Leadership Development Opportunities Should Be Provided to All People in All Organizations - Essay Example

Leadership development opportunities should be provided to all people in all organizations – A Critical analysis using theories Leaders are the individuals who will lead any organized activity or organization on the path of success. Leaders using their optimal traits can develop and motivate their employees or followers to accomplish the set targets thereby elevating themselves and the organization as a whole. This ability of the leaders to develop their subordinates forms a crucial part of their leadership skills. That is, it is the art of serving people without any bias and at the same time equipping them so that they can achieve their full potential and thereby become leaders in their own right. Today’s leaders need to recognize that it is important to build their organization’s leadership capabilities for the future success. Organizations and its leaders should create optimal leadership development opportunities to all the employees thereby bringing the best out of them. To study the leadership development opportunities, certain theoretical concepts can be of good use. So, by discussing about the purpose of leadership development, certain leadership development approaches, and what leadership development can and cannot do, a critical analysis regarding leadership development opportunities for all will be done, particularly focusing on transformational leadership theory in relation to other theories. Leadership development refers to natural as well as constructed or planned activities inside an organization which enhances an individual or employees’ leadership potential. Those activities involve focusing on employees and developing their inherent traits and attitudes which exhibits their leadership potential. Although, not all members of the management team and employees will be born with the ability to lead, they might exhibit some leadership-linked traits and attitudes, which can be tapped, optimized, and developed to bring out the leader in them. This process of developing leadership in an organization will take place as a natural process, or will be initiated by the organization and its leaders. The concept that leadership development happens through natural learning process is something which is gathering attention in organizations around the world. That is, leaders or employees could naturally learn and become leaders by deriving messages and validation from typically unplanned events that will take place at work or outside of work, such as assuming new position, working in different cultures, managing significant changes, and others. This perspective was further validated by Yost and Plunkett () who stated that research over the past two decades has indicated that over 70 percent of employee development as a leader happens on the job in trial-by-fire experiences that normally pushes the employees, supervisors, managers, and others to the edge of their comfort zone. So, this process naturally provides leadership development opportunities for all. However, this process of natural leadership development might not happen in all the organizations and importantly there might be need to complement or accentuate this natural process thereby leading to structured leadership development activities including implementation of leadership development approaches such as mentoring, coaching, action learning, outdoor education, experimental approaches, and others. In the fast changing competitive business environment, there is utmost need for planned leadership development activities. For example, the global financial crisis in late 2000s has wiped out layers of middle management through layoffs thereby necessitating the need to develop newer leaders. Secondly, with globalisation and the resultant internationalization or expansion of companies into newer territories, there is strong emphasis on developing leaders who can manage and help their companies succeed in the global environment (). Apart from these external reasons, Lawson (2008) further adds that organizations have understood that developing an innovative and comprehensive leadership program or activities can lead to effective leadership development among managers, department heads, executives, and employees thereby leading optimizing organizations operations as well as success. The other key reason which has made leadership development an utmost necessity is that employees of the contemporary times are different or advanced when compared to the earlier times in regards to openly expecting leadership development opportunities. They demand to be more involved in decisions that influence them and expect a leader who will ask for their ideas, listen to them, and provide mentoring or coaching on regular basis (Lawson 2008). So, it is evident that leadership development has optimum purposes in an organization. This leadership development program can be carried out as above-mentioned through number of leadership approaches. According to Pernick (2002) leadership development programs go beyond simple skills training to providing specialized and customized programs to the potential leaders. the leader with a better understand of his or her leadership capabilities. Coaching can be used as one of the principles for facilitating both personal and professional development. Pernick asserts that leadership development is more focused on the ability of the leader to maximize strengths to provide better leadership for the organization The Transformational Leadership theory focuses on how leaders and employees or followers assist each other to realise their common goals and utilise their potential to the fullest, resulting in a “Two-way” relationship as well as leadership development. In that direction, transformational leaders will be a charismatic and visionary who will have a strong vision about organizational future and importantly will articulate that vision among the employees, increase their understanding of that vision and its desired outcomes, make them transcend their self-interests and focus on that vision, and eventually raise their performance (Parker and Begnaud 2004). So, according to Barbuto (1997, p.1), “followers of transformational leaders are empowered to pursue organizational goals”. Transformational leaders will carry out the above process by giving autonomy to the employees and sharing power with them. That is, such leaders will maximally involve their employees in many of the organizational processes including decision-making process, change management process, and many more. When this happens, employees will get more opportunities to act and become effective in solving problems in a wide range of situations, which will imbue leadership traits in them and importantly develop those traits in the long-run. “Transformational leaders often seek followers’ participation by highlighting the importance of cooperation, by providing the opportunity to learn from shared experience, and delegating to followers the authority to execute any necessary action for effective performance” (Jung, Chow, and Wu 2003, p.530). However, the disadvantage of transformational leaders being role models who are strongly followed by their subordinates is that they could follow them blindly. So, when transformational leaders make any mistakes or abuse their power or exhibit unethical behaviours, the entire organization will suffer. So, it is very imperative on the part of the transformational leaders to exhibit optimum discipline, ethics, self-control, unbiased attitude, and many more. When the leaders do that, not only them but also their subordinates will develop (Dvir, Eden, Avolio, and Shamir 2002). So, the purpose of this leadership approach is to create an optimal work environment where the employees will be empowered to deliver their best thereby developing themselves, their leaders, and the organization as a whole. Among the above-mentioned leadership theories, the Great Man theory will be first focused. This theory focuses on the perspective that leaders are exceptional people, who are naturally born with unique talents which make them lead others thereby becoming leaders. Miranda Kavanagh, Director, Corporate & Public Affairs at Pfizer adds to this perspective by stating, “For me leadership is partly what you are born with, but also what you acquire on the way. Leadership is a journey – your experiences, good and bad, shape the Leader you become” (Beasley). Although, this theory positively shows how leaders could develop, it has number of disadvantages. Firstly, it focused mainly on men, disregarding the leadership potential of women, which is evident from the theory’s name. In any organization, women form a sizable or even minimal part of the workforce, and they will also look for leadership development opportunities. However, if women are disregarded, it will lead to ethical issues for the organization (Eckman). Furthermore, the theory does not focus on the crucial organization-related factors that could develop leadership potential in leaders and instead focuses on the unproven genetic and inherent factors (Waite 2008). This leadership approach cannot deliver good results because it would not develop correct leaders, instead dubiously elevating wrong ones based on genetic factors like elevating unskilled sons and relatives of the leaders. Crucially, this theory is more individual-centric or leader-centric and so does not focus on the leadership development of all the employees thereby raising questions over its effectiveness and relevance to leadership development opportunities for all. Transactional Leadership theory focuses on how leaders would motivate their employees or followers mainly using financial rewards and punishments. In that direction, Maier (2014) defines transactional leaders as one “who assumes that people are motivated by rewards, they will cede authority to their chosen leaders and fulfill goals and objectives set by their leaders”. The other advantage with this theory is that employees would work in a clear and structured hierarchy or system (Giuliani and Kurson 2002). This way, the employees would “know the chain of command and what is expected of them at all times” (Maier 2014). It will also give them an idea regarding where they stand in the leadership hierarchy, and so what they need to achieve to advance in that hierarchy. Although, it is not a direct leadership opportunity, it could be tagged as an indirect one. However, these same advantages could turn out to be significant disadvantages. That is, as employees perform singularly based on rewards and incentives, without focusing on organizational goals, personal career development, and other key aspects, it reflects badly on the leaders as well as the employees. In that direction, a transactional leader might not even offer a non-financial praise to his/her employees. “Because the leader views the job as a simple exchange -- work for money, for example -- he feels no obligation to provide praise simply when an employee upholds his end of the deal” (Benjamin 2014). In addition, the fixed structure or hierarchy leads to rigid working relationship between the leader and the employees. That is, employees will only do what is being instructed by their leaders without providing their ideas or suggestions thereby restricting their potential for leadership development. “The over-reliance on a single approach, and unwillingness to discuss, or even consider, the ideas of others, limits a leaders creativity” (Benjamin 2014). So, it is evident that transactional leaders make employees perform purely through monetary rewards and that too in a restricted way thereby limiting their as well as their employees’ opportunities to leadership development (Conger 2007). As leadership development opportunities are non-existent for the employees or even just one-way for the leaders alone in this leadership approach, its purpose is nullified and would not deliver leadership opportunities for all. Under Distributed Leadership theory, leaders would organize a team of employees in an informal and spontaneous manner primarily because of the necessary situation (Bennett, Wise, Woods and Harvey 2003, p.7). At the same time, leaders by following the distributed leadership theory will facilitate collaboration and interaction between their subordinates leading to teamwork and effective accomplishment of goals (Wright 2008). During those collaborating situations, there could be leadership development opportunities for all the involved, but as they might be more focused on accomplishment of goals, they might not utilize it (Davies 2007; Harris 2008). Furthermore, the other disadvantage is that as above-mentioned it will be more of an informal and opportunistic grouping of employees, without clear vision and optimal organizational goals. “Work will become fragmented if there is no core value and mission that is worked towards” (National Centre for Research Methods). So, as the employees are made to work without clear vision and goals by the leader, the leader may develop to a certain extent but the employees and the organization as a whole may not. That is, when employees collaborate on a particular project, the leader could allocate certain tasks or modules of that project to particular group of employees, then facilitate them to nominate a leader (or even leaders on rotational basis) among themselves, and motivate them to accomplish that particular task. By this approach, employees or supervisors can develop their leadership traits, even as the leader himself/herself accentuates his/her leadership skills by being the facilitator. However, this above approach does not happen in distributed leadership and so leaders following this theory might not generate equal leadership development opportunities for all the people in the organization. From the above analysis, it is evident that instead of Great-Man Leadership theory, Transactional Leadership theory, and Distributed Leadership theory, Transformational Leadership theory mainly provides optimal leadership development opportunities to all including the leaders, employees, and the organization as a whole. Transformational leaders encourage and recognize employees’ ideas and thereby creating leadership development opportunities to them. The leader can focus, encourage, and recognize the employees only if he/she has leadership qualities of being inspirational, motivational, team player, and many more. So, when the leader keeps on doing it, it will naturally optimize his/her leadership potential. To sum up, among all different type of leaders, transformational leaders exhibit a strong approach to leadership development, and that approach can deliver effective results because it provides leadership development opportunities for all. References Barbuto, J., 1997. 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Wright, LL., 2008. Merits and Limitations of Distributed Leadership: Experiences and Understandings of School Principals. Available from https://www.umanitoba.ca/publications/cjeap/articles/wright.html(accessed on March 21, 2015) Read More