Social workers provide guidance and support in hospitals rooms, classrooms, boardrooms and courtrooms, making a difference in the lives of individuals, families and organizations. My vision for leading effectively as a social worker is by promoting social justice by providing social work education, conducting scholarly inquiry, disseminating knowledge, and contributing to public policy and practice, thereby addressing the needs and aspirations of the local and global communities with whom we collaborate and interact. Good social workers and good leaders use verbal and nonverbal communication skills to establish and maintain relationships of mutual respect, acceptance and trust. Essentially, a good social work leader possesses the cultural competence to work with people whose backgrounds may be different than their own.
partner’s high level of engagement, performance and job satisfaction as explained by Herzberg’s two factor theory of motivation (Herzberg, 1986).
John Lewis motivates their partners by treating them individuals rather than collectively because JLP realise that the social needs of one partner can be different than another partner, hence, partners who performance better are giving more challenging task/responsibility but this also reflects on their financial reward. Partners are allowed to take charge of their own goals and accomplish them (Locke, 1968). Nevertheless, this approach underestimates the importance of teamwork.
The unique co-ownership structure at JLP allows all partners to share its success. For the past 10 years, JPT has on average paid between 9% and 22% of annual bonus; JLP believes that the better performance of their partner should be rewarded through annual bonus, pension scheme and other partnership discount and bonuses (JLP, 2016). This profit share (annual bonus) also influences the motivational level of their partners as we have already seen in partnership survey 2016 as explained by expectancy theory of motivation (Vroom, 1964).
CONCLUSION
JLP is a unique organisation based on shared partnership values and governed by their constitution’s principal and rules which dictate the behaviour of their partners and leaders. The prevalence of different leadership styles in John Lewis may seem contradictory but all of them are elegantly align with overall organisational culture and business strategy to support HRM practices to achieve core purpose of the organization i.e. Principal 1. “The Partnership’s ultimate purpose is the happiness of all its members, through their worthwhile and satisfying employment in a successful business. Because the Partnership is owned in trust for its members, they share the responsibilities of ownership as well as its rewards –profit, knowledge and power”.
The need to fulfil the relational and transactional psychological contract of partners is well recognised, however, this is because all partners share the business and have a voice within decision-making process, yet, the sustainability of the psychological contract mainly transactional depends on the financial stability and profitability of the JLP, and this could be further tested in the time of downswing.
The constitution does provide them guiding principle, but JLP has the flexibility to adapt different approaches to create human capital advantage through various strategies. However, there is overly emphasise to filter through candidates who can fit with their partnership behaviour (spirit) and then can lose out a huge chunk of the talent pool. The total reward model has been crafted carefully with partner’s involvement which plays a substantiv
