Leadership and Organizational Culture - Essay Example

Leadership issues in the case: In this case, the main problem faced by the employees is the different leadership styles adopted by different Chief Executives in the organization in the health department of NHS Acute Trust. The employees are the persons who realize the changes that are taking place within the organization and they are the only people who are capable to measure the effectiveness of superiors in managing the overall performance in their organization. The case deals with three different CEO’s and their way of managing the resources within the organization. In this case, it is found that there is a significant improvement in the present CEO’s performance. It depends upon the leadership style of the executives and the importance given by them towards each resource within an organization. In this case, there are totally four CEO’s whose leadership style is different. The leadership style of an individual highly depends upon the individual behaviour of the person and set of attitude and beliefs molded in his mind. Some believe firmly that autocratic leadership style will bring out more productivity. Some believe that participative leadership is best and some others feel that free reign is best. The behaviour and the set of attitude possessed by the person is what make the person implement such leadership strategy within the organization. Leadership is the capability of a person to manipulate others and make others to tag on the way escorted by the leader. Leading can be done in many ways depending upon the individual parameters. Leadership issues are mostly found in organizations and it is highly oriented towards the top level management within the organization. The overall effectiveness of the organization is depended upon the capability of the leader to manage the resources effectively and efficiently to achieve the organizational goals and objectives with an increase in the overall productivity. It is not only the responsibility of the leader to clearly identify and define the goals and objectives of the business, but also involves designing and framing useful methods by which those goals and objectives can be accomplished. Theoretical literature for various leadership styles: “In organizations, leadership is about influencing employees to buy into the vision of the leader, motivating them to deploy all resources available at their disposal to achieve objectives set by the leader” (Define leadership – Practical leadership definition: What does leadership really mean? 2009). In many literature reviews, it has been said that a leader always requires some followers. This is because a leader will not be able to do the task alone. The definition that has been depicted above reflects that probabilities are there for the leader to win and to lose. Effective leaders are those who usually implement the principles of management to influence the human behaviour within the organization. To become an effective leader, the person must possess a good knowledge in certain areas such as organizational development, leadership development and leadership management, business ethics, management of skills, organizational culture, conflict resolution, conflict management and the areas where the motivation theories and practices can be implemented. Leadership styles refer to the various ways through which the issues in an organization are resolved. In the year 1939 Kurt Levin, along with a group of researchers has established three important leadership styles. “The three major styles of leadership are (U.S. Army Handbook, 1973): Authoritarian or autocratic Participative or democratic Delegative or Free Reign” (Clark 2008). An effective leader will adopt all the leadership styles and find out the best way through which the goals and objectives of the organizations are accomplished. The autocratic leadership style is used by the leader who is dominant in nature and likes to dominate his subordinates. The subordinates are directed to do the work without asking their interest to the particular work. Here, there is a boss-subordinate relationship among the leaders and the followers. The leader will implement and the subordinate has to strictly follow it. It is termed as “bossing people around” (Clark 2008). The second leadership style is the participative or democratic leadership style. In this, the decisions will be taken only after considering the subordinates’ opinion. This type of leadership is favoured by all types of employees within the organization and this will increase the overall productivity of the employees in an effective and efficient way. This leadership style will enable the leader to gain higher degree of commitment from the employees by increasing their motivation level through participative decision making process. “Using this style is not a sign of weakness; rather it is a sign of strength that your employees will respect” (Clark 2008). This creates a harmonious organizational culture within the organization where it facilitates the accomplishment of both individual and organizational goals. The last leadership style is delegative or free reign or laissez faire. This type of leadership is very much effective for the organization in bringing out high productivity among he employees by involving them in all the aspects of the organization including decision making. The leader is still responsible for the decisions that are taken by the subordinates. This leadership style is implemented when the superior is aware that the employees are well aware of the situations prevailing within the organization and they have the capability to take strong and positive decisions. Leadership styles of the various Chief Executives: In this case, the leadership style adopted by all the executives is entirely different from each other. The first executive who joined the organization followed an autocratic style where he imposed his subordinates to follow his instructions and he was least bothered about the human resources in the organization and was concentrating more on the financial aspects of the concern. The employees noticed that the quality aspect of the organizational services was increasing due to sound financial resources available in the organization. The second executive who came after six months was also following the same leadership style that was followed by the former Chief Executive. This executive left the health department stating that non-executive had refused to substantial rise in their pay. After him, two of the board members who were selected by the new regime were in charge. Still there was communication and moral problem within the organization. All these three were following the first leadership style which is termed as autocratic leadership style. These three executives were not involving their subordinates in the decision making process, and thus, it created a lot of communication and moral problems within the organization. The last female chief executive was entirely different from the others. She implemented a participative leadership style, where she involved some subordinates in the decision making process and suggestions from the employees were also taken. She was not only oriented towards increasing profit for the organization, but was also oriented towards developing and implementing a powerful organizational culture within the enterprise. The whole working system within the organization was changed. She identified that cost and quality are closely tied together. So, for increasing quality of services, first the quality of the employees must be increased and this will lead to reduction in the overall expenses in the organization. In this situation also, the employees felt that they were loaded with more work and they knew the new CEO well before. Empirical literature on organizational culture that has to be created: “Culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artifacts) of organization members and their behaviours” (McNamara 2000). The culture in an organization is an imperative thing that has to be well thought-out to boost productivity within the organization. The culture is what that the society observes about the organization. This includes the entire facet that is offered in the organization, such as the physical arrangements, quality of services rendered by the employees and their behaviour. It is the responsibility of the leader to crate a productive organizational culture. It is said that the individual assumptions of the leader with that of the shared assumptions define the organizational culture. When these experiences are shared and are able to solve the various issues in the organization, then there arises a set of culture which is particular for the organization. “Culture is created by shared experience, but it is the leader who initiates this process by imposing his or her belief, values, and assumptions at the outset” (Schein 2004, P.225). The process of culture formation involves certain steps such as: The group members should have a clear idea about the new enterprise and among the group; one or more are considered to be the leaders or founders. This founder brings more other people and makes a central group. Common goal and vision is made by the group and this must be followed by the entire team members within the group. All the goals and objectives are shared among the members. The founding group performs all activities such as funding, obtaining patents, incorporating, locating the work space etc. The group which has a shared learning experience grows and survives and these set of beliefs and attitudes form the culture within the organization. The extent to which it is possible for the CEO to change the culture The CEO is the person who is having an exceptional capability to make his followers do what he wants them to do. It is the talent called charisma, which influences others and get the works done through others. The CEO is the top level authority in an organization and whatever decision he/she takes must be strictly followed by all the members in the organization. He is the only person who is responsible to change the culture within the organization. He can implement changes in the organization based on his own assumptions or he can implement by taking suggestions from the workforce or subordinates. Theories of leadership and culture: This segment of the paper deals with various literature theories that have been found out by the various authors. This section will explain different factors one needs to follow in the leadership styles and thoughts. Apart from this, this section provides an explanation regarding the various cultures the organization follows. Saying about the culture, it is very important that one should understand clearly about the culture of the organization. Otherwise, it is not possible to work in that organization. If a person is the leader, then it is prerequisite that he/she should specifically understand the organization culture very clearly in order to be a good leader.  In a book named ‘culture, leadership, and organization: the GLOBE study of 62 societies’ written by Robert J. House, it is clearly mentioned that leadership and culture of the organization are always interrelated. In other words, this leadership can be good in some culture, at the same time it can be bad in other culture. Thus, both leadership and culture are always interrelated. Author suggest about “six culturally implicit theories of leadership: Charismatic/Valued-based, Team-Oriented, Participative, Autonomous, Humane, and Self-Protective leadership” (House 2004, p.xvii). In most of the cultures, leadership is considered to be most desirable. There are different leadership styles and in author’s view all of these are very important and universally acceptable. One of the major focuses of the author in this book is for classification of the leadership styles according to different types of culture. Here, aim is to analyze different attributes in order to provide outstanding leadership. Charismatic/Value-based leadership: This kind of leadership is mostly desirable everywhere. The person who has got this kind of leadership is very inspirational and very visionary in doing various tasks. Apart from this, this type of leader is self-sacrificing and always performance oriented. Team oriented: This kind of leaders is always mutual and team integrator or they are always diplomatic. It is not necessary that these types of team oriented leaders are always desirable in all types of cultures. Participative: This kind of leaders is not despotic. They are always found to be very desirable, but in some types of cultures they are not so desirable. Autonomous and humane: This type of leaders is neither desirable nor undesirable in most of the cultures. They are always found to be self-effacing and very concerned. Self protective: This type of leaders is always found to be very undesirable in most of the cultures. They are always very self centred and are very much concerned about their status. The author also mentions that types of leaderships vary with different types of regions. In Anglo cluster countries, it seems that Charismatic/Value-based leaderships are found to be very high, and at the same time in countries of Middle East it is found to be very low. Similarly, team oriented leaderships are found to be very high in Latin American countries, whereas in Middle East it is very low. Humane leadership is found to be very high in South Asia and low in European countries. At the same time in eastern European countries leadership styles followed is autonomous leadership and it is very high in European countries, but in North America it is found to be very low. Self-Protective style of leadership is found to be very high in South Asian countries while in Middle East and Nordica Europe Self-Protective leadership style is found to be very low. Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana in their book named ‘Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice’ analyzed leadership and organizational culture in different angle. Authors of this book defined the term leadership in following ways as “Leadership is an interaction between two or more members of a group that often involves structuring or restructuring of the situation and the perception and expectations of the members” (Khurana & Nohira 2010, p.121).Another important possession mentioned by authors in their book is leader must be a person who can make change in others rather than other people making the change in the leader. A good leader must always give motivation to members present under him. In order to analyze the leadership very nicely, it is prerequisite that analysis must take place from micro-level to macro-level. This includes the different types of attributions of leadership, analyzing the outcomes made by the leader for the organization and all. Authors described leadership by using one of the proverbial called black box. Authors described black box as a “bundle of processes and mechanism that function in a multiplicity of ways with both intended and unintended results” (Khurana & Nohira 2010, p.120). Authors described leadership process in another way as a person who can influence other people’s opinion, behaviours and sometimes the feelings of others. Authors suggest a good leader can make difference in others. A good leadership is a “process that occurs within the minds of individuals who live in a culture-that entails capacities to create stories, to understand and evaluate these stories, and to appreciate the struggle among stories” (Khurana & Nohira 2010, p.121).Author described some chronological model to describe the leaders from rest of the people. These contingency models include leadership traits to behavioural styles. Leadership traits: Authors’ analysis on leadership research concludes that leaders are different from rest of the people in different ways or for different reasons. Leaders must always be unique and have some extraordinary personality. Apart from this, leaders should have very good ability in doing all sorts of issues in very best manner. Also, they should have some extra skills. Also, leaders always have strong self confidence, stress handling capabilities and high energy. Their social skills and speaking are far better than those of ordinary people. Behavioural theories of leadership: “Like traits, behavioural styles are theorized to be stable properties of the individual leader and thus invariant to the particular organizational context or work station” (Khurana & Nohira 2010, p.123).Authors mention that task orientation and people orientation are two key concepts that good leaders always keep in mind. Task orientation always helps achieve the goals or objectives of the organization. This include following the rules and structure of the organization without making any change in that. At the same time, people orientation helps in creating or maintaining very good interpersonal relationship. Authors mention that the theory of leadership will not be constant always and this changes in accordance with the organizational culture. In a magazine named ‘Corporate strategy, leadership and organizational studies’ two authors, namely George S. Day and Paul J.H. Shoemaker wrote an article on ‘Are you a vigilant leader’. Authors mention that leaders must be vigilant in order to help the companies in most critical situation. “More than ever, CEOs must develop their peripheral vision, scanning for paint-- but vital--signals that will help them give their companies an edge” (Day & Schoemaker 2008). Authors say that having the vigilant leadership skill will always help the companies when it lacks proper leadership. The important role of the vigilant leadership must be to spot the troubles and problems from very far itself and help the company from crises. The company always aims to have such leaders in order to ensure everything is going all right. Having such leadership is more valuable in an organization. So, analyzing is very important for such leaders and there is no meaning in saying “missed the boat” or any other words such that. (Day & Schoemaker 2008). In the magazine ‘Corporate strategy, decision making, strategy’ there is an article named ‘How to make sense of weak signals’ prepared by Paul J.H. Schoemaker and George S. Day. It mentions that very good leader must always sense the weak signals. Authors say that “there’s no sense in denying it: interpreting weak signals into useful decision making takes time and focus.” (Schoemaker & Day 2009). Authors also mention that many leaders miss the signs of weak signals just because of lack of concentration. For a leader to be best, he/she must have long vision ahead in order to avoid the different problems that are coming towards the organization. Vision should be well incorporated with the culture of the company. In order for the new CEO to be effective in her work, and be able to introduce needed changes within the organization with least resistance, it is important that she enlist the members and staff to her way of thinking and make them feel that the changes are important for the company’s future prospects in fiercely competitive markets. Besides, for certain sections of self-centred people, it is also important that these changes could further their self interests, and thus seek and endorse their co-operation too. The main areas that the new CEO needs to focus is on understanding and solving long standing management issues in terms of the following: 1. How to resolve issues of overwork complaints by members of staff 2. How to avoid rendering too many changes within the organization thus creating chaos. 3. The CEO and staff members need to have excellent working relationship and for this reason they need to know each other well in order to work out and enforce mutual trust and understanding, which are integral aspects of modern day business 4. Despite the major changes at the top with the induction of new CEO, the attitude and working style of immediate supervisors have, by and large remained unchanged and has thus not caused any major changes in employee output or overall performance. It is now proposed to consider each of these aspects individually in order to arrive at an amicable solution for these problems. Overwork: Complaints of overwork are indeed a major issue that needs to be tackled head on by the new CEO. It not only impacts employees’ physical and mental health but could also reduce life spans and cut years from productive lives. Besides, it could endanger their mental and physiological health, too. From a purely corporate point of view, overwork means that some people have a longer and heavier job description and content than others, which may arise due to non effective planning and execution of jobs by the employees themselves, for which they are to blame, since they are not tackling the job the way it ought to be tackled. Another reason for overwork to occur could be that job allocation and distribution could be skewed and inequitable. Under the latter circumstances, it is necessary that the CEO is informed about the kind of work that each staff member is supposed to be doing, and what exactly they are doing. Thus any deficit or excess workings need to be smoothened out and she could also adopt ways and means by which equitable and smooth work flow takes place. “All employees shall have the right to a satisfactory work environment, free from unnecessary workplace stress. The employer will take steps to ensure that there is no unreasonable workload imposed on an employee” (Health and safety and workload: An onslaught of overwork is breaking CUPE backs 2001). Effecting too many changes: Organizational culture and implementation of leadership involves rendering of effective and well meaning changes for organizational growth and development. Status quo seldom occurs in business- either business retards or it progresses. “For even essential or self-evident alterations in the status quo, reactions will range all the way from the most supportive to the most irrationally destructive. One must meet various responses with suitable accommodation strategies if an innovation is going to succeed” (Brewer 2002). However the dangers of ill planned or unorganized changes are enormous and far reaching. If enforced arbitrary, changes could erode corporate values and destroy the organizational framework beyond repair. Good working relationship between employers and workforce: It is important that CEO and workforce, through hierarchical levels, need to understand each other thoroughly and their efforts need to underpin each other. In this case study, it is seen that the CEO has distanced herself from the workforce who could be disastrous in the long run, since people, by nature, distrust that they do not know, or understand. Besides, having worked with many CEO’s, without much benefit would definitely not work to the new CEO’s advantage. The CEO must understand how “change influence performance, and how the local organization can best participate in and contribute to the flow of people, experience and skills across the enterprise” (Dychtwald, Erickson & Morison 2006). Thus, it is necessary that the CEO and working employees share a transparent and sustainable relation, avoiding personal pitfalls and all work in harmony towards common good of business. Attitude and working styles of immediate supervisors remained unchanged: The main reason for this could be that the good influences of the new CEO’s induction has not percolated down to the lower echelons and also that constructive changes through her new innovative and refreshingly different approaches have apparently not gained authority. At this juncture, it is important that the new CEO has informal discussions with the managers and through them to the work force on ways and means by which this could be worked out amicably. Again, it is also necessary in the best interests of the business, training sessions and joint workshops are conducted so that work performance could be enhanced and upgraded. “A manager must be able to provide employee training, help employees enhance their careers, and mentor them to become the best they can be” (Love 2010). Besides, through joint meetings with managers, the CEO needs to instil in them the need to enforce and execute the good practices that she is suggesting and also take staff into confidence while implementing. As the Chief Executive Officer, she owes a moral duty to ensure that staff is aware of the changes that take place and how it would affect their work performance and future career prospects. The attitudes of the supervisory officers need to be changed in alignment with the new directives of the CEO and this has to percolate down to the lower levels in terms of attitudinal and behavioural changes from top to bottom, in order to ensure success, stability, sustenance and support. It is also necessary that the CEO be in a position to address fundamental issues of the business, critical issues, like in this case the employee dissatisfaction, low morale and lack of strong motivation to accept change. Reference List Brewer, G.D., 2002. On the theory and practice of innovation. [Online] ScienceDirect. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V80-466FH20-6&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1980&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1190288886&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=9051e85a53923da72cc8b6550876267a [Accessed 2 February 2010].  Clark, D., 2008. Leadership styles. [Online] Big Dog & Little Dog’s Performance Juxtaposition. Available at: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadstl.html [Accessed 2 February 2010].  Day, G.S. & Schoemaker, H.J.P., 2008. Are you a ‘vigilant leader’? [Online] MIT Sloan Management Review. Available at: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/articles/2008/spring/49312/are-you-a-vigilant-leader/ [Accessed 2 February 2010].  Define leadership – Practical leadership definition: What does leadership really mean? 2009. [Online] radical-leadership-management.com. Available at: http://www.radical-leadership-management.com/define-leadership.html [Accessed 2 February 2010].  Dychtwald, K., Erickson, T.J. & Morison, R., 2006. ‘Why CEOs and HR executives need a new workforce strategy’. Aging Today, [Internet] November-December. Available at: http://www.asaging.org/publications/dbase/AT/AT-276-Dychtwald.pdf [Accessed 2 February 2010].  Health and safety and workload: An onslaught of overwork is breaking CUPE backs, 2001. [Online] CUPE. Available at: http://cupe.ca/workload/Health_and_safety_an [Accessed 2 February 2010].  House, J.R., 2004. Culture, leadership and organization: The GLOBE study of 62 societies. [Online] SAGE. Available at: http://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_KsXEJQg9pkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR15&dq=literature+review+regarding+theories+of+leadership&ots=ClkdEt_kgB&sig=WjC8LhdQQj8QxxcXLRUd1UbR-Bs#v=onepage&q=literature%20review%20regarding%20theories%20of%20leadership&f=false [Accessed 2 February 2010]. Khurana, R. & Nohira, N., 2010. Handbook of leadership theory and practice. [Online] Harvard Business Press. Available at: http://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Mny2GIpFU8UC&oi=fnd&pg=PA119&dq=literature+review+regarding+theories+of+leadership&ots=kRmDyQLPMY&sig=5n6V3C-DSWWuSvI_CSfMyrIiFMQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false [Accessed 2 February 2010].  Love, J., 2010. How to enhance employee commitment and improve productivity. [Online] Ezine Articles. Available at: http://ezinearticles.com/?How-To-Enhance-Employee-Commitment-and-Improve-Productivity&id=110984 [Accessed 2 February 2010].  McNamara, C., 2000. Organizational culture. [Online] Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Available at: http://managementhelp.org/org_thry/culture/culture.htm [Accessed 2 February 2010].  Schein, E.H., 2004. Organizational culture and leadership. [Online] John Wiley and Sons, p.225. Available at: http://books.google.co.in/books?id=xhmezDokfnYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=organizational+culture&ei=LvxnS4CBHJXKMveMgZMO&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false [Accessed 2 February 2010].  Schoemaker, P.J.H., & Day, G.S., 2009. How to make sense of weak signals. [Online] MIT Sloan Management Review. Available at: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/articles/2009/spring/50317/how-to-make-sense-of-weak-signals/ [Accessed 2 February 2010].    Read More