Leadership Styles
We have a lot of leaders in our world. Each of them have their own unique method of leading, however there are 3 main types of leadership styles they can be grouped into.

1) Autocratic

An autocratic leader has absolute control over everything in the group, his decisions and choices are to be followed without question. An Autocratic leader:

- is always in control of the situation
- has all the decision- making power
- is often the most knowledgeable in the group
- can make decisions fast
- messages can be conveyed quickly


Those who follow an Autocratic leader:-

- will depend too much on the leader to make decisions. Thus are unable to make decisions themselves.
- do not communicate with the leader as their opinions will not be considered while the leader makes decisions.

2) Democratic
Democracy is when the leader discusses with his members when making a decision. They mostly make votes for a choice, but the leader always has the final say.

Democratic Leader:
- decision making will be slow as it all has to be discussed
- The decisions will be good as the leader can collect opinions from his employees.
- Despite having the last say, some leaders may feel that they should accept his/her employees decision despite not liking it.

Those who follow an Democratic leader:-

- will be more loyal to their leader
- will have a closer relation to their leader
- Are more motivated to work as their opinions are appreciated

3) Laissez- Faire
It is the polar opposite of autocracy. The employees all know what to do. The leader only gives minimal or no guidance at all.

Leader who uses Laissez-Faire:
- does not have a lot of control as the employees all make their own decisions

Employees:
- work according to their obligation
- has no real direction
- employees may do too much or too little as the work is not distributed.

My Opinion
I feel that each leadership style have their own pros and cons. Thus i feel that we should change our leadership styles depending on the situations, for example: in an emergency, an autocratic style will allow decisions to be made quickly and without question. In normal situations, democracy allows employees to interact with their leader, while laissez- faire can be used to test how coordinated the company is.

Are Leaders Born or Made?
Are leaders born or are they made? I believe that leaders are made, no matter how talented they are to lead others, they cannot always lead others without putting a lot of effort to train or improve their leadership skills. Only hard work can allow them to mantain it for a long time.

Jim Skinner
 The leader i have chosen is Jim Skinner who was the CEO of Mc Donald's until June 30 2012. He had worked Mc Donald's for 41 years before retiring. When he initially entered Mc Donald's in 1971, he was only a restaurant manager trainee, but over the years he worked his way up until he was the CEO of Mc Donald's. His biggest contribution to Mc Donald's was being able to save the company when the profits were dropping using a strategy called "Plan to Win"
The strategy involved improving on locations that already existed instead of expanding and building more. They hoped to achieve “faster, friendlier service; tastier food; a more appealing ambiance; better value; and sharper marketing.”

My opinion
I think that Jim Skinner used the democratic leadership style as, he is known to be friendly with his employees and makes decisions through discussions. I believe that he used the most suitable style out of the given 3 as autocratic would have made the employees lose motivation while laissez-faire is bad when you are leading such a large company.

Organizational Structure
An organizational structure is allows you to see the different levels of responsibility and how decisions are made. The structure of an organization can be displayed on an organizational chart. The different levels of position shows the hierarchy. The chart clearly shows the chain of come command and span of control of the leader.
Chain of command- the chain which shows how decisions are passed up and down an organization(vertical)
Span of Control- shows how many people are under your command (horizontal)

An organization with a long chain of command is called a tall organization, decisions in a tall organization are usually slow as it has to go through a lot of levels
An organization with a wide span of control is called a flat organization, decisions are quickly made but such an organization places a lot of stress on the leader because he has to lead a lot of people.

Example:

                                                 also an example of a short chain of command

                                                  example of a long chain of command            

Mc Donald's Oraganizational Structure

 The organizational chart of a common Mc Donald's franchise.

My Opinion
The organization is suitable for each of their franchises, it is a small organizational chart where decisions can be passes quickly, and the jobs are clearly divided between the workers.

Recruitment
An organization must recruit new members when they are looking for new talent or fill in empty positions. The recruitment process selects the best candidates/applicants most suited for the job. In most companies, the recruitment process is fully managed by the human resources department.

Recruitment Process
1. Finding a vacancy
2.Creating a Job description
3.Creating a job specification
4. Find or advertise for candidates
5. Go through a selection process using interviews
6. Select suitable candidates
7. Go through the contract with suitable candidates
8. Employing the candidate

There are 2 types of recruitment:
Internal Recruitment
This is when the organization uses employees within the business to fill the vacancy.

- This saves time and money for advertising
- The company already knows the employees reliability, ability, potential.
- It may motivate the workers in hopes of getting promoted.
- The employee is already familiar with the company's beliefs and rules of the organization.
- The employee does not waste time "getting used" to the job.

External Recruitment
The organization advertises that they are looking for candidates to fill in the vacancy. The organization may use certain medias to relay this information. They may use newspapers, the Internet, billboard advertisements and so on.

- May take time and money
- can take in new opinions or new ideas
- They can choose from a wide range of candidates than compared with internal recruitment
- May require time to train the new employees

Recruitment in McDonald's
 I used an application form of McDonald's from Canada. You could submit the job application online, it required your personal details, availability, where at McDonald's would you like to work at and employment background. You could also choose the job you would like to apply for. After you applied they would review it and contact you for an interview if they were interested. This method allows them to reduce the number of candidates before interviewing them by crossing out candidates who are unsuitable. Example: too old, works too little hours etc.

Training
Training is when an organization allows their employee to gain a new set of knowledge/skills or improve and practice existing ones. Training is mainly separated into 3 main kinds

1) Induction Training
- This is only when the employee is just hired and new to the organization.
- The main focus of induction training is to get the employee familiar with his job, his co-workers, organization's rules etc.
- The training usually only lasts a few days.

2) On-the-job training
- This is when the employee observes a professional at work.
- This method is only suitable for unskilled employees as skilled ones would already knows how a professional works
- This can save travel costs as they do not need to send employees elsewhere for training
- The trainer's productivity may decrease during this period of time as he has to show how things are done to the new employee.
- Any of the trainers bad habits may be picked up by the employee by accident

3) Off-the-job training
- The organization sends the employees to somewhere else to take a course to learn/improve skills.
- It costs the organization as the travel fees are usually covered by the organization
- This type of training is usually done in a classroom sort of environment.
- Employees who attend this type of training may be able to learn many types of new skills.
- It is suitable for all types of employees

Training at McDonald's

Their training done is usually on-the-job training. The employees are grouped together with their trainers to work at a restaurant as McDonald's feel that working on the spot allows employees to gain experience faster than compared with a course. The employees are initially taught the basics for the use of the machines and registers.

My Opinion
I feel that using on-the-job training may be a good idea as employees gain experience faster but i feel that it would be better if they were offered off-the-job training as well to thoroughly understand the machines they use, how they should react in certain situations and how to handle customers. If the employees had this knowledge before they start working, they would be able to work more effectively

Motivation
Motivation is the force that propels employees to work harder. It makes them want to do better. Motivation can affect many things about an employee. Let me show you the difference:

Unmotivated employee

• Comes to work late, leaves work early
• Reacts slowly
• Produce less products
• The products quality are lower
• They are often very careless
• Unwilling to do any extra work

Motivated Employee

• Gets to work on time
• Produce more products
• The quality of the products are kept high
• Employees are enthusiastic to work harder
• Employees are loyal to the organization

From this you can clearly see that motivated employees are better, employers always want their employees to be motivated which leads us to the following theories:

Maslow

This pyramid shown is known as Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The layers of the pyramid shows which needs are most important to motivate an employee, starting from the bottom is the most important. Once those are fulfilled, you need to move on to the next level to further motivate an employee.

Herzberg

There are 2 factors that affect motivation here, hygiene factors and motivation factors.
Hygiene factors are factors that will demotivate you if they are not satisfied, and when they are satisfied you are only neutral, not motivated and not dissatisfied. Motivation factors however affect you motivation positively, it involves making your job more interesting, giving you recognition, responsibility and so on.

Motivation at McDonald's
McDonald's motivates their employees by satisfying their needs, they have flexible work hours, medical insurance, sometimes they provide paid holidays, vacations and even offer term life insurance. Long story short, Mc Donald's want to keep their employees as motivated as they can to improve their employees performance.

Corporate Culture

Corporate culture is "a blend of the values, beliefs, taboos, symbols, rituals and myths all companies develop over time". In other words, all companies have this .There may be a company out there where when a boss enters a lift, all the other people must leave it, this can be an example of corporate culture.

Corporate culture at McDonald's
McDonald’s prides itself on its culture of trust and collaboration and employs the “three-legged stool” approach. They describe each leg representing a part of the organization, 1 is the company, 1 for the franchisees and 1 for the supplier partners. By investing in the future of its people, the company profits from a motivated, energized and happy workforce.

Bibliography
"Rich Corporate Culture at McDonald's Is Built On collaboration." Financial Post Business Rich Corporate Culture at McDonalds Is Built Oncollaboration Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2013.
"Performance and Motivation in Mcdonalds." Performance and Motivation in 'mcdonalds'N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2013.
"Observation of Leadership & Organizational Behavior at McDonald's." Observation of Leadership & Organizational Behavior at McDonald's. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2013.
"Performance and Motivation in Mcdonalds." Performance and Motivation in 'mcdonalds'N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2013.