Leadership and Management

Initially we looked at roles within companies.

Meredith Belbin's "Team Role Chart" - this included
Action Orientated roles, People Orientated roles and Cerebral Orientated roles.

Question where you see yourself within a company. When leaving University, it may be best to apply for junior positions or apprenticeships..

What makes an effective Manager?
Listening skills, informative, being a good communicator, innovative thinking, being understanding and fair.

What makes an effective Leader?
Charisma, Visionary, self determined, motivational, networking, facilitator.... these lead onto roles such as outward communications, forges new relationships and makes coalitions and manages time and teams effectively.

You also need to be informed about a companies welfare and position, analyzing things such as their status, their structure (the positions that may be available in the future), their location and opportunities within the community - Leading on to having a look at the companies partners and existing network. More often than not missed, but potentially the most important factor of all is the companies values and ethics. One easy way to find these sorts of details is by checking the internet for websites and links to other companies through them (umbrella). When sending cvs and applications it is always advisable to think about what you can offer them and this is easier if the above is analyzed with enough detail.

The next thing we looked at was setting up your own business with regards to shares and how they are distributed. Eg. If you are the owner of a private company, you can distribute all the shares how you see fit (merit, workload, history). Another thing you might do is divide the shares up...eg. 20 shares worth £200, divided into 20,000 shares makes each share worth £0.01. This is usually done when changing a limited company into a public one, meaning eventually the public can accumulate enough shares to out buy you from your own company, but it also means you can have more investors.

A companies status is determined by many different factors. Where does their money go? Do they invest, do they increase wages?, does the moneyy go back into the company?
Next their legals Status, Limited, public partnership, social enterprise?

Legal statuses can effect a range of things. Tax paid, how much the owner and you are payed and the companies ability to borrow money.

Tax bands

£6,475-£37,400 = 20%
£37,401-£150,000 = 40%
£150,000+ = 50%

National Insurance

(class 2) self employed you pay £2.40 per week (or monthly debit)
(class 4 self employed) 8% collected annually from profits up to £4,875 and an extra 1% if you go over.
(class 1) earning under £6,475 annually 3.7% is payed by your employer on your behalf.