Leadership -final exam - Essay Example

With differences in attitudes and aptitudes, it is possible to ensure diversity in work process and also to provide better assistance by enhancing the talents of the individuals for achieving certain desired objectives. Moreover, in the age of cultural diversity, multiculturalism is required to deal with diversity successfully, through the total quality diversity procedure (Argyris, 1991). In the context of managing diversity, the concept of leadership plays a pivotal role. For the successful functioning of an organization, it is required to employ efficient and competent employees for ensuring better resources to the organizations in particular and also for making an effort to achieve desired objectives.

To attain the desired objectives, diverse organizations provide different learning capabilities as well as resources for effective functioning of the organization. Leadership Style In order to recognize the aspect of managing diversity in the organizational context, a contemporary leader i.e. Howard Schultz, the Chairman and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Starbucks is selected. The leadership style, decision making style and diversity management strategies of Howard Schultz has enabled Starbucks to substantially deal with the challenges posed due to the aspect of diversity by developing teams with adequate efficiency.

It is worth mentioning in this context that effective teams being steered with discipline is considered as one of the most significant rudiments of successful business (Katzenbach & Smith, 2005). The leadership style incorporated by Howard Schultz has focused on introducing healthcare related benefits to part-time employees who work for 20 hours in a week. This decision was resisted by the board members owing to the fear of increase in overall operational cost. Howard Schultz as a leader has been able to reinvigorate the employees and mainly focused on issues that are crucial for the welfare of the organization.

Those critical issues are to be handled by the top level for better implementation and to enhance profitability as well as productivity (Marquis, Lim, Scott, Margaret, & Kavanagh, 2008). However, as a leader he has also made a firm decision to share the information in a horizontal manner related to organizational aspects with the employees which has in turn enabled him to generate employee motivation. It has enabled employees to have a major contribution in organizational strategic objectives which has significantly facilitated the organization to manage diversity in the workplace.

Thus, it can be ascertained that Howard Schultz has followed a transactional leadership style for ensuring effectiveness in the organization to deal with strategic challenges such as managing diversity. As can be witnessed with reference to the leadership traits deciphered by Howard Schultz, he can be observed as significantly focused on building enthusiastic relationships with his employees. Following a Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) leadership style, he also attempted to negotiate the roles and the responsibilities of the employees segregating them into