King’s Business School, King’s College London

Cover Sheet for Assessments 2021/22

Candidate ID: AC 32769

Module Code: 4QQMB100

Module Name: Introduction to Management

Word Count: 1350

Please complete the above candidate and module information and

attach to the front of your answer sheet/submission or write your
answers on the following page(s).

Where applicable students should clearly state the question(s) they are
answering (e.g. Question 1, Part A) so it can be clearly identified for
markers.

DECLARATION BY STUDENT

This assignment is entirely my own work.

I understand what is meant by plagiarism/collusion and have signed at

enrolment the declaration concerning the avoidance of
plagiarism/collusion.

I understand that plagiarism/collusion is a serious examinations

offence that may result in disciplinary action being taken.

I understand that I must submit work BEFORE the deadline, and that
failure to do so may result in late submission penalties.

I understand that where a word limit is indicated, I should adhere to

the word limit and failure to do so may result in penalties.

By completing this assessment, you acknowledge that you have read

and understand the above. Please do not sign your name.
SECTION A QUESTION 2
Throughout human history, from the leaders of prehistoric nomadic tribes and Julius Cesar to
the heads of states and CEO's nowadays, society, as well as all the "micro-societies" that
compose it, have always needed the presence of a leader who can guide them through the
good and bad things. However, the entire community is questioning the nature of leadership,
wondering if leaders are either born or made.

Leadership is described as the process of providing collective work a goal (meaningful

orientation) and encouraging committed effort to be exerted to attain a certain aim." (Jacobs
& Jaques, 1990). A successful organization is made up of motivated employees with varying
talents, skills, lifestyles and genders; however, it is often challenging to build a cohesive
team. This is where leaders come in and differ from managers, where managers set goals,
leaders set the vision.

The Behavioral Theory (Ohio and Michigan States studies, 1950) concentrates on the

behaviour of leaders, suggesting that these behaviours are learnable and can emerge through
hard work, consistency and observation rather than being inherited traits. Considering that
leadership is a consequence of behaviour and performance, one can choose to be either a
task-oriented leader focusing on the process and guidelines or a people-oriented leader giving
more importance to relationships and reciprocal trust with followers. (Kerr et al., 1971). One
could say that the ideal leadership style would be high levels of both. Yet, the merging might
not always truly reflect organizational leader attitudes and behaviours. Researchers then use
environmental variables to figure out when it's better to se one or the other.

In addition, and as a continuation to the theory, research was carried out by Judge et al. in
2004 suggesting that initiating structure has a strong correlation with group performance
while consideration strongly linked to follower satisfaction with leader, job satisfaction and
leader effectiveness. 

The Contingency Theory suggests that the context can influence the style of leadership. As a
result, the leader's approach and the degree to which the leader fits in the environment and
feels empowered. The context and characteristics of each situation (leader follower trust, goal
clarity and leader's position) The aspects unique to each context decide whether a leader's
unique. Certain individuals may well be excellent leaders in one scenario but not in another,
or one leadership style may be more beneficial than another. For instance, King Louis XVI
went from being a monarch popular with the lower classes to a hated victim of the guillotine
in revolutionary France.

Numerous empirical research and studies (J.Hunter et al., 1982) involving the quantification

of the correlation between leader style and performance using meta-analyses concluded that
despite the fact that the idea was not entirely validated, It's a meaningful model to use when
deciding whether task-oriented or people-oriented leadership is more efficient. Furthermore,
the theory is relevant because it acknowledges the relevance of the organizational context.
According to these theories, leaders are not born leaders but are "made."

These and other theories clearly give more importance to leader effectiveness rather than
leadership emergence. Nevertheless, other theories suggest that genes play a significant role
and hence could even conclude in discrimination. The Great Man Theory (Thomas Carlyle,
1860) explains that leaders have inborn qualities or features that enable them to pursue a
leadership path. Inherited physical characteristics have an impact on how leading figures look
like such as height (Judge & Cable, 2004), where taller people tend to impose more their
dominance over the rest, or more abstract traits like charisma, defined to be a quality
inherited by some person cable of seducing, influencing and even fascinating others by their
speeches and attitudes (Charismatic leadership theory, Weber, 1947). Consequently, this
believes can deviate to different forms of discrimination regarding female leaders, perceiving
women as less favorable for a leadership role (Role congruity theory of prejudice towards
female leaders (Eagly & Karau, 2002)). 

Recent empirical research conducted by Arvey, Rotundo, Johnson, Zhang & McGue in 2006
demonstrated that genetics might explain 30% of the variation in leadership role occupation
for identical male twins while 32 per cent for identical female twins. Even though this 
A leader’s success is attributed to his or her actions and behaviours. Although nurture is more
significant in the construction of leadership, genetics and biology do have a say but not in the
classic approach that's why leaders are born and made. 

SECTION B QUESTION 3

In a century, from the industrial revolution to working from home, working conditions have
changed enormously. Employees' well-being was given more importance through further
research and studies to determine its nature and improve it. Consequently, numerous aspects
of the majority of works environments changed; for instance, the enhancement of salary,
health and safety conditions, working times; however, in some cases, work environments still
experience some flaws and several factors that difficult workers' lives persist and may cause a
lack of well-being, exhaustion or in other words: burnout.

Burnout is a strain caused by a prolonged lack of balance between the person's investment
and what he or she receives in return. Even though not considered a medical condition, this
exhaustion affects emotional control and cognitive processes, which causes changes in
behaviour and attitude. The result is a feeling of ineffectiveness. This condition results from
adverse working conditions known as stressors (workload, conflicts with co-workers or
superiors) combined with moderators that buffer stress.

According to the Job demand-resource model (Arnold Bakker and Evangelia Demerouti.,

2001), factors associated with job stress can be classified into two general categories: job
demands and job resources. On the one hand, "Job demands" are the different aspects of the
job which require sustained physical and psychological effort. As a result, they are associated
with certain costs that deplete energy, such as work overload and interpersonal disputes. On
the other hand, "Job resources" are defined as the various job characteristics that reduce work
demands and foster personal growth and development, such as career opportunities, regular
feedback, and role clarity. An imbalance between both harms severely employees’ well-
being. 

In 2006, a survey of Finnish white-collar professionals was conducted over an eight-year

period. The participants filled out the identical measures of burnout, job demands, and job
resources at each measurement period.78% of them related their issues to their high job
demands (long working periods) and low job resources (low autonomy), which suggests to us
that nearly eight people out of 10 exposed to this kind of situations where job demands are
too high and job resources are too low would suffer burnout. 

The Job demand-control model (Karasek., 1979) divide jobs into four different groups
depending on the demand and control situation where demand refers to an employee's
workload, while control refers to the flexibility an employee has to regulate and arrange his
work. As a result, similarly to the JRD model, an imbalance between demand and control
could result in mental exhaustion and burnout. This model is supported by various empirical
research; Health and Safety Executive in 2015 managed different interviews and shared the
story of various employees who suffered from burnout because of lack of control or conflicts
with superiors. 

Nevertheless, not everyone reacts the same way to stress, and researches conducted
by Luthans et al. in 2008 suggest the importance of personality traits concerning the stress
response, being resilience an asset for coping with stress as resilient people can overcome and
work through hard times and situations, while high levels of neuroticism and perfectionism
are predicted to decrease the ability to cope with stress. Hence, independently of the context
or situation, in some cases, people with the same job and identical conditions can either suffer
from stress or not since individual interpretations of stressors, as well as coping mechanisms,
can differ as explained in the Transactional model of stress Lazarus and (Folkman., 1984)

Burnout is a condition that results mainly from the dysfunction of the work environment; this
could be related to the difficulty of tasks, the lack of autonomy and other various factors,
including personality traits that do play a particular role.