Leadership Is an Art - Assignment Example

Leadership "The view that leader is entirely situational in origin and that no personal characteristics are predictive of leadership seems to overemphasise the situational and underemphasise the personal, nature of leadership Stogdill (1974).” Would you agree with this view? Does it remain valid after 32 years of additional research? Introduction Leadership in business has many definitions and there seems to be no real consensus on exactly what comprises leadership. However, the general directions given by analysts like Welch (2005), Byrne (1998) and Gardner (1995) have several common points with the definition given by House (2004) who states that leadership is, “The ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members (House, 2004, Pg. 15)”. With the given definition and the operational paradigm given in the question, we can look at the leadership of examples of Jack Welch for GE and Steve Jobs for Apple computers to judge the validity of the statement given in the question. Being the bigger and older company, it is only proper to look at the leadership techniques used at GE which show that both situational and personal characteristics are important in the real world. Welch and GE Jack Welch comes across clearly in terms of his leadership ideal when he gives the eight rules of leadership in his book titled Winning. These rules can be studied in the light of leadership theories and a final analysis can be made as to which are the exact ideals of leadership that are recommended by Jack Welch. The eight rules as suggested by Welch (2005) are: 1. Leaders should continually upgrade their team by using opportunities to coach, mentor, judge and improve the abilities of the team. 2. Leaders pass on the vision of the company to the employees and show the employees that they embody the vision. 3. Leaders give out positive energy and are optimistic. 4. Leaders create trust and are transparent with the employees. 5. They have the courage to make the employees unhappy with decisions which can be considered unpopular. 6. Leaders are curious about answers and want action from the employees. 7. They inspire people to take risks and set examples for learning from mistakes which may be made by them. 8. They celebrate when they win. With these rules in mind, two theories of leadership can be applied to the style used by Welch and these are the trait theories set and the situational theories of leadership. Gardner (1995) presents us with several ideas which leaders can use to change their leadership styles or how they can balance the styles depending on the situation. The idea of leadership traits can come with several stereotypes or ideas that some people are born leaders, but leadership skills can also be taught to people although the right personality always helps (Welch, 2005). For example, when we consider the third rule given by Welch which states that leaders must give out and infect others with positive energy and optimistic views about situations. That is a key pointer towards the fact that Jack Welch considers the majority of leadership skills to come from the trait theory than any other applicable theory. Undoubtedly, optimism is a personality trait and being able to create optimism or any other emphatic feeling in others requires a leader to have charisma (DePree, 1989). Charisma is accepted by DePree (1998) to be a rare quality which is attributed to those leaders who create devoted followers. Devoted followers and employees who become your personal friends as well as have complete faith in your vision are simply essential. These employees can certainly be created with an informal style of management as applied in GE. As explained by Byrne (1998): “Making the company informal means violating the chain of command, communicating across layers, paying people as if they worked not for a big company but for a demanding entrepreneur where nearly everyone knows the boss. It has as much to do with Welchs charisma as it has to do with the less visible rhythms of the company--its meetings and review sessions--and how he uses them to great advantage.” (Byrne, Pg. 1, 1998) This creation of trust and making the employees believe in the leadership of the leader is also a trait since it requires the leader to possess the ability to convince them without coercion that his/her viewpoint is the correct one. The idea of being transparent means being honest with the employees about everything; going from their quarterly evaluations to the company’s annual financial reports, the leader has to create trust (Welch, 2005). It also requires the leader to be good with oral and written communications, be diplomatic and tactful as well as present his/her case to a group of peers or close subordinates when they do not agree with the decision or are hesitant at making tough calls (Gardner, 1995). Both Gardner (1995) and DePree (1989) agree with Welch when he writes as rule number nine that the leader should set an example for the employees to follow. It is not as simple as monkey see monkey do but rather a very complex yet close relationship between a leader and the follower where the followers try to create the same traits within themselves as the leader has within him/her. If the leader can take risks, accept that he may be wrong before taking the risk and then if the risk turns out to be a mistake, accepts the mistake, it means that s/he is a very good leader indeed (Welch, 2005). This shows both vision and character which is the stuff real leaders are made out of. Some of the greatest political leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. had this ability to share their vision with thousands of people and make them see things differently (Gardner, 1995). The leader becomes not only responsible for the finances of the company but also for its vision, mission and ethics (DePree, 1989). Jack Welch applied the same rules at GE when he had meetings with nearly all the middle and senior level managers of the company in an informal setting to share his vision and get feedback from them about the running and conditions of the company (Byrne, 1998). The examples given above clearly show that situational conditions and personal characteristics are both important and this statement can also be shown to be true looking at Apple computers and the company’s famous CEO. Jobs and Apple Apple Computers is generally taken to be an American company that prides itself on creating innovative products for the consumer electronics and technology sectors (PC Magazine, 2006). In 2005, it posted global sales of nearly 14 Billion dollars and had more than fourteen thousand people working for it around the world. The company is based out of Cupertino in California where the main offices of the company are situated. The central products of the company are personal computers, portable media devices, software and associated hardware. However, no mention of Apple can be complete without discussing the cult of personality which revolves around its founder and current CEO, Steve Jobs. Jobs has had a tumultuous relationship with the company he founded since he was removed from service and called back by the board after many years of absence (Beckman & Hirsch, 2001). Writing for The Guardian, Smith says that: “To technology freaks and geeks, he is a demigod, whose product launches are adulatory affairs regularly likened to religious revivalist meetings. His humble birth, rise and fall, then miraculous comeback has even been likened by Apple fanatics to the heroic myths of Odysseus, Jason, Krishna and Christ (Smith, 2006, Pg. 1).” Therefore it is difficult to separate the man from the company since Jobs’ leadership the driving force behind the innovations and technologies created by Apple (Smith, 2006). This is why anti-organisational behaviour is so valid for giving a name to the leadership style at Apple since the personality of Steve Jobs appears to reflect the radical humanist perspective of management (Burrell, 1979). At the same time, his ways of governing the company through enforced leadership techniques look terrifying (Hertzfeld, 1982). The analysis of the company’s leadership can be done very simply if we look at how the company is controlled by the power wielded by Steve Jobs. A part of leadership and management is making sure that only the right people continue to work for the company while others are gently removed from service. However, Steve Jobs’ handling of termination for employees is absolute and unquestioned since he is famous for his summary ‘executions’ where he has been known to fire people working for the company in the time it takes to go from one floor of the building to another in an elevator. His presence on the company campus is affectionately known as the reign of terror in which anything can happen anywhere at anytime (Deutschman, 2000). Normally, an organisation takes a lot of time and places a lot of thought into both hiring and firing individuals since there are legal checks which need to be made and decisions like removing people from service can have far reaching effects on the overall company. Such rules do not seem to apply at Apple since Steve Jobs’ leadership has been discussed by Deutschman (2000) who says: “He had total disregard for the hierarchical chain of command. He would remember what several hundred people did and call on whomever he needed, always bypassing their managers. It was as though everyone in the company reported directly to Steve himself (Deutschman, 2000, Pg. 1).” This leadership style is a perfect fit for Apple’s culture which does not really pay heed to established rules since it directly tackles the issue of social constraints and limits to human potential that can be created due to distant leadership and hierarchical systems of management. Bypassing managers and breaking the chain of command might have irked people in middle and senior management teams but the end results and the profits declared by Apple under such leadership speak for themselves (Forbes, 2006). The central goal of all leaders is to make sure that the human potential of all employees is fully utilised. A story given by Hertzfeld (1984) discusses how the human potential of the team was unleashed by Steve Jobs’ stubborn refusal to give up even when the situation seemed drastic. In 1983, the Macintosh system was about to be launched and the people working on the project were going at it round the clock even forgoing their Christmas break. Despite their hard work there were quite a few problems with the software which needed fixing before the computer could be launched (Hertzfeld, 1984). However the launch date was approaching and it seemed useless to continue working on problems for which there simply was not enough time. The team estimated that they needed a few weeks more to correct the issues and needed to inform Steve Jobs of the delay. After Steve had been told of all the problems connected with the launch he responded by saying: “No way! Theres no way we’re slipping! You guys have been working on this stuff for months now, another couple weeks isnt going to make that much of a difference. You may as well get it over with. Just make it as good as you can. You better get back to work! (Hertzfeld, 1984, Pg. 1).” By working harder and not sleeping for three days before the launch, the programmers eventually managed to launch the computer half an hour before the deadline. They stayed awake on coffee and chocolate covered espresso beans and after the launch they could only sit on sofas in the lobby to stare at each other in disbelief. Hertzfeld recalls, “We must have been quite a sight; everybody could tell that we had been there all night (actually, I hadnt been home or showered for three days). I finally drove home around 9am and collapsed on my bed, thinking that Id sleep for the next day or two (Hertzfeld, 1984, Pg. 1)”. Of course this can be called bad leadership but Jobs was able to get the result he wanted for his company. While the company was being run by previous CEOs like Scully, it had developed a relaxed atmosphere which was good for morale but it was hurting production and output. Deutschman (2000) describes the conditions before Steve’s return to the company and says: “Before Steves takeover, the campus had a leisurely atmosphere. Staffers loved to hang around smoking and chatting in the courtyard of the R&D complex, which always had ashtrays stocked at the outside and inside doors of all six of its buildings. Some employees seemed to spend most of their time throwing Frisbees to their dogs on the lawns (Deutschman, 2000, Pg. 3).” Steve changed that for the better with new rules that prohibited smoking anywhere on Apple property. Dogs were banned from the campus and it seemed as if, “Steve were pushing his own lifestyle on 10,000 others (Deutschman, 2000, Pg. 3).” These steps made quite a few employees unhappy since smoking in the courtyard allowed individuals of different departments to interact with each other and people who worked nights and weekends for Apple had hardly any time left to be with their pets (Deutschman, 2000). Given sudden change in HRM styles, it would seem that Jobs’ decisions were wrong and could lead to disaster because such changes can affect individuals very negatively. Strangely enough, these steps appeared to work at Apple and the company began turning itself around. The record breaking profits, the sale figures and the brand value appreciation as Steve Jobs returned to Apple all show that his leadership style and organizational structuring have worked wonders (Deutschman, 2000). From behaving like members of a civil service that did what it wanted without paying attention to short lived CEOs at the top, the company became proactive and employees began to interact with the boss at the top on a deeper level as discussed by Deutschman (2000) who says: “People started to realize that Steve could assert his authority over seemingly any aspect of the companys life. Apple was going to follow the vision of a single person, from the no-smoking rules to the editing of the TV advertisements. Steve was clearly in charge, and Steve was seemingly everywhere (Deutschman, 2000, Pg. 3)”. Clearly, going against the established culture with effective leadership skills was certainly possible in this case. Primarily because there was a leader in charge who others in the company could trust completely and who could get away with things like using foul language in board meetings as well as firing people on the spot. Playing on the edge of ethics and legality may be seen as something most leaders would like to avoid, but Steve Jobs seems to relish this location as his personality and his actions fit perfectly with the requirements of the company. If results are what matters most, then Steve Jobs and Apple both have certainly shown the results required of them. In conclusion, I am convinced that with the examples of business and technology leaders such as Jack Welch and Steve Jobs, the essence of leadership is both situation and personal. Leadership qualities and good leadership can only come out in the right situation with the right decision but the individual personality which makes the decision will certainly have an effect on it. Works Cited Beckman, D. and Hirsch, D. 2001, ‘Mac Is Back in Town’, ABA Journal, vol. 87, no. 8, pp. 70-72. Burrell, G. 1979, Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis, Heinemann Educational Books. Byrne, J. 1998. ‘How Jack Welch Runs GE: A Close-up Look at How Americas #1 Manager Runs GE’, BusinessWeek.com, [Online] Available at: http://www.businessweek.com/1998/23/b3581001.htm DePree, M. (1989). Leadership Is an Art. New York: Doubleday. Deutschman, A. 2000, ‘The once and future Steve Jobs’, Salon.com, [Online] Available at: http://archive.salon.com/tech/books/2000/10/11/jobs_excerpt/index.html Forbes. 2006, ‘Steven Jobs’ Forbes.com, [Online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/HEDB.html Gardner, H. (1995). Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership. Basic. Hertzfeld, A. 1982, ‘Gobble, Gobble, Gobble’, folklore.org, [Online] Available at: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Gobble_Gobble_Gobble.txt&topic=Management&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium Hertzfeld, A. 1984, ‘Real Artists Ship’, folklore.org, [Online] Available at: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Real_Artists_Ship.txt&topic=Management&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium House, R. (2004). Culture, Leadership, and Organizations. SAGE Publications. PC Magazine. 2006, ‘Low-Cost Apple laptop is very enticing’, PC Magazine, vol. 25, no. 13, pp. 31-32. Smith, D. 2006, ‘The non-stop revolutionary’, The Guardian, [Online] Available at: http://technology.guardian.co.uk/opinion/story/0,,1697348,00.html Welch, J. (2005). Winning. HarperCollins. Read More