Business leaders are the person who is responsible to take decisions considering the ethical consequences during their whole career (Hahn et al. 2014). Among all, some decisions will be easy to carry forward and some will have higher degree of complexity along with repercussion effect on the entire organisation. With the ever-increasing complexity in the business environment, command and control model has failed to give the decision makers proper way to deal with the present scenario of the business organisation and thus the business leaders are involved in generating such models that can trigger the decision making effectively (Berglundand Sandstorm 2013). With decades of research and practice, empowerment model and the learning organisation model has been developed but they too are incompetent to withstand the present complex situation of the business houses.
The business environment of 21st century is becoming more complex compared to one or two decades ago, and thus it has become evident for the every decision maker to incorporate the participation model that aids to leverage the ambiguity environment, which is the hallmark of almost every firm (Ngo and O’cass 2013). To become an effective decision maker, I need to embrace with such leadership practices that align accordingly with the complexity of my business environment. This paper of business leader practicum explorer the various influential factors that has affected my growth to become a good decision maker, who can sustain with the complex environment of the business maintaining the cultural, social and ethical consideration.
With long experience in the leadership roles, command and control model along with the empowerment decision-making tools are well-known concepts to me (Toland and Guidera 2017). However, EMBA provided me exposure t more Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world of business that was completely a new domain to me in decision-making. According to the figure 1, my propensity to activeness and below-par relationship attributes reflects on self-protection and over productive nature that has provided me low creativity, and inability to critically analyzing the complex business environment (Bianchi et al. 2015). Analyzing my past it has been found that there were stark difference between what I have and what I need to become a successful leader, who considers all the social, ethical and cultural perspective while making decision for the organisation without being biased. Now, I believe in connectivity, my network, relationship and trustiness, when it comes to decision-making, rather than blindly following the age-old command and control hierarchical model of decision-making (Ferrell and Fraedrich 2015).
Figure 1: Leadership circle profile
Source: (Anderson, Adams and Adams 2015)
New knowledge is necessary thing for decision makers like who wants to evolve themselves from the rudimentary decision making tool of command and control. In order to become a successful decision maker who considers all the social, ethical and organisational aspects, I must considered biasness, intuitive expertise, decision making and its complexity and thinking strategy (Sharma, Mithas and Kankanhallli 2014).
Cognitive biases play a significant role in decision-making and it aids to make improper decision that helps to gain minority of an organisation. Common biases that arise while making decision are as follows (Shepherd, Williams and Patzelt 2015):
Examining my career, it has been found that these biases have hampered my decision-making ability. Thus, now I need to mentor myself so that I can prepare myself to make delicate decision that attains organisational goal rather than biased approach that were meant to fulfil only the personal goals.
There are two decision-making sources, which are naturalistic, and the other one is data based analysis (Moilanen 2013). EMBA has taught me, if I have to become a good decision maker, then I have to adhere with both of the system and utilize whenever necessary. Naturalistic approach will aid to gain intuitive expertise in decision-making and the data analysis will bring in clarity in my decisions (Zsambok 2014).
Complexity in decision-making is the inherent part and from EMBA I have learned that if I have to be a good decision maker, then I need to adhere with the complex situations. It is impossible for a decision maker to adhere with all the complexities in the organisation and thus teamwork is necessary that I have omitted during my while career (Ferrell and Fraedrich 2015). Triangulation is one of the key players that can aid in decision-making and according to this thesis; I have to become a smart people to be a smart decision maker, who can deal with all the adversaries in the organisation (Smith 2014).
Mind has two different thinking systems that control the voluntary and involuntary functions (Anderson and Bower 2014). When it comes to making decisions, then a good leader has to blend both the system 1 and 2 in order to make right decision. Overcoming the frustration while making long decisions and adhering with the both of the system, was main challenge during my EMBA course.
Ever increasing complexity in the business structures around the world has crippled the Command and control model along with the other leadership models that had emerged during the 19th century (Northouse 2015). In the VUCA world participation model, trust and new knowledge are the key elements that can lead to better personal and organisational goal. During the my EMBA course work I have gathered lots of knowledge regarding the leadership in VUCA world; in this context below, my past, present and future transformation of theoretical and practical knowledge on leadership has been reflected as the journal entry
According to my TLC report, I had poor scores and upon judging it minutely, I found that I believed on the command and control method of hierarchical organisation structure and I was unwilling to trust other while making decision. This lead I to think that high task orientation is valuable rather than making relationships in work place. According to the ideas of Brest (2014), immunity to change is one of the main reasons that restrict the young mind to become a successful decision make and same thing happened with me too. My fear, feeling and unwilling to trust made a hierarchical organisation work, however now I aim to overcome this drawback by adhering trust, which will tend me to have a more inclusive view towards decision making.
During my career until now, teamwork was not a priority and my approach was hierarchical organisation based. However, during the EMBA, I had learned that in this structure, flow of information is restricted and it is more about personal reward and progression rather than achieving organisation goal (Drescher et al. 2014). In long run participation and development of teamwork is essential to grow my career as an effective decision maker. Thus, I have to mentor myself and provide coaching to me in order to adapt and execute the teamwork at my place of work.
Previous to my EMBA course work, I did not pay attention to the emotional impacts, when it comes to decision making, however during the course I learned how much importance it possess for making a strong and good decision that addresses all the issues. I used to differentiate between others and myself for the strong competitive orientation, however learned that self-esteem is kept well, when a person is engaged in discussion or negotiation. During the course work, I learned that emotional intelligence is such a thing that provides ability to determine the emotions of others and self that aids in decision-making (Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee 2013). With my prior egocentric decision making approach I was at the gaining end, whereas most of the part of the organisation kept as they were earlier. Thus, now I want to change my approach and consider emotional intelligence as one of my tools that will help me to make good decision that will make majority of the organisation happy even if my gains are constrained.
Networking is one of the key elements that help a person to become a successful leader, however, through my career I believed on the command and control model dismissing the importance of networking. Due to my ignorance, I had not explored the importance of networking in the decision making, which is one of the main reason according to my executive advisor that had lead me to jolted and manipulated my studies with unnecessary huge amount of hard work (Bolman and Deal 2017). My executive advisor has shown me lots of example that taught me accurately the importance of networking in my career and personal life as well. There should be different typed of networking that aids to develop decision-making, which are as follows (Hughes, Chu and Mason 2017):
In the VUCA world, networking provides a large scale of ideas, feedback, and support in the case of decision-making. It aids to simplify the complexity that arises due to the decision-making and thus it would be one of my primary priorities to bring in my personal network to become a successful excellent leader.
When it comes to decision making in leadership rather than considering only the multifaceted approach, it is required to consider the cultural, ethical and social factors. It become viable, when cross boarder business and operations are related to consider the factors like culture, ethics and social norm in order to make decision a standout one and lead the organisation to gain success beyond the domestic boundary. According to the Tuncel, Kavak and Karademir (2017), there are five dimensions from the cultural and social perspective and a good decision maker need to understand its impacts. Five considerations are as follows:
From the ethical perspective, an organisation need to have both the informal and formal rules for maintain the ethical behaviour in the working field. From my studies, I have learned that while making decision, the leadership of an organisation need to orient the following ethical consideration (Rothman 2017):
These ethical considerations may bring in conflict while making decision for an organisation; however, ethical consideration for an organisation also states that rather than solving the issues in individual decree it is good practice to solve the issues in a group format.
During my EMBA course I have learned that leadership is a hard work and when it comes to making decision for an organisation, then the degree of hardness gets aggravated to a great extend. In the VUCA world, it is clear that uncertainty and ambiguity are the inherent parts of every industry, and if a leader needs to survive, then he must provide new direction (Schmidt et al. 2014). If the uncertainty and ambiguity can be channelized properly, then it can give birth to the new direction in the form of creativity. During my studies, I have learned that a creative leader must have the following things (Vessey et al. 2014):
With these effective tools, One can become a successful leader and takes right decisions at the right time maintain the cultural, social and ethical considerations of the business.
Conclusion:
The EMBA course work has given me insight of a good leader, reflection that a good leader must have and the knowledge required to become a good leader. Along with these, it helped to be realising the effective tools that can make me a sophisticated leader in the VUCA world. I now strive to become such a leader who can take powerful solutions, deliver exceptional value to the stakeholders and solve the issues of organisation abandoning the reactive style approach and embracing all the opportunities that would align me to become a useful leader in the VUCA world.
Reference:
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Anderson, R.J., Adams, B. and Adams, W.A., 2015. Mastering leadership: An integrated framework for breakthrough performance and extraordinary business results. John Wiley & Sons.
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Bianchi, E.C., Brockner, J., Van den Bos, K., Seifert, M., Moon, H., van Dijke, M. and De Cremer, D., 2015. Trust in decision-making authorities dictates the form of the interactive relationship between outcome fairness and procedural fairness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(1), pp.19-34.
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