Blog 5: The benefits of studying leadership

 As a good CEO, 80-90% of what you need to know to do your job well you’ll get if you take the time and have the self confidence – and sometimes it means admitting you’re wrong and changing course – if you take the time to listen….CEOs that show that they are human, and that they are introspective and self aware about their strengths and weakness, their successes and failures, they tend to be seen as much better leaders and more respected and their teams are much more excited about following (Studzinski 2011).

The term Leadership has many varied meanings. Different authors are of different school of thoughts as to what the term actually means. According to Yukl (2010) it is “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it”. To Mullin (2010) it is “a relationship through which one person influences the behaviour or actions of other people”. For others leadership can be associated with management, leadership is the act of motivating amongst other definitions.

In the last ten weeks, I have learnt and had several discussions about leadership. The different approaches to leadership, the different types of leadership, leadership behaviours, leading teams and the relationship between leadership and management. Thus, I have come to understand that leadership is about inspiring and motivating people to be the best they can be.

As a follow up in my Personal Development Plan last semester, I have volunteered myself as team leader several times this year. The major reason was to improve my leadership skills whilst working in a team. Being a leader in these teams has given me practical knowledge of what leaders actually do.

In leading, various leadership styles are required and applied according to the situations in which you find yourself. According to Mullins, the situational leadership approach “emphasises the situation as the dominant feature in considering the characteristics of effective leadership (2010).

In the last ten weeks, this approach has been evident, as I had to lead different people in two different teams. These individuals had different characteristics. While, some were proactive, others liked to be pushed around. Thus, certain attitudes required certain leadership styles. As a result, I found myself being a motivational leader with the proactive teammates by inspiring them, complementing them and even seeking their advice. And also being an autocratic leader with the other teammates who needed to be pushed around by telling them what to do and giving deadlines, thus motivating him to work hard. Based on the feedback received by my teammates, I was classified as a democratic leader as my different approaches to leading my teammates motivated them. This experience gave me an opportunity to understand the different approaches and styles of leadership.

In conclusion, being a leader is a learning process. It helps you to understand the different roles of leadership. It requires different approaches for different followers. Thus, leaders with specific styles might require other leadership approaches for specific individuals.

Blog 4: Ethical relationships between leaders and their teams

 

Ethical leadership, defining it as “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement and decision-making”… [and] the evidence suggests that ethical leader behaviour can have important positive effects on both individual and organizational effectiveness (Rubin et al 2010: 216-17).

 This blog seeks to identify the things leaders do; the moral and ethical behaviours of leaders and the effect on their followers. True leadership involves moving followers through the realisation of a vision in order to achieve organisational objectives. To do this, leaders tend to apply different methods to motivate and engage their employees. This suggests the need to understand the ethics of leadership in organisation.

Ethics refer to “the code of moral principles and values that govern the behaviour of group with respect to what is right and wrong” (Daft 2009). It has to do with the moral and appropriate values accepted by individual, organisations or the society at large. Ethics serve as guidelines for assessing what is right, thus evaluating whether leaders do the right things.

Ethical leadership depends on the behaviours of leaders and their personal qualities and characteristics. According to Brown et Al (2005), it is “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision-making.” As leaders motivate their followers, it can be concluded that most followers observe the behaviours of their leaders in return. “Ethical leaders are relevant role models because they occupy powerful and visible positions in organizational hierarchies that allow them to capture their follower’s attention” (Brown & Mitchell 2010: 585).

Based on Bandura’s social learning cycle (1986), which suggests that people learn from one another, it is necessary to acknowledge the importance of ethics in leadership as leaders teach ethical behaviour through their own moral and ethical actions. Hence, organisational ethics is developed and maintained by leaders.

The idea of ethical leadership plays an important role in the relationship between leadership management and team management. These leaders play an influential role in their organisations by way of ensuring that organisational goals are achieved. Their ethical behaviours go a long way to drive the conduct of teams and the organisation.

However, to say that the impact of ethical leaders on individuals and organisations is positive might be considered complex. The idea of what is ethical in one organisation may be unethical in a different organisation. Thus leadership ethics should be measured by the ethical standards of individual organisations. Grojean et al. (2004) highlights leadership responsibility in instituting standards of ethical conduct and moral values that guide the behaviour of followers

As a result, the ethical leader serves as an example for organisation about the variety of behaviour that is ethically acceptable in the organisation. Where such standards are commonly shared within the organisation, they become adopted by the followers and seen as ‘right thing to do’ and not ‘the things we are expected to do’ (Dickson et al. 2001).

In conclusion, ethical leaders aid the propagation of moral values in the work place by their exemplary actions and traits. Ethical leaders increase morale conduct in their organisations. However, the ability to discern what behaviours are right or wrong may vary and so outlook varies on the effects of ethical leader in the organisation. 

Blog 3: Analysis of leaders in global business

In surveys of most innovative companies, firms like Apple, Google, Microsoft, or Virgin regularly top the ranks, and stories of their emblematic leaders are recurring topics for management books and magazines. But what do Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Bill Gates, and Richard Branson have in common? What do they do that steers innovation in their companies? Are they the sole drivers of innovation leadership? And is there a direct link between the innovation capability of a firm and the charisma of its leader? (Bel 2010: 47).

Innovation could be said to be the process of using new ideas to create something more productive and effective and are acceptable by organisation or people. While business innovation could be referred to as a means of introducing products, operational or managerial processes that are either new to an organisation or have been significantly improved in one way or another. (Trewin: 2004).

In the world of business today, innovation is a major means to organisational growth as leaders are in continuous pursuit of ways to strategically satisfy their customers and improve product value, stability and services to enable them gain competitive advantage. Examples of these great leaders are the likes of Steve Jobs of Apple, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google and Richard Branson of Virgin, who have dedicated not just their time but also their life to the day to day running of these organisations.

These leaders can be classified as the most admirable leaders. They have lead major organisations with successful outcomes. They can be tagged as resources to their organisations and role models with good management skills. These leaders possess a list of varied skills. They bring about change and innovation to their organisations

More so, the ability to succeed depends on the quality leaders and managers. These leaders influence the actions and decisions of organisations and proffer solutions for thriving in business. According to Bel, leaders strive to make the vision of their organisation a reality (2010:49). The ability to do this involves different leadership approaches, either by way of combining theories or applying theories and models according to situations.

“Whatever the perceived approach to leadership, the most important point is the nature of leadership and manner in which the leader influences the behaviour and actions of people” (Mullins 2010: 397). Several theories claim that leaders are born while others state that leaders are bred. According to Adair’s Model, Leadership is a transferable trait and can be transferred between individuals in a team and their leaders (Mullins: 497).

Two major leaders I admire are the Late Steve Jobs and Sir Richard Branson. This is as a result of their charisma, innovation and motivational approach to leadership. They serve as role models in their organisations and globally because of their various approaches to success.

Jobs was known to be a leader who was passionate, inspirational, visionary and abrasive. He set very high standards for himself and required the same of people around him. As a result of these, he strived to maintain the quality of people at Apple by employing only the best people in the industry, people who share in his belief. He was not a good delegator, he tried to get involved in tasks. His leadership style was Autocratic (Branson, 2011)

Branson on the other hand is known to be an inspirational leader with the ability to motivate his teams collectively to achieving the same vision. His style of leadership tends to be transformational. His much laid back style of leadership gave everyone equal opportunity. He delegated tasks and gave everyone freedom to flourish. Thus, giving individuals an opportunity for leadership growth.

Nevertheless, these two leaders can be said to be exemplary leaders for innovation because of their approaches to business was to promote innovation agenda in their company. Bel (2010) defines innovative leadership as the ability to recognise opportunities and try to develop them. According to Deschamps (2008), the two major forms of innovation in an organisation are the top down and the bottom up innovation. The top-down innovation, which is initiated by the leader, is a process where by leaders promote innovation by their vision as a proactive step or response to changing market environment. The bottom-up innovation, which is initiated from generated ideas from employee.

In conclusion, there is a clear link between innovation leadership and being a charismatic leader. According to Bel (2010), charismatic leadership involves communicating with a vision and accelerating innovation processes within an organisation. However innovative leaders may have different approaches to leadership. Like the case of Branson and Jobs

Blog 2: Change and resistance to change

Change is nothing new and a simple fact of life. Some people actively thrive on new challenges and constant change, while others prefer the comfort of the status quo and strongly resist any change. It is all down to the personality of the individual and there is little management can do about resistance to change (Mullins 2010: 753).

The concept of change is a constant phenomenon that never ends. This may occur as a result of trends, globalisation, technology, culture, diversification and innovation. The ability to succeed involves overcoming change by thriving over challenges. The idea of change management is to help individual and organisations accept new situations by adopting new method and approaches in doing things. This enable innovation and growth. Change management may occur in organisations (organisational change) or in individuals (individual change). However, the complexity of adjusting to change is cumbersome, thus change may be met with resistance (Ford: 2009).

In order to understand the effect of change and the resistance to change, it is necessary to evaluate the JC Penney (JCP) case study (ICMR¹, 2007) with change models and theories. The administration of Ullman understood that in order to achieve the goals of JCP, change would be needed. He considered the reasons why change might be necessary and assessed the situation in the organisation and took steps to redefine the culture in the organisation.

Applying the “Lewin’s Three Step Model” of change: The Unfreeze, The Movement and the Refreeze steps, Ullman created change in JCP.

Unfreeze Step. It requires the unlearning of a process. In order to do this the need to identify the need for change is necessary. This may be as a result of perceived necessity or as a result of diverse and changing circumstances (Burnes, 2009). Ullman carried out surveys in his organisation to diagnose the major challenges faced in JCP. Thus he opened the system.

Movement Step. This is the change transition process. It involves evaluating the available options for change and gradually implementing the action plan (Burnes: 339). After identifying his major challenges, Ullman initiated training of employees to foster communication. Also, he commenced recruitment for outside of JCP to introduce new attitudes and balance the change process. In this stage, there was resistance to change. Some employees did not approve of his methods. For example the “Just Call me Mike Campaign”. While some employees embraced the change, other found it awkward, as this was the norm for years.

Refreeze Step. It requires relearning a new process for the stabilisation of change. This is by assessing the new change and learning from the process (Burnes: 339). Thus closing the system. Ullman assessed the new change process by requesting employee contribution and feedback. This was to ascertain how employees felt about the change (internal assessment of change resistance). Also. He fired a top management staff to determine the impact of the new change. He assessed this by customer reaction (external assessment of change resistance).

It is important to understand the concept of organisational change resistance and the various reasons for this resistance to change. This concept is supported by the Coping Cycle, which highlights the way individuals react to change. These five stages of the coping cycle include the denial stage, where individuals deny there is a need for change, the defence stage, where individuals put up defensive behaviour to oppose change when they realise they cannot stop the change, the discarding stage, where individuals realise that change will occur with or without their support and they gradually discard their opposing behaviour and adjust to the situation, the adaptation stage, where they individuals try to fit into the proposed change and adapt to the new ways. And finally the internalisation stage is where change becomes fully operational and individuals no longer see the change as new but as normal.

Individuals resist change as a result of insecurity, fear, familiar habits, distrust, disinterest and comfort. According to Davis (2009), the anticipation for the unknown is a major reason why individuals might resist change in an organisation. While other might be adventurous and willing to adapt, other might misconstrue the reasons behind the need for change.

In conclusion, managing change is dependent on good people management (Mullins: 763). Thus, the need to understand various leadership, behavioural and change theories to foster the change management. As much as there is resistance to change, people love change (Cummings: 2008). Ullman understood the Impact of employee behaviour on organisation’s performance, productivity and profit. His decision to driver change through JCP created positive impact in the company. Also, applying Lewin’s model was beneficial as he succeeded in motivating employees to change by being a transformational leader. However, it was a tedious process. The procedure of learning a process and relearning a process could be cumbersome.

 

Blog 1: Theories and Models of Leadership and Management

Research has consistently shown that diverse teams produce better results, provided they are well led. The ability to bring together people from different backgrounds, disciplines, cultures, and generations and leverage all they have to offer, therefore, is a must-have for leaders (Ibarra and Hansen 2011: 71).

The purpose of this blog is to evaluate the leadership and management of diverse teams.

Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it (Yukl, 2010:26). Management on the other hand is getting work done through the efforts of other people (Mullins, 2010:434). In recent times, the ability to lead diverse teams has become a sort after skill. This is as a result of globalisation and the need for growth and development. Thus, organisations need diverse teams to succeed.

There are so many models and theories that support the concept of leadership management. These models range from a series of management theories and different approaches to leadership: the behavioural approach, the management approach, the trait approach, the situational approach and participative approach. Hence, the ability to distinguish leaders from managers is complex as success as a manager or administrator in modern organisations also involves leading (Yukl: 2010).

The ability to lead diverse teams requires a level of motivation from thee team members. In order to get the best out of diverse teams there is need for the transferring of skills. Unlike homogenous teams, diverse teams bring together individuals with varied skills. This is as a result of the different disciplines, cultures and backgrounds. The ability to integrate these differences requires engaging the team differences to achieve positive results. According to Maznevski (2007), diverse teams compared to homogenous teams may do better or do worse than homogenous teams depending on the way they are lead.

Thus, a leader has a role to motivate teams to engage in their differences. In other to do this, the MBI Model comes into play. Diverse teams go through the process of mapping; where they understand the differences and similarities and acknowledging it, then bridging; where they communicate the differences by approaching it, finding commonalities and developing norms and finally integrating the differences; where they use new ideas to create innovation and perform brilliantly. This addresses the complexity of globalisation.

Leading diverse teams requires transforming and motivating individuals to bring out the best in them through interaction. This brings forth the concept of transformational leadership.

Various authors have described transformational leadership. It is considered the most popular model (Lang, 2011). It has been described as a form of leadership that brings change through the infusion of energy into strategy (Kouzes & Posner 2007). Also, Tracey and Hinkin (1998), describe it as a process that motivates people by appealing to higher ideas and moral values, defining and articulating a vision of the future and forming a base of credibility. Transformational leadership focuses on intangibles such as personality, vision, shared values, and ideas in order to build relationships by making provision for sharing individual capabilities to the change process (Daft 2008).

This leadership model comprises of four basic components: idealised influence, which highlights the charisma of the leader, and the respect and admiration of the followers, inspirational motivation, which emphasises the behaviour of the leader and how he provides meaning and challenge to the work of the followers, intellectual stimulation, where leaders solicit new and novel approaches for the performance of work and creative problem solutions from followers and finally individualised consideration where leaders listen and give special concern to the growth and developmental needs of the followers (CULC, 2012).

According to Yukl, in order to be transformational leader, there has to be a clear and appealing vision of what needs to be accomplished for follower to understand the set objectives, there is also need to establish a link between the vision and the strategy, emphasise positive aspects of the vision and finally lead by example by demonstrating self-confidence and expressing confidence in follows by use of dramatic and symbolic actions to demonstrate leadership behaviour.

This leadership behaviour motivates the followers to do more than originally expected and the extent of change is measured in terms of leader’s influence on followers (Bass, Mullins, 2010). Unlike other models of leadership like transactional leadership approach, the leader analyses and controls specific transactions with followers using procedures, and incentives to maintain stability (Daft, 2008) or the situational approach which stresses that the approach to leadership at any time depends on the situation at the time and does not take into consideration the leader’s behaviour or its effect on the followers (Mullins 2010).

The limitation of transformational leadership is that followers tend depend on leaders for constant approval of their performance which might foster deception (Mullins: 2010). Also, there is propensity for satisfaction from achieving short-term results, thus constant support is required to sustain the influence of transactional leadership (Daft: 2008).

In conclusion, leading diverse teams creates a comprehensive approach to behavior change for leaders. Diverse teams with good leaders can bring about change in a task or organisation. The idea of leadership and management are behaviours required for different purposes depending on the impact or change required. Clear committed leadership is vital to the success of change.

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