Discuss about the Leadership Strategies for Business Positively and Negatively.
This paper presents analysis on leadership issues encountered by leaders in modern business world. Globalization impacted the business positively and negatively, it made business across boundaries, enhanced profits but at the same time it also made business unpredictable, highly competitive and continuously changing. Therefore leaders need imbibe these changes in the organizational system. Though at the core, role of leader will never change, it will be of a person who can motivate others but with advancement leaders are expected to turnaround business improvements and find ways to ensure proper employee and organizational management. This paper include different challenges that leaders encounter during employee management, goals achievement in organizations and also strategies to overcome them.
Leadership
Leadership can be defined as the process of building a promoting relationship between employees of the organization; leader is the person responsible for facilitating this process among various organizational departments. Beside employee management, leaders also need to understand customer requirements, to be update with technology and market changes. There are various types of leadership style practiced by leaders depending on various external and internal factors (Chemers, 2000). Two major style among them include transactional and transformation leadership. Different leadership behavior include being autocratic, participative or entrepreneurial.
Importance of leadership in modern business
Leaders are face of organization; employees follow their behavior and impact overall performance.
Ethical dilemma
Leader’s behavior impact ethical and governance system within organization, therefore they need to behave morally and ethically during decision making process. Ethics can be defined moral obligations which help in deciding between right and wrong. Every individual have set of value system which guide them through right and wrong decision making, as it is influenced by personal values (Enderle, 2007). Leaders need to integrate the interest of all stakeholders involve in the process so that everyone get benefited from the action taken. The plethora of financial scandals has raised questions on authenticity of leadership. Researches show that leader’s intentions towards ethical behavior have strong impact on employee outcomes (Zhu, et.al. 2004). There is difference in opinion causing ethical difference due to various personal factors. For example, a research was conducted in nursing context to evaluate conflicts encountered; a survey conducted by American Organization of Nurse Executives conducted in 2012 shows that nurses encounter wide range of ethical dilemmas during course of their services (Cooper, et.al 2010).
Another key issue is the changing dynamic business world that demands quick acceptance of changes to ensure sustainability. However, employees resist to change that might impact organizational growth adversely. It is crucial to change employee avoidance into employee acceptance. Generally employees get accustomed with a particular method of work, they resist change due to fear of disruption in their work performance such behavior causes resistance to change. Strategic change management is a challenge faced by organizations, it require time and support from leaders; it require convincing stakeholders to participate in the change process and also to decrease the time cycle. Sometimes, such changes also cause emotional stress due to employee resistance, anger and fear; which also increase guilt towards low productivity and problems in delegating tasks (Naghibi & Baban, 2011). Strong leadership is required to get company out of changing market scenarios, for example Morrison encounter poor marker scenario, loss in market share, low profitability, lower customer satisfaction, the company was undergoing extremely poor market scenario. In this scenario change leadership was implemented by David Potts, the new CEO of the company who adopted a range of strategic changes such as layoff, change in HR system, dividend payout, and customer relation management process to deal with the situation. (Thesing, 2013)
Leaders need to visionary and long term planner, however at times they have encounter various type of risks and stress at work. Conflict can be defined as a difference of opinion lies between people due to power, position, resource and thinking. While implementing any type of change, leaders might encounters difference in opinion, conflicts within groups. Conflict is influenced by several factors such as age, gender, education, power, job description, autonomy at work etc.; poor conflict management can cause low productivity, high employee turnover, job dissatisfaction etc. A research was conducted in Turkey, on a health conversion program to evaluate need for leadership administration in hospitals for enhancing service quality and adopt changes. Findings states that hospitals have dynamic open environment, hierarchy system, which causes communication problem, target and role differences, lack of proper performance evaluation system, lack of team work, education and skilled labor. Data were collected from 284 hospital staff from Istanbul region using questionnaire. Findings states need for leaders to manage conflicts in accordance to business goals (a & Kaban, 2012). It also shows that high conflicts in organization cause deviation from actual organizational objective, risk of sustainability etc. Whereas very low or no conflict leads to a risk of lack of creativity and innovation, therefore there is need to create a balance between health and unhealthy conflict within organization by leaders which is a difficult task to be done (Dellve, 2009).
Organizations operate in a globalized environment, in a multicultural and inclusive work setting that aims to attract talent from different parts of the world. This inter cultural environment have people with different culture, social scenarios, ethnicity, values and personality; working in such multi belief system with a common goal is a major challenge to leaders. Though diversity has become inevitable element towards organizational success but it imposes challenges due to several external barriers such as cultural difference, linguistic issues which might cause miscommunication among teams (House, 2004). Difference factors that impose challenges on proper diversity management include employee attitude, ignorance with cultural concepts, and fear of job security or social isolation. A research was conducted by GLOBE on 61 cultures to evaluate the impact of cultural variables on organizational performance and leadership. Analysis shows cultural differences significantly impact the way people perceive leaders, norms and privilege granted to leaders (House, et.al. 2012).
Power to influence decisions and also allocate resources impact working process, there are both positive and negative use of power which leads to different result. Sharing of power with employees leads to empowerment and growth whereas misuse of power leads to conflicts and politics. Analysis states, bureaucratic structures, environmental uncertainty and emotional insecurity lead to organizational politics. Such scenarios cause problems such as divide and rule, backstabbing etc. causing dysfunctional politics. Leaders find it difficult to manage relationships and brand image. A research was conducted on postheroic model of leadership that states leadership is a social phenomenon that is build upon network of influence, concepts and they are not dependent on gender (Fletcher, 2004). This research shows the way leadership theories fails to integrate a relationship between gender and power, the way these two element impact social networks and create challenges in working environment (Combs, 2002). For example, big brands like Tesco, Wal-Mart faced legal consequences, employee resistance due to work gender inequality.
There are various leadership theories that impact leader’s behavior and success within organization.
Leadership implicit theory
According to this theory, every individuals belief, convictions and other behavioral factors which differentiate leaders from majority; these factors also differentiate efficient individuals from inefficient once. This theory indicates that leadership qualities vary between individuals according to their personality and the extent to which these attributes fit with attributor. In simple terms, people have pre-convinced notion regarding their environment and the way they response to it. Therefore, people have expectations and general assumptions about leaders, this theory help in identifying leaders and make proper response to avoid conflict between leaders and followers behavior (Darr, 2004).
Value/belief theory of culture
Culture have strong impact on individual thinking, it impact the way team members behave within organization; it also impact various factors which individual consider as right or wrong. Hofstede states different factors that impact values of individual from different cultures, it include individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, power distance which explore the element of hierarchy and tolerance towards power difference within culture; uncertainty and long term planning. This model is an effective tool that leaders can used for cross cultural communication by analyzing individual perception, reason behind a particular pattern of thinking and provide them solutions which really motivate them. This model can also facilitate leaders in resolving organizational conflicts due to cultural differences.
Implicit theory of motivation
Motivation aims to increase positive will power among individuals to work towards some goals; it can be tangible as well as intangible factors. Implicit theory deals with non- conscious motives which facilitates in motivating employees, it include achievement, affiliation, and power. Though an implicit theory is built upon various past experience as it direct behavior. It also important to understand whether manager’s implicit views on motivation are similar on the basis of their demographics. Research states that people with similar ethnicity have common attitude and views on motivation (Dickson & Wendorf, 1999). Similarly people from a particular organization have a common view that people from different organization. This theory help in framing right strategies for implementing change within organization, understanding correct factor that motivate employees, it can also help in understanding difference in opinion to resolve conflicts (Offermann, et.al, 1994).
Every organization has set of objectives and goals to be fulfilled to ensure long term sustainability and profitability; it is also known as organizational contingencies. According to researchers, these contingencies impact organizational form, practice, strategies and its impact. This theory aims to highlight the need for structural integration for proper leadership execution. In include both internal and external influence; internal factors include organizational goals, objectives, job tasks, business processes, organizational size and structure. External factors include environmental elements such as economic, social, cultural factors that impact success of organization within industry and particular region.
Individual trait create leaders personality, few of key leadership traits include intelligence, sociability, thoroughness, adjustment, openness, and self-efficacy. According to this theory leaders have certain qualities which differentiate them from others, it support in easy skill acquisition. Few traits are common among leaders, it include a passion for achieving something, ability to take initiatives, self-motivated with the aim to lead others; they are honest with high degree of integrity, self-confidence, cognitive ability and knowledge regarding business. These traits facilitates in building an environment of emotional support, warmth in the organization that help in encouraging employees to initiate tasks, it impact leadership effectiveness and outcome within organizations (Van Eeden, et.al, 2008). For example, sir Steve Jobs, he was the leader behind immense success of Apple Inc., analysis shows various traits that resemble his effective leadership, it include visionary, he used both transactional and transformational leadership style according to requirements; his charismatic personality motivated employees to work harder and he always use to surround himself with like-minded people. (Kramer, 2010)
Behavior has strong impact on outcome, according to this theory leaders can modify their behavior according to condition and desired outcome. Three major styles are illustrated under this method that includes task oriented, relationship oriented and participative leadership. Task oriented leadership style is suitable for lower level management employees, it involve focus on operations and process to achieve set organizational goals, it aims to achieve short term impact. Relationship oriented leadership is suitable for middle and top management employees, it involve skills like encouraging, observing, motivating employees to achieve set goals, it has long term impact on followers. Finally, the real change bringer is the participative style; it aims to involve all team members in the decision making process and developing strategies to achieve organizational goals. This leadership style aims to develop other leaders in the organization, active participation of employees and development of their ability and creativity (Mumford, Charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leadership: An examination of multi-level influences on emergence and performance, 2009).
The behavioral model also shows that depending on stimuli and behavioral traits there are different type of leaders in organizations. It include Impoverished leaders who are neither concerned about neither organizational production nor its people; such leadership style cause low motivation, high employee turnover, poor performance. Second is the accommodating style in which leaders are concerned regarding employees more than production, it leads to highly satisfied employees but might impact productivity poorly. Third is dictatorial type of leadership with high focus on production with no employee concern, it causes poor employee satisfaction and short term organizational performance. Fourth type is team style which is the most effective style of leadership; it leads to high employee satisfaction, motivation, high performance and profitability (DuBrin, 2010).
According to this theory, there is no written formula to be used in any situation rather all organization, situations demands for different psychological characteristics to deal with situation. Three factors that impact leader behavior and its outcome include the level of trust and confidence employees have on the leader; the clarity of task given to employees, ambiguity in task leads to conflict and dissatisfaction (Hersey, et.al, 1979). The amount of power leader need to work with the group as higher power helps in better leadership.
Researcher states different strategies that leaders can implement to overcome leadership challenges.
Conclusion
Leadership in modern business world is complex processes that involve continuous learning and ongoing efforts to achieve organizational goals. Various studies show immense challenges encountered by leaders in today’s market due to globalization, cross cultural work environment, fast changes in external environment. Different types of problem that leaders came across include ethical dilemma in complex business environment, maintain gender balance, diversity in workforce, cultural differences, conflict within employees, knowledge management, talent retention, stress management at work. Analysis shows various leadership models that help in understanding reason behind employee behavior and the way leader can change them through effective planning and strategic action. Leaders need to develop various traits to foster positive leadership outcome within organization.
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