Ways to Increase Quality of Leadership and Improving Teamwork - Term Paper Example

 [Ways to Increase Quality of Leadership and Improving Teamwork] In an organization, the employees will look towards the leaders, only if they find faith in the abilities of leaders. Since the business environment is changing very rapidly therefore, one important thing, which has become noticeable is the changing attitude of the leaders. Nowadays, leaders are giving a great focus towards their leadership styles because an organization characterized by poor leadership only faces failure. History is full of such examples, where poor leadership has led the organization to the brink of bankruptcy. Presumably, most people would agree that the most essential factor that can assist in developing a good teamwork culture in an organization is the quality of leadership. Quality of leadership is required to ensure a consistent and high quality of productivity at workplace. In short, to enhance the performance and productivity of employees at workplace, there are two important elements including strong leadership and teamwork. Leadership A leader can be defined as one who “catalyzes commitment and vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision; stimulated the group to high performance standards (Collins).” The definition of leader shows that his/her decisions can directly influence the behavior, efficiency and productivity of employees. Since it cannot be generalized which leadership style is the best in an organization, therefore, adopting a particular leadership style for the success of the company is not that much easy. The best thing, which can help the leaders of an organization to improve the quality of leadership, is to study the literature such as leadership theories. For improving quality of leadership in an organization through this report, a different approach has been used. First, this report will highlight what theories say about different leadership styles. Second, the leadership traits of the successful leaders have been evaluated to determine the proved successful leadership styles. Third, through different leadership models, the strategies have been recommended that will also help in understanding how to improve leadership at workplace. Moreover, in this report, the leadership quality and teamwork at Microsoft will be discussed. Leadership Theories and Quality of Leadership T. McGregor presented Theory X, Y, which highlights two sets of behaviors of leaders; first, those who act in a friendly manner; second, those who structure their role and the role of their subordinates (Changing Minds). Another theory is Situational theory, which was presented by the theorists from University of Michigan and University of Ohio State. The finding of this theory showed that there is no one best leadership style and leaders should adjust their styles based on situation (Legacee). Leadership Grid is another great achievement of Black & Mouton. They have developed a leadership grid, on which leaders can score their behavior on two dimensions of task behavior and relationship behavior. This grid shows that leaders usually adapt styles for personal gains, which is known as opportunism and only under pressure, leaders adapt dominant or backup style (Alagse). Evans and House, in their Path Goal Theory, identify four leadership styles including directive, supportive, participative and achievement styles. They suggest that apart from these leadership styles, the quality and excellent leadership is achieved if leader offers rewards to workers for achievement of goals, clarifies path for them and removes obstacles (Contingency Models). Vroom-Yetton Leadership model highlights five leadership styles. The crux of all leadership theories is that there are different leadership styles; however, the quality leadership can be brought, if a leader brings a flexible behavior in his style and changes his attitude according to the situation. Nevertheless, the leaders should be always helpful to the employees and they should be always encourages for their achievements. Microsoft is reputable not only because of the demand of its products and services but also because of the corporate culture. The quality of Bill Gates leadership is considered as one of the important factors contributing towards the success of Microsoft. The leadership style of Bill Gates is more participative and visionary. The dream of Bill Gates to have a personal computer encouraged him to make his dream his career. Leaders Traits and Quality of Leadership Another way to improve leadership quality at workplace is to evaluate the leadership traits of successful leaders. For this, we take the example of five top successful leaders. These leaders are Estee Lauder (Estee Lauder Cosmetics), Jack Electric (General Electric), Walt Disney (Disney), Sam Walton (Wal Mart) and Ray Kroc (McDonalds). The leadership styles mentioned here have been identified after analyzing the leadership histories of the leaders. Estee leadership style is participative and she has always been motivating her employees through her excellent leadership. Jack leadership style is participative and he focused on quality approach by involving his employees in the implementation of tasks. For Ray Kroc, the quality of leadership is achieved when a leader is able to communicate his vision to his employees. Walton showed a very different leadership style. Being a free Rein leader, Walton used to listen to the ideas of his workers instead of asking them to do things. In this way, Walton used to focus on teamwork and employees participation. Disney leadership style is very influential and he has been enhancing participation of employees and teamwork success by properly directing them to achieve goals. Similarly, the traits of Bill Gates, which have made him a strong leader include his intelligence, visionary power, passion, eagerness to innovate, risk taking power, continuous learning and taking criticism seriously. Therefore, leadership styles of successful leaders show that authoritative approach is less common in successful leaders and participative style is more common. To achieve quality of leadership, the aim of leader should be to enhance the participation and productivity of employees by every possible mean. Leadership Practices to Increase Quality of Leadership The best leaders in an organization try their best to make deliberate choices to tackle various problems, regardless of the private or public organization. NHS presented a leadership quality framework, in which they have shown the leadership qualities that they should have to tackle a wide range of situations. In this model, fifteen qualities have been presented and they have been arranged in three categories including personal qualities, setting directions and delivering services. These qualities usually cover a range of personal, social and cognitive qualities (NHS). Source: NHS Although it is not that easy for the leaders to follow this theoretical model, however, to improve leadership quality at workplace, this framework offers a clear idea about the key qualities of a leader and how should he set the directions for the achievement of tasks. Furthermore, there are two sets of behavior, which effective leaders should avoid including passive, aggressive and defensive attitude. A research conducted by Cooke shows that not all qualities of leaders are born with them and most of the qualities are acquired by the leaders (Cooke). Once the quality of leadership is improved in an organization, a visible change can be noticed. However, by only improving quality of leadership, organizations cannot ensure the success and high performance of the organization. “No man is an island … In order for them (e.g. Bill Gates) to have reached the pinnacle of their success they needed teammates - people in whom they could believe in, who in turn believed in them (Harris).” Therefore, understanding the ways to improve teamwork in organization is also very essential. The following section will discuss how teamwork and teambuilding practices should be promoted at workplace. Ways to improve teamwork Teamwork approach has become important because organizations are operating in an increasingly complex environment. They have to confront problems with many dimensions at each step taken from planning to the implementation. The team approach in an organization makes it capable to manage multi-dimensional problems because teamwork combines the skills and competencies of team members. In this way, teamwork allows you to consider financial and limited resources, establish priorities and expertise to achieve the targets and goals. By improving teamwork practices at workplace, workload can be decreased, duplication of efforts can be reduced and great output can be produced (Gibson, Moore and Lueder). At Microsoft, various events and programs are carried out to promote teamwork. For example, in 2008, in a team-building event, 100 Microsoft employees participated and they were broken down into 20 teams. The teams competed for making the most tasty pizza (Doyle). Apparently, such practices do not contribute to the productivity of the employees however; they do enhance the collaboration of employees and increase their inner desire to work in teams. There are various methods, which can be used to improve teamwork success in any organization. Since teamwork encourages the people to value collaboration, therefore, it enhances the contribution of employees towards the accomplishment of organizational goals. The best practice, which can enhance teamwork success at workplace, is the culture of the organization. Unless the work culture of an organization does not promote teamwork, the teamwork can never be done. Leadership plays a very vital role in improving team building practices and teamwork in organizations. Once a team-oriented culture is developed, the next step is to facilitate the employees to understand and value collaboration. In the year 2006, Microsoft was facing serious problems mainly because of its leadership issues. The news of Partnership or Merger of Apple and Microsoft were circulating around, however, today, Microsoft is still able to maintain its position. The major reason is that commitment of the employees to take the company to the heights of success. Secondly, during 2006, the key employees, customers and partners of the company were not supporting the company (Enderle). Therefore, an organization only becomes a successful organization, if the employees, customers and partners of the company move hand in hand. Improving teamwork successes is not that easy as improving quality of leadership. The reason is that leadership is in the hand of a few people whereas; teambuilding approach involves all employees working in an organization. The best practice, which can improve teamwork in organization, is proper learning of employees. Once the leader communicates the visions and goals of the organization, the next step should be to assist the employees to plan, how the goals would be achieved. Formal teamwork programs should be organized, so that, employees may learn the importance of such programs. Microsoft does not only promote teamwork through teambuilding events but also by assigning the tasks to teams. For example, in 2007, Microsoft built a team of twenty people to develop next generation search engine (Arrington). Such tasks do help the organizations to encourage the employees to enhance their efforts for the accomplishments of tasks. Therefore, to improve teamwork, companies can develop formal and small teams to achieve specific goals. Insight learning process has been developed to improve team-building practices in organizations. It is not necessary for the organizations to take services of such institutions, which offer such trainings, but organizations can follow the processes generated by training centers. The Insight learning process identifies five stages in teamwork learning including Exploring, Aligning, Delivering, Supporting and Measuring. In the first phase, Exploring, the learning gaps of teamwork are identified. The training to learner needs are aligned in the next phase, after which, the training is done through live seminars and team building workshops. Online and Offline support is also provided in the fourth stage and finally evaluation is done by measuring the training impacts through the analysis of skills improvements (Insight Learning). There are four stages of team development including forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. All these stages together form a very important team development process and the attitude of employees at each stage of team development certainly influences their experiences (Dyck and Neubert). It means creation of teams cannot only promote teamwork approach in an organization and a formal procedure has to be followed to make it a success. According to Bill Gates, “if we weren’t still hiring great people and pushing ahead at full speed, it would be easy to fall behind and become a mediocre company (Evancarmichael).” At the time of inception of Microsoft, Bill Gates prioritized his team because he wanted to build a strong team. There are various other examples, which actually show how organizations have been successful in accomplishing their goals by assigning tasks in teams. From the above discussion, it can be concluded that surviving in the increasing competition has become a challenge for the organizations. No doubt, focusing on technological developments, products and process innovations can provide advantage to the companies; however, for a long-term survival, presence of quality leadership is very essential. Quality leadership creates such as corporate culture, where employees are more encouraged to achieve their tasks. There are various ways through which quality of leadership can be improved in an organization and the three most suitable approaches include understanding the theoretical models, learning from the experiences of successful leaders and practicing the introduced models and frameworks. Once an organization improves the quality of leadership, the next step is to motivate the employees because a leader cannot take the organization to the heights of success alone. The best proven method to increase the productivity and efficiency of employees at workplace is the teamwork of employees. To improve teamwork, organizations should organize teambuilding events, assign small tasks to teams and reward the teams on the achievement of their goals. In this way, by improving quality of leadership and teamwork success, an organization can truly attain its goals and targets by utilizing the same resources. References Alagse . Promoting Thought Leadership. 17 February 2010 . Arrington, Michael. Microsoft: Silicon Valley Team Building Stealth Search Engine . 3 June 2007. 19 February 2010 . Changing Minds. Ohio State Studies . 17 February 2010 . Collins, Jim. "Level 5 Leadership." 2001. Harvard Business Review . 17 February 2010 < http://harvardbusiness.org/hb-main/resources/pdfs/comm/microsoft/level-five.pdf >. Contingency Models . 17 February 2010 . Cooke, de Robert. "Leadership." 1997. Colinnewhouse. 18 February 2010 . Doyle, Chris. Team Building with Microsoft. 19 May 2008. 19 February 2010 . Dyck, Bruno and Mitchell Neubert. Management: Current Practices and New Directions. Cengage Learning, 2008. Enderle, Rob. 4 March 2006. TechNewsWorld. 19 February 2010 . Evancarmichael. "Opening New Windows: How Gates Soared to Incredible Heights." 19 February 2010 . Gibson, Terry L., Jeanne Moore and E. J. Lueder. Teamwork: In Cooperative Extensive Programs . September 1980. 18 February 2010 . Harris, Devon. "Teamwork Makes the Dream Work." 2005. Devonharris. 19 February 2010 . Insight Learning . "Teamwork ." 19 February 2010 . Legacee. Types of Leadership Styles. 17 February 2010 . NHS. NHS Leadership Quality Framework . October 2002. 18 February 2010 . Read More