Critical Theories of Leadership Management - Term Paper Example

Leadership Student’s name: Instructor’s name: Course title: Date: Abstract The ultimate goal of the discourse was to explore the concept of leadership and its significance to organisations. To address the later, the paper reviewed various theories pertaining to leadership such trait theory and situational theories. The merging observation was that these theories have conceptualised leadership in terms of personal characteristics and situational conditions. The next issue analysed relates to how leaders influence the behaviour of individuals and teams in their organisation. Through secondary literatures, the paper explored how Steve Jobs influenced employees so as to turnaround Apple Company. The emerging theme is that Jobs use the theme of creating unique culture through change management. The third aspect in the paper relates to how leaders perceive their roles. The core of the argument uses secondary literatures to analyse the perception of Steve Jobs and Gerstner tenure at IBM. From various literatures and interview, Gerstner perceive his role as that of driving change through various mechanisms like motivation/ reward system, punishment and through structural adjustment. These reviews, highlights various lessons learnt. The emerging lessons from the discourse include affirmation that leadership is futuristic and it is based on influencing the perception of individuals so as to attain desired goals. To gain the required followership, leadership employ soft techniques like interpersonal skills and technical skills. Table of Contents Abstract i Table of Contents ii Table of Figures iii 1.0 Introduction 1 2.0 Theories of the Nature and Exercise of Leadership 1 2.1 Trait Theory 2 2.2 Situational Theories of Leadership 3 3.0 Evaluation of Selected Leader in Directing Behaviour of Employees 4 3.1 Steve Jobs Second Tenure at Apple 4 3.1.1 Change management and Creation of culture that sustains change 5 3.1.2 Creating Powerful Teams 7 4.0 Analysis of How Leaders Perceive their Roles 9 4.1 Louis Gerstner at IBM 9 4.1.1 Creation of Distinct Organisational Culture 9 4.2 Jobs at Apple 11 5.0 Summary of Lessons Learnt About Leadership 11 6.0 Conclusion 12 Appendices 16 Appendix 1: Personality Traits/ Characteristics of a leader 16 Appendix 2: Perception of a Leader 16 Appendix 3: Leadership Skills deemed Essential for Effectiveness/ success 17 Appendix 4: Traits of Successful CEOs 17 Appendix 5: The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs 18 Appendix 6: The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs 18 Appendix 7: Gerstner: changing culture at IBM – Lou Gerstner discusses changing the culture at IBM. 18 Table of Figures Figure 1: Personality Traits/ Characteristics of a leader 16 Figure 2: Perception of a Leader 16 Figure 3: Leadership Skills deemed Essential for Effectiveness/ success 17 Figure 4: Traits of Successful CEOs 17 1.0 Introduction George and colleagues (2007, p.129) observes that there are more than 1000 works in the past 50 years that have been conducted in relation to leadership so to establish ‘definitive styles, characteristics or personality traits of a great leaders’. However, the astonishing thing is that all these have not produced a concrete unified answer of the ideal leader. Nevertheless, all scholars in management and organisational behaviour acknowledge the importance of leadership. The aim of this paper is to examine what leadership is and its significance in the organisation. The paper is organised into four sections. The first three sections address critical issues of leadership from theoretical and practical perspectives. The first section of the discourse examines key theories of the nature and exercise of leadership in organisations. The second segment of the expose interrogates the behaviour of selected leaders in an organisation of the author’s choice. The third section analyses how two leaders perceive their roles and what helped them develop as leaders. Lastly, the paper summarises learning that have emerged from the prior three discussions. 2.0 Theories of the Nature and Exercise of Leadership The human relations approach to management model form the basis of recognising leadership as a critical ingredient for organisations success. In the earlier years, management was based on classical model which stressed functions technical skills such as controlling, coordination and controlling as the core responsibility of a manager (Pindur, Rogers and Kim, 1995, p.61). Human relations framework realises that employees’ needs are more than economic gains since they have other psycho-social needs. Ability to recognise this appreciates the fact that performance of individual is tied to wide array of factors which acts as constraints (Pindur, Rogers and Kim, 1995, p.65). Hence, it anticipates that the route out of the shortcomings associated with scientific approach is tied to having a mix of people’s skills and technical skills. This section reviews leadership theories such as trait theory and situational theories of leadership as identified by (Bertocci, 2009) in collaboration with other supporting resources such as Gill (2009). 2.1 Trait Theory Bertocci (2009, p.20) indicates that trait theory is a collection of reasonable constructs and models that aims at conceptualising leadership through related personality traits or characteristics. Before World War 2 and emergence of industrial entrepreneurs from simple background, people believed that leaders had genetical traits that defined and distinguished them from others. However, with the change is status quo, the genetical model of leadership was disapproved. Gill (2011, p.65) notes that it believed that ‘effective leaders had special traits in common’ with most these being ‘cognitive, emotional or interpersonal skills’. In a nutshell, these traits can be summed as soft skills. Soft skills imply leadership. Leadership deals with the future, ideas, people and personalities (Gillard, 2009, p.726). Gill (2011, p.66) adds the concept of ‘big five’ personality traits. These include neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Indeed, Ramesh (2010); Bertocci (2009) brings an interesting scenario. Ramesh (2010, p. 2 & 3) & Bertocci (2009, p.23) explores why some employees or managers are successful yet they have limited education. He illustrates an observation that emotions and emotional intelligence are important and affects how we interact and perceive things at work place. Those who have higher emotional intelligence which translates to effective social skills are more prosperous and effective. Gill (2011) and Bertocci (2009) identifies various traits that have been outlined as being critical in leadership. Bertocci (2009, p.20) identifies traits such as intelligence, personality, communicative skills, physical characteristics and supervisory ability. Peter Northouse cited in Gill (2011, p.65) identifies traits such as ‘integrity, self confidence, sociability, & determination as well as cognitive ability’. The emerging theme is that, various scholars in their works have identified different traits that make an individual/ manager an effective leader (see appendix 1, 2, 3 and 4). The model has received accolades as well as criticisms. One criticism that has been levelled against the approach is that the traits are numerous and endless. This makes it difficult to identify true leadership (gill, 2011, p.67; Bertocci, 2009, p.23). Moreover, these traits do not act in isolation, but in a combination thus, for an individual to be effective he or she has to posse wide array of these characteristics. Lastly, traits might not apply across the board, for example, certain characteristics which might be desirable in engineering might not be desirable in military (Bertocci, 2009, p.23). 2.2 Situational Theories of Leadership These theories were developed as a response to deficiencies associated with trait theory. These models conceptualise leadership as being a function of a particular environment and can vary as per the situation. This implies that an effective leadership in a given context might not be totally applicable to other situations (Bertoci, 2009, p.33). The situations that are likely to influence leadership quality of an individual include personal characteristics of a leader, the nature of the job, the nature of the organisation and the nature of the people who follow. These theories include Path-Goal theory, Fielder’s contingency theory, the Hersey-Blanchard theory and Vertical dyad-linkage theory/ leader-member exchange theory (Bertocci, 2009, 34). For instance, path goal theory is premised on motivation through reward of expectations. The theory stresses the need to influence follower’s perception of work goals and self development among others. 3.0 Evaluation of Selected Leader in Directing Behaviour of Employees A manager who is an effective leader has a comparative advantage over his/her peers. Effective leadership is integral in galvanising the support of various stakeholders like employees, shareholders and board of directors to support a certain cause so that organisational goals can be achieved. Effective leadership is a wide concept that involves social/ interpersonal skills like persuasion, motivation, emotional intelligence and communication skills among others. Katzenbach and Smith (1994 cited in Bolden et al, 2003, p.12-13) observes that critical behaviours of effective leader include asking question and not giving answers, doing real work in support of others, providing opportunities for other, becoming match maker instead of the focal point and seeking common understanding instead of consensus. In a nutshell, the role of a leader is to shape the behaviour of others towards desired end (Wooten, 2008, p.8). 3.1 Steve Jobs Second Tenure at Apple According to Wooten (2010), Jobs was able to turn around the fortunes of Apple, making it one of the best performing companies in the world. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, is an example of a leader who has built a company around a strength-based strategy that has achieved positive deviance. When Steve Jobs finally took over Apple as the CEO, new business model was moulded around improvement on the company’s core product line. First, Jobs killed the Macintosh clones that were eating into Apple’s PC sales. Thus, the company shifted its strategy towards the Macintosh. Here, Jobs made the PCs look more beautiful than before in order to look appealing to the customers (Muehlhausen, 2010). In collaboration with Jonathan Ive, Jobs oversaw the production of the iMac, iPhone, iPod and the iPad. Apple was revived through a strategy that aimed at making the Macintosh much better. Thus, the Macintosh became user friendly, powerful and prettier. The key strategy here was producing consumer solutions based on technology, as well as design. Additionally, Jobs realized the need to utilise the talent of employees in the company (Muehlhausen, 2010). Consequently, Jobs encouraged his employees to be innovative and creative (see appendix 5). The above shows how the leader was transformational in his approach to managing people and the organisation. Lucey (2008, p.12) notes that leaders are those people who are able to initiate change and create an environment where change is the order of the day. On the other hand, she views managers as those who are for stability and implementers of change. Kotter (1995, p.60); Kotter (1990, p.6) sees a manager as the one who is in charge of controlling, problem solving and producing the short term results as per the expectations of stakeholders. On the other hand, he conceptualises leader as one who establishes direction by outlining vision for the future. Moreover, this individual is able to set the strategies for attaining the vision. In a nutshell, he sees leadership as ‘aligning people, communicating the direction to all whose co-operation is needed’. 3.1.1 Change management and Creation of culture that sustains change To guide the behaviour of his employees towards the desired end, Jobs initiated change management and team work concept. The behaviour of the Apple chief by then can be analysed through change management models as an effective leader. Effective leadership ties with what is known as transformational leadership rather than transactional leadership. Lewin’s 3stage approach illustrates the organisational change of Apple through unfreezes, change and refreeze phases. Unfreezing entails explaining the required new targets and objectives. Jobs shook people out of their comfort zones through reshuffles in the unfreezing process. This allowed employees reassess their current situations and deliberate opportunities. This motivates employees and increases their commitment to change instinctively. Thus, as a leader his key behaviour was to drive change and create new culture through platforms like innovation, reward management, and knowledge management. To drive the change, one critical ingredient is reduction of resistance. Kotter and Schlesinger (2008); and Levasseur (2001) post that initiating new order of things in an organization is more difficult to perform and doubtful in terms of success. Implementation of organizational change is usually met by resistance and likelihood of failure because managers more often than not apply ‘one-size-fits-all’ strategies. As such, to effectively manage employees’ psychological resistance to organizational change, management must tailor their strategies and approaches to organizational change to the potential forms of resistance they are more likely to encounter. For instance, Jobs ensured that both employees and stakeholders of Apple were at par with the bigger organisational goals. This enabled the company to undertake its operations without conflicts. This is because the two key components that defined its success, thus the stakeholders and employees, were fully aware of what the overall goals of the company were (Wooten, 2010). The second stage involves creation of changes to management and operations of the organization. Lewin emphasizes the need of communication and proper timing for people to find balance and fully engage in the new reform. As a change agent, it was crucial for Jobs to develop an effective communication strategy with his employees. Refreeze stage came as the final stage. It involved organisation taking new shape that aligns with the change implementation comprehensively. At this stage, the CEO targeted the development of new approaches to business. Consequently, Jobs encouraged his employees to be innovative and creative “Innovating is the dominant value of Apple’s culture and employees are rewarded for experimenting, risk taking, and creativity” (Wooten, 2010, p. 8). The change he created allowed him to have internal followership hence making it easier to implement changes since all resistance have been overcame. For a manager to be an effective leader, he or she must have followership. It is these followers who are able to implement strategies he or she have outside the power relations frameworks (leadership is about using people by showing them direction, sense of urgency and galvanising their support so as to attain organisational goals without force, but through persuasion ); (Moon, 2009, 526). According to Ford, Ford and D’Amelio (2008, p.363), leader as a change agent should ask herself/himself the question that, ‘how will this get accomplished?’ This calls for effective followership through leadership skills/ people’s skills like negotiation skills, communication skills, positive attitude, persuasion skills, team building, emotional intelligence and creation of culture that befits the desired goals. 3.1.2 Creating Powerful Teams There are various literatures that points at how small group evolve overtime. Before one talks about team work and success, one of the integral steps is on team development. It is indeed true that teamwork if well managed can lead to unrivalled performance, but this is not an overnight engagement since it involves bringing various people with different traits and backgrounds on board to build a united block (Schermerhorn et al, 2011, p.156). The second approach towards moulding the behaviours of his team can be best analysed through team building approach as outlined by Belbin. Belbin understands group as a body made of people with no significance attached to positions, but roles. This approach can then be used to build behavioural strengths and weaknesses in organisation. The theory proposes nine roles and each role is best tapped through the act of balancing between strength and allowable weaknesses (Belbin, 2011, p.9). These roles are defined according to one contribution to the team. The nine roles include who is creative, resource investigator, coordinator, shaper, monitor evaluator, team worker, implementer, complementer finisher and specialist. To attain this mixture, Apple put in place various best practices in human resource management. According to Iliev et al. (2004), it is the human resources in Apple Inc. that is the source of all value enhancing tasks relating to efficiency, innovation, quality and responsiveness. For instance, for over years, Apple Inc.’s human resource department objective has been to ensure that it provides qualified personnel to the company in order to assure the customers of superior performance. One of the objectives reads “Employees should at all times strive for the highest quality in all they do” (p. 89). To guide the behaviours on individuals and various teams in his organisation, Jobs implemented various strategies (see appendix 6). 4.0 Analysis of How Leaders Perceive their Roles 4.1 Louis Gerstner at IBM 4.1.1 Creation of Distinct Organisational Culture Sammer & James (2011, p.56) sees organisational culture as “the shared beliefs, principles, values, and assumptions that shape behaviour by building commitment, providing direction, establishing a collective identity, and creating a community”. Thus, culture manifests itself in the overall behaviour of the company in order for the organisation to adapt to the environment it operates. Essentially, the culture holds the company strategy together. Theory X and theory Y advances concept that there are two classes of managers. The X managers view employees as skivers and those in need of close supervision, while Y managers hold optimistic view that employees need motivation so as to achieve desired goals (Andreas 2010, p.220). International Business Machine (IBM) is one of the oldest computer manufactures. In earlier years (1914-1980s) it was a dominant player in the field of machines & computers and thus, rose significantly to claim market leadership. After some years and paradigm shift from product oriented approach to business service, the company started experiencing decline (1990s) and thus stared at eminent fall. The third face involved greater restructuring that saw them rebuild and thus the phase of transformation (Tung, 2001, p.41). The first approach that the company adopted is by making their culture universal and thus being able to identify with diverse market (Bodreau and Jesuthasan, 2011). Early on, he decided that the whole of IBM was greater than the sum of its parts. But its many parts were far-flung and operated independently, with little accountability. Rather than work together as a team, divisions competed against each other both internally and in the field. He writes that management "presided rather than acted," and the entire company was dangerously preoccupied with itself rather than customers (DiCarlo, 2002). In his book ‘who said elephants can’t dance’, Gerstner talks about changing an organisation culture as the key to success and thus, that being his major role. He states that ‘Transformation of an enterprise begins with a sense of crisis or urgency," he told the students. "No institution will go through fundamental change unless it believes it is in deep trouble and needs to do something different to survive’ (Lagace, 2002). According to him, having a united culture was a key principal (see appendix 7). To him, this can be achieved through positive deviance. Critical in this culture and success of him during 10 year stint at IBM as is the goal setting approach. According to Edwin Locke (1968), one of the earlier proponents of goal-setting, posits that goals formulated by individuals themselves contributes a huge portion towards motivating that person for unrivalled performance. Precisely, this is what Jobs aimed at. One way of guaranteeing performance is through visionary leadership. Brim (2012, p.3) notes that human beings performs well when they have goals and objectives set out for them. On the other hand, expectation theory looks at performance in relation to anticipated satisfaction of valued goals set by them. According to Victor Vroom (1964), people adapt their behavior in certain way so as to attain desired goals. The eventuality tied to employees adapting their behavior according to desired outcome as a result of the goal set by their leader who motivates, directs and empower them. 4.2 Jobs at Apple Page perceives his role in a unique perspective. For over years, since the former CEO of Apple Inc. Steve Jobs took over the management of the company, the organisational culture has been defined by important values of creativity and innovation. Jobs did emphasize the importance of these two values by use of statements like “Innovate, that’s what we do” and “Apple is the most creative technology company out there” (Hawn, 2004). By valuing innovation so much, Apple Inc. has been first in launching products that have come to be used as benchmarks in the technology industry. For instance, the 2003 launches included the G5 desktop, the iTunes, a 15-inch laptop that had an ambient-lit keyboard (could be used in darkness), wireless mouse and Panther (operating system). Thus, innovation is the cornerstone to Apple Inc.’s organisational culture giving it a competitive advantage over its rivals. However, in order to sustain this competitive advantage, the management of Apple Inc. has a strict policy where employees are restricted from talking about future products. 5.0 Summary of Lessons Learnt About Leadership The first perspective that has been learnt from the above excursion is what leadership is. The first theme that emerges is that everyone can be a leader so long as he or she can influence relationship. Thus, leadership is about influencing while management is about authority. Secondly, leaders are futuristic in their approach. What he or she proposes might not be palatable currently. However, this might be the future. Thus, leadership is about establishing direction through visioning. The next is the contrast that emerges between leadership and management. In this perspective, management operates in structure by delegating authority and responsibility while effective leadership rejuvenates employees and instil sense of inspiration beyond imagination. The fourth lesson is that management monitors results, adjust plans and solve problems (immediate stability) while leadership create that needed change. The second lesson relates to what leadership is not. The first theme is that leadership requires an initiator. Nevertheless it is not a one man show as one is likely to experience resistance. The basis of leadership is to build following through team building, reward management and motivation. Moreover, leadership isn’t about positions and hierarchy, but about ability to influence people. While personality traits are critical in leadership, they are not the only parameters for creating organisational change. 6.0 Conclusion The aim of the paper was to examine the concept of leadership. In the first section, the paper reviewed various theories on leadership. These included trait theory that attributes leadership to various personality traits. The essence here is that people have unique traits that if well applied makes them effective as leader. These include emotional intelligence, team player and being resolute among others. However, this theory has deficiency since people have varying traits. Additionally, the paper examined various situational theories that argue that people behave according to various conditions. This partly holds water as most leaders initiate change depending on competitive environment and internal conditions. However, there are well planned changes that are gradual. The second section evaluated Steve Jobs as an icon in business leadership. The paper examined how he was able to guide behaviour of individuals and teams of his organisation. The emerging observation was that he applied the concept of culture building through change management. This allowed him to have creative team that are loyal to his ideas. Moreover, he built powerful teams through team work, reward management and performance management. The third section examined how different leaders viewed their roles in terms of leadership. One of the leaders examined was Gerstner who was a CEO at IBM and managed to turn around its fortune. The basis of his leadership was about being futuristic through creation of a unifying culture. This allowed the once fragmented company to have a common vision. In a nutshell, based on various interviews and his book, he saw his major role as being creating a distinct unique culture. Lastly, the paper highlighted lessons learnt from the initial discourse. The critical lesson learnt was that leadership is futuristic, involves influencing people to behave in certain manner so that impediments to performance can be overcome. This contrasts with a manager who is for stability and implementation of daily routines without any change. References Andreas, K., Petros, P & Leonidas, K 2010. 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Appendices Appendix 1: Personality Traits/ Characteristics of a leader Figure 1: Personality Traits/ Characteristics of a leader Source: Kozak, 1984, p.4 cited in Bertocci, 2009, p.21 Appendix 2: Perception of a Leader Figure 2: Perception of a Leader Source: Rosenbach and Taylor, 1993 cited in Bertocci, 2009, p.21 Appendix 3: Leadership Skills deemed Essential for Effectiveness/ success Figure 3: Leadership Skills deemed Essential for Effectiveness/ success Source: Kozak, 1998, p.6 cited in Bertocci, 2009, p.22 Appendix 4: Traits of Successful CEOs Figure 4: Traits of Successful CEOs Source: Gill, 2011, p.65. Appendix 5: The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs Available at: http://hbr.org/2012/04/the-real-leadership-lessons-of-steve-jobs/ar/1 Source: Isaacson, 2012 Appendix 6: The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs Source: Isaacson, 2012 Appendix 7: Gerstner: changing culture at IBM – Lou Gerstner discusses changing the culture at IBM. Available online at: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3209.html. Source: Lagace, 2002 Read More