Assessment Two: Leadership Styles and Conflict Resolution at BP

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ASSESSMENT TWO
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP AND CONFLICT AND NEGOTIATION AT BRITISH PETROLEUM
LTD
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Contents
LIST OF FIGURES.............................................................................................................................3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...................................................................................................................4
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................. 5
BACKGROUND OF THE COMPANY................................................................................................. 6
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE OF BRITISH PETROLEUM PLC............................................................7
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP..................................................................................................8
THEORIES OF MANAGEMENT....................................................................................................8
HERZBERG TWO FACTOR MODEL.......................................................................................... 8
EQUITY THEORY..................................................................................................................... 9
THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP....................................................................................................... 10
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP APPROACH...................................................................10
PARTICIPATIVE STYLE OF LEADERSHIP.................................................................................12
CONFLICTS AND NEGOTIATION................................................................................................... 13
IMPACT ON INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS......................................................................................15
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS..................................................................................16
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................17
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: HERZBERG TWO FACTOR MODEL...................................................................................9
Figure 2: ADAM'S EQUITY THEORY.............................................................................................. 10
Figure 3: TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP THEORY.................................................................11
Figure 4: DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP APPROACH.........................................................................12
Figure 5: TECHNIQUES OF CONFLICT AND NEGOTIATION...........................................................13
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The report will lay emphasis on the role and impact of management and leadership on the
culture of the organization. The significance of management and leadership applied in British
Petroleum Ltd and its effect on the management of conflicts within the organization with
effective implementation of strategies of negotiation will also be discussed in detail. The British
Petroleum Ltd use different styles and approaches of leadership and various management
techniques so as to quickly resolve the disputes arising within the organization and handling
them with the help of negotiation in order to achieve efficiencies in achieving the desired
objectives of the organization.
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INTRODUCTION
The culture of an organization determines the values, attitudes and beliefs of the people
working in the organization. These elements of the organizational culture help in achieving
success in the organization. The effective utilization of management and leadership approaches
within the organization helps in managing the ethical code of conduct and thus, following the
core values of the organization. This report will focus on the management and leadership in BP
and its impact on the conflict and negotiation within the organization providing conclusions for
the same using relevant theories and concepts.
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BACKGROUND OF THE COMPANY
The British petroleum company Plc. was founded by William Knox D’Arcy in 1909 and is
headquartered in London, UK. It is the world’s 12th largest oil and gas company in terms of
revenue (Chaplinsky et al. 2017). The company employees 85,000 people till 2019 and earn
revenues of US $303.73 billion till 2018. The British Petroleum undertakes various development
programmes referred to as Managing essentials in order to apply leadership approaches in the
organization. The areas in which the company operates comprises of production, refining,
marketing, distribution, transportation, trading of crude oil, power generation and
petrochemicals. British Petroleum operates worldwide in more than 70 countries having 1200
BP service stations in the UK (Chaplinsky et al. 2017).
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ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE OF BRITISH PETROLEUM PLC
The organization culture of BP PLC is customer-centric thus, focuses on providing best services
to the customers by staffing employees with best capabilities and that is best suitable for the
vacant position in order to achieve success within the organization (Amernic and Craig, 2017).
BP PLC’s culture aims to create a healthy work environment for the employees, resolving their
conflicts fairly and increasing the satisfaction of employees so as to boost the level of
performance of the workforce. There is a constant change in the organizational culture of BP
Plc. I order to cope up with the dynamic environment of the business by applying management
and leadership concepts on the basis of the arising situation in order to achieve success in the
organization (Amernic and Craig, 2017).
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MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Bolden (2016) explains that the managers and the leaders are a source for bringing innovation
and creativity into business by using various approaches of management and leadership and
encouraging the employees and teams to participate in all the activities of the business by
giving their ideas and opinions and motivating the employees to think out of the box and the
employees are providing appropriate training and development so as to increase productivity
and efficiency in business and thus, creating an effective organization culture of British
Petroleum, UK (Bolden, 2016).
THEORIES OF MANAGEMENT
According to Guo and Huang (2016), management of activities in an organization refers to the
accomplishment of the tasks by the managers with the help of subordinates in order to achieve
the desired goals of the organization. British Petroleum Plc. Applies various management
approaches such as Herzberg's two-factor theory, Equity theory, etc. in order to motivate the
employees to perform better by providing them with safe and healthy working conditions so as
to increase satisfaction and gain competitive advantage (Guo and Huang, 2016). These theories
can be explained as:
HERZBERG TWO FACTOR MODEL
Herzberg's two-factor theory states that there are various sources of job satisfaction and
dissatisfaction among the employees at the workplace that can be classified under two forces,
hygiene factors and satisfier factors (Alshmemri et al., 2017).
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Figure 1: HERZBERG TWO FACTOR MODEL
(Source: Herzberg, 2017)
The managers of BP, UK noted that the factors that dissatisfy the employees include poor and
unsafe working conditions, fear of getting injured during work, etc. and thus, tried to remove
these factors completely by providing a safer work environment in order to reduce
dissatisfaction (Alshmemri et al., 2017). The managers aimed at increasing the motivation by
maintain good relationships at the workplace, providing feedback, appraisals, recognition,
training and development bonus and incentives, etc. to the employees. Thus, the effective
application of the two-factor theory at BP helps in the efficient management of employees
(Alshmemri et al., 2017).
EQUITY THEORY
According to Miner (2015), Equity theory is used by the managers in BP to create a good
relationship between the management and the employee. The managers at BP have realized
that the employees of the organization expect to gain equal outcome as the inputs they put in
the business.
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Figure 2: ADAM'S EQUITY THEORY
(Source: Miner, 2015)
The employees of the organization put their efforts, qualification, commitment, skills,
experience, expertise, loyalty, hard work, etc. in business in the form of inputs. The outcomes
expected by the employees comprises of good working conditions, salary and benefits,
incentives, appraisal, recognition, etc. to increase their motivation and perform better in order
to achieve the goals of the organization effectively (Miner, 2015).
THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP
Leadership is the process of encouraging, supporting and guiding employees and teams in the
right direction so as to achieve the objectives within specified time-frame and increase the
productivity and efficiency of the employees (Antonakis and Day, 2017.). There are various
styles of leadership used in BP based on the demand of the situation. The different leadership
approaches include participative, charismatic, transformational, autocratic, laissez-faire, etc.
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP APPROACH
Hawkins (2017) argues that the transformational style of leadership is used by the leaders to
inspire the members of the team and improve the performance of the organization. This
leadership approach focuses on creating a vision and also modifying the social systems of the
business in order to bring some positive change in the performance, boost enthusiasm and
confidence of the workforce (Ghasabeh et al. 2015). This style helps in guiding the employees
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and increasing their commitment towards the goals of the organization and thus, achieving
success in BP.
Figure 3: TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP THEORY
(Source: Ghasabeh et al. 2015)
Intellectual stimulation: the leaders at BP motivate the team members to enhance their skills
by encouraging creativity in business.
Individualized consideration: All the members of the team are given rights to participate in
activities of the business and the leaders of BP encourage and support all the members’
individually (Hawkins, 2017).
Inspirational motivation: The leaders communicate the vision of BP to the employees and
motivate them to achieve the desired goals effectively.
Idealized influence: At BP, the leader acts as a role model for the team members. The members
of the organization respect the leader and follow the path guided by the leader (Ghasabeh et al.
2015).
Thus, transformational leaders in British Petroleum are focused on achieving the organizational
goals and satisfying the employees by effectively utilizing all the four elements of this theory
(Hawkins, 2017).
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PARTICIPATIVE STYLE OF LEADERSHIP
The democratic style of leadership applied by the leaders at BP helps in achieving higher
profitability and productivity. The leaders encourage the participation of all the team members
in the decision making and also provide opportunities to the members to enhance their skills
and capabilities by providing adequate training and management which helps in increasing the
satisfaction of employees at workplace and boosting their morale which helps in improving the
performance and increasing efficiencies at workplace (Cunningham et al. 2015).
Figure 4: DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP APPROACH
(Source: Cunningham et al. 2015)
Therefore, it can be summarized that there are various approaches to leadership and
management used in the British Petroleum UK such as equity theory, autocratic style,
transformational leadership theory, etc (Cunningham et al. 2015). that can helps the managers
and leaders in motivating and encouraging the subordinates of the organization to accomplish
the tasks and achieve the objective of the organization and thus, gain a competitive advantage
in the business.
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