My Vision on Leadership

DOUBLE-WEIGHTED

MY VISION OF LEADERSHIP:

Leadership is a procedure of influencing and motivating others to achieve a mutual goal. Leader of an organization has the potential to change the organization culture and resolve severe problems creatively. Good leaders are open and flexible and they work can handle bad situations in such a manner so that it turns out to be a fortune. According to my vision of leadership, a good leader should have the following characteristics (Rausch, 2007):

ü  Potential to motivate: The major objective of a leader is to motivate people through his speech, activity, writing etc. leaders should not try to teach anything. Instead of giving dull lectures a leader should explain why one should do something. He should be able to clarify his logic so that there is no doubt in the mind of people.

ü  Social Awareness: A leader should be aware about social system and social activities. Clear understanding about social network will help a leader to influence people.

ü  Self- awareness: A leader is expected to be completely aware about him. He should know his strengths as well as weaknesses. Otherwise he won’t be able to approach others. His capabilities and limitations will decide how he should approach and what will be his leadership style.

ü  Vision: Leaders should be clear about the vision and influence people accordingly. The clear understanding of the desired goal will help that person to motivate and control its activity.

ü  Collective goal: A leader should keep aside its personal issues, emotion, interest, ego in order to attain a greater target and should work for collective interest.

ü  Disciplined and Organized: A leader should be disciplined and organized. He must lead himself towards the right direction in an orderly manner. As he is the role model to others he should be careful about his own activities which have great influence towards others (Robbins, 2011).

Steve Jobs has inspired my understanding of effective leadership. He founded Apple in 1976 in the garage of his parents. Now it is world’s one of the most valuable companies. He had transformed the industries of personal computers, music, tablet, phones, animated movies, digital publishing and retail stores. Steve job believed that innovation is the key factor which distinguishes between a leader and a follower. Few characteristics of this iconic leader are discussed below:

ADAPTIBILITY: Steve Jobs was adaptable to changes and a good leader should have this quality. In this universe, change is constant. In order to compete and sustain in the changing environment one needs to learn adaptability.

INNOVATION: Steve Jobs is the greatest example how innovation changes and reinvents industries.  He recognized that the Mac cannot record CDs and missed the opportunity in the online entertainment. Therefore he developed iTunes software along with iTunes Store. It made the procedure of buying and managing music online easy (Hellriegel, Slocum, & Woodman, 2001).

CONFIDENCE: Steve Jobs was very confident about the success of his products. He researched in depth about the demand and gap in the present market and therefore he launched his products. He was very confident about the target market segment and continuously modified the products.

URGENCY: According to Steve Jobs time is one of the greatest tools for success. He developed products before a customer identifies the need for that product. This quality is really admirable.

When an individual works in an organization, the colleagues, he or she is being surrounded by, plays a vital role in one’s career. In case of mine, the organization I am a part of provides me with ample opportunities to know my real strengths and areas that need concerns. The daily interaction and communication with my colleagues gives a vivid portray of myself and encourages me to lay stress on areas where I need to develop and grow in a better way. They instantly let me know if I had done any mistake and how should I change myself (Srivastava, Bartol, & Locke, 2006)

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As I progress through my MBA I would like to inculcate some leadership traits in myself that I view as a necessary thing for a good leader:

ü  I should learn from my previous mistakes. My experiences will help me to improve my skills a s a leader.

ü  I need to boost up confidence and need to learn thinking in a positive manner.

ü  I want to improve my communication skills so that it can effectively appeal the target audience.

ü  I need to learn decision-making strategies and its relevance and application in different fields.

ü  Teamwork gives an opportunity to learn how to interact and communicate with the team. It helps to develop leadership qualities and helps to nurture the analytical mind.

ü  I should learn how to motivate others and stimulate people in a positive way.

It takes time to be an effective leader and one should continuously develop the leadership skills. One needs to be focused and determined and must have a creative approach for solving problems. Innovation is one of the most important aspects of leaders. These are the factors, which need to be kept in mind to lead an organization, a community or a team.

 

 

References:

Rausch, E. (2007). Leadership in management education and development: criteria for quality decisions. European Business Review , 19 (3), 257 – 268.

Robbins, S. P. (2011). Organisational behaviour (6th ed.). Pearson Australia.

Hellriegel, D., Slocum, J. W., & Woodman, R. W. (2001). Organizational behavior (9th ed.). South-Western College Pub.

Srivastava, A., Bartol, K. M., & Locke, E. A. (2006). Empowering Leadership in Management Teams: Effects on Knowledge Sharing, Efficacy, and Performance. The Academy of Management Journal , 49 (6).

DIVERSE TEAM PRODUCE BETTER RESULTS

Due to increasing globalisation, large number of the organisations faces the vicious competitions and they are collaborating with others in a complicated atmosphere. Such kind of environment basically comprises of diverse teams. In the past few years the concept of diverse teams has got approved and welcomed by various companies. Diverse teams refer to teams with members of unlike characteristics such as social and cultural background, nationality, ethnicity, gender, age group, educational background etc. This only means teams consisting of members having divergent skills, distinct ideas and independent thought process (Ginkel & Knippenberg, 2013).

 

A diverse team achieves highest efficiency when individual skill and all creative ideas of all the team members are merged and integrated. The team leader is responsible for integrating the skills of each member within a team. So it is very significant for the team leader to learn the procedure of effective integration of skills within a diverse team. In order to lead a diverse team the leader should potentially inspire and positively motivate its team members by interacting with them and ultimately lead the team towards the achievement of the mutual goal. The concept of Transformational Leadership will be an aid for this type of leadership. Transformational leadership encourages the leader to combine his strategy with the vision of that organization. For any industry, managing a diverse team is a challenge as well as the most important skill for the manager of the industry. The basic four elements of transformational leadership that the manager needs to implement are refined motivation, perfect influence, cerebral stimulation and consideration for individual (Ellwart, Bündgens, & Rack, 2013).

Perfect influence describes charm and passion of the leader. It is the leader’s personality and charm that creates a driving force within his team. The leader becomes the role-model for all his team members. It designates the managers who are impeccable and role models for his associates. Managers having idealized influence can be respected and relied by his colleagues while making any decision for the organization. Refined motivation recounts managers who motivate his team members and associates to achieve the organizational goal. The team spirit is encouraged by the managers in order to attain the desired growth. Cerebral stimulation explains managers who inspire and encourage its associates to innovate and creatively challenge the traditional perspective and understanding of an individual or group. They encourage the team members to think critically in order to solve organizational problems more efficiently. Individual consideration denotes managers who function like mentors and advisors to their colleagues. They motivate other people of the organization to work together in order to achieve the target. Thus, a leader surely needs to have different leadership aspects to manage diverse teams (Yeager & Nafukho, 2012).

 

To combat the threat of diverse teams, managers must follow certain principles as listed:-

Don’t be partial- According to a study; one out of three employees complains that their manager is partial. Some managers cannot understand that everybody is working and contributing in a team. Differentiation and discrimination leads to undesired results and problems within a team.
Give feedback- All the members of the diverse team should interact with each other and give feedback to generate productive results for the organisation.
Understand the culture- In order to understand a team member from a different cultural background a manger needs to work on it. It is not an easy task and consumes a lot of time.
Use of Social tools – In case of a diverse team it is very important to share the information and knowledge with the other team members. Social media can play a major role by helping in operating and controlling internal and private information sharing.
Have an open-door policy- A leader should be open to listen to all the problems of the team members. As diverse team consists of various type of people, some issues are commonly become an important problem for the entire group. The group leader should handle these problems in a flexible manner.
Handling conflict and building work culture- Among a diverse team, conflict arises and the leader should handle it efficiently. A common workplace culture should be developed in order to avoid conflict within an organisation (Lloyd & Härtel, 2010).

As an example, the diverse team of Nokia can be taken into consideration. In 2011, a diverse team of Nokia which had 13 people of different age group, gender nationality and educational background. Being a multinational company it adopted the idea of diverse team for the sustainable growth and development of the organization.

In conclusion it can be said that the diverse teams brings out better outcome compared to the homogenous team. The effectiveness of a diverse team will be highest only when the team leader understands the team members and motivate them to work together in order to achieve organizational goal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

Ginkel, W. P., & Knippenberg, D. (2013). Diversity mindsets and the performance of diverse teams. Organizational behavior and human decision processes , 121 (2), 183 – 193.

Lloyd, S., & Härtel, C. (2010). Managing Diverse Work Teams Well. Journal of Managerial Psychology , 25 (8), 845 – 875.

Ellwart, T., Bündgens, S., & Rack, O. (2013). Managing knowledge exchange and identification in age diverse teams. Journal of Managerial Psychology , 28 (7/8).

Yeager, K. L., & Nafukho, F. M. (2012). Developing diverse teams to improve performance in the organizational setting. European Journal of Training and Development , 36 (4).

Ethical Leadership

What is ethical leadership?

Ethical behavior means knowing the difference between right and wrong and therefore doing only the right thing. The terms “right” and “wrong” are relative. Various cultures, religions, societies, communities and individuals have defined the concepts of right and wrong. Now, ethics is based on a set of moral principles. Leadership style, which emphasizes on the ethical code of the organization, is known as ethical leadership. Ethical leaders have two responsibilities. The first one is to act and behave ethically and the second is to motivate and influence the associates and followers to act ethically. It should be reflected in their behavior, activity and interaction (Leigh, 2013).

The study about different aspects of ethical leadership will help to understand the importance of ethical leaders in an organization. The significance of ethical leadership is discussed below (Bellingham, 2003):

• Develops ethical behavior and sets example: Ethical leaderships help to build an ethical environment within an organization or a community by promoting ethical behavior. Leaders are the role models and they have larger than life image. They can easily motivate their followers by setting up examples of ethical behavior. An organization which promotes ethical practice will be a model for other organizations as well as individuals.
• Helps in building trust: Leadership is based on trust. The followers have faith in the leader and get motivated to follow him. Ethical behavior helps to generate positive attitude and trust among the employees as well as stakeholders.
• Brings respect: If an organization follows ethical practices and establish it as an ethical organization, it will start to receive appreciation and respect from others. Individuals, communities, groups and other organizations respect ethical leadership.
• Leads to collaboration: Ethical leadership will be praised and other organizations will look forward to work with that organization. They would like to collaborate with an ethical organization.
• Creates ethical environment within an organization: Ethical leadership helps to create an ethical atmosphere within an organization. The employees have trust in the organization and they know that everybody will receive whatever he or she deserves. They will feel secured within the organization and work peacefully to enhance productivity. Ethical leadership ensures that all the activity will be ethical and all the employees will be satisfied.
• Affords Self-respect: Ethical leadership helps to afford self-esteem and self-respect. No one can question about the integrity and it gives immense pleasure (Thornton, 2014).

One of the challenges of ethical compliance in an organization is that it needs the absolute support of the management staff for it to work effectively. Maintaining ethics in an organization is often costly and consumes much time.

Ethical leadership is the best policy and should be encouraged. Sometimes this style of leadership faces some major problems. When a leader has to make choice between good and bad and the right choice leads to unpleasant situation, it becomes difficult for the leader. As an ethical leader never compromises with morality and values it has to bear some unpleasant consequences (Kilderry, 2013).

In 2001, a gas pipeline company, “Enron Corporation” had to shut down its operation. The reason was unethical practices in the organization. The company became bankrupt due to an absence of ethical leader in the organization. The executive had demonstrated a different set of principles and values that the employees need to follow and the miscommunication in the organization lead to scandals. This is an example of bad leadership.

Conclusion:

Both formal and informal leadership demand ethical and best practice. Leaders are the role models and whatever they do will be followed by others. A leader shows the path to its followers and it is the responsibility of the leader to motivate them towards ethical practices. Not only for the organization, but also its sets an example for other organizations and communities. The activities of a leader both in professional and personal life should be ethical.

Ethical leadership helps to develop ethical behavior in an organization which helps in the sustainable growth of the organization. This leadership style requires reasonable ethical framework to guide all the activity and decision making procedure in all situations. The essential qualities of an ethical leader are honesty and flexibility. A leader should consider him as a part of the organization and regularly participate in the discussion related to ethical issues. He should accept feedback from individuals and consider them seriously. A leader should put aside all the personal issues, interest and ego. Ethical leaderships help to build trust among the employees and stakeholders. Practice of ethical leadership style earns respect. Maintain ethical leadership is very important as it contributes toward the stability and growth of the organization.

References:

Leigh, A. (2013). Ethical leadership: creating and sustaining an ethical culture. Kogan Page.

Bellingham, R. (2003). Ethical Leadership. HRD Press.

Thornton, L. F. (2014). Ethical Leadership. Leadership Excellence , 31 (1).

Kilderry, A. (2013). Ethical leadership. TLN Journal , 20 (2), 14-15.

MANAGING ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE

The transition of a company from its present state to desired or target state leads to organizational change. Organizational change management involves planning and executing the plan to implement change in the organization. The objective of the organizational change management is to minimize the cost and employee resistance while optimizing the effectiveness of the change (Sullivan, Rothwell, & Balasi, 2013).

In this competitive scenario, business environment undergoes rapid change and the business organizations need to synchronize themselves with the change. The major factors inducing changes are globalization and technological advancement. In order to sustain and survive the organizations are responding towards the change. An organization may decide to adopt a change when it is facing some problems or some leaders who recognize future potential and need for change can influence it. Sometimes the organizational change is inhibited by some internal issues or sabotage.

Change is simple fact of our lives and a continuous process as well, that is why it cannot be referred to as a new thing. It has also been stated that it all goes down to the individual personality and that the management can do very little about resistance to change. It is an important issue that the way people adapt to change, some people do achieve well during constant changes but other might face issues regarding the acceptance of change and all these different responses goes down to the individual background and personality. In contrast, resistance to change is also very natural as people become anxious about future. Managers are responsible for handling and minimizing the resistance by motivating them. The organizational change should not be sudden and abrupt. The change must take place gradually involving few stages (Hashim, 2013).

But not always the individual personality is responsible for resisting management changes. According to Garrison Wynn, organizational change expert, the major reasons of resistance are uncertainty about future and lack of knowledge. In order to manage and handle this resistance the important tools will be effective communication and honest approach to influence the workforce (Carnall, 1995).

 

 

TECHNIQUES OF EFFECTIVE CHANGE MANGEMENT:

                          

There are few key steps, which need to be followed in order to carry out change in an organization (Hassan, 2013):

 

• UNDERSTANDING THE PRESENT SCENARIO: In the first step, the problems should be identified and those should be given weight according to their importance and relevance. After that all the identified changes are assessed to understand how implementing those changes could solve problems.

 

• VISUALISING THE DESIRED STATE: In this stage, it needs to visualize the organization after the required changes are implemented. It is important to convey this vision to the employees of the organization. It should not affect the organizational goal or compromise with security and sustainability issues. The positive vision of an organizational change would reduce the resistance.

 

• IMPLEMNETING CHANGE EFFECTIVELY: At the final stage, it should implement the required changes to achieve the desired future state. The leader should play an important role in implementing the plan. The process should be done in a disciplined and methodical way to avoid any resistance and problems.

 

Most of the multinational companies and specifically the technology companies have changed their functional structures into matrix structures. This change have been implemented for the sales and marketing activities. For Example, IBM has adopted the matrix structure for its sales and marketing activities. Professional services are oriented by industry and geography in global matrix and are cross-functionally linked to certain solutions sales group.

 

 

Conclusion:

The objective of managing change in an organization is to optimize the future adaptability. A company should develop a vision and build a new faith in employees. The managers should be trustworthy ins solving the problems of employees or any other organizational problems. The organization must be flexible for accepting suggestion from its stakeholders. Effective business communication should be practiced and team work should be encouraged in the organization. These will ultimately help an organization to implement the change successfully. If the entire workforce work together for identifying the problem, finding the solution and assessing the alternatives, the organization will grow and positive changes will lead to better sustainability.

References:

 

Sullivan, R. L., Rothwell, W. J., & Balasi, M. J. (2013). Organization development (OD) and change management (CM): whole system transformation. Development and Learning in Organizations , 27 (3), Emerald Group Publishing, Limited.

Hashim, M. (2013). Change Management. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences , 3 (7), 685 – 694.

Carnall, C. A. (1995). Managing change in organizations (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall.

Hassan, G. (2013). TODAY CHANGE MANAGEMENT IS NECESSARY AND REQUIREMENT FOR ORGANIZATIONS. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research In Business , 4 (1).

EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP STYLES FOR MANAGING WORKFORCE

Leadership and management should be in harmony. Though these two are not the similar thing, they are essentially and significantly linked and complementary in nature. Previously, an organization was managed by a leader, who commanded and controlled the workforce of the organization. But, with the ever changing business environment, management techniques have taken a new dimension. A detailed study of both the concepts would make us more aware of the most effective way of managing workforce (Uloth & Teoh, 2005).

	Leadership	Management
Definitions	It is the ability of a person to motivate and influence its associates in a positive way so that they contribute towards the success and achievement of organizational goals.	Management comprises directing and controlling a group of one or more people or entities for the purpose of coordinating and harmonizing that group toward accomplishing a goal.
Personality Traits	They are charismatic people with high level of intellect. They have got brilliant imagination power. Leaders are private person.	Managers focus on strategy and organizational structures in order to solve problems. They are intelligent and work under pressure. They are methodical.
Focus	To lead people	To manage people in order to execute some strategy or plan.
Result	Achievements	Execution of plans effectively.
Approach to problem	Leaders provide creative solutions to the problems and motivate others to solve the problem and excel.	Managers are responsible for building teams, creating strategies and policies. Managers are risk averse and focus on the methods.
Decision making	Leaders facilitate the procedure	Managers are involved on the entire decision making process.
Organization	Leaders have followers	Managers have subordinates

The core function of an organization is management. Management helps to maintain the well being of the organization as well as its stakeholders. Management should be able to work effectively.  Best practices in an organization refer to the knowledge management and it is reusable. Two best practices are discussed below:

• INTERNAL BEST PRACTICES: It involves internal knowledge of the organization.
• EXTERNAL BEST PRACTICES: It is also known as industry best practice and it involves hiring of experienced, efficient and skilled employee and organizing external training programs for them (Anderson & Sun, 2012).

The key areas where the best practices can be applied are discussed below:

ü  Business Communication: Effective business communication plays an important role in the growth of an organization. It requires different kind of internal, external, verbal, non-verbal, horizontal, vertical, diagonal communication. The best practices should be applied in organizational communication.

ü  Setting realistic goals: An organization has specific vision and goal and the managers should also set goals for their subordinates in order to achieve the goal of the organization. The goal should be realistic and achievable. Best practices suggest setting goals of an individual or group by using SWOT analysis. Goal setting is an important task and based on the goal the further activities, strategies and planning are made.

ü  Strategy Planning: Best practices are required in the strategic decision making procedure of a company. Once the goal is set the right strategy needs to be adopted in order to achieve that goal.

ü  Setting Examples: If a leader set an example the subordinates will be motivated and follow him.

ü  Management Style: The management style should be transparent and open. The employees will be clear about the process and there is a smooth flow of information.

 

Hence, as a member of a team, I would like to be led in an organization that employs management best practices and undergo either Democratic or Laissez-faire type of management styles.

Democratic: In democratic style, the manager is not rigid. He welcomes the opinions and views of other people and encourage them to contribute in the decision making process by sharing their idea. In this case, decisions are made with the consent of majority. It can be referred as team effort. In an organization several meetings are organized for decision making. In these meetings decisions are made and those decisions may be referred as collective decision or consensus. The employees feel more satisfied if this style is followed in an organization (Limbare, 2012).

Laissez-faire: laissez-faire is a collaborative and creative management style. In this case, individuals are assigned to a responsibility. If an employee faces a problem he can approach the manager and after that the manager interferes. It allows the employee to work independently and the manager act as a facilitator (Biddle, 2005).

References:

Uloth, A. a., & Teoh, L. (2005). Leadership. TAFE SA, Regency Publishing.

Anderson, M. H., & Sun, P. Y. (2012). The combined influence of top and middle management leadership styles on absorptive capacity. Management learning , 43 (1), 25 – 51

Limbare, S. (2012). Leadership styles & conflict management styles of executives. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations , 48 (1).

Biddle, I. (2005). Approaches to management: styles of leadership. Businessdate , 13 (3).