Effective Leadership and Organisational Success - Essay Example

Effective Leadership and Organisational Success Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Introduction While starting an organization, the first thing that comes into the mind of the investor or the owner, is the kind of leadership that will be required to move the business to the greater heights of success amid very dynamic business environment. This is because leadership in an organization has the responsibility of defining the direction of the business by ensuring clear of the company mission, goals and objectives and by determining the kind of skills and experiences and work environment that are required to promote the company endeavors in achieving success (Blake & Mouton 2006). Even though some of the scholars and professional may argue that the success of an organization is a factor of the business environment in which it operates, I do agree that the sole responsibility of organizational success lies on the leadership. This is because at all times, irrespective of what is happening in the world of business, the success of the business is determined with the company strategy of which must be determined by the leadership (House et al 2005). With this regard therefore, this essay will be discussing those views that support argument that organizational success is a factor of its leadership by looking at different companies as examples. Also this article will consider looking at the views of those who may have opposing view to this stand. This way it will be easy to conclude if for sure if leadership is what determines organizational success. Leadership and role in an organization There are lot of materials and literature that try to explain what a successful organization entails and what it takes a leader to make it successful. Much of the literature seems to concentrate more on the attributes individuals posses and think they guarantee them success in their leadership. Attention is particularly paid to such attributes as integrity, tolerance and discretion (Warner 2003). While it is agreeable that these attributes are actually important in enabling making a leader make an organization successful, more and different attributes are however, required in order to make the organization. Actually these attributes important in making one fit in leadership before becoming idealistic. The role of the leadership is not only about the position and the authority, as it can only be used as a vehicle lead and rank but also entails also entails the process of complementing and facilitating leadership (Stedman 2005). Because of the dynamism in the business environment and the numerous challenges that it posses to the business, a successful leadership must be the one that look beyond the internal processes and try to comprehend the various strategies that can be formulated to keep the company at the top of the game. With this regard therefore, the success of the company is clearly determined with how well the leadership is able to align and engage its workforce with the predetermined strategy. However, this can only be possible if the leadership is able to create a holistic and well coordinated place where different key elements and other blocks are put together for a combined effort (Robbins 2007). The diagram below is an illustration of various factors that entail a leadership that is able to succeed. Leadership framework Source: Right Management-A manpower company, 2012 The illustration above shows the various roles that a successful leadership entails in any working environment. This is an integrated framework of a leadership that can cause effectiveness in an organization and what leadership elements are required. First and foremost, an organization is likely to be successful if its leadership is in a position to identify the best business strategy, its role, purpose and the required strategic direction which summarizes the activities of the organization and role of each player in the strategy (Makin 2004). This is important in ensuring that all key stakeholders are involved in important matters of the company. However, this requires vision leadership that is able to identify what the organization wants to achieve and make strategic effort to achieve them. Further, leadership according to this framework has the responsibility of determining the right people and who have the required skills and competencies in working for a certain purpose. This way, the leadership will have the capacity to develop appropriate structures for accountability and good working relationships among the employees (Drucker 2003). People systems and processes, on the other hand entails creating good people systems and processes that can be bring about meaningful change in the business. Effective systems and processes are important in an organization that is working to succeed. This is because it provides a good platform for delivering messages, sharing of ideas and information all of which are very important in making viable business decisions. Further, there is no organization that stands a chance to succeed without having in place good processes and systems which are used to extend good leadership, trust and ensuring consistency (Adam 1988). Culture and values are important role that a leadership should take charge of. According to the framework, a successful organization must have the leadership that has the capacity that has the capacity to deal with contemporary management issues such as integrity, professionalism and responsibility. The leadership role in culture and values is to create those shared values that are both good for the company and the community which it serves and in particular the customer. Culture and values is demonstrated in the way the leadership behaves and acts and if it inspires positive characteristics among the staff. When good culture and values are embraced in an organization, then the leadership stands the better chance to deal adequately with the process of aligning organizational behaviors to the organizational strategy in order to achieve the intended results. With this regard therefore, it emerges that having leadership that does not instill good culture and values by example, is likely to fail the organizations as issues related to integrity, professionalism and hard work will not be possible (Coventry 2007) Employee engagement is an important aspect of an effective leadership. This is because in an organizational context, employees’ minds are structured in such away that they do have different interests and sometimes many of which may differ with those of the organization. In such a situation the major responsibility of the leadership is to make sure all interests are aligned in such away that they correlate positively with the company interests. However, this can be achieved if the employees are engaged. Employee engagement as applied by organizational leadership, seeks to harmonize different interests and thereby promote employee satisfaction both their works and the organizational in general (D’Souza 2001). Further, employee engagement is also important in winning employee commitment to their jobs and success of the companies they work for. Finally, with engaged employees, the leadership is able make the employees feel proud about the company be positive about their works and organization. This is an important attribute for any successful company that wants to be successful. Finally, with providing superior customer experience, the organization stands a better chance to satisfy their customers and consequently be able to win their loyalty for sustainable business relationship. However, to attain high level customer experience, the leadership has the responsibility of that the employees are always well motivated and trained and above made aware of what the customer expectations are and what can be done to satisfy them. The role of the leadership in this case is to provide the necessary support including listening to their opinions and allowing to be responsible while serving the customer (Eilon 2006). Despite presenting organizational leadership as key tool for making an organization, there are those who hold different opinions to this theory. According to Uchenna (1998), irrespective of the kind of leadership, the external factors that have the final say whether the leadership will succeed or not. This is because the business environment continues to evolve and posing new challenges to business virtually almost at all times (Reddin 2007). According to the Michael Porter, there are five environmental forces that will always impact on the business and its performance. The five forces include competitive rivalry, suppliers and buyers bargaining powers, threat posed new firms entering the industry and the availability of substitutes in the market as shown in the diagram below. Figure 1 - Porter's Five Forces Source: MindTools.com, 2010 As depicted in the diagram which shows Porter’s Five forces which are known to influence organization success or failure, it is paramount to mention such factors as cost escalation, increased competition, customer loyalty and threat of substitution, are some of the forces that can be well handled from the company internal leadership as long as they are able to put the right strategy in place. With the right strategy, the business stands a chance of being able to deal adequately with these forces irrespective of their magnitude and timing (Nahavandi 2006). To illustrate this argument, two companies namely Nokia and General Electric Company (GE) have been used as examples. Nokia is one company that is known globally for being among the pioneers in the phone manufacturing company. However, the company has not gone without having its fair share of challenges which include competition from the rival companies such as Samsung, Sony Ericson and Smartphone, the company has continued to stand the test of the day despite all the challenges in the business environment. This has been attributed to strong leadership of the company where leadership mentoring is considered paramount. For example the company 12 executives meet 3 to 4 times in every six months with the mentees who in this case are company employees so as to have them have a review of leadership strategies being worked on and recommend which one they think is most appropriate. With this kind of leadership, Nokia has managed to develop over 200 competitive executives who can lead, teach and inspire the rest. On the other hand, GE leadership recognizes the importance of creating an environment that allows for creativity and innovation by accepting ideas from the staff and work on developing them. To perfect on this, GE has established an independent strategy unit to deal with new business ideas brought forward by the employees so as to help recognize lucrative ideas and be steadfast in implementing without necessary following the company bureaucracies which are long and time consuming (Fortune 2012). With these two examples therefore, it remains that effective leadership is paramount to the success of any company irrespective of what happens in the external environment because what matters most is the strategy that the leadership applies. Conclusion The purpose of the essay was to study the concept of organizational leadership and the success of an organization. Despite, arguments placed forward that the leadership may be good but might not influence the success of the company because of the existing external forces does not hold. This is because dynamism in the external environment is a constant and for any company to succeed it must employ good leadership strategy. 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