Situational Leader and His Characteristics - Essay Example

Running Head: STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP, MOD 2 CASE ASSIGNMENT Strategic Leadership, Mod 2 Case Assignment [The of the will appear here] [The name of the writer id will appear here] [The name of the course will appear here] [The name of the course number will appear here] Introduction SAS.com is leading business analyst vendor available over the internet. This company, co founded by Jim Goodnight and Harvard Graduates, began as an agriculture research-analyst firm but soon expanded to cover diverse functions including but not limited to consultancy services, risk management analysis, nurturing retail business opportunities etc. The business was successful to such an extent that it was included as the number one business management company by CNN Money. The company right now has more than 5000 employees within the US and contributed to 3% of the job growth within the country (CNN Money, 2012). The success behind such unprecedented growth of SAS is attributed to the CEO of the company, Jim Goodnight. Jim Goodnight has been with the company for more than 35 years and ensured that the company grew each year without having to face any layoffs. Jim Goodnight strived for an open system for the organization with a flat structure to ensure efficient working of the company. Jim Goodnight has been considered to be one of the greatest American business leaders of the 20th century by Harvard Business School in 2004 (Stamper, 2010). The paper attempts to shed light on the leadership qualities of Jim Goodnight as a situational leader. This paper will analyze how SAS is able to prosper and continuously show growth on account of having a leader such as Jim Goodnight. Lastly, the paper would discuss whether situational leadership style is bred or born. Situational Leader and his characteristics Situational Leadership style was another style of leadership developed by Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard. As the name implies, leaders falling in this category take action according to the situation. They combine elements of both autocratic and participative styles in order to achieve the desired results. This leadership style takes into account that there is no best leadership style but the best leaders are those that understand that core of the issue and take action accordingly. Thus situational leadership relies on the external environment heavily which includes not just the people within the team but also the task they have to accomplish. Hersey and Blanchard use the four quadrant model of Situational leadership to properly explain the characteristics of such leader and the action they take given the situation. The Situational leadership model as presented by Hersey and Blanchard is: This chart describes how situational leaders approach the issue given the behavior of the employees, that is how motivated they are and how much skill they possess. Thus, the four approaches are: Structuring: Leaders need to adopt this approach in the bleakest situation, that is, the morale of the employees in not just low, they also do not have the ability to deal with the situation. Here the leader has to adopt an autocratic leadership style where the leader gives a set of instructions without concerning himself with the attitude and feelings of his team. Coaching: Coaching is most appropriate in situations where the employees are motivated but they do not have the ability to deal with the issue on their own. In this case, the leader has to provide a clear set of instructions, while also being there for the employees to guide and support them throughout the project. Supporting: The situational leader is supportive in times when his team has the required skills but is not motivated to achieve the desired goal. Here the leader does not have to be very directive but rather needs to focus on building a good relationship with his employees. Delegating. Delegating is most appropriate for a leader when the employees are both motivated and have the required skills. Here the leader just needs to provide the right direction and the team members would take on from there; leaving the leader to only monitor the situation appropriately (Fiore, 2004). Jim Goodnight as a Situational Leader Jim Goodnight has been successful to such an extent because he is a situational leader. This is evident from the fact that Goodnight stresses on the importance of education but at the same time has adopted an organizational culture where he listens to the inputs of all his employees so as to involve them in the decision making process. Jim Goodnight, as a CEO of SAS, has performed all kinds of roles taking in account the situation. As a situational leader, Jim Goodnight has developed an organizational culture that is supportive. He refuses to introduce SAS as a publically listed company. The reason that Goodnight gives for this is that he does not want investors to take hold of the company and lay off his employees who are his family (Staner, 2010). He goes on to show support for his ‘family’ at SAS by never laying off a single individual in the history of the firm. He provides training to them and motivates them as and when needed. Jim Goodnight has been successful also because he has been able to understand the need of the time. He realizes that the recent recession means change in organization. Jim Goodnight figured that with the recession, organizations were facing shortage of capital and they needed to cut back on their operations to make revenues. Thus he introduced analytic software in order to save millions of organizational money by detecting fraud. In this manner, Jim Goodnight realized that the recession was a different situation and required a different solution. Jim Goodnight, along with spotlighted and fixing the changing needs of organization due to recession, also realized the implications of outsourcing of jobs to emerging economies. He realized that when organization outsourced their technology to other countries, they were not just putting existing scientists and engineers out of job but also sending the wrong message to aspiring scientists and engineers. Thus, he invested in a philanthropic venture where he provided scholarships to students in universities and for college and schools he gave away free laptops. Jim Goodnight’s Importance as Situational Leader Jim Goodnight has been an exception leader by realizing the changing business environment. While other organizations were trying hard to cope with the recession, Goodnight went one step ahead and found a way to profit not just SAS but other organizations linked with the company. He began as a agriculture research analyst company but expanded to other services with the need of time and as the company acquired new people. Jim Goodnight has been a great leader for not just SAS but also for the rest of the country. His focus was not limited to his own company to extended to reach aspiring scientists and engineers and the entire state of United States. With leaders like Goodnight, US still has great leverage over other country. Situational Leaders- Born or Bred In my opinion, situational leaders are mostly born with the talent. I hold this stance from reviewing the history of situational leaders. Leaders such as Gandhi, Lincoln, and Mandela were not students of business. They had no idea that situational leaders were required to do; yet they were able to realize the need of the time and work accordingly. But with the passage of time, as research on such leaders was conducted, we realize exceptional leaders are situational leaders. This allows us to learn from the example of such leaders and mould ourselves to become situational leaders. In one is able to learn from such leaders then one can adopt the style of situational leaders. For this, one has to continuously monitor and improve upon one’s ability. However, we cannot discount the fact that certain leaders are born with such leadership qualities and they rise above others just on their talent. Such leaders are perhaps the best of leaders. Conclusion Jim Goodnight is a name to be reckoned with. While he may not be a big name as compared to Steve Jobs or Bill Gates but he is a person with integrity and honesty. He introduced policies for the company that took the company to great heights. This was mainly because Goodnight had a good understanding of the environment including the people working with him in the organization. References CNNMoney (2012). 100 best companies to work for. Cable News Network: A Time Warner Company, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2011/full_list/index.html Accessed: 19 January 2013. Eisenstadt, S. and Wellington, E. (1996, July) Citizen Goodnight: SAS president exercises influence that is welcomed and resented, Raleigh News and Observer, Retrieved from http://www.biostat.wustl.edu/~phil/stuff/bigjim.html [Accessed: 19 January 2013] Fiore, D. (2004) Introduction to Educational Administration: Standards, Theories, and Practice, New York: Eye on Education Stamper, J. (2010) SAS: It’s a family affair, Retrieved from http://bi.cbronline.com/features/sas-its-a-family-affair-241110 [Accessed: 19 January 2013] Read More