EMPLOYEE COUNSELLING.

the organisation. Basically there are three forms of counselling.

In every organisation, a large number of employees work together. Their attitudes, feelings and needs differ from each other. Such individual difference cause different problems in an enterprise. These problems may relate to the organisation, working condition, supervision, remuneration, or technical aspect. Some times these problems may result in emotional conflicts. Such conflicts may arise between employee and employee, employee and supervisor, employee and employer, supervisor and manager or between supervisor and supervisor. Such conflicts are against the interest of all, and the enterprise. So the need is to get rid of these conflicts and the best way is to counsel the concerned parties.

1. Directive counselling:- This is the process of hearing a persons emotional problems, deciding what he should do, and then telling and motivating him to do it. Under this method the counsellor listens to the problems of the employee very patiently and analyses this problem in his mind. Then he advises the employee, what he should do. Thus this method of counselling stresses upon the suggestions by counsellor to the employee. Directive counselling mostly accomplishes the counselling function of advise, but it may also communicate, give emotional release and to a minor extent clarify thinking. But this method is subject to certain limitations such as in understanding the problem of the employees. The counsellor may not be able to in understanding the problem of the employees The employee may or may not agree with the advise The success of this method depends upon the ability and efficiency of counsellor. 2. Non Directive Counselling:- Under this method, the counsellor listens to the problems of employees. The employee is encouraged to explain his problem in detail. This method concentrates upon the employee rather than the counsellor. Under this method the employee himself controls the direction of discussion and he himself tries to find out the solution of his problem. The counsellor does not give his suggestions. This method is more effective because the employee gets the status equal to the counsellor. He feels complete freedom, and tries to find out the solution of his problem. But this method takes more time and can be effective only when the employee have self confidence.

Employee counseling is a discussion with the concerned employee on an emotional problem so that the problem may be solved. Under this technique the problem is listened carefully and the suggestions are given to him to reduce the problem. In the words of Keith Davis, counseling is defined as discussion of an emotional problem with an employee, with general objective of decreasing it. Emotional problems cause tension and confusion in the minds of an employee. He may find it difficult to discharge his duties properly due to such tensions. Emotional upsets can reduce the productivity, or it may make them leave the Co. it may lower the morale of the department they belong to. Such tensions should be removed at any cost because these adversely affect the achievement of organisational objectives. Need of counselling at workplace. Apart from their personal problems, there are various reasons which can create stress for the employees at the workplace like unrealistic targets or work-load, constant pressure to meet the deadlines, career problems, responsibility and accountability, conflicts or bad interpersonal relations with superiors and subordinates, problems in adjusting to the organizational culture. Counselling helps the employee to share and look at his problems from a new perspective, help himself and to face and deal with the problems in a better way. Counselling at workplace is a way of the organisation to care about its employees. Types of employee Counselling. The objective of counselling is to help reduce emotional problems of employees. A reduction of such problems will benefit every one- the employee, his family, supervisor and

3. Co-operative Counselling:- This method is a combination of both directive and non directive method of counselling. Under this method, both the employee and counsellor co-operate each other finding a solution of the problem. Here both discuss their views on the problem in detail and try to find out the solutions based on mutual consent and cooperation. This form of counselling is worth a serious notice as this appears to b more practically applicable and more readily suitable to managerial attitude and temperament in Indian organisational situations than the other two.

LEADERSHIP

Human beings are the most precious part of an organisation. Effective utilisation of the capacity of human resources depends upon management. Management can get the results from the people in two ways. (A)- By exercising authority and (B)- By winning the support of the people. Out of these the second method has a lasting effect over the peoples motivation. However it is only possible when a manager becomes their leader in the real sense to influence their behavior in the desired direction. Effective leadership is of great importance in an enterprise to enable to enable that organisation in achieving its objectives. Leadership is a process by which an executive directs his subordinates and influences the work and behaviour of others for the common benefit of the organisation as well as its members. An effective leader directs the activities of his followers and integrates their activities for the accomplishment of some predetermined objectives. The term leadership has been defined by many authorities. According to Keith Davis- Leadership is the ability to persuade others to seek defined objectives enthusiastically. It is the human factor which binds a group together and motivates it towards a goal. According to Bernard Leadership refers to the quality of the behaviour of the individuals where by they guide people on their activities in an organisation. Leadership is a quality which enables a person to direct other persons of the organisation and they become his followers. A leader directs and guides the activities of his followers and influence them to contribute their whole hearted efforts to achieve the common objectives of the enterprise.

the important functions are performed by the autocratic leader himself, like to take decisions, to plan, to make the allotment of work etc. he wants to concentrate all the powers in himself. The subordinates are not free to take decision or to do any work on their own. Autocratic leadership is based on the assumption that the employees are not capable to take decision; and they do not want to work by their nature. They can only be compelled to work if they are closely supervised and controlled. There are 3 categories of autocratic leadership. 1. Strict Autocrat :- He follows autocratic styles in a very strict sense. His method of influencing subordinates behaviour is through negative motivation; ie, by criticising subordinates, imposing penalty etc. 2. Benevolent Autocrat .:- he also concentrates decision making power in him, but his motivation style is positive. He can be effective in getting efficiency in many situations. 3. Incompetent Autocrat :- Sometimes, superiors adopt autocratic leadership styles just to hide their incompetence.; because in other styles they may be exposed before their subordinates. However this cant be used for a long time. 2. Democratic Leadership/ participative leadership. This type of leader believes in the co-operation and coordination of the group. He permits his subordinates to participate in the process of decision making. He believes in the decentralisation of authority, two way communication and joint participation in decision making process. A democratic leader takes his decisions according to the opinion of majority and he makes his best efforts to improve the job satisfaction and morale of his followers. This is the most popular form of leadership these days and is most successful because it gets full cooperation and integration in group activities. 3. Free- rein Leadership. Under this style of leadership, the leader doesnt direct the activities of his followers. This style gives complete freedom to subordinates. In this style, manager determines policy, programmes and limitations for action and the entire process is left to subordinates. Group members perform everything and the manager usually maintains contacts with outside persons to bring the information and materials which the group needs. This type of leadership is based on he assumption that all the subordinates are competent, willing to work and self motivated. There is no need to direct their activities. It is

TYPES / STYLES OF LEADERSHIP. These are the pattern of behaviour which a leader adopts in influencing the behaviour of his followers (subordinates) in the organisational context. There are many dimensions of leadership styles. Following are the types of leadership which may be found in an enterprise. 1. Autocratic Leadership. In this style a manger centralises the decision making power in himself. He structures the complete work situation for his subordinates and they do what they are told. Autocratic leadership is based on the principle of centralisation of power. Under this type of leadership all

believed that they will perform better if they are free to decide and do on their own. 4. Personal Leader. A personal leader is a person, who becomes a leader in the enterprise on the basis of personal relations. Such leader influences his followers in his personal capacity only. This type of leader influences the followers only because of his personality, personal abilities and character.

how he should deal with human beings. Since an important part of a leaders job is to develop people and get their co-operation for achieving work, he should have intimate knowledge of people and their relationship to each other. 3. Objectivity:- Objectivity implies that what a leader does, should be based on relevant facts and information. He must assess these without any bias or prejudice. 4. Motivating skills:- A leader must acquire the quality to motivate his employees. Though there are many external forces which motivate a person, there is inner drive in people also for motivation to work. The leader can play active role in stimulating these inner drives. 5. Technical skill:- The leading of people requires adherence to definite principles which must be understood and followed for greater success. The ability to plan, organise, delegate, analyse, make decisions and control requires the use of important abilities which constitute technical competence of leadership. 6. Communication skill:- A successful leader knows how to communicate effectively. Communication has great force in getting the acceptance from the receivers of communication. There are some obvious limitations of the trait theory. Firstly it is very difficult to find out a particular leadership trait in the greatest leaders of the world all times. Secondly while all of the traits listed above might be desirable in leaders, none seems to be absolutely essential. There have been many people with the traits specified for leader, but they were not good leaders. BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH.

THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP. Various theories have been developed to describe, analyse and explain the leadership function. Each theory has its own contributions, limitations assumptions and frame work of analysis. TRAIT APPROACH to Leadership. This approach was one of the first attempt to explain leader behaviour, or attempts to influence subordinates. This approach focused on certain characteristics that separate leader from others. Trait approach leadership studies were quite popular between 1930s and 1950. The method of study was to select successful leaders; and their traits (characteristics) were studied. This theory assumes that such traits cause them to rise above their followers. The basic traits are ones energy, looks, knowledge, courage etc. The underlying logic of trait theory is that an individual possessing such traits is usually able to influence others. Leadership traits are of two types. They are innate qualities and acquirable qualities. Innate qualities are those which are possessed by various individuals since their birth. 1. Physical features:- Physical features of a man are determined by hereditary factors. To some extent height, weight, health and appearance are important for leadership. 2. Intelligence:- For leadership higher level of intelligence is required. Intelligence is generally expressed in terms of mental ability. Intelligence, to a very great extent, is a natural quality in the individuals because it is directly related with brain. Acquirable qualities are those which can be acquired and increased through various processes. Many of these traits can be increased through training programme. 1. Emotional stability:- A leader should have high level of emotional stability. He should be free from bias, is consistent in action, and refrains from anger. 2. Human relations:- A successful leader should have adequate knowledge of human relations. ie

Discouraged by the lack of success in identifying the universal traits, researchers turned their attention to the behaviours of leaders. Leadership according to this approach is the result of effective role behaviour. Leadership is shown by a persons act more than by his traits. Behavioural theories attempt to describe leadership in terms of what leaders do; and this approach is based on the assumption that leaders are not born, but developed. Researchers exploring leadership role have come to the conclusion that to operate effectively, groups need someone to perform two major functions; task related and group maintenance functions. Task related functions relate to providing solutions to the problems faced by the group, in performing jobs and activities. Group maintenance functions relate to actions of mediating disputes and ensuring that individuals feel valued by group. An individual who is able to perform

both roles successfully would be an effective leader. Leadership behaviour may be viewed in two ways. Functional and Dysfunctional. Functional behaviour influences followers positively and includes such functions as setting clear goals, motivating employees for achieving goals, raising the level of morale, building team spirit etc. Dysfunctional behaviour is unfavourable to the followers and denotes ineffective leadership. Such a behaviour may be inability to accept employees ideas, display of emotional immaturity, poor human relations etc. Two groups of researchers were responsible for the development of behavioural theories of leadership.

1. Ohio State Studies:- These well publicised studies were started shortly after second world war and its objectives was to investigate effect of leader behavior on employee performance and satisfaction. The Ohio State University studies identified two leadership behaviours-- Initiating structure and Consideration. Initiating structures refers to the extent to which the leaders structures and define the activities of the subordinates, so that organisational goals are achieved. It includes behaviour that attempt to organise work, work relationships and goals. Consideration refers to the ability of the leader to establish rapport, mutual respect and two-way communication with the employees. The leader is friendly, approachable and listens to the problems of employees and allows them to suggest. The studies found that consideration was positively related to low absenteeism, but was negatively related to performance. But initiating structure was positively related to performance but was associated with absenteeism and grievance. 2. Michigan studies :- About the same time the Ohio State studies were being carried out, researchers at the University of Michigan were investigating the leader behaviours associated with high performing and low performing groups. They found two different styles of leadership. Job Centred and Employee Centred. Job centred leaders emphasised the technical aspect of the job, set work standards and closely supervised workers. Employee centred leaders were interested in their subordinates as people, showed concern for their well being and encouraged worker involvement in goal setting. 3. Managerial Grid :- Robert.R.Blake and Jane.S.Moutan developed the managerial grid, which is quite popular among managers as a tool for identifying their style. This is based on the styles of concern for people and concern for production. The Grid clarifies, on two 9 point scales, how the two dimensions are related.

The grid identified five basic styles of leadership. The 9.1 leader is primarily concerned with production and has little concern for people. This person believes in getting work done at all costs. The 1.9 leader is primarily concerned with people. The 5.5 leader represents a moderate concern for both. The 9.9 leadership style demonstrates high concern for both production and people and is there fore the ideal approach to leadership. In 1.1 style of leadership the leader has minimum concern for production and people. The model is useful to managers in as much as it helps them identify their current styles and develop the most desirable styles. The behaviour approach developed various leadership styles such as autocratic, democratic etc. as per this approach a leader uses three skills. Technical, human and conceptual.- to lead his followers. Technical skill refers to a persons knowledge and proficiency in any type of process or technique. Human skill is the ability to interact effectively with he people and conceptual skill deals with ideas. Setting goals, motivating employees, raising morale, building team spirit etc are the functional behaviour for a successful leader. SITUATIONAL THEORY. The prime attention in situational theory of leadership (also known as contingency theory) is given to the situation in which leadership is exercised. Therefore effectiveness of leadership will be affected by the factors associated with the leader and factors associated with the situation.

characteristics of the environment in which the leader works" .

The first major factor in Fiedler's theory is known as the leadership style. This is the consistent system of interaction that takes place between a leader and work group. "According to Fiedler, an individual's leadership style depends upon his or her personality and is, thus, fixed" . In order to classify leadership styles, Fiedlers has developed an index called the least-preferred coworker (LPC) scale. The LPC scale asks a leader to think of all the persons with whom he or she has ever worked, and then to describe the one person with whom he or she worked the least well with. This person can be someone form the past or someone he or she is currently working with. From a scale of 1 through 8, leader are asked to describe this person on a series of bipolar scales such as those shown below: Unfriendly 12345678 Uncooperative 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Hostile 12345678 Guarded 12345678 Friendly Cooperative Supportive Open

The various factors affecting leadership effectiveness may be broadly classified in to two categories; leaders behaviour and situational factors. Leaders behaviour is affected by his characteristics (like his personality, attitudes, interest motivation, age, sex, physical features etc.) and his hierarchical position. Situational factors include subordinates characteristics (same as leaders); Leaders situation (his position power and leader subordinate relation);Group factors (like group composition norms, cohesiveness etc) and Organisational factors like organisational culture, climate etc. This theory has wide implications for managers in the sense that it offers clues why a manager who is successful in one situation, fails when there is change in the situation. Contingency theories. Managerial leadership has influenced organizational activities in many ways. These influences include motivating subordinates, budgeting scarce resources, and serving as a source of communication. Over the years researchers have emphasized the influences of leadership on the activities of subordinates. These emphasis by researchers led to theories about leadership. "The first and perhaps most popular, situational theory to be advanced was the Contingency Theory of Leadership Effectiveness' developed by Fred E. Fiedler" This theory explains that group performance is a result of interaction of two factors. These factors are known as leadership style and situational favorableness. These two factors will be discussed along with other aspects of Fiedler's theory. "In Fiedler's model, leadership effectiveness is the result of interaction between the style of the leader and the

The responses to these scales (usually sixteen in total) are summed and averaged: a high LPC score suggests that the leader has a human relations orientation, while a low LPC score indicates a task orientation. Fiedler's logic is that individuals who rate their least preferred coworker in relatively favorable light on these scales derive satisfaction out of interpersonal relationship; those who rate the coworker in a relatively unfavorable light get satisfaction out of successful task performance" . This method reveals an individual's emotional reaction to people with whom he or she cannot work. It is also stressed that is not always an accurate measurement. The Path Goal Theory In the recent time, one of the most appreciated theories of leadership is the path-goal theory as offered by Robert House, which is based on the expectancy theory of motivation. According to this theory, the effectiveness of a leader depends on the following propositions: leader behaviour is acceptable and satisfying to followers to the extent that they see it as an immediate source of satisfaction or as instrumental to future satisfaction leader behaviour is motivational to the extent that (1) it makes the followers needs satisfaction contingent or dependent on effective performance, and (2) it complements the followers environment by providing the coaching, guidance, support, and rewards necessary for

realizing the linkage between the level of their performance and the attainment of the rewards available. The leader selects from any of the four styles of behaviour which is most suitable for the followers at a given point of time. These are directive, supportive, participative, and the achievement-oriented according to the need and expectations of the followers. In other words, the path-goal theory assumes that leaders adapt their behaviour and style to fit the characteristics of the followers and the environment in which they work. Actual tests of the pathgoal theory provides conflicting evidence and therefore it is premature to either fully accept or reject the theory at this point. Nevertheless the path-goal theory does have intuitive appeal and offers a number of constructive ideas for leaders who lead in a variety of followers in a variety of work environments.