Interview with Mark James: Overall Manager: Commercial Bank

Introduction

With a corporate illustration throughout the globe, Commercial Bank has turned out to be one of the biggest players in the industry. The role of the management normally parallels the needs of the developing and the changing organization of Commercial Bank. The bank is becoming resilient, more adaptable, customer-centered and quickly adapts to the ever-changing environment. This paper analyses an interview with Mark James, the overall Resource Manager for the Commercial Bank. This interview will be detailed and will also be performed in a systematic way. With a corporate illustration throughout the globe, Commercial Bank has turned out to be one of the biggest players in the industry. Its branch offices and headquarters employ a huge number of employees worldwide. The Bank develops at a modern pace, as well. This is perfectly illustrated by its advanced use of information technology, which aims to get clients and while investing substantial resources in getting a leading position in the present upfront position.

Mark James is currently a senior manager working for the Commercial Bank. He holds a B.S in Business Administration from Harvard University and also holds a post graduate diploma in Business Administration and Strategic Management from the Stanford University. Mark James has about fifteen years of experience in management, within the banking industry, and has worked as an accountant in various institutions for about thirteen years. This ultimately reflects that Mark James is perfectly accomplished in failures and successes of management. Bringing his experience and talent has initiated magnificent rewards to the bank.

Mark James has a duty of managing over fifty five Commercial Bank branches, to ensure they are being run as per the standard currency transaction rules. The role of Mark James is to make sure that the transactions that are being carried by various branches are clear and performed without any corruption or exploitation of any party. Moreover, he is liable for the transparency of the whole institution.

As the manager, Mark James is compassionate to his employees. He is extremely obsessed with a great vision of quality of work he carries. He guides the employees of the Commercial Bank keeping them focused and destined at achieving different goals in their organizations. He embraces his role of serving others and is sure of the needs of others in the chase to fulfill the Bank’s dreams, and pursue them in spite of any available fear. He holds a great vision that allows him to view things as to what they are supposed to be and not what they are. His education seems to reflect his strategic, perspective and wise characteristics. Moreover, Mark James is absolutely equipped with enough knowledge that allows him to make correct calls that make his career a success (Gomez-Mejia, 2008). His services assist Commercial Bank clients to reach their full potential. This is guided by his spiritual understanding of mission, vision, identity and environment. This leads to the development of his Bank and brings the best from it. Servings others has allowed him to have strategies that encourage self expression and facilitate personal growth of the employees in his bank. His hard work has, therefore, allowed all employees to build a sense of joint ownership thus lifting the bank a notch higher.

Leadership Practices

I asked Mark James how he took part in the four basic management functions. Craig claims them to be influencing, planning, controlling and organizing (Craig, 2009). Mark James response was that he was focused on controlling and influencing. Mark James takes the opportunity to teach others applied principles and practices. He performs this through his vision as well the vision of the bank. All these are done to deliver a bond success system that comprises of management, vast consumer size and reach, exceptional services, distribution and scale that deliver clients and satisfies them, at the same time. Through this vision, there emerges standards that every employee must follow; it is Mark James’ responsibility to communicate all the guidelines to every bank under his authority. Mark James states that Commercial Bank introduces short-term and long-term goals for the region that he represents via quarterly reports. Mark James uses these reports to pass his ideas to his fellow employees.

In order to communicate these guidelines, Mark James establishes strong relationship with clients, as well as his staffs. This is done through management workshops, dinners, luncheons and entertainment nights. Mark James does all these to educate the employees of the Commercial Bank about the best practice of managing the bank that they can deploy in a comfortable but official environment. He states that this is one of the best ways that can be applied to establish a sound working relationship between the employees, thus encourage them to work as a group. According to Mark James, communication is the key to motivating the employees. Mark James believes one contribution to his success today is his motivating character. He motivates his employees at times through implementing prizes, diploma awards and monetary rewards. He, therefore, implements short term rewards that are allowable through the Commercial expense account for the need of rewarding the employees within various branches for their exceptional piece of work. This form of rewards increases motivation for employees who receives them. They get motivated and decides to work extra hard to reach their goals, as well as fulfill the targets as set out by Commercial Bank.

Mark James made clear that the Commercial Bank employees are motivated by fears. This is because the fear of failure acts as the motivating factor. The largest fear that Mark James communicates to the employees involves the status of the Commercial Bank brand. Definite criteria must be met by the employees so as to make sure that Commercial Bank maintains the highly recognized brand image. It is the role of Mark James to communicate with the Commercial Bank employees and direct them to meet the brand and image guidelines.

Leadership Styles

Research and experience have exposed a big number of leadership theories and studies. The trait approach towards leadership is observed in studies that state that a leader has to be born and cannot just be made. This was an effort that was meant to standardize the traits of leadership. When the trait approach is considered, the most successful leaders enjoy qualities such as intelligence, emotional maturity, reliability, stability, persistence, past achievement in scholarship, as well as a drive for continuing accomplishment. Successful leaders also hold the skills to adapt to various groups and participate socially in different groups. He should also have sufficient desire status as well as socioeconomic position. There are more recent theories like the situational approach to leadership. This theory assumes that every instance of leadership is unique and; therefore, needs a certain combination of leadership situations, followers and leaders.

“Although this sounds paternalistic and controlling, transactional leaderships grants Commercial bank great benefits”, as Mark James stated. The style clarifies the responsibilities and roles of every member in Commercial bank. Another benefit is that, since transactional leadership is used to judge the employees on their performance, the individuals who are ambitious or the ones motivated through rewarding, often thrive. Nevertheless, Mark James was fair enough to notify me that transitional leadership has some downsides. For instance, some of the employees in the Commercial Bank have developed a habit of doing little to develop their job satisfaction. This can be stifling leading to high staff turnover.

Autocratic leadership functions as an extreme figure of transactional leadership, where the leaders express authority over his team. Though this model of leadership style gives very little opportunity to the employees to make suggestions, it has assisted Commercial Bank in one way or the other, since it is incredibly efficient. The decisions are made very fast, and the work is performed efficiently. Nevertheless, a good number of Commercial Bank employees are turning against it claiming that they should have a chance to express themselves, and their contributions towards the development of the Bank should be given a room. It is often applied in crises, when decisions need to be made quickly without dissent.

Mark James makes sure that the employees follow the rules of the Commercial Bank rigorously, ensuring that all procedures are precisely followed. This illustrates his good mastery of the bureaucratic style of leadership. It is an appropriate style of leadership for work that involves serious safety risks due to the large amount of money transaction in the bank. Bureaucratic leadership is applied in various routine tasks, in the bank. However, Mark James does not enjoy using bureaucratic style of leadership since it does not meet the Commercial Bank standard of flexibility, innovation and creativity.

Another leadership style that is observed in Mark James is the transactional leadership. This leadership style commences with the idea that team members comes into an agreement with the leader in charge after accepting a job. He explains that “transaction” in Commercial Bank involves the payment of the employees in return for their compliance and efforts. Mark James continues to state that, as a leader, he has the right to “punish” the employees if the work assigned does not meet an appropriate standard.

Mark James also enjoys charismatic style of leadership since it allows him to inspire enthusiasm in his members. This makes them energetic thus motivates one another thus moving forward in an excellent way. This commitment and excitement from various employees in Commercial Bank has become an enormous benefit. As a charismatic leader, Mark James is focused on making his dreams come true. The downside of Mark James as charismatic leaders is that such leaders believe in themselves rather than in their groups. This can create the risk that a project or even an entire organization might collapse if the leader leaves.

Democratic leadership is in charge of the final decisions. Nevertheless, democratic leadership in Commercial Bank includes the use of proper decision making. They encourage creativity, as well as the employees’ engagement with decision making process and the projects. An employee from Commercial Bank is very productive and has a higher level of job satisfaction, due to involvement of employee’s in decision making process of the organization. Democratic leadership is also vital since it assists various individuals in their skills. The employees become happy in control of their destiny. The employees become motivated to work extra hard by more than a financial reward. Since participation takes time, democratic leadership can slow down the decision making activity so as to attain the best results. The approach goes on to become very important when people work together as a group. However, Mark James does not always have to rely on this leadership style, this is because it can hinder situation if the matter needs an urgent solution.

Leadership Style and Delegation

A great leader is the light for his people and what he does is considered to be right thus people always try to emulate him. A lot is expected from a leader, for example, he has to be charismatic, generous, and he should give his people a chance to express their hearts and feelings. Through his journey of success, Mark James has been encoring himself that he can always manage to handle a problem and ensure that a solution to the matter at hand is found. He has had eight principles that have served as his guidelines all through his time. The principles have helped the senior manager to emerge as a winner and be successful in life. The following principles have been the guide principles for Mark James. Some of these principles include knowledge of the required details of the work that needs to be accomplished. Leaders who always try to have a direction in their work always manage to have a successful result. One needs to know the reasons as to why he was elected and the works that he needs to be completed. A hard working leader is a person, who is devoted and one who can travel long distances to ensure that the company acquires something that is worth in terms of quality and have the best for their respective ways. A leader should always have a backup, in case the initial plan fails. Mark James, being a great leader in the industry of banking, has always ensured that a solution is found, by tying to associate or involve his friends in decision making or before enacting a bill to be law (Certo, 2011). Thanks to this, the employees always understand better that whenever I am in a problem my boss can help me out in this situation. He ensured that his relationship with his employees was not ruined by ensuring that there was not an intermediary between the leader and the people. James believes that borders that could result due to unfavorable working condition are the greatest enemy to any operating company. The reason behind this, according to James, was that once the relationship between the employer and employees is destroyed, the spirit of trying to rebel takes place, or one team will be trying to prove the powers to the other group. Therefore, Mark James ensures that the two teams work together for the success of their company.

Action plans and asking oneself questions like, what is needed to be done so as to ensure that the company is running smoothly or so as to ensure that the sales are increased should be common. Such questions trigger the minds of most leaders making them look at the structure of their company once again, so as to ensure that they improve their status. Such questions require that a leader involves a few members in his team who will help him to analyze the problem and try to find a suitable solution. Thanks to this practice, Mark James has ensured that he exercises the art of being responsible for the decisions he made by trying to consult his fellow work mates. During this meeting, he also tries to solve a problem by finding a permanent solution to a problem that the company could be facing thus proving an effective mechanism of ruling. During the interview, I asked James about what he thinks about his employees. He told me that each had a different character and gift, and the leader needs to try and see which gifts are put into practice by assisting employees and discussing with them on how to exploit what issues lay uncovered.

I believe and trust that Mr. Mark James has a strong and effective ruling mechanism. He is an effective leader. I think that he should try to group his people according to their gifts, as well as motivate people helping each other to work out their problems, as well as put their gifts into use. His relationships with the employees have been of great help to their performance of the company and behavior of subordinates, at work. Mark James ensures that he awakens what lay asleep in his people. Most of the times, he has helped to mature and utilize his employees’ unique skills, which are vital features in business.

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Conclusion

Mark James is a man who has worked in the banking industry for a long time, by now. He has acquired 15 years’ working experience in the Commercial bank. Mark has been successful due to some of his outstanding characteristics and his unique principles. He is a man who gives others freedom and space thus creating a conducive environment at work. As a result, his employees have tried to emulate him thus ensuring that work is done effectively. Mark James believes in himself, and that he is capable of solving each and every problem that comes his way. However, once the problem gets out of hand, he always considers seeking advice from his employees and other work mates. For this reason, I can call him a transformational leader, a person who gives others a chance to try their best, for example, by giving his employees a chance to participate in finding solutions to problems. Whenever things go wrong, Mr. James gets himself involved to help the person that is wrong to understand that he can do better if only he tried to improve his weak points. He is more of a coach to his employees. He tries to understand all his staffs’ personality issues thus relate to various employees differently, based on their personalities traits.

Mark James is a flexible man. He is a man who will not hesitate to tell you once you have done well and once you make the mistake. Mark ensures that he does not only sit in the office and watch the rest of employees work, but he takes responsibility to ensure that work is done according to expectations. Therefore, he always inter mingle with the rest of staff who are working in the bank so as to ensure that he rectifies the mistakes that he would not want to reveal at the closing stages of the project.

Mr. Marks James appreciates young talents. This is a man who is social with people; he is admired by many due to his qualified conduct and high integrity. In Commercial Bank, Mark James has been the role model to most employees, and he always takes initiative to help others, for example, when employees feel that they cannot get a solution to the problem, or by combining efforts with his employees. This makes the employees feel that, even when the going is tough and unbearable, there is someone who cares. This motivates people to keep on working hard knowing that their integrity level will one day come to be of high levels like that of their coach. His leadership qualities are outstanding, and he has out shone many managers in his industry.