Description: This course provides an understanding of the principles underpinning the leadership and management of people. Managing people involves working with individuals, teams and at the organisational level.

Background: The materials in this subject have been organised sequentially, starting with individual aspects of OB and moving onto looking at the group and organisational level. We then look at leadership and end with topics that require the integration of all of these topics – change and crisis management and managing conflict.

Each stage contains summary notes and details of compulsory reading from which will be drawn the knowledge check multiple-choice questions. There are also some additional readings if you want to extend your knowledge and a reflection question to help you link the materials you have been reading to your own experiences.

Description: This course explores how to lead individuals and groups in ways that help them better perform.

Background: Motivation is anything that provides direction, intensity, and persistence to behavior. Motivation comes into play whenever someone chooses an activity or task to engage in, puts forth a certain level of effort toward this activity, and persists with this effort for some time. Like personality traits and types, motivation is not directly observable; it must be inferred from behavior.

Description: This course identifies concepts and develops techniques to manage and lead effectively and explore what works best in a given situation. This requires the deployment of particular behaviour, skills and emotions that elicit the most positive responses from other people.

Background: Performance management is “an integrated set of practices and activities for defining, reviewing, providing feedback and counselling and is now commonly devolved to supervisors” (Nankervis, 2017, p. 326). It is one of the most controversial aspects of management practice, particularly when having to deal with poor performance and it is one task many managers resent having to undertake. However, evidence suggests that it can be critical to effective businesses.

Different organisations use the PM system for a range of purposes that can include:
• Measuring and recording performance,
• Setting goals,
• Determining salary and/or bonusses,
• Career planning,
• Succession planning,
• Making decisions regarding promotion and termination,
• Communicating the goal and vision of the organisation,
• Giving and receiving performance feedback.

Nankervis has represented the process as a cycle rather than a linear process:

This course identifies concepts and develops techniques to manage and lead effectively and explore what works best in a given situation. This requires the deployment of particular behaviour, skills and emotions that elicit the most positive responses from other people.

Description: In this course the theory of managing and leading are introduced and we explore what it means for you as a leader and the ways you behave on a day-to-day basis to encourage the best responses from others.

Background: There are several key distinctions between management and leadership. This was discussed in Stage 1 but another way of looking at leadership and management was developed by Mintzberg (1990) based on an extensive study that observed what managers actually spent their time doing. The Leader Role, pervades all managerial behaviour and influences how leaders perform other roles. These roles include; hiring and training, giving instructions and coaching and evaluating performance.

Description: This course examines the various Models of Change and assists you to use the most appropriate models in situations that involve: Revolutionary Change and Disruption; Crisis; Conflict; and Quantum Skills.

Background: Leading and managing change is about how leaders mobilize others to get extraordinary things done in organisations. It’s about the practices leaders use to transform values, create a vision and work towards a shared outcome. Effective crisis management is a particular type of change. Leading disruption requires sound and swift decision-making, and neither can happen without some kind of pre-planning. Many leaders face crises, imposed by external circumstances that require a rallying of people. The key to inspiring people at all levels during difficult times is having leaders at all levels in the organization, who can look beyond the present problems and emerge with new possibilities. Building trust and empowering people to solve current problems at each level in the organization goes a long way in developing a strong team of leaders who can take on future challenges or face the crisis.

A corporate crisis is defined as “…a perception that an individual or set of individuals faces a potentially negative outcome unless some type of corrective action is taken”. Crisis management is a relatively new field of management. Crisis management has become an important component of managing a business. Today, no business is immune to crisis. It can attack an organization in the shape of natural calamity, terrorists attack, industrial accidents, etc. It often threatens the public image of a business where the company’s image and pride are at its stake. The challenge of a crisis is the ultimate test of leader’s character. Anticipating crisis is a matter of strategic planning and risk management, but each crisis that manifests itself, must be dealt with adeptly by leaders who must then deal with the long-term implications of the crisis for the business and bring about the required change.

Change management plays a very important role in the latter stages of crisis management. Change management, in fact, is becoming synonymous with management itself. Organisational change is defined as the process by which an organization changes its structure, strategies, operational methods, technologies, or organizational culture to affect the change within the organization, and the effects of these changes on the organization.

Any business will run into times of difficulty and at those times, business crisis management and the competent management of change is needed to take the appropriate action to steer the organization back onto the right path. Leadership and crisis management go hand in hand in times of trouble. All managers should familiarize themselves with crisis management theory.