Hi, I am currently completing a homework assignment and I am having some issues

Question

Hi, I am currently completing a homework assignment and I am having some issues with a couple of questions. I have already completed a total of 20 questions, but there are a couple that I need someone's help with answering. Hopefully, someone can help me with the following questions. Your responses do not need to be very lengthy. A 3-4 complete sentences will do just fine per question. I will give points and leave very possitive feedback to whomever is avaliable to assist me. Thank you so much in advance.

1. How can organizations meet the special needs of different groups (e.g., work and family issues) without appearing to show favoritism to those particular sets of employees?

2. Do you think men and women differ in their leadership styles? If so, how? Do men and/or women prefer different styles in their bosses? What evidence do you have for your answers?

Explanation / Answer

Ans.1) With the growing diversity in today’s workforce, people from different cultural and geographical backgrounds can be found working together under the same roof or in the same virtual teams of an organisation. Employers have started to appreciate the uniqueness of their employees and without showing the signs of any kind of favouritism, managers are regularly advised to address the diverse needs of their sub-ordinates. We, human beings, have a natural tendency to group with people who are similar to us. Managers are, therefore, often blamed to show inclination towards the people who have similar traits as theirs. At workplace, favouritism can take multiple forms like providing relatively easy assignments to certain employees, granting leaves to some while denying to others, providing onsite work opportunities, providing choice of work shifts, difference in compensation packages, etc. Favouritism plays a negative role in creating a healthy work environment and hence, managers should always resort to fair and equal management practices.

Some of the ways of meeting the needs of different people in the workforce without showing favouritism are being aware of favouritism. No manager ever agrees that he is more inclined to few of his sub-ordinates than others. The matter of fact is that they do not realise, over a period of time, offering more opportunities to some employees while fewer to others, slowly transforms into favouritism. Managers should be conscious of their actions and biases in the team. They should always weigh their decisions on the basis of the abilities of their sub-ordinates. These may be skill set, experience, exposure, knowledge, performance, etc. Each employee should feel that he/she is being treated equally by the organisation.

Also, by having open communication channels in the department, managers can avoid the situation of favouritism. Supervisors should always ensure that they are available and accessible to every employee irrespective of his cultural and geographical background, race, colour, ethnicity, religion, caste, whether he is a high performing employee or an average one. Using group communication and open source platforms in the organisation diminishes the possibility of favouritism.

Ans.2) Gender equality at workplace is a welcoming change in the corporate world today. Both, men and women, are now observed occupying key leadership positions in the multi-national organisations. This brings to surface the similarity and differences in the leadership styles of both the genders. World’s leading research organisations have been dedicatedly working on understanding the same. Some of the studies suggests that there is a stark difference in the way each of them manages their sub-ordinates. While men have always been known to be commanding and authoritative, women are believed to be participatory and cooperative in their style of leadership.

Women leaders have been observed to be more empathetic in their style. Listening to their sub-ordinates and constantly motivating and inspiring them in their jobs are the common traits of women leadership. Men do not necessarily believe in hand-holding their employees and have strict policies in rewarding and penalising them.

As an entry-level manager in my previous organisation, I had the opportunity to experience both styles of leaderships. This is because my reporting manager was a female, while her reporting manager was a male. Therefore, as per the organisational hierarchy, I had two bosses - one male and one female. While my reporting manager (female) had a democratic style of managing things. She was always inviting for everyone’s opinions, gave constructive feedback to her sub-ordinates, regularly understood and addressed our issues, and always motivated us to perform better. On the other hand, my other boss (male) used to dictate things that needs to be done. He demanded written reports by the end of day, from each of his sub-ordinates related to the day to day functioning. Instead of encouraging the team members, he asked for explanations from average and poor performing employees.

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