Leadership Style and Management Control - Research Proposal Example

Leadership style and Management Control Student’s Name Subject Professor University/Institution Location Date Research Topic: Management control: Contemporary changes in leadership style to account for people as an asset. Research Objective and motivation The world market today is subject to increased competition due to numerous innovations. In this regard, there is increased demand for competent team leaders in many organizations worldwide (Messinger, 2009.). Moreover, dramatic change, global alliances, and customer demands are occurring often and are therefore disastrous where managerial control and procedures are lacking in effectiveness. Leadership is in constant need for motivating a creative, highly skilled, multi-cultural, and dispersed team to develop products. Leadership capacity provides the driving force for structure, strategies and methods. Team leaders in today’s global innovation have to develop unique competencies rather than the conventional ones. A set of cultural, social and technical competencies are therefore of great importance in a leader for a dynamic and competitive global market (Klappich, et al., 2011). Organizational change has conventionally relied on leadership competency in communicating, mobilization and evaluating the change. However, leaders have changed from the way they used to treat planned organizational change in one similar way. This has unmasked important peculiarity associated with different activities in the process of change implementation and unique functions of a leader’s competency needed in activities execution (Battilana, 2010). Leadership competencies based on knowledge, skills and abilities has three distinct aspects. There is individual core personality which rarely change, individual’s values which are stable and leadership skill and behaviours which readily change through the efforts of leadership development (Tubbs, & Schulz, 2006). Most leaders are constantly exercising the dynamism of the third aspect; Meta- competencies to effectively control people. Leaders have emphasized the role of positive psychology to shape the organization relationship. The idea behind positive psychology is to prioritize on what is right with people more than emphasizing on the wrongs with people. This has helped them focus less on problem solving and therefore focus more on helping them achieve excellence. The trend has developed positive behaviour in individual and organization. Leadership style facilitating this excellence centre on optimizing members strengths. This is opposed to critical evaluation supervision. A more positive form of leadership; servant leadership has emphasized on service over self-interest, altruistic behaviour, developing the needs of the others and ethical moral behaviour (Searle, & Barbuto, 2010). For organizations and human to reach extraordinary performance levels, collective efficacy has to be developed. Collective beliefs promote excellence in various sectors. Leaders have developed groups which organize and execute their courses of action. To reach specific goals, collective belief is taken as important property of organization. Communal willingness and ability to solve problems determine the strength of the organization. Positive organization development depends on individual and group choices in pursuit of goals. Collective efficacy largely depends on leadership for organizational excellence (Goddard, & Salloum, 2011). The new millennium competition challenge has also called on leadership to respond and develop new structures, strategies, and methods to manage and cope with demands. Increasing organizational complexity and flexibility has led the leadership to develop structure, strategy and methods without general linearity and predictability (Lo Presti, 2009). The changing demands in today’s environment require a changed strategy. Organization need to be flexible, entrepreneurial, adaptive and innovative to meet such needs. Transformational leadership, organizational culture and innovation are among the vital components in a change strategy. The resulting linkage influences a climate of organizational innovation (Sarros, Cooper, & Santora, 2008). Leadership theories pay little attention to error management in organization. However, high profile global leaders have found the importance of preventing error and learning from error to function in variety of global industries. Error learning culture informs leadership behavior and this enhance leadership role in error management (Rodriguez & Griffin, 2009). Leadership has developed competencies to suit different workplaces. Geographical boundaries of organizations are expanding into international markets. Culturally linked leadership is therefore vital for attention to cultures and understand the workforce diversity. Leaders must understand the different ways culture and leadership interact in diverse context in today’s ‘global village’. Cultural contexts have therefore facilitated the emergence of diverse leadership styles (Jogulu, 2010). Organizational leadership has been faced with the challenge to success. Leaders use a model to integrate the right people, communication technology and organizational structure. A study on virtual team leadership has revealed a model of four significant themes in the business community. The first theme emphasizes on skill sets, core values, and virtual tem leaders behaviors. The second identifies communication and trust as of high priorities. Third virtual teams require supportive culture and a team for senior leadership. Finally such leadership relies on communication technologies (Wielkie, 2009). Research Overview In the light of global economic changes, the competitive advantage of many organizations is dramatically changing which leads to a significant consideration of the best managerial control for multinational firms (Park, 2009). The aim of this research paper is to investigate how changes in global markets and competition influence on leadership style to account for its members by use of McGregor’s theory Y managers as a framework. According to Offstein, Morwick, & Koskinen, (2010) literature on management accounting has shown that an organizational investment in people has been seen as unnecessary cost. Upgrading people’ skills, training, redeployment and funding educational courses are in most cases optional. These are also susceptible to be significantly reduced when financial fortunes decline. The result is that long term labor interests are sacrificed when managers emphasize on the short-term profitability. The set of hypotheses therefore, will draw on the literature of McGregor’s participative leadership style (Wu, 2006). This will research on the aspects of leadership style and relationships that are geared to develop the people as an asset. Moreover, through survey data of managerial officers of selected companies in Australia the hypotheses will be developed. The research question intends to answer the following question: Research Question: How does organizational leadership develop new styles on its people to cope with organizational dynamic needs? To answer the question the research will focus and depend on data collection based on interviews, and document reviews. Theoretical framework: Management control and McGregor’s Theory Y Managers According to Management Control (2000:3) management control process is taken by leaders as a way where the resources are taken and used effectively and efficiently for the best outcomes of the organization goals. One element of these resources is people, who have influenced to a greater extent the success of major organizations. Due to pressure involved in an organization, natural rules for managing people are easily forgotten. McGregor’s theory of leadership behavior and assumption, discusses the nature of people and how their leader develop assumptions to help manage them (Sorensen & Minahan, 2011: 179). McGregor’s theory Y has been immensely used in contemporary organization. Leaders have to accept the people potential to seek responsibility rather than being coerced. People are therefore taken as creative and potentially intellectual and can enhance it for the betterment of their organization as long as the desired conditions are set. Leadership style greatly influences the management control. Leader’s role is to provide the necessary information for decision making process, planning and evaluation of organizational strategies. This goes beyond formal regulations to alteration of patterns and activities to suit the best. Theory Y is used to determine whether the employees will behave appropriately and thus a leader can promote motivation actions and help in their decisions and action (Wu, 2006). Leadership and management purpose is to provide information and ensure viable behavior patterns of the employees. The research question will therefore explain how management is involved in adopting and adapting to new interactive patterns to achieve objectives in a dynamic world. Hypotheses A set of hypotheses are developed to show how leadership changes their management style to account for people and deal with a dynamic world market. The summary of this research paper hypothesis are outlined here. Decentralization and delegation increase the optimum utilization of people’s intellectual potential for organizational development Job enlargement increase individual varieties and opportunities for personal ego Participative management increase creativity and organizational culture Performance appraisals and techniques facilitate personal commitment to organizational objectives. 3. Research Methodology The research follows a qualitative approach as its research question and field determines (Skalen, 2010). It will have the McGregor’s theory Y managers- based for the hypotheses. Data sample from the target population will support it. Results from the sample will help to verify or falsify the hypothesis for the population. Hypotheses are formulated in a simple way to make them testable. Literature review A literature review will be carried out to acquire an in-depth understanding of leadership, management styles and aspects of influence. Relevant knowledge of management system in contemporary global organizations will establish the foundation for entering into the study and focusing on research area. This will provide a good background to explore on various aspects associated with the research topic. Literature from individual sources, in books, journals articles, and internet sources will also be referred. The search for literature review will take these methodological steps: search of the literature, selection of articles and studies by screening titles, key words and abstract and Assess the study quality by type of its classification such as peer reviewed, thesis, text books and conference paper Data The Sample The sample for the research is taken from global-sized enterprises comprising of at least one thousand employees. A total of fifteen multi-national organization’s leaders will be interviewed. Australia is taken for its immense interaction with European styles of management (Sun, et al., 2010). Leaders in high profiled companies dealing with global production will be interviewed. The target leaders will be contacted by phone calls, face to face and online interviews. These contact details will be obtained from AMADEUS database. This will facilitate and increase good response rate. Developing Interviews schedules The interview schedule will be developed by three stages that affect style changes in the processes including: a) Perceived competition and internal challenges b) Changes in leadership style for management c) Changes instituted in management control d) Changes in organizational culture and output Data Collection The structured interviews will collect systematic information by listening to leaders. Participants will be involved to talk of their views and discuss individual perception and interpretation of different situation. The research will provide information to respondent to ensure that they have a clear idea of the reason for interview, purpose of research, the length and reasons for its recording and the convenient place and time for the interview. Their expression and individual point of view will promote comprehensive information for the research (King & Horrocks, 2010). Appropriate method will be identified to address the research question. The questions are set to motivate and elicit valid response therefore precise and full replies. This will help avoid the biases of conformity, social desirability and disinterested constructs. The use of interviews for data collection is preferred to attain a highly personalized data, provide opportunity for probing and good return rate. Data analysis The analysis of this qualitative data will start by data cleaning and close reading to facilitate analysis based on observer impression. This will involve the expert observation and examination of the data to interpret it via a formed impression. A structured and quasi-quantitative analysis will be used (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2004). Conclusion and outcomes Understanding leadership processes and specific leadership activities facilitate management in a changing world. Proper implementation of research findings would improve the organizational environment and create high level motivation. Employees would satisfy their personal needs through their work. A two dimension framework consisting of external and internal challenges and individual and group changes promote the levels of influence. The management control issue explored by this research provides important findings. The question and design is developed and can be implemented in large organizations which assume a centralized leadership. It would therefore eliminate major management control discrepancies that result to little output. Moreover, it would increase concerns to develop new styles for management of people as an asset. In fact managers should work to review the best strategy for each activity instead of using the general and conventional approach. Moreover, they should enhance the use of technology to efficiently transform people knowledge. As a recommendation for leaders, it is essential to embrace these steps to success, develop team mission, influence virtual teams, and develop a comprehensive organizational culture. References Battilana, J et al, 2010. Leadership competencies for implementing planned organizational change. The Leadership Quarterly, 21(3), p.422-438. Goddard, R & Salloum, S. 2011. Collective Efficacy Beliefs, Organizational Excellence, and Leadership. In Leadership. Hesse-Biber, S. & Leavy, P., 2004. Qualitative Research Practice C. Seale et al., eds., SAGE Publications Ltd. Jogulu, U. 2010. Culturally-linked leadership styles. Leadership Organization Development Journal, 31(8), p.705-719.  King, N. & Horrocks, C., 2010. Interviews in qualitative research C. Cassell & G. Symon, eds., SAGE Publications. Klappich, C.D. et al., 2011. Predicts 2011: Global Logistics Leadership a Strategic Imperative. Leadership, p.1-10. Lo Presti, A. 2009. Snakes and ladders: stressing the role of meta-competencies for post-modern careers. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 9(2), p.125-134. Management Control, 2000. Leadership, Management and Management Control – a System Dynamics Approach Management, (1), p.1-22. Messinger, R 2009. Leadership competencies for effective global innovation teams. Dissertation Abstracts International. A, the Humanities and Social Sciences, 69(8-A), p.3217. Offstein, E., Morwick, J. & Koskinen, L., 2010. Making telework work: leading people and leveraging technology for competitive advantage. Strategic HR Review, 9(2), p.32-37. Park, S., 2009. Market power in competition for the market. Journal of Competition Law and Economics, 5(3), p.571-579. Rodriguez, M. & Griffin, M. 2009. From error prevention to error learning: The role of error management in global leadership. Advances in Global Leadership, 5(2009), p.93-112.  Sarros, J., Cooper, B. & Santora, J. 2008. Building a Climate for Innovation through Transformational Leadership and Organizational Culture. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 15(2), p.145-158. Searle, T. & Barbuto, J 2010. Servant Leadership, Hope, and Organizational Virtuousness: A Framework Exploring Positive Micro and Macro Behaviors and Performance Impact. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 18(1), p.107-117.  Skalen, P., 2010. A discourse analytical approach to qualitative marketing research. Qualitative Market Research An International Journal, 13(2), p.103-109. Sorensen, P. & Minahan, M., 2011. McGregor’s legacy: the evolution and current application of Theory Y management. Journal of Management History, 17(2), p.178-192. Sun, N. et al., 2010. Corporate environmental disclosure, corporate governance and earnings management. Managerial Auditing Journal, 25(7), p.679-700. Tubbs, S. & Schulz, E, 2006. Exploring a Taxonomy of Global Leadership Competencies and Meta-competencies. Journal of American Academy of Business Cambridge, 8(2), p.29-34. Wielkie, R 2009. Leadership behaviors of virtual team leaders: A phenomenological study. Management in Organizational Leadership, Doctor (April). Wu, M.-yi, 2006. Compare Participative Leadership Theories in Three Cultures. Compare A Journal Of Comparative Education, 2(3), p.19-30. Read More