The Organization and Its Leader - Term Paper Example

s the assignment was due Leadership concepts and applications Introduction Organizations are structures with a ‘collage’ of humans doing their allocated work under the supervision of a leader, for the benefit of the organization as well as them. These workers will normally be apportioned into different departments for better arrangement or streamlining of work. These workers or employees will be apportioned into different departments or roles according to their educational qualifications, experience, skill, knowledge etc. Then after the recruitment and apportionment is over, it is the duty of the organization to provide the employees a working environment, in which they will work effectively. So, the duty of the organization and its leader is to provide an optimal working environment for its workers. Role of a leader From time immemorial, the success or failure of an organization or any other human activity depends on the role, the leader plays. The leader is the one who can lead humans under him/her to ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’. And, if the leader follows a set of traits he/ she can ‘sprinkle’ success on many lives, including the workers in his/her organization. The leadership traits should be visible and should be put to effective use when the leader, as a ‘builder’ builds a group and as a ‘founder’ launches an organization. The leader can build a group, by associating individuals who came from the same ‘stable’ like friends, work mates, family members etc and by recruiting individuals with talent, knowledge and attitude. That is, as Schein (2004, p.261) said, “... best way to build an organization was to hire very smart, articulate, tough, independent people and then give them lots of responsibility and autonomy”. With this ‘living’ group, and the material things like capital, machines, infrastructure, etc the founder cum leader embark on an organization. But, in most cases, a leader will normally take over or preside over or manage an existing organization. That is, the building or recruiting of the ‘group’ of workers as well as the installation of infrastructure, set up etc, would have already taken place, with the leader only leading and managing the organization. So, this paper will analyze how leaders of three organizations played their role to an optimal level and developed their organization. The paper will focus on Richard Branson and how he developed his group of companies under the brand name Virgin, into successful venture. Then, the paper will focus on Alan Gershenhorn and how he optimized the performance of United Parcel Service (UPS). Finally the paper will discuss how Howard Schultz’s strategic and effective approaches made a positive difference to Starbucks. Richard Branson and Virgin group of companies British leader, Richard Branson as mentioned above is the kind of leader, who as a ‘builder’ built a group and as a ‘founder’ launched an organization. Speaking about good leadership traits, the trait of having a good vision is one of the foremost ones. Actually, the vision that arises in the mind of the leaders only initiates all the process inside an organization. That mental picture or vision will only give them the clear path of success. So, successful leaders are the ones who had vision of their successful ventures and will also have visions of their future success. Branson had a great vision even in his school days, as he thought that he could run his school better than the headmaster. One of the other Branson’s vision, which is turning into reality, is the concept of space tourism. That is, Branson launched Virgin Galactic to sent people to space as tourists using a launch vehicle named Spaceship One In this world each and every thing moves because of energy. That is, any individual particularly leader could exhibit invisible positive energy through his/her actions and communications. This trait can surely channelise the positive energy for the betterment of the enterprise. This type of positive energy is quite visible in Richard Branson as he handles different organizations, which needs different positive actions in different times. He is a high octane adventure seeker, who undertook expeditions like non-stop hot air balloon voyage around the world. Branson exhibited this positive energy particularly during the launch of the inaugural Virgin Atlantic flights to India. At the New Delhi airport, Branson came out of the plane dressed up in local costumes, dancing the local Bangra dance to the music of drums. This type of energy creates a positive image and thereby positive energy for the enterprise as a whole, so that it can implement its strategies effectively. Also, by wearing local costumes during foreign visits and by imbibing the local culture, Richard Branson has the ability to ‘merge’ or associate with the host country in all aspects, while entering that country’s market. That is, he firstly builds high level Political connections and fully analysis the economy, social, technological, legal and environmental aspect of the host country, before entering the host country. Failure will be part of every one’s life and the staffs in the enterprise will be no exception to it. So, one of the most important traits, the leader should practice to effectively implement the strategies is to support the staff during failures and positively influence them. That is, in cases of underperformance, the leaders should be available for support, based on the premise that the same staffs should not cause failures in the future. This same thing happened in the Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. Joe Ferry, Virgins head of design was entrusted with the task to create new sleeper seats that reclined at an angle. But after the trials, they found out that the seat did not work successfully, with passengers complaining about sliding and discomfort. At the same time, Virgin’s chief competitor, British airways came up with the hugely successful flat bed. Ferry himself acknowledged this fact that his design is inferior. But Ferry didnt get the axe from Branson. Instead, he put confidence in him and his creativity. So, he entrusted him to take on another crack at designing the sleeper seats committing around $127 million for that task. Ferry showed immediate success and this explains the positive influence Branson have on the people he comes into contact with. This, shows how, Richard Branson followed the important trait of supporting the staff during the failures A successful leader while successfully implementing the strategies could also inspire or build confidence in other individuals, with whom he/she has no connection at all. That is, the leader could be at some place, while the person, whose confidence level gets heightened by the specific leader, could be at some other place. This is what Richard Branson did and thereby helped in the development of leadership in new ways. He was able to give confidence to a group of Indian graduates, helping them to become leaders on their own. “Phanindra, Sudhakar and Charan are all 25, from the BITS-Pilani class of 2002. They had always wanted to start their own business… They found their inspiration from a quote in (Sir) Richard Branson’s autobiography, “look around your life. If there is any process that can be improved, it could be the next big business idea”. Thus redBus was born.”(Chatterjee). Howard Schultz and Starbucks Howard Schultz joined the Starbucks shop at Seattle. He made a trip to Milan, Italy to study the coffee market there, and coming back to Seattle, he advised the Starbucks management of that time, to sell coffee and espresso drinks along with the beans, seeing the potential to develop a similar coffeehouse culture in Seattle (starbucks.com). But, the management team rejected Schultz’s idea under the pretext that entering the beverage business would sidestep the company and divert from its main focus of coffee beans. On the other hand, Schultz was sure that there is a market for coffee-based beverages, and so he left the Starbucks and started the Il Giornale coffee bar chain in 1985. II Giornale was able to create an impression in the market and was able to attract the customers. This strategic leadership shown by Schultz was rewarded in 1987, when the original Starbucks management team sold its entire Starbucks unit to Schultz and his company. With the acceptance coming from the same persons who rejected his idea and the Starbucks’ unit in his hand, Schultz renamed Il Giornale with the Starbucks name and aggressively marketed the coffee-based beverages also as Starbucks, thereby expanding its market all over U.S. But, like any other high performing organizations, Starbucks also wants to grow, profit wise, by increasing the number of shops. Apart from this aspiration, Starbucks also wants to establish it as the most recognized and respected brand in the world. To achieve that brand image, Starbucks apart from putting its marketing department to fullest work, wanted to optimize the performance of its employees and also wanted to indulge in charity and society conscious activities. So, as mentioned above the part or section, which Starbucks wanted to change is certain ethical related aspects affecting its brand image. The background for this change or initiative is that, in the early part of 2000, Starbucks came under attack from different types of people for its involvement in controversial and unethical issues like Fair Trade coffee and bovine growth hormone milk. “…changes that management has to respond continuously and which provides part of the major external impulsions for strategic change” (Pettigrew & Whipp 1991). Here also, it had its organizational goals in the mind because by implementing these steps, Starbucks not only wanted to change its bad images but also to achieve its wish of being the most respectable brand. As part of the strategic initiative by Howard Schultz, the performance of Starbucks’ employees was optimized or accentuated in an incremental not so radical manner by the designing and the adoption of mission statement by the senior executive team led by Schultz, which laid out certain guiding principles. The principles helped its employees (or ‘partners’ as they were known by the Howard Schultz and his management team) to determine their roles in correlation to the company’s goals and also gave them the opportunity to provide their feedbacks about the document of mission statement. So, the Starbucks management led by Schultz did that by introducing a mission statement among the employees particularly the new employees, and forming a final statement after the analysis of the feedback from the employees. “New employees discuss the Starbucks mission statement and do customer-service role-playing.” (Schultz qtd. inc.com). So, the first big idea that was designed by Schultz was the actualization of the ‘customer feedback incorporated company’s mission statement’. The things Schultz did, to integrate this statement and the principles into the working atmosphere of the employees, can be divided into three stages. In the first stage, the Schultz and the management of the Starbucks distributed a copy of the mission statement and gave comment cards for feedback during the initial orientation of the new employees or “partners”. Then in the second stage, Starbucks related all the decisions that were made inside the organization to the guiding principles. Finally in the third stage, the company formed a “Mission Review” system so that any employee could comment on a decision which was undertaken in relation with the consistency of the six guiding principles. Then based on the comments or feedback given by the employees, Starbuck released a final statement, “people first and profits last”. The other CSR based strategy which was successfully implemented by Schultz as part of traditional style of strategic leadership is to build long term productive relationships with farmers who supply the bean for its coffee products. That is, Schultz as a form of caregiver mandated that coffee farmers especially from its major sources in the African countries of Ethiopia, Rwanda, etc, should be paid premium prices, so that it constitutes the concept of Fair Trade and also they have enough money to look after the family, and avoid planting illegal crops. The other big idea which was implemented by Schultz as part of its wish to build a strong, incremental and positive ethical image is the introduction of ethical coffee in 2002, when it began offering Fair Trade coffee. These ethically conscious actions gave Schultz the leadership tag of “holder of ethics” and fulfilled CSR. Also, this crucial decision of Schultz is earning a good image for Starbucks and also helping it to ethically correct itself. Starbuck have embraced Free Trade coffees in a big way creating number of records. “Starbucks is North America’s largest purchaser of Fair Trade Certified TM coffee. Starbucks is the only company licensed to sell Fair Trade coffee.” (starbucks.com). The other main strategy of Starbucks which was initiated by Schultz’s as part of his style of traditional strategic leadership is the implementation of various social development programs, which thereby fulfilled the leadership function of being a “socially aware leader”. The program which involves construction of infrastructure to the needy fulfils ethics issues, because the rich and self-sufficient organizations are expected to do something to the ‘insufficient’ sections. Schultz’s decision to co-operate with CARE has resulted in many beneficial activities to many communities, like construction of many welfare infrastructures including clean-water systems, health and sanitation training and literacy. So, the contribution made by Starbucks helped CARE to implement many society elevating projects, which is still elevating the living condition of the people as well as the company’s image, even receiving an award from CARE. “Schultz was the recipient of the International Humanitarian Award from CARE for his vision and leadership in developing an innovative partnership between Starbucks and CARE to support people in coffee origin countries.” (wpcarey.asu.edu). Alan Gershenhorn and UPS’s e-commerce United Parcel Service Inc (UPS for short), America’s major parcel service, is the worlds largest package delivery company. It was the brainchild of Jim Casey, an American teenager, who founded the American Messenger Company in Seattle, Washington in 1907. Then as a step towards creating a unique brand, in 1919, the company expanded beyond Seattle and changed their name to United Parcel Service, and then onwards it has been an upward progress. “From its humble beginnings, UPS has grown into a global giant” (Deresky, 2006, 342). UPS joined the bandwagon of e-commerce, patronizing it fully. With the spread of Internet in 1990’s, UPS saw the prospects of e-commerce and created a separate department for it in 1996. “In 1996, UPS created its e-commerce team to develop ways to use the internet to conduct business. The company realized that any way companies buy, sell, and do business would affect UPS” (Deresky, 2006, 346). UPS has focused on International expansion, consistent with its new mission to become an enabler of global e-commerce. UPSs broad vision of e-commerce did not have a smooth sailing with some inbuilt challenges, which have been addressed effectively. The challenge, UPS faced when integrating e-commerce with world countries is the difficulty in blending with local cultures. The first of the challenge faced by UPS is the positioning of its service in the new International market, where existing players offered the same service. UPS was tagged as an outsider. This challenge was an important one to surmount. Otherwise, they will not be able to ‘root’ themselves in the new culture and the international market. If the ‘communication’ is in the ‘foreign’ language of English, websites will not be accessed by the local customers. So, the challenge was to design Websites on a bilingual basis or vernacular basis, thus the websites became the main vehicles behind e-commerce. Alan Gershenhorn is one of the leaders inside UPS, who played a key role when the e-commerce was at the planning stage and also during the implementation stage. And he continues to formulate all the plans regarding UPS’s e-commerce wing. “As senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for UPS, Alan Gershenhorn directs electronic commerce… Under his direction, UPS is focused on deepening customer relationships through an expanded offering of technology-based services and solutions.” (ups.com). And the steps taken by Alan to boost the performance of UPS’s e-commerce mainly focused on catering to all the aspects of local market and local culture. About the positioning for the UPS’s e-commerce, Alan decided to promote the e-commerce concept in the markets, which are Internet literate and ready for a new entrant. In addition, Alan and UPS promoted their e-commerce service mainly with its motto of "Best Service, Lowest Rates”. This tactic, which worked successfully in USA, also succeeded in its global operations. Alan also planned out well to handle the important challenge of reaching out to the customers of the local market in their own language, taste, culture etc. Alan was able to do that by taking the UPS in the bilingual route. In its e-commerce websites, the local language was given major importance when marketing about its e-commerce’s features. This tactic, which is already followed, by UPS in some of the North American and European market, was developed further, particularly in the Asian Market. “We continue to roll out additional local language sites and have seen an increase in usage. In the latest Asian sites, we have seen preliminary numbers indicating an increase of 22-143%.Visitors chose the local language version 84-96% of the time.” (Amling cited in Wan, 453-454) Conclusion Finally, the organization and its leader should not stagnate and saturate. Schein (2004, p.418) pushes forward this idea by stating “that the leader of the future must be a perpetual learner”. Perpetual learner in the sense, the leader should learn new levels of perception and acquire lot of insights for running an organization. They should start by playing an important role in the development of a work culture. Then, by getting involved in all the process of the organization, the leader should motivate oneself to learn new things and importantly motivate the employees working under him/her, thereby attaining emotional strength to absorb any anxieties caused by crisis. Then, they should involve others in the process of decision-making and also should award purely on merit. They should also show decisiveness, discipline and distinction to achieve success. So, Unison of humans with an urge to usher an organization into a leading ‘utopia’ will be a successful endeavour, if the leader of the organization show undaunted, unabated and effective conduct. And so, if the leader shows all the effective leadership traits or managerial skills mentioned here, the organization would have a ubiquitous presence all over the world. Reference: Chatterjee, Saugata. BITSian Entrepreneur Showcase. BITSian Entrepreneur showcase. Retrieved April 16, 2008 http://sandpaper.bitsaa.org/13_entrepreneurs/showcase.html Deresky, H. (2006) International Management: Managing Across Borders and Cultures. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey inc.com, Lasting Impressions. Retrieved April 15, 2008 http://www.inc.com/magazine/19980701/968.html Pettigrew, A. & Whipp, R. 1991, Managing Change for Competitive Success, Blackwell. Schein, E. H. (2004) Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd. ed. Jossey-Bass. starbucks.com. (2008) Company Timeline. Retrieved April 16, 2008 http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/Company_Timeline.pdf Starbucks.com, Fair Trade and coffee social responsibility, Retrieved April 16, 2008 http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/StarbucksAndFairTrade.pdf Wan W.P. (2002) Interview: United Parcel Servicess Director of Electronic Commerce. Thunderbird International Business Review, 44(4) pp445-454. wpcarey.asu.edu, Deans Council of 100 - Executive of the Year. Retrieved April 16, 2008 http://wpcarey.asu.edu/community/dc100/exe_year_starbucks.cfm Ups.com. (2007). UPS foundation. Retrieved April 15, 2008 http://pressroom.ups.com/mediakits/landing/0,2307,50,00.html?mkit_name socialresponsibility Read More