Different Challenges That Managers Face - Coursework Example

Ethics of the of the Introduction An organization usually comes into existence due to identification of any problem orissue. There are various tasks encompassed in an organization and managers need to be aligned to common tasks or goals. For example, a community might realize in due course of time that their members do not work collaboratively and hence focus on mediation. In different cases, a common problem is basically outlined and all team members work towards resolving such issue. On the other hand, dwelling for a longer period of time with a common problem leads to more of stress. It is regarded as healthier to concentrate on different ways which would help to overcome identified problems. However though problem solving mechanism appears to be easier for the management of an organization but there are other issues that create problems for managers. In the current scenario of business environment there are wide array of challenges witnessed by managers such as social responsibility, ethics, workforce diversity, sustainable management, e-business, globalization, etc. An effective organization can be defined as one comprising of members focused towards a common direction. This can be stated as team members being in agreement with the reason behind existence of an organization and desirable targets which they want to be achieved by an organization. If there is any form of disagreements in this context then it is probable that an organization will not be effective for long term. Hence in such scenario maximum time of an organization shall be spent either in strategic posturing or arguments amongst team members. It is essential that managers who are solely responsible for proper functioning of an organization are clear and open about organizational purpose. All board members should be a part of the agreement comprising fundamental aspects of an organization. There are some common management problems occurring in majority companies in current decade. For instance, board members are often not confident in terms of strategic change; managers in turn witness similar challenges. It has even been observed that meetings are badly planned and organization ideals fail to correlate with reality. Administrative systems if not managed properly can result into workplace conflict and this degrades the level of employee performance. There are organizations working on different technical issues but hardly has it taken stand for ethics, principle and values. In this study various challenges faced by managers will be highlighted but the main focus shall be on ethics as the most challenging issue. At the end of analytical study, set of suggestions would be given in order to address challenging issue faced by managers in organizations. Discussion Describe the different challenges that managers face Organizations in present scenario need to stay competitive in the market place. In order to achieve desirable targets a firm should encompass productive workforce. Managers play a critical role in setting up performance standards for their team and then aligning them towards common goal or objectives. However managers might adopt the best strategy to improve work performance but there are wide range of challenges creating obstacle for success of managers. Ethical role of managers is one of the challenges in path of leadership where managers need to be a combination of moral managers and moral person. There are certain key traits of being a moral person such as trustworthiness, honesty and integrity. Integrity not only relates to truthfulness or honesty but also takes into consideration soundness of the entire entity comprising of society surrounding an organization. This factor even stands for a firm’s adherence towards a code or ethical code of conduct. On the contrary, being a moral person also encompasses traits as well as behaviors. These behaviors can be described as choosing the right thing, being open-minded, showing concern for other people and maintaining a set of standards for personal integrity (Carroll & Ann, 2006, pp. 123-125). The essence of ethics is all about performing the right action in right time specially when surrounded with difficult circumstances. Ethically good decisions appear to be a challenge for managers. An individual needs to possess set of proper standards and behaviors so as to take ethically correct decisions. Personal standards allow a person to think rationally and make an ethically correct decision. On the other hand, social responsibility too is a challenge for managers. Major area of concern for managers is not only to improve work performance but even to create positive impact on the society. Corporate social responsibility is a type of corporate self regulation that happens to be integrated within business model of a firm. CSR functions as a self regulatory framework that ensures active compliance with spirit of ethical standards, international norms and laws. Implementation of CSR activities by a manager goes much beyond the factor of compliance and appears to be something done in favor of social good. It aims to embrace overall responsibility of wide set of corporate actions that facilitate positive impact on stakeholders and environment (Voien, 2000, pp. 78-79). Managers in many scenarios fail to be aligned with socially responsible corporate actions. This happens when achieving desirable targets is more important in comparison to maintaining CSR standards. CSR activities include creating a positive image about the company in the society. However surviving in tough competition leads to incorporating certain strategies, this at times might not be aligned with societal factors. Sustainable management is another issue common in terms of managerial operations. This form of management mainly indicates utilizing resources in the best possible manner so as to achieve desirable results. In order to sustain business operations it is important to plan for long term perspective and this is a critical issue for many managers. Business environment is continuously changing and to be at pace with such environmental conditions appear to be a challenge for managers. Sustainable management comprises of combining management concept with that of sustainability. There are three branches within this concept known as environment, needs of future and present generations, and economy. Striking a balance between these factors is a challenging issue for managers as internal business operations cannot be standardized for longer period of time. Workforce diversity contributes effectively towards organizational success and growth (Monks & Nell, 2005, pp. 45-46). Cultural differences amongst team members open doors for wide array of information but even proves to be a major challenge for individuals at managerial position. To be more precise, workforce diversity makes it difficult to align team members towards a common goal. Since each of the team members possess different views or opinions it is indeed a challenge to establish a common goal. E-business has provided a platform to effectively perform business across the globe. However this approach if not handled appropriately by managers appears to be cause of disruption. E-business operations include varied tasks and constant up gradation of this innovative business platform. For all those organizations which follow traditional approach, implementation of e-business results into change management issues. It has been observed that workforce is often not comfortable in terms of major shift in business strategies, setting up of new operational procedure. This in turn poses a challenge for managers as they need to perform e-business effectively and even gain acceptance of every team member (Solomon, 2005, pp. 103-105). Globalization is a factor that has enabled firms to explore multiple market opportunities. On the contrary, globalization is also regarded as one of the common challenges for managers. Since this factor is closely associated with cultural issues, expanded business operations, lump sum investment, fluctuating supply and demand, and rising conflicting scenario in the workplace. Identify the most important challenge that managers face The most important challenge faced by managers in the workplace is ethical issues. This is because it governs the entire personality of managers and their actions in certain circumstances. Managers often witnesses ethical dilemmas in their respective workplace and still may not be aware of it. One of the reasons can be managers are initially trained in ethics and it is difficult to identify the area of ethical issue. Ethical decisions can be made by being sensitive towards ethical signposts. This is usually done through conflicting interests in existing business situation. Ethical decision making considers consequence of business actions in all stakeholders of organizations. Members of top management need to always take into consideration probable affect on creditors, employees and shareholders. For instance, a production manager usually takes into consideration impact of operational decision on team members. On the other hand, marketing manager needs to be more sensitive in context of truthfulness of advertised information and not misleading any consumers. Once the ethical issues are identified by managers, the next step is to recognize alternative course of business action. Company policy and regulations need to be followed by managers in order to execute code of conduct provisions. Ethical perspective majorly comprise of certain guidelines that prevents from violation of human rights, helps to remain fair minded, adopt basic virtues in context of integrity, reliability, responsibility and accountability. Ethical issues are faced by managers in everyday working lives. Whether managers are actively engaged in communicating, organizing, planning or motivating, ethics need to be taken into consideration always. Managers at all levels, belonging to any position are often faced with ethical dilemma. Managerial ethics denote the situations faced by managers in real time workplace scenario. Ethical content basically refers to actions or decisions, issues, that contain matter of right versus wrong, justice versus injustice, or fair versus unfair. This challenge even indicates the work being actually performed by managers and what they should be doing as ethical managers. Management ethics is at times even indicated as a vital component of corporate social responsibility. Society expects every manager to be ethical and responsive. Since an ethical manager can guide the team towards achieving desirable goals and objectives. On the other hand, maintaining ethical standards by managers portray them as a role model in front of followers. However such a factor is not easy to be incorporated because in modern world managers mostly work for organizational success or common interest. In most scenarios it has been observed certain actions taken by managers to be in favor of overall success and growth of firm but it is not aligned with business ethics. Hence such actions cannot be considered as wrong since it is implemented in context of team members. It is difficult for managers to always maintain ethical norms and regulations due to fluctuating market conditions. Sound ethics do have an impact on organizational bottom line such as shared values result into building trust level, consistency leads to better predictability in workforce planning, and predictability is an essential component in crisis management. Confidence is also developed through such sound ethics that result into strong relationships or loyalty towards the firm. Companies are usually good like their team members. Consumers as well as shareholders do care about values in organization. Ethics is a type of insurance for a firm and effective partnerships within an organization are dependent on common set of values. Personal ethics and business ethics are at times not appropriately managed and this result into conflicting ideas (Treviño & Katherine, 2006, pp. 115-117). This conflicting thought gives birth to commotion amongst managers and stakeholders like customers, suppliers, competitors, employees, wholesalers, retailers, etc. Ethics is the identified challenge to be discussed in this study since there are different kinds of ethics with respect to employees, superiors and peers, customers, suppliers and any other stakeholder. It is an issue for managers to work on the basis of such diverse set of ethics as achieving growth and success is the prime focus of managerial body. Justify why this challenge is the most important Here in this essay ethics has been chosen the most important challenge for the managers. This selection of challenge is absolutely suitable in the current corporate world. Business profitability and managerial ethics have long term tradeoffs. It is often being observed that managers across the world compromise with their moral ethics for the sake of organizational profitability (Clegg and Rhodes, 2012, pp. 67-71). It indicates that managing managerial ethics and earning profitability simultaneously is a very difficult task to do. Very often to earn profitability or to cover-up any business issues managers have to compromise their moral ethics (Schminke, 2010, pp. 67-69). In most of the cases business situations are so precarious that managers do not have any other choices rather than compromising ethics. In the modern world of business, corporate environment is so complex that maintaining ethics is the most serious challenge for the managers. There are lots of bobby traps are present in the modern corporate world (Deckop, 2006, pp. 56-58). Managers fall victims unknowingly into those traps. Maintaining ethics for the managers is the most difficult challenge because all the other challenges can be adjusted as those things are external in nature. On the other hand ethics is a totally inner factor of the managers (Melé, 201, pp. 34-37). It is very difficult to resolve issues related with this challenge. In modern day business world there are some deadlocks where business profitability and moral ethics are almost impossible to manage simultaneously. All the above arguments are clearly justifying the appropriateness of the selected challenge. Ethical challenge is an alarming issue for managers since it is difficult to keep pace with different ethical dimensions. This challenge is an important issue since ethics determine success and growth of a firm. Business operations need to be well aligned with ethical standards as strong relationships are formed on basis of such ethics. On the other hand, it is even important to facilitate transparency within a system. It has been observed that managers who are able to enhance transparency in its operations are able to establish long term relationships with stakeholders. Ethics and relationships can be closely related to each others. This is where ethical challenge needs to be taken into consideration. Different stakeholders possess different demands and each of them needs to be addressed appropriately. Following business ethics helps a manager to distinguish the right from the wrong. It is a challenge since managers in most scenarios find it difficult to differentiate between business needs and ethical dimensions. Managers are surrounded with a lot of responsibilities and one has to take care of team’s interests as well as organizational goals. In such cases it becomes necessary to achieve set targets than to work as per business ethical standards (More & Webley, 2003, pp. 110-111). Ethical dilemma is a major reason which gives birth to such ethical challenge. On the other hand, this issue is a challenge since organizational image is highly dependent on this factor. If a manager fails to perform according to set ethical norms than it outlines a negative image of the company. Social responsibility, globalization and e-business as challenges can be resolved in due course of time, but ethics is directly linked with personality or behavior of an individual. This aspect cannot be changed easily since behavioral characteristics of an individual are comparatively difficult to be altered. Since it is greatly associated with views or opinions of a person there cannot be standardized approach for maintaining ethical standards. In this context it becomes an essential challenge in comparison to other managerial challenges identified within an organization. Business ethics can be framed by the management but it solely depends on an individual whether he or she wishes to follow the set ethical regulations (Machan & Chester, 2008, pp. 77-76). For instance a manager might consider certain corporate decision to be ethical whereas another individual in managerial position need not feel the same. This is mainly due to differences in personal ethics. There are different ethical norms followed by an individual and this in turn results into workplace conflicts. If managers belonging to different departments in an organization have contrasting behaviors in terms of ethics then it is difficult to resolve workplace conflicts. In present scenario, when competition in industrial sector is high it is not possible to determine an organization which operates fully on basis of ethics. The reason behind this can be striving towards surviving in the industry and developing competitive strategy (Collins & Jerry, 2002, pp. 94-95). Often organizations are witnessed to adopt strategies dependent on competitive scenario then incorporating ethical dimensions in every strategic decision. It can even be stated that some actions might be performed ethically but it is not regarded as ethical, hence making this concept a major challenge in the business environment. Other issues are also essential to be focused on but managers need to work ethically so as to portray desirable image in front of team members. Suggest ways in which managers can address this challenge There are different ways through which such challenge can be addressed by managers. Firstly the major issue is that managers fail to understand between what is morally right and what needs to be done in certain business scenario. This in turn changes the entire scenario as managers are stuck in ethical dilemma. However an effective training and development program shall be able to meet such challenge. In such sessions a company can hire an expert trainer who can provide guidance to managers regarding ethical standards to be followed. It can help managers to identify loopholes in the system and plan accordingly. Training can be divided into two parts such as educating managers on business ethics and then providing them with some real time scenarios where being aligned with ethical norms is a major challenge. While managers are being educated in different ethical dimensions they would be aware about the actions needed to be taken in certain circumstances. Training and development program shall provide managers with appropriate guidance regarding business ethics. There exist varied dimensions of business ethics such as ethical norms in context of suppliers are different from that in case of customers. Whereas ethics needed to be maintained in relation with employees is highly distinguishable with that of wholesalers. These ethical dimensions require a thorough study by managers as behavior in a workplace is totally dependent on this factor. On the other hand, it even facilitates developing strong bond with employees. Leaders and followers have a unique relationship in an organization and followers are more prone towards adapting characteristics possessed by a leader. In such a scenario it becomes important to analyze needs and wants of a team and then take corrective actions. Hence training and development sessions organized in companies provide a platform to managers whereby they can implement ethical decisions in the system. Often managers get confused between personal and business ethics. This is where managers witness major challenge as business ethics might classify certain aspects to be right but it might be incorrect in relation to personal ethics. However this session shall draw a line between the right and wrong in terms of personal or business ethics. Trainers can provide right direction to managers so as to effectively distinguish between personal or business ethics. Apart from providing ethical guidance it is even important to make managers face some real time business cases. To be aware about global market conditions and ethical dilemma witnessed by companies enable managers to become more competitive. These cases to be focused on in such sessions will even encompass role plays. Through role plays managers would outline their respective decisions when faced with ethical challenges. Trainers can then identify loopholes in such decision making process which will be beneficial for managers in long term process. This shall even enhance a collaborative workplace environment where managers can discuss their ethical issues and come forward with a suitable solution. Ethical challenge might be different for different departmental managers. Hence it is important to establish a platform that would enable managers to interact amongst themselves and develop practical solutions for any kind of problem. Ethics appear to be challenge when it transforms into a barrier between goal achievement and individual interest. Thus it is necessary for managers to analyze whether being aligned with ethics is important or not in certain scenario. Apart from this recommended approach, managers can even frame a set of business ethics in terms of different scenarios. This framework will enable managers to take actions on basis of ethics. On the contrary, it shall even serve as a preventive measure to avoid any of ethical issue in the workplace. Managers should always keep aside self interest as it disrupts the workplace environment. Ethics can only be safeguarded when managers are focused towards common goals and interests, and believe in working for the society. While setting ethical standards and making it a part of business strategy formulation ensures that team members are well aligned with mission of managers. Ethical standards if framed properly beforehand reduce maximum percentage of task to be formed by managers. Since they would be aware about the business ethics to be followed in particular crisis situation. Dilemma which previously appeared as a challenge for managers can be eliminated to a great extent through developing a prior framework of ethical norms and regulations. Formation of ethical organization can be another way to get rid of such challenge. This kind of organization facilitates right decision making in competitive scenario. Even employees need to act as per ethical standards and in order do so managers shall incorporate performance appraisal mechanism into the system. Performance standards will be framed according to ethical regulations being maintained by team members. It would not only facilitate a standardized approach in the business environment but even enhance participative working style. Views or opinions of team members need to be similar to that of team leaders or managers. This form of approach tries to eradicate the majority ethical issues taking place in present scenario. However certain traits or behaviors are internal to an individual which cannot be altered or changed. These behaviors judge whether an individual act as per ethics or not. Personal ethics are a vital component as it governs the way an individual behaves in the public forum. Situations are adverse when it comes to dealing with suppliers or retailers in competitive market. In such situations it becomes difficult to manage business operations along with maintaining ethical regulations. Hence in this case personal ethics play critical role in order to differentiate the wrong from the right. Managers can overcome this challenge only if they make it a practice to work as per ethics. Organizations in present decade can develop a workplace atmosphere where business objectives shall be given less importance in comparison to ethics. Conclusion As per the study, there is wide range of challenges faced by managers. In current scenario of highly competitive business environment it often becomes difficult for team leaders to manage ethical norms and simultaneously perform business operations. Ethics has been identified as the most important challenge for managers but there are other issues which equally surround managerial decisions. They are social responsibility, globalization, e-business and sustainable management. Each of these factors has gained its significance in the current scenario but more emphasis is on ethics. Since managers are often witnessed to be in some form of ethical dilemma. Personal and business ethics are at times considered to be similar but there is some form of distinguishing factors present in these types of ethics. It can be stated that personal ethics is more self-centered and takes into consideration few people in the external environment. On the contrary, business ethics is a wider concept because many stakeholders are involved in the process. The focus is more on identifying hidden needs of stakeholders than to be only inclined towards organizational success and growth. Ethics appear to be a major challenge for managers since ethical dimensions is highly fluctuating in nature such as it is different for customers, suppliers, employees, retailers and wholesalers. Failure in terms of remaining aligned with the ethical standards is growing competition in the industry. In many situations managers find it more desirable to focus on common goals and interests than to decide on which decision is morally right or wrong. To some extent external influence even tend to affect such thought process. The best way to address such challenge is by organizing a training session where employees as well as managers shall be trained regarding importance of ethical values in business operations. On the other hand, certain performance parameter that can identify the degree to which ethical standards is being maintained can be a productive approach. This kind of strategy is not only suitable for managers but even for employees. Since the main issue faced by managers is convincing team members to execute assigned tasks ethically. Managers even should maintain a well documented ethical framework in the system so as to judge the correctness of an action. References Carroll, A. B., & Ann, K. B. (2006). Business and society: ethics and stakeholder management. Cincinnati, Ohio: South-Western. Clegg, R. S. and Rhodes, C. (2012). Management ethics: contemporary contexts. Berlin: Routledge. Collins, J. C., & Jerry, I. P. (2002). Built to last: successful habits of visionary companies. New York: HarperBusiness. Deckop, J. R. (2006). Human resource management ethics. New York: IAP. Machan, T. R., & Chester, J. E. (2008). A primer on business ethics. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. 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