The Four Frames

In his book, Heraclitean Fire: Journeying on the Path of Leadership, Dr. Michael Cary (1999) introduces us to the theory of the five frames for effective leadership. Organizational life is filled with an abundance of unique challenges and conflict. The Five Frames model serves as a valuable tool to leadership by revealing the alternate perspectives of organization members. According to Carey (1999) “These five frames – rational, human, systems, political, and cultural – offer different angels for looking at organizational life, and each frame’s proposed outline of the key dynamics of situations does have value in understanding why things happen the way they do and what must be a part of any plan to make things better” (p. 91).

To be considered an effective leader, it is known to utilize multiple frames. The four frames: Structural Leadership, Human Resource Leadership, Political Leadership, and Symbolic Leadership. Each of these leadership consist of different characteristics, principles, and standards which are practiced to gain efficient leaders. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a business professor at Harvard Business School has expressed how these four frames are effective by examples during her interview.

After reading the in-depth information from Bolman’s and Deal’s Structural Frame, I understood that regardless of what type of organizations, an organization or organizations describes itself to be known as, the structural frame is established. Meaning in terms of, organizations setting and establishing goals and/or objectives; management and employees establishing rules and following proper procedures internally or externally from the organization.

The structural frame has a different ground of beliefs and principles dissimilar from the other four frames. Solely it based upon certain assumptions, predicated on the division of labor (also referred to as specialization) and deliberate coordination. There too lies in the belief hiring the right people for the right jobs with specialized defined roles and responsibilities, will they perform to their maximum capacity. Essentially, the structural frame is bounded on the principles of effectiveness and efficiency in addition to productivity. This is exactly why leaders whether in private or non-profit organization should always devise a mental model of the rational message they want to convey to the outside world about their infrastructure, especially when related to their goals and objectives.

The first of the 5 frames is the rational frame, which focuses on roles, relationships, and ways of organizing different motivations towards the same direction. Each Radio Shack had no more than ten employees. Although there are a few part time employees, the majority are full time, and all are sales representatives. Some stores have an assistant manager, and in charge of each store is the store manager. The sales representatives are in charge of selling, organizing the shelves, customer service, and cleaning, all while attempting to siphon mall traffic into the store. This is a productive structure, and similar to most other retail stores, but how much the sales associated are dependent on commission limits the time they are willing to dedicate to other necessary tasks. An easy solution

Enabling greater adoption of leadership frameworks by making them more accurate, aligned and useful to a given organization is one

Another crucial aspect of the OT practice is to use a Model of Practice and Frames of Reference. The best way to explain the purpose of any Models of Practice is to say that they help OT practitioners organize their thinking into information about the person, such as physical abilities, the environment, and how a person performs his or her daily occupations. (narrative response 10pts) and that Frames of Reference guides OT practitioners in how to determine the type of intervention, they direct the OT in what to do and are based on theory, research, and experience. A FOR describes treatments and intervention techniques. (narrative response – 10pts).

Likert’s 4 System Approach was published in 1961, and Likert argues for what he considers is a “generalized theory of organization” (Mumby 100). Likert sums it up that all organizations can be summarized into one of four systems. Each of these systems reflect a certain leadership style reflected in an organization and they also consist of 7 dimensions. The seven dimensions are as follows; employee motivation, the characterization of the communication process, the interaction-influence process, decision making process, the type of goal setting, the control processes and its performance characteristics.

Richard Knowles explains that an organization is are living systems (Knowles, 2002). The nervous system in a living entity that a body uses to help the complex connections stay in communication and functioning together (Ahmad, 2017). Just as a living entity the connections can help identify both positive and negative instances (Knowles, 2002). Knowles describes the living system as a “Web of connections” (p. 31) with each perception keeping others informed. Process Enneagram uses nine different perspectives; Identity, Intention, Issues, Relationships, Principles & Standards, The Work, Information, Learning, and Structure/Content, (p. 28). Depending on the situation, the pattern or process can include a few or all of the perspectives, (p. 31). Knowles places the emphasis on taking a more in-depth look and analyzing the patterns and processes, (p.31)

Multi-frame thinking is the ability of a manager to look at a problem and have the ability to shift perspective or view the problem from a different frame. Each frame in multi-frame thinking is a mental model that consists of ideas that help managers to understand and assemble information to form different patterns (Defoe, 2013). The benefit of using multi-frame thinking is that it allows the manager of an organization to view a problem in multiple ways rather than just through a single method. In most organizations the same method of solving problems may not work in all situations, so multiple

The view and metaphorical analogy of an organization as a machine was the result of the only frame of reference

In order to determine the leadership effectiveness, we must understand that how teachers, as well as other individuals, construct their notions of effective leadership are based on their or within the organization itself (Rosser 2003). The conceptual framework The conceptual framework for this study was derived from the four integration leadership model developed by Bolman and Deal (1998). Bolman and Deal identified four perspectives called frames: human resource, structural, political and symbolic. The structural frames are associated with scientific management, administrative principles and bureaucracy. Thus, this frame represents a rational perspective associated with hierarchies. Leaders with structural frame solve problems by creating new rules, procedures, or processes or by restructuring the organization. The human resource frame is associated with human relations. This frame views individuals as resources and encourages participative decision making, to meet people’ needs, to motivate individuals to realize their own goals, and to attain the goals of the organization. Leaders deal with human resource problems adjusting their organization to fit people or by adjusting the people to fit the organization. The third leadership frame is the political frame. Political leaders are realistic and pragmatic advocates and negotiators, build network, power bases and create alliance. The last frame is symbolic frame. Symbolic leaders invent shared meaning for

The HPP model is based on a framework of four levels or sub-frames that each show a different organizational operations situation. The lowest level described by Nelson and Burns (1998) is the reactive frame. The next levels are the responsive, proactive, and high performing frames. Other than the reactive frame, the other three frames each build on the proceeding level (Nelson & Burns, 1998). The HPP model can be

Strategic fit: This concept emphasizes that there should be congruence between HR strategies and the organizations environment. It can be perceived in terms of vertical and horizontal integration of HR strategies and corporate strategies. This is in agreement with Wright and McMahan (1992) cited by Armstrong (2008:38)

The framework also contains the activities which need to occur. The framework also helps with the description of an organization, that is, its people and the different roles that are involved. Large enterprises can be very complex therefore; there is need for ways in which these complexities can be introduced. Segmenting is one way that helps reduce the complexity like in governments where there are many agencies. Another way of breaking down these complex systems is by looking at different domains. Typically, there are four main domains. The first domain is the business architecture, that is, why the business exists. It covers things like business objectives, strategic thinking and goals; also it then covers what capabilities the business has, what processes, what functions, what