Leadership: Margaret Thatcher - Case Study Example

Leadership: Margaret Thatcher Leadership: Margaret Thatcher Margaret Thatcher was the Britain’s first woman prime minister whoserved form 1979 to 1990. She was elected by her party, Tory Party with a promise of liberating and restoring the country back to its days of success as well as revert it from decline. Some of the leadership values that are visible in Thatcher‘s leadership include honesty, self-confidence, integrity and optimism among others. Some of the leadership styles that characterised her leadership include transformative, trait, transactional and dominant leadership styles. The paper below will apply theories, models and tools in the definition of the events in Thatcher’s life demonstrating her leadership capabilities. The most significant leadership style of Thatcher is task-oriented style. It is evident that the leadership practices that she employs exemplify a leader who is effectively committed in her duties and tasks. A survey conducted by Wade (2002), proved that many people, viewed her as dominating but task oriented. People admired her because of her focus on effective completion of tasks and her willingness to promote the development agenda. According to Kouzes and Posner (2002), many people admired her leadership skills due to her strong beliefs for her values and principles which made many admirers to realise that she was bold enough to defend their rights. Therefore, it is clear that people respect the leaders with the capability and willingness to defend their rights, share their values with them and care for them. One of the most crucial sectors that Thatcher dedicated her commitment towards service to the people was health care. She applied the concept of competitiveness in the health care to ensure that the health care givers provide the most efficient health services and provided citizens with the ability to choose the most suitable health care institution. This acted as way of coercing the health care givers to provide the most efficient services through ensuring high quality services. According to McAnulla, (2010), health care institutions were transformed from managerial firms to purchasers and service delivers. The service delivery was enhanced because her leadership encouraged the public to demand quality leadership from the health care givers. One of the leadership styles visible in Thatcher’s leadership is transformational leadership style. This is exemplified in Thatcher’s leadership due her ability to engage her followers in the attainment of a unique leadership system. Application of transformational leadership style involves adoption of efficient measures capable of satisfying the followers’ needs. This is through encouraging them to input the necessary advice and strategies that can enhance the current leadership style. Application of this form of leadership style during her reign as the British prime minister saw the improvement of the quality of social programs ranging from the welfare to health care (Light, 2003). Transformation approach in Thatcher’s leadership involved the use of influential spiritual and social satisfaction as the tools for encouraging followers to conduct their obligations effectively. Transformational leadership is dependent on the person’s ability to apply the necessary mechanisms suitable for enabling them to attain the required goals. Her transformational leadership tendencies made her sacrifice her self-interest to gain the confidence of the party members. This made them to re-elect her as a party leader. Transformational approach of leadership is also demonstrated by her ability to actively encourage a new strategic way of thinking by applying her intellectual capability (Genovese, 2009). The leadership vision requires engagement and unity among followers. This guarantees their approval in the decisions related to their lives. Thatcher established a working relationship with the party followers and powerfully communicated a professionally crafted vision that enhanced the achievement of the set goals. According to Genovese (2009), application of transformative approach of leadership made her to implement the privatisation policy with an intention of transforming Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant state. The successful implementation of the privatisation policy during Thatcher’s reign spread internationally and was adopted by other states around the world. Transformative leadership style provides the leeway for the transformation of the public institutions into more friendly community institutions that directly serves their purposes of catering for the welfare of the general public. Genovese (2009) and Light (2003) avers that the primary physicians and health specialists were transformed to “semi-autonomous trusts” that provided the direct channels for the delivery of services to the consumers. The National Health Service was also transformed from a public system of the patients to health care purchasers. Trait leadership and trait theory are also constituents of Thatcher’s success in leadership. The trait leadership style and theory alludes that leaders are born with inherited traits that are suitable for leadership. According to Steinberg (2008), Thatcher portrays some of her father’s traits such as being decisive, self-confident, knowledgeable and persuasive. However, the inherited traits requires modification to enable the players apply tem in the real life situations. Otherwise, lack of willingness to harness the inborn potential makes most of leaders to fail due to the changes in the leadership environment and the level of expectation of the followers (Marc van der Erve, 2004). The inherited leadership traits were harnessed by the early childhood education and training where she was taught strong traditions that includes charitable work, self-help and ethics. Although effective leaders share a common characteristics based on the high performance of their leadership, they possess diverse qualities (Doyle and Smith, 2011). The diversity in leadership styles saw Margaret Thatcher overcoming the competitive nature of British politics to become the European’s first Prime Minister. One of the reasons for her success cited by Wade, (2002) was her ability to shun the directive leadership that is exemplified by leaders making decisions on behalf of others and expecting them to follow the instructions. She instead maintained a fair working relationship with the followers and other leaders while steering clear of exerting unnecessary pressure over the cabinet. Thatcher’s leadership also portrayed Situational leadership style. The style is built on the premise that different leadership styles are required for different situations. Thatcher realises the significance of the application of situational leadership in her early political career as she struggled to make an impact sin the male dominated political arena (Steinberg, 2008). Her attitude of avoiding the temptation of being swayed from her beliefs on prosperity and adopting leadership style that fits the changing political environment enabled her to become the enigma of politics and a figure to reckon in the leadership history of the United Kingdom. Other events that exemplified her prowess in leadership were the formidable manner in which she handled the domestic policies and ending the Miner’s strike of 1984-1985 (Gary and Mian, 2010). She also devised new and efficient ways of outsourcing for finances to help the country escape the dire financial straits that it was experiencing at the time. Her control on the economy and the steely attitude earned her the nickname “Iron Lady” (Genovese, 2009). Transactional leadership style was also applied by Margaret Thatcher. Transactional leadership is based on rewards and punishment i.e. rewarding the followers that struggle to promote the quality of leadership while punishing the ones whose actions undermines the value of leadership (Hunter and Cushenbery, 2011). Transactional leaders’ influence is normally felt within their jurisdiction and authority. The leaders are tasked with the responsibility of implementing decisions and not exerting control over followers. Transactional leaders tend to ignore decisions that do not conform to the set targets and priorities. Application of this leadership style makes the leaders extremely influential in their leadership roles. This made Thatcher a tough, consistent, forthright and inspiring leader (Gary and Mian, 2010). For instance, she managed to apply the style in empowering and motivating the British citizens to purchase better homes at a discounted price while at the same time transforming the companies initially owned by the state and converting them into community entities. The main role of any leader it to assume a position characterised by authority. Application of the authoritative style of leadership enabled Thatcher to exert control over Britain from 1979 to 1990. It enabled her to reconstruct the political, social and economic formations in Britain through providing directions to all the economic and social structures. This style shows that such leaders do not only target to win; they yearn to attain satisfaction through winning publicly and dramatically (Steinberg, 2008). Additionally, this involves undermining other political parties. According to Genovese (2009: 28), Thatcher’s goal of running the party affairs into a single constant upheaval minimised unity and enhanced wrangles among members. The main event that exemplified her authoritativeness in leadership is the way she handle the Falkland Islands Campaign crises (Marc van der Erve, 2004). The Falkland Islands are a small group of Islands situated at the coast of Argentina and belongs to the British government. The Argentinean government invaded the Island in 1982 and took the British troops hostage. This prompted Thatcher to arrange a rescue and retake mission that involved the dispatch of 40 vessels and 1000 British commandoes. She involved in dialogue and delivered convincing speeches to the South Atlantic partners to gain their support. This enabled her government to successfully capture the Island after two months. The dominating style of leadership earned Thatcher the “Iron Lady” nickname (Genovese, 2009). The dominance attitude enabled her to exude a firm approach to policy making. Most of the decisions made were out of the willingness to act on her intuition and trust towards her judgments. Hunter and Cushenbery (2011), posits that successful leaders are required to be confident on the decisions they make and refuse to bow on any pressures emanating from those around them. Adoption of the dominant style of leadership requires a person who can stand up to her decision regardless of the impact of such decisions on their reputation provided that the goals are accomplished. For instance, she hiked taxes during the recession period in 1980s despite the concerns expressed by 364 economists through signing in statement in 1981 (Steinberg, 2008). Conclusion Thatcher served as the first British Prime Minister from 1989 to 1990. Thatcher’s leadership is described as full of ideologies, information management and optimism among other values. It is evident that the leadership practices that she employs exemplify a leader who is effectively committed in her duties and tasks. Her success in leadership can be attributed to application of leadership style such as transformative, transactional, traits, dominant style, authoritative style, dominating style and task-oriented leadership. Some of the events that exemplified her success in leadership include hiking of taxes during the recession period in 1980s despite the concerns expressed by 364 economists through signing in statement in 1981 and her success in reclaiming the Falkland Islands. Despite the strong leadership and political capabilities stipulated above, she could not evade defeat from her party members because they lost faith on her. References Doyle, M., E., & Smith, M. 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The Political Quarterly, 81(4), 593-601. Steinberg, B. S. (2008). Women in power: The personalities and leadership styles of Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.  Wade, M. S. (2002). Leaderships Adversary- Winning the war between Management and Leadership. Nova Science Publishers: New York Read More