Exam 7: Management and Leadership

According to the box, "Will Strategy Robots Replace Managers?", with robots having the capabilities to do a multitude of business tasks, why have machines not replaced most human jobs?

Kelley is a plant manager for O'Donnell Industries, Inc. Though she spends time performing all management functions, she is mostly tasked with tactical planning and controlling. Kelley's position would be classified as part of O'Donnell's

A person who is a good first-line manager is automatically likely to be a good middle or top manager.

How are managers today different from managers in the past?

Blair is a production line supervisor. She spends several hours each week creating specific employee work assignments and production schedules for the coming week so that the production department can meet its short-term production objectives. This suggests that a significant component of Blair's job involves

Instead of creating detailed strategic plans, the leaders of market-based companies (companies that respond quickly to environmental changes) set flexible directions so as to allow for change and seize opportunities when they come.

Decision making occurs in all management functions.

The recent recession eliminated many middle managers giving the remaining managers more employees to supervise.

Supervisory managers are those who directly oversee the activities of workers and evaluate their daily performance.

Which of the following techniques would a team of workers be most likely to use if they wanted to evaluate several possible solutions to a specific problem their company needs to solve?

Goals are developed and agreed to by management so that the workers can follow them.

Mini-Case Lauzy Fare left his position as senior vice president at Blue Skies Electronics a few weeks ago to become the new CEO of Idle Time Gaming. Before joining the new company, Lauzy spent time studying Idle Time's competitive position and talking to employees in all divisions and at all levels of the organization. Based on his findings, Lauzy believes that Idle Time has potential, but also faces some serious challenges if it expects to grow. Lauzy found that when confronted by him, most of Idle Time's professional employees seemed almost afraid to express their opinions. He learned that Otto Craddick, the previous CEO and founder of the company, viewed himself as the boss, and, as such, micromanaged every aspect of the business. This discouraged employees from using their own initiative and ideas to solve problems. For example, Otto required sales and service representatives to get his approval before they made any major commitments to customers. Otto's policy prevented the organization from responding quickly to customer requests, so sales were lost. Unlike his predecessor, Lauzy believes it is important for sales and service personnel to be able to deal with many types of customer requests without needing approval from top management. He is confident that giving employees the authority and flexibility to deal with customers, and providing them with the training and resources to help them do so, will improve morale within the company, create customer satisfaction, and grow revenues. Lauzy also wants to make workers throughout the organization feel more appreciated. He plans to continue meeting with them on a regular basis to seek their advice. He hopes his work colleagues will eventually respond to his leadership style. He has already encouraged middle managers to get employees more involved in decision making, and has suggested some problem-solving techniques the managers could try. Although he thought that changing the rigidity of the company culture would be his first challenge at the new firm, Lauzy quickly realized that there were no standards in place to measure the progress of changes in internal morale, customer satisfaction, and profitability. He has asked managers in those departments to spend more time setting performance standards and then monitoring actual performance. Lauzy is confident that in a relatively short period of time internal changes will lead to good company performance. As a member of top management, Lauzy performs a variety of important tasks. -Otto, the previous CEO at Idle Time Gaming, relied on a(n) ________ style of management.

A ________ analysis is used to help companies evaluate their internal strengths and weaknesses, and develop an awareness of external threats and opportunities.

Problem solving is more formal than using the rational decision-making model.

Today's business environment changes so rapidly that strategic planning is becoming more difficult and subject to change.

In this day of rapidly changing technology, technical skills are the most important skills for all levels of management.

Goals are broad, long-term accomplishments an organization wants to achieve.

Given the lack of discipline and short attention spans of today's workers, modern managers must watch their workers closely, set strict rules, and vigorously enforce policies.

A customer-oriented firm should focus exclusively on satisfying its internal customers.

By completing the courses needed to obtain a college major in accounting, marketing, or some other field, a student can go a long way toward acquiring the ________ skills managers need to rise through the ranks of their area of specialization.