Trustworthiness

This qualitative research trustworthiness is addressed by key components of data trustworthiness. The primary data obtained directly from thirteen female participants working as a manager or director in FMCG company. Data triangulation was achieved by combining two research methods quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews) methods. In terms of confirmability, the data analysis was

conducted thoroughly consisting of several steps. The author conducted Step 3 and Step 4 to ensure that the conclusion derives from the questionnaire results and interviews.

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Kids Specialization Position

1 22 Married Yes FMCG:Marketing Brand manager

2 15 Married Yes FMCG:R&D NPD manager

3 15 Married Yes FMCG:HR HR manager

4 11 Unmarried No FMCG:Marketing Brand manager

5 10 Unmarried No FMCG:Marketing Brand manager

6 12 Married No FMCG:HR HR manager

7 7 Unmarried No FMCG:HR HR manager

8 8 Married No FMCG:HR HR manager

9 23 Unmarried No FMCG:PR PR manager

10 17 Unmarried No FMCG:Marketing Brand Manager

11 10 Unmarried No FMCG:Marketing Trade marketing

manager

Table 2. Profiles of participants

The average years of experience of Kazakhstani females in managerial positions working in FMCG company-15 years. 15% of respondents have 5-9 years of

experience, and 31% have 10-15 years of experience, 23% with 15-20 years of experience, and 31% with 20-25 years of experience. 62% of female managers were married and 38% of female managers were not married.

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4. Findings

4.1. Leadership Style Identification of Kazakhstani Female Managers in FMCG Companies

Based on Blake and Mouton framework in order to measure whether 13 female leaders are more people or task-oriented the research used questionnaire. The

questionnaire consists of 18 behavioral questions. 9 questions related to “concern for people” and 9 “concern for task/production”.

Below Table 3 shows the calculated results of the self-assessment questionnaire based on Blake and Mouton’s (1964) framework, 18 questions consist of 9 questions for the people section and 9 questions for the task section, and the response categories from never (scored 0) to always (scored 5) for each question, so the respondents will be given an opportunity to choose middle for a various reasons.

Respondent People Task

1 39 39

2 31 28

3 37 34

4 36 36

5 32 33

6 34 34

7 41 37

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8 32 37

9 33 34

10 38 36

11 40 39

12 41 41

13 34 38

Total 468 466

Total*0.2 93.6 93.2

Average (Total/13

participants) 7.2 7.17

Table 3. Questionnaire results based on Blake and Mouton self-assessment questionnaire

The results were calculated based on Blake and Mouton self-assessment

questionnaire responses of each participant, the questionnaire consists of 18 behavioral questions, 9 questions are people-oriented and 9 task-oriented, with a scale from 0(never) to 5(always).

Based on the questionnaire results and responses of 13 participants the leadership style was identified and shown below in Figure 5:

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Figure 5. Leadership style of Kazakhstani female managers. Average leadership style based on the questionnaire results from Table 3.

Figure 6. Leadership style of Kazakhstani female managers based on the questionnaire results from Table 3.

Figure 5 shows the average questionnaires’ result of 7.2 in the concern for People section and 7.17 in the concern for Task section. According to Figure 5 the leadership style in this case - Team management section, this result is positive and it means that female managers are good at managing people. Therefore, according to the graph above

7.20

28 the result lies between (6,6 to 9,9), which means Kazakhstani females in managerial positions and working in FMCG company are both task and people-oriented leaders.

4.2. People-oriented and Task-oriented Leaders.

The questionnaire results demonstrated that Kazakhstani female leaders are slightly more people-oriented (7.2) than task-oriented leaders (7.17). This was also emphasized during the interview with participant No.12, she mentioned that soft skills and the ability to communicate and being a team player is more important than hard skills, although hard skills are important too:

“Soft skills are more important to me. Why? Because we take people for the attitude, that is, what behavioral manifestations would be beneficial for the company and beneficial for the team, and the employee himself, of course, the ability to take responsibility for the project, the ability to take responsibility for people, if you are a leader, you have to be proactive and bring, put forward ideas, be able to discuss them, result-oriented, and teamwork, because we all work in large teams, we work in cross-functional teams. For example, JTI is now undergoing a transformation, and we are also moving to work with the Global Business Center. And here if a person does not have an understanding of how to work in a team, it is very difficult.

We mainly hire a person for attitude, and when a person has a certain attitude, it is quite easy to teach him everything else technical, because the company has the resources to conduct training and, on the job-development, it will simply teach information from those sources that are not available. only at work, but also at home.

Therefore, I believe that when hiring, when choosing employees, the soft skills team is

29 more important to me. There are a lot of such examples when a person has the right attitude, and it is, in principle, possible to learn hard skills in a shorter time.”

But further, she also emphasized that her employee’s opinion as expert matters, and the results should be delivered:

“Firstly, when we hire employees, we understand what kind of position it is already when we announce a vacant position, we have a job description, what will the employee do? They understand what tasks await him approximately, and when do we already have an employee, yes, of course, I meet with him and say, for example, when an employee for compensation and benefits manager joined me, and I tell him that I have these tasks, the tasks for this year and, more broadly, the tasks for next year. What is your vision and which of the tasks would you take forward, and what would be your priority?

Of course, I give him a list of the tasks that I have, but I allow an employee to share his opinion, since he is more professional, he is a narrow specialist in this area, which he considers to be more prioritized at the moment, and then we are already discussing and building a plan with him, how, when, from what we start to work on.

This is necessary because I have to understand that the employee is interested. What kind of understanding does he have and how he will perform this task, what resources are needed, how long, when he will use, and how we will implement when we expect the final result, it is important.”

Although participant No.12 above emphasized more on soft skills, the participant No.10 as a Portfolio Brand Manager clarified that she does not accept employees with

30 good soft skills without delivering results, therefore her leadership approach is balanced between people and tasks:

“The attitude important to me, this attitude to work, the desire to work. The same attitude, probably, like mine, if I saw this attitude in a person, then for me it was the most important thing, everything else is secondary, I could not hire a person in marketing who probably did not work in marketing at all. Of course, the final trigger when making a decision was the person's attitude to work

If an employee is a star but there is no result, I'm not interested in this, because I need a result. Hard skills are absolutely important, and in this regard, soft skills probably what I meant by attitude. I do not need a super professional who will be very tough, who will not be able to build any relationships with others, I do not like these extremes, because it is important for me to have a Team spirit and a friendly

atmosphere in the team. Therefore, soft skills are also important for building a good team. To create an atmosphere, because if this is not the case, then people have no desire to go to work. But there must be a result delivered, that everyone should work for a result. At the end of the day, you need a result.”

4.3. The Importance of Building a Great Team

From Blake and Mouton’s (1964) self-assessment questionnaire, the question 14 got the highest result - 91%, “Nothing is more important than having a great team, which shows that female managers are very team-oriented leaders. Based on the questionnaire results participants were asked how important to have a good team for them.

31 During the interview with participant No.10, she further confirmed that team is very important for her as a leader:

“You must create this dream team so that they want to go to work so that they want to achieve some results together with you. For everyone to enjoy working, it seems to me that it is very important to create such an atmosphere. And this is the best

motivation.

It is important for me that there is a team spirit and a friendly atmosphere in the team. Therefore, soft skills are important for building a good team. To create an atmosphere, because if this is not the case, then people have no desire to go to work.

But it is important that there was a result, that everyone should work for a result. At the end of the day, you need a result. »

4.4. Performance Evaluation

Question 10 “When correcting mistakes, I do not worry about jeopardizing relationships” got the lowest result 56%, which means that female managers in most cases when mistakes are done by subordinates try to give honest feedback.

Later, during interview participant No.12 People & Culture Director at Japan Tobacco International emphasized that leader has to be honest, and when giving negative feedback it has to be justified which should not jeopardize their relationships:

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«Constructive feedback has to be given, and I do not think that for this it is necessary to wait there for a formal process of performance evaluation. If I have any feedback, even small for some project, I will give it immediately. In general, I

traditionally meet with the team once a week, and in addition to this, I also meet with my direct subordinates once a week.

We discuss everything at these meetings, the subordinate comes to me and we discuss business with him/her, and some of his development issues, everything that he considers necessary, or I think, needs to be discussed at this meeting, and I use these meetings just to provide feedback. it happens that you need to give constructive

feedback, I believe that negative feedback is valuable if given correctly, because, as we say, “any feedback is a gift”, and you take your lesson, but I believe that this feedback should of course be given in the correct format in a respectful format above all.

Then the employee will perceive it adequately, it is important. Basically, before it I plan, if suddenly it is significant and essential constructive feedback has to be given, I prescribe it for myself, I make key points, which I must refer to, and I must have certain arguments, I cannot tell a person just “well, you know, it was not successful”. There are no arguments here, I have to give clear arguments why I believe that the project or this task was not very successful because it is 1…2…3…, and I believe that could be improved, by doing this…., and I now propose to discuss a plan, this is my approach in giving feedback. »

Participant No.10 also emphasized that since negative feedback is given for good, the leader has to give it in advance so they can work on it together and develop an improvement plan which means she also considers subordinate feelings and willingness for further improvement:

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“So to say, here, probably, I have a more Maternal position, because if you are doing all this for good, and the person understands that you are doing it for good, you give mixed feedback, both positive and negative for his development. And when you do all this with love, with kindness, then there is no such fear at all. I gave negative

feedback, the person did not cope with the work and simply did not fit into the team, and was not quite able to show the results of the work, or as a team player. When I give feedback and I prefer honesty and openness in this if a person does not satisfy me or the people around with his performance, then I am quite honest and open, six months in advance, a year in advance, and I began to tell them, honestly that “ we are unhappy with your development, for reasons 1, 2, 3, and I give the next six months for you to improve. " It seems to me that leaders should be honest and straightforward with their subordinates.”

Moreover, during the interview with participant No.13, she mentioned that she provides coaching sessions when needed, that helps both sides to maintain good relationships and to achieve tasks:

“It was always been very difficult, you never get personal, you only evaluate the work, what was done or why it was not done. Conduct coaching sessions with people and, as a rule, people came to you with a problem, I start to help and in the end, he or she understands the solution, even if it is not an ideal solution, but this is the only thing that can be done. Coaching and feedback are very strongly interconnected, and if you give feedback if he failed somewhere, then it turns into a coaching session, how can we improve it. It hurts sometimes, but this is my personal approach. To be blunt, and tell your subordinate that there is a problem.”

34 4.5. Leadership

After participants shared their perception of leadership approach, they were asked about qualities that leader has to possess

Participant No.12 People & Culture Director at international tobacco company shared her view on leadership and important skills:

“For me, as a People and Culture Director, it is very important that a person has high integrity, because we work with people with personal data. We sometimes receive

such information, both from both sides and from the side of the company and from people, which we just have to keep in ourselves like in a safe. This is number one, number 2, which is even more important, this is the ability to be holistic, to observe all the principles. For example, working in people & culture, I have important information, I should not be selfish and should not use it for my purposes. A person must be so holistic that he knows how to determine where his influence and interest ends.”

“If you want to be a successful leader, then you must have a certain set of qualities. first of all, it is an understanding of the business in which you work, there must be an understanding of the business in which you work, there must be strategic thinking.

Each leader must clearly understand what he is leading, his functions and how his result will contribute to the overall business result. It must be the ability to see the global picture of what the company is working on, having the helicopter view is very important.

Every leader should have a global picture of where the company is moving and what is our mission and goal. Another quality, the ability to work in a team is very

35 important, because we are all different, especially when you work in cross-functional projects or international projects. This is how I am now a Kazakhstani woman in Korea, but it is important to find common ground and build relationships with colleagues so that cooperation is very effective.

And it is very important to take responsibility, a leader in general, when he understands that these are his functions, he must understand that I am responsible not only for the business result but for the people. And it is my responsibility, if something happens, I will have to understand what I did to make it happen or not. This is very important to be accountable.

It also seems to me that one of the main ones is one of the main skills or

requirements for a leader is to have flexible thinking because when a task is set, we often plan one scenario.

But it happens another way. Circumstances are changing, for example, the same pandemic, right? The pandemic forced us to rebuild everything, even this is how we work, most of us working from home, there should have been such a quick realization and changes in the whole scheme of how we work. This mechanism had to be flexibly rebuilt. And when there is a certain flexibility, it is easy to work with such leaders, because when you come to the leader and say, “well, you know, it doesn't work like that”, he says no, you still have to follow this path, and you understand that this is all a dead end, and when he speaks, listen, well, if that doesn't work out, let's try another way. We have to be creative. This flexibility of thinking is very important and of course, it is agility. Here again, by the way, about a pandemic, when team leaders and

processes can quickly and efficiently change the structure, adapt to the world around them under changing circumstances and continue to be effective. This is important agility is what is really effective and important now.”

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5. Discussions

The study aims to explore and assess the leadership style of Kazakhstani female managers and identify to what extent female leaders are people-oriented or task-oriented. As the main objective of this study is to identify the leadership style of Kazakhstani female managers working in FMCG companies, the leadership style was identified as team management leadership style.

The first paragraph discusses Kazakhstani females’ approaches to hiring and performance evaluation of subordinates. This will be followed by their experiences as a manager, delivering negative feedback and coaching experiences. Last, during the interviews, Kazakhstani female managers shared about skills and qualities leader needs to possess today from their point of view.

5.1. Team leadership style in FMCG business sector

The study suggested that leaders have 5 leadership styles and can have either people-oriented or task-oriented behavior as Blake and Mouton summarized in the managerial grid framework (1964). This is also supported in Ford and Ismail (2006) study done on 4 former USSR countries including Kazakhstan and findings were that team-leadership style was a common leadership style. This was also supported by this study done on female leaders in FMCG companies. Each participant - female manager working in FMCG company during the interview mentioned that it is very important that everyone can work in a team and deliver results as well. This supported the

questionnaire results where concern for people slightly higher than concern for task. In

37 the meantime, each interviewee emphasized that it is very important that tasks are accomplished.

5.2. Honesty as a Key Element of Leadership

Different approaches used by Kazakhstani females when evaluating performance and giving constructive feedback to subordinates, to sum up building a strong team seems to be one of the most important goals. Participant No.13 turns negative feedback into a coaching session, while Participant No.12 and Participant No.10 makes a decision to develop a plan for specific period with subordinate to improve their performance.

During the interviews every participant emphasized that negative feedback always has

During the interviews every participant emphasized that negative feedback always has