Global Implications and Differences in Leadership Styles - Coursework Example

Executive Leadership Introduction Humans like others social animals have been long living in groups and teams. Groups also require someone to step up, take the responsibility and provide the rest of the group with some sense of direction. That is what is, expected from “leaders”. According to its very basic definition, “leadership is art of influencing people towards the achievement of a common set of goals or objectives” (Northouse, 2007). This source of leadership doesnot necessarily comes with managerial rank or position but it comes with the ability to influence others. However, when executive leadership is discussed, it is obvious that the source of influence is rooted in the managerial position and status since we are talking about the top management of the company. According to some research, leadership is one of the most researched aspects of human and organizational behavior. In addition on an average more than 2000 books are published on the topic of leadership and its dynamics every year for the past couple of decades (Rothwell, Stavros, Sullivan, & Sullivan, 2009). Another important aspect of executive leadership is realizing the disparity between executive leadership and executive managers or the difference between leaders and managers. Managers have the job to bring consistency and order by sketching up formal plans, drawing the structure of the organization and closely monitoring the results against the expectations. Managers’ job is definable within the boundaries of planning, organizing, leading and controlling. However, leaders are responsible for coping and bringing about change in any organization. Leaders are the ones who establish long-term plans and set the vision for the organization. They communicate this vision and inspire people to achieve that vision. They have lens with which the see beyond the boundaries of others and they have the ability to smell changes. Few names amongst the category of great leaders are Buddha, Napoleon, Gandhi, Churchill, Roosevelt, Thatcher, Margaret Reagan, Nelson Mandela, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Ken Chenault, Ratan Tata, Muhammad Ali Jinnah etc. All these people had one thing in common they had the “ability to inspire people and bring a remarkable change” (Huczynski, & Buchanan, 2007). Global Implications and differences in leadership styles A research that happened in 1990’s for determining the common leadership traits ended up concluding, “Leaders are different from other people” (Honeyman, 1982). Despite the fact that leaders are different from people, the leaders are also different from each other as well. The leadership styles, traits approaches, values, decision-making etc differ significantly, as we move across different cultures, countries, continents and ethnicities. Following are some of the common differences discussed according to the cultures. Asian leadership Style The leadership style in Asian countries in very much rooted in their cultures and values that are followed throughout the Asian countries. Asian society is mainly collectivist in nature. People expect their leaders to be kind, considerate, humble, and thoughtful and lead because of their ethical and moral character. In addition, the basic idea of leadership has always been rooted in the idea of paternalism. In most of the Asian countries, people see fathers, as their model for leaders since Asian families are mainly nuclear in structure in the oldest male is the head. Therefore, the head has all the authority but at the same time, he is also obliged to take care of his subordinates, nurture them and help them grow. Moreover, this system also leads the Asian people to accept the natural hierarchy, role conformity and quick acceptance of authority and that is why this culture ultimately leads to an autocratic style of leadership. According to a study that studied leadership differences amongst cultures ranked Asian countries’ leaders higher than the world average on power distance and long-term orientation of leadership. The same study also came up with conclusions that Asian leaders rank higher on moralism (idealism) and authoritarian style of leadership is more common in India with well-defined task structures and high level of involvement of from the leaders (Robbins, Judge, & Sanghi, 2009). European Leadership Style Significant differences were found amongst the leadership styles of different leaders from different countries. Leaders from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain were mostly charismatic kind of leaders who heavily relied on their individual abilities, were self-motivated and prefer leading from the front. However, most of the leader from Finland, Sweden and Denmark were more inclined towards group discussion making and a democratic style of leadership. The French leaders are the most famous for their strategic thinking but at the same time, these leaders prefer leading from distance, lack discipline and avoid dialogues. They lack effective communication abilities and tend to follow a more bureaucratic style of leadership. In addition, the leaders from Germany and Austria ranked higher in the elements of discipline, teamwork, task structure and well-defined systems (Robbins, Judge, & Sanghi, 2009). Latin American Leadership Style The Latin American culture is very much similar to the Asian culture in some ways. Latin American employees expect their employees to be more participative, guiding, thoughtful and humane. They do not view of their leaders as someone who will live in isolation from its group. In fact, the more the leaders gets involved in a group and gets close to it, the more the chances are that the group will accept him or her as their leader. People orientated and democratic style is best suited for the Latin American culture (Robbins, Judge, & Sanghi, 2009). African Leadership Style This study for the African culture is mainly concentrated on the northern Africa and the results are very much similar to what the Latin American Style of leadership suggests. The only significant difference between these styles is that the factor of power distance is very much into action in the African Leadership Style. It is expectation from the employees that will maintain some sort of distance in terms of respect from their leader (Robbins, Judge, & Sanghi, 2009). Charismatic leaders For the past years, there has been a lot of research on the topic of charismatic leadership. Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, Mary Kay Ash, Ronald Regan, John F. Kennedy, Muhammad Ali Jinnah are cited most commonly when referred to the topic of charismatic leaders. People often refer to some one as charismatic leader when they find in him some heroic or extraordinary abilities to lead others (Hitt, Miller, & Colella, 2006). Charismatic leaders are often the ones who have a clear vision for their team and organizations and at the same time, they are successful in articulating, communicating and implementing that vision with the help of their team. They also tend to take risk, sometimes the risk is so high that if they fail it may result in a complete destruction of them. They put organization ahead of themselves and are ready for self-sacrifice. They are also responsive to the needs of their followers and most of the times they exhibit unconventional behavior (Robbins, Judge, & Sanghi, 2009). Transformational leaders vs. Transactional leaders Another important stream of research has been focused on understanding the difference between transformational and transactional leaders in the executive positions. “Transactional leaders are those leaders who are good at motivating and guiding their sub ordinates in the way of achievement of their goals and task requirements” (George, 2003). However, “transformational leaders are the ones who actually inspire more than they guide or motivate their followers and they leave an extra ordinary impact on their followers” (Robbins, Judge, & Sanghi, 2009). Transformational leaders are more like father figures for their followers since they pay all their required attention in grooming them and addressing their concerns. The follower of a transformational leader feels empowered and energetic and finds himself with a lens to see things. When people talk about leaders who prepare their second line before they leave, they are actually talking about transformational leaders. They become a role model for all their followers and they way in which they maintain a balance between their concern for production and their concern for people are always sensational (Martin, 2007). Transformational leaders have long been dominating the transactional style because the former ones make their followers aware of their benefits, as well as their importance of their jobs, so they may perform their jobs at their best abilities. “They also make their subordinates aware of their own needs for personal growth, development and accomplishment” (George, 2003). Seven transformations of leadership “Leaders are made, not born, and how they develop is critical for organizational change” (Gardner, 1993). Research of Harvard business Review suggests that, most psychologists are very much in the favor of this argument that what distinguishes leaders from others is not their personality or style of management but it is their “internal action logic”. Internal action logic is how they react when their power or existence is at stake and in what way that they interpret their surroundings. On this basis of this part, the researchers have divided the leaders into seven distinct categories. “Opportunists, Diplomats, Experts, Achievers, Individualists, Strategists and Alchemists are these seven groups of leaders” (Rooke, & Torbert, 2005). According to this research, opportunists account only to be 5% of the sample. The research classifies opportunists as their frequent actions of ego-centrism, manipulativeness, self-interested, immoral leaders who are out there for their own. They view people as objects and very man for himself. Few opportunists remain managers for long but working under an opportunist can be a real rollercoaster ride (Rooke, & Torbert, 2005). The second group of executive leaders was classified as diplomats who account for 12 percent of the sample. Despite the fact that diplomats make a greater sense of the outside world but they still fails at executive positions. However, they can be good middle level managers since they are good at pleasing people and avoiding conflict. Again, this approach of always pleasing people and avoiding any possible conflict with any one makes a diplomat lag behind when it comes the time to take big and important decisions. These people try and tend to be over-friendly and polite with others so fail to give them challenging feedback (Rooke, & Torbert, 2005). Experts form the third and the largest category with 38 percent of the leaders. Experts are leaders who posses outclass and extra ordinary knowledge of their field. They lead with their hard data and watertight thinking. Experts are great individual contributors but they are problematic to work with since every time they are so sure that they are right. In fact, these leaders also work on an autocratic pattern since for them collaboration is a waste of time (Rooke, & Torbert, 2005). “Better than experts can be achievers who are open to feedback and realize that most of the everyday issues are due to disparities in interpretation and ways of relating” (Rooke, & Torbert, 2005). They trust people and know how to get things done by people (Rooke, & Torbert, 2005). The next category of Individualists is leaders who contribute in their unique way to the organizations. They are great at communicating with people having different action logics. The problem with this category of leaders is that they at time find themselves in conflict with the organizational rules and values since they have there own set of values. The situation worsens when these leaders start regarding the organizational values and start by passing them (Rooke, & Torbert, 2005). Four percent of the sample was strategists who also posses’ unique leadership styles were the ones who view organizational perceptions, constraints and values as important but discussable and transformable. Strategists not only are good at dealing with people, but also at the same time dealing with those people who are intuitively resistant to change. Therefore, they are highly effective transformational leaders (Rooke, & Torbert, 2005). The last and the most significant category was of Alchemists, the way in which they are better than strategists is that they can deal many with many big tasks simultaneously which are at multiple levels. They can talk with both kings and commons, balance profitability and ethics, work hardly at the short term goals and never lost sight of long term ones. These people like Nelson Mandela end up winning the hearts of the people and leaving a mark on history. These charismatic individuals never seem to be in a hurry and live their entire life on high moral standards (Rooke, & Torbert, 2005). New challenges for the Executive leadership Lastly, it is important to shed some light on the new challenges, which have merged with the passage of time for the executive leadership. Executive leadership is now no more a bed of roses because the challenges are increasing more than ever and its getting hard to handle. The biggest challenge that the executive management has to respond is the challenge of globalization. Executive leaders are now no longer dealing with employee in their locality or of the same nationality. The foreign assignments are increasing, they are more and more working with people from different cultures and the pressure is increasing on them to lead in such a manner that they decrease the costs and increase the profitability at the same time (Maxwell, 2005). Managing workforce diversity is also becoming a critical issue as the workforces are becoming more and more diverse. Improving the quality, productivity and customer service, simulating change and innovation, helping the employees to create a balance in their work and personal life and with all these making sure that they are working within the ethical dimensions is also very important for all the executive mangers these days (Robbins, Judge, & Sanghi, 2009). References Gardner, John William. (1993). On Leadership. Free Press. George, William W. (2003). Authentic leadership: rediscovering the secrets to creating lasting value. John Wiley and Sons Hitt, Michael A., Miller, C. Chet., & Colella, Adrienne. (2006). Organizational behavior a strategic approach. Wiley India Pvt. Ltd. Honeyman, Katrina. (1982). Origins of enterprise: business leadership in the industrial revolution. Manchester University Press ND Huczynski, Andrzej, & Buchanan, David A. (2007). Organizational behavior: an introductory text. Pearson Education. Martin, A. (2007). Everyday Leadership. Free Spirit Publishing. Maxwell J. C. (2005). The 360-degree leader. Thomas Nelson Inc. Northouse, Peter Guy. (2007). Leadership: theory and practice. SAGE Publications. Robbins, Stephen P., Judge, Timothy A., & Sanghi, Seema. (2009). Organizational behavior. Pearson Prentice Hall. Rooke, David, & Torbert, William R. (2005). Seven transformations of leadership. Harvard Business Review. Rothwell, William J., Stavros, Jacqueline M., Sullivan, Roland L., & Sullivan, Arielle. (2009). Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change. John Wiley and Sons. Read More