BRIDGING THEORY AND PRACTICE LEADERSHIP - Assignment Example

? BRIDGING THEORY AND PRACTICE LEADERSHIP Walden Bridging Theory and Practice Leadership Introduction Leadership is a very important aspect of organizational, institutional and corporate management as it is the single most powerful tool in determining the direction and focus of organizations, institutions and corporations (Avolio et al, 2003). Due to the importance and relevance of leadership, there are several academic and professional studies that have been conducted on it to make its application and usage very simple and forthcoming. It is not surprising therefore that there are several theories of leadership in the academic world. The question that remains however is the level to which these leadership theories are applied in professional world. The essence of this paper is therefore to examine how the gap between theory and practice leadership can be bridged. This process is undertaken by examining the life of a world renowned leader on how this leader has contributed to society and used various leadership behaviors. The paper concluded with recommendations on how the leader can improve on the type of leadership style practiced. Biography of the leader Mary Nichols is the leader, whose personal and professional is examined as a case study in this paper. Mary Nichols holds a B.A from Cornell University and has J.D from Yale Law School, which earned her one of her earliest careers as a journalist with The Wall Street Journal. She worked as an attorney with specializations in the areas of environmental and health science from 1971 to 1974. As a professional, Mary Nichols takes leadership at the California Air Resources Board (CARB) as the head of the organization. Her current position comes as a result of rising through the ranks in the CARB. This is because under Governor Jerry Brown, Mary served at the CARB from 1975 to 1982 (Tett and Burnett, 2003). She them left her position for other engagements, which were however related to environmental leadership. In 2007, Mary Nichols was back to CARB ahead of Govenor Brown’s recall to the statehouse, and this time she acted for four years. Today, she heads the CARB but before she worked with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, where she was the Assistant Administrator of Air and Radiation, consolidating her experience and depth of known as an environmentalist. Generally, the legacy of Mary Nichols at her position remains her accolade as a fierce advocate for the institutionalization of what has been described as cutting edge technology that has not only transformed her state but her nation and the world as a whole (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2001). Specific to her credit are the successful push through with policies that have brought about boosting in fuel economy, the cutting of acid rain and reduction in the impact of greenhouse gases on the environment. Mary has been tagged by international media and environmental advocates as a woman who leads with global standards. Interestingly, Mary Nichols attributes her successes to the cooperation and united spirit she has had from the entire people of California and subordinates who work under her. Into the future with Nichols, California is looking at the reduction of harmful diesel pm through the adoption of California’s diesel truck rules in 2014 by 7 tons a day and 3 tons a day in 2023 (Tett and Burnett, 2003). Contributions to society/organization As a third timer at the California Air Resources Board (CARB), and working under three different heads of states, there are several contributions that can be outlined of Mary Nichol in terms of how she has transformed the organization within which she works and society as a whole. As far as her organization is concerned, Mary Nichols will be credited with structural and organizational changes at CARB. Analysts have said that there were clear differences in Mary Nichols from 1975 to 1982 at CARB and the Mary Nichols who is today the head of the same organization. This is because she contributed to a restructuring exercise that ensured that all employees, staff and other workers within the organization were well utilized according to their individual competences. This was done by instituting an in-house leadership plan, where as many portfolios were created as possible to ensure that several personnel were given opportunities to taste leadership within the organization. As much as this aided in the human capital development of workers, it also ensured that the organization was put in a position to speed up with most of its roles and tasks that it was faced with. Before then, the CARB had been criticized for denying the environment the justice it deserved because most legislations and rules for public environmental reforms that were to come from the organization were often delayed till things had gone out of hands (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2001). Today, the CARB has been described as a more effective and efficient state institution that has been responsible for transforming California. As far as the larger society is concerned, Mary Nichols has contributed to a healthier today, and a safer tomorrow. This is said against the backdrop that she has single handedly championed the regulation of several bills and rules, which are today the reason there are not as many air related pollutions as they used to be (Galton and Eysenck, 2009). Knowing the harm of gaseous pollutants to the environment, one would say that as long as she has being in office, Mary Nichols is the reason the people of California breath in good and healthy air (Stogdill, 1963). With her knowledge in environmental protection as a whole, not only has Mary Nichols been concerned about air safety but also gone into other aspects like game reserve and water conservation. For example, she is credited for setting up policy for as many as 27 departments in California from institutions, commissions and boards such as “Forestry and Fire Protection, Water Resources, Fish and Game, and State Parks, and led efforts to gain voter approval for four successful bond acts that raised over $10 billion for land and water programs” (Stanford Business, 2009). This means that Mary Nichols as a leader has been very instrumental to the larger society around her, even beyond the organization she works in. Job creation and human empowerment for the larger society has also been attributed to Mary Nichols as way of contributing to her society. For example, she foundered the Los Angeles Office of Natural Resources Defense Council, which has brought multi-ethnic forum for leaders from all traditional environmental issues of environmental equity (Stanford Business, 2009). Analysis of leadership behaviors In theory, language of leadership has been found to be very instrumental and potent in bringing about several changes of growth and development that an organization deserves (Galton and Eysenck, 2009). But the best way to put this theory in practice is by amplifying it in certain key leadership behaviors. In Mary Nichols, there are four major leadership behaviors that can be outlined. The first of these leadership behaviors is the ability to communicate roles and responsibilities to workers. Communication will be identified as a very strong tool in the language of leadership (Gastil, 1994). This is because language in itself is a tool for communication. As a leader, Mary Nichols believes that the best results on tasks assigned to workers can be yielded when the most perfect roles and responsibilities are assigned to the right persons. This is a reason there has been a frequent reference to the adage of putting round pegs in square holes by the leader. By this, she holds an ideology that even though her organization may have as many duties and tasks to perform, it is not enough to assign just anybody to any position. As a way of practicing this leadership behavior, she organizes a sectional meeting with workers on a regular basis to explain to them reasons for any new changes and reshuffles in their roles and responsibilities. The second leadership behavior that the leader possesses is the ability to create a workplace culture that cherishes people and relationships. Again, relationship creation will be seen as a very important component of language because it is through language that people in relationships interact to each other (Balkundi and Harrison, 2006). As a way of practicing the language of leadership therefore, Mary Nichols creates a workplace culture that pays premier attention to people and relationships. This means that she recognizes the need to invest in people so that these people would in-turn invest in their organization. An important way of creating a workplace culture for value for people and relationships is through the practice of democratic leadership style, where everyone within the organization is considered very useful and relevant to the decision making process. Contrary to the democratic leadership style, there are leaders who practice the autocratic leadership style, which totally shuts the door on employee engagement at the decision making level. Once this happens, the real competence and worth of employees is undermined and not valued. But with democratic leadership, the contribution of each person is seen as a tool for achieving a joint success. To her therefore, leadership is a shared responsibility (Bycio, Hackett and Allen, 1995). What is more, the leadership quality of being fair and open is always exemplified in the leadership attitude of Mary Nichols as a tool, needed in bringing transformation and growth. By being fair and open, reference is being made to the ability of the leader to clearly voice problems, challenges and successes of the organization to workers and subordinates. With the CARB in mind, there have been several instances when the organization has come under intense financial and logistics constraints to deliver its duties and roles to the public (Fulmer and Conger, 2004). In such cases, she has been fair and open with the public, workers and the media in clearly articulating the story, as it is. Many have said that it is with the way Mary Nichols approaches the difficulties her organization goes through that the organization has often and easily received support and donation from benevolent organizations and individuals. The theory of the language of leadership, which emphasizes on how to present one’s story, is therefore showed here. This is because through her ability to tell her story in a fair and open manner, Mary Nichols has always won the heart of the public. Finally, Mary Nichols has been praised even among her contemporaries of her ability to model the behavior she seeks to find in her workers and other subordinates. This is where the adage of leadership by example comes to play (Baas, De Dreu and Nijstad, 2008). In relation to the language of leadership, it would be stated that language is a mechanism of communication that comes in many different forms (Avolio et al, 2003). What this means is that the language of leadership is not always communicated verbally but also through actions and expressions. One of these actions is the need for Mary Nichols to live by the standards that she seeks to see in her own workers and other players within her organization. To this end, she has been praised for showing great sense of urgency towards work, being time conscious, having priority for success and respecting herself so as to gain the respect of others. It is even said that looking at her personality, it is not necessary to read what the rules and regulations of CARB says because she is the very embodiment of those rules and regulations (Balkundi and Harrison, 2006). In sum, Mary Nichols makes use of behavioral and style theories. Specific recommendations Even though Mary Nichols may be praised to be a world class leader with so much to offer in terms of her ability to easily apply leadership theories in practice, it is also common knowledge that no person is an island on her own and that at every point in time, gaining additional knowledge in terms of recommendations on how to proceed with leadership helps in making one even a better person. To this end, a number of recommendations are made for her consideration as the head of CARB. The first of these is the need to expand her network of connections. In literature, it has been established that the width of a leader’s network determines the size of her influence (Catalano, 2003). What this means is that at every point in time, leaders need to know more and more people, so as to widen their scope of influence. Specifically, the CARB that Mary Nichols heads is an environmentalist oriented occupation that demands that her outfit comes out with various regulations and legislations that can ensure that the environment is well protected. Meanwhile, issues of environmental protection cannot be confined within borders of towns, states of nations (Fulmer and Conger, 2004). What this means is that the environmental issues and concerns of other parts of the world may affect California as much as what takes place in California may affect other places. Expanding her network would therefore ensure that she has links with leaders in similar organizations so that collectively, they can achieve the goal of environmental friendliness for all. Secondly, a recommendation is made on the need for Mary Nichols to consider downstream opportunity creation for her organization. What this means is that it is important that all people within the facet of her organization get the chance to benefit from the value creation leadership behavior that she possesses. The rational for this recommendation is that studies have showed that in most state and multinational organizations, leaders are always and only concerned about the value and talent development of a few people at the topmost hierarchies. To this end, most occupational opportunities are given to these people without critically paying attention to subordinates lower the rank, who may be referred to as downstream staff (Baas, De Dreu and Nijstad, 2008). Once such a phenomenon goes on in the organization, mentorship and training becomes shut. As a person who rose through the ranks herself, Nichols would accept that it is when people downstream are given opportunities to take up tasks and function effectively that they become intrinsically motivated to take up higher positions within their organizations (Gastil, 1994). If any form of downstream opportunities exists, the tendency is that employees would seek new opportunities of growth outside their organizations become minimized. Consequently, employee retention becomes guaranteed, and its attendant effects or benefits (Byrne, 1971). Some of the benefits of employee retention include the fact that employees who are retained become more experienced with their jobs and more accustomed to the organizational culture and so they deliver and go about their works more effectively (Catalano, 2003). The time for Mary Nichols to open the door for downstream opportunities is thus now. Finally, it is recommended that the use of external quality assurance in the assessment of her organization and leadership must become a central part of her leadership. Mostly, leaders are criticized for lack of critique and evaluation of what they do, thinking of their actions and ways as the most perfect and superior. But once this happens, Stogdill (1963) states that the true value of their leadership cannot be understudied. For a leader like Mary Nichols who is always very busy within and without her rank of work, the likelihood that she may not be having sufficient time to be monitoring certain key internal processes within her organization is higher. Furthermore, the likelihood that she may not have enough time to undertake personalized reflection of her own leadership is also higher. It is for this reason that it is recommended for an external quality assurance department or team to be in place to assess her organization and leadership on a constant basis. With growth in research and development, there can be such an external quality assurance team that critically surveys workers and other stakeholders of CARB to collect professional ideas and knowledge on how best to improve leadership and relate with employees. As a person, this recommendation will be useful in expanding the leadership scope of and merits of Mary Nichols because it will give her ideas on places and aspects of her leadership where she needs more improvement and zeal. It will also make known to her, her strengths, so that she will seek ways of empowering these strengths. Summary and conclusions Summary This paper has been dedicated to understanding the impact of leadership theory on practice, where various ways by which Mary Nichols has succeeded in transforming her outfit, which is the California Air Resource Board (CARB) was used as a case study. Through the study of her biography, it was found that she had her love for environmental protection right from the early parts and days of her practice. This made her take up positions that placed her in a dimension that would offer her the opportunity to exemplify her passion for the environment to the world. Indeed with the opportunity given to her at the CARB on three different occasions, she has proved her ability to be a good leader as she has used various leadership behaviors to transform her organization and the society around her. Her successes notwithstanding, the need for her to expand growth to downstream workers have been recommended. Conclusion From the discussions that have been had in the paper so far, there are several conclusions that can be drawn on specific leadership behaviors and how these refer to theories in the assurance of growth and development for corporate and social organizations. First of all, it can be concluded that leaders are the embodiment of the change they want to see in their organizations. To this end, leaders who expect changes among employees and the larger workforce but are not ready to model the changes they expect themselves cannot be successful (Bycio, Hackett and Allen, 1995). In most organizations such as the one Mary Nichols finds herself in, followers look up to their leaders for inspiration and so when leaders lack such inspiration through modeling, change within the workforce becomes undermined. Secondly, it can be concluded that leadership is a shared responsibility rather than a singular task of the frontline leader alone (Byrne, 1971). As a way of sharing leadership therefore, it is almost important that leaders see and appreciate the need to develop values in their followers so that these followers can become useful towards the success and progress of their businesses. Finally, it can be concluded that no leader can achieve perfection if there is no room to learn. But for learning to take place, it is important that leaders will open themselves up to criticism and corrections from all well meaning people. This is because through References Avolio BJ, Sosik JJ, Jung DI, Berson Y. (2003). Leadership models, methods, and applications: Small steps and giant leaps. In Borman WC, Klimoski R, Ilgen DR,Weiner B (Eds.), Handbook of psychology (Vol. 12, pp. 277–307). New York, NY: JohnWiley & Sons. Baas M, De Dreu CKW, Nijstad BA. (2008).Ameta-analysis of 25 years ofmood-creativity research: Hedonic tone, activation, or regulatory focus? Psychological Bulletin, 134, 779–806. Balkundi P, Harrison DA. (2006). Ties, leaders, and time in teams: Strong inference about network structure’s effects on team viability and performance. Academy of Management Journal, 49, 49–68. Bycio P, Hackett RD, Allen JS. (1995). Further assessments of Bass’s (1985) conceptualization of transactional and transformational leadership. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 468–478. Byrne DE. (1971). The attraction paradigm: New York, NY: Academic Press. Catalano P. (2003). The relationship between transformational and transactional leadership and job satisfaction in an aerospace environment. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences, 63(7-A), 2612–2711. Fulmer RM, Conger JA. (2004). Growing your company’s leaders: How great organizations use succession management to sustain competitive advantage. New York, NY: AMACOM. Galton F, Eysenck HJ. (2009). Hereditary genius: London, England: Macmillan. Gastil J. (1994). A meta-analytic review of the productivity and satisfaction of democratic and autocratic leadership. Small Group Research, 25, 384–410. Stogdill RM. (1963). Manual for the leader behavior description questionnaire: Form XII. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Bureau of Business Research, College of Commerce and Administration. Tabachnick BG, Fidell LS. (2001). Using multivariate statistics. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Tett RP, Burnett DD. (2003). A personality trait-based interactionist model of job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 500–517. Stanford Business, (2009). Mary D. Nichols, Chairman, California Air Resources Board. Accessed October 22, 2013 from http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/event-bio-mary-nichols IMPLICATIONS OF MACHIAVELLI’S ADVICE TO THE LEADER Student Name Walden University Implications of Machiavelli’s advice to the Leader In writing “The Prince”, Machiavelli has been known for giving an advice to all leaders on the best ways to ensure that they win the command and control of their followers, especially when it matters most that there must be the stamping of authority. From this perspective, he advises and approves of the use of “occupational cruelty” as a way of keeping subjects obedient and faithful (Srivastava, Bartol and Locke, 2006). Generally, the use of occasional cruelty can be applied in literature or theory to mean the use of punishment at work. This is because punishment has been explained as a deterrent measure that is implemented by leaders to ensure that their followers receive negative reinforcement for engaging in conducts that are found to be unacceptable (Van, Ferris and Heffner, 2009). Many successful leaders have therefore used punishments at different points in time. With reference to Mary Nichols, there a number of ways that the advice of Machiavelli may apply to her. In the first place, it is important that she uses punishment to stamp her authority among subjects by creating the understanding that breaking of corporate rules will not be viewed with impunity. This is because where there is the absence of punishment, offences are said to be committed with no regard for the law (Srivastava, Bartol and Locke, 2006). Secondly, as much as there will be punishment, the need to be reasonable with punishment and the need not to take punishment out of context to mean victimization must also be taken critically. This is because in Machiavelli’s advice, the caution of hitting and drawing is given. This means that when the left hand is used in spanking, the right hand must also be used in drawing the punished person to one’s self. References Srivastava A, Bartol KM, Locke EA. (2006). Empowering leadership in management teams: Effects on knowledge sharing, efficacy, and performance. Academy of Management Journal, 49, 1239–1251. Van Iddekinge CH, Ferris GR, Heffner TS. (2009). Test of a multistage model of distal and proximal antecedents of leader performance. PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY, 62, 463–495. Read More