Do Leadership Theories Help Organisations to Develop Effective Leadership - Coursework Example

Leadership Analysis Name Date Mission and vision statements are the guiding fundamentals that ensure that an organisation achieve their goals. Different requirements and philosophies bringing individual possessing different behaviours and capabilities into organisation contributing towards achieving a specific goal, which is either increase in profits or improvements in revenue (Burns, 1978). For the goals to be achieved and the organisations to succeed in their endeavours, it is paramount that leaders should effectively manage the organisations, and these leaders should exhibit characteristics of good leadership. The ideologies that guide organisation should concur with the views of leaders within that organisation into ensuring that the followers are determined to achieve results. Sometimes there are leaders who have been given positions but the followers may not fulfil requirements since the characteristics of these leaders are not accepted or appreciated. Therefore, it is important that the characteristics, views and strategies that the leaders posses should concur with the vision and mission requirements of the organisation. Thus, the aim of this paper is to analyse effective leadership, define two leadership programs and to link these programs with common leadership theories. People and teams have responsibilities in ensuring that certain duties are fulfilled (Posner, 2006). However, these individuals possess different internal focus and characters, and thus they require a leader who can balance between the differences of their followers with their similarities into achieving their goals. The leader will provide the direction and guidelines that will ensure that their followers form a strong team that will achieve goals as specified by the organisation. This means that a leader should have competence of persuading, influencing and bringing individual into a coherent form into achieving the important goals and objectives (Burns 1978). Thus, an effective leader should posses listening skills, negotiation, communication and organisation capabilities into forming teams that able to win. Hence, a leader should not be a barrier towards achieving the goals (Hiebert & Klatt, 2001). Additionally, a leader should able to listen to different views that can solve certain missions and this means that the leader should be versatile. Moreover, a leader should possess qualities, which can be emulated that may include punctuality, etiquette, courtesy and trustworthiness. Possessing such qualities will provide a leader with tools to ensure that rules and directives can be followed and at the same providing a means to prevent intra and inter personal conflict prevention. Hence, person qualities are core in defining role model credentials that can be emulated or influence people’s life (Burns, 1978). Motivation and boosting of morale is an important initiative for effective leaders. Effective leaders should understand that motivated employees would improve on productivity. Thus, motivation can take various forms and leaders should formulate the appropriate motivational strategy that will ensure that the organisation is successful and the morale of the employees is developed. Thus, balancing between the requirements of employees, organisation and personal goals will ensure that the organisation achieves its goals and sustainability of the organisation is guaranteed (Schyns & Meindl, 2006). Leaders are important components within organisations. Effective leadership ensures that the value of the stakeholders is increased. The stakeholders who include customers, shareholders, suppliers and employees should be satisfied and if this stakeholder is not satisfied, a leader may be in trouble. Thus, an effective leader should comprehend their organisational operating environment (Ciulla 2004). Additionally, an effective leader should know what is happening, should be able to see in advance opportunities and threats, and formulate strategies to maximise on the opportunities and minimise on threats. Effective leaders should be strategic analysers in that they can use historical information and data (i.e. both poor and successful strategies), which will form foundation for future effective strategies. Since opportunities and threats are directly linked with macro and micro environmental conditions, effective leaders should develop complex interactions to ensure the best is obtained from both of them (Goethals and Sorenson, 2006). Effective leaders should know that the aim of most organisations is to create profit through improving customer value. This means that effective leaders should formulate and fully implement winning strategies. Hence, a leader should correlate the ‘whats’ and ‘hows’ of the organisation in ensuring that an organisation obtains the desired goals. In most instances, successful strategies can be formulated but the success of these strategies is determined by the way that it will be implemented (William, 1999). In addition, an effective leader should clearly define implementation phases and ensure that the performance management is championed. Formulation and implementation of the strategies are the key foundations on differentiating effective and ineffective leaders (Pfeffer, 2000). At the time of implementation, effective leaders should monitor results in ensuring that appropriate adjustments are in place to ensure that the strategies are successful. It is a common scenario for effective managers to know that even the perfect strategy may not be implemented flawlessly. Leaders should understand imperfections are common within strategies and systematic monitoring should be in place throughout implementation phase. Other times, complexities such as change in rules and legislation or competitors’ strategies may require a leader to alter the strategies but behind his mind should factor original requirements (Miriam, 1990). This means that the leaders should understand the frailty of strategic plans, understand that changes can be made mid-course or they may improve through utilising superior strategies. Additionally, effective leaders should be at all places at the same time ensuring that customer value is championed (Hiebert & Klatt 2001). Effective leaders should develop and implement organisational requirements for both the short and long time ensuring that all work simultaneously. Understanding the way the environment operates, the leader will employ strategies that will ensure sustainability and thus prosperity of the organisation. Nevertheless, apart from maximising the value of the organisation, effective leaders should possess qualities that can be emulated by other employees and managers within the organisation. An effective leader should understand that organisations have different employees in terms of beliefs, ideologies and assumptions, factors that an effective leader should factor to ensure that the organisation is successful and there is no inter and intra organisational conflicts. To achieve this, an effective leader should have appropriate communication skills that will ensure all employees come together. Additionally, effective leaders should constantly be updated in the happenings in their environment through improvement of their education standards, an aspect that can be achieved through participating in leadership programs. Leadership programs provide the environment and ability for the leader to understand the changing operating environment and put in place strategies that can balance advancement and ideas that originally established the organisation. Leadership programs or development programs are important components within an organisation and in most instances contribute differently to the success of the organisation. Most leadership programs are developed based on numerous leadership and management theories. One such program is Star Performing Team Profile (SPT) that is embraced by GlaxoSmithKline Company. This profile is used to assess internal and external views of their employees and leaders, and develop means to improve areas that are not productive. This strategy utilises both qualitative and quantitative methodologies into developing the appropriate program. In such a program, emphasis is bestowed on a team’s ‘capability’, which usually leads employees to become ‘stars’. Moreover, conventional wisdom and research has shown that there are different strategies that leads individual into achieving the goals of the organisation. Star Performing Team Profile brings into consideration ten factors that help to shape. These factors include effective and appropriate led, alignment to values and goals, effective decision making, focused and frequent reviews towards success, maximise the team capability, empower employees, preventing conflicts, balanced capability of the team members and the team should be continually updated. Thus, teams and leaders been informed in these numerous capabilities of this program will result in improvement in productivity. Another leadership program that plays a major role in the development of leadership is Team Diagnostic Profile that shares some fundamentals and ideologies with SPT. The leadership program that it was partially employed by Caltex in their African branches brings into consideration internal and external interface views that are indicated by the use of graphs and tables, and this, are used to develop specific advice and comments that will improve on employees’ productivity. Major underlying factors of this leadership program are accessibility, flexibility and clarity, and it utilises the same factors as those of Star Performing Team Profile (Clinton 2007). This means that those leaders who participate in these programs will likely result in the improvement of productivity strategies. These include eradication of both inefficiency and bureaucracy, which are some unique features that prevent success of organisations. Leadership programs will result in leaders developing decision-making strategies that will result in increase in revenue and it will translate in improvement on market capital (Ulrich & Zenger, 1999). Participating in such leadership programs will result in the development of those systems that continuously adapt to situations and facilitation of organisational initiatives to solve complex systematic problems. Moreover, such programs will ensure that the organisation appreciates different resources and maximise on their value. For example, the major asset that a company may have is employees. Thus, such programs will enlighten leaders to develop strategies that will ensure that the employees are motivated and have favourable environment that they can use to cultivate their career development. To fulfil their roles and achieve their objectives, leaders have to embrace different leadership and management theories. These numerous leadership theories revolve on transformation, behaviour, charisma, situations and trait. Moreover, these numerous leadership theories and models possess different pros, cons, assumptions and limitations. Some of the common leadership theories are the transactional, transformation and situational, which apply differently depending organisational environment (Goethals & Sorenson, 2006). Transactional and transformational leadership theories, to some extent, share the same views and assumptions. Transactional leadership lies on the relationship that exists between leaders and followers, and is usually associated with punishment and rewards that helps in achieving organisational goals. On the other perspective of transformational leadership theory, creates valuable and positive changes to their followers. Those leaders that embrace transformational theory appreciate each other, develop morale and encourage harmonious working groups. Hence, it is evident from definition of these theories that they share similar but different ideologies in ensuring that leadership duties are accomplished (Jennifer 2007). Transactional leadership is based on the balance between leaders and followers as a two way process in terms of mutual influence and exchange. Usually, leaders achieve power through their position and personalities but their authority is usually controlled by expectations of their followers. Transformational leadership is used to improve expectations of followers through development of morality and motivation (Bass 1997). This means that transactional leadership invokes managerial image while transformational leadership encourages extraordinary individuals’ perceptions. Additionally, those leaders who embrace transactional theory keep constant belief, language, norms and ideologies of the organisation. This means that transactional leaders maintain status quo while transformational leaders change the traditions and culture of their organisations introducing new beliefs and goals. Moreover, transformative leaders help the employees to grow career wise and provide them with convenient environment that allows for employee prosperity. Another leadership theory that plays a major role in the development of leadership program is situational or contingency leadership theory. From the perspective of organisational studies, situational leadership is a form of leadership style and model that presumes different leadership strategies at different time depending on situations presented (Miner, 2005). Situational leadership accomplishes its duties in numerous ways. Situations that are outside leaders control may affect effectiveness of the organisation and all blame will be laid on the leaders. In these circumstances, the leader may have had little control in streamlining these complications. However, even if these leaders have minimal capability of controlling the difficulties, effective leaders will be gauged depending on their contributions towards controlling these complexities. Moreover, situational leadership shapes the way that leaders behave and such situations influence the consequences of leaders’ behaviours. These occur through the assumptions that different situations require different leadership capabilities. Hence, situational leadership gives an opportunity for leaders to make a choice that will determine their effectiveness. Generally, in any organisation, leadership is an important component in ensuring that organisation operates. However, effective leaders are had to come by and thus those organisations that cultivate effective leadership. Effective leaders have numerous features, which include personal qualities and other entities. Moreover, effective leaders should formulate and implement strategies that are winning, embrace motivational strategies and ensure that the goals of the organisation are achieved. However, to cultivate effective leadership, the leaders should participate in numerous leadership programs. Some of the leadership programs that are offered in a number of organisations are the Star Performing Team Profile and Team Diagnostic Profile. These leadership programs correlate with situation, transactional and transformative leadership theories. References Bass, B.M. (1997). From transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to share the vision. New York: Prentice Hall Publishers. Bassi, L., Harrison, P., McMurrer, D. & Ludwig, J. (2004). The Impact of US Firms’ Investments in Human Capital on Stock Prices. New York: New York Publishers. Burns, J.M. (1978). Leadership. New York. Harper & Row. Ciulla, J. (2004). Ethics, the Heart of Leadership. London: Greenwood Publishing Group. Clinton, B. (2007). Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World. New York: Knopf Publishers. Goethals, G. and Sorenson, G. (2006). The Quest for a General Theory of Leadership. New York: Edward Elgar Publishers. Hiebert, M. and Klatt, B. (2001). The Encyclopaedia of Leadership. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishers. Jennifer, L. (2007). Preparing for Development: Making the Most of Formal Leadership Programs. London: Centre for Creative Leadership. Miner, J. (2005). Organisational Behaviour I, New York: M.E. Sharpe Publishers. Miriam, B. (1990). Leadership Education 1990: A Source Book for those Planning Programs. New York: McGraw Hill Publishers. Posner, L. (2006). The Leadership Challenge. Jakarta: Wiley India Pvt. Ltd. Pfeffer, J. (2000). The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action. Boston: Harvard Business Press. Pfeffer, J. (1998). Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Schyns, B. and Meindl, J. (2006). Implicit Leadership Theories, London: IAP Ulrich, D. & Zenger, J. (1999). Results-Based Leadership. Boston: Harvard Business Press. William, M. (1999). Building in-house Leadership and Management Development Programs. London: Greenwood Publishing Group. Read More