacy of the executives.Perhaps in the context of great challenges being faced by the organizations, the concept of role-efficacy has got potential to bring about a change in the employee's potential and effectiveness .The performance of a person working in an organization depends on his own potential effectiveness as a person, his technical competence, his managerial experience, etc., as well as the way the role which he performs in the organization is designed.It is the integration of the two.

STATEMENTOF THE PROBLEM
It is an accept fact that managers in many private sector organizations, particularly at higher levels, often borrow the traits of bureaucracy, even though they have the fa9ade of professionalization.In the Indian context, it is certainly important that we search and take a close look at our culture and make some conscious choice about the type of organization .The importance of good leadership is that it motivates employees, create confidence, give satisfaction, build morale, and encourage high performance.The above are made possible through continued endeavor for role efficacy of employees and relentless preparation by benchmarking with the best performers to enable surpassing established records.

MAIN OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
To make an audit of role efficacy as related to corporate leadership among senior managers serving in Indian private sector organization

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To find out inter-correlation between 14 functions of corporate leadership and 10 dimensions of role efficacy in an Indian Private Sector Organization

METHODOLOGY
The interactive HRD workshop was conducted on fifty four participants.On the first day numbers of participants were twenty six and on the second day it was twenty eight.The timings of the workshop were from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. with a lunch break of an hour.

Design of the Study
The first session comprised of administration of the questionnaire to the managers while they were on the job and collection of filled in questionnaires and personal meeting programmes with the subjects.To determine the fiinctional factors of role -efficacy contributing to effective leadership, it was felt appropriate to address the questionnaire to managerial cadre alone.The questionnaire has 2 parts; first part deals with role efficacy scale and second part deals with senior managers function schedule.Respondents were requested to go through the instructions given on the questionnaire and put their queries before filling out, during the workshop.The respondents were assured that this was an academic exercise and their responses would be kept confidential and will be used for research purpose only.This assurance was fiirther stated in the questionnaire.In the second phase, the subjects gave their reactions about the relevance of the items in the tools with their day-to-day functions.The third phase comprised of action phase.In this session the results of the responses to the questionnaire were correlated and discussed with the participants to arrive at conclusions and suggestions.

Sample
The study has covered 54 senior managers serving in a private sector organization as respondents; composed of a comparatively small group of executives, i.e. top and the middle management and is responsible for the overall management of the organization.The respondents ranged in the age group of 34-57 years with a work experience of 14-32 years.Among 54 participants 22 were females and 32 were males.They had degrees ofB.E, MBA and M.Tech( few) to their credit.

Tools/Instruments Used
For the purpose of data collection an extensive structured questionnaire of Role Efficacy, corporate leadership developed by Pareek was used.

Role Efficacy Scale
Role -Efficacy Scale (RES) has 10 dimensions as following.
Self-Role Integration: The dimension measures the perception of the integration between self and role(vs.role distance).The integration of the person and the role comes about when the individual is able to contribute to the evolution of the role.
Proactivty: The dimension measures the perception of taking initiative (vs.reacting).A person who occupies a role responds to the various expectations that people in the organization have from that role, while this certainly gives him satisfaction; it also satisfies others in the organization.
Creativity: This dimension measures the perception that something new or innovative is being done by the individual i.e. experimenting and trying new ideas and strategies (vs.routinity).
Confrontation: This dimension measures the perception about the capacity of the individual to face the problems to attempt their relevant solution (vs.avoidance).
Centrality: This dimension measures the perception of importance of the role i.e. if a person is feeling his role is important or central in a system his role efficacy is likely to be high (vs.peripherality).
Influence: A relative concept is that of influence or power (vs.powerlessness).This dimension measures the perception of the individuals towards one's own capacity in making an impact on others.
Growth: This dimension measures the perception about on occupying a role the level of opportunities to learn new things for personal growth and development (vs.stagnation).
Inter -Role Linkage: This dimension measures the perception of inter dependence with others role i.e. linkage of one's roles with other's role (vs.isolation).
Helping Relationship: This dimension measures the perceptioa'feeling of a person with regard to helping other and taking help from others (vs.hostility). in an Indian Private Sector Organization Super Ordination: This dimension measures the perception that something beyond the regular call of duty is being contributed to larger society and the nation i.e. linkage of one's role with larger entity/cause (vs.deprivation).

The Instrument and its Administration
The role efficacy scale (RES) is a structured instrument consisting of twenty triads of statements.A respondent marks the one statement in each triad that describes his role most accurately.A role occupant for his role must complete the regular scale.The three alternatives are pre-weighted There are two statements for each dimension of role.

Scoring
The scoring key is used for scoring responses.Role efficacy index (REI) ranges from 0 to 100.

Reliability
Sen (1982) reported a retest reliability of .68 significant at .001 levels.This shows the high stability of the scale.

Validity
Sayeed (1985) reported item-total correlation for twenty RES items for a total sample of 658 managers, for eleven organizations separately.For the total sample the lowest correlation was 0.16 (for item 20) and the highest 0.51.The mean corrected item-total correlation for the entire sample was-0.36,with an alpha coefficient of 0.80.The alpha coefficients for the mean corrected item-total correlations of the eleven organizations ranged from 0.70 to 0.85.These results show internal homogeneity of the scale.

Senior Managerial Functions Schedule
Senior Managerial Function Schedule (SMFS) developed by Udai Pareek was used for the study.SMFS consists of a list of fourteen fianctions (seven are transactional and seven are transformational) as follows:

Transactional Functions
Leaders have an obligation to get things done, and ensure maximum efficiency and effectiveness of an organization.Transactional fiinction includes following dimensions: i.
Policy Making: The leader arranges to set priorities and directions for organizational work, and create linkages among several aspects of the organization. ii.
Planning: Planning involves working out detailed action steps, the needed resources, and contingency arrangements if a proposed action does not get done. iii.
Developing Systems: Systems economize energy and lead to faster action like through management information system, budgetary system, human resource development system, reward system etc. iv.
Monitoring Performance: Here monitoring is done against the accepted standards and agreed plans.

V.
Coordinating: When individuals and groups work in synergy, duplication is avoided and mutual support is ensured. vi.
Rewarding: Senior managers reward good performance of exemplary behavior of individuals and teams.
vii.Coaching: This includes helping them to know their own strengths and weaknesses, and improve their performance in future.

Transformational Functions
Transformational functions go beyond the immediate task and build individuals and groups to enable them to achieve targets that the organization or individual would never have expected.These functions increase power in the organization by empowering various groups and individuals.The following functions fall in this category: i.
Visioning: Vision is the dream, which inspires people and makes them proud of working in the organization. ii.
Modeling: It is a way to inspire people to set a personal example of a desirable style and behavior as, behavior speaks louder than words.
iii.Setting Standards: High standards and norms inspire individual employees to follow them in their own work iv.
Building Culture and Climate: Senior managers pay major attention to building climate of excellence, commitment, mutual support, etc.

V.
Boundary Management: This can be done by ensuring continuous availability of resources, supports from outside and from major customers. vi.

Synergizing:
The strength of an organization depends on the strength of its teams. in an Indian Private Sector Organization vii.Searching and Nurturing Talent.Senior managers pay attention to serve as mentor for the organizational employees.

The Instrument and its Administration
Senior Management Functions Schedule is designed to find out which transactional and transformational functions are being given priority by senior managers in an organization.The instrument is meant for the top leaders/ senior managers.
SMFS consists of a list of fourteen functions (seven are transactional and seven are transformational.)The respondent is required to indicate the priority of his attention/time to different functions by distributing hundred points among the fourteen listed functions.

Scoring
Scores given to each function gauge the priority of the function.The responses of senior managers are added to give a profile of the group.The various functions can also be rated on a scale from 1 to 10, although forced distribution of hundred points gives a more authentic profile.The total of transactional functions (items number 1, 3,6,7,9,1 landl3) and transformational functions (2,4,5,8,10,12 and 14) may also be calculated.

Reliability
Cronbach Alpha for a group of 19 was found to be.94.

Validity
Responses from a group of eighteen senior insurance managers were factor analyzed (principal components analysis with varimax rotation).Factor analysis produced six factors, explaining eighty-five percent variance.The factor analysis provides construct validity of the instrument.
Factors, 1, 3 and 5 contain seven transformational functions.These factors have been named HRD-institution building fianction, norm building function, synergising and boundary management function respectively.Three transactional factors are 2,4 and 6.They are, respectively, policy-system development, promoting excellence and coordinating.

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
Values of Inter-correlations *** Denotes that coefficient of correlation (r) is significant at 0.001 level of significance p<0.001 ** Denotes that coefficient of correlation (r) is significant at 0.01 level of significance p<0.01 * Denotes that coefficient of correlation (r) is significant at 0.05 level of significance p<0.05 NS Denotes that p>0.05 meaning not significant.

Analysis of Intercorrelations between Role -Efficacy Components and
Corporate Leadership Components for Senior Managers (Kindly Ref.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
The present study reveals that Role -efficacy was found related to Corporate Leadership of senior managers both favorably and unfavorably up to various extents / degrees.Looking at the negative correlations between 10 items of Role -Actualization and 14 components of Corporate Leadership ,considered for study it can be concluded that, subjects have all the potentials and skills for going ahead and meeting the targets of organizations, provided the barriers coming in their way are removed through appropriate interventions by developing the corporate culture, as people in managerial positions complain repeatedly that they are held responsible for things over which they have little control.
It is exemplified by the fact that the India has more reverence for survival and security and because of this; it is difficult to find a spirit of survival with excellence.The absence of this spirit has led to an orientation to perpetuate and maintain the status quo, rather than making efforts to explore the possibilities of innovation and change.An insight into our cultural milieu and norms will help us evolve styles and management systems, which are best suited to corporate fiinctioning, by enhancing role efficacy (effectiveness) of employees.
Top management must recognize that it has the responsibility and obligation to provide an environment in which an employee feels free to challenge the system to accomplish goals.Once the employee is committed, the techniques become easy.At the pschyological level, working for such an organization increases self-pride, individual commitment and motivation. in an Indian Private Sector Organization LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY Scarcity of resources limits the horizon of any study, as researches have to restrict the size of the sample due to practical limitations.Corporate leadership as well as role efficacy are multidimensional and each dimension of these variables are full unit in it self Future studies dealing with the single dimensions are desirous.It can be inferred that different organizations require different sets of skills due to the intrinsic structural procedural and environmental difference in their settings.To further validate the findings a large number and varied organizations needed to be included into the sample.Other most obvious limitation of the research is that, the results will depend on how truly subjects respond to the questionnaires.