WilaSeldons Leadership at Tides Centre - Essay Example

? case study Table of Contents case study Table of Contents 2 Question 3 Question 2: 6 Question 3 9 References 13 Bibliography 14 Question Using your knowledge of leadership, describe and critically assess WilaSeldon’s leadership at Tides centre? The age of competition has increased the need for business organizations to ensure greater efficiency in business planning and strategy formulation. One of the critical aspects of organizational excellence involves effective leadership in an organization. This assumes critical significance considering the fact that leadership provides the long term vision to the organization and also helps formulate a roadmap to success (Yukl, 2007, p.445). In real life there is considerable number of examples of the manner in which effective leadership has been able to generate competitive edge. This includes the likes of individuals like Steve Jobs (founder of Apple), William and Sergy Page (Google), NR Narayana Murthy (Infosys) who have shown how an effective leadership can help bring about a growth momentum for any organization (Maak & Pless, 2006, p.5-8). The aspect of leadership has been a subject matter of great academic research in various areas. There have been many leadership theories including behavioral theories, contingency theories trait as well as power and influence theories that define and classify various kinds of leaders with their style of leadership in an organization (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2009, p.348). The case analysis of Tides center reveals a democratic style of leadership of Wila Seldon at Tides center. A democratic leadership style involves a leader making decisions on the basis of consultations with other team members. These types of leaders seek inputs from various quarters of the organization before making a crucial decision. In other words a democratic leader takes into account the views and sentiments of the entire organization while undertaking a major decision in the organization. A democratic leader tries to ensure encourage the entire organization in the decision making process (Daft & Lane, 2007, p.44). The analysis of the leadership qualities of Wila Seldon reveals a significant correlation with the traits of the democratic leader mentioned above. In the case it was quite evident that in all her stints as a leader, where she always tried to involve the entire organization with regards to crucial decision making for the organization. The case study shows that while assuming charge at Tides center Wila Seldon instead of making decisions like an autocratic leader chose to take the employees views into account. The initiation of teams like M team, strategic management team also shows that the CEO tried to ensure that decision making and learning has a bottom up approach. This is quite contra from the perspective of an autocratic or a Laissez faire type of leaders who normally take up decisions without consulting others and do not take an active role in the decision making and leave it to the responsibility of others (Wood, 2011, p.255). Wila Seldon also displays democratic leadership straits even in cases like the introduction of the 360 degree appraisal system for measuring employee performance at the organization as well as to the decision of referring projects as customers. Unlike an autocratic leader who imposes his/her decisions on their subordinates, Wila Seldon acted as a true democratic leader when she even took views of the employees who were opposing the decision. The CEO did not act in a haste and imposed decisions but tried to indulge into a democratic decision making process. This has helped in employees getting greater responsibilities and also to the fact that employees started to think out of the box solutions. This type of leadership skill was extremely important for an organization like Tide that was in the midst of a severe crisis in business whose revamp required comprehensive and extra efforts apart from an inner drive to propel the organization towards growth. The democratic leadership style of Wila Seldon played a crucial role in this regard that was evident from the fact that she made up a team of volunteers who took up other responsibility of undertaking extra efforts for the betterment of the organization. It also shows the effectiveness of the CEO as a true democratic leader who finds it important to ensure participation from all the quarters of the organization. The CEO does not take a decision unlike her predecessors of putting up blames on others and not taking active part and responsibilities in decision making process that is characteristic of Laissez faire type of leadership trait. The customer response survey was also a reflection of the democratic leadership traits of Wila Seldon. The CEO carried out the survey in order to understand the mindset of the customers with regards to the services of the organization. It also reflects the democratic traits of the leader in the sense that she tried to involve the entire gamut of stakeholders in an attempt to ensure collective responsibility and to generate greater effectiveness in the decision making. Wila Seldon was of the view that an effective policy is one that is accepted by the entire stakeholders of an organization. In addition to Wila Seldon’s stint at Tide Center, her association as a member of the top management team in other organizations also reflects democratic traits in her manner of functioning. All through her career as a member of the top management and as leader Wila Seldon has always tried to make decisions on ht basis of collective efforts rather than being an autocratic leader trying to impose her decisions in the organization or acting as a passive leader without taking up any responsibilities. Although certain quarters at Tides center have criticized her openness and transparent nature however, he has always acted in a true democratic sense by not only involving the entire organization in the decision making process but also from the fact that she chose to be completely transparent in her approach towards decision making activities. In addition to this Wila Seldon also shows a democratic leadership trait when she even considers arguments that is not considered feasible by her. This includes instances like the introduction of the appraisal system and certain other decisions reflecting her true democratic leadership traits and huge sense of responsibility towards the organization. Question 2: Describe and critically evaluate Willa Seldon’s strategic planning and her implementation of her plans? Willa Seldon undertook the reins of Tide Center when the company was in the midst of a severe crisis. The revenues of the company were dwindling and the number of projects had dropped down to abnormally low levels. Willa Seldon was faced with the daunting task of ensuring and infusing a culture of profitability in the organization so as to make it sustainable in the long run. Assuming charge the first task undertaken by her was to instill a sense of responsibility and accountability and ensuring discipline in the organization. This was evident from the fact that she was annoyed at the first meeting when the CFO tuned late at the meeting. In addition to this Willa Seldon also proposed to change the name of projects to customers as she believed that this would help induce professionalism in the organization and would do away with the popular notion that nothing significant happens at Tides center. The next major step was to have a customer centric approach in the organization culture. This involved undertaking customer surveys that would help in garnering feedbacks from the customers that would have helped in ensuring better customer centric decision making. It would have helped Tides center to analyze the demands of the customers as well as the gaps in the level of service provided to the customers. This would help in modifying the approach of the company towards its service delivery mechanism in order to help generate greater competitiveness into the company. The CEO in this regard also had a strategy of formation of teams like the M team as well as the SAT team that would help identify issues and bottlenecks in the company and also derive greater thought generation from the employees of the organization. The CEO also initiated the process of hiring an external consultant to analyze the business strategies of the organization whose recommendations would be implemented at the organization. Finally in order to ensure greater efficiency within the company workforce and to ensure better professional approach the new CEO Willa Seldon initiated the process of effective performance appraisal that would help in ensuring greater discipline and professionalism in the company. It would also help in ensuring greater control and monitoring of the performance of the employees. The CEO proposed the setting and implementation of a 360 degree performance appraisal mechanism in the organization. She believed that this would help inculcate a system in which there would be continuous and effective feedbacks about the performance levels of the employees of the organization (Schneier, Shaw, Beatty & Baird, 1995, p.208). This was also initiated because it is very essential to have a workforce that is efficient in order to cope up with the challenges of the competition in the business environment. The events at the Tides center and the poor work culture prevalent at the organization also warranted an immediate need to ensure such mechanism that can ultimately help deliver better performance at the organization. The steps taken by Willa Seldon can be stated to be highly effective and reflects a position of a true democratic style of leadership. The CEO was very correct in taking a decision of ensuring greater discipline in the organization. The formation of various teams like SAT also showed the fact that the CEO was largely inclined towards involving the entire organization in the decision making process. However a critical examination of the strategies also shows that the CEO had a very slow response to address the issue prevailing at Tides center. The process of initiating the actions was a bit slow considering the urgency required to handle the issue that was prevalent amidst dwindling sales figure at the organization. The slow response can be also traced to the highly democratic mindset and manner of functioning of Willa Seldon who made it sure to take feedbacks and views from every corner and quarter of the organization before making a vital decision. This has somewhat introduced a time lag in the entire strategy formulation process. However, it can also be analyzed from the case study that the slow approach was perhaps necessary as the problems in the organization had to be solved from the root. The need of the hour was a change in the outlook and perception of the entire organization. The slow approach was perhaps more warranted in such a scenario prevailing at the Tides center as it was necessary to find the cause for the downturn in the company. The CEO’s strategy of having a slow but steady approach was largely aimed at identification of the root cause of the problems rather than taking a fast forward reckless attitude. The CEO wanted to ensure that issues are identified and sorted out while ensuring the participation from all sections of the organization. This would not only help in identification of problems but would also ensure greater transparency in the organization. Participation in the decision making process from all sections of the company would also help induce greater responsibility among the team members. A greater responsibility has a direct linkage with the aspect of motivation and job satisfaction (Madura, 2006, p.374). It has been proved in numerous research studies that motivated employees tend to have a better understanding of the jobs and are more likely to contribute towards the organization in a major way (Latham, 2007, p.93). This was perhaps the philosophy running in the minds of Willa Seldon while formulating the business strategy of the company as she believed that an effective business process should have an all round and comprehensive approach that can not only help reduce inefficacy in the process but more importantly infuse a good and professional culture amongst the employees that are the biggest contributors for an organization so as to help generate sustainable competitive edge for Tides center in the long run in the turbulent macro environment. Question 3 If you were in her place, how would you deal with the situation currently facing her? Willa Seldon’s approach at the Tides Center was essentially to ensure professionalism at the organization. The CEO tried many steps and tried to implement many steps and strategies towards addressing the same. Her main intention was to ensure greater professional approach and thinking among the employees of the company in an attempt to ensure organizational excellence. My personal approach towards the issue would be based on strategies that are somewhat related to what the CEO did at Tides center. However my personal approach in handling the issue, the major strategic initiative would be to first find out the reasons behind the debacle of the organization. In this regard customer surveys as well as feedbacks from the employees would be considered to analyze the current state of affairs and try to figure out the issues at the organization. This apart a change management process would be initiated at the organization that would help in revamping the entire organization and its manner of functioning. A change management is considered to be relevant in the scenario described for Tides center because the present state of affairs in the company requires a complete change in the approach and perception of the entire organization. A change management would involve undertaking major changes in the manner of operations including strategies like human resource management. This would also include having a new performance appraisal system (Saaksvuori & Immonen, 2008, p.138-140). The change management would also have certain objectives and goals that would be essentially are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound (SMART Objectives). This would help in evaluating and analyzing the achievement and the effectiveness of the strategies. It would also help in ensuring easy scalability and would allow measurement of the goals and their level of accomplishment in the organization (Richman, 2011, p.32). In addition to this a flat organizational hierarchy would be established so as to enable smooth flow of communication within the organization. It would also help in ensuring greater accountability and responsibility among the team members helping generate organizational excellence. A flat organizational hierarchy would also help in bringing about greater responsibilities among the employees. This would help in ensuring greater motivation among the employees (Agarwal, 1983, p.129-130). A philosophy of ‘do it now’ attitude would also be started so as to help in eliminating the present perception popular in the organization that nothing significant happens at Tides center. A system of regular feedbacks would be initiated so as to ensure that employees are informed about their weak points. Employees would also be free to address their grievances to their seniors. A whistleblower policy would be initiated so as to help ensure that the interests of the employees are not being threatened. I would however continue with the present CEO’s strategy of making up strategic teams like the SAT and others that would help in effective strategy formulation by involving the team members and ensuring effective decision making. A customer feedback survey would also be started on the same lines as that by the CEO Willa Seldon so as to analyze the gaps in the service offerings of the company. It would also help in analyzing the needs and wants of the customers so as to offer them better services and ensure greater customer satisfaction. The change management would also try to inculcate a customer centric approach of the employees. They would be made to realize that the business environment is very turbulent and competitive and it is very necessary to ensure that there is greater customer centric approach being followed so as to help generate a competitive edge for the organization in the market. In this regard a new training program would be envisaged so as to help induce industry standards of service excellence in the organization. The training program would specifically focus upon the aspect of inducing a customer relationship management in the organization (Goad, 2010, p.3). The training program would inculcate a message among the team members that is easier to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one. This policy would also help generate considerable advantages for the organization in the long run as better level of service standards would be provided to the existing clients that would help in generating a better positioning for the organization in the minds of the target market audience. The change management process would also involve formulating a new vision and mission statement for the organization that would help in changing the attitude of the company to a more customer centric approach that would help generate competitive edge for Tides center and would also help in improving the brand image. The change in vision and mission statement is important as they reflect the core culture and values of the organization and in order to effectively inculcate a positive and new culture it is very essential to have a mission and vision statement that can help drive this urge and ensure its diffusion across the entire organization (Hunt, 1997, p.51). Finally, in addition to new strategy formulation and initiating a change management at the company there would also be a system for ensuring feedbacks and monitoring of the new objectives so as to help ensure greater effectiveness of the strategies being undertaken at the organization. A balanced scorecard approach would be adopted in this regard as this would facilitate the analysis and evaluation of the financial as well as non financial strategies. This is very important as strategies are worthless unless they are properly executed (Balanced Scorecard Institute, 2011). Therefore in order to ensure proper execution and to ultimately ensure that the strategies are giving results this form of evaluation would help in generating all round benefits for the organization that would not only help it to tide over its current crisis but to also help mane Tides center and its business center with a long term sustainable competitive edge in the market. References Agarwal, R.D. (1983). Organization and management. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Balanced Scorecard Institute. (2011). What is the Balanced Scorecard? [Online]. Available at: http://www.balancedscorecard.org/BSCResources/AbouttheBalancedScorecard/tabid/55/Default.aspx. [Accessed on December 16, 2011]. 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