The Practice of Adaptive Leadership - Essay Example

? Business Management Leadership [Pick the Contents Part A 3 Part B 6 References 8 Part A The selected movie money ball is a true story and was released in 2011, it is the story of Billy Bean an unsuccessful ex-baseball player who is now managing Oakland A’s. The selection is made due to the leadership qualities exhibited by Billy Bean in the movie, the film starts on a sad note when Oakland A’s are defeated by New York Yankees in an elimination match and before the start of the new season the team loses three valuable players to bigger teams with more money. The daunting task for Billy Bean and his scouts is to replace these three players; as the seasoned team of scouts conduct usual searches for replacement players, Billy identifies the real problem of huge gap between payroll of bigger teams as opposed to his team and after being refused by the owners for allotting more money to the payroll, he visits the Cleveland Indians and discovers that the Cleveland manager listened and decided upon the advice provided by a young assistant Peter Brand. He actively looks for Brand and hires him for implementing a certain theory on baseball that discourages biasness due to off the field reasons, he then buys players who were neglected due to old age or other deficiencies and assembles a team based on them. The experienced team of scouts and the team coach disagree with him and Brand but he remains committed to his vision and goes ahead with his plans suffering immediate loses due to the fact that the coach was not selecting the newly bought players, to counter the coach’s strategy who was already not happy with delayed extension to his contract, he sells out the old players in order to force his newly bought players in to the team. The traditional behaviour of team’s manager in baseball has always been a distant one and mingling with the players was discouraged, Bean first trains Brand on how to deal with players and after selling the old players he starts talking to them and motivating them and revealing their strengths and weaknesses. With team’s coach at odds with Bean, he somewhat takes the role of the coach and gives them technical advice on their individual game, with the feedback coming from Brand he changes things to accommodate his players, for example he negotiates with a rich team a free soda machine for players room against a player he sold to them. He motivates his old players that their careers are nearing the end and that they should help the younger players serving as a role model. There are instances when he shows anger and frustration on defeats and gives a thrashing to the old team for partying in the player’s hall after suffering a defeat. Afterwards he goes against the advice of Peter Brand and sells his disruptive stars with a losing mentality and loyal to the coach who was responsible for selecting the team. He strengthens believe in Brand and puts his own job on line to take the risk for better or for worse. By selling the players who were loyal to the coach he paves the way for newly bought players based on the belief and theory of Bill Jeans, an individual who worked for a pork and beans company and had no contribution to the game. With his players on field he starts to get wins and lines up seven wins in a row, the belief gets restored and he buys more players with deficiencies and keeps on motivating the team and helping them to improve their game by giving technical advice to them. The media that once mocked the strategy of Bean was shocked and in awe when they went on to break the all time record of 19 wins in a row. The coach that was against the massive change in strategy started believing in it as the winning run in the 20th straight win was scored by a defected player bought by Billy who was given a chance to bat first by the coach. The Oakland A’s once again loss and could not make it to the playoffs but their achievements changed everything. Billy was offered the highest paying job for a general manger in the history of baseball by Red Sox with the Red Sox chairman admitting that baseball has to change and that Bean’s model was successful and others were dinosaurs. Billy Bean refuses the offer by Red Sox and stays with Oakland A’s as the General Manager, Two years later the Red Sox won the world series using the model of Billy Bean while Billy is still trying to make it to the playoffs (Moneyball, 2011). The film tells us a lot about leadership qualities and although it cannot be attributed to just one leadership model or theory. Billy Bean clearly exhibits a leader that adjusts his leadership style to situations, remains committed to the change he is about to bring and participates and motivates his players and staff to achieve the objectives. Furthermore he introduces a game changer strategy and reads between the lines, in management terms he envisions a creative solution to the business challenge, creates a vision, trusts and gather the followers by using his entrepreneurial skills. The four leadership styles Identified by Hersey and Blanchard (1977) of telling, selling, participating and delegating are all displayed by the character. Where required the leader in discussion uses one way communication to direct the followers and provides them necessary guidelines, he uses the selling style and reaffirms the belief using two way communications technique, understands individual needs and resolves them. He lets Peter participate and provide him important information about players that enables Billy to make the right decision while delegating research to Peter as well. Similarly authentic leadership principles introduced by Bill George (2003) are also exhibited; the concept promulgates a leadership style that is based on leader’s personality, core values with honesty, practicality and ethics. The leader in the movie displays a rebellious attitude and introduces a game changer using the creative skills of his colleague, stays close to reality by identifying the weaknesses of the system; the gap that existed between rich teams and poor teams. The adaptive leadership which is specifically talks about change enabling organizations to thrive, as new challenges require new strategies it is important for a leader to tackle these challenges and attack the normative culture in the organization to invent new ways and overcome the challenges (Heifetz et al., 2009, p.14). Billy realizes the need to change after witnessing helplessness with no money while losing players to richer teams and traditional practices that were driving the game, in order to be successful he strategizes and invents the solution that changed the game forever. Part B Leadership drives organizations to success; it is the quality that enables others to achieve organizational and individual goals while keeping followers motivated. Great leaders are intuitive; they sense the need for change in the organization, develop an ambitious vision and achieve them by a participative and supportive behaviour. Leaders are doers and not preachers; they prove themselves first and then command others, their character is seamless with a habit of sharing awards and developing others while on the way to achieving organizational objectives. Furthermore they believe in team work, creating future leaders for their organization and leaving a proud legacy behind them. Their workforce is engaged and empowered with a clear sense of direction and a passion for achieving results (Hesselbein, et al., 2010). Leadership cannot be defined or explained in isolation nor can a theory or leadership style guarantee success hence I believe that the most reliable and practical approach to leadership is the situational or contingency based leadership style which gives the individual to adopt a leadership style deemed best for the given situation. One leadership style cannot fit all situations, trying to enforce same leadership style on changing variables can result in unsuccessful results, hence one should not get inspired by one approach nor should one follow a particular theory in order to overcome a problem. I disagree with trait theories of leadership, while they provide us with various attributes historical leaders had but the idea of limiting leadership attributes to some individuals is not attractive hence I feel that leadership skills no matter how daunting can be learned overtime with sincere efforts. My own leadership style is participative and supportive although sometimes I strive for inculcating belief in my colleagues and class mates, something that I plan to learn with time. I am a great listener and have the ability to solve problems at hand by my creative thinking, an ability that can be further groomed. I find the Machiavellian approach very disturbing although we all tend to ignore the practicality and increasing usage especially in the political realm of leadership, it is an approach that schemes and plots or uses unfair means to motivate teams and get desired short term results although in long term it can result in devastating effects (Capponi, 2010). We are all witness to the change brought by Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg; I believe the need for creativity along with other leadership qualities is a necessary need of today’s rapidly changing market and economic landscape. The ability of coming up with a game changer is required by the leaders of today and the demand for this commodity will only increase in the future. References Capponi, N. 2010, An Unlikely Prince: The Life and Times of Machiavelli. Da Capo Press. George, B. 2003. Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value. John Wiley & Sons. Hersey, P. and Blanchard, KH , 1977. Management of Organizational Behaviour: Utilizing Human Resources. 3rd ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Heifetz, RA., Grashow, A. and Linsky, M. 2009. The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World. Harvard Business Press. Hesselbein, F., Goldsmith, M. and Beckchard, R. 2008. The leader of the future. In C. Lauer (Ed.), The Management Gurus: Lessons from the Best Management Books of All Time, pp. 235-253. USA: Penguin Group. Money Ball, 2011. [Film] Directed by Bennett Miller. USA: Sony Pictures. Read More