Challenge Faced by Leadership - Essay Example

Leadership AFFILIATION: Leadership Leaders are recognized by their set of skills, which they arecapable of executing in a competent manner in their required arenas at the right time and are not solely based on the personality traits. These skills can be developed with proper training and guidance. Keeping this in mind, leadership means the ability to utilize the skills learned to organize a group of people, either in a team or a firm, to come together to achieve a common goal. It is a leader’s job to make sure things run smoothly and entirely dependent on him on what leadership style he chooses as long as it is getting good results. There is hardly any field, which does not require some form of leadership, in fact, even animals follow a particular leadership to do and live where their leader says. If we learn from them, we realize that we too need some form of leadership whether it is in government, job, schools, etc. Keith (Genentech) very aptly stated that at the end of the day an effective leadership is one which creates a way for people to contribute to achieving a goal or making something happen for the benefit of the rest. For this paper, I will be discussing a leadership challenge, which I had faced in the organization, Business IT Solutions, where I worked for some time and also the paper discusses the suggestions possible for overcoming the challenge based on everything I have learned in theory and real-world. Organization Introduction The company that I worked for is an upcoming firm in the field of communication and information technology, Business IT Solutions. It consists of highly dedicated, qualified and experienced professionals in their respective fields. They serve as under ‘one-roof’ solution provider for design & consultancy, budgeting and material procurement for LAN infrastructure, data centers and wireless solutions, providing up to date technology which will cater to the clients current and future business requirements. Mission Statement Their mission is: “To be the leading choice of all businesses for IT Consultancy, Design and Material Procurement by providing unparalleled, effective and efficient technology solutions that keep businesses a step ahead.” Vision Statement Their vision is: “Our Vision is to be recognized and trusted as the leading IT Consultancy, Design and Material Procurement entity by providing IT solutions which allows Business Information Systems to operate efficiently and productively. Our success and growth is result of the referrals and testimonials from business customers about the successful implementation of the products and services we deliver. We follow a simple and unique approach which is “We are our client’s IT department”. We serve our customers by providing them with evaluating their business IT requirements, technology planning for current and future IT needs, solution offering and budgeting. Core components of our success comprises of teamwork, knowledge and experience combined with integrity, loyalty and passion.” The code of ethics was not provided when I joined the company because it was still in the establishing phase. Challenge Faced by Leadership The company is aiming to be the leading choice of IT solution provider to their market, but for the last two years, they are unable to penetrate into the market and are unable to increase their market share. In spite of offering a comprehensive set of solution, the leadership of the organization is concerned over its team’s efforts to enhance their existing market share. Economic recession being one of the elements for the above cause, the management firmly believes that there is definite room for improvement in their efforts and abilities to be able to serve their IT market and the management plans needs to address the same with effective and strategic measures. The other elements for lack of growth were shown to be a massive increase in IT solution providers taking over the market and lowering the prices to a great extent. These companies tend to sell and bid at the lowest price possible with the products that are neither of quality nor effective solution to the requirements therefore making things worse from client end too. Due to this, they have to either replace or get repaired every year on average. Therefore, if they require new services, they now try to go for the already well-established firms consequently making the company’s chances of getting the share less. In theory, I have come across one thing and that is there are five particular challenges that majority of the leaders will face at least once in their life. These five challenges are: 1. Creating and Maintaining a Diversified Team: This is one of the biggest challenges for any leader and that is to find a way to create a united front for people from various backgrounds, experiences or ethnicity. The best way to overcome this is to define channels of communication and place them in measure to remove chances of miscommunication. 2. Inspire Shared Vision: Another challenge for any leader is the ability to make others see the vision he sees and be inspired by it. He has to make them understand and see from his perspective that what he envisions is beneficial for not only him or the company but for the employees too. If he is successful, the employees will put in their maximum hard work because they now share the same vision and understand the benefits. 3. Challenge the Process: In order for growth, leaders are always looking out for new and innovative ideas to implement for improvement. It is a challenge because in order to implement new and improved ideas, a leader should have the ability to take risk which will either result in a failure or success. The main thing is how they accept the chance of disappointment is what makes this challenging. 4. Empowering Employees to Take Action One of the main jobs and challenges for a leader is to empower his teammates or employees. He needs to encourage them to make positive business decisions, take their suggestions for improvements required and make them a part of the decision making process. While this may be the style of a democratic style of leadership, the other styles may find it challenging and difficult to pave way for this as this is one way for employees to feel inspired to achieve more and excel at their work. 5. Model the Way & Recognition It is a job for every leader to set an example and create standards for others to follow. Since they are also human and prone to errors, this is a huge challenge to overcome but it is a requirement of the job. It their job to guide, lead and help whenever and whatever the situation demands. Another thing they need to do is recognize their employees contributions and give rewards where due. Being recognized for their efforts will make them work hard. The reason I mentioned the above is because that is what will pave way for the growth of the organization I mentioned. Strategy for Overcoming the Challenges The leaders, which in this case are the owners, are already thinking of new ways to improve and expand their business. For this, they will need to tap into some, if not all, of the above mentioned challenges in order to overcome the roadblocks to success. From my experience during the brief time I spent there was that the solutions they were providing were not a complete IT infrastructure package but some bits from it. While according to their own research they noticed that the clients were going more towards firms which were offering a complete solution. Therefore, the first step they need is to challenge the process they had initially built. For this, they need to bring in a panel of experts or specialists in the fast moving field who can go out in the market and pave way for them in introducing new solutions and a complete package. This new panel of employees will focus on making the market aware of the company broadening its solution services and work with the current team in providing them relevant experience and training so that they may also help in other areas apart from the ones they are currently doing. Creating awareness and public relations is the most important step in success. If at any time the customer is treated badly or not catered to, they will lose him, so they need to focus on this. Word of mouth is everything in terms of business marketing especially when it comes to solution providing. Customers require service and quality, which, due to competition and recession is becoming the least priority in various new businesses. Second, the owners need to hold sessions and meeting with their employees to share their vision and make them understand the reason for focusing on customer comfort as compared to sales. The newly made company was unable to gain the confidence of the employees because, firstly they were new to running the business themselves therefore a little unsure and secondly, they were having trouble handling the employees who have experience and reputation in the firm, making them unified for a cause. The clash of egos was taking place in running the business. In order to gain their trust and to inspire them to achieve, the leadership needs to take them through the decision making process and share their vision’s benefits with the employees. In addition, the leadership needs to recognize and appreciate each individual’s contribution and hard work into bringing the business. At the start of business, the focus was mostly on getting clients and making sales, which consequently lead to the employees’ hard work and dedication ignored. Building something from scratch takes a lot of perseverance, which cannot be achieved with the same pace if the people doing it are not duly appreciated. Since they will soon be introducing another set of diversified professionals to the team, the leaders need to open communication lines and create a plan to manage everyone and make them see a unified vision and goal. For this, their complete involvement in all the steps of sales and public relations needs to be there. Their involvement will motivate the employees and create the comfort zone for them to work and address them in times of problems or suggestions for possible improvements. The expanding of their present solutions, to provide a wider and complete infrastructure will be a calculated risk but as their own research shows, it is now a market and customer requirement. How they go about it is up to them, but the initial steps are all as I presented above. The owners themselves need to model the way, set goals and an example of every one working under them. Once they show their meat in the market, their employees will follow lead and share the vision with them. One thing that needs to be kept in line is that the focus from their goals and visions to be recognized for providing customers with best service and up-to-date solution is never changed or misdirected towards just earning money and sales. Once this happens, things will go back to the way they were and recession will eventually get the best of this company’s fate. Conclusion Korac-Kakabadse et al. (2001) very aptly stated that the will to action marks a leader i.e. their willingness to enter the field of inter-action where a person learns pain, which in turn gives rise to compassion. The process where they correct themselves leads to wisdom, the risks they take leads to sharpening of their decision-making skills and in seeds of doubt, arises from the risks they take, inhabits their belief and conviction to lead. Keeping this statement in mind, the leadership will only be able to achieve growth, reputation and market share for their organization by following the correct steps of overcoming leadership challenges and opening communication lines to avoid mistrust and lack of motivation to succeed for employees. References 5 Leadership Challenges Anyone Can Overcome . (n.d.). Andrew Jackson Universitys Brian Tracy College of Business and Entrepreneurship. Retrieved April 23, 2012, from http://btc.aju.edu/blog.asp?id=7 Alan Keith | WiseWolf Talking – Leadership, Management, Career and Personal Development. (n.d.).WiseWolf Talking – Leadership, Management, Career and Personal Development | Helping you lead and manage well in todays and tomorrows workplace!. Retrieved April 23, 2012, from http://wisewolftalking.com/tag/alan-keith/ Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2010).The challenge continues: facilitators guide. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer ;. Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2011).The five practices of exemplary leadership (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer. Northouse, P. G. (2012). Introduction to Leadership: Concepts and Practice.(2. ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE. ScienceDirect.com - The Leadership Quarterly - Leadership, values, and subordinate self concepts. (n.d.).Resolve a DOI. Retrieved April 23, 2012, from http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1048-9843(01)00072-8 Read More