Key Factors of Leadership - Assignment Example

Key Factors of Leadership Abstract: This paper shall look at the various leadership theories, which have evolved over a few decades, and would analyze the importance of change management for healthcare. Lastly, a conclusion is derived out of the literature studied. Healthcare management/leadership is required everywhere including hospitals, educational institutions, clinics and firms etc. for their areas of financial management to cut the costs, advanced standards for healthcare of the employees. It also pertains to settlement of health insurance for the employees, non-discriminatory financial affairs, and the healthcare managers must have the leadership abilities to effectively coordinate with the workers, while maintaining overall control on them. Acknowledgements: I would like to give special thanks to for her assistance and my family for their encouragement and support. Key Factors of Leadership Required In the Management of Change Introduction Leadership Defined Leadership is associated with larger-than-life characteristics. It is most important for complex organizations operating in changing environments. One needs to analyze the basic motivations for change because it includes human beings. Timothy Galpin (1996) describes the human elements of change, covering an organization wide area. Healthcare organizations need constant manoeuvring into the future and change. John (1990) states, “Leadership is an ability to influence followers that involves the use of power and the acceptance of the leader by the followers. This ability to influence followers is related to the followers’ need satisfaction.” Gregory & Ricky (1989) have defined leadership as “both a process and a property. As a process, leadership is the use of non-coercive influence to direct and coordinate the activities of group members toward goal accomplishment”. Leaders of today are under heavy pressure and are required to constantly keep themselves abreast with the latest innovations and technologies as well as their healthcare organizations. Technology has transformed healthcare organizations into networks, and large companies are increasingly made up of people running small business units. A leader with change management skills means someone who can successfully steer a team, department or healthcare organization through any kind of metamorphosis. Disruptive innovations are changing the business landscape overnight and knocking market leaders out of position for failing to better understand and manage the evolution of their business. Leaders need not only to look after their own employees but also the suppliers and competitors who are seen as stakeholders and need to be managed differently. The Nature of Change “Change” is the popular word these days especially in healthcare organizations. It may be described as radical change, or frame-breaking change, incremental change or frame-bending change (Kolb, 1992). To achieve change in healthcare organizations, leaders adopt different strategies. These may be forced-coercion, rational persuasion or shared power strategies. A force-coercion strategy uses legitimacy, rewards, and/or punishments as primary inducements to change. Whereas, in rational persuasion strategy; the leader attempts to bring about change with special knowledge, empirical support, or rational arguments (Kolb,1992) In shared power strategy for change accommodation, the leader actively and sincerely involves other people who will be affected by a change in planning and making key decisions in respect to it. It is sometimes also called normative-re-educative strategy. Any change must bring a different corporate culture and therefore different expectations from the employees in terms of their behaviour and working attitudes. It encompasses all factors of corporate culture. A corporate culture may be defined as "the underlying assumptions, beliefs, values, attitudes, and expectations shared by the members of a healthcare organization." (Stevens, 2000) When we talk about change management, it might simply mean willingness to sack people. Others might use it as a euphemism for a particularly aggressive or even bullying style of management. The word ‘change management’ may also be used in a context where what the management really meant was 'an ability to get things done'. This change is not brought by force as Gregory & Ricky (1989) states, “leadership does not involve force or coercion”. Forms of Change in Business Healthcare organizations In business, change takes either of the two basic forms. It may happen when a healthcare organization consciously decides to remake itself. This could be part of a merger, de-merger or management buyout. It could be when a company changes focus. This kind of change follows a formal process. It starts with a master plan with inputs from the leader every now and then and the alterations would be made in a systematic fashion. Any reconfiguration will lie mainly within the bounds of the healthcare organization and can be controlled by that healthcare organization. The challenge of a leader here is like looking at a map and telling where does the healthcare organization stand now and, what is the best route to get to the targets. When things get out of hands then it is the leader, who always goes back to the map and triangulates a new course to the targets or goals. The other type of change happens when healthcare organizations are driven to reconfigure because of external pressures. These can be as simple as a new piece of legislation or government regulation. An example may be the case when a healthcare organization needs to amend its ways according to the new rules and regulations by the government. Government led change may not be negotiable and often comes with plenty of warning. There are many other external forces driving change that are less predictable. For example: radical technological advancements, competitor action, economic upset, accidents, social unrest, natural disasters and so on. Leadership Criteria Through various texts, following criteria of a leader have been excerpted. First, the age-old reliance on academic success is not enough. The selection criteria should look at all aspects of an individual including his personality traits and skills. Second, the role of personal crisis or early failures cannot be used in judging how would that individual behave or handle unusual situations. Third, there is a need to re-examine the ways that lead people to the top of their healthcare organizations. Fourth, leaders possess a variety of experiences throughout their professional lives. For a majority of today's leaders, their progression has been a matter of excelling in their craft rather than venturing outside it. In essence, leaders are people who are trained to manage processes, not people. Leaders’ Role in the Change Management Leaders need to be apt in guiding employees towards the change. A leader needs to reduce the uncertainty in people’s minds, which may create distrust and fear. It is the extent to which a leader is able to manage change keeping employee’s motivations, developing consensus. He/She also needs to sustain their commitment in the future. Gregory & Ricky (1989) have identified motivation as an important factor for approaching group performance. There are different ways of dealing with the external change. In the majority of cases, healthcare organizations are forced to adopt reactive responses to external change. These can be a total restructuring or part of it. The key factor in change management for leaders is to manage any problems arising out of the change. When change is sudden and unforeseen, there may be no option but to react in a certain way. Companies can attempt to take feedback and do some researches for anticipating change and prepare for it. Leaders need to possess research skills (Lett, 2002). They must have good statistical and survey knowledge to forecast the results. All they require is to keep well informed. Leaders can initiate role-play exercises where they are coached through dummy external shocks (Braynion, 2004). This is an important way of preparing for radical external change. It enables leaders to build teams and learn how things are done when the everyday ground rules of business change. Preparation, planning and research are important keys to deal with change in any area of activity. In addition, leaders need to possess all necessary skills to do it. However, there are events that no amount of planning can adequately prepare you for. Transformation Process towards Change The basic most important step towards change is the understanding of its importance. The first stage of the process involves the establishment of a sense of urgency, which is required to overcome complacency. Kotter (1993) emphasizes that "a good rule of thumb in a major change effort is: Never underestimate the magnitude of the forces that reinforce complacency and that help maintain the status quo." The second stage involves the creation of a guiding coalition. "A strong guiding coalition is always needed - one with the right composition, level of trust, and shared objective." The four basic characteristics for the leader in this regard are position power, expertise, credibility, and leadership. The third stage requires the development of a vision and strategy. Good vision clarifies the general direction for change, motivates people to take action in the right direction, and it helps coordinate people's actions. The characteristics of an effective vision are imaginable, desirable, feasible, focused, flexible, and communicable (Lett, 2002). All people within a healthcare organization must have a common vision, understanding of its goals and direction. A leader must be able to communicate his/her vision. This vision needs to be communicated in a clear, simple message (focused and jargon-free). Delegation of power to employees for broad-based action. Leader needs to be able to lead people to see beyond their fears. Any significant change takes time and therefore should be given adequate focus. The broader goals need to be divided into shorter specific tasks. They need to be constantly evaluated. After all of the above factors are taken into account. The change may still be halted due to various external factors. These are the political and other motives, which may resist change. There can be two main reasons for the resistance in change viz. corporate culture and increased interdependence as a result from interconnections. Culture refers to norms of behaviour and shared values in a group or healthcare organization. In healthcare organizations, there are some social forces that affect everyone. A leader should overcome the power of corporate culture and be a trendsetter. Corporate cultures have a powerful influence on human behaviour. A leader must utilize his/her skills to handle such resistance. Kotter (1993) believes that healthcare organizations can implement change successfully. Kotter (1993) introduces an eight-stage process for creating major change. He states, "The methods used in successful transformations are all based on one fundamental insight: that major change will not happen easily for a long list of reasons"(P. 130). Literature Review Many definitions have been developed to describe leadership, many authors tried to search for meaning of leadership. Bass (1990) was one of these authors; he suggests that leadership context consists of the leader and follower. He noted that there are nearly as many definitions given to leadership as there have been authors who have written about the concept. According to him, leadership is defined as: ‘‘the focus of group processes, as a personality attribute, as the art of inducing compliance, as an exercise of influence, as a particular kind of act, as a form of persuasion, as a power relation, as an instrument in the attainment of goals, as an effect of interaction, as a differentiated role, and as the initiation of structure’’. (p.20) Leadership is a power relationship that exists between leaders and followers (Northhouse 2001) and a process, which involves utilizing power to influence others, behaviours to meet the organizational goals (Handy 1993). Power is viewed as a useful resource which is ‘’legitimate’’ when leaders use it, and ‘’illegitimate’’ if a non-leader utilizes it (Clegg and Hardy 1999). This is why Shackleton (1995) states that it is impossible to talk of leadership without also discussing the question of power and influence. This link between leadership and power is strengthened by Mullins’ (2002) argument that the crux of leadership is to build relationships that influence the behaviour and actions of others. Many recent writers on leadership have emphasized the importance of the leader empowering others to reach their own potential (Mullins 2002). Career progression. It is therefore essential to find ways of building one’s power base as a leader (Handy 1993). These arguments indicate the importance of leadership in exercising power to achieve organizational success (Braynion 2004). For Burns (2004), power is not an entity that leaders use over others to achieve their own ends, but instead it occurs in relationships and should be used by leaders and followers to benefit their collective goals. I agree with Nahavandi (2000) that if the leader is control oriented and autocratic, the organization is likely to be centralized and managed in a top-down fashion. If the leader is participative and team oriented, the organization will be decentralized and open. According to Tait (1996), communication skills as people skills, an ability to communicate with and motivate people were recognized as fundamental to leadership. Bearing in mind that a leader needs followers, the vision must be compellingly and clearly communicated to motivate people to action. Also, Drouillard and Kleiner (1996) emphasized that the ability consistently to exercise good, clear communication is essential and this include the choice to listen, listening is important because it affirms the speaker’s worth as a contributor and it allows for the receipt of important information that will help the organization to achieve its goal. According to Tait (1996), character best epitomizes a set of qualities that people judges to be fundamental to true leadership. These related not only to honesty and fairness but also to compassion, humility and being one’s own person. According to Drouillard and Kleiner (1996), actions that display. Honesty, trustworthiness, fairness, ethics and high moral standards are vital demonstrators of good leaders. In addition, they assured that the key to becoming an effective leader is taking the opportunity to learn. Becoming a good leader takes practice and involves learning from one's mistakes. Without such practice, it is difficult for leaders to become effective. They emphasizes that the true leaders selects individuals for their differences in abilities and trains their talents. A team is formed where the players augment and complement each other. In addition, the leader is the ‘’coach’’ that facilitate, assists, teaches and motivates (Drouillard and Kleiner 1996). In addition, a very useful framework for thinking about the change process is problem-solving (Harvard Business School 2003). Managing change is seen as a matter of moving from one state to another, specifically, from the problem state to the solved state. Diagnosis or problem analysis is generally acknowledged as essential. Goals are set and achieved at various levels and in various areas or functions. The first issue in many changes is to diagnose the current system to identify the source of problems or opportunities for improvement. In a large organization, this frequently leads to rethinking of strategy, and a redefinition of the organization's task or work, which is an important step in changing an organization (Harvard Business School 2003). More specifically, any major organizational change presents three major problems, which must be dealt with. First is the problem of resistance to change (Yukl, 2001). Any individual faced with a change in the organization in which he/she works may be resistant for a variety of reasons. People have need for a certain degree of stability or security; change presents unknowns, which cause anxiety. In addition, a change that is imposed on an individual reduces his/her sense of autonomy or self-control (Yukl, 2001). Furthermore, people typically develop patterns for coping with or managing the current structure and situation. Change means that they will have to find new ways of managing their own environment's ways that might not be as successful as those currently used. In addition, those who have power in the current situation may resist change because it threatens that power. Finally, individuals may resist change for ideological reasons; they truly believe that the way things are done currently is better than the proposed change (Tichy, 1990). Whatever the source, individual resistance to change must be overcome for implementation of a change to be successful (Mabey and Mayon-White 1993). Research undertaken in the UK by Oakland and Sohal (1987) also found that resistance was one of the major impediments to the use of production management techniques by British production managers. Similarly, Eisen et al. (1992) and Terziovski et al. (1997) found resistance by management and workers to be the major impediment to the use of quality management practices in Australian manufacturing industry. Moreover, Fiorelli and Margolis (1993) argued that some level of resistance to change can be to the organization's benefit. According to Waddel and Sohal (1998), a great deal of work undertaken during the 1960s and 1970s found that there is in fact utility to be gained from resistance, therefore it should not be avoided or quashed as suggested by classical management theory. With resistance and conflict comes the energy or motivation to seriously address the problem at hand. Where energy is lacking, change is often uncreative, sparsely implemented, and inadequately utilized. Where resistance is at play, there is a need to examine more closely the problems that exist and consider more deeply the changes proposed. Participative techniques are the best method of handling resistance (Waddel and Sohal 1998). The now classic studies by Lewin (1991) and Coch and French (1948) both concluded that involvement in the learning, planning and implementation stages of a change process significantly influences commitment to change and apparently lowers resistance. A second problem is that of organizational control (Yukl, 2001). Change disrupts the normal course of events within an organization. It thus disrupts and undermines existing system of management control, particularly those developed as part of the formal organizational arrangements. Change may make those systems irrelevant or inappropriate. As a result, during a change, it may become easy to lose control of the organization. As goals, structures, and people shift, it becomes difficult to monitor performance and make corrections as in normal control process. A third problem is power (Lett, 2002). Any organization is a political system made up of different individuals, groups, and coalitions competing for power. Therefore, if a change is to be effective, all three problems; resistance, control, and power, must be addressed (Burns 2004). According to Mabey and Mayon-White (1993), people faced with dramatic change generally respond through four stages: shock, defensive retreat, acknowledgment, and finally, an acceptance and adaptation. These stages are similar to the grieving process that follows the loss of a friend or family member. Individuals can overcome some of the emotional problems associated with change by overcoming the powerlessness they feel. Leaders can help people through the four stages using a number of methods, which include, listening, keeping people as connected as possible to their work groups or other routines, and eventually moving them from a focus on personal emotions to a focus on productive activities (Mabey 1993, Mayon-White 1993). Leadership does affect to change. Several researchers have proposed transformational leadership concepts to describe and explain how leaders succeed in achieving large-scale change in organizations. First developed by Burns (2004), transformational leadership suggests that some leaders, through their personal traits and their relationship with followers, go beyond a simple exchange of resources and productivity. Leaders must understand and manage such exchange well. Two common leadership styles have been labelled 'transactional' and 'transformational' (Kouzes 1995, Posner 1995, Thyer 2003) [posner and thyer are not in the references list, so please include them in references list]. Transactional leadership centre on transactions or exchanges between leaders and others, with self-interest as the key inducement for alliances. Conversely, transformational leaders create a culture of leadership for all team members, nurturing empowerment, promoting individualism, open communication and inclusive decision-making (Bowles and Bowles 2000). In health care delivery, nursing leaders function at all levels of organization, from administrative to clinical roles. In discussing clinical leadership, practice change and organizational transformation, it is important to distinguish the functions and roles of 'management' and 'leadership' (Fedoruk and Pincombe 2000). Implicit in functioning as a clinical leader is demonstration of mentorship, supervision, clinical excellence, support of colleagues, a positive orientation and inspiration to others. The attributes that shape a clinical leader include expert clinical skills, patient-focus, vision, stamina, innovation, dynamism, confidence, selflessness, assertiveness and collaboration with other health professionals (Mahoney 2001, Borbasi and Gaston 2002, Lett 2002). Further, Porter-O'Grady (2003) writes that leaders for the new millennium require a revised set of skills to meet the changes in our current health system. As we move closer to the new millennium, models of outstanding leadership such as transformational, charismatic, and visionary leadership, which focus on organizational transformation, are likely to become even more important to organizations because of the breathtaking changes foreseen in the business and political environment. These include workforces with a greater degree of demographic diversity, technological change, and increased international competition, which will place new demands on the leaders of tomorrow (House, 1995). The key role leader’s play in the change process has been noted by change theorists, yet there is no conclusive research that focuses on this relationship between leadership and change (Almaraz, 1994). Recent theoretical research has attempted to integrate change as a contextual variable influencing transformational leadership (Pawar and Eastman 1997). Such research focuses on determining when organizations will be more receptive to transformational leadership and the match between receptivity level and the actual transformational leadership process. However, Pawar and Eastman (1997) do not address the issue of the capabilities of transformational leaders required to carry out the pertinent change process. Bass's (1985) conceptualization of transformational leadership includes charisma or idealized influence (followers trust in and emotionally identify with the leader), intellectual stimulation (followers are encouraged to question their own ways of doing things) (Bass 1985). In addition, individualized consideration (assignments are delegated to followers providing them with learning opportunities). Descriptive research by Tichy and Devanna (1990) shows that transformational leaders engage in a process, which includes a sequence of phases: recognizing the need for change, creating a new vision, and then institutionalizing the change. A review of the literature on change oriented or outstanding leadership, which also includes charismatic and visionary leadership (House, 1995), indicates that the ``majority of the approaches share the common perspective that by articulating a vision, fostering the acceptance of group goals, and providing individualized support, effective leaders change the basic values, beliefs, and attitudes of followers so that they are willing to perform beyond the minimum levels specified by the organization'' (Podsakoff et al. 1996 p.260). Even without dissatisfaction or crisis, both literatures suggest it is critical that the leader be a change champion who can assemble and motivate a group with enough power to lead the change effort (Kotter, 1995). According to Goleman (2000), leadership style has an impact on organizations, departments, and teams, as well as work climate and atmosphere, leaders who want the best results not rely on a single leadership style. Conclusion: The extensive study in this subject brings us to the conclusion that there is no “best way” to lead. Different leadership traits, styles, or behaviours have to be effectively utilized based on various scenarios and environment. These combinations of factors play a pivotal role in determining which leadership style ‘would be most effective. Based on the study, we can safely assume that both the personal and situational characteristics affect leadership effectiveness. Neither the leader's traits nor the demands of the situation in and of themselves determine leadership effectiveness; there is an interactive role. Rath and Strong (1993) conclude that there is no best way to lead, and no ideal single style. Furthermore, in order to create a change, leaders must, have passion and enthusiasm for what they do, develop their credibility and behave with integrity at all times, clarify their vision and values and endeavour to find common grounds with their followers, include followers in decision making and empower them to implement their decisions, and must role model the desired behaviours. Leadership is not only about leading. It is also about learning and above all teaching. Leaders feel that if they teach their subordinates how to lead an organization and the like, they might lose their job. Therefore, a leader must develop new leaders in order to effectively 'manage change in an organization. References: Almaraz J (1994) ``Quality management and the process of change'' Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 6-14. Bass B M (1990) The handbook of leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial Applications 3rd ed Free Press New York. 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