Leadership Approaches at Bears in the Woods Retreat

Approaches to Management

Approaches Used by Management at Bears in the Woods Retreat The style of leadership followed by Grey and Bo is as follows:

Consultative style of leadership is followed where management asks for opinion from employees before making decisions, which is democratic leadership. The employers ask the employees for methods through which they could improve business and actively involve them in the decision-making process (Trueick, 2017).

Bo and Grey frequently leave the business to the employees while they go to New Zealand, suggesting a highly participative form of employment where trust is present (Indeed, 2021).

This is also indicative of the laissez-faire style of management, where there is minimal interruptions from the management and the staff manages by themselves. This is made evident by the fact that the owners leave the staff for months at a time and go to New Zealand. They delegate the tasks to their managers and trust the staff enough to leave the carrying-out of the functions of the place to their discretion, which is understandable considering the expertise and the duration of the employees have spent in the organisation fulfilling their roles.

There is also the component of a kind of collaborative operations in the organisation as there are meetings held periodically, which is attended by all the members of the staff, no matter what designation they hold in the organisation (Pialat, 2020).

Four approaches how Rufus and Maud manage the employees under them are as follows:

Coaching management style: Rufus and Maud work with a small group of employees, who live in close proximity to each other. They are personally invested in the growth of their employees as they frequently encourage Silas to take on a more managerial role in the organisation (Ibarra and Scouler, 2019).

The approach followed by Rufus and Maud, recently, has resembled an autocratic style of approach, in the context of the last busy season when Grey and Bo were not in the country. They have introduced certain measures like the ‘deli-style’ food and the ‘posh’ camping equipment. Some of the guests have complained about how the expensive camping equipment is something that they find difficult to afford but they have not been able to tell Maud and Rufus that, which is indicative of the fact that guests do not feel comfortable being very forthcoming with the (valamis.com).

This kind of leadership style is also evident in some of the other actions like Rufus taking weekly reports from the staff in order to monitor the results of the staff closely.

This authoritative style of leadership is also evident in the rigid style of bargain which Maud followed with a cheese supplier, prompting the owners to think that their management style. It was reported to Bo that Maud was trying to push for a greater bargain with the cheese supplier. This is against the democratic style of leadership as Bo and Grey were not informed of this decision to bargain with the cheese supplier and democratic style of leadership is usually participative in nature (Jakhar, 2017).

Leadership

The leadership style is based according to the leadership styles put forward by Daniel Goleman (2000) and Boone and Snowden (2007).

Leadership Style of Bo and Grey:

They have an affiliative style of leadership, whereby they involve the people in the decision making process. This is evident in their initiatives to hold meetings whereby every decision of the organisation is taken after consultation with the employees.

The affiliative style of their leadership is also evident by the way that they create a communicative space for the employees, whereby employees openly communicated with them about their dissatisfaction with Maud and Rufus’s management (Goleman, 2000).

Their leadership is also simple in style, whereby they have a small group of employees and communication is usually direct.

The leadership style is simple as the relationships the owners have with employees is casual and familial, as they are given home-cooked meals and in-house accomdation (Boone and Snowden, 2007)

Leadership Style of Maud and Rufus:

The positive part of their leadership is that it coaching in style, whereby they encourage workers like Silas to take an active role. Silas is the partner of another worker Lizzie, and he is actively encouraged by Maud and Rufus and it is likely that Rufus wants to impart some of the knowledge that he has gained from his professional life to Silas. Coaching style of leadership involves guiding the workers and collaborating with them so that they are taught by the leaders, instead of being directed (Lee, 2020).

However, they also employ an authoritative form of leadership as Maud double and triple checks work done by the employees. This has become evident from the fact that during the monthly meetings, the employees now don’t talk to each other. Rather, Rufus talks ‘at’ them and they follow a clear hierarchical style, whereby Rufus is giving the employees instructions and they are taking it. This has brought a hierarchical style of administration in the working of the organisation Bear in the Woods and employees no longer feel comfortable sharing their personal details in these meetings anymore.

Formal checklists introduced by Rufus make it difficult for workers to handle their work load. These formal check lists expect workers to adhere to a strict deadline and role-based working standard and it is irking some of the workers who have worked in the organisation for a long time and by now, have their own method of doing their job.

A lot of control is exercised over the work hours of the workers and recently, changes have been made with respect to sourcing the raw materials for the food and other needs of the resort. The decision to source materials from non-local brands was one that was taken without the consent of Bo and Grey and it is something that Bo is against. Hence, this resembles the autocratic style of leadership which is being practised by the managers Rufus and Maud of the Bear in the Woods resort.

Motivation

Motivation Types Used in the Workplace

Extrinsic Motivators: Extrinsic motivation refers to motivating cues that come from beyond the individual. our motivation to complete a job is influenced by an external force. Even if the stimuli are external, the outcome of the activity will still be gratifying for the person executing it. Extrinsic motivation is a type of motivation that comes from the outside. The most pertinent form of extrinsic motivator is the equal and fair wage that the owners provide to the staff and overtime is paid to them as well.

Intrinsic Motivators: Intrinsic motivation refers to the motivating factors that come from inside the individual. The individuals want to do a certain activity because the results are in line with his belief structure or fulfil a goal, and so it is given priority (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2001). In case of the organisation Bears in the Woods, the intrinsic motivation is the history the workers have with the particular place. The permanent employees like Carys and her husband Daffyd have worked for the house even before Bo and Grey owned it. Poppy has worked there since she was 16 and both Lizzie and her partner work there. The motivation for these workers stems from a loyalty towards the organisation, in addition to getting compensated monetarily.

Motivational Techniques

Techniques which are used by the managers and the owners in motivating the employees are as follows:

Job Enrichment: First developed by Frederick Herzberg (1966, 1968) job enrichment consists of making the job fulfilling for the workers to motivate them. The owners have allowed the spouses of some of the workers to be gainfully employed at the organisation and also foster a homely atmosphere, whereby they provide food and accommodation to their workers.

Vertical Loading Factors: However, Herzberg (1968) argued that these factors will only remove dissatisfaction, not increase motivation. To increase motivation, workers need to be increase accountability, be given feedback and so on. These are being done by Maud and Rufus, who have introduced staff checklists in order to keep track of staff work.

Employee Empowerment: By allowing the employees to make decisions on their own, including Maud and Rufus, the owners have made the employees stakeholders in their own work place. This is evident by the fact that Maud and Rufus have introduced a number of policies in Bear in the Woods after they were recruited, during the time that Bo and Grey, the owners were away on an extended trip. Additionally, from the accounts of those who work at the organisation, the point of contention does not come from a place where they doubt the legitimacy of those decisions which were taken by Maud and Rufus, what they are dissatisfied by is the result of the decisions are harming the spirit and overall performance of Bear in the Woods during peak season and that they feel their rights are being infringed upon because of these decisions.

Employee Engagement

Engagement entails the personal connection that workers have with their work, whereby the are willing to do more than their job profile dictates, for the sake of the company and/or their co-workers.

Four Key Drivers of Employee Engagement in an Organisation (Pandita and Bedarkar, 2015):

Leadership: Leadership is a key driver of engagement in a workplace. It depends on the kind of environment that is fostered by the leader and the values they promulgate in the work place.

Management: The management focuses specifically on the smaller management body which is responsible for managing the larger body of employees. This includes managers following the ideals of the organisation and also having relevant experience.

Integrity: This entails the actions of the organisation being in line with the actions of the organisation. The workers should not feel that the day-to-day operations of the company is not in line with the ideals that the company promulgates to its service users, especially if it intends its other staff to adhere to some form of conduct. The employees should feel that the overall dignity of the place is intact.

Employee Communication: The employees should feel that they are being heard and the management is taking care of their needs. This entails that the feedback and suggestions of the employees are taken into consideration by the owners.

Four Employee Engagement Strategies Used at Bears in the Woods:

The leadership: The organisation is owned by Grey and Bo and the environment they try to foster for their employees is one of homeliness and informal relations. This is marked by the fact that many of the permanent employees have their partners working with them in the same place and every worker is given accommodation and home cooked meals. The style of management which is followed by the owners is paternalistic and nurturing in such a way, that it doesn’t just benefit the permanent employees who are working in that place, but also the entire community in which they operate. Hence, they take care to pay the full and fair price of the materials that they are sourcing from the local traders.

Management: The management of the organisation is also in the hands of Maud and Rufus, who have been working in the organisation since 2015. Maud and Rufus’s style of engaging their employees is more formal than Bo and Grey’s, whereby they encourage a more task-completion based method of ensuring productivity. They communicate directly with the employees what they want of them and their method of engaging the employees in work involves making them tangibly accountable.

Integrity: The staff and management of the Bears in the Woods organisation are expected to follow a similar set of values as the owners and overall, the same kind of values are followed by the owners and the workers alike. The workers are not just valued for their working capabilities, but also for the reason that they form the face of the company.

Employee Communication: The communication between the employees works well as the employees have periodic meetings to connect and engage with each other.

Organisational Culture

Definition of Organisational Culture

The set of beliefs, expectations, and practises that guide and shape the behaviours of all team members is referred to as organisational culture. Consider it a collection of characteristics that define your organisation. A strong corporate culture displays good features that contribute to increased performance, but a dysfunctional corporate culture elicits characteristics that can sabotage even the most successful businesses. The company's culture influences everything from timeliness and mood to contractual terms and employee perks. Employees are more likely to feel comfortable, supported, and appreciated when the workplace culture is aligned with their needs. Companies that place a significant emphasis on culture can weather challenging times and changes in the market. According to Charles Handy, there are four types of organisational culture (Cacciattolo, 2014):

Power: In certain organisations, authority is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, and only they are permitted to make decisions. They are the individuals who are given special treatment at work.

Task Culture: The task culture is followed in organisations where teams are created to achieve goals or address significant challenges. Individuals with similar interests and specialties get together to create a team in such organisations. Each team usually

consists of four to five people.

Person Culture: Employees in certain firms believe that they are more essential than the company they work for. Person culture is the culture that these organisations follow. Individuals in a person culture are more concerned with themselves than with the organisation. In such a culture, the organisation comes second and finally suffers. Employees only come to work for the money and never become connected to it.

Role Culture: A role culture is one in which each person is assigned duties and duties based on his or her speciality, educational background, and interests in order to get the most out of them. Workers in such an environment pick what they can accomplish best and gladly take up the challenge.

Four examples of Organisational Culture in Bear in the Woods:

Power: The power dynamic culture in the company is not so rigid. However, of late, a more definitive power hierarchy is becoming visible between the managers and the other employees.

Task Culture: The task culture is harder to study as the departments in the organisation usually only consist of one or two people and they handle their own work roles by themselves.

Person Culture: Like power, the person culture is also seeing an increase whereby Maud and Rufus are taking a more central role in the regulation of the roles of the other workers. As expected, there is some prevalent dissatisfaction because of it.

Role Culture: This is prevalent in Bears in the Woods, as the departments are usually managed by one or two people and everyone is responsible for their own role. Additionally, these workers have monopoly over their departments because of their expertise.

Business Ethics

Concept of Business Ethics

The study of proper company rules and procedures on potentially contentious matters such as corporate governance, market manipulation, bribery, prejudice, corporate responsibility, and fiduciaries is referred to as business ethics. Business ethics are frequently guided by the law, but they may also serve as a fundamental guideline that firms might choose to follow in order to earn public favour. Consumers and other types of market players have a fundamental degree of confidence in firms, thanks to business ethics. A portfolio manager, for example, must evaluate the accounts of relatives and small investment managers in the same way. These measures guarantee that the general population is treated fairly. The notion of business ethics emerged in the 1960s, when businesses became more cognizant of a growing consumer-based culture that was concerned about environmental issues, social causes, and corporate social responsibility. The decade was marked by a greater emphasis on so-called social concerns.

Examples of Bears in the Woods Using Socially Responsible Methods:

Sourcing their goods locally: According to Johnson et al. (2008), there are three levels of ethical behaviour and the second most ethical behaviour is giving attention to multiple stakeholders. These organisations are mindful of keeping the trade within the local community and that is exactly what the owners of Bear in the Woods do. All the material which is used by them in their operations is locally sourced.

Corporate Social Responsibility: The organisation encompasses the ideals of corporate social responsibility, whereby they are responsible of the overall surroundings they work with and their environment (Archer, 2010). This is evident in the way they introduced the ‘Who’s been eating...Honesty Box’ program and eco-friendly housing to guests.

Utilitarianism: It is another individual-based standard of ethical responsibility which an individual can undertake in their organisation (Cavanagh et al., 1981). This kind of ethics is seen more in the case of Rupert and Maud, the managers of Bears in the Woods, who manage worker output through lists and keep them accountable.

Sustainability: Another important ethical aspect of the business is the sustainably factor and Bears in the Woods is a very sustainable and eco-friendly business. The business provides natural surroundings as a retreat and hence, is highly invested in maintaining and preserving the environmental beauty of where the resort is located. Additionally, the owners and workers take care that the business operations of the area have minimal environmental impact on the natural surroundings of the area.

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