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Section 1:

1.1 Analyze how to learn from past experience of leading individuals and
teams in variety of organizational situations

Researchers have found that learning from past experience has a tremendous impact on the
decision making capability of individuals. Learning from experience develops the circuitry in our
brains and helps us make decisions and carry out proper actions in complex organizational
situations.
Taking decision based on past experiences that are worthwhile plays an imperative role for the
leadership skills of administrative managers. Dr Zoe Kourtzi, lead researcher of the University of
Birmingham, said: "What we have found is that learning from past experience actually rewires our
brains so that we can categorize the things we are looking at, and respond appropriately to them in
any context.
According to the research conducted by Eraut (2000), it is found that most of the learning from past
experiences was informal learning within the workplace itself. This learning process is mainly
acquired from of consultation and collaboration both within and outside of the workgroup and the
characteristics of the work itself.
Newly recruited and less-experienced employees directly learn from their peers, supervisors,
mentors or leaders. Daily work processes and responsibilities such as group participation, working
alongside, tackling challenging tasks, and working with clients also facilitate the learning process of
individuals.


1.2 Develop active listening skills in order to interpret messages from
others in a variety of situations

Listening can be defined as the capability of interpreting messages accurately. It takes a lot of
attentiveness and willpower to be an active listener. Active listening does not only mean hearing
the words consciously, but also understanding the complete message what is being said. Managers
can develop active listening skills by following ways:
Pay attention: By giving full concentration, trying not to lose focus (i.e. side conversations) or
become distracted (i.e. distracting thoughts, noise) when listening to others (Johnson, 2011),
looking directly to the speaker, maintaining eye contact, observing his or her body language, and
taking important notes if needed.
Acknowledgement: Nodding head, using body language and other signs (i.e. smile or other facial
expressions) to let the speaker know that the messages are being acknowledged.
Provide feedback: Responding with sincerity and openness, stating necessary opinions, asking
questions to clarify certain points, and allowing the speaker to respond back.


1.3 Communicate, using the context and medium which meet the needs and
expectations of the audience and the organization

Both internal communication process (i.e. communication within the business) and external
communication (i.e. communication outside the business) processes are needed to be carried out
successfully by administrative managers.
Managers use electronic mail, company websites, and company databases for internal
communication. Further, they make face-to-face interactions or oral communication with both
internal and external audiences (i.e. oral or verbal communication with subordinates and colleagues
in typical work environment, dealing directly with customers, etc). Managers also use
memorandum as a tool for internal communication. Staff magazines, notices and posters on staff
notice boards also work as a useful means of internal communications.
For external communication, manager use written letters and advertising materials (i.e. leaflets,
brochures, and posters). They also use oral communication (i.e. phone calls and face-to-face
interactions) as a means of external communication.



1.4 Demonstrate how to build effective working relationships with peers
and superiors

Some useful suggestions to build effective work relationship with peers and superiors are:
Making a good first impression at introduction
Treating peers and superiors with respect and using the golden rule.
Giving them proper recognition.
Providing adequate support when needed.
Sharing credit for assistance and contribution.
Responding to challenges and showing them a positive and helping attitude in solving critical
problem.
Building a friendly image to foster good relationship with individuals
Demonstrating fairness through a past track of record of being fair.
When negotiating with peers and superiors, always try to offer win-win situations.
Being open towards constructive discussions
Trying to socialize with peers and superiors
Being a good listener
Always showing respect to their point of views. Appreciating their opinions.
Asking for forgiveness if any mistake is made.
Not blaming other for personal or organizational failures
Keeping commitments


1.5 Analyze critically stress management techniques appropriate to
realistic leadership situations

Based on different leadership situations, leaders apply different types of stress management
techniques.
Maintain humorous environment: Laughter stimulates the exertion of useful chemicals in human
brain that helps us feel energized. Therefore, being distracted from work by something humorous
can definitely bring a change in employees mindset and thus can reduce stress.
Give systematic breaks: When the employees are severely stressed and pressurized by the work
environment, leaders can plan to give some systematic breaks. It will help employees to feel a
short-term relief from the stress.
Ensure workload balance: To minimize the risk of stress at work environment, leaders need to plan
the workload in a realistic and balanced way. They should also clearly state to the employees about
what sort of performance is expected from them and how the performance will be assessed.
Employee empowerment: Leaders can give the employee a better control over their tasks and
allow them to set smaller objectives (daily or weekly duration) so that they can achieve the goal as
well as meet the deadline in an effective way.
Work environment development: Stress at workplace is often caused by bullying or harassment,
lack of job security, long working hours, office politics and conflicts among employees, etc. leaders
must make t sure that workplace maintains a healthy environment and they should shape the group
behavior in a way that is friendly and focused on productivity.

Commit vacation time and rewards: Organizations often need a large amount of task done within a
quicker time frame. Leaders can convince the employees to take more workload by promising them
vacation or other possible rewards upon successful completion of the tasks.


1.6 Demonstrate how to build own credibility with individuals and within
teams

To build own credibility with individuals and within teams, leaders must possess following
characteristics: honesty, accountability, loyalty, patient, competence and expertise at the relevant
fields, prompt and precise action making capability, focused to the goals, positive and visionary
aptitude, and above all being respectful to others. They also need to be capable of influencing
other by giving excellent speaking skills, leading through ongoing education, taking risk, and
achieving results that make an impact.

Reference
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (2009, May 15). Past Experience Is
Invaluable For Complex Decision Making, Brain Research Shows. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November
6, 2013, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090513130930.htm
Eraut, M. (2000a), Non-formal learning and tacit knowledge in professional work, British Journal of
Educational Psychology, 70, 113136.
Johnson, S. (2011). 10 tips to get started with peer coaching. Development Crossroads. Retrieved
from http://developmentcrossroads.com/2011/10/10-tips-to-get-started-with-peer-coaching/



Section 2
2.1 Provide constructive feedback to individuals and groups

Feedback often conveys directional information to the recipient. It also carries out emotional
weights as well as coercion. Feedback should be given based on the areas that necessitate
improvement. It is a good practice to start with the positive things at first. If the individual is doing it
right, leaders must praise them. It must on contain words that make the employee feel criticized.
Possible improvement alternatives can also be recommended as constructive feedback (Friedman,
2010).

2.2 Design processes for receiving feedback from others

Leaders must define the rules (i.e. written form or letters) for providing feedback. However,
depending on the need of the organizational situations they can also provide and receive verbal
feedback.
Only providing feedback is not enough to complete the feedback process. Leaders must be willing
to listen to the recipients feedbacks too. Moreover, leaders must encourage subordinates to
provide feedbacks. They must grow a willingness and supportive attitude for the workers so that
they approach openness towards receiving constructive criticisms

2.3 Act upon feedback with a positive and receptive attitude

It is the duty of management to inspire the employees to act upon the constructive criticism and
provide constructive feedback back to managers from their end. Managers must approach a
positive and receptive approach for feedback. If they find out an employee is showing reluctance in
receiving or giving proper feedback, they need to help him or her understand the positive impacts
of feedback on the growth of both individuals and organization.

If the managers find a group of employees not performing up to the standards, rather than acting
upon in a negative way, leaders can emphasize and clearly describe what is actually being expected.
Further, they should consult about the issues with the team members and figure out the reasons
that are working behind the teams lack of performance, and then recommend some key actions to
solve the problem.

2.4 Demonstrate how to delegate tasks and responsibilities

Some steps for successful delegation of responsibilities and tasks are pointed out below:

When handling the specifications of the task, make it as clear and deliberate as possible
Select the right individual or group of individuals for delegating the task
Assess their ability and training needs. Train them develop their skills if needed.
Explain the reasons to the individual or team of why the task has been delegated to them.
Discuss the task at hand. Discuss ideas; mutually set goals and objectives
Make sure that they understand their responsibilities and are prepared to take the
responsibility.
Clearly state the expected level of output and explain the way their performance will be
measured.
Examine if all required resources of the task are made available to them
Let them know if there is anything of special priorities and how they can deal with that.
Set a realistic deadline for the task submission.
Provide them with adequate support when they are carrying out the responsibilities or
accomplishing the tasks.
Keep regular communication, follow up and monitor progress
Evaluate and then provide feedback on results
Recognize and reward them upon successful completion of the task.



2.5 Demonstrate how to build effective work teams

The most important step of team building is to approach the right leadership style. Then, it is a must
to formulate team building plan, which includes:

Establishing teams values, objectives and goals
Setting ground rules for them
Developing team skills and empowering members by providing training and learning
facilities
Delegate tasks and responsibilities to the team
Being precise and clear when making communications
Helping them to clearly understand what they are intended to accomplish
Facilitating communication between team members
Inspiring them to share ideas and information
Making the team members feel that each of them are playing an important role
Inspiring brainstorming, idea-generation through team discussion
Counting on each members ideas and opinions

2.6 Demonstrate how to build highly performing executive teams

Defining the goals of the executive teams: (i.e. developing strategic and operating plans)
Determining who is responsible for what and how the plan is to be executed (i.e. assigning
roles and responsibilities)
Defining how they should interact with each other, who reports to whom, and the way of
information circulation (i.e. determining the type of work relationship among members)
Applying managerial concepts to promote efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity
Arranging regular meetings and encouraging active participation to develop collaboration,
cooperation and coordination
Finally, developing understanding, integrity, and trust for establishing better team
relationship

2.7 Agree and draw up development plans for individuals and teams

Providing learning opportunities at workplace that match to the specific knowledge and skill
requirements of competency standards
Working to develop the workplace environment to make it sure that the learning delivery
methods are suitable to the goals and objectives
Ensuring appropriate coaching and mentoring assistance are provided to help individual and
teams achieve competencies
Providing individuals and teams with supportive resources that boost up their learning
process (Watanabe, 2011)


2.8 Design strategies for developing informal coaching skills

Deciding the characteristics of leadership to foster the development of informal coaching
skills
Arranging short or long, one-to-one or within a group, and open-ended conversations
Try different approaches, e.g., book review, problem-solving, professional development
strategies, etc. (Walling, n.d.)
During a conversation manager will ask questions and listen to see what team members can
come up with.
Being responsive to the informal learners and evaluating their responses
Appreciating contribution and providing feedback

2.9 Design strategies for empowering others

Clearly specify the vision, communicate it in every possible way within the organization, and
educate the employees about organization, its objectives, operational processes,
achievements, and limitations.
To utilize workers personal values, sense of self-determination, self-sufficiency, and
distinctiveness
To support the employees in recognizing their personal values, emotions, and views to help
them better recognize their potential
To utilize their distinctiveness not only to benefit the workplace but also to empower
themselves (Plas, 1996)


References
Friedman, S. (2010). How to cultivate a peer coaching network. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved
from http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/02/cultivate_your_coaching_networ.html
Watanabe, T. (2011). 10 Peer Coaching Tips in 10 Minutes at ISTE. wwwatanabe. Retrieved from
http://wwwatanabe.blogspot.com/2011/06/10-peer-coaching-tips-in-10-minutes-at.html
Walling, T. (n.d.). The Power of Peer Coaching. Retrieved from
http://leaderbreakthru.com/_mediafiles/10TipsPeerCoaching.pdf
Plas, J.M. (1996). Person-Centered eadership, An American approach to participatory management.
Thousand Oaks: Sage.











Section 3
3.1 Share organisational values, vision and mission with others

Administrative managers must clearly define organizational mission, vision, values and goals. They
must clearly communicate the mission, vision, goals to everyone involved with the business.
Administrative managers have to have a clear understanding about all business processes of the
organizations they are working for. They need to be able to identify the core reasons where the
organization is heading forward to and where it was supposed to be. If the administrative managers
do not have a clear understanding of the values, goals and mission of the organization and they do
not have the ability to make it clear to others who are directly or indirectly involved with the
organization, it would be impossible for others to help the administrative managers to reach to the
destination. They should also interconnect and interlinked the businesss mission, vision, values,
and goals strongly into those of each individual so that in achieving individual goals visions, business
goals visions are also achieved.

After defining and communicating the organizational values, vision and mission properly with
others, managers should deploy more time for each individuals involved with the organization to
make it sure that every single of them has accepted the mission and has built a strong feeling that
the mission also plays an important role for them. It is the also important to help them have a clear
understanding of what sort of contribution is expected from them, how their effort can contribute
to the achievement of missions, and how their performance will measured.
Identifying and communicating organizational values among employees are another major
responsibility of administrative managers. Core organizational values form employees particular set
of attitudes and behaviors when they work within the organizational environment. It also helps
them in prioritizing and ordering things when conflict arises in making decisions based on the
organizational importance.


3.2 Set goals for individuals and teams in realistic organizational situations

Goals are relatively broader statement, so take much time to reach. Goals are often seen to be
overwhelming if not clearly road-mapped. Administrative managers must be able to set individual
goals in such a way that does not only seem to be a proper reflection of the organizational goals,
but also even more realistic part of organizational goals that are set based on organizational
situations. When setting realistic goals for individuals and teams, managers must make it sure that
they are stated to-the-point, easily measureable, and, of course, attainable in a timely manner. To
be perfectly effective, goals for individuals and teams must be represented in a written form as
written goals not only leave no room for confusion and misunderstanding, but also serve as a
reminder for the employees. Further, managers must be able to quantify the output and examine
the timeliness of goal accomplishments so that they can assess the overall progress if the business
processes in terms of its forwardness to achieving goals.

Researchers found that goals have a better impact on the overall performance of the employees if
they are well-maintained, focused, established based on priorities, and, last but not the least, able
to produce superior job satisfaction. Managers should continuously review and reevaluate the goals
and call for changes as the situations of the organization changes over time. Failure to set different
goals according to the changed organizational situations not only hampers the progress of the
organization but also may crate monotonousness among employees.


Demonstrate how to resolve conflicts and solve problems in organizational
situations

Varney (1989) opined that conflict is the most occurring problem for most of the groups that are
serving within a big company, even after repeated training sessions on how to solve conflict and
how to diminish the harmful impact on group members. Some common causes of conflict in the
organizational context are- inadequate or unavailability of resources (finance, equipment, facilities,
etc), dissimilar attitudes, values among workers, interpretation and perception, disagreement about
needs, goals, priorities and interests, barriers to communication, poor organizational structure, lack
of group work, lack of precision in describing roles and responsibilities, etc. Conflict can happen for
several reasons and generally falls into three categories: communication factors, structural factors
and personal factors (Varney, 1989). Five effective strategies for dealing with conflicts are: Direct
Approach, Bargaining, Enforcement, Retreat, and De-emphasis. (Nelson, 1995)

Direct Approach: It focuses on the top level managers based on the current conflicting issues. It is a
good practice to face conflicts directly and analyze the situation objectively. Many scholars suggest
not using criticisms. However, if needed, managers must use constructive criticism.

Bargaining: According to most of the scholars, bargaining is the most effective technique for dealing
with conflicts. This is because, in the bargaining technique, both of the parties get an opportunity to
talk about their issues and point of views. This helps the team leaders to clearly identify the
problem and then come up with an idea for conflict resolution.

Enforcement of Team Rules: When all other techniques are applied and proved to be failed in
solving the conflict, enforcement is the final option to go for; however, many scholars suggest that
managers must try their best to avoid using this enforcement method as it can create hard feelings
among employees and management.

Retreat: It helps managers to prevent minor conflicting incidents that might turn into a real
problem. Leaders apply this method by simply avoiding smaller conflicts or working around it so
individuals get enough time to cool off.

De-emphasis: It is another form of bargaining method where the leaders put an even greater
emphasis on the areas of agreement and guide the conflicting individuals/groups towards a mutual
agreement. When two conflicting individuals find that there are much better scopes for agreement,
chances are more they can get themselves out of conflicts.

3.4 Design strategies for improving creativity in organisations

To emphasis on the importance of creativity and innovation in organizations, West & Farr (1990)
commented that The importance of new ideas cannot be overstated. Ideas and their
manifestations as practices and products are the core of social change. The strategies for
improving creativity can be designed as it is discussed below:

Creating a flexible work environment
One simple yet effective way to foster creativity in organization is to develop a flexible, employee
friendly and open work environment that persuades employees to think outside of the box. When I
worked as a part time online researcher in ABC Company, it provided its workers with snacks after
every two hours and 20 minutes time-off after every three hours. Organizations should develop
an environment where the employees do not feel overwhelmed by too much work pressure and are
encouraged to communicate and share their ideas, opinions, and views. They should also be given a
scope for their personal development.

Facilitate networking
Research shows that those organizations are more likely to perform better whose employees have
the opportunity to invest time for their personal growth and development. For example, Google
allows its developers to work on their personal project one full day in a week. Helping employees
by providing them with adequate training and education about new trends and development
processes will result superior proficiency and efficiency. This can also be accomplished by
facilitating the employees to be introduced with other forward thinking professionals who can offer
a different perspective and way of critical thinking.

Encourage Diversity
In order to avoid groupthink so that different set of creative ideas can be generated from a
homogenized team, it is essential to develop a workplace system where the team members can
embrace diversity. It also helps homogenized teams to utilize the strengths of individual members.
It will also intrinsically motivate the team members to solve critical problems and come up with
more creative ideas.

Provide excitement and fun
Boredom and cold workplace environment are two major reasons that prevent employees from
being creative. Its natural that people tend to concentrate less on things that they dont feel
comfortable with. Developing a playful and fun culture within the organization makes employees
more engaged, motivated, and passionate about their jobs and thus facilitate creativity or idea
generation. For example, Zappos provides its workers with a positive, fun, and zany workplace
environment, which all accelerates employee performance.

3.5 Design processes for diagnosing problems related to performance

Answering some key questions can help diagnose performance related problem:
How the work system is causing individuals or teams to fail?
Does the individual or team understand what sorts of outcomes are expected?
Does the individual or team have the required competence for accomplishing the task?
Is the individual or team practicing effective work management?
Has an effective feedback system been established?
Are the members of the team deploying their best efforts? If not, what can motivate them?
Does the individual or team understand how their contribution fits into the bigger system of
works within the organization?
Does the individual or team know what factors constitute success for the organization?
Does the individual or team is properly recognized and rewarded for their performance?
Does the individual feel valued and important for the task she is accomplishing?
3.6 Design strategies for addressing issues which affect performance

In order to prevent issues that affect performance, these steps written below should be taken into
account:
Develop a better work system that support employee performance by fostering both
effectiveness and efficiency
Help individuals understand what sorts of outcomes are expected from them
If an individual or a team does not have the required competence for accomplishing the
task, additional training facilities should be provided.
They need to be taught all the techniques of practicing effective work management
An effective feedback system needs to be established
Proper recognition should be given and reward should be awarded to the deserving
individuals to keep them motivated to perform better.

Reference
Varney, G. H. (1989). Building productive teams: An action guide and resource book. San Francisco,
CA: Josey-Bass, Inc
Nelson, M. (1995). Interpersonal team leadership skills. Hospital Material Management Quarterly,
16 (4), 53 63
M.A. West & J.L. Farr (1990). Innovation and creativity at work: Psychological and organizational
strategies. Chichester: Wiley, 3-13.

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