Leadership as a Collective Strategy - Essay Example

COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP STRATEGY Leadership is the act of exercising control. It is the act of influencing a group of people to a given course. A directional act results from influence that is bestowed by upon given individual. Leadership can still be looked at in the angle of a leader both formal and informal coming together to try influence the direction undertaken by organizational tasks and activities (McGuire & Rhodes, 2009). Leadership today is not all about the quality of an individual but the collective act of both the formal and informal leaders that realizes success in the organization. Effective leadership is supported by the fundamentals of communication and leadership ahs the core role of implementing strategies, adapting or helping an organization survive changes in operations, it supports inventions and innovations to realize new products in the organization and ultimately it helps achieve the vital and important agenda in the organization (Bryman, 2011). The person who the influence to exercise control is bestowed upon is called the leader while the people who should be exercised upon the influence is the subject. Leadership is a fundamental aspect of the effective management of any association of persons. Without effective leaderships in any form of association nothing much can be achieved. Objectives can formulate well but then it may be almost impossible to achieve them if there is dented leadership (Bryman, 2011). Strategic thoughts and practices are employed to different groups and people to enhance effective control and guidance of such groups (Mintzberg, 2011). Groups as the state for example is composed of the citizens as the subjects and the politicians as the leaders, the citizens need effective policies by the leaders to guide the socio-economic and political aspects of the society to realize their effective living. Such policies are important to make sure that stability is of essence, without effective and realizable policies in any given state the outcome is normally conflicts which worsens to wars if now the national resources are struggled for (Carpenter, 2011). Formal organizations as well need leadership to enhance their fundamental like performance of both the assets and employees. Effective leadership will ensure that the important resources of any organization are always handled well to help realize the objectives of the institution (Furnham, 2005). Workers through their respective unions must also be lead well. Without effective leadership of such unions, fundamental rights and freedoms of the workers may not be taken care of by the governments most so if they are capitalistic governments that are very exploitative if not guided well in their mostly erratic decisions. Leadership as is realized is intertwined and interrelated. Therefore depends on one another. The state depends on the firms to realize resources to run the government. The firms need favorable policies like those of taxation to facilitate operations of the firm. Firms also need workers since they cannot produce without the respective workers. Therefore, effective collective leadership is of fundamental since industrial revolution. This is because respective leaders need to always consult and realize the best for their subjects (Carpenter, 2011). Businesses today are operating in environment, which is not that stable, the environment is constantly changing. The change is at worse fundamental and highly accelerated though constant. Such changes are due to changes in technology, environmental changes also results to change. Governments have also tightened regulatory controls making firm operations difficult. The market place has also intensively and widely expanded form mere local operations and localized markets to global markets which are even international promoting import and export trade, foreign direct investments (FDI’s), licensing or even acquisitions (Downs, 2007). These operations are complex and the leadership having realized that they cannot be reversed seriously thinks on how to familiarize them and incorporate the changes that are constantly surfacing in the contemporary society. As a result, they several heads of firms have resorted to collective leadership (Kezar, 2008). Collective leadership is therefore what takes place when several groups of people come together through their leadership organs, form a platform on which they are ready to operate to ensure that big plans of their respective organizations are equally achieved. This type of leadership reflects several ways and strategies of which this type of leadership is to be put to practice and operations (McGuire & Rhodes, 2009). Collective leadership is the basic building blocks to the way employees feel about the organization and its performance. Employee performance is based on the motivation and the performance of the employees themselves. A motivated employee will always perform in line with the objectives of the organizations. One of the fundamental objectives of collective leadership is the motivation of its employees to enhance their performance. Collective leadership is geared to provide creativity through innovation and formation of new ideas, it is geared towards the formation of new products frequently hence integration of insights to initiate functionality of the employees (Mintzberg, 2011). A collective strategic leader of any firm that is aspiring to perform must in the first place understand the its corporate Visions, Missions and Objectives (VMO’s) of the firm and the clear line of its operations (Salvendy, 2008). The various VMO’s should be integrated of all the firms that wish to come together under collective leadership. This is termed as strategic leadership. After thinking about the VMO’s of the organization, strategic leadership should think about and formulate the responsibility of each member of their organizations, they should as well specify their own objectives and roles in the process (Salvendy, 2008). Strategic leadership should then lead and guide i.e. spearhead the process since the subject may have some fear to undertake the process in their own without the presence of the physical leadership on its own (Torstendahl, 1991). To support strategic leadership is strategic thinking, the various leaders after being aware of the various companies Visions, Missions and Objectives of their respective firms should think the future of such objectives. The policies formed should be future oriented and not short lived as this may always derail developments realized by the firms themselves. Strategic thinking is that aspect of collective leadership where every element and aspect of a functional organization is given the responsibility of thinking and contributing to the growth of the organization through organized thinking of constructive ideas (Ware, Ware, Michaels, & Primer, 2011). It deviates from the practice that idea generation only comes from the top management, which is composed of the executive and extends this role to the junior staff as well. This is after it was realized from extensive research that the junior staff have very constructive and extensive ideas which if directed to effective implementation can bore a lot to both the organizational growth and performance (Bryman, 2011). Collective strategic thinking has several merits among which are; it helps formulate the organizational strategic objectives, visions, and missions, it helps in planning, motivation of staff, coordination of activities in the organization and hence help improve on productivity (Carpenter, 2011). Formulation of the VMO’s is the work of the top management through the executive, collective leadership has enhanced this through the incorporation of the junior staff to assist in the collection of the element5s to be used in the formulation of the policies. Planning as an act of lying down in advance of whatever is to be done in advance is aided by collective strategic leadership through collective bargains and idea generations for the sake of laying down effective plans. The procedure for ensuring that the plans are taken care of adequately is as well ensured and within the prescribed timelines (Downs, 2007). Through working together, the entire staff is actually motivated and given a drive and urge to work even harder. This is also because the hard work itself is self-inflicted by the top management itself through collective hard work which is copied by the juniors in the respective organizations (Furnham, 2005). A motivated staff is the engine of an effectively running organization. Without this productivity automatically declines labor turnover creeps in and generally, the organization starts experiencing negative growth if the staff is not adequately motivated (Kezar, 2008). The collective leadership will determine the general wage rates in the market, which will satisfy the labor force in place. Good working conditions will also be set as a result; of the same forces and skills, hence turbulence will not be experienced in the labor market through unnecessary strikes (McGuire & Rhodes, 2009). This simply means that the precious time will all be diverted to production, distribution, and sales to realize good revenue for the organizations in the limelight. Leadership is a collective strategy and it is realized therefore after developing the strategy itself. Without collective leadership and well-developed and well laid down strategies most well performing companies will always face the verge of going down. Some leadership strategies are also not well functioning since those who developed them is not talented in the development procedure of the strategies and their implementation (Salvendy, 2008). Every leader should be vastly aware of the value that is presented by the effective business strategy, this is realized through its development, and testing to see whether it works for the fruitfulness of the organizations aspirations. This is done and should actually be done before the full-blown implementation is undertaken (Torstendahl, 1991). Formulation of a business is leadership strategy for collective leadership is a process that must just be undertaken stepwise so that it is realized fully. The step number one is the review of the business strategy itself (Downs, 2007). This entails going through the business objectives as well as how their achievement is intended. The reason for the review is majorly to help identify the requirements that are to be filled by the leadership void in place. Without understanding the requirements, an effective collective leadership strategy is a mere dream that achieving is a hard nut to crack (McGuire & Rhodes, 2009). This stage should be conducted by experts who are from the field in which the operations of the business are conducted, or who have extensive knowledge of the business and its operations so that the requirements that are found from the research are the exact requirements with all the accuracy and decorum that it deserves (Torstendahl, 1991). The key drivers to the strategy being developed should be identified in time, driving forces may be the” key success factors” otherwise termed as the “critical success factors”, the future orientation of the firm to future markets can as well be a factor and the market constraining elements of the industry (Salvendy, 2008). It is very important to identify the drivers since this will assist in the allocation of the limited resources on specific leaders and their strategies for implementation and functioning. The key drivers of the organization must portray very clear implications on the firm and the firms within the environment and industry. The leaders must also spearhead the implementation of the clear strategies and be in the position of being able to avert ant looming negative implications (Ware, Ware, Michaels, & Primer, 2011). This also assists to enhance the coordination between the organizations limited resources utilization verses the intended objectives to be actually achieved so the two are at par (Salvendy, 2008). Control of such expenditure is left solely in the hands of the top-level management due to the sensitive nature of the financial resources in any organization. Designation of leadership should also be done in such a way that the individual leadership is in the position of embracing collective leadership to aid in the implementation of the strategies that are affected by the key drivers immediately (Mintzberg, 2011). After the first two steps are taken care of, then the actual strategy is developed and put into use then a comparison is made of the current and the impact of the strategy in the future. The past strategies are as well involved in the comparison and the deviations are engaged in some form of correction (Torstendahl, 1991). This is an extremely tedious exercise. It incorporates data collection, analysis, and presentation of the results for the decision-making on which is the appropriate strategy and leadership style to be adopted is it individual or collective (Mintzberg, 2011). This stage is dependent on several factor considerations such as resources and work force available as well as time most so taken into account that data analysis is highly time consuming. Developing a strategy is again a subordinate exercise that involves a chosen team, which does the work independently and reports constantly to the executive (Mintzberg, 2011). The executive as well makes frequent updates. It is not an easy task forming a strategy since it involves both logic and art where both the left side of the brain is at work as well as the right side. The complexity here is opposed to the simple act of choosing a leader who is simply picked form a pool (Downs, 2007). Once a leadership strategy is formulated, it is then wise that the so formed product is implemented and once it is found to work it is fully established. The strategy should be reviewed frequently on a constant basis to ensure they function properly and efficiently to aid achievement of the VMO’s. The strategy formed can be implemented under collective leadership in more than just a single organization on an inter-firm basis (Ware, Ware, Michaels, & Primer, 2011). Therefore, leadership as a collective strategy is vital right from aiding in the formulation of the strategy through to implementation and functioning of such strategies. Collective leadership also enhances uniform functioning in the industry of operation of the firm. A collective leadership development strategy should therefore be included in the leadership development plan of any organization in the contemporary society, which aspires growth and success in its operations. List of References Bryman, A 2011, The SAGE Handbook of Leadershi,. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.Print Carpenter, M A 2011, The Handbook of Research on Top Management Team. Massachusetts: Edward Elgar Publishing.Print Downs, G W 2007, Collective security beyond the Cold War. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.Print Furnham, A 2005, The psychology of behaviour at work: the individual in the organization. New York: Psychology Press.print Kezar, A J 2008, Rethinking leadership in a complex, multicultural, and global environment: new concepts and models for higher education. Virginia: Stylus Publishing, LLC.print McGuire, J B & Rhodes G, 2009, Transforming Your Leadership Culture. 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