To What Extent Do Leaders Influence Organisational Effectiveness - Coursework Example

To what extent do leaders influence organizational effectiveness? Student’s Name Name of Institution To what extent do leaders influence organizational effectiveness? In the present era of swift changes within the political, economic, and social environment, leadership has emerged more vital than ever (Krishnan, 2005). A majority of organizational theorists concur that effectual leadership is a key contributor to organizational success. The paradigm shift in the conventional concept of leadership from status quo type of leadership to transformational leadership has influenced organizational effectiveness massively. Organizations are experiencing superior performance through transformation of followers’ motives, attitudes, and values (Bass, 1998). The flexible leadership theory explicates how leaders can influence not merely the financial performance of an organization but also the overall effectiveness of the organization. Successful organizations are deeply rooted in effective leadership. As Yukl (2008) asserts, the key determinants of organizational effectual performance include adaptation, human capital, and efficiency. A broad array of leadership behaviors, structural forms, external initiatives, and management programs are vital in influencing these performance elements. Leaders are central to the organization because they compel a vision, remain consistent in pursuing organizational goals, communicate clearly and concisely, build teams, and keep a solid track of organization’s performance accomplishments (Bohn, 2002). In a general view, leaders, or behavioral conducts of leaders have a direct affiliation to the overall perceptions of an organization’s effectiveness or how an organization is expected to perform. This essay endeavors at giving a deep insight on the extent to which leaders influence organizational effectiveness. There exists an close relationship between leadership strategies, leadership influence on other people, and the effectiveness of leadership role. The impact of leadership on other people has vast significance in comprehending with organizational culture as well as the role of expectations and norms in organizational effectiveness. Leadership and culture work in collaboration to steer organizational performance in specific and organizational effectiveness in general. As Popa (2012) establishes, successful organizations are deeply rooted in effective leadership and organizational culture. The two elements of leadership and organizational culture are interrelated. To begin with, as Shiva and Suar (2010) expound, an organization reflects the beliefs and values of its founding fathers, which shape the organization’s cultural traits. With time, as the organization evolves and culture develops, the new culture shapes the leaders and influences their actions, who in turn influence their followers(Bohn, 2002). Moreover, leaders tend to shape how people within their organizations act and think. They act as role models, thus employees view them as such and always look around to confirm whether the leaders’ behavior is consistent with organizational adopted philosophy, norms, and values. Additionally, leaders can transform or create organizational cultures with the aim of delivering high quality, effectual services (Hatch, 2000; Weese, 1996). According to Schein (2004), leaders embed and transmit a culture that they perceive effectual in enhancing organizational performance and effectiveness. Subsequent to adoption of this culture, leaders set the environment within which members of an organization strive for excellence and work in unity to attain the set organizational goals. In this context, leaders are perceived as influencing the organizational culture, thus influencing the continuing effectiveness of an organization. The transformational theory of leadership establishes that leaders are an effectual tool to enhancing organizational effectiveness (Hoffman, Bynum, Piccolo, & Sutton, 2011; Barbuto, & Burbach, 2006). Burns (2002) identifies transformational leadership as a process by which a person or persons engage with others in such a manner that the followers and the leader uplift one another to higher extents of integrity and motivation. Transformational leadership is allied to behaviors of romanticized influence, logical stimulation, and inspiring motivation, which are positively correlated with the revenue component of organizational effectiveness (Moore, 2007). Transformational leaders elicit a stronger sense of commitment from the subordinates, which has a positive upshot on efficiency and effectiveness of their efforts and consequently of the entire organization. According to Popa, (2012), transformational leaders inspire their subordinates and challenge them to get more involved in their tasks. Equally, these transformational leaders delegate responsibilities, communicate effectively with their followers, take time to know and understand their followers with the aim of optimizing their performance, and eventually optimize the entire organizational performance. Hence, transformational leaders influence their followers by amplifying the followers’ self-awareness, instilling in them a sense of purpose and mission, and influencing them to rise above lower-order goals and needs for the sake of long-term benefits of the organization. Subsequent to evaluating different organizations, Iqbal (2011) found out that leadership is playing a key role in achieving organizational goals and outputs. In determining why leadership is essential for organizations to succeed, this Iqbal quoted Ken Ogbonnia who asserted that effective leadership was the capability to effectively incorporate and exploit the obtainable resources in the external and internal environment of an organization for the attainment of both societal and organizational goals (Iqbal, 2011). The most essential resource in an organization is human resource. Hence, competent leaders influence human resources to attain organizational effectiveness. As Chi, Lan, and Dorjgotov (2012) affirm, effective organizations have skilled leaders who steer the correct behaviors. These leaders play a critical role in generating a culture of commitment by influencing the factors of commitment. They can affect employee pledge by offering career development opportunities and valuing employees’ input within the organization. Besides, effective leaders influence employee commitment by ensuring that employees have the necessary resources to emerge successful in their organizational tasks. In this perspective, employees who have the support of effective leaders will perform their tasks effectively, resulting in organizational effectiveness. Organizational effectiveness is highly linked to effectual leaders’ influence on inspiring and motivating the workforce. Employing charisma, effectual leaders motivate their subordinates to carry out job tasks by offering inspirational speeches, which illustrate an organization’s vision in brilliant detail. Accordingly, subordinates remain motivated to work harder to attain organizational goals. Indeed, loyal and devoted employees look upon their leaders to endow them with a clear vision of the organization’s strategic direction. Besides, when leaders portray personal commitment to achieving organizational goals as well as inventive approaches to problem solving, their subordinates tend to value these aspects too. Equally, employees endeavor at seeing consistency within the decisions made in response to organizational issues or problems. Hence, effective leaders involve the employees in important decision-making, granting them the ability and right to make choices. Accordingly, the employees feel as part of the organization, thus working hard toward attainment of organizational goals. Leaders who communicate concisely and clearly with their employees ensure that employees are always informed on what to do. This genre of leadership structure ensures that leaders collaborate with their subordinates in moving toward organizational profitability, productivity, and eventually organizational effectiveness. Teamwork is a key aspect to organizational effectiveness. Effective leaders recognize the essentiality of collaboration among team members for an organization to function well. Leaders with this revelation always carry out team-building exercises within their organizations and ensure that team members perceive their contributions toward the team as important and valued. Besides, effective leaders ensure that team members embrace a form of communication. In this context, leaders may implement such features as webcams, polls and surveys, and web-based conferencing as well as virtual meetings that improve interactions among team members. According to Popa (2012), transformational leaders turn employees from workers who carry out tasks to valuable team members. In this perspective, they change the manner employees think and feel about their organization and their work by generating a mindset of ownership. As a result, transformational leadership assists employees in trusting the organization and its vision and mission, thus quit querying the organization’s objectives, and work harder toward attainment of the organizational results. In this milieu, effective leadership enhances teamwork, which in turn improves organizational performance, thus enhancing organizational effectiveness. Effective leadership is built upon numerous variables and characteristics, which include inventiveness, confidence, audacity, intellectual drive, understanding, charisma, and moral principles among others. An effective leader has a purpose and an unbiased personality that enable putting that purpose into action. The leader embraces a vision, integrity, dedication, openness, and is creative toward novel approaches and toward people. Likewise, effective leaders ensure that employees get credit for their success, and in the same manner take responsibility for their failures. In this context, the volatile working milieu stipulate for flexible leaders who act as agents of change. These leaders enable the people and the organization to adapt to evolving changes and be successful while embracing customer satisfaction. Accordingly, such leaders and their subordinates enhance organizational performance and effectiveness. In conclusion, people at every organizational level possess some power to influence factors within their work lives on the basis of ability to interrelate with others, the knowledge and skills they possess and share, and the personal strengths. People in leadership positions tend to have more influence on their subordinates as compared to their followers. The success of an organization is highly allied to the effectiveness of the leadership it embraces. Leadership influences organizational effectiveness largely because effectiveness cannot be achieved in the absence of leadership that is capable of motivating employees, encouraging employees, and adapting to challenges and changes of the social, economic, and political environment. The capabilities of competent leaders with strong sense of efficacy have significant effects on the confidence of the followers, which can be reflected in the overall organization for its prosperity. Leaders portray the capacity to organize teams, show vision, dwell on the course, and eventually assist the entire organization emerge effective. References Barbuto, J.E.,& Burbach, M.E. (2006). The emotional intelligence of transformational leaders: a field study of elected officials. The Journal of Social Psychology 146(1), 51-64. Bass, B.M. (1998). Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership. Binghamton: Sage Publication. Bohn, J.G. (2002). The relationship of perceived leadership behaviors to organization efficacy. The Journal of Leadership and Organizational studies 9(1), 1-5. Burns, J.M. (2002). Leadership. New York: Harper Collins. Chi, H., Lan, C., & Dorjgotov, B. (2012). The moderating effect of transformational leadership on knowledge management and organizational effectiveness. Social Behavior and Personality 40(6), 1015-1024. Hatch, M. (2000). The cultural dynamics of organizing and change. In Ashkanasy, N., Wilderom, C., & Peterson, M. (Eds.), Handbook of organizational culture & change (pp. 245–260). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hoffman, B.J., Bynum, B.H., Piccolo, R.F., & Sutton, A.W. (2011). Person-organization value congruence: how transformational leaders influence work group effectiveness. Academy of Management Journal 54(4), 779-796. Iqbal, T. (2011). The impact of leadership styles on organizational effectiveness. Analytical study of selected organizations in IT sector in Karachi. Munchen: GRIN Verlag. 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Yukl, G. (2008). How leaders influence organizational effectiveness. The Leadership Quarterly 19, 708-722. Read More