Human Resource Management: Leadership Power, Project Challenges

This report delves into the critical aspects of Human Resource Management, focusing on leadership styles, particularly reward and referent power, and their impact on project success. It addresses common project management issues such as poorly defined goals, unrealistic deadlines, scope creep, and insufficient team skills, providing potential solutions for each. The report also examines the challenges of managing virtual teams, including communication barriers, lack of social interaction, and cultural differences, suggesting strategies to mitigate these issues. Furthermore, it outlines a communication plan structure to ensure effective information flow within projects. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of employee motivation through rewards and its contribution to organizational prosperity. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wide range of study resources for students.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT1
Human Resource Management
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Human Resource Management
Introduction
Leadership is a critical position that requires one to identify the manner of acquiring
power rather than relying solely on managing employees and tasks on the firm. The manner in
which power is utilized determines whether the project goals are promoted or undermined
(Brack, et al., 2015). Despite there being several ways of wielding power, their application and
effectiveness depend on the type of the project being managed.
Management Powers
Particularly, I prefer the reward power and the referent power to the other forms of
power. Current, most employees are learned and respond to every operation on the firm. The
analogy of brutality and coercion is currently outdated. Most importantly, human resources
demand compensation against their work.
Furthermore, more energy is wasted forcing the employing to perform unlike when
rewards are used to create a motive among the workers for better performance. Apart from
motivation, rewards have proven to be more essential in promoting good characters among the
employees. Additionally, rewards promote joy among the workers as they develop a feeling of
pride and achievement. Rewards are essential in developing self-esteem among the workers who
through success and pride are lured towards achieving hire successful results. Rewards have also
proven to have a significant effect on the completion of tasks assigned. Due to the sense of
competition against the task assigned among the employees, most of the assignments are likely
to be completed easily without supervision. Finally, rewards can be categorized at various levels
to promote the improvement of results in the workplace (Renard, 2017).Therefore, the reward
power is essential for my project at hand.

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As often referred to as the cult of personality, the referent power is significant for my
project. The referent power refers to the ability for one to lured, attract and create loyalty with
the employees (Prescott, 2015). In this case, the leader creates a form of respect to the employee
which is very significant in human resource management particularly in the current generation
(Abudi, 2019). The employees are likely to respect a leader who has a good truck of record as a
result of success. In such a case, the leader gets an easier time to lead the magnitude as they are
motivated and have the due respect to be guided towards the achievement of the organizational
goals. The referent power is significant in my project because I can handle it accordingly by
promoting the best values towards the employees. Furthermore, employees feel motivated to give
their best performance when the leader exercises humility and morality.
Issues Circumnavigating Project Management
Apart from the powers available to the managers, this report looks at the four critical
issues that circumnavigate the management of projects (Sharma, Suryanarayana and
Samarthyam, 2015). Firstly, poorly defined goals predispose problems in project management.
The managers usually fail to acknowledge exactly their expectations from a particular project.
Ones the goals and objectives of the project are not clearly defined then it's automatic that the
project is doomed to fail. All businesses are likely to suffer provided that clarity and forethought
before initiation are missing. This problem can be solved through organization of kickoff
meeting and the use of planning software's prior to the starting of a project t to ensure that the
goals and objectives are clearly defined.
Secondly, most managers tend to set unrealistic deadlines for the achievement of the
predetermined goals and objectives. Usually, the managers present unrealistic expectations to the
clients and stakeholders which render the projects to a huge fall. A flip in the timelines of the

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various projects has been realized as a result of unrealistic initial deadline. Currently, the
business environment is highly competitive making the managers set either unachievable or
unrealistic goals that make them struggle in the desperate attempt of fitting the project into the
already drawn boundaries rather than having focused on the project requirements in the initial
stages of the project (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017). In order to bring then fundamental crisis to an
end, the managers have to take care of project deadlines using alternative analysis, effective
planning and effective communication between the real project participants and the critical
decision makers of the project.
Thirdly, the scope creep is a critical issue in project management. Usually, most projects
start awesomely but with time pick another shape. Such issues come as a result of expanding
then project outside the initial strategy. As a result, the project ends up placing the managers and
other participants in a critical situation that ultimately leads to project failure. The ultimate
solution to such a fundamental problem is to determine project goals and objectives through a
systematic planning process, and acknowledgement of the customer needs and wants.
Finally, insufficient skills among the team members have proven to be a critical issue in
project management (Niazi et al., 2016). Usually, most managers assign tasks to the team
members according to their availability rather than expertise. Failure to adequately train the
members of the project followed by improper allocation of the tasks predisposes the project to a
risky spot. Usually, most projects are critical and require high levels of skills and knowledge.
Therefore, it's upon the manager to identify the areas in which the team members require
intensive training. Such a problem can be solved by documenting all the skills and knowledge
needed to complete the task followed by exhaustive analysis of the weaknesses and strengths of

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the team members (ProofHub, 2018. After that, the manager can then initiate a training and
development program to enhance the skills and knowledge gaps presented by the team members.
Management Challenges in Dealing with Virtual Teams
Managers face huge problems when dealing with virtual teams. Often, poor
communication is the most presented challenge. The team members often lack informal face to
face communication which is a hindrance to innovation, decision making and effectiveness
(Eztalks, 2018). Managers should, therefore, enhance communication through creating smaller
interdependent tasks and the development of partnerships that provide the members with the
goals to be achieved together.
Lack of social interaction is also a huge crisis. Virtual team members are unable to
develop a working friendship with each other due to their inability to see how their work and the
project fit as a whole, and as a result, they get demoralized. Therefore, leaders should initiate
programs that enhance frequent social interactions among members like instant messaging
platforms.
Diverse multicultural teams present cultural differences to the achievement of the
organizational goals and objectives. Virtual teams are made up of different people from different
cultural groups with conflicting customs, values and work habits. To minimize such conflicts, the
managers have to make sure a new working culture is initiated and agreed upon by all members
for the achievement of organizational goals and objectives.
Communication plan
Structure

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The communication structure will follow a normal model where the information encoded
by the sender is transmitted to the receiver in the form of a message. The message is then
decoded by the receiver a response transmitted back. Some of the factors that are likely to be
considered to affect the manner in which the message is decoded will be limited to the noise
which includes language, education, and culture.
Purpose
The purpose of the communication plan, in this case, is to ensure proper achievement of
the organizational goals aimed at promoting the realization of the stakeholder's expectations
among the project participants (PMP, 2018).
Method
This project will not be limited to a particular method of communication. All the three
methods of communication will be used accordingly. The formally written method of
communication will be used in complex problems like distant communication, writing memos
and charters. The formal verbal method will be used in presentations and emails including text
messages. Finally, the informal verbal method will be utilized in conversations and meetings.
Timing
Communication will not be limited to a particular time in the project. However, the
limiting factor is that all the participants of the project should ensure that their communication is
relevant to the achievement of the predetermined objectives of the project.
In conclusion, we are able to determine that an employee who is appreciated through
rewards is most likely to perform better compared to the one coerced to perform. Thus the
managerial head should motivate his or her workers for them to perform efficiently and
effectively. In addition, in most developed and competitive organizations, rewards has proven to

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be essential and vital since it promotes the spirit of commitment hard work and self sacrifice
among the employees hence propagate the prosperity and betterment of the company as a whole.

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