Appropriate Leadership Style for Coral Telecom Limited - Case Study Example

Table of Contents Particulars Page No. 1.0 Introduction 2 2.0 Problem Definition 3 3.0 Organizational Culture and Capacity Change 4 4.0 Organizational Culture and Leadership 4 5.0 Appropriate Leadership Style for Coral Telecom Limited 5 6.0 Leadership: Culture Setter 6 7.0 Cultural Change Process 7 8.0 Management of “Cultural and Capacity Change” in CTL 9 9.0 Conclusion 11 10.0 References 13 1.0 Introduction This report has been designed in a comprehensive manner to highlight upon a recent change which occurred in Coral Telecom Limited (CTL) which is a leader manufacturer of EPBX in the Asian region and also develops software packages which are compatible with own made EPBX (hardware) and how a leader could manage those change or could improve upon the management of change so as to ensure better and smooth functioning of the business. The report is drafted in a manner to not just focus on leadership traits and theories but how a leader can apply the same in a practical situation to ensure and taste success with little or no resistance from members of the organization to any such changes. The change status which has been identified and discussed in this report involves a change in the capacity of the organization which as a result of the same looked towards increasing its capacity so as to capture a larger global market and led to cultural changes and its impact on the organization. The report further looks to make an application of the leadership traits, theories, models and importance to deal with such cultural change and ensure that the readers are equipped with theoretical and practical understanding of the entire topic under study. 2.0 Problem Definition Whether an organization has enough workload capacity for change is a significant factor in the success or failure of its business operations. Capacity over utilization is a common feature in many organizations where demand has been high and the leaders pile change to painfully stretch the workloads. Many leaders do not understand capacity issues and further fail to understand its associated dynamics and impacts which capacity have on the cultural changes among the people associated within the organization. The Issue of Capacity and Cultural Change in Coral Telecom Limited Capacity in context to an organization is the total workload for ensuring a smooth running of its current operations and conducting change activities associated with the same. Adding any workload on either side of the equilibrium consumes some of the organization capacity. In reality capacity is a finite measurable term where people can do as much as human can do and it becomes an issue on account of any of the following two actions. Firstly when leaders continue to add workload to meet the desired demand especially in the middle and the lower-upper strata of the management levels or secondly when leaders add major changes on the top of the normal operating requirements and do not take anything off the normal plate to make space for such organizational changes which includes proper allocation of time, resources, meeting, personal changes etc. Here in Coral Telecom Limited, the manufacturing or the production unit has been doing well with equal efforts being contributed by the marketing team to create a steady demand of its products in local Asian technological market. However, with increasing demand and the organization looking for market expansion on a global basis CTL looked towards increasing its capacity by opening more manufacturing units in areas located outside Asia which led to a diffusion of new employees being recruited from other parts of the globe who varied in terms of their personal traits and culture then what was predominantly common in the Asian region. This led to a drastic change in organization which can be termed as cultural change in the organization and brought about many issues concerning with organizational change and leadership in Coral Telecom Limited. 3.0 Organizational Culture and Capacity Change The organizational culture highly influences how the leaders treat the capacity issues and how leaders attend to capacity issues in turn dictates the cultural norms of the organization and its capacity. Leaders usually do not tend to think about their people and whether or not their people can do what is needed as they just assume and they can. The organizations needs to ensure a transform of the cultural changes as mere opening new manufacturing concerns might solve the capacity issues but in turn lead to cultural changes within the organization. The leaders must keep in mind that increasing the capacity in itself is an organizational change and will require real change capacity both in terms of meeting its cultural differences and lags created as a result of the same. 4.0 Organizational Culture and Leadership Culture and Leadership are non-negotiable in any cultural change as they are conceptually intertwined. Culture is the combination of beliefs, pattern and expectations which the members of any organization are likely to follow. The culture for an organization can be regarded as the metaphor of the organization itself. If we look at the culture of CLT we can get a fair view of the though process, feelings, values and actions of its employees in their day to day business operations. Culture thus, can be understood as the way to feel, think and perceive to deal with a specific situation or issue and the corresponding actions and pattern of assumptions to deal with such a situation. Having a close look at the culture and leadership within the Coral Telecom limited it involves least cooperation between the different teams and members of the same team. CLT has a cultural environment where leaders and managers are more inclined towards a subtle environment with their own respective chambers and cabin and little or no interaction with its employees except the supervisors who acts a link between the leaders and the employees to fulfil the undesired communication gap. Apart from these with new manufacturing units being opened and new employees being recruited on a global basis the cultural differences between the existing and the new employees have further widened leading to a cultural change which is much opposed and resisted by the existing employees. 5.0 Appropriate Leadership Style for Coral Telecom Limited Coral Telecom Limited currently looks to follow a situational leadership style which argues that a leader’s contextual situation is the most critical factor for organizational success. They look to follow that there is no single style of leadership which is appropriate for all its situations. However, looking at the current problem and issue of cultural change in CTL is more likely for the organization to adopt either a transformational leadership style or a democratic leadership style. A transformational leadership is a style in which the follower’s objectives are broadened and elevated and leaders look to ensure that confidence is gained without expectations. Furthermore, a democratic leadership style which is also known as participative leadership style is the most viable option for CTL as it shall enable and encourage staffs to participate in the decision making process and thus shorten the cultural gaps between its employees. Furthermore when decisions in context to capacity increment along with new employees being recruited is discussed before the plan is put into action would have resulted in lesser cultural gaps and resistance from the employees. Following a consultative democratic leadership style would have enabled the organization to enable all its members to contribute their suggestions for capacity increase and then the leader finally making on the decision. Let us now have a deeper look at the current recent change in CTL and how leadership can act as a culture setter to minimize the effects of cultural changes as a result of its decision on increasing capacity which has largely created high resistance among its employees. 6.0 Leadership: Culture Setter Leaders in CTL are individuals who look to prevail and influence the group to adapt to a certain approach for solving a specific problem. This approach taken by leaders in the organization to solve a specific problem transforms to the beliefs and attitudes of its employees which in turn becomes the CTL’s culture. Looking at the present situation of Coral Telecom Limited, it looks to adapt the Schein’s second level where espoused values are the main assumptions of its leaders on deciding about what is wrong and what is right. When the team members face’s any problem for the first as this case where the capacity was increased to meet market demands the leaders proposed solution becomes the followers culture as they are not involved in the decision making process. Henceforth a proactively planned plan by the leader to ensure cultural differences minimization would had led to less resistance by the employees and maintain a more cordial and harmony relationship among both its existing and new employees. Furthermore the third level of Schein’s model talks about the basic assumption which gets developed when a solution to a problem works successfully on a repeated basis. Leader’s in CTL currently beliefs that employee performance in the organization is directly related to the amount of work load and pressure given on the employee. It is to be noted that work pressure to a certain extent is beneficial for better results however when the same is increased beyond a cut-level the same becomes harmful and destructive to the health of its employees and creates stress leading to cultural disputes and employee resistance to work. The leaders in CTL follow an approach of maximum outputs from its employees with limited concern about the wellbeing and appraisal of its employees. The values and norms in CTL’s culture in a sense does not support openness, fun, effective communication, participative approach and social orientation. The undesired culture in Coral Telecom Limited is a result of high politics among different managers at different levels to emerge as an effective leader. The excessive workload to meet the desired output within the limited capacity without proper artifacts results in higher stress among the employees and enables them to quit their jobs. The experienced and trained employees leave jobs as a result new employees are recruited which again lead to new cultural gaps and more time for new employees to adapt to the organizational change and its associated culture. Leader in turn should ensure a fair working environment with equal focus given on the wellbeing of its employees which could internally ensure CTL to higher its growth and low cultural gaps and organizational resistance to change. 7.0 Cultural Change Process Cultural change in Coral Telecom Limited may range from a small scale change to a large scale or radical change as in the current case where the entire base of the organizational culture has been shaken as a result of new employees being recruited to meet its increasing capacity. Sathe has clearly made a suggestion that distinction of cultural change can be done on the basis of nature like behavioural and cognitive changes. Furthermore as per Dyer’s model an organizational cultural change is the conjugate of the perception of leadership change to meet the crisis situation. Leader’s abilities and traits along with its leadership style can certainly be brought into questions in case of crisis or emergency issues when the same cannot be handled in a traditional way. Furthermore to change the current organizational culture of CTL , old beliefs and structures must be first altered which may include altering the leader itself with a more democratic participative leader, reward policies and its associated and supportive beliefs. Bringing in new leaders in Coral Telecom Limited may help the organization to look for new artifacts, values and assumptions however, the same involves a higher risk of cultural gaps and employees resentment to change as such a decision may cause conflict between the followers of old leader and supporters of the new culture. If new culture is imposed in CTL then the followers of the old culture might have to quit, demoted, fired or transferred to less influential positions and the resentment and conflicts which are more probable to rise at a rapid pace should be addressed by the new leader to ensure a better organizational culture in the organization. Dyer’s suggest that the same can be done when the organization is able to fulfil two associated conditions with it. Firstly, the ongoing crisis of high attrition and slower growth of CTL is resolved and secondly, the leader is credited for resolving such cultural changes and crisis situation. This will enhance the prospect and probability that the new leader’s team shall accept the cultural changes and accept the new culture in a more comprehensive and synchronised manner. Thus, in order to maintain new culture in CTL which as result of current issue is the need of the hour for Coral Telecom Limited, the new leader has to ensure that everyone of his team are aware of the proactive planning and are given participation in decision making in all future correspondence. Selection of the new leader to meet this recent cultural change issue is the key decision in this model of cultural change. The new leader who joins CTL shall further have unique opportunities to transform the organizational culture by bringing in new artifacts, perspectives, values and assumptions to ensure a better organizational culture. Let us now have a look at the how I as a leader of my organization could improve upon the management of change then currently deployed strategy of situational leadership with less participation which resulted in widening cultural gaps in CTL. 8.0 Management of “Capacity and Cultural Change” in CTL Looking at the recent issue of Coral Telecom Limited where a capacity issue led to a cultural change in the organization and high resistance to such changes by its employees the following steps could had been the best possible strategies which a leader could had looked upon to ensure elimination of cultural changes and better growth of the organization. Aligning Leadership Style with Organizational Culture Leaders do not understand the nature and reason for resistance to change by its employees. Employees generally creates pattern of behaviour to reduce stress and eliminate the new changes. Hence it is the responsibility of the leader to reduce the undue stress on organizational culture as a result of such changes. Leaders in Coral Telecom Limited must learn to adapt to the process to the culture as it is easier for the organization to adapt to such changes when it is allowed to do so through a methodology of culture. It is also easier for a leader to change his/her own leadership style than it is for an organization to adapt unwillingly to an unfamiliar change in its culture. Leaders in CTL should ensure status quo behaviour when cultural changes become the expected norms. Furthermore, a fair chance should be given to develop new leaders than looking to follow a trait approach theory which confines itself to “Leaders are born and not made”. Protecting Your Change Agents Change agents are individuals within the organization who beliefs they must initiate action to improve on the organizational effectiveness. As self-starting problem solvers change agents are quickly moved through the levels and ranks of the organization. To protect against the burnouts of change agents, leaders must clearly and proactively set the agenda for change and take personal responsibility for initiating the change and make it clear to the people associated with the organization that obstructionist shall be reassigned and replaced by people who understand the importance of change agenda. Defining the Problem The major cause of employee resistance in Coral Telecom Limited is not defining the problem to its members. Where the leader took a dominating democratic leadership style of first taking the action and defining the problem to its employees, whereas the leader should have opted for a consultative democratic leadership style of first discussing the problem with employees encouraging their participation in the capacity increment and cultural changes and then initiating the plan of action. Thus, strategic planning with weak diagnostic assessment of the working environment frequently results in missed opportunities and higher resistance from the employees which could have been avoided by effective leadership style. Identifying and Removing Barriers to Cultural Changes before Implementing the Action Plan The leader in CTL should have first looked upon the pros and cons of establishing a new manufacturing unit outside Asia and the impact of cultural changes which might occur as a result of the action taken. The leader should have discussed and provided opportunities to its existing employees to be a part of the new manufacturing unit and then recruit new talents which would have resulted in less resistance and better management of cultural gaps. Assigning Responsibilities to Individuals Leaders in CTL should have looked towards assigning roles and responsibilities to its employees for ensuring lesser resistance to change within the organization. Issues with capacity to change are exacerbated by unrealistic timeliness and lack of available resources. Leaders should have ensured that new orientation programs have been conducted so as to ensure each employee understands its roles and responsibilities and cultural gap were minimized. Thus we see that the aforesaid suggestions as a leader might have minimized the cultural gaps and allowed the organization to deal its cultural and capacity changes in a more synchronised manner with minimal resistance to change. Arrangement of more Orientation and Training Program Looking at the current issue of cultural changes in Coral Telecom Limited due to new employees being recruited it is the role and responsibility of the leader to lead the orientation and training programmes and further increase the number of such programs so as to ensure employees become familiar to each other and the cultural gaps to certain extent are automatically reduced. 9.0 Conclusion This report has been drafted in a comprehensive manner to focus on the recent capacity change in CTL to meet its increasing demand which has led to cultural changes in the organization. The report has been prepared to highlight upon the current situation of CTL’s cultural environment and how the same could be changed for ensuring a better organizational culture through the application of both models and theories on leadership and organizational cultural change. It is important for CTL to ensure a change in its current leadership style from a situational style to democratic or transformational style while keeping in the mind a proactive planning for such a change to ensure a better work culture with little resistance from its employees. In a nutshell, the report provides both theoretical and practical approach to a real life situation concerning Coral Telecom Limited. 10.0 References Read More