Assignment for class MBA-7104
Please find below the assignment for the MBA class 7104. Please Wechat me if you have any question my friend.
Assessment Number
1
Assessment Type (and weighting)
Report (50%) – 3000 words
Assessment Name
Reflective Report on Leadership Behaviour and Skills
Assessment Submission Date
15/08/2020
Learning Outcomes Assessed:
LO2: Present a critical synthesis of leadership behaviour and skills literature drawing on academic sources and practical guides.
LO3: Critically analyse and reflect on own leadership behaviour and skills and develop justified and creative strategies for professional and personal development.
Assignment Task One (50% of Total Marks) – 3000 words
Task and General Guidelines
This written assignment requires you to produce a critical analysis of your skills, attributes, work preferences/general style at work together with a ‘Personal Development Plan’. You should use the format specified with the headings/sub- headings indicated below. The emphasis for the assignment must be your development as a future manager/leader. The concept underpinning this assignment is that it is only when knows oneself can real development take place.
Please follow the following format:
1. Records Section
In this section you should include brief details of your work experience and qualifications in the form of a curriculum vitae (no more than 2 pages). Please note that a CV is essential.
Note: CV is not part of the word count
You should also include in this section evidence of any self-assessment instruments, which you have used, together with evidence of seeking the views of others in regard to your skills, qualities, and general attitudes. It is expected that you will use most of the self-assessment instruments used in class (e.g. work preferences, drivers, negotiating/conflict handling style, leadership style and problem-solving style) as well as others, which you discover for yourself.
You should briefly explain what you understand by each theory and also provide an explanation and critical discussion of what your scores mean. A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) should be provided as a summary.
2. Analysis Section
In this section you should critically analyse and reflect on two work experiences. The experiences, which you refer to, should be ‘critical incidents/experiences’, that is, those crucial incidents that you can remember long after the event (e.g. an unsatisfactory encounter with a customer or manager or about situations where you are uncomfortable). Since this is a personal development course these incidences should demonstrate your developmental needs.
You should critically discuss situations where you realize that you could have achieved a better outcome. In discussing the incidences, you should refer to some of the models/self-assessment instruments, which you have used in the Records Section.
3. Personal Development Plan Section
You should generate a detailed personal development plan by identifying three developmental objectives, based on the work carried out in the previous sections. State how you think you will achieve these and indicate in which ways things will be different once you have made progress.
ANSWER
Table of Contents
1.2. Eleven Qualities of Effective Management 6
1.3. Big Five Trait Locator. 8
1.5. Tolerance and Ambiguity. 12
1.7. Myers-Brigg Personality Indicator. 14
1.8. Learning Style Inventory. 16
3.1. Work Experience Analysis. 20
3.1.1. Food & Beverage Operation Manager, Starwood-Sheraton, Macao. 20
3.1.2. Senior Food & Beverage Manager, Hotel Lan Kwai Fong, China Star HK group. 21
4.0. Personal Development Plan Section. 22
4.1. Developmental Objectives. 22
4.2. Proposed Initiatives for Development 22
1.0. Records Section
1.1. Vincent Lai Resume
Employment History
April 2018 – Present
Director of Business Development, BC Wine & Food Company Limited, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Macau, Vietnam, Cambodia
- Responsible for the management of all strategic and operational Marketing and Customer Relationship activities for Asia Region.
- Negotiate business terms from start, drafting contracts to deal closure and project launching pipeline.
- Functions as the consultant of the client’s Food & Beverage business to oversee their service & kitchen operation.
- Responsible for planning and coordination of project F&B operations, including restaurants, bars, cigar facilities, banquets, staffing and financial projections.
- Analyse and manage budget report to enable the development of clients’ specific Food & Beverage campaigns/ promotions to drive revenue and meet objectives.
- Research, develop, compose, coordinate and host trade programs for Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia.
- Evaluate client’s business trends to modify strategies that deliver products and services to meet or exceed the needs and expectations of their customer.
- Creates positive profile awareness through the media representatives on all aspects of F&B marketing for clients’ brand. Liaison with the contracted PR Company to provide product briefing. Achieve targeted media exposure goals.
- Planning and coordinating the implementation of business plans and the penetration of new markets.
November 2013 – March 2018
Senior Food & Beverage Manager, Hotel Lan Kwai Fong, China Star HK group
- Hired, trained, and supervised Managers and Chefs and their staff of 386 F&B employees and reduced employee turnover from 50% to 25%.
- Responsible for the development of all budgets, forecasts, purchase specifications, operating equipment needs, menu development, food production control, job descriptions resulting grew of food and beverage revenue and increased profitability consistently by 8% yearly from 2014-2018.
- Consistently implementing auditing of compliance with procedures and processes for the F&B department.
- Manage and assists subordinate Managers and Chefs in service and menus preparation to formulate new promotional programs for restaurant operations activities, promotions, menus implementations and F&B events that reduced total food and beverage costs by 15%.
- Find ways of maximizing and increasing yield and ways of improving the efficiency of operations for the F&B department.
- Coordination with Operational Finance team on F&B operations including F&B finance dashboards, analytics for restaurants/operations, budgeting for hotel F&B operations
- Interview, select, train, appraise, counsel, and disciplines departmental employees/managers according to company standards.
- Collaborating with internal departments to maximize the efficiency of problem resolution and delivery of support services.
March 2012 – November 2013
Food & Beverage Operation Manager, Starwood-Sheraton, Macao
- Assist the EAM of F&B in controlling and analysing on-going basis for guest satisfaction and marketing; operating costs; sanitation, cleanliness and hygiene follow Starwood standard.
- Work with associates in service and kitchens in preparation and formulate new promotional ideas that would impact the revenues and profitability of the venue.
- Review operating results with the F&B managers to identify opportunities to improve performance.
- Ensure all cashiering procedures are processed in compliance with accounting standards. Monitor and minimize wastage of consumables and maintain labour productivity ratios.
- Find ways of maximizing and increasing sales or yield and ways of improving the efficiency of operations.
- Supervise, mentor, train, schedule and evaluate F&B department, management staff.
Education Background
MBA – University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
Bachelor’s Degree – SEGI College, Malaysia
Diploma in Hospitality – Taylor College, Malaysia
1.2. Eleven Qualities of Effective Management
Eleven qualities of effective management is a questionnaire developed by Pedler et al (1978). It concentrated on the second level of management effectiveness which included a manager as a professional and the science of management. The components are as shown in Figure 1.2.1 below:
Figure 1.2.1: 11 Qualities of the Effective Manager
Source: Pedler, M.J., Burgoyne, J.G. and Boydell, T.H. A manager’s guide to self-development. Maidenhead, McGraw-Hill, 1978
Self-Assessment
In understanding team dynamics and encouraging good relationships, the author scored 10 out of 15. In this part, a manager is supposed to understand how teamwork and with a score of 66% the task lies in improving through the development of skills designed to steer differences in a positive direction. The second test was on selecting and developing the right people and the score was 9 out of 10, which is a fundamental part of building a team. The third test was on effective delegation of tasks which the author scored a 5 out of 10 and needs to improve on it. Assigning of tasks to team members is not about finding the most available personnel but the people with the skill and motivation to do the task effectively and efficiently.
The fourth question referred to the author’s ability to motivate people where he scores 9 out of 10. It is paramount for any manager to remember the importance of motivation and that it defers from person to person and knowing the team better enables improves the motivation strategy. The fifth test was on managing discipline and dealing with conflict where the author scored 7 out of 15. Every manager understands that discipline has a direct effect on the team. Performance suffers when difference s amongst team members cause conflicts and the author needs to improve on recognising conflict and dealing with its causes rather than suppressing its symptoms. On communication and the sixth test, the author scored 16 out of 20 which strengths in particular fields such as keeping the team informed on progress and serving as a moderator where necessary. On the seventh test on planning, problem-solving and decision making, the author scored 8 out of 10 where he seemed very comfortable in planning and problem-solving. Lastly, on avoiding common managerial mistakes, the author scored 9 out of 15. A common mistake observed from the test is the belief of the author that he can rely on technical skills alone, asking his seniors to solve problems in his stead and failing to provide constant updates to seniors at all times.
Figure 1.2.2 below shows the score interpretation of the eleven qualities of effective management questionnaire.
Figure 1.2.2: Score interpretation of the 11 Qualities of Effective Management Questionnaire
Source: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_28.htm
1.3. Big Five Trait Locator
Many psychologists believe that there are five major dimensions of personality largely classified into agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, neurotics and extraversion, commonly referred to with the acronym OCEAN or CANOE (PositivePsychology.com). The Big Five Trait Locator is universal and could refer to any culture to accurately describe personality.
Figure 1.3.1: Big Five Personality Traits: The OCEAN Model Explained
Source: https://positivepsychology.com/big-five-personality-theory/
Self-Assessment
The author’s test results are as displayed below on Chart 1.3.2 on the big five personality traits test.
On openness, the author scored 96% which describes the author’s ability and tendency to think in abstract and complex ways. This refers to the author’s highly creative, adventurous and intellectual ways and enjoys a lot of novel ideas and discoveries. On conscientiousness, the author scored 71% which describes the author’s ability to be self-disciplined and controlled with regards to their goals. The lowest score was on extraversion where the author scored 42%. Extraversion describes the character of an individual to get stimulation from the outside world especially in the form of attention from other people. Below 50% as in this case, the author tends to content with quiet and simple lives barely ever looking for people’s attention. On Agreeableness, the author scored 77% referring to the ability of the author to put other people’s needs before their own and cooperation rather than competition. This also means that the author is empathetic and receives pleasure from service to others. Another important detail of this character is that they are trusting and forgiving. Lastly, on the neuroticism test, the author scored 50%. This test is one to establish the tendency of the author to experience negative emotions among them; sadness, guilt, anxiety, fear and shame.
Chart 1.3.2: Big Five Personality Traits: The OCEAN Model Explained
Source: https://www.truity.com/personality-test/17315/test-results/23699483
1.4. Locus of Control
Locus of control describes the degree to which individuals trust that they are responsible for what happens in their lives rather than external forces. The idea was designed and developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954. Figure 1.4.1 below describes the Locus of Control by Rotter (1954).
Figure 1.4.1: Locus of Control
Source: Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological monographs: General and applied, 80(1), 1.
Self-Assessment
From the author’s responses, he demonstrated a high internal locus of control where he believes that the events in his life are a product of his choices and within his control. This is also referred to as the growth mindset where such people believe that “people are capable of learning anything and doing anything they set their minds to” (Rotter 1966). Greatness is made and not born. Such people are sceptical about anything paranormal or supernatural and are barely superstitious. They criticise themselves hard when they fail to achieve their goals and have a strong drive to do and be the best to succeed. In the long term, people with high internal locus become very successful achievers.
1.5. Tolerance and Ambiguity
This test refers to a psychological construct that demonstrated the relationship between people and stimuli or events and their tendency to interpret ambiguous situations as threats. This concept is based on the work of Adrian Furnham (1995).
Self-Assessment
Test assessment results are as follows:
Figure 1.4.1: Locus of Control
Source: Furnham, A., Ribchester, T. Tolerance of ambiguity: A review of the concept, its measurement and applications. Current Psychology 14, 179–199 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686907
1.6. Cognitive Style
The cognitive style also referred to as thinking style is a psychological concept that describes the way people think, remember, make decisions, solve problems, give attention and analyse information. This test answers questions like, “How can several people look at one common object and describe it correctly, yet in so many different ways? And, why is it that people exhibit the same variability when experiencing identical events?” Psychologists have proven that the degree to which children are exposed at a young age to different experiences mould their personalities and affects how they understand and interpret things. There are three major cognitive styles among them, levelling-sharpening, field-dependence/field-independence, and reflectivity-impulsivity (Brumby 1982).
Levelling and Sharpening represent the way a person utilises memory while attempting to process new experiences using previous experience. Field-dependence/independence entails the ability to discriminate things such as the ones in sight or auditory and lastly reflectivity and impulsivity refers to analysis and problem-solving approach. Figure 1.6.1 matches thinking styles to possible careers.
Figure 1.6.1: What’s your thinking style?
Self-Assessment
No proper online test was available.
1.7. Myers-Brigg Personality Indicator
The Myers-Briggs Indicator is a personality test based on psychology theories described by C.G. Jung that can be useful in a person establishing and understanding themselves. The test itself was developed by Isabel Briggs Myers, and her mother, Katharine Briggs (MyersBriggs.org). The 16 personality types are as shown in Figure 1.7.1 below.
Figure 1.7.1: The Myers Briggs Personality Types Indicator
Source: https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/
Self-Assessment
Assessment findings from the test website 16 Personalities, (https://www.16personalities.com/ ), indicate that the author is of the INFP-T personality with scores as indicates in Table 1.7.2 below:
|
Table 1.7.1: The Myers Briggs Personality Test Results
Source: https://www.16personalities.com/
From the results, the author is introverted, preferring solitary activities and often getting exhausted by social interaction. With this comes natural sensitivity to external stimulation such as sound, sight and smell. The author is also very intuitive where he is more imaginative, open-minded and curious. Such character prefers novelty rather than stability and pays attention to the hidden meaning of life and various future possibilities. The author demonstrates a high level of feeling rather than thinking where he is sensitive and emotionally expressive. A direct result of this is that this makes the author more empathetic and less competitive and focused on social harmony and cooperation. The author demonstrates a capability to prospect hence excellent at improvising and spotting opportunity. He is also a nonconformist, flexible and relaxed who prefers keeping all options open. Lastly, the author is turbulent making himself conscious and sensitive to stress hence likely to experience a wide range of emotions, success-driven, perfectionist and eager to improve.
1.8. Learning Style Inventory
Learning styles are designed to help learners determine their learning styles.
Self-Assessment
Score:
| Auditory | 15% |
| Visual | 40% |
| Tactile | 70% |
Table 1.8.1: Learning Styles Test Results
Source: http://www.educationplanner.org/
From the table above, the author is a tactile learner, learning things by touching and doing. To understand things better, the author needs to engage in physical movement that includes touching, moving, building or drawing. The author needs to be active to learn and often speaks with his hands and gestures making it difficult for him to sit still. He can take things apart and then put them back together to learn how they work while at the same time being well-coordinated and good athletic ability. He could have difficulty remembering things he saw or heard but remember things exactly as he saw them.
1.9. Leadership Style
For the leadership style, the author used the ‘Your Leadership Legacy’ assessment to find out more about his leadership style.
Self-Assessment
On being an ambassador, he scored 20/25, advocate 19/25, people mover 17/25, truth-seeker 21/25, creative builder 13/25 and experienced guide 22/25. The two topmost leadership skills are experienced guide and truth-seeker. The author often reads a lot, particularly, philosophy, which makes him have some sort of experience wisdom that comes in handy when giving advice and it makes sense that it is one it is his strongest leadership quality. From an analysis of the past, the author has a character instilled from a young age by his parents to always do the right thing and to tell the truth pursuing it even in its most unwanted forms. And it makes sense that it is his second strongest quality. The two are not very different from each other since they have some relation but vary depending on the circumstances. For instance, he will expect a technician lagging in his or her work to come clean to him as a supervisor but at the same time, he will have a few recommendations for him or her on how to improve productivity.
His leadership style that leans more towards coaching and mentoring and well as being hands-on. Considering technical tasks, being hands-on will have some serious perks. Presence of a leader on the ground especially on the tasks that seem quite tough builds a lot of motivation for the team because it promotes the feeling of togetherness and propels the idea that the objectives of the initiative are jointly owned by everyone in the company and not just management. The author’s leadership styles seek to promote cooperation and teamwork while at the same time ensuring comprehensive coverage and accuracy.
1.10. Listening Skills
Listening skills are brought in the difference between hearing and listening. The ability to hear s basically, innate while the ability to listen is a skill that must be developed and practised. Having listening skills means paying attention and making a conscious effort to analyse what is being said. Listening plays a vital role in communication.
Self-Assessment
On a self-assessment test, the author score 4 out of 10 indicating his poor listening skills. Drastic improvement is required.
2.0. SWOT Analysis
A SWOT analysis helps in defining strengths, weakness while analysing possible threats and opportunities.
Table 2.0.1: SWOT Analysis
Source: Own Illustration
3.0. Analysis Section
3.1. Work Experience Analysis
3.1.1. Food & Beverage Operation Manager, Starwood-Sheraton, Macao
Starwood Sheraton is a five-star casino resort hotel in Macao under the global corporation Marriott International founded by J. Willard and Alice Marriot in 1927. The company has a strong principle of culture and diversity. An incident at the resort a while back where the author was called on by one of his subordinates about a client who felt that the hotel was not up to his satisfactory levels. The client was yelling at the staff and calling the author had been demanded by the client who even on arrival continued screaming. After various failed attempts to calm him down, the author admits to having lost his temper and called security on the client who was a regular at the hotel and who always spent a lot on the premises. The issue was brought before the author’s superiors and he was admonished and forced to write an apology to the client.
3.1.2. Senior Food & Beverage Manager, Hotel Lan Kwai Fong, China Star HK group
At Hotel Lan Kwai Fong, the author was responsible for hiring more than 500 employees for the company. Here he was faced with the challenge of training and getting involved in the personal lives of his employees. Further than that many looked to him as a role model and for the first time, the author admits to having been scared of failing all those who looked up to him having never been responsible for anyone else before. His extraversion skills were called to test where he constantly needed to address various issues with personnel and t was a great learning experience. By the end of his employment period in the hotel, a few of his employees shed tears at his leaving having grown too fond of him. This marked a great milestone for the author that he had been able to capture and maintain commitment and adoration from his employees while at the same time training, coaching and admonishing them at the workplace.
4.0. Personal Development Plan Section
Table 4.0.1: Personal Development Plan
Source: Own Illustration
References
Brumby, Margaret N. Consistent Differences in Cognitive Styles for Qualitative Biological Problem-Solving. British Journal of Educational Psychology 52 (1982):244-257
Furnham, A., Ribchester, T. Tolerance of ambiguity: A review of the concept, its measurement and applications. Current Psychology 14, 179–199 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686907
Mankel, K., & Bidelman, G. M. (2018). Inherent auditory skills rather than formal music training shape the neural encoding of speech. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(51), 13129-13134.
Pedler, M.J., Burgoyne, J.G. and Boydell, T.H. A manager’s guide to self-development. Maidenhead, McGraw-Hill, 1978.
Positive Psychology. Big Five Personality Traits: The OCEAN Model Explained. Retrieved on 27th July 2020 from https://positivepsychology.com/big-five-personality-theory/
Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological monographs: General and applied, 80(1), 1.
Tanaka, H., Negoro, H., Iwasaka, H., & Nakamura, S. (2018, October). Listening skills assessment through computer agents. In Proceedings of the 20th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (pp. 492-496).
The Myers & Briggs Foundation. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Basics. Retrieved on 27th July 2020 from https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/
Turnnidge, J., & Côté, J. (2019). Observing coaches’ leadership behaviours: The development of the coach leadership assessment system (CLAS). Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science, 23(3), 214-226.
