Leadership is said to be the capability of a particular person or a group of persons to guide and influence their followers along with the other members of an organization (Bratton, 2020). Several studies have specified the cross- cultural capabilities of world- wide leadership is a serious factor in organizational effectiveness and performance (Jokinen, 2005). However, most of the competencies are definite from a Western perspective and they have initially attentive on the universal capabilities. There has been a long- standing supremacy of the western centric knowledge which features the past century but has changing currently. While testing about the western theories in Asia, it was found out that how both the region differs due to the differences in applications and meanings. In addition to this, global leadership totally differentiates from leadership in a domestic setting as it needs the leaders to efficiently manage individuals in a culturally diverse environment (Locke & Anderson 2015). Being an effective leader is not an easy job because managing the people is said to be one of the challenging tasks in an organization. The leader needs to excerpt the best out of their team members and help or support them even in the worst of situations (Rosenbach, 2018). The main aim and purpose of this paper are to discuss a leadership issue in an Asian context. Furthermore, the paper will discuss the problems behind the issue and suggestions will be made for the leaders so that they can tackle the issues. The alternative solutions will also be discussed along with the advantages and limitations of the solutions.
There are different styles and aspects of leadership that is followed in different regions across the world. Several cultural factors have been noted in the regions of Asia that greatly impact leadership within the region. Some of these factors consist of collectivism, harmony, stinginess or saving, trust, social relationship, and face. The leaders in Asia tend to be holistic as they put more focus on trust, harmony, and inter- relationships among the individuals. Conversely, the leadership models in western culture are largely focused on tasks (Mohamad Karkouti, 2016). The Asian leadership is generally categorized as they have mainly worked in a hierarchical culture (Kappelman et al. 2019). For instance: The Hong Kong Shipping Limited Company is facing several leadership issues due to the 2008 financial crash (French, Leyshon & Thrift 2009). There has been fear within the industry that the efficient managers of the company can suffer by being undercut. All the rates within the company have become similar and the managers have a preference to deal with other managers with a good customer empathy and ethics. However, the managers are facing issues as they have to deal with the customers directly in which they have a little or no experience. The fleet managers have worked for several years in the company within a hierarchical environment. They have often worked alone; though, their analytical skills are rewarded but they have had few opportunities to enhance their social skills. Therefore, it is a big challenge for the managers as they have to interact with the customers directly.
One of the common issues that have been observed in the Asian culture is hierarchy. The emerging leaders find themselves in the new roles that are senior to the ones with whom they were previously working. It is often observed that these leaders are not able to rebalance the relationship in order to reflect to their new roles; however, they mainly try to maintain a friendship with their direct reports and struggle to have the authority and gravity that they require to follow hierarchy (Bruning & Tung 2013). In this way, the relationship between their previous peers gets destroyed and, they are often hated by the team members. From the global context, the leaders in western culture follow a flatter structure, which has a less prescriptive mode of leadership. In these cultures, the leaders are more of a mindset where they inform their employees about the end goals and trust that their employees will find a way to get there (King & Zhang 2014). Numerous researches have shown that the quality of the relationship the employees have with their immediate managers or leaders is the primary driver of these particular feelings of engagement (Lim, 2016). Therefore, the relationship within an organization matter and they are not an optional leave or take factor. These factors are the central nature of the leader and their organization’s capability to attract, keep as well as get the best out of their people (Wahab et al. 2016).
Whenever an individual covers for the position of a leader, mainly there are several major factors of the motivation behind it. It can either be status, salary increases, wish to implement one’s knowledge, expertise or wisdom for a social cause, a strong wish to make a collective change within the organization, or more. But the behavior of a leader is likely to be entrenched in their personality issues. The initial feeling of a toxic leader who is not able to maintain an efficient relationship with their employees mainly occurs after occupying of position as a sense of emptiness within them (Eggins, 2016). They come to know that their inside desire to dominate is the only thing that can differentiate them from their subordinates. In addition to this, any frustration that stands out from such a feeling of insufficiency is always dangerous for them as well as for the overall organization where the leader works. Often the leaders with histrionic and narcissist personalities, when occupying a position of leadership within an organization, then the company comes to a standstill. This leads to several issues among employees which were not there before. The initial issues start with a lack of trust among the employees and the overall trust quotient of the company starts to drop (Zhu et al. 2017).
Leader who has been waiting for the leadership position for a long time are the ones who likely become more arrogant after they become leaders. It destroys the relationship with their subordinates who once were their colleagues. It leads to bad organizational culture and hence results in poor performance by the employees as they do not want to work with such a leader who is arrogant and cannot maintain a relationship with their employees (Muenjohn & McMurray 2017). These types of leaders accuse individuals, spread wrong messages within the organization, and hurt the emotion of the people. By behaving in such a way, the leaders want to give an impression that it is not their insufficiency as a leader but the shortage of intrinsic values in the particular situation which is preventing them from creating a good working culture within the organization. For instance: The managers in Hong Kong Shipping Company are facing issues related to lack of social skills because they have never got the chance to interact with the customers. The poor socialization among managers often leads to bitterness and frustration within their workplace. Apart from this, as the managers follow a hierarchy structure due to which they do not even interact properly with their team members or staffs in order to maintain their superiority. According to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, the culture of Asia puts focus on power distance where all individuals within the organization are not equal and it promotes inequalities. In Asian culture, the subordinate- superior relationship tends to be separated and there is no such defense against the power abused by the supervisors and mainly they focus on hierarchy (Khlif, 2016).
A common view of leadership in today’s modern business world is about getting the things done with the help of people. This modest statement does not portray any type of features of or skills of a leader; however, it signifies a shift from more outdated views which states that leadership is a matter of disposition traits that are connected with being able to interconnect a particular vision and setting a direction which can be followed by the other people. There is no leadership development or a follower development program in the context of business, nor such training is provided within an organization (Ho & Lin 2016). Although, there are team development courses provided by the organization or institutions where a specific relationship between the followers and leaders is examined. Therefore, it is extremely significant for the leader in order to be operative to behave properly with their employees and maintain a healthy relationship to make the overall organization productive and successful. The leader must empower their people to deliver the best (MEIYANI & Putra 2019). A good leader can allow and authorize the people to deliver the best of their abilities in a way that will benefit both the individuals as well as the organizations involved.
In a particular relationship, everyone is involved in order to ensure that the organization’s strategic objective is met. Here, the role of a leader is to set those deliberate objectives or communicate it with others. They must make sure that they understand what is expected from the organizational members, and have the resources to meet or surpass those expectations. Whenever a leader gets into the position of a superior, they must not forget their roots, rather they should remember the ones who helped them to get into that particular position (Cote, 2017). With the help of this, they will be able to maintain a healthy relationship with their peers, their superiors, and their team members which will promote a healthy workplace relationship and culture. It is already known that a good follower is a participative and active team member and they understand that their major role within the organization is to provide what is asked from them. These individuals give their best, work rigid and support the read leaders of the organization in obligating to its success (Gross, 2016). From the context of the Hong Kong Shipping Limited Company, it is suggested that the managers must be social. They must interact with their employees effectively and understand the issues they are facing within the workplace. This will make the employees think that they are being valued within the company. Apart from this, it is also extremely important for the managers to interact with their customers to understand what they think about the company, its products or services.
Maintaining a healthy relationship within the organization is extremely important for the success of the company. In order to maintain a healthy relationship, solutions have been suggested in the previous section of this assignment. However, another alternative solution for maintaining the relationship between leader and their employees is to ensure that the people can have a voice of their own within the organization (Busari et al. 2019). An effective leader gives voice to the team members so that they can speak up for themselves and others whenever they feel that the behavior or strategies of the leader are conflicting or puzzling with their sense of what is right. On the other hand, the leaders also have the responsibility to create a particular environment where these types of anxieties can be safely uttered as well as listened to. The leaders should take the trouble to understand the motivations and capabilities of the team members so that their work can be satisfying and meaningful, yet the followers can take the accountability for themselves as well as work effectively for the overall organizational success (Suifan & Marwa 2017). In order to create this important bond among the members and the leaders, the team members must not hold on authoritarian image of the leader or the organization, nor they should expect to offer for their career security or to make all the decisions about them. For the roles and responsibilities to make this relationship work, the followers and leaders both have the right and it must be acknowledged.
The leaders have a right to expect those employees who report to them in order to work to the best of their capability and trust as well as sustenance their decisions in the environment of serious friendship. Also, the supporters have the right to be appreciated as well as valued and they must also be given the opportunities to excel and develop within the organization. An effective leader and follower relationship are all about openness, trust, and respect. It can go much further rather than simply doing no harm or injury to the individuals within their working environment (Ribeiro et al. 2020). A proper leader and follower relationship can represent a true partnership among the partners and consider both the values which are given as well as the value gained by both of them. However, it is worth mentioning that the leader must not forget about their position and maintain a similar relationship of friends with their team members. This is because if the leader maintains a casual friendship with their team members, then they will not respect the leader as they should and will take their decisions lightly. Also, they will not obey the rules and regulations provided by the leader which might lead to different types of conflicting situations within the organization, bad workplace culture, and even lack of productivity (Khan & Khan 2019). Therefore, a good balance must be maintained by the leader with their employees in order to make them understand the positions and maintain a good relationship with them.
Conclusion:
We recognize that there are a few divergences between the HRD and its subordinates in terms of communicating ways, delegation and conflict management, which I regard as the most obvious and critical factors based on my perception. As for the communication, the leaders should be authentic to self as well as sincere and open minded to the others so that they can maintain an authentic and real image and more likely to be trusted by the employees. In addition to this, mastering scientific communication and delegation is an essential part of leading which should be utilizes in a proper way, otherwise it can have an adverse impact on the individual’s work enthusiasm. And the last one is conflict management, although there is not much details about the solutions to deal with conflict, but it is important for the leaders to raise awareness of avoiding dysfunctional competition because a specific subtle and improper action can trigger big conflicts within the workplace.
References:
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