Analysis of Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata Group - Case Study Example

Leadership is important in all organisations irrespective of their size and volume. The growing importance of leadership can be adjudged by the fact that rising competition is compelling more complicated decision thereby making it important that leaders continue to guide business and help the employees in difficult situations. Leadership presents different personality styles like brilliant, lonely, and imaginative and risk takers. The role of leaders is slowly increasing and engulfing areas which are of prime importance and helps business achieve their set objectives. Different leaders have different traits and their working differs from other. They work on different areas and those competencies acts as a measure to achieve the desired result. The paper thus looks into the leadership style of Ratan Tata of Tata Motors by identifying the different traits which has helped him to be successful. The paper also identifies the manner in which the traits of Ratan Tata helped him in his industries and the disadvantages associated with the same. Finally, the paper concentrates on differs in their working style and which is a better one considering the current economic scenario. Leadership has a wide connotation and it arises due to different personality styles, attitudes, the basic concepts, relationship and self identity towards goal. A research shows that leadership is a vast concept compared to management especially and leaders have broader roles to play. (Angelo, 2007) This shows that a certain type of quality is preferred at one place and other at another. It has given stress on various factors to be successful. Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Group holds prime importance for this conglomerate as he shaped the way things will be done. He transformed the corporation into a huge business model by integrating different functions. The corporation has an advantage as it is a collection of different business which helped to take advantage of the different opportunities the market had. “Innovation and globalization were the prime reason and area of work chosen by Ratan Tata”. (Tata, 2008) The leadership traits present in Tata helped him to change the direction in which the company worked. Ratan Tata ensured to use the surroundings to their effect so that maximum can be extracted from the employees. Ratan Tata assumed a much bigger role and tried to integrate the different cultures, devise mechanism to motivate the employees, look towards different compensation plans and look at ways to ensure effective leadership. A study in this direction suggests that leaders have charismatic and transformational style. (James, 2006) This was a quality which was evident in Ratan Tata. Ratan Tata “is enthusiastic, self confident and able to clearly communicate with the employees”. (Lakshman & Shukla, 2005) This can be seen from the very fact that he had a vision to globalize and integrate the different cultures. Ratan Tata ensured that culture was integrated in such a manner that it helped the group to achieve the best result. “People belong to different caste, country, creed, colour, and region which affect the manner in which they carry out their duties”. (Innah, 2009) The Ratan Tata ensured that different cultures were integrated together which helped him go global and achieve results from the employees. This showed his self confidence and the ability to communicate clearly. On the transformational front we can see that Ratan Tata was “able to make his subordinates realize the importance of working, design a compensation package which helped to motivate them and ensured that development was on the personal front also”. (Lakshman & Shukla, 2005) To ensure that employees got the best so that they will be able to deliver he ensured that employees are motivated which will get the best out of them. Ratan Tata was able to identify those and moulded it in a manner which gained best results. He was a strategist and identified the different areas that needs to we worked upon so that the employee are motivated and work towards the well being of the organisation. This can be seen from the fact that he inculcated a pattern of group thinking in the organisation. (Dalal & Basu, 2007)Group Thinking is a phenomenon which involves people from various backgrounds, culture, religion, and caste to come together and discuss upon something thereby arriving at a consensus. This helped to ensure that the decisions arrived were better as new suggestion used to creep up. A research says that opposing style forms a part of the organisation and to be successful it is important to have different qualities. This research thus highlights that different quality in their approach gives similar results. (Kumle, Kelly & Nancy, 2000) This helped Tata to ensure the changes in the working environment. Ratan Tata was very influential and this helped him achieve his task very easily. This can be said on the backdrop that was able to communicate clearly which helped him achieve the results. Also the fact that employees understood what he wanted to communicate made him influential and employees were willing to work in the manner provided by him. The overall qualities and styles demonstrate that Ratan Tata followed the Fielder model. This is on the backdrop of using all powers i.e. “legitimate power, informative power, personal power, referent power and expert power”. (Lakshman & Shukla, 2005) The ability of Ratan Tata to influence the workers and ensure that they work in a directed way helped him even punish and use his dominant powers to achieve the goals. According to Yukl (1989) leaders are brilliant, lonely, and imaginative and risk takers. Thus, there is a difference in their style of working. (Yukl, 1989) This was evident in the leadership trait which can be seen from the different ways Tata took to compensate the employees in the organization. Ratan Tata also made use of the house path goal theory and used this ensured that employees talent was recognized and they were compensated accordingly. For this he ensured that there was clarity in the job as to what needs to be done and a feedback process was present to bring the necessary changes. For this he ensured that “employees are motivated to work harder and they know that their hard efforts would lead to good appraisal and this appraisal will result in incentives like bonuses, promotions and so on and this would lead towards the satisfaction of employees as his personal goals will be achieved”. (Robbins, Judge, Millet, Waters-Marsh, 2008) Thus, his traits show that he follows the house path goal theory which helped to get the best out of each employee. The model and different leadership styles and traits presented by Ratan Tata help to provide the following advantage Firstly, being charismatic ensured that the Tata was able to influence the employees and integrate the different culture which presented the opportunity to go global. Secondly, transformational qualities ensured that employees were motivated. It ensured that an employee gets incentive to perform better. This made the hard working employees to put in more effort and the non-monetary incentive further motivated the employees. Thirdly, his quality of being a strategist helped in getting good ideas. Since it involves brainstorming it thereby helps to “come up with various new ideas and the best one can be chosen based on the requirements of the company”. (Tim, 2005) Fourthly, his leadership style improved flexibility and coordination among the employees. It makes employees realize the “importance of working in a team and this ensures that employees are motivated and feel a part of the organisation”. (Tim, 2005) The model and different leadership styles and traits presented by Ratan Tata also had certain disadvantage as follows Firstly, the coercive power used by Ratan Tata to ensure that employees work accordingly made the organisation lose some vital employees. Secondly, the leadership style increased pressure on the employees to perform to the match standards. Thirdly, the model also increased dependence on the management for decision making thereby delaying the entire process. Thus, the paper presents the manner in which the different leadership traits helped Ratan Tata to bring about a change in the working environment. Effective leadership becomes a vital part for any business units. Business should use different leadership skills which will help to improve the effectiveness of the business and help business units to grow. Leadership thus is a very important part for every organisation and Ratan Tata using the different personality traits was able to mould their respective organisation towards growth. There is no model which is perfectly correct but leaders need to ensure that they mould their traits according to the requirements and bring the necessary changes in their working manner to help the organisation achieve success. This thereby presents the different traits which have helped Ratan Tata to ensure that Tata Motors is able to grow and mould more customers towards their business. 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