Leadership is a process by which an executive can direct, guide and influence the behavior and work of others towards accomplishment of specific goals in a given situation. While between the leader and followers, the influence is mutual, together, they influence the environment around them in some way. To be effective leaders, managers must understand the dynamics of individual and group behaviour, be able to motivate their employees, and be effective communicators. They must capable of understanding and predicting what will happen in the future.
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 goals.” The leader that I admire most is Vivy yusof or her full name Vivy Sofinas Yusof. Vivy Yusof`s position in her organisation is the co-founder and Chief Creative Officer and her organisation named is FashionValet and duckGroup. She runs Fashion Valet with his husband Fadzaruddin Anuar who holds the Chief Executive Officer position in the company. Both the founders got married in 2012, and they have three kids. Vivy is a blogger, fashion icon, and an important person in Malaysian online business world.
Vivy who was born in Kajang, Selangor is currently 30 years old. She was a law graduate from London School of Economics and does not have a background in business nor in the world of fashion. She taking her living experience in England where she loves to shop online. After she graduating university and returning to Malaysia, she realised that e-commerce was non-existent at Malaysia back in 2010.
So she and her husband, started Fashion Valet (FV) in November 2010, a fashion, e-commerce site that brings homegrown, high-end designers closer to consumers. From a RM100,000 capital, 10 local designers and a staff of 20 she started her FV. After two years on the relatively new e-commerce scene, they participated and won MYEG Make The Pitch Season 2, a nationwide TV programme, in 2012. However now Vivy and his husband has hundreds employees and stocks more than 500 brands from all across the Southeast Asia. FashionValet does not only focus on the market in Malaysia, but also in Indonesia, Brunei, Australia and the United Kingdom.
ROLES OF MANAGERS
A role is concerned with the behaviour pattern of a manager within an organization. Henry Mintzberg did a careful study of five chief executives at work in the late 1960’s. He argued that there are ten primary roles or behaviors that can be used to categorize a manager’s different functions. He concluded that managers perform ten different but highly interlinked roles. He could categorise management work into ten roles, grouped into three categorise which is interpersonal roles, informational roles and decisional roles.
Interpersonal Roles
Interpersonal roles appear directly from manager’s formal authority and status, and involve relationships with other people both in and out of the organisation.
For example, subordinates, other managers, the board of directors, the works council, customers and suppliers. The tree interpersonal roles played by the manager are figurehead, leader, and liaison. A leader has to perform some duties as a figurehead. They are the public face of the management team and represent the business in legal, economic, and social forums to those inside and outside of the organization and it depends on her position in the organizational structure. In the figurehead role the manager performs ceremonial duties like, participating in opening ceremonies and receiving a quality award. For example Vivy Yusof one of the sponser, mentors and judges in Astro programme Generasi Fashion ‘GenF’.
Vivy Yusof has won a lot award such as Bella Business Award 2013 and she has been featured in many international media such as Forbes. The second role in interpersonal roles is leader. Responsible for the motivation and activation of subordinates which is responsible for staffing, training and associated duties. Because leader are responsible for the success or failure of their organizational units or the organization overall.
For Vivy Yusof as a leader, she always support her subordinate with appreacite all their work as simple as “good job” because people love when they are recognised and acknowledge. To increase productivity of FV employees, Vivy Yusof provides a very comfortable office atmosphere as we can see at Vivy Yusof vlog on YouTube. Finally, leaders serve as liaisons. That is, they coordinate the activities between individuals and work groups within the organisation and develop favorable relationships with outside constituents. Managers must communicate with internal and external contacts. Leader need to be able to network effectively on behalf of your organization.
Vivy Yusof is a very easy to approach with anyone. Her relationship with her employees is very close. To establish this relationship, organisation FV always organize activities together between employees and manager such
Informational Roles
All managers are required to perform informational roles. They have to collect information from organizations and institutions outside their own. Managers also play the role of disseminators when they supply information to subordinates in the organization. Responsible for ensuring that the people with whom they work have sufficient information to do their jobs effectively.
The tree informational roles played by the manager are monitor, disseminator and spokesperson . As a monitor the manager gathers all internal and external information that is relevant to the organization. Manager also responsible for arranging, analysing and assessing this information so that he can easily identify problems and opportunities and identify changes. Disseminator role under which the manager transmits and propagate special information into the organization by his work through reports and letters. This is where manager communicate potentially useful information to colleagues and team. Spokesperson is managers represent and speak for their organization.
In this role manager responsible for transmitting information about organization such as corporate policies, performance and other relevant information and its goals to for external parties.
Decisional roles
Managers are responsible for decision-making and they can do this in different ways at different levels. The leadership style is important in decision-making. Decisional roles include entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator.
As an entrepreneur, the manager designs and initiates changes and strategies. Disturbance handler is the manager will always immediately respond to unexpected events and operational breakdowns and aims for usable solutions. In resource allocator, the manager controls and authorizes the use of organizational resources. As a negotiator manager responsible for representing the organisation at major negotiations.
Managerial skill
Managerial skills are what the manager uses to assist the organization in accomplishing its goals. Managerial skills are technical skills, human skills and conceptual skills. Technical skills are knowledge of and proficiency in activities involving methods, processes, and procedures. Technical skill is the ability to use the specialized knowledge, procedures, and techniques of a field of activities. Human skills is the ability of working with people, individually and in a group. Managers with good human skills can create an environment where people feel secure and free to express the view.
Conceptual skills present knowledge or ability of a manager for more abstract thinking. That means he can easily see the whole through analysis and diagnosis of different states.
