It is correctly stated that workplaces of the future will present many challenges and opportunities for organizational leaders, human resource managers and employees. It is important for organizations to understand the challenges and opportunities. The HR managers would be able to make use of opportunities only when they have the strategies in place to manage the challenges. The theme of the paper is to discuss the future theme of HRM, “Employees would ‘elect’ their leaders”. In recent times, there has been a transformation in the role of human resource managers. Today, organizational growth and development depends on the strong leadership at top (Stone, 2013). Therefore, it is important that organizations should have strong and power leaders at top who can take the organization forward. The success of organizations would depend on the flexibility given to employees and the relationship between leaders and employees. Diversity is one of key aspects that organizations are emphasizing upon.
Today, organizations are very high on bringing creative and innovative people from around the globe. The workplace celebrations serves a great purpose in employees knowing more about cultures and morale values of each other which only helps in building positive working atmosphere. These celebrations give recognition to employees for their accomplishments. As most of employees likes to be recognized for their good work and this will give them extra boost to be more creative. Other than these, workplace celebrations can be very helpful in retention of employees. In an organizational setting, the people could elect the leaders or the senior executives or board of directors can appoint it (Scott, 2012). The paper would discuss that in contemporary business environment; there would be an increased trend towards electing the leaders.
Authors argued that in an organizational setting, leaders and employees should have great connect and this is one of the drivers of elected leaders in the organizations. Joe Garfinkle has written several books related to leadership and career fulfillment. In his blog he writes about how being vulnerable creates strong leadership (2016). Showing your vulnerabilities helps others trust you and talking about your mistakes or problems creates a culture of openness and allows others the opportunity to share ideas. They feel safe enough to participate and brainstorm. Making teams members feel needed gives meaning to them that their contributions are valuable. No one wants to be on a team with a know-it-all or bully. I believe in order to have a successful cross-functional team the members need to trust one another and be able to speak freely and respectfully. Some may think showing you’re vulnerable is a weakness, but it actually builds relationships and fosters teamwork. As Daft (2013) states, Team members know one another’s problems and compromise rather than blindly follow their own goals (pg. 324). There is an increased debate if employees should elect their leaders or not. Conventional wisdom says that employees don’t leave companies—they ditch managers. A bad boss or team leader can turn a great job into the ninth circle of workplace hell. Gallup has estimated that manager’s account for at least 70% of variance in staff engagement scores. This is one of the reasons that employees should elect their leaders.
It is important that employees should elect their leaders so that employees and leaders can manage various organizational strategies and policies in an effective manner. For organizations and leaders, one of the key things is to manage performance management system (Katzenbach, 2000). For large organizations, performance management could be beneficial when employees can speak up their mind in front of leaders and for this, it is important that employees should have a chance to elect their leaders (De Cieri & Kra, 2003).
Williamson (2006) argued that leaders should be elected because a leader is someone who must be close of employees. For organizations, a leader should be for the employees, within the employees and by the employees. It is important that elected leaders should manage the performance of employees in an effective and efficient manner. The elected leaders also increase the chances of transparency within the organization.
It can be said that employees would be able to do better performance planning only when they have good rapport with consumers. At times expectation setting may seem like micromanagement but they are separate. However, the leaders should set out the expectations in as much detail as you like but a manager cannot control every detail of what people do.
The election of leaders by the employees provides a power in the hands of employees. It is important that employees should have this power in hand so that they can work with leaders for organizational growth and development. Employees should elect their leaders so that they can communicate freely with the leaders and mid-level management. The communication between the leaders and the employees is the key for organizations to move forward. The election of leaders by employees also ensures that the employees do not have any complain about the leaders and managers in the organization. It means that the employees can work without cribbing about the workplace. It would also mean that leaders and employees could work together to improve organizational growth and development.
The election of leaders by employees may not the best course of action. However, this is a recommended course of action when the organization is small and the conflicts are high in the organization. It is correct that election of employees may not work for large organizations. Secondly, one of the roadblocks of election of leaders in large organization is the selection or nomination of panel that would stand in the election. However, the strategy of election of leaders should certainly be practiced in the small and mid-size organizations where organizational conflicts are high. It is suggested that organizations can start a pilot project of employee electing their leaders. If the organization does not feel any value add from this and it can roll back this process.
At the same time, there are arguments that organizations should not have elected leaders. Nankervis & Compton (2011) argued that leaders should be able to provide an independent and transparent view to the organizational problems. It is also important that leaders should be able to manage employees in an effective manner. It is possible when leaders are not biased. Working in this type of environment can be very hard to do. There has to be tough decisions made in order to ensure safety for all members including patients. Everyone should be on board and make choices that are for the best and offers a better solution to the problems at hand. Communication plays a key role in the delivery of message to the stakeholders. The directive decision-making that involves teams can have significant affect. When decision affect different departments and stakeholders then the managers and the leaders must follow rules and policies.
In case of elected leaders, there are chances that there would be some biasness in the leaders. There are managers and leaders that don’t understand or care about employees or followers needs, and choose not to understand them. Ethical decision-making and not abusing ones power can create a positive climate and culture. The bottom line with the leaders employees’ connection is that the organizational goals and objectives should not get suffered. In an organizational setting, employees should not elect their leaders as it can give rise to the culture of red tape. The entire point of abolishing the trade unions was the lack of efficiency with trade unions. With the system of ‘employees electing their leaders’, there are chances that employees would start getting in groups. With this concept of ‘employees electing their leaders’ the conflicts between management and employees can also increase. There would definitely be an increase in the bargaining power of employees with this concept. This tends to be problematic, because if the other staff isn’t on the same page as us, it can have a negative impact on the entire organization as a whole.
Hartel & Fujimoto (2007) argued that one of the risks of employees electing their leaders is the increased power to employees. It is important that a balance of power should always exist within the organization. This balance of power can be created only when managers or leaders works as a system of check and balances. This system of check and balances should be used to govern employees. At the same time, it is important that employees should continuously give feedback to leaders and managers. For organizations, the leaders should not be elected because elected leaders might think more of people management and people development rather than profit development. For some organizations, the best course of action is when the employees take instructions from organizations and leaders (Lu & Watson-Manheim, 2006). This concept of taking instruction from leaders can get compromise when employees elect the leaders. It is critical that the differentiation should always exist between leaders and employees. Any organization may not want to give excessive power to employees and this balance could be created only when leaders work in a directive style and employees take instructions for leaders. At the same time, human resource managers should create a culture where employees feedback is given due consideration by managers and leaders (Teicher & Holland, 2006).
Conclusion & Way forward for organizations
The question about the ‘election of leaders’ is an interesting and debatable topic. The above paper discusses the points in favor and against the use of elected leaders. With the above discussion, it can be said that in the modern business environment, it is rare to find managers today that have that type of compassion to go the extra mile. With so many tasks being added to their responsibilities it is difficult to find managers going out of their way to do the little things. Many are just trying to keep up with the tasks that they are required to do (Lee, 2007). There are instances when the manager of the unit goes against the staffing grid and allow adequate staffing on the unit not based on the numbers but on the acuity of the employees. This is a managerial decision that positively affects the entire staff. It is very frustrating when staff has to be running back and forth on the unit, missing break because staff was cancelled because the numbers. Therefore it is important that leaders should be someone elected from the people or by the people. There would need to be coordination of efforts from both the management of organizations and that of operations in making decisions that ensure marketing echoes the current operations that are alignment with marketing strategies. It would be correct to say that organizations and human resource managers are under lot of pressure to perform. It is expected that human resource managers would be able to maintain the balance within the organizations.
The way forward for organizations and human resource managers would be to have a healthy culture in place. It is critical that the trust and respect among the employees and leaders should be cornerstone of human resource management and organizational development. It is important that organizations should appoint leaders after discussing with internal and external stakeholders. The concept of ‘elected leader’ may work for some companies. However, organizations should realize that this could not be the solution for all the organizations. The leaders and human resource managers should realize that all the organizations are different in nature. Therefore, it is important that the steps to elect the leaders or not should be internal to organizations. In the contemporary business environment, the organizations need to make it sure that the employees are meeting the responsibility of the job in accordance to the roles assigned to them. Everything should be in order and disciplined. Organizations can have the concept of elected leaders only when organizations do not have to make any compromise or adjustments in its growth, development and productivity. It is recommended that the organizations can practice the concept of ‘elected leaders’ with a strong board of director in place. The presence of board of director would ensure that all the power is not in the hand of elected leader and the organization is able to achieve its goals and objectives of growth and development. With the above discussion it can be said that the strategy of election of leaders should certainly be practiced in the small and mid-size organizations where organizational conflicts are high.
References:
Daft, R. L. (2013). Management (11th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
De Cieri, H. and Kramar, R., 2003. Human resource management in Australia.
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Katzenbach, J.R., 2000. Peak performance: Aligning the hearts and minds of your employees. Harvard Business Press.
Lee, M. (2017). Challenges of Leading in Virtual Organizations. Retrieved from: https://www.ittoday.info/ITPerformanceImprovement/Articles/2013-08Lee.html (28th May 2017)
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Garfinkle, J., 2016. Why strong leaders have the courage to show vulnerability. Career Advancement Blog. Retrieved from https://careeradvancementblog.com
Roberts, G.E.(2002)‘Employee Performance Appraisal System Participation: A Technique That Works’, Public Personnel Management. Vol.31 (3), pp.333-342.
Scott, A. (2012) “Don’t Confuse Passion with Competence” Hardvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2012/02/dont-confuse-passion-with-comp/ (Accessed 09 August 2016)
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