Contingency Theory and Global Leadership - Essay Example

? Contingency Theory and Global Leadership Contingency Theory and Global Leadership Global Leadership is a very challenging attribute due to the diversity in the global markets. This is because the global market accommodates diverse cultures, backgrounds, legislations, strategies, and objectives. Global organizations seek success in the modern global market despite the numerous and increasing complex set of challenges. As such, global leaders experience various challenges in trying to assess the demands of a situation given a global role. While operating in a face-to-face situation, a global leader face multicultural challenges in trying g to assess the demands of a situation given a global role. Since, parties in a global market come from diverse backgrounds, global leaders have challenges in assessing the diverse demands of the parties (The Leadership Trust, 2008). Indeed, every cultural group has different demands. Moreover, the existence of boundaries between geographies and markets derives complexities in assessing the demands of parties in different geographies since there are no universal demands that apply to all geographies (The Leadership Trust, 2008). The rapid global impact of unforeseen events poses a great challenge to the global leaders since they cannot predict the occurrence and the effects of such events on the demand and thus assessing the demands of a situation given a global role. A global leader will also encounter challenges that emanate from social, economic, and political change. The global leader will also face the challenge of developing a creative approach in assessing the demand and implementing the solutions to various problems in the global market. Furthermore, lack of inspiring visions that can apply across cultural and organizational boundaries without losing meaning is also a challenge in assessing demands of a situation given a global role (The Leadership Trust, 2008). Multiple sources of external authority and ethical behaviors in relationships outside the firm pose particularly difficult challenges in a global context. Moreover, global leaders may lack the capacity to assess situational needs outside the geographic boundaries where the global leader stays. Nevertheless, there is a wide range of best practices that would effectively address these problems. Developing self-reflective leadership, effective conflict resolution, and adopting diversity in the management and assessing demand will resolve the problems associated with assessing demand in a global situation. Moreover, the practice of creating global ethics and global strategies that will be flexible to multicultural differences will be very fundamental in this case (O’Brien, 2009). The creation of a vision and strategy as well as systems that managers can manage would play a significant role in resolving the above named problems. Furthermore, the presence of a Global Leadership and Public Policy as well the focus on organization and teamwork would help in addressing the challenges related to assessing demand in a global situation. Indeed, we can adopt the leadership theories to develop an organizational design that would relate to the global challenges in this context. A practice that relates to the situational variables and establishing an organization with internal features that matches the demands of the diverse environments will help in assessing the demands in a global situation. The contingency theory asserts that there is no one best way to organize and that any way of organizing is not equally effective. The Contingency Theory asserts that a global leader must match their leadership style with the situational demands (Northouse, 2012). Ideally, the contingency theory confirms that no leadership style suits all situations and that specific variable like the dynamics of the situation, leadership style, and characteristics of the followers define the success of any leadership style. Personally, I experienced this when our marketing manager used contingency theory in a global role for problem resolution. The marketing manager worked in a face-to-face situation in addressing the global problem. Notably, our global company was facing significant marketing problems where new products took a lot of time to reach our foreign market. As a result, the marketing manager analyzed the dynamics of the situation, leadership style, and characteristics of the employees to establish a strategy that would address the marketing problems. He designed an online marketing strategy and tasked the employees to do mouth-to-mouth marketing. Nevertheless, the strategy did not address the demands of the customers who could not access the internet and thus the strategy yielded low returns. Anne Mulcahy from Xerox Company is one of the contemporary leaders who work in a global context and who may have used the Contingency Theory to reverse the downward trend of Xerox when it was facing financial crisis (Williams, 2012). She never aspired to become a CEO but took the opportunity courageously when the board of Xerox tasked her with that mandate. She used her leadership style to reduce the company’s workforce by 30% and managed to eliminate the company’s desktop portion (Williams, 2012). As a result, she restored the financial strength of the company and won numerous accolades. Based on my previous study, I will adopt specific actions to implement the contingency leadership theory into my current leadership approach. Indeed, I will seek to adopt a strategy that will address the needs of all employees locally and across the geographic boundaries. In designing this strategy, I will involve the concerns of the employees and their diversity. I will measure the effectiveness of this approach by analyzing employees’ motivation through their performance and the magnitude as well as the frequency of their complaints. I will also address all the dynamics of the situation for purposes of establishing a flexible strategy that will resolve the issues surrounding the situation in different contexts across the cultural backgrounds. To achieve this, I will carry out a detailed research on the situation and draw an analysis on how to address the situation. To establish the effectiveness of this approach, I will analyze the overall performance of the company after addressing the situation. Furthermore, I will establish a central reporting unit where I will receive and address all complaints relating to employees, customers, and suppliers. To establish the effectiveness of this approach, I will analyze customer satisfaction, employee motivation, and the number of complaints reaching the central reporting unit. References Northouse, P. G. (2012). Leadership theory and practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. The Leadership Trust. (2008). Global leadership: the challenge of the 21st Century. Retrieved from: http://www.leadership.org.uk/files/uploads/55.pdf O’Brien, R. (2009).Global Ethics: Beyond Local Leadership. Journal of International Business Ethics, 2 (1), 102-106. Williams, D. (2012). Top 10 List: The Greatest Living Business Leaders Today. 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