Managerial practice and organizational success go hand in hand. Therefore, effective management is critical to the success of organizations. Ineffective management affects staff morale and customer service, as well as product quality. There are various definitions of management. According to Chelladurai (2014), management involves applying principles linked with planning, organizing, directing, and controlling to harness financial, informational, physical, and human resources to achieve organizational objectives effectively. In other words, management involves influencing people to do things willingly to attain some goals. Managers oversee organizational staff and activities to meet the goals and objectives of the organization. In doing so, managers require specific management characteristics to ensure organizational success. There are as many managers; in the same way, there are many styles of management. However, great and successful managers discover a unique feature in each staff member and subsequently capitalize on it. Managers need professional ability to lead successfully, oversee various business operations, and communicate effectively with coworkers (Meyer, & Xin, 2018). The characteristics of managers change alongside the changing work environment to be able to work in modern organizations. This essay explores cultural awareness and conflict handling as necessary characteristics for managers to succeed in modern organizations.
Discussion of characteristics
Managers need certain inherent qualities and traits to help them play the role of directing effectively and wield a commanding influence on the employees (Karunathilake, 2016). Such characteristics form not only critical components of management but also play critical roles in managerial operations. It implies that management is a primary element of social and technical processes within and beyond modern organizations. Cultural awareness and conflict handling are two characteristics that are vital for managers of modern organizations if they are to achieve the organizational goals and objectives, enhance performance, and gain competitive advantage. Management is essential in undertaking human efforts to achieve desired objectives.
Cultural awareness
Rapid changes characterize the workplace in modern organizations. Organizations are increasingly employing people from across the world, making a workforce from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds (Al-Jenaibi, 2017). Additionally, businesses deal with clients as well as partners from all over the globe. The culture of individual employees can affect how they behave in the workplace in terms of communication and interaction with colleagues. As a result, managers must become aware of cultural differences to avoid conflicts that might arise due to diversity. It is difficult to assume the history and biases of employees from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds by pretending that they do not exist. Although employees might not mean to act in a biased manner or discriminate, bias and discrimination occur. More importantly, most people are not aware of their preconceptions as well as prejudices, a situation that can worsen cultural conflicts in modern organizations.
Employees in modern organizations are unique and different in many ways. Overall, workplace diversity consists of race, gender, age, religion, and ethnicity. In an organizational environment, the listed differences can result in unique perspectives on how employees deal with customers. According to Hofstede’s cultural dimension, cultures fall under high or low cultures (Bissessar, 2018). Managers of modern organizations can allow all employees to express themselves freely when appropriate to enhance diversity. Employees’ cultural backgrounds shape how they interact with coworkers and customers. When the employees are not aware of cultural diversity, they can misunderstand one another, and even the customers of the organizations. In that regard, contemporary managers encourage employees to share their cultural differences, promoting individuality while also understanding the source of specific behaviors. However, individualism implies a loose social framework, while collectivist culture depicts a tight framework. For instance, while the United Kingdom values individuality and promotes seeking happiness for personal fulfillment, the Chinese act in the interest of the group instead of an individual (Hofstede, 2011). In terms of power distance, the United States of America promotes liberty and justice for everybody, whereas the Chinese accept inequalities among people, and employees expect consultations in Sweden.
Conflict handling
Conflict handling, also known as conflict management, refers to the ability to identify and deal with conflicts in a fair, efficient, and sensible manner (Min, 2017). From Marxist theory, conflicts are frequent in business relationships, making it a natural component of modern organizations (Mikkelsen, & Clegg, 2018). Therefore, it is vital that managers of modern organizations not only understand conflicts but also be able to solve any conflicts that might arise within their organizations. Conflict management or resolution is critical in the contemporary business environment more than ever, which underlines why it is a necessary characteristic for mangers. Organizational workplaces involve human relationships, and thus a structural theory of conflict occurs, which managers must deal with regularly (Arai, 2017). While employees strive to demonstrate their significance to the organizations where they work, disputes occur among team members.
Given that conflicts are characteristic elements of workplaces, employee response and conflict handling can limit or propel such an employee’s success and, subsequently, the entire organization. As a result, contemporary managers must deal with conflicts appropriately to ensure continued productivity. Managers of modern organizations can employ various conflict management styles.
To begin with, an accommodating manager shows a high level of cooperation. However, this approach can hinder the desired outcomes, goals, and objectives of the manager and the entire organization. The accommodative approach is only useful when the individual involved in the dispute is either an expert or presents a better solution. Secondly, contemporary managers can avoid issues that are likely to lead to conflicts. Nevertheless, avoidance is not helpful to other employees in achieving their goals. Neither does it make managers assertive in pursuing organizational goals. It is only successful when the issue is insignificant, or the manager does not stand a chance to win.
Additionally, managers can collaborate with other managers or employees in which managers prevent a lose-win situation and instead encourage a win-win situation. Collaboration is a practical approach that managers use for complex issues that require novel solutions. In contrast, competition is a win-lose approach that allows managers to act assertively to achieve organizational goals without cooperating with other members of the organization. Managers compete in cases of emergency.
Significance and relevance of cultural awareness
Managers need to ensure that the employees in their organizations understand why it is crucial to understand cultural differences in the workplace comprehensively. When managers do so, they maximize their organizations’ chances to unite all the employees in those organizations to achieve organizational goals. Managers of modern organizations are aware of cultural differences, and serve other managers together with employees through empowerment. Such approach is the direct opposite of high power distance in Hofstede’s (2011) cultural dimension where managers supported traditional, hierarchical relationships in various managerial levels. For instance, the nursing field is increasingly becoming diverse as it abandons the female nurse stereotype (Budu et al., 2019). Knowledge on cultural awareness allows managers of modern organizations to enable or authorize employees to think, behave, act, and control work as well as make decisions autonomously. In traditional organizations, managers dealt with employees from relatively similar cultures, and thus were easy to influence as they subscribed to somewhat similar cultural values and norms. However, managers of modern organizations deal with employees from various cultural and ethnic backgrounds with different practices, making it impossible to progress without taking their diversity into account. Great managers of modern organizations know and value their employees’ unique abilities and eccentricities, thereby using cultural awareness to learn about the best way of integrating such abilities into a coordinated plan to achieve organizational objectives.
Through cultural awareness, managers of modern organizations identify what is universal and capitalize on it to achieve organizational goals (Gaisch et al., 2019). Therefore, managers of modern organizations are responsible for rallying people toward a better future. To succeed in that regard, managers of modern organizations must consider differences in terms of sex, personality, race, and nationality to tap into the rare needs that customers share. Contemporary managers succeed by turning employees’ talents into performance. As such, the managers draw from cultural awareness to identify and deploy cultural differences among employees as they challenge each employee to excel in their unique way. It implies that cultural awareness is a critical characteristic that equips managers with various skills to effectively play their role regardless of dealing with people from diverse cultures. In other words, contemporary managers utilize human and material resources effectively to achieve organizational goals. The complexity of modern organizations makes managers’ job even more crucial in the current workplace, characterized by employees from various cultures—cultural awareness shapes communication styles among employees of different national origin, and ethnic background.
Significance and relevance of conflict handling
Conflict handling is a vital aspect that managers of modern organizations cannot take for granted. Proper conflict management is significant in finding creative solutions to issues within an organization. More importantly, knowledge of conflict handling can help reduce circumstances that lead to negativity, stress, demotivation, and overall employee unrest (Foy et al., 2019). By avoiding factors that can lead to such environments in a workplace, managers eliminate scenarios such as high staff turnover, unhappy staff, high rates of absenteeism, and departmental conflicts. As a result, knowledge on the various ways of managing conflicts discussed above come in handy to ensure that employees within an organization work at their optimal level without any setback. Conflict management techniques lead to an agreement among employees and management, thus making it easier to achieve organizational goals. Managers of modern organizations need conflict handling methods to reduce the level of conflicting behavior among employees and departments while also finding new legitimate levels of performance. Consequently, such organizations boost not only their performance but also lower costs and duration wasted in solving issues and disputes. More importantly, managers with adequate knowledge of handling conflicts will not settle for a win-lose pattern of interactions.
Instead, such managers will explore a wide variety of approaches to manage conflicts within their organizations. For instance, managers of modern organizations will use their knowledge of conflict handling to locate a common enemy (Parker, & Parker, 2017). In doing so, managers change the incentive structure while promoting a mutual understanding and favorable attitudes in circumstances where a competitor’s threat arises. In such cases, managers shift interdepartmental conflicts to an advanced level in conflicts involving competing organizations so that the conflict results in a new structural relationship in the involved organizations. Forging such relationships will enhance departmental efforts and aid in competing more successfully against other organizations.
Furthermore, managers can locate goals that various departments within the organization desire but can only achieve when they combine the energies and resources of the involved parties. Such goals are known as superordinate goals whose introduction creates a context within which the organizational departments cooperate, join interests, develop favorable attitudes, and seek mutually satisfactory solutions. Such approaches are more effective in achieving the need for conflict resolution, which underlines the significance of conflict handling as a characteristic of managers of modern organizations.
Conclusion
Managers play significant roles in modern organizations. The world is in a constant state of change, and so do the business and workplace environments. Consequently, the characteristics of managers also change to be able to lead modern organizations. Such changes are necessary because conflicts evolve simultaneously and remain an ever-present element in organizational relationships. This essay has explored cultural awareness and conflict handling as two critical characteristics that managers of modern organizations need to be able to run their organizations effectively. Cultural awareness is vital because the contemporary workplace is increasingly becoming multicultural, accommodating employees with diverse cultural backgrounds. Cultural clashes can result in conflicts in organizations, which requires managers to find common ground that ensures inclusivity and diversity that propels organizational output. While the workplace accommodates people from diverse cultural backgrounds, conflicts become more rampant in work relationships. Therefore, managers of modern organizations need knowledge on conflict handling to ensure that employees and departments within their organizations are harmonious and focus on the organizational goals and objectives. In other words, managers must embrace cultural awareness and employ practical skills in managing conflicts in modern organizations. Doing so will enhance organizational productivity and gain a competitive advantage.