Leadership and Management Issues in Investigative Management - Coursework Example

Leadership and Management Issues In Investigative Management Customer Inserts His/Her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name Insert Date Here (Day, Month, Year) In every society of the world and in every avenue of the socio, economic, political, financial structure, the tactics and the impassioned qualities of the leaders instill in the work force with the vision of success. This vision is a motivational force behind every work environment enabling them to accomplish their assigned task fruitfully. Leaders beckon their subordinates with their inherent qualities to reflect the best and take them towards the unswerving path in the midst of any unwanted crises or chaos. And in this world of change and ambiguities, the leaders need to create an emblem of new ideas and ideologies to meet the requirements of the new age posturing in their unit to develop the need for adoption of the new business environment and achievement of their goals. The leaders of the organizations who need to give their best and perform investigative tasks should more profoundly adopt leadership qualities. Among many organizations in Australia, Deloitte Australia is one of the world’s largest professional service organization and a part of the global network of associated firms having bases in and around 140 countries employing 165,000 people. In Australia itself, Deloitte has 12 offices, 400 partners, with more than 4, 500 people providing audit, tax, consulting and financial advisory services with the public and private clients all over the country. (Deloitte 2009: Online) Among many of the services mentioned above, it also provides Forensic services providing dispute solutions, financial crime, analytical insight, and Forensic data. Deloitte Forensic has gathered team of experts of more than 160 professionals in Australia (O’Toole 2008: Online) involving experienced accountants, auditors, computer forensic practitioners, data analysts, corporate investigators, ex law enforcement officers and former regulators whose operations are based in all through Australia and the Asia Pacific region. As and as complexities in the organizations are increasing, the intense public scrutiny is also increasing. The task that lies in front of the leader is getting more complex and harder day-by-day especially when it comes to the arena of forensic works. The life of leader is itself getting tougher and all this he owes to many of the external influences that create a direct impact on the efficient working and performance of the leaders as well as others at the senior level. Their measurement and evaluation not only has an impact on the whole team of the board of directors but also creates negative impact and influence on the whole forensic team of experts. The issues that are being faced by the board are regulations, governance, talent management, strategic decisions, and above all private equity. The forensic department has to handle various complex issues especially the forensic accountant has to handle many intricate, misleading or incomplete financial data and has to deal with the world whereby he has to engage in various evasive acts. He should also have great analytical power, creativity and an ability to quickly grasp all those threads that go unforeseen by any ordinary person while quickly apprehending what may look like false financial records. Any team of forensic department uncovering any case involving deep investigation must have a keen insight into the depth of the case and a nose for smelling clues that may lead to solving of case. Along with this, he should possess cool mindset and great intuitive power. Historical construed fact is that investigative process is more of an art rather than science involving many facets to come at the desired solutions. These facets among are power of intuition, luck, mistakes and even gut feelings (Sennewald & Tsukayama 2006: 3). To arrive at the conclusion of any investigative process, there is neither one process nor one prescribed path but several ways and directions; there is also not any fixed formula that can be taken into granted for arriving at any concrete solutions, but there is a need to adopt on the stop decisions and procedures. This imbibed culture of the investigative process negates the need for leaders and their leadership qualities, therefore many investigative organizations have never given due criteria to imbibe among the investigators the qualities of good leadership and to make them lead and manage the team. Yet with the passing of the time, the technological development and the changes in the societal needs have made it mandatory on the part of the investigative organizations to imbibe among the investigators need for a change and to inculcate within them the leadership qualities. This trait would enable them to carry out the investigations as team with proper coordination with each other. The leadership qualities have to be adopted taking into consideration social and cultural environment. Though many consider the fact that social and cultural environment does not have much greater role yet history has several stories and cases verifying the fact that how much the social and cultural environment plays a role in developing the nature and character of a leader and shapes its performance. This concept is profoundly true in the investigative organizations also like Deloitte whose various tasks are like investigating various kinds of frauds, analytical insights, forensic data etc. For investigating into cases of such serious and sensitive issues require the necessity of leader who would instill in his team not only the motivational skill but also entranced valuable propositions like integrity, humility, decisiveness, emotional toughness, emotional resonance, adaptability, self-knowledge, passion, and conviction. Integrity implies being true to oneself and to have a strong moral principle. It is all about behaviour pattern and attitude towards the work and to make right and fruitful decisions for the development and growth in profit of the organization incorporating code especially of moral or artistic values like incorruptibility, soundness, and completeness. (Cunningham 2002: Online) If a leader walks in an organization with uprightness and truthfulness, he will develop a role model for others to follow, instill discipline and imbibe corporate values among his subordinates that will give confidence and motivation in them. With humility, investigator develops manners of courtesy and respect for others. It does not allow pride to enter into the work place hence develops the team spirit and maintains the congenial and friendly atmosphere in the organization. To have knowledge about own expertise and skills and to best utilize these skills for the organizational setup is in philosophical terms known as self-knowledge. Next is decisiveness, which means capability to take effective and timely decisions to poster the growth of the organization even in not so conducive or unfavourable conditions. Correct decision can lead to concrete and fruitful investigation results. Adopting the nature of emotional resilience means keeping one’s cool and sustaining emotionally even if something bad happens. To control the anger and anguish in extreme conditions is a trait of a good leader. Emotional resistant person maintains the mental power, strives against adversities and motivates the others to move ahead in achievement of their goals. An investigator must be emotional tough too and in any circumstance should have capability to show the courage with resilience and spirit and take over the organization with an eye opener performance against all adversities and with calmness and etiquette approach. Leadership skills in the organization should also entail a person to adopt new technological skills according to the changing needs of the time for growth and development of the organization. It also means ability to successfully manage the internal and external tensions arising from the changes in the market positions. Over and above, they must show passion and complete conviction in their work like zeal to give the best output. It is a like a burning fuel to give the best. And with passion, the most difficult task is also accomplished with ease and brings the organization into the vortex of heights. Investigator having possessed with conviction is fully determined and have self-confidence to move with the investigations with clear vision. These leadership qualities are explained in the context of contemporary management theories, which help in fruitfully adopting changing nature of the organizational environment. The one among them is contingency theory implying the fact when managers make decisions, they should take into account various facets of current situation and act on these aspects taking into consideration the situation of the case at that time. Basically it depends on the approach leader would take during that appropriate moment and time. Second is systems theory, which has a significant effect on the management of science and understanding of the organization. It helps in accomplishing the goal. This theory implies that every part or unit contributes towards the accomplishment of a goal, whereby if one unit fails, it could have an effect on the other parts in the system too. This theory has helped the management of the investigative organization to work in collaboration with each other. The third theory is chaos theory showing us the fact that this world has become quite chaotic as the events in the world seem today, still since decades, managers have a belief that any chaos in the organization can be controlled but it is not possibly so according to the theory because it recognizes the fact that events can hardly be controlled. Theorists state the fact that system becomes more complex and volatile but they must expand and attain more energy and as they get more energy, they need the structure to retain stability. This trend continues to take place until the day system splits, combine with the other systems and fall apart. (McNamara Online) Leaders and managers try to adopt these theories in their organization structure enabling the investigators and other staff to reach out to people and establish the strong foundation on the basis of which they can accomplish all their goals. As investigators have moral duties and obligations toward their society, therefore adopting the leadership qualities can only give strong foundation to the management base enabling them to get results. Motivation, dedication and conviction are three basic traits, which are very important for investigator to adopt to attain success in their mission or a goal. Reference List Cunningham T.M. 2002. Leadership 101: Integrity. [Online] Available: http://www.withthecommand.com/2002-Aug/MD-TMC-leader-integ101.html [26 February 2009] Deloitte. 2009. Australian overview. [Online] Available: http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/section_node/0,1042,sid%253D202489,00.html [26 February 2009] Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. 2008. Thought leadership. [Online] Available: http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/article/0,1002,sid%253D228391%2526cid%253D228386,00.html [26 February 2009] McNamara, C. Brief Overview of Contemporary Theories in Management. [Online] Available: http://managementhelp.org/mgmnt/cntmpory.htm [26 February 2009] O’Toole, F. 2008. Financial Crime: About us. [Online] Available: http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/article/0,1002,sid%253D198451%2526cid%253D227716,00.html [26 February 2009] Sennewald, C.A. & Tsukayama, J.K. 2006. The Process of Investigation: Concepts and Strategies for Investigators in the Private Sector. Butterworth-Heinemann Read More