Leaders of the Future Chartered Management Institute - Literature review Example

Leaders of the Future Chartered Management Institute of my graphic design company will be Vivid Private Limited. In the forthcoming years, My Company will try to achieve three verticals of graphic designing (through its operation); such as, design, share and inspire (Go Media, 2013). Vivid Private Limited will provide services like branding and advertising solutions to companies, designing 3D pictures for corporate, digital advertising solutions and delivering graphic designing solutions to corporate and individual customers. Three verticals of graphic designing can be considered as the three key skills required for leading various departments of my company. Two of these three verticals of skill can be explained in the following manner. Design A leader must have expertise in the field of graphic designing, digital advertising and designing 3D picture in a customized manner in order to help his/her subordinates accomplish graphic designing projects. Expertise in the graphic designing will not only help me to guide my subordinates, but also help me to earn respect from my subordinates. This is due to two reasons, 1- helping subordinates with my domain knowledge will increase communication between me and my subordinates which in turn will increase mutual trust between us, and 2- research scholars such as Yukl (2010) have stated that showing knowledge and expertise gives a leader “expert power” which can be used by the leader in order to influence and earn respect from the subordinates. Sharing A leader must possesses an open mind to accept knowledge and ideas from all plausible sources in order to incorporate those ideas in graphic designing. I should develop the skills of creating a knowledge sharing environment among my subordinates, in order to bring high degree of flexibility and customization in our service offering. I believe that, it is important for a leader of graphic designing company to establish a creative organizational culture in order to motivate subordinates to infuse creativity and innovation in daily work. Industry experts have pointed out that, being creative in terms of service delivery, cultural orientation, and daily operational activity is the key success mantra for organizations like graphic designing companies, whose sustainability is dependent on its ability to incorporate innovation and creativity in service delivery. Anderson et al. (1994) have raised questions on significance of traditional organization structures like vertical and horizontal orientation for small companies. According to them, vertical and horizontal organizational structures are more suitable for large organizations, which have multiple layers of operation, huge number of employees, and multiple departments. Arguments made by various research scholars on viability of traditional organization structure have forced me to search for alternate organizational structure for Vivid Private Limited. There is no doubt that my graphic design company is very small in comparison to existing big players in the field of graphic designing; hence, there is an opportunity for me to implement different organizational structures such as ‘Lattice Management Structure’ instead of vertical or horizontal orientation in my company. ‘Lattice Management Structure’ emphasizes on employee empowerment, which means in my organization employees will be on their own supervisor. Subordinates working under my leadership will be called as “associates” and these associates will help each other to share new ideas during daily operational activities. A deep analysis of lattice structure is needed in order to justify selection of organizational structure. d’Orey (1996) has described lattice management structure as partial alienation of human elements of an organization with the help of network which has unique infimum and supremum. Cheung and Vogel (2005) have revealed that lattice structure design use one path of function for each node of the network; which means that, employees in the organization do not need to report their activities to a single supervisor. Lattice design of my organization will help my subordinates to overcome their lack of skills in a particular area of graphic designing in the following manner. Suppose, employee g1 has the capability to perform 3D designing (m3) but doesn’t have the skill to perform digital marketing (m2); while employee g2 has the skill to perform digital marketing (m2) but doesn’t have the expertise to perform 3D designing (m3). Now when we associate these employees in a group, there is a possibility that these employees might share their expertise with each other and as a result of knowledge synergy between them, overall skill level of the group will increase. The following model can be used in order to describe knowledge synchronization between employees working in my organization. (Source: Solesvik and Encheva, 2010, pp. 701 – 717) Creativity in work will be the core value of my company. It will be backed by knowledge sharing culture among the employees. Creativity and knowledge sharing among employees can be established with the help of previously mentioned lattice structure. It is clear from the above mentioned lattice structure, that conjoint network model will motivate employees to share their expertise with each other and this will also enhance cultural dynamics among them. I have recruited ten graphic designing professionals in my company; hence, I can use different combinations of employees for establishing cultural orientations in my organization. I will create two teams in the organization; team 1 (with 5 members) for handling graphic designing activities and team 2 (with 5 members) for handling digital marketing, branding and advertising activities. There will be one point of contact for each team who will directly report to me. There will be weekly knowledge sharing session with all the team members, where they can share their feedback regarding improvement of performance or new ideas regarding the work with me. My responsibility will be to motivate my team members to perform their task in a creative but satisfactory manner. It will be my responsibility to negotiate with corporate and individual clients to collect project for my company while arranging training and development will also be part of my responsibility. My company is a start-up venture; hence, investing huge amount of money on creating various departments will increase financial risk. Therefore, I will try to accomplish many of the activities by myself, such as, recruitment and supervision of work. Support staffs like marketing executives and customer relationship managers will also help my company to perform critical tasks, such as, negotiating with clients, maintaining relationship with clients etc. There will not be more than two departments in our company – the marketing and the administration department. Basically, there will be two layers of authority in the lattice structure of my organization; level 1 will be the director of the company, while level 2 will be the point of contacts for each team. Level of authority in the lattice structure can be explained in the following manner. (Source: Solesvik and Encheva, 2010, pp. 701 – 717) [This model is an elongated version of organizational structure of my company, with 20 graphic designing professionals and four points of contacts, the red point in the model is indicating the position of leader in the model (in this case the position will be held by me). Four points of contacts directly report to me about performance of their team.] Research scholars such as Cropanzano and Mitchell (2005) have pointed out that leaders need to show respect towards cultures, values and ethics of subordinates in order to generate a healthy environment in the organization. According to Leader Member Exchange (LMX) theory, leaders of an organization needs show respect towards personal value system of team members in order to motivate them to engage in the work environment and help them to communicate with their supervisors in an uninterrupted manner. It is evident from the above study that my organization needs to show respect towards personal value system of my subordinates in order to fillip the scope for knowledge sharing culture in my organizations. I will not force my subordinates to perform works which are against their ethical orientation and personal value system in order to increase their engagement level with the work environment of our organization. Various research scholars such as Yukl (2010) have stated that leaders play significant role in increasing team performance by fulfilling personal objective of team members. Yukl (2010) has stated that leaders can use three types of social powers, such as, referent power, reward power and expert power in order to motivate team members to improve their performance, which will automatically improve the overall performance of team. Referent power is generated by leaders with the help of admiration from subordinates and interpersonal skills. Reward power is generated by a leader by giving financial reward to subordinates; and expert power is generated by a leader with the help of his/her expertise in a particular subject. For example, almost 70% of the Fortune 500 companies use balance scorecard in order to help team members achieve their personal performance objective, which in turn increases overall achievement level of the team. Research scholars such as Rahim et al. (2001) have pointed out that leaders can use referent power in the following manner in order to help employees to achieve personal objective and increase level of team achievement. (Source: Rahim et al., 2001, pp. 191 - 211) According to this model, conjoint approach of reward power and expert power of a leader increases the dimensionality of referent power while increase in referent power helps a leader to solve problems related to performance objective of team members. Helping subordinates to fulfil their personal objectives by using referent power, increases job performance of that subordinate. The same method can be used in order to improve job performance of other team members, which will collectively increase achievement level of team. Research scholars like Sims et al. (2009) have pointed out that leaders can adopt various leadership styles, such as, situational leadership backed by contingency theory proposed by various research scholars, transactional leadership, autocratic leadership, bureaucratic leadership, participative leadership, action cantered leadership, and charismatic leadership. According to situational leadership theory, individuals should nurture their leadership skill on the basis of contingency of the situation. Hence it can be said that leadership is an inherent characteristics of an individual. Broadness of the situational leadership concept has forced me not to adopt such leadership style while running the company. According to transactional leadership, leaders have the right to punish subordinates because the organization is paying them; but I do not support such paternalistic style of leadership because I have already worked with recruited design professionals, who have cordial relation with me. This means using transactional leadership will decrease level of cordiality between me and my peer group. Such situation will not only decrease scope of creativity but also sustainability of my organization. Autocratic leadership is an extreme form of leadership, where leaders show dogmatic attitude towards employees and do not listen to any suggestions made by subordinates. Knowledge sharing environment of my organization does not support autocratic leadership style, though it has benefits like quick decision making, efficient management control. According to bureaucratic leadership, leaders force their subordinates to follow rigorous rules while working in the organization. Although bureaucratic leadership is beneficial for large organizations where employees do routine task but I cannot adopt this leadership style because lattice structure of my organization does not support bureaucratic environment In charismatic leadership, leaders use their personal charisma in order to influence and motivate subordinates to perform a particular task. Self consciousness of charismatic leaders decreases the scope for bringing real change in the organization, hence I cannot adopt this leadership style up to its full extent but I can use this style to motivate my subordinates for a short frame of time. According to participative leadership, leaders take the final decision after considering the suggestions made by team members. Such kind of leadership style not only increases engagement level of subordinates in decision making process but also motivates them to incorporate creativity in decision making. There is fair amount of synergy between lattice management structure of my graphic designing company and participative leadership style. Hence I will use participative leadership as an appropriate leadership tool in order to integrate knowledge sharing and creativity among associates. Action centred leadership style was developed by Adair’s in order to conjoint three verticals of leadership all together, such as, group functions, achieving task, developing individuals all together. In achieving task, Leaders need to make a plan to allocate resource to achieve objective of predefined task and also needs to check performance of employees in order for controlling the quality of output produced by subordinates. In developing individual, leaders need to listen to personal problems of subordinates and offer recognition to them in order to develop them. In group function development, leaders encourage team spirit building by establishing clear performance standard (Wayman et al., 2006). It is clear from the above discussion, that action centred leadership is an integrated part of lattice management structure of our company. Two points of contacts assigned for team members will use action centred leadership in order to increase the scope of knowledge sharing among associates. I will also try to use a mix of action centred leadership and participative leadership in order to motivate all the associates to infuse culture of creativity and personal development in our organization. Sims et al. (2009) have pointed out that leaders need to change their leadership style in accordance with the demand of the situation. According to research scholars, multitude of issues, such as, hypercompetitive business environment, economic uncertainty of business cycle, changing consumer behaviours have forced leaders to adopt situational leadership style in order to meet demand of situation. For example, 1- A G Lafley (former CEO of P&G) has changed his leadership style while changing global business strategy of the company into front back hybrid matrix model in order to ensure sustainability of adopted model; 2- Steve Jobs adopted extrovert leadership style for technological revolution in Apple. It is clear from the examples that there is no fix formula for adopting different leadership style in accordance with the situational demand. Adaptation of different leadership style depends on personality and motive of the leader. Vardiman et al. (2006) have stated that leadership deals with bringing innovation in organization, addressing existing challenges, changing organizational dynamics in accordance with changing dynamics of business environment; while management deals with managing operational and functional activities of business. Alas et al. (2007) have pointed out that leadership is backed by personal traits, such as, relationship with subordinates, influencing capability, interpersonal skill of leaders but managers managing might not require these kinds of personal skills while managing operational activity of an organization. Bartol and Martin (1998) have proposed that, leaders can motivate and encourage the development of team members by applying three types of theoretical models such as reinforcement theory, cognitive theory and needs theory. Research scholar Alderfer (1972) has changed the hierarchical needs theory in order to establish three new verticals of motivations, such as, existence, relatedness and growth. I will use the theoretical model of Alderfer in order to increase motivation level among my team members and it will also help them to understand shared purpose of the team and organizational direction. Existence I will try to motivate my team members by satisfying their psychological needs by means of various visible and invisible rewards, such as, 1- developing a good work environment by implementing lattice management structure and 2- providing them with financial rewards for satisfactory performances. Relatedness I will call my team members associates rather than calling them employees. This strategy will increase their engagement level with value system of my organization. Knowledge sharing environment of my organization will also increase cordiality in relationship between team members. Growth Two points of contacts of my organization will take care of personal development and career growth of team members. In future, I will try to use “from within” strategy in order to promote my team members to higher job designation instead of recruiting candidates from external sources. These three strategies will not only increase motivation level among employees but also establish a culture of mutual trust, shared vision and respect among my team members. Reference Alas, R., Tafel, K. and Tuulik, K., 2007. Leadership style during transition in society: Case of Estonia. Problems and Perspectives in Management 5(1), pp. 50-60. Alderfer, C. P., 1972. Existence, Relatedness, and Growth: Human Needs in Organizational Settings. New York: Free Press. Anderson, J. C., Hakansson, H. and Johanson, J., 1994. Dyadic business relationships within a business network context, Journal of Marketing, 58(4), pp. 1-15. Bartol, K. M. and Martin, D. C., 1998. Management. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Cheung, K. and Vogel, D., 2005. Complexity reduction in lattice-based information retrieval. Information Retrieval, 8, pp. 285-99. Cropanzano, R. and Mitchell, M. S., 2005. Social exchange theory: An interdisciplinary review. Journal of Management, 31(6), pp. 874-900. d’Orey, V., 1996. Fixed point theorems for correspondences with values in a partially ordered set and extended supermodular games. Journal of Mathematical Economics, 25(3), pp. 345-54. Go Media., 2013. Go media Design with Passion. [online] Available at: [Accessed 18 January 2013]. Rahim, M. A., Antonioni, D. and Psenicka, C., 2001. A Structural Equations Model of Leader Power, Subordinate’s Styles of Handling Conflict, and Job Performance. International Journal of Conflict Management, [e-journal] 12, Available through: Emerald Database [Accessed 18 January 2013]. Sims, H. P., Faraj, S. and Yun, S., 2009. When should a leader be directive or empowering: How to develop your own situational theory of leadership. Business Horizons, 52 (2), pp. 149-59. Solesvik, M. Z. and Encheva, S., 2010. Partner selection for interfirm collaboration in ship Design. Industrial Management & Data Systems, [e-journal] 110 (5), Available through: Emerald Database [Accessed 18 January 2013]. Vardiman, P., Houghston, J. and Jinkerson, D., 2006. Environmental leadership development. toward a contextual model of leader selection and effectiveness. Leadership & Organization Development Journal Vol. 27 No. 2 pp. 93-105. Wayman, J. C., Midgley, S. Stringfield, S., 2006. Leadership for Data-Based Decision-Making: Collaborative Educator Teams. [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 18 January 2013]. Yukl, G., 2010. Leadership in Organizations. 7th ed. London: Prentice Hall. Read More