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).

Introduction:

The team composition in today’s global organisations consists of team members who come from various cultural backgrounds and disciplines posing a challenge to the leaders in these organisations. This blog evaluates whether diverse teams produce better results and also observes the skills that the leaders display and the role they play leaders in ensuring that such teams deliver.

Discussion: Rapid organisational globalisation has taken place in the recent past due to increased competition amongst organisations. Leaders today are not only facing challenges relating to ascertain organisations survive the financial crisis but also with respect to managing diverse teams.
Firstly, it is important to understand what is leadership? According to Alan Keith “Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.” (Kouzes and Posner 2007:3). Alan Keith in his definition for leadership mentioned the words “creating a way for people” by this he means that leaders are involved in leading team members by motivating, making them understand the processes, communicate and explain to them the tasks they are involved in, address issues and appreciate performances. Though the above sounds very simplified, leaders play a crucial role in organisations by leading people and by creating a way for people to achieve their organisational goals.

The leaders need to change their leadership approach based on various factors such as the team composition, the complexity of the tasks they are involved and the country they are operating within. The team composition plays a crucial role in the leadership approach of the team leaders as the leaders need to ensure that they are not perceived as an authoritative or inflexible by the team members. This could happen due to the cultural differences within the team members or their educational backgrounds etc. For instance, if the team comprises of individuals from across from China, India, UK, USA and Russia, the team would certain perform well due to the inclusive meritocracy however the team leaders need to ensure that they are taking into consideration the cultural differences of the individuals in the team so that the performances are not impacted. The Chinese team members for instance would follow their leaders instructions and would like the leader to guide them through their tasks whereas the UK or USA are most individualistic in nature and any more than required involvement from the leader to achieve a task could actually let their performance go down. Hence displaying flexibility in their leadership approach could help the leaders achieve followers trust as Tannenbaum and Schmidt cited in Mullins (2010:383). For example, the leaders could adapt to transformational or inspirational leadership style when the team members need motivation and take active participation the team activities or tasks as a participative or functional leader in order to achieve team members trust or decision making (Mullins 2010:401).

Further, the leaders also need to pay attention to various other elements within the organisation as John Adair suggests leaders are more effective if they are able to meet or address the requirements of three areas, the needs of the team members, the task and the individuals. He mentions that “The effectiveness of the leader is dependent upon meeting three areas of need with the work group: the need to achieve a common task, the need for team maintenance and the individual needs of group members.”

The below figure illustrates the same:

 
Conclusion: Leaders are facing various tasks these days due to increased globalisation of organisations. Diverse teams as suggested by Ibarra and Hansen do provide a competitive advantage to the organisation but throw challenges at the team leaders who need to ensure that they are flexible in their approach towards team management. Further, team leaders are also required to address the needs and pay attention to other elements within the organisation in order to be able to achieve the organisational, team and individual goals.

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).

Introduction: This blog provides a discussion pertaining to the factors that promote organisational change whilst emphasising on the role played by the leaders in addressing the issue of change resistance.

 

Discussion: In a bid to stay ahead of competition and to achieve the business goals and meet the demands of various stakeholders like government, customers, employee etc. organisations are adapting to new technologies, changing processes, procedures and policies. For instance, the organisation implements a new software as an organisation strategy in order to be able to complete tasks more quickly and help improve the overall process efficiency. However the employees of the organisation might not like the implementation of the new software and resist the change demanding for a status quo as they are either comfortable with the existing systems or perceive the implementation of the new software as a threat to their job etc. In such situations the leaders have the responsibility to drive the change within the organisation. They could achieve this by working as change agents within the teams. As change agents are involved in directing, organising and facilitating the change from within the organisations (Burnes 2009: 593).  Mullins in the above statement suggest that the management or leaders have hardly anything to do with respect to change and it is up to the personality of the individuals working in the organisation however the leaders play a crucial role in developing these change resisting personalities to change acceptors and help the organisation implement the change process more efficiently. Kurt Lewin suggested a three stage theory of change as detailed below (Burnes, 2009:604):

 

1. Unfreezing: The first stage, as per Kurt Lewin is identification of the problem or situation wherein a change process needs to be implemented. In this stage the leader would be able to identify the problem situation as the leader is the person responsible for the achievement of task and organisational goals and would be exposed to the problem first.

 

1. Movement: Post identification of the problem the leaders help the change implementation whilst adapting to various leadership styles based on the situations or scenarios arising from the implementation process. For instance, the leaders would be involved in adapting to transformational leadership approach and help transitioning the process change within the organisation by motivating and encouraging the team members.

 

1. Refreezing:  The refreezing process takes place when the change process is implemented and involves developing understanding of the consequences of the change and learning that are derived from it. The leaders at this stage take the responsibility of assessing the performance of the team members on the new process and help improve their efficiencies by continuous coaching and mentoring.

 

 

Conclusion: From the above discussion it is evident that organisations adapt to a change process for the purpose of improving efficiencies of the business but are faced with resistance from the employees. The leaders play an important role in helping the implementation of the change process unlike what has been suggested by the Mullins in the above statement as leaders play the role of a change agent or a catalyst in identifying, implementing and controlling the change process as suggested by Kurt Lewin (Burnes, 2009)

Blog 3: Analysis of Leaders in Global Business:

 

 

What do [CEOs] 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)

 

Introduction: This blog presents a discussion pertaining to the questions raised above and also provide insights about the relation between innovation and leadership. The blog also tries to present a discussion on the close relation between strategy and leadership. For the purpose of better understanding on the discussed topic the leadership style of Larry Page, the CEO of Google and Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo are taken as examples.

 

Discussion:  Larry Page, the CEO of Google, started the search engine based on his innovative idea in the year 1997. Though initially Larry Page did not get the agreement with the company’s co-founder and later had to change the name of the company into Google however with the ability to convince and motivate the co-founder and also the first employees of the company, Larry Page achieved success to his organisation. As a leader Larry Page presented inspirational leadership by inspiring his colleague and getting their support to start the online search engine. Larry page quite Google in 2001 however re-joined Google as its CEO in 2010 at this stage he however changed his leadership approach by switching on to charismatic style when he received acceptance form his followers for his qualities and charisma and once again helped the organisation achieve success and recognition (Mullins 2010: 388-391)(Google 2013).

 

Another leader who has achieved similar success to the organisation she works for is Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo, she served the company at various levels starting as a senior vice president in 1994 to becoming the CEO of the company in 2006 (PepsiCo 2013). Indra Nooyi reflected various leadership styles during her tenure in the organisation, firstly as a leader she reflected Participative Leadership:  The participative leadership wherein she was involved in taking part in the activities of the team and shared their responsibilities (Mullins, 2010:381).  Further, when she took over the company as a CEO in 2006 she reflected charismatic and visionary leadership style wherein the followers accepted her leadership based on her exceptional qualities of leading people (Yukl, 2010:262).

 

Conclusion: Organisations are in a constant endeavour to achieve success and stay abreast of competition whilst meeting the stakeholders objectives and in this endeavour encourage innovation and change processes whilst some organisations manage to achieve success through innovation which is a collaborated effort of all the stakeholders, leaders with innovative ideas do tend to make an impact on the overall success of the organisation. They are responsible in converting these innovative ideas in business strategies that the organisation can implement and achieve the organisational goals. It is difficult to detach innovation from organisations or say that leaders are the only sole drivers of innovation within an organisation as both organisations as well leaders drive innovation however a charismatic leader is an added advantage to the organisation with innovative capabilities as the implementation of the innovative ideas or strategies could take place easily with the help of the charismatic leader.

Blog4: 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).

Introduction: The globalisation of organisations, as discussed in the first blog, resulted in diverse teams and also virtual teams posing challenges numerous challenges to the leaders who manage them. The current blog provide a discussion regarding the ethical issues that the leaders face while managing the teams and also evaluates whether the leaders ethical behaviourism has any positive impact on the individuals and organisation.

Discussion: As suggested in the above statement, ethical leaders are the leaders, who give importance to the team members and involve them in the in the decision making and believe in two-way communication system. Mullins (2010) suggests that ethics deals with doing thing in the right way which is acceptable by both the organisation as well as the employees. For instance, if the leader is given the responsibility of taking a decision about a team outing taken up for the purpose of team building, the leaders must ensure that they take inputs from all the team members as there could be individuals in the team who might not accept places where there are people consuming alcohol or there is a person in the team who is a pregnant would want to avoid any smoking or alcohol consumption. If the leader does not involve the team members and decides about the team outing venue this actions of the leader could result in the team members perceiving the leaders as unethical. In the event the leader involves the team members and maintain a two-way communication and involves the team members in the decision making procedure, the team remain motivated and also would trust the leader more resulting in improve interpersonal relationships.

Burns (1978:20) suggested that if the leaders followed ethical practices it would be advantages for both the individual team members as well as the organisation as listed below:

1. Ethical behaviour of the leader builds trust: As discussed above the ethical behaviour of the leaders results in creation of trust amongst the team members and also would help in achieving the business goals in a more efficient way due to improved team work.

 

1. Followers feel empowered: Due to the involvement of team members in the decision that the leaders are taking the followers feel more empowered and tend to remain loyal to the leader as well as the organisation they work for.

Conclusion: The leaders should practice ethical leadership style in order to win the trust and also promote two-way communication amongst the team. By including ethical behaviour in the leadership style leaders are able to involve their team members who feel more empowered and resulting in both organisation as well as individuals in the team developing positivity attitude towards the way the team is managed by team leaders. By establishing a two-way communication the leaders are able to maintain conducive environment within the organisation which helps clarification of objectives of individuals and the business.

Blog 5: The Benefits of Studying Leadership

 Introduction: This blog provides my vision about leadership and also presents my readiness in taking over the role of a leader whilst providing with some of the advantages studying leadership.

Discussion: Prior to attending the MBA program and particularly the leadership module conducted during the academia I was having a notion that leaders acquire their qualities or skills to lead teams from their experience or by hereditary or exceptionally gifted, however after attending the leadership program conducted in the academia I developed an understanding that leadership training programs help aspiring leaders like me develop leadership skills. For instance, the role playing activities conducted during the seminar activities and the feedback received from the peer helped me understand where I stood with respect to my leadership capabilities. By practicing and using the skills regularly and also receiving feedback from the peers I have developed confidence that I will also be able to lead teams in multinational organisations however in order to do so I would need to further focus on increased practice and learn more about the skills that are required by leaders to lead teams. There are various tools, ways and academic frameworks available for aspiring leaders could use in order to develop their leadership skills. Bernard (1999) suggests that leadership skills such as transformational leadership skills, or communication skills could be acquired by undergoing training and development programs. For instance, I always felt that SWOT analysis is used only in an organisational context, however using it to understand my personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats helped me identify my weaknesses. Further, the Johari Window, illustrated in the below figure, enabled me to understand what other felt about my leadership skills and qualities which were known to others and not to me.

Conclusion:

Apart from being able to learning about the self-development tools and various leadership models and frameworks as reflected in the previous blogs, I have learned that there are various advantages in learning leadership as detailed below:

i.              Leadership Style and approaches: I have realised that leaders are able to switch their leadership styles and approaches based on the various situations faced by them in an organisation.

ii.             Ethical Behaviour: Though the leader is in a position of authority and power, it is still required for them to be practicing ethical behaviour acceptable by the followers. By maintaining ethical behaviour leaders are able to bond better with their teams.

iii.            Guide Others aspiring leaders: The leaders have the responsibility to identify leadership qualities in their followers and help them improve on these skills so that they could delegate them with leadership responsibilities.

vi.           Continuous improvement: As business environment keeps constantly changing and the leaders are faced with newer challenges it is important for the leaders to develop a culture that promotes continuous learning and development of their skills so that they are able to take up the dynamic business challenges.

With the help of the newly acquired knowledge and the practical activities carried out during the academia I am confident about taking over a role of a leader in an international organisation which gives opportunities to aspiring leaders like me. The knowledge acquired through theory and academic practices could be further improved by implementing the same in the new role that I am aspiring to take up in the international organisation.

 

References:

 

Bernard M. Bass (1999), “Two Decades of Research and Development in Transformational Leadership,” European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 8, no. 1, pp. 9-32.
Bernard Burnes (2009), Managing Change, 5th Edition, England: Pearson Higher Education.

 

Google (2013), Our history in depth, [Online] available from http://www.google.com/about/company/history/ [18/03/2013]

 

Ibarra, H, & Hansen, M (2011), ‘Are You a Collaborative Leader?’ Harvard Business Review [online], 89, 7/8, pp. 68-74

 

Mullins, L.J. (2010), Management and Organisational Behaviour, 9th Edition, Harlow: Pearson Higher Education

 

PepsiCo (2013), Indra Nooyi, [Online available from http://www.pepsico.com/company/leadership.html [17/03/20013]

 

Yukl G, 2010, Leadership in Organisations, 7th Edition. Pearson Education Limited, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 07458

 

Kouzes J M & Posner B Z (2007), The Leadership Challenge: The most trusted source on becoming a better leader, 4th Edition, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.