The Role of Leadership and Innovation in Sustaining Competitiveness - Essay Example

? The Role of Leadership and Innovation in Sustaining Competitiveness During a time of crisis, organizations that havein their ranks weak leadership are inclined to taking less effective measure of survival in addition to being prone to regular restructuring and downsizing as a strategy of solving their problems. Conversely, organizations that have creative and effective leaders come up with superior strategic measures to avert the necessity of any major restructuring and downsizing. Creative and effective leaders run the organization effectively therefore preventing it from getting to such a stage where only a major restructuring could save it (Agbor 2008, p.40). Therefore, organizations with creative and effective leadership will be able to sustain competitiveness in their business environment due to their superior strategic measures compared to their competitors. Organizational leadership involves the ability of management to achieve and protect a company’s benefits through the ability to balance employees’ needs and company targets by ensuring that there are no frictions between the two demands. This entails bringing employee demands and organizational needs together to work in an environment that will enable effective and efficient achievement a common goal. Consequently, organizational leadership has a central role of cultivating synergies between the organization and its employees. Leadership helps the member of an organization and working teams overcome workplace environmental challenges therefore working to achieve organizational goals in a worthy way (Kalamas & Kalamas and p.2004).  Innovative ideas can also motivate employees to give their best to the organization. Organizations that allow employees to undertake new and non-traditional ways of working will gain more from employees’ talents. Given that Google has a fast paced and high-energy work environment, the management has been able to come up with innovative ways that ensures employees have fun even as they work hard to achieve organizational goals. The company has a workplace environment where the qualities of creativity and innovation are celebrated. Additionally, Google utilize its corporate culture and climate to create an informal environment with value addition (Kuntze and Matulich, 2010). Leadership is important for an organization since it enables the organization and organizational teams achieve their set goals. When leaders and the people led do not know where they are heading in terms of organizational goals and objectives, then leadership means nothing. Therefore, it is important for leaders in organizations to have a clear vision of how and where they see the organization in the future. According to Maxey (2000, p.48), vision of an organization represents a mental image of its possible and desirable future. The future of an organization depends on its leadership ability to recognize organizational changes accurately and use them intelligently for the improvement and sustainability of the organization. Sage and Rouse (2011, p.800) note leaders focus on the on the future and therefore the what separates a cultural change that fails from that which succeeds is the competent leadership at the top of organizational command. The importance of having a leader who is able to set visions for how the organization will operate in future can be demonstrated by the approach taken by Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs, as a strategic leader for Apple is an appropriate example in the area of creativity and innovation (Ireland, Hoskisson and Hitt 2008, p.36). He was able to position Apple to seize future markets through the firm’s strategy, which was based on insights into external opportunities. Steve Jobs recognized that Apple had a limited client base in the personal computing market. Nevertheless, Jobs maintained that the company was undertaking a long-term strategy that would see it operate beyond personal computer industry. Further, Steve Jobs claimed that he was waiting for the next big thing that was going to revolutionize the computer industry forever. Steve Jobs’ ability to envision future technological needs saw him introduce game changing innovations such as the iPod and iPhone. Therefore, Jobs in the industry where seizing opportunities would dictate the difference between market leaders and those that only relies on consuming available technologies because of his adept ability to recognize and initiate new trends (Wooten 2010, p.6). Leadership in organizations aligns different attributes that employees come with into an organizational culture. The organizational leadership creates an organizational culture that will ensure the organization taps from the rich talents those employees’ possess. Marquis and Huston (2009, p.279) state mentorship, empowerment, consistency, and trust as the components of organizational culture that the leadership influences. To be able to influence organizational culture, mangers assess their unit’s culture and base their decisions on management strategies that encourage employees to share their experiences for the progressive future of the organization. Therefore, cultural transformations for any organization rely on management strategies coupled with decisive leadership that offers direction. This can be seen in Apple’s culture, where Steve Jobs successfully inculcated the pursuit of excellence as the organizational philosophy. Through Steve Jobs’ influence, workers have been encouraged to adopt a culture where they treat their work as a calling that is valuable and to pursue excellence in their obligations. As a result, Jobs and others in the Apple leadership structure had a role of creating processes that would ensure new employees are socialized into Apple’s culture after recruitment to ensure that they adapt to the needs of the organization (Fortune, 2009). Technology, right strategy, and culture are essential and contribute to achievement of organizational success. Nevertheless, in order for these essential organizational aspects to transform into actual benefit, the leadership inspires, maintain, and encourage employees to work towards making it work. Therefore, initiation of the innovation process depends on the organizational leadership structure and those who hold the leadership positions. Leaders who are not interested in innovation can hold back innovation and creativity in the organization given that the organizational leadership has the power and authority to develop and implement innovative strategies. Given the influential position held by those in leadership, those who are unable to recognize a prospect for renewal, do not wish to exploit them, or lack the ability to act in response to them can hinder innovation. On the other hand, if people whose objectives are ambitious, dynamic, and innovative while at the same time demonstrate a proactive attitude and ability to respond to change hold the leadership position can bring success to the organization (p. Agbor 2008, p.40). The ability of any organization to sustain completion of survive a crisis depends on the qualities of leadership and its innovative strategies. Organizations that have creative and innovative mangers will be stirred from any challenge since the leadership is able to come up with adaptive and new ways of doing things according to the market demands at the time and future. References Agbor, E. 2008, Creativity and innovation: The leadership dynamics, Journal of strategic leadership, 1(1), 39-45. Fortune, 2009. American’s Most Admired Company: Steve Jobs Speaks Out. CNN Money.com. [Online], Viewed at: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0803/gallery.jobsqna.fortune/ Ireland, R. D., Hoskisson, R. E., and Hitt, M. A. 2008, Understanding business strategy: Concepts and cases, Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Kalamas, D. J., and Kalamas, J. B. 2004, Developing employee capital: setting the stage for life-long learning. Massachusetts: HRD Press. Kuntze, R., and Matulich, E. 2010, Google: searching for value. Journal of Case Research in Business and Economics, 2, 1-10. Marquis, B. L., and Huston, C. J. 2009, Leadership roles and management functions in nursing: Theory and application, Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Maxey, C. 2000, Training from Heart, American Society of Training and Development, USA 2000. Sage, A. P. and Rouse, W. B. 2011, Handbook of systems engineering and management, New Jersey: Wiley and Sons Publishing Company. Wooten, L. P. 2010, "Building a Company the Steve Jobs' Way: A Positive Deviance Approach to Strategy," Effective Executive, February 2010, Pg. 10-15. Read More