Ways of Increasing the Quality of Leadership - Essay Example

Leadership - As a consultant you have been asked by a company to advise on ways of increasing the quality of leadership and improving teamwork success. What advice would you give? Support your answer with examples from an organization of your choice. - Infospec Ltd - 1. Introduction Under the adverse conditions of modern market, firms need to develop appropriate strategic tools that will help them to survive – the improvement of a firm’s position in the market could be also achieved but in the context of current financial crisis it is likely to face many constraints. Effective leadership can lead to the significant development of organizational performance; however, leadership is not related exclusively with money (Kouzes, 2007, 120); in fact, leadership is – or at least it should be – a tool for the promotion of teamwork and inspiration within modern organizations. Current paper focuses on the examination of two important elements of the organizational activity: the quality of leadership and the teamwork. In practice, the support of these elements is related with the improvement of the organizational performance; however, this fact needs to be carefully examined and evaluated. The case of Infospec Ltd will prove that indeed the increase of the quality of leadership and the improvement of the teamwork success can lead to the increase of a firm’s performance; however, it is necessary that specific requirements are met – as it is also explained in the case of Motorola, a firm that faced similar problems and managed to improve its performance by emphasizing on the quality of its leadership and the promotion of teamwork. 2. Leadership in Infospec Ltd Infospec Ltd was established in London in 1995. The firm focuses on the provision of IT support services. Since its first appearance in the British market the firm has managed to expand its activities and reach a level of profit of £1,150 (in thousands) in 2009. The firm’s owner, Mr Alexander Greenwood, has specific ideas on the ways that the firm’s operations need to be developed and monitored; the highly skilled employees and the excellent customer support service have been among the firm’s key advantages towards its competitors; however, from October 2009 up today the continuous decrease – even limited – of the firm’s profits has worried Mr Greenwood. Through the examination of the firm’s operational practices it has been revealed that two are the main reasons that have caused delays to the firm’s performance: the decrease of quality of leadership and the lack of teamwork. Both these problems can be appropriately addressed by applying specific plans; it is necessary that the views developed in the literature on the specific field are carefully studied – the example of a firm that operates in the same industry and faces the same problems will help to face this challenge more effectively. 3. Methods and policies for increasing the quality of leadership and improving the teamwork success in Infospec Ltd In order to identify the methods that are most appropriate for improving the quality of leadership in Infospec Ltd it would be necessary to refer primarily to the characteristics of leadership as a vital element of modern organizations. The role of leadership in the organizational environment can be described as follows: leadership is ‘an interpersonal process supporting the efforts of an organized group toward goal setting and goal achievement’ (lecture notes). In the study of Brooks (2009) it is noted that ‘leadership demonstrates the power of one individual over others’ (Brooks, 2009, 163). In this context, the difference between leadership and management can be identified: leadership ‘is not necessarily related to hierarchical position as management tends to be’ (Brooks, 2009, 163). In accordance with the above definitions a successful leader needs to have the following skills: a) ability to communicate effectively with employees at all levels of organizational hierarchy, b) ability to understand the needs of employees but also the trends of the market and c) ability to foresee the prospects related with various organizational projects and propose innovative organizational practices – being able to support the firm’s development in its market. Leadership – as described above – can be understood by using different approaches (as noted in lecture notes): trait spotting – identification of the leader’s personal characteristics - and context fitting – a theory that relates the leadership with the organizational culture – are well known approaches of this type; Style counseling – relates the leadership with specific behavioural patterns – and the concept of New Leadership – focusing on the leader’s visions – are also used in order to understand the leadership style within a specific organization. The style of leadership in modern organizations can be differentiated – being affected by the leader’s personal characteristics and skills or by the organizational culture in the context explained above. For this reason, a series of leadership systems have been developed aiming to respond to the needs of modern organizations: the autocratic leadership system of Likert and the ‘three set of forces’ of Tannenbaum and Schmidt (1958) are indicative examples of such systems. In the 21st century advanced leadership styles, like the transactional leader and the transformational leader respond to the needs of organizations for effective leadership. The main characteristics of the above two leadership styles are the following ones: transactional leader focuses on the provision to the employee of benefits and rewards that are equal with the job offered – in the form of exchange; on the contrary, the transformational leader inspires employees, i.e. the transformational leadership is based on the ‘follower commitment and job satisfaction’ (Bass, 2006, 53). The increase of quality of leadership and the improvement of teamwork success in Infospec Ltd could be achieved by following a series of different policies; strategies that have been already tested and evaluated in the field of empirical research would be particular helpful to the achievement of the above target. The proposed Leadership can be differentiated among individuals in accordance with their gender; this assumption has been developed by Burke et al. (2001); their study led to the conclusions that ‘females are more likely than males to indicate that they use an interactive style of management called transformational leadership’ (Burke et al., 2001, 244); it is also noted by Burke et al. (2001) that ‘coaching, developing and communicating management skills’ (Burke et al., 2001, 244) are increased in women leaders – compared to their male counterparts. On the other hand, the study of Erkutlu (2008) led to the conclusion that ‘there are significant relations between leadership behaviors and both organizational and leadership effectiveness’ (Erkutlu, 2008, 708). However, it would be necessary to identify those leadership behaviours that are most likely to affect the effectiveness of leadership decisions; moreover, the potential differentiations on the effectiveness of leadership decisions among organizations of different size and structure would be examined and evaluated – it cannot be expected that the effectiveness of leadership decisions is depended solely on the leadership behaviour – other elements of the organizational environment can also affect the success of leadership within a specific organization (an indicative example is the response of employees to the plans promoted by their firm’s leader). In certain cases, the achievement of organizational goals is enforced through different paths, i.e. not by trying to increase leadership effectiveness, but rather by emphasizing on the ‘improvement of quality, the increase of competitiveness and the increase of customer satisfaction’ (Zlatka et al., 2009, 399). In practice, this means that the improvement of a firm’s performance is not always based on the increase of leadership effectiveness – an aspect that is not in accordance with the majority of studies published on the specific field. Karsten et al. (2009) develop a similar view but they note that leadership can have a decisive role in the improvement of organizational performance only ‘when it is combined with other management concepts like Quality Management’ (Karsten et al., 2009, 73). In fact, quality should be a part of all organizational activities and frameworks – including leadership. The development of quality in an organization can be achieved through different methods taking into consideration a firm’s structure and characteristics as well as the organizational aims and goals; Kerzner (2009) notes that quality can be achieved by applying specific principles including ‘the teamwork and the structured problem solving’ (Kerzner, 2009, 915). In leadership quality can have a series of important effects on the organizational activity supporting the ‘return on investment and the increase of a firm’s market share’ (Kerzner, 2009, 915); however, in order for leadership to support organizational activity it needs to have specific characteristics like ‘the unity of purpose, the freedom – but also control – the teamwork and the obsession with quality’ (Kerzner, 2009, 915). Measures like the employee ownership are likely to be taken in the context of a successful leadership style (Pride et al., 2009, 297). The implementation of more integrated schemes – like the Total Quality Management – is also likely to take place in the context of a successful leadership style (Grieves, 2003, 52) 4. The case of Motorola Motorola has been an example of the role of quality leadership on a firm’s performance. Under the influence of the decrease in the firm’s profitability, managers in Motorola decided to emphasize on the improvement of quality of leadership and the promotion of the teamwork – that could help the firm to increase the quality of the services provided to its customers. The case of Motorola is highlighted in the study of Schwalbe (2007, 336); the above researcher notes that the development of the above firm after the increase of the quality of its leadership and the promotion of the teamwork prove that the improvement of organizational performance can be strongly depended on a firm’s leadership style. 5. Conclusion - Recommendations The style of leadership adopted by modern organizations has been proved to be crucial for their performance; in fact, quality leadership can support the achievement of organizational aims both directly – e.g. through the active involvement of the leader in the firm’s cooperation with other organizations (Parker, 2008, 16) – and indirectly – through the inspiration of employees and the increase of their motivation and their energy (Northhouse, 2009, 120). Of course, it is necessary that leadership practices be aligned with the market ethics and the organizational culture (Ciulla, 2004, 74). Through the examination of the studies published on the specific field it has been revealed that a successful leader is the leader who is able to understand the needs of the organization but also the needs of the employees, to develop effective communication channels within the organization – i.e. to promote the teamwork – and to take the necessary – within certain limits – risks when such an initiative is required. Infospec can be benefited by emphasizing on the improvement of its leadership; a transformational leadership style would be suggested for the specific organization where the need for inspiration seems to be emergent. The case of Motorola has showed that the benefits of measures towards the increase of the quality of leadership and the improvement of the teamwork success may delay to appear – this is an issue depended on the level of commitment on the achievement of the specific targets – but their role in the increase of organizational performance cannot be doubted. References Bass, B., Riggio, R., 2006. Transformational leadership. Routledge Brooks, I., 2009. Organisational Behaviour: Individuals, Groups and Organisation. Pearson Education Burke, S., Collins, K., 2001. Gender differences in leadership styles and management skills. Women in Management Review, 16(5), pp. 244-257 Ciulla, J., 2004. Ethics, the heart of leadership. Greenwood Publishing Group Erkutlu, H., 2008. The impact of transformational leadership on organizational and leadership effectiveness: The Turkish case. Journal of Management Development, 27(7), pp. 708-726 Graen, G., 2004. New frontiers of leadership. IAP Grieves, J., 2003, Strategic human resource development. SAGE Karsten, L., Keulen, S., Kroeze, R., 2009. Leadership style and entrepreneurial change: The Centurion operation at Philips Electronics. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 22(1), pp. 73-91 Kerzner, H., 2009. Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling. 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