The Role of Dunn as a Leader
In an organizational context, leading has to do with the leaders consolidating the efforts and resources of the organizations and focusing on the future by setting up a vision which they intend to achieve in a given period using the consolidated efforts and resources. Leading entails building and sustaining teamwork, strategic thinking, managing conflicts, coaching, inspiring a shared vision, problem-solving, performance management, decision-making, delegation, systems thinking, leading change, dealing with ambiguities, developing trust, employee development, customer service, innovation, emotional intelligence, and servant leadership (Daft, 2008).
Some of the roles of Dunn as the leader of the organization would include the provision of effective leadership, the formation of self-managing teams, and employee motivation, among others. These roles are explained below.
Effective leadership
It has to do with the consolidation of resources by leaders of organizations. The idea behind the consolidation of resources is to enable the leaders to attain organizational objectives efficiently using minimum resources. It also has to do with the realization of extraordinary results by organizational leaders through processes that involve all the stakeholders.
Effective decision-making
The decision-making process is crucial because the success or failure of organizations greatly depends on the type of decisions made by organizational leaders and how the decisions are made. An effective decision-making process is usually consultative, that is, the leaders consult their followers and other stakeholders. The consultations not only make the decisions effective, but they also reduce resistance to organizational change or restructuring.
When stakeholders are consulted before a decision is made, they are able to own the changes which come as a result of that decision. Effective decisions are, therefore, acceptable to all the stakeholders of organizations. The decisions also have lasting impacts as opposed to decisions that are made without consultation and involvement of organizational stakeholders (Gill, 2011).
Employee motivation
As the leader, Dunn should play the role of motivating the employees. There are two types of motivation, namely intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation comes from the employees and is characterized by the need to achieve good results, passion for work, the ambition to acquire new knowledge, and the need to be successful at the workplace. Extrinsic motivation arises from things which are external to employees such as appreciation, rewards, increased salaries or wages, promotions, and congratulatory messages. It may be based on the performance of individual employees, team efforts, or collective success of the organization as a whole.
Formation of self-managing teams
As the leader, Dunn should lead the establishment of self-managing teams in the organization. These are semi-autonomous teams of employees which are formed to perform some specific tasks. Dunn should also encourage employees to work in teams instead of working independently. Working in teams would enable the organization to benefit from the synergy found in teamwork. Teamwork would also give the employees an opportunity to exercise their creativity, innovativeness, skills, and talents. It would also enable the team members to learn from the strengths and the diverse experiences of each other.
Creation of a cohesive organizational culture
As the leader of the organization, Dunn should be open and friendly to the employees so as to create what is referred to as cohesive organizational culture. Many organizational researchers agree that a cohesive organizational culture is one in which all members of organizations have similar beliefs and values which hold them together. These beliefs and values are implicit or explicit to the organizations. In this kind of a culture, the organizational structure does not matter but what matters most is the commitment of each member of the organizations to these beliefs and values.
One benefit of a cohesive organizational culture is that it leads to high motivation among the employees because they share common beliefs and values. When employees are highly motivated, there is minimal use of resources in their supervision which in turn increases their productivity because to them, what matters most is the welfare of the organizations but not their welfare (Schermerhorn, 2010).
Cohesive organizational culture also boosts organizational efficiency because of the internalization of what is expected of each employee. This kind of environment not only increases organizational efficiency but also prevents time wastage because the employees are able and free to consult each other without the fear of victimization or intimidation especially by their managers.
Furthermore, cohesive organizational culture leads to cohesion among various departments of organizations, which leads to internalization of all organizational rules, policies, and practices by all departments. This cohesion leads to proper utilization of organizational resources without sabotage. It also enables organizations to develop logical and relevant policies to coordinate their activities in a manner that maximizes their chances of realizing their mission and vision.
Cohesion among various organizational departments also enhances sharing of information within the organizations, which increases employees’ levels of understanding of how various departments work. The understanding of how various departments work by employees is very important because it enables them to multitask especially when the organizations are faced with shortage of staff.
Cohesive organizational culture enhances control, good coordination, and consistency within organizations. The reason is that employees and managers are always in good terms and are able to agree informally on various procedures and practices without compromising the quality of products and services offered by the organizations.
Effective communication
As the leader, Dunn should ensure that there is effective communication in the organization at all times. Communication is the transfer of information from one person or source to another. In organizational context, effective communication involves using the correct language in communication between employees and their seniors. The language used should be neutral and inoffensive. For effective communication to be realized, managers should avoid discrimination of employees based on employees’ positions, age, gender, level of education, race, and religion.
Employee training
As the leader, Dunn should ensure that the employees are trained on regular basis. They should be trained on various aspects of their job and other processes of the organization. The training of the employees would enable them to improve their performance and efficiency, which would impact positively on the productivity of the organization. The training would also ensure that the organization makes maximum use of its human resources because the well-trained employees would be capable of multitasking.
How Dunn Should Address Cultural Diversity within the Organization
The term cultural diversity refers to a variety of human cultures or groups of people who live in different parts of the world. It can also refer to the static representation of several cultures in a place and at a particular time. Due to globalization, today’s society is becoming culturally diverse day by day.
For Dunn to effectively manage the diverse workforce, he should seek and have a good understanding of various cultures from various parts of the world. He should specifically learn the five dimensions of cultural differentiations for various countries as studied and documented by the renowned psychologists Dr. Geert Hofstede.
One of the strategies which Dunn can use to manage the culturally diverse workforce in the organization is the creation of awareness about cultural diversity among the employees. The awareness would enable the employees to embrace cultural diversity. The other strategy is to do regular assessments of the work environment with special attention to diversity issues. These assessments should aim at identifying the difficulties encountered by employees as they interact with others who have different beliefs, faiths, values, and morals.
Another strategy is to train the employees on cultural diversity. The management, under the leadership of Dunn should introduce training programs to ensure that the employees are trained from time to time on how to relate with other employees from different cultural backgrounds.
As the leader of the organization, Dunn should hold regular meetings with the employees to discuss the challenges of cultural diversity at the workplace. During the meetings, all employees should be given an opportunity to mention the challenges which they face as they interact with employees from different cultures. Dunn should in turn come up with strategies of helping the employees overcome those challenges.
Changes Dunn should make to accommodate his Role as a Relationship Builder
For the merged companies to function as one organization, Dunn should not only play the role of a leader but also the role of a relationship builder. For him to do so, he needs to make some changes in the organization. For instance, he should come up with an organizational structure which is in line with the merger. He should therefore restructure the organization by creating the postilion of general manager and let John Levitz occupy it. As the general manager, John would be able to consolidate the efforts of all employees. He would also be in a position to come up with suggestions about the best practices for making the merged companies make good progress.
Dunn should also introduce English as the official language in the organization to overcome the language barrier. Since the employees from Latin America cannot speak English fluently, Dunn should introduce a program for training all the employees on how to speak and write in English fluently.
The other change which Dunn should make is to come up with new mission and vision statements for the organization. The new mission and vision statements should be derived from the original mission and vision statements of the two companies in the merger, that is, the Deli and Dunn’s Emporium. The reason is that the merged companies need to have a common goal. The employees in the merger also need to be made aware of the new mission and vision statements so that they stop the perception that they belong to different organizations. As a result, the organization would be able to embrace teamwork through the self-managing teams discussed earlier.
The other change which Dunn should make is to introduce a strong organizational culture. According to Gill, a strong organizational culture is characterized by a radical shift from mechanistic to humanistic approach in the management of organizations (Gill, 2011). In organizations with a strong culture, employees are perceived as crucial assets and are treated with respect, dignity, and understanding. Such organizations also acknowledge that employees have the potential of being creative in their work.
Consequently, supervision plays a minimal role because employees are capable of forming group norms and rules which govern their work. Organizations with a strong culture also recognize the importance of employees interacting with their managers in a friendly way without fear of victimization. When employees fear their managers, they tend to work with their bodies but their minds and hearts are usually far away.
Strong organizational culture also boosts organizational efficiency because of the internalization of what is required of each and every employee. The sharing of values and beliefs creates a good work environment free from confusion, ambiguity, or lack of understanding among the employees.
If CEOs of organizations are not friendly to employees, then the organizations are characterized by fear and unending tension among the employees. Such relationship leads to confusion and inefficiency because employes are not allowed or they are unwilling to consult their colleagues for fear of victimization. The overall result is creation of organizations which the employees are not proud to be associated with, a situation which has serious negative effects such as increased turnover, reduced productivity, and general organizational inefficiency.
How Dunn can use John’s knowledge of the Deli to his advantage
As mentioned earlier, one of the changes which Dunn needs to make is to create the position of general manager and let John occupy it. The reason is that John is knowledgeable about the Deli and its business operations and procedures. John is also fresh from school and young and therefore, he has a lot of energy to run up and down to ensure that everything goes well in the organization.
With John as the general manager and Dunn as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the organization would be able to come up with strategies of meeting its objectives in an efficient and effective manner. The role of Dunn as the CEO would also be simplified because John is very passionate about doing business and generating more profits through innovation and creativity.
References
Daft, R.L. (2008). The leadership experience. Mason, OH: Thomson/South-Western.
Gill, R. (2011). Leadership theory: A critical review, synthesis and redefinition. London : SAGE Publications Ltd.
Schermerhorn, J. (2010). Management. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.