Essay: Critique Of Wilson And Block's Stewardship Models.

Review the models of stewardship presented by Wilson (2016) and Block (1993). Choose either the Wilson or Block model and in narrative form, explain the selected model and critique it to justify your choice. Then analyse the potential benefits and challenges that might occur upon employing either the Wilson or Block model (your choice) to your organizational setting. Your paper should include a discussion of key elements of the model of stewardship chosen in addition to analyzing the potential benefits and challenges posed by employing the model in your organizational setting. If you do not currently work in an organizational setting, choose an organizational setting with which you are familiar for your analysis.

Stewardship Models of Wilson and Block

The stewardship is a concept which expresses the essential strategies and resource management. The stewardship could be implemented to the environment, nature, finance, property, knowledge, and religion. The stewardship is made of the works of stewards in houses or any firms. The duties of the stewardship are generally extended to the service and management of the homes or in the organizations. The financial stewardship has the tendency to work in the domestic and service needs of customers on banks, trains, planes or in a hotel. The essay will select and evaluate either the stewardship models of Kent Wilson or Peter Block.  It will also explain the advantages and disadvantages of the selected stewardship model in the chosen organizational setting.

The stewardship is a group of principles and concepts which have the possibility to make drastic changes in the management of the organizations. It is concerned with the creation of different methods of management which builds a steady sense of ownership and duty, related to the consequences at every organizational level (Block, 1993). It emphasizes more on the client's partnership and forming self-dependence for those who are touched by the organization. The solution to every financial issue is not only the decrease in price or better investment, but it is also about concentrating on the relationships, privileges, and participation. These are the components which provide the required services. This will bring the organizations closer to their staffs and markets. The concept of stewardship is to build a relationship sustainably with the people in the society which will provide the answer to issues of the economies (Lipsky et al., 2016). The need for improvement is known to all, but the way of achieving it is not known to any person. Most of the theories regarding the changes are based on the leadership.  The leadership is the source to fit the firms in the market and also fit the people in the firms.  The failure of the firm also leads to the want of leader in the firm. This general belief is mostly a spiritual belief in the leaders which slows down the process of improvement. The stewardship proposes an approach to improve the leadership.   

The stewardship starts with the willingness to be responsible to the team, a business and society. The stewardship originates from a group of beliefs regarding the development of the firms which confirm their choice of service in their interest. Whenever service is selected over self-interest, they are willing to carry on their responsibility instead of selecting to manage the world around them. Trustworthiness is needed for this responsibility (Andersson et al., 2014). It is forced by the stewardship to motivate the individuals to utilize good parenting as a primary system of management while taking responsibility for the services. It is a known fact that good parents are also good at work. The other option is the partnership, which is in a learning procedure. Parenting and patriarchy are so deeply embedded in the memory of the people, and that is posing difficulties in the adoption of partnership. Apart from partnership, excellent service is needed to behave in their way. The individuals could not be servants of an organization and make an expectation that somebody else will take care of them. Most of the management systems of the companies are by sovereignty and colonialism. These might be the strong words, but they have a proper meaning. Many companies are controlled by steadiness, control, and domination.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Stewardship models

The organizations have to select between patriarchy and partnership. The patriarchy is the concept which presents the belief that those who are at the peak of the company are only responsible for the company’s success and the welfare of the employees. The patriarchy is often measured by utilizing the parenting concepts for the methods adopted by the employers to control the staffs of the companies. If the employers want to make meaningful and financially strong workplaces in the market, they have to implement the concept of patriarchy for the management procedures within the companies. The purpose of balancing power between the individuals and those peoples around them is conveyed by the partnership. But the value of maintenance and stability, control, and expectations as the basis of management poses questions on the concept of partnership. The concept of partnership has emerged from the option to put management close to the workplace and not withheld it as the rights of the middle and upper classes (Withers et al., 2015). It also comes by improving the consistency in managing as well as supporting the local units while planning the strategies according to the local circumstances. Ultimately, the demand for predictability has severely affected the organizations of the world.

The organizations have another and final option of selecting between the service and self-interest, although both are equally attractive. The self-interest has fire and intensity in it which seems to have a significant effect on the organizations. Most organizations do not doubt the skills of the leaders, but they could not trust their leaders. They doubt whether the leaders are providing service to their organizations or to themselves (Messier et al., 2015). The present generation is born in the era of anxiety and grown up in the era of self-interest. The commitment and the reason behind the self-interest is the solution to self-interest. Commitment, creativity, sacrifice, risk and adventure are the deeper meaning of service.  The organizations not only make commitments to the products or services but also to culture, value, environment and efforts to build a society. This means that the self-interest is replaced by a good option. The selection of service and society by the organization is the only practical solution to the selfishness.

Benefits

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is the top bank in Australia and follows the stewardship policy dedicated to the financial services to contribute to society.   The financial services consist of retail banking, premium banking, and management of funds, insurance, business banking, investment and products and services of share brokers. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is the most famous bank in the financial service sector. It has a steady domestic presence beside the large customer base than any other banks of Australia. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has the most extensive distribution system of financial services in the nation with several access points (Madison, Holt, Kellermanns & Ranft, 2016). The mission Commonwealth Bank of Australia is to excel in the field of financial services for the interest of the peoples, organizations, and societies.  

Applying Stewardship models in Organizational Settings

A good stewardship policy protects the interest of the stakeholder with full visibility and responsibility. They take actions to provide protection to the future of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia by creating and supporting the prudence and care and take a step to create and maintain the trustworthiness of the customers. A leader in stewardship applies useful techniques and implements a calculated approach towards risk. A good steward can successfully combine the short-term strategy with the long-term thinking, the foresight to carefully apply the resource management of Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the passion for implementing better plans and principles in the bank for the future. They have the knowledge that their role in Commonwealth Bank of Australia is based on trustworthiness and their ability to fulfill the responsibilities of the leadership. They are dedicated to the values of the bank on which their trustworthiness is based.

The great stewards of Commonwealth Bank of Australia always try to improve themselves and the banks to mutually apply the best values of the bank and work together for the better of the society. They provide excellent leadership to the teams, groups and the employees of Commonwealth Bank of Australia to bring changes that will be an advantage to the whole world as well as motivates others. The great stewards have a strong moral and driving force and are dedicated towards their responsibilities and decisions for the bank.

Although there are few disadvantages of stewardship policy in Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the first and foremost problem that the bank has to face is that the stewardship policy does not always prioritize the budget of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (Shu & Peck, 2018). As a result, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has to spend money without any savings for future programs.

As the Commonwealth Bank of Australia is a financial institute, they need to manage the financial resources wisely and carefully. For this, they have to rely on the stewards, and as a result, the financial resources are draining without any planning (Foolad et al.  2018). This will have a significant effect on their causes and personal circumstances of their need.

Conclusion

The paper had analyzed the stewardship model of Peter Block from his book “Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest. He had presented stewardship as an option to identify the skills and duties for the thoughts and activities of the individuals. He had stewardship in two parts, one is to act in long run service, and another is to perform in little power service. He believed that patriarchy is in contrast to short-term and control attitude He had presented stewardship as a service approach in the organization. He had suggested that self-interest is only about serving others. The self-interest approach would not be successful in any organization for their selfish or self-centered attitudes. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia had been considered as an organizational setting.

References

Andersson, E., Barthel, S., Borgström, S., Colding, J., Elmqvist, T., Folke, C., & Gren, Å. (2014). Reconnecting cities to the biosphere: stewardship of green infrastructure and urban ecosystem services. Ambio, 43(4), 445-453.

Block, P. (1993). Stewardship, Second Edition Choosing Service over Self-Interest (2nd ed., pp. 1-54). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Foolad, F., Huang, A. M., Nguyen, C. T., Colyer, L., Lim, M., Grieger, J., ... & Wainaina, J. N. (2018). A multicentre stewardship initiative to decrease excessive duration of antibiotic therapy for the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, 73(5), 1402-1407.

Lipsky, B. A., Dryden, M., Gottrup, F., Nathwani, D., Seaton, R. A., & Stryja, J. (2016). Antimicrobial stewardship in wound care: a position paper from the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and European Wound Management Association. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, 71(11), 3026-3035.

Madison, K., Holt, D. T., Kellermanns, F. W., & Ranft, A. L. (2016). Viewing family firm behavior and governance through the lens of agency and stewardship theories. Family Business Review, 29(1), 65-93.

Messier, C., Puettmann, K., Chazdon, R., Andersson, K. P., Angers, V. A., Brotons, L., ... & Levin, S. A. (2015). From management to stewardship: viewing forests as complex adaptive systems in an uncertain world. Conservation Letters, 8(5), 368-377.

Shu, S. B., & Peck, J. (2018). Solving stewardship problems with increased psychological ownership. In Psychological Ownership and Consumer Behavior (pp. 227-237). Springer, Cham.

Withers, P. J., van Dijk, K. C., Neset, T. S. S., Nesme, T., Oenema, O., Rubæk, G. H., ... & Pellerin, S. (2015). Stewardship to tackle global phosphorus inefficiency: the case of Europe. Ambio, 44(2), 193-206.