Leadership And Governance For Goals Of The Organization

Importance of leadership in achieving organizational goals

Describe about the Leadership and Governance for Goals of the Organization.

Leadership can be defined as the ability to lead a group of people in achieving specific objectives or mission. It involves determining a clear vision for the group, sharing such vision with others to allow them to follow willingly. It also involves providing vital information to your team with the aim of making them know more about what the organization wants to achieve and why. A leader would have the responsibility of coordinating and also balancing various conflicts of interests that might arise in an organization among stakeholders. A leader should have the ability to be courageous enough to step in at the time of crisis and help the team to get out of the difficult situation creatively.

Leadership can also be said to be the act or ability to inspire subordinate staffs to perform or engage in achieving the goals of the organization with ease. Leadership involves developing and implementing the strategic plan as well as policies and accountability (Elloker, Olckers, Gilson and Lehmann 2012, p.161). Good leadership also involves the ability to face numerous challenges and get the organization out of worst situations.  It should be practical for all level of organization management.

In leadership, there are about ten models that act as a practical tool that can develop a person’s leadership skills. These models explains what leaders should do not only to bring good leadership skills in the organization but also to develop themselves as leaders the world might want to see.

The first model talks about a situational leadership. It is where the leader has to adapt the situation and making the leadership style to fit the current developmental needs of the organization (Galpin and Whittington 2012). It means a leader should be flexible and change with the changes presented by the external and internal environment. A rigid leader might find some situations difficult to deal with. Situational leadership ideas were developed by Ken Blanchard together with his partner Paul Hersey. The notion and objective of this type of leadership was to make leaders be all rounded individuals who can deal with day to day situations in organization.

The second model is the servant leadership model. This is a leadership model developed by Robert K.Greenleaf (Erakovic and Jackson 2012, p.70). This model states that a good leader is one who does not focus on himself but more on the people under them. Leaders should be the servant of the people to who he or she represents. Being a servant here means working hand in hand with your people and mostly going out of your self-interest to make sure that the people you lead are safe and satisfied. This would encourage working together for a common good. It also means that people would be more cooperating as the leader does it by example.

Ten models of leadership for development of leadership skills

The third model is the Black and Mouton leadership grid. This asserts that a leader should have the ability to balance his or her concern for the subordinates and the concern of making things done. There are some leaders who are not concern of making things done but are concern by the people they are leading. This should not be the case. Tasks must be done as stated and the concern of people is also important because they are the ones that make things done. At times employees may not feel like doing the tasks assigned to them due to small conflicts (Kickbusch and Gleicher 2012). A good leader as much as he or she would be concerned with the conflict and might wants it resolve, he or she must ensure that the task at hand is as well handled.

Consequently, another skill that leaders should possess is the emotional intelligence. A leader must understand the people he or she is leading and never loss he or her cool easily in front of the people he or she leads.

In addition, there is the diamond model of leadership. It describes four elements of leaders as the leader, others, the task as well as the organization. These levels must be made to work together to help one another in achieving their goals (Sotarauta, Horlings and Liddle 2012). Leaders direct and influence others towards carrying out specific tasks in the organization in order to achieve a given goal. This means that the organization must also present an environment that supports employees in achieving these goals. It is upon the leaders to ensure that the organization has the required resources that would be of help to employees to carry out the assigned tasks.

Another model is the authentic model. This model requires leaders to find out who they are so as to lead in a manner that is true to them. They need to know themselves in terms of their beliefs, what they are good at and how they treat people who are different from them.

Last is the grow model. It is an abbreviation of goal, reality, obstacles, options and ways as well as will (Bouteligier 2012). This means that a leader must know their goals in terms of what they want to achieve as leaders. In addition, they must lead by reality in that what they want must be practicable. Also, they need to know the obstacles that might make them not to achieve their goals and how to overcome them. This means they have to have alternative ways of achieving their objectives. Moreover, leaders must portray a will to do the tasks. That is they must be willing and ready to tackle challenges and come up with desired results.

The role of governance in structuring and regulating norms and actions

On the other hand, governance is defined as all the processes of governing an institution or organization. It is the various ways in which norms, rules as well as actions of people in an organization is structured, regulated and also held accountable for their actions in the organization in question (Helms 2012). The level of formality of governance depends on the internal rules set up by the stakeholders of the organization. It also depends on the external relationship an organization has with its business partners. It is therefore true to say that governance would take various forms that are driven by various motivational factors and some other different results. In other circumstances, some various external individuals and factors that do not have a direct decision-making authority in an organization can influence its activities and governance. These groups may include politicians, media as well as lobbies.

The notion of leadership and governance covers policies and plans, strategic direction, regulation, effective oversight, motivation as well as partnership with other organizations. Governance is viewed as an outstanding theme in the development of organization agendas. Leadership and governance help in building a system that ensures that strategic policies and framework exists in an organization (Smith, Anell, Busse, Crivelli, Healy, Lindahl,Westert and Kene 2012, p.38). It also ensure that strategic policies and framework are combined with the necessary oversight, regulation, attention as well as a system design that encourages accountability in an organization. The need for accountability is as a result of growing demand for funds to build organization systems that are sustainable. One must demonstrate results and account for every fund used in the organization. Accountability can, therefore, be said to be an intrinsic feature of governance and is concerned with the management of relationships with different stakeholders of the organization such as government, employees and other business partners.

Accountability involves activities such as delegation of duties and understanding on how services and other activities are carried out. It also involves financing to ensure that there are enough resources for organization to carry out its activities without difficulties. In addition, it also includes good use of organization’s data and relevant information.

Governance connects with factors that surround accountability.  This paper will focus on leadership and governance in the health sector.

In the health sector, good governance and leadership is characterised by directing health system and resources competently, monitoring o performance, as well as engaging stakeholder’s participation in formulation of strategic plans that would be applied to save millions of lives in our communities. All these should be done in a way that is open, transparent equitable, accountable as well as responsive to the needs of patients (Schirm 2012, p.215).  Good governance involves effective policy making, open information sharing among stakeholders, transparent rules as well as an active participation of all the stakeholders.  

Accountability as an intrinsic feature of governance

There are two ways of measuring governance. These are rule-based and outcome-based indicators. Rule-based indicator is used to determine whether an organization have appropriate strategies, policies, as well as codified approaches for the system governance. In the health sector, the rule-based indicator might include availability of essential medications or a national policy in malaria control. Rule-based indicators also include the ownership arrangements, responsibilities of each stakeholder among others.

On contrary, outcome-based indicators are used to assess whether rules and procedures formulated are being implemented as required as far as the experience of stakeholders is concerned. In measuring governance, the focus should be on the usefulness or the relevance of such indicator.

While leadership is about directing people and governance about rules, policies and structure of an organization, these two must be combined together to achieve the goals of the organization. The leadership would ensure that the rules and policies spelled out in the governance style are implemented by mobilizing people and directing them in a way that conforms to the governance style of the organization. A leader must know the governing policies of the organization he leads and how to implement these policies as well as governance framework.

Good governance and leadership have been found to lead to a better healthcare system. This happens through the expansion of resources like mobilizing funds. This can be done by leaders who have the ability to bring community members together to help in building potential capital that is necessary to secure the key resources (Ball and Junemann 2012). Through good leadership and governance, an organization can build trust on people and make people have confidence in it. This is only possible through accountability, honesty and transparency in dealing with resources provided by the community for the purposes of promoting healthcare services. It would also ensure that the plans and performance of health organizations meets the needs of the people of that organization.

Leadership and governance also increases transparency and accountability such as in monitoring of resources. This is possible through the provision of an oversight and reporting plans that focuses on the use of resources as well as the performance of the organization (Eismann 2012). The leadership in the organization can create a culture of willingness and openness for all the stakeholders to be held accountable to the citizens and the beneficiaries that the resources and the services they are providing are used well.

Leadership and governance in the health sector

Governance defines a clear as well as comprehensive job description and therefore guides leaders on the roles each member of the organization should play as far as achieving the goals concerned. Governance also provide rules and policies that they needs in ensuring the collaboration of managers, staff and other stakeholders of the organization, for the objectives of the organization to be met with ease without hiccups. Governance being the structure of the leadership in an organization also makes every leader in the organization to commit to the continuous improvement of the strategies and decision-making in the organization (Senkubuge and Mayosi 2012). This also ensures that all activities of the organization conform to the mission and goals of the organization. 

There are five principles of governance that is common in most of the organizations. These five can be discussed as below.

First, leadership is part and parcel of governance. Effective leadership in s necessary in the implementation of good policy, rules and framework needed for the company strategic plans to succeed (Glickman, Gordon and Ross-Gordon 2012). It is the leadership that ensures that good governing policy exists in the organization and hence steer the company in the right direction to meet its purposes as far as business is concerned.

Second principle of good governance is the capability. This refers to a mixture of skills in the management of company resources. Leaders should have the capability and the experience to discharge their duties and responsibility effectively. It is the capable leaders who would ensure that the organization he or she leads have the policy and rules promoting good governance. this includes promotion of professional conduct of the employees, ensuring that the organization adheres to ethical standards as required by the society and the government.

Third is accountability (Müller?Seitz 2012). Good leadership and governance cannot go without proper rules concerning accountability. It involves transparency in dealing with shareholders and other stakeholders and makes them understand how the company spends its resources as well as how they are achieving their business purposes. This can be done regularly or as the needs might arise.

Further, another principle of good governance is the sustainability. Good leadership should provide sustainable policies and framework that would guide the organization in value creation and sustainable reinvestment that would make sure that the organization does not only achieves its short term goals but also long terms goals.

Fifth is the principle of integrity. The leaders should ensure that the organization is conducting its business in a fair and transparent way that is by the laws of the countries and ethical standards. This can be done by creating policies and governing rules that ensures that everyone in the organization operates under the said policies without a breach of any rule. There are a lot of advantage that comes with operating within the rules that are in accordance with the law such as avoiding the cost of litigations and loss of customers. However, the good governance must be initiated and integrated with good leadership for it to benefit the organization. A leader will ensure that the said policies and governing rules are implemented by each and everyone in the organization.

Governance in an organization works to ensure that leadership is on the right track. Governance provides mechanisms of accountability.  Leadership and the entire team of the organization are supported by the strategic and oversight authority of the company that gives them the information to keep them on the right track at all the times. In other words, governance acts as the inner ear of an organization (Groysberg and Slind 2012, p.77). It is not visible but vital in the leadership of an organization. It is the structure and culture that leadership of the organization operates in to ensure that the organization has the right reputation as far as its business is concerned. When there is no proper governance, then the organization would lack guidance and oversight and thus no good leadership can make it operate better. 

Lack of oversight can bring problems to organizations such as accounting, regulatory and compliance issues. Without proper governance, the leadership of the organization receive the support they might need to makes the organization grow and develop as required.

In conclusion, leadership and governance are said to be working hand in hand in ensuring that the objectives of the organization are achieved. Governance cannot be seen or easily identified as compared to leadership but it is the most essential part of the organization management (Afegbua and Adejuwon 2012, p.141). It provides leaders with guidance or a format to use as guiding principles that ensures that they are on the right track. It means that governance gives an organization some platform to guide the employees and everyone in the organization towards achieving what the organization would like to. It acts as the inner ear of the organization.

Reference list

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