Importance of Strategic Leadership - Assignment Example

 Globalization, internationalization, and deregulation, economic downturns and technological advancements, a growing knowledge workforce and a shift in the demographics – have forced organizations to prepare leaders to manage organizational change (Graetz, 2000). The concept of leadership has undergone a change and today it has become important to be able to recognize the need of the situation. The same manager may have to adapt different leadership qualities at different times within an organization. Hence even though certain inherent characteristics have to be present in a leader, many activities may have to be altered as the situation demands. One of the major attributes that a leader must have is the quality of listening. Listening however, has been grossly undermined in the said article - Managers doing leadership: The extra-ordinarization of the mundane. In the article Managers doing leadership: The extra-ordinarization of the mundane, the authors try to convince the reader that a lot of activities that ‘leaders’ in an organization perceive to be leadership qualities are actually mundane routine managerial activities. In the process, the authors highlight that the managers ‘believe’ that they display leadership qualities but they are nothing better than managers. The article tries to distinguish between a leader and a manager but has not been successful in bringing out the difference. In fact the authors have been critical of the difference between managers and leaders pointed out by other researchers. The authors do not agree that there is a difference between managers and leaders. However, ‘managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing’, according to CSU (2006). The article under study tries to emphasize that the managers follow certain mundane activities and give it the name of leadership quality. Smith & Piele (1996) cite that “mental and physical effort to coordinate diverse activities to achieve desired results”. The management activities have five functions - planning, organization, staffing, directing, and controlling. Leadership on the other hand is “natural and learned ability, skill, and personal characteristics to conduct interpersonal relations which influence people to take desired actions.” In simpler terms it means – you lead people and you manage things. This also clarifies that a person may have certain inherent (natural) qualities but a leader also has learned abilities. Again, according to the traits theory personality and characteristics are an integral part of leadership (Knes, 2006), but leaders can be developed in an organization. According to Knes such traits include intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity and sociability. This theory assumes that those who do not have these qualities cannot be a good leader. It fails to take into account the situational or environmental factors affecting leadership. Besides, there could be varying degrees of each trait in different individuals. Hence the contention of the authors in the article under review, that leaders are nothing better than managers is not true. This article focuses on listening as an activity that several leaders interviewed, have expressed as a major leadership activity and quality. However, the research for this study was based on the interviews of the middle-level managers in one particular organization. This cannot give a comprehensive view of the qualities of a leader. The authors of the article have taken listening to be a mundane activity that most people in the organizations do anyway everyday. Hence they contend that if mundane activities are central to leadership, then there is no difference between leaders and non-leaders. Thus if listening is a leadership attribute, then leadership is not as heroic as indicated in the literature. Again, later they also concede that listening is not entirely absent from the literature on leadership. It cannot help to conclude that listening is not a major requirement of leadership qualities. Listening to the team can help to mobilize people to do adaptive work. This is possible by identifying the adaptive challenge (Heifetz & Laurie, 2003). Businesses face extinction if they do not adapt to the changed environment or respond to it fast enough. When there are conflicts, listening allows leaders to learn from diverse perspectives. Hence a leader should have respect for conflict and encourage listening. Listening helps to spot the challenge and identify its implications. This implies listening is a vital leadership attribute that must be practiced. In addition to listening, chatting was also practiced by managers interviewed. This is a form of informal chat and helps to bring out relevant and important issues. Chat is a form of informal consultation and even when leaders have to make unilateral decision informal consultation with followers is desirable (Smith & Piele). Overall the authors of the article conclude that their study revealed that ‘leadership is closely and significantly related to the ability to listen and chatting and to some extent being cheerful’. The authors disagree with the opinion of the managers interviewed that listening is a key aspect of leadership. They however derived different meanings of listening from the interviews of different managers. They further conclude that listening is a facility that this organization has provided to its people because it facilitates creativity and encourages participative decision-making. The reason that this article cannot be conclusive on its opinion on different factors is primarily because of its focus on one knowledge-intensive organization. The study was based on the interviews of middle and senior managers and the interviews were non-directive. The authors wanted to ascertain whether these managers were leaders. They found that these managers gave an account of their leadership which can be easily found in academic literature – for instance they talked of visions and strategies. The researchers feel that when managers talked about visions and strategies, they were in fact trying to glorify their own position. This implies that the managers had read the academic literature and not practiced or experienced what it is to be a leader. The authors again undermine leaders in the organization when they state that these were managers doing ‘leadership’ and engaged in fairly mundane activities. They found that the managers emphasized on ‘listening, chatting and being cheerful’ as vital leadership attributes. They also found a variety of meaning of listening among the managers interviewed. Within an organization, people have shared beliefs and values; they follow certain norms and rules. Culture is an important paradigm and a broad umbrella that encompasses beliefs, norms, values, cognitions, emotions, practices, rules or routines without clear specification (Angwin & Vaara, 2005). Hence it is quite likely that they have acquired the corporate culture that makes them see listening as an attribute that must be practiced within an organization. However, this article has brought out certain factors or elements that are central to leadership. Because of the ever-changing business environment leaders face adaptive challenges (Heifetz & Laurie, 1997). They have to learn new ways of operating in the new business environment and this may mean that leaders have to mobilize people throughout the organization to do adaptive work. Adaptive work becomes necessary when the deeply held beliefs are challenged and when the values become less relevant. Getting people to do adaptive work is a mark of leadership but difficulties exist. This has been referred to in the article as participatory decision making in team and engaging and making the subordinates visible. This requires a change in attitude – leaders have to make a break in their behaviour of providing solutions. The locus of responsibility for problem solving must shift to the people and this would prove the right leadership. Solutions lie in the collective intelligence of employees at all levels and must be used. The leaders have another challenging task of bringing the employees out of the shell. Many employees prefer to take instructions and just act upon them rather than accept challenges and responsibility. These expectations have to be unlearned. Instead of protecting such people, the leaders should allow them to feel the pinch of reality and stimulate them to adapt. Secondly, the article says anything that provides a sense of direction in working life is the result of leadership. The right leadership would make the people in his or her team feel visible, respected and important. One of the managers found that it helps to take mutual responsibility. Katzenbach and Smith (2005) contend that common commitment and purpose, performance goals, complementary skills, and mutual accountability are the factors that make a team function. The leader has to convince its team of a common commitment as a team and this can provide them with a direction and momentum. Thirdly, the leader must be a good listener and encourage listening. All the managers interviewed in the article have stressed the importance of listening and have different benefits from listening. The benefits experienced by them include understanding the organizational process, to being sympathetic towards the team members and being able to relate with each other. Listening also gives strategic orientation according to one manager. In a knowledge-intensive organization knowledge exists and there is a great momentum which can be extracted by the leader through listening. Leadership has to be earned and this can be done by not frightening the followers into silence. In other words, a leader should not be reluctant to ask the advice of people he leads. The followers will appreciate it and gain the confidence to speak out when they believe that there are issues that the top management should be aware of (SD, 2007). They will not be frightened into silence when they know that their opinions are being listened to with respect. Leaders also have a responsibility to prepare future leaders. Hence leaders narrate their own experiences and challenges encountered on their journey through the company as a leader. This storytelling not only benefits the listener but also the one who tells. Sharing an experience is a liberating experience for those at the top but it also helps those who are trying to learn. Such learners, when they find a familiar situation they are able to exemplify a point thus gaining credibility. This also marks the beginning of a relationship with an audience. When the leaders listen or make themselves available, they are able to connect with the staff and break the communications barrier. With open communication, the leader is also able to express difficulty and this makes him more human and able to appreciate situations. Fourthly, leaders must demonstrate transformational leadership. The article mentions about visionary leadership. Visionary leadership can take place when there is self-awareness. The leader must be able to understand oneself to be able to understand and manage others. Amidst uncertainties and during trying times, self-awareness helps the leader not to become paralyzed by the situation (Kotter, 2007). This can come through transformational leadership. Transformational leadership has a realistic and reasonable concept of the self. This self is connected to friends, family and organization whose welfare is more important than one’s own. Transactional leadership manages outcomes and aims for behavioral compliance, which means they expect blind followers. Transformational leadership on the other hand, through values, justice, honesty, truth and human rights, enables one to embrace a change of heart (Bass & Steidlmeier, 1998). The fifth point central to leadership is to establish a sense of urgency. One of the leaders has mentioned that he challenged some of the superiors. He gave listening a different perspective. He started analyzing and questioning the whole system and warned the superiors in the R&D and HR, that if his team was not listened to, things would be out of control. This sort of urgency has to be created to save the organization or protect the organization from future problems. Leaders or executives tend to under estimate how hard it is to drive people out of their comfort zones (Kotter, 2007). In difficult times they lack patience. The senior executives must be able to apprehend the situation when the patent expires and prepare in advance for that time. They must be aware of say, the potential that emerging markets have. Such urgencies have to be a part of the regular tasks of a leader as this will help them to minimize risks and keep the current system operating. Those that are able to detect early that something is amiss have a distinct advantage in implementing strategies to get control over the situation and remaining ahead of the competitors (Carey, Patsalos-Fox & Useem, 2009). A leader has to remain ahead of the curve and look at what the future might hold. Staying ahead of the curve means that the leader knows the mechanism and the governance models that allow the company to confront realities which may not have been possible otherwise. This requires that the organization must be receptive to different view points. I worked for Standard Chartered Bank as a relationship associate where I sanction loans by interviewing the customer after checking all the details of the customer like residence proof, bank statement, any other bank loans etc. In my profession we need to interact informally with the customer to extract as much as possible. The Bank has set certain guidelines to gather documents and information about the customer in order to establish credentials. However, I have found that at times we need to extract further information and this is possible only through informal chatting with the customer. Now, we have to follow the bank guidelines strictly and then sanction loan. In some cases, I have found that even though the customer did not have one document to substantiate his statement but he appeared to be genuine. In such cases we need to convince our manager of the credentials of the customer. Under the circumstances, if the manager asks me to be solely responsible about the customer in case of default, anybody in my position would be reluctant to take a decision. Fortunately, my manager discussed it at length and agreed that we would go ahead in sanctioning the loan and it would be a common commitment and purpose towards attaining the goals that we have set for the team. This gave me confidence to sanction the loan. It boosted my confidence as I could convince the manager. One of my colleagues pointed out that we needed to introduce new products for our customers. Since the real estate market was declining, and in a year’s time, it could worsen, we should take this as a warning signal and accept the challenge. Competition too is intense in the field with others charging 0.25% less interest than us. So instead of focusing on home loans, we suggested to our manager that we introduce new offers such as loans for home furnishing. These loan amounts would be smaller, which means the risk is lower and could attract more number of customers. We expressed a sense of urgency to the manager and the manager adapted this challenge and asked us to prepare a presentation to convince the manager. This was a mark of another leadership quality that we found in our manager. The manager could motivate and encourage us to think and plan ahead of problems. This also made us feel a part of the organization. We felt needed, respected and important. Whether finally the product is accepted or rejected would be decided mutually by the team members but at least we were given a hearing to voice our suggestions. This itself drew us out of our shell and motivated us to think deeper. As far as listening is concerned, the manager listens as well as makes us listen. Both are equally important in an organization so that the top management is also aware of all that is happening. We may not always be right but unless the manager talks and discusses with us or has open communication, we would never know the basis of his decisions, without this knowledge we may tend to consider the manager as stubborn and unconcerned. Transparent communication is the essence of any relationship and this is what our organization strives to do. Each member of the team gets an opportunity to voice his or her concerns. In our organization all the managers encourage participatory decision making and engaging the subordinates. This is a service industry and in a service industry service counts. In another instance, a colleague who had joined newly was unable to understand and accept the values and the culture prevailing in the organization. He was also influencing others not to follow certain norms that had been prescribed. We watched for a while but then some of us decided to bring it to the notice of our manager. Fortunately we have a manager who is a friend to us and we often have informal chat sessions over coffee. We informed her about the prevailing situation and the manager was quick to respond. Hence, leadership is about having a coherent team that values the beliefs and the norms that have been set. Leadership is about encouraging the team to feel an equal part of the team. Leadership is to encourage participatory decision-making and sharing responsibilities and accountability. Leadership is about being adaptive to changes and challenges which is known as situational leadership. Leadership is about being sensitive to urgency and responding to them timely. Leadership is very much about listening because listening is what brings about changes in relationships, listening helps to understand each other, listening helps to know one self, listening helps to disseminate the knowledge with the company. It gives momentum to work and instills a sense of enthusiasm among the employees. Listening is not a mundane activity but has immense benefits for the organization as well as the employees. Leadership differs from managerial activities because managing is function that is restricted to planning, organizing, controlling and financing. It does not take care of interpersonal relations or changes in the situation that has become a common occurrence in today’s business environment. Managing is more about control whereas leadership is about providing direction. It is not about directing but providing direction. Leadership has to be earned and to some extent certain qualities are inherent. However, some qualities can be acquired through experience but listening is a vital part of being a leader. Reference: Angwin, D & Vaara, E 2005, 'Introduction to the Special Issue. ‘Connectivity’ in Merging Organizations: Beyond Traditional Cultural Perspectives', Organization Studies, vol. 26, no. 10, pp. 1445–1453 Bass, BM & Steidlmeier, P 1998, ETHICS, CHARACTER, AND AUTHENTIC TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP. Retrieved online 02 August 2009 from http://www.infra.kth.se/courses/1H1146/Files/ethicsandmorality.pdf Carey, D Patsalos-Fox, M & Useem, M 2009, 'Leadership lessons for hard times', retrieved online 02 August 2009 from http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/PDFDownload.aspx?ar=2413 CSU06, n.d., 'Management and Leadership', retrieved online 02 August 2009 from www.csubak.edu/~bhartsell/Week1Lecture06.doc DLO, 2006, 'Can leading be learned?', DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS, vol. 20, no. 6, pp. 24-25 Graetz, F 2000, 'Strategic change leadership', Management Decision, vol. 38, no. 8, pp. 550-564 Heifetz, RA & Laurie, DL 1997, 'The Work of Leadership', retrieved online 02 August 2009 from http://www.imamu.edu.sa/Scientific_selections/abstracts/Abstract%20%20IT%20%203/THE%20WORK%20OF%20LEADERSHIP.pdf Heifetz, RA & Laurie, DL 2003, 'The leader as teacher: creating the learning organization', Ivey Business Journal Online, London: Jan/Feb. 2003, pp.1 Katzenbach, JR & Smith DK 2005, 'The Discipline of Teams', Harvard Business Review, http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2005/07/the-discipline-of-teams/ar/pr Knes, M 2006, 'LEADERSHIP', retrieved online 02 August 2009 from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Kor-Man/Leadership.html Kotter, JP 2007, 'Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail', Harvard Business Review, http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2007/01/leading-change/ar/pr SD, 2007, 'Leadership is earned, says Boeing boss', Strategic Direction, vol. 23, no. 8, pp. 9-11 Smith, SC & Piele, PK 1996, 'School Leadership: Handbook for Excellence', retrieved online 02 August 2009 from https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/3291/school_leadership.pdf?sequence=1. Read More