Leadership Theory Application and Skill Development - Case Study Example

Introduction: Ever since the industrial revolution came into the world, researchers have tried to identify traits, behaviors, situation and variables which make a leader an effective one (Goldsmith, Greenberg, Robertson, & Hu-Chan, 2003). These researches have proposed theories that have looked into traits, behaviors, charisma, situations, thinking and many other aspects that define can define a successful leadership. Many researchers even tried to link these theories together in order to come up with a more effective explanation (Goleman, Boyatzis, & Mckee, 2002). However, all this efforts failed to come up with a conclusion on the pertinent aspects of effective leadership. All these researches conducted had their particular pros and cons, insufficient assumptions and certain limitations (Lussier & Achua, 2007). However, researchers in this field have not given up and they are try their best come up with a strong theory. Recent developments in this field have been the research conducted on situational and transformational leadership style (Northouse, 2010). So far researchers have not been able to come up with a theory that can be classified as exclusive. The theories present by these new breed of researchers are a mere derivation of the earlier work in this field. The most notable work on leadership that his lived on till today is the work of researchers like: Max Wber, MacGregor Burns, Bernard M. Bass, and etc (Northouse, 2010). Scenario Analysis: This mini scenario is about Sir Richard Branson, who is the chairman of the Virgin Group. The Virgin Group is the world’s most recognized corporate brand. The Group comprises of companies from different industries, this makes this group heavily diversified. The extent to which this group is diversified makes the operations of this group very complex and intricate. However, due to the broad and insightful vision of its chairman, the group remains till this day one of the most profitable group in the 21st century. The chairman can be classified as a person who is easy going, very flexible and enjoyable to work with. He does not shy away from competition, risk and challenges. One of his qualities is that he never succumbs under pressure and failure. Sir Richard is very open about his mistakes and likes to speak about his mistakes openly with any regret, because he believes that one should never get deject from failures and these failures are part of the learning process. He is forward looking and does not like to lament about the past. He believes that his employees are the most valuable assets of his company and therefore he never lets go of an opportunity where he could nurture healthy working relationship with them. To Sir Richard, opinion of the workers matters a lot and he uses their input coupled with is intuition to handle a daunting situation. He makes sure that the employees feel that their input does matter to him and they should keep sending him their opinions and understanding. Sir Richard is of firm believe that in order to keep the company on its current road of growth and prosperity, he needs to encourage risk taking behavior in employees and to support their initiatives to influence the group’s market place. One this which Sir Richard is very good at is his ability to form diversified teams to work on the diversified projects of the group. He firmly believes in delegating responsibility to his employees, by this he ensures employee engagement and retention. Sir Richard is one of those people who are more concerned about their relationships. As a result of this he tries to keep everyone in his surrounding happy and satisfied. This method of leading his organization has allowed him to create a dynamic and progressive working environment in his organization. Most importantly he is a person who likes to extend his trust onto his employees; employees seeing this gesture of their chairman project to him and his company their sincere loyalty and efforts. All of this has played a major role in creating the Virgin Group of the 21st century. Transactional Leader: Sir Richard Branson, can be classified as a transactional leader, but a favorable transactional leader. The reason for this is that he first fulfils his side of the transaction, before expecting others to fulfill their side of the deal. Branson considers his employees as human and care about their well being; in his priority list he ranks them ahead of all other stakeholders and caters to their needs first. In this way his employees ensure that they fulfill their side of the transaction by dealing in the best possible way with the company’s customers and fulfilling their responsibilities in the efficient and effective manner. Transformational Leader: Sir Richard can more accurately be classified as a transformational leader because in his interactions with his employees he evokes their higher order needs, which in this case are recognition, consideration, autonomy, trust, fair treatment and responsiveness from management. Sir Richard, by keep all his channels of communication open for his employees help to fulfill these higher order needs. His interactions with his employees during his tour of the companies leave these employees mesmerized by his attitude towards them. These interactions are so positive that they make the employees work even harder than before for their company. Leader-Member Exchange Theory: See for Sir Richard the in-group comprises of his employees whereas the out group consists of the group’s shareholders, therefore he is more inclined towards satisfying the needs of his employees. In his priority list he ranks employees ahead of customers and shareholders as he believes that the treatment of benefits both these groups receives depends on the mood and behavior of employees, so it is of utmost importance to keep employees happy, if the company wants to satisfy the other two stake holders. Authentic Leadership Theory: Sir Richard can confidently be classified as an authentic leader because his words and actions are perfectly symmetrical. He encourages his employees to take risk in order to move the group forward and he himself exemplifies this ideology in his actions like Virgin Cola. By being open about his failures he is actually try to create a culture where people do not hide their mistakes but rather learn from them, this culture of tolerance of mistakes encourage employees to take risky measures without the fear of failure. Global Leadership: Sir Richard is very good at showing that he truly understands this concept. His actions like forming diversified teams, having people with their own unique talents, are an example that shows that he understands this concept. He firmly believes that communication and teamwork is the defining criteria for competition today. His adherence to this belief leads him to form people who are the right fit for the situation or project. Behavioral Models of Leadership: University of Michigan Studies: The two parameters of this study are employee-orientation and production-orientation. Sir Richard can be classified as a leader who his high on both these dimension, maybe some people might be of the opinion that he might be low on the second dimension because of his easy going attitude, but this understanding is wrong because he is concerned about the continuous group of his company which will be insured when employee work hard to accomplish their objectives. His tendency to make strong rapport with his employees makes him high on the first dimension. Ohio State Studies: According to the dimensions of this study Sir Richard is “high in both initiating structure” and “consideration”. The reason behind the first one is that he himself sets himself to undertake risky projects. As far as the second dimension is concerned he very closely watches the progress of his employees and has genuine concerns regarding their well being. Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Theory: Situational leadership Model: Sir Richard is maintaining a strong leader-follower relationship. His employees have complete faith in his leadership and judgments, and they do not revolt against his judgment even when they feel that he is wrong. Example of this failure is the company’s decision to hold on to Virgin Megastore retail outlets, a decision strongly backed by Sir Richard. The reason behind this trust is Sir Richard’s ability to express his argument to his employees in an effective manner. Thus employees understand his grounds for undertaking certain measures and therefore they support him all the way through. Vroom Jago Leadership Model: According to this theory Sir Richard can be classified as a consultative leader who takes the opinions and inputs of his employees and couples this with his own judgment to come up with a decision regarding a situation. In this way he follows the norms of democracy and makes his employees feel like their inputs are of considerable value and importance in the decision making process of the company. Different Leadership Style for Sir Richard Branson: Sir Richard’s leadership style is extremely effective under the circumstances. However he needs to curtail his risk taking instinct because this can be very damaging for the company in the long run. In order to curtail this habit, Sir Richard should adopt the second category of consultative leadership style in Vroom Jago Leadership Model. In this class he will have to give greater weight to the opinions of his decision making team. Developing and Leading Global Team: The most plausible way in which Sir Richard would approach this initiative would be that he would order the formation of diverse team. However, he would make it a mandatory requirement that each team member is an effective communicator. But over here he will have to take on board people with expert knowledge, which normally is contrary to his way of operating. Incorporating Sir Richard Branson’s Leadership Qualities: Well, writer will like to adopt his risk taking behavior in himself. Since he always prefer taking calculated risks, this sometimes leads to a missed opportunity because he spend too much time on calculating these risks. Conclusion: From this scenario analysis, it can be concluded that Sir Richard Branson is an effective leader. And under his leadership the Virgin Group is bound to make progress in today’s competitive environment. However his attitude towards or inclination towards taking and encouraging risky endeavors can cost the group dearly. It is therefore recommended that he curtails this tendency of his. However, one thing is for sure that such an attitude is required if the company wants to continue its journey of success and growth. References Goldsmith, M., Greenberg, L., Robertson, A., & Hu-Chan, M. (2003). Global leadership. New Jersey: Pearson Education. Goleman, R., Boyatzis, R., & Mckee, A. (2002). Primal Leadership: learning to lead with emotional intelligence. USA: Harvard Business School Press. Lussier, R., & Achua, C. (2007). Leadership: theory, application, and skill development. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Northouse, P. (2010). Leadership: theory and practice. USA: Sage Publications Inc. Read More