Challenges in International Competition Business Practices - Coursework Example

University: Essay on Developing Leadership. Name: Date: ESSAY ON DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP. INTRODUCTION Organizational success in the contemporary business world is highly attributable to prudent leadership skills. With the ever changing challenges in the business environment, it has become equally critical for organizations to adopt flexible approaches to different demands in negotiations. This term paper looks at the challenge facing organizations, with particular emphasis on international competitions. The paper will analyze the challenges in international competition business practices and will explore the dynamics of the desired leadership needed in institutions that intend to not only reap huge profits through international trade, but also wish to create a long term sustainable business model. Moreover, the paper will explore on the essence of possession of sound negotiation skills in the success of organizations in the global arena ROLE OF LEADERSHIP Inevitably, leadership plays a pivotal role in the progress and the overall success of any business. Leadership is defined as the ability to influence people to action through sharing and inspiring a vision (Mendenhall, 2011, p.12). Over the last one decade, there has been a sporadic opening up of traditional trade barriers. This has had the positive effects of opening up trade at a global level. With the formation and constant meeting of international trading blocs, trade barriers such as tariffs have been lowered, and the general cost of doing business has become significantly favorable to a majority of organizations (King & Lawley, 2013, p.86). While this is commendable, the downside is that it has created cut throat international competition, with only a few firms managing to capture a great share of what is now a global market. While some organizations such as Microsoft have been accused of engaging in anticompetitive practices, there are a large majority of firms that have legitimately won over their customers through persistently sticking to an ethical and competitive way of doing business. Leadership plays a critical role in these businesses. Tech giant Apple has severally been a case study of efficient team leadership (Lussier & Achua, 2010, p.92). The success of Apple in the international competition has been attributed to the prudent leadership style effected from the top of the company. Even with a great sales team, the actual motivation to work stems from an able, reliable, and consistent leadership from the top management. LEADERSHIP APPROACHES In the study of leadership approaches, it is evident that are various types of leadership approaches. Moreover every leader possesses several leadership traits whereby there is one dominant trait that supersedes the rest (Day & Leithwood, 2007, p.24). In the past one decade, there was a great reliance on transactional leadership approach. In this approach, leaders set out a reward and punishment system where leaders and employees would set goals to be achieved within a set time frame (Bertocci, 2009, p.52). On achieving these goals, the employees would be awarded bonuses. This leadership approach involves a constant review of the results, corrections, and training of employees. While this approach has catapulted global business to where it is today, there is need for a new approach to leadership for competing businesses to survive in the next five years. A major shortcoming of the transactional leadership has been the ability to cope with the changing dynamics of the business world (Ober, 2008, p.41). With the ever changing rules and regulations on how to carry out business, there has been an eminent possibility that the act of merely goal setting without consideration of the future changes will lead to frustration. The business model for the next five years will be one that shall embrace creativity in employees. Even with a set of rules and regulations guiding the conduct of the organizations, employees will be required to go the extra mile and determine the best approach to remain both competitive and ethical. Moreover, the shift from transactional leadership approach should occur due to the limitation of fluidity of roles in transactional leadership (King & Lawley, 2013, p.91). Since the primary motivation for this type of leadership is the reward offered on achieving the set objective, employees are unwilling to venture in more challenging roles for the fear that they may fail to achieve the new targets. The success of organizations in the next five years will require a business leadership model where employees have the motivation to try out different roles and are well motivated to learn taking up new roles, earning new languages as organizations penetrate into new shores, and embrace cultural diversity. Inevitably, new approaches to negotiations will be needed. The Coca-Cola Company is undoubtedly one of the longest company in beverages. One very interesting aspect on the company has been its ability to enter new markets and quickly identify with the niche market and record extremely impressive sales figures (Lussier & Achua, 2010, p.114). However, little has been talked about the leadership approach used in this company. One important aspect of this company leadership has been its ability to keep a range of highly motivated employees who have consistently been encouraged to share creative ideas on how the company can better its way of doing business (Arthur, 2009, p.125). This has resulted in a constant release of new range of products whenever the company enters a new market. It is beyond doubt that authoritarian leadership is not a leadership approach that any progressive organization would wish to adopt in this century. Equally, like in political leadership, there are plenty of challenges facing democratic leadership, especially in an age where decision making in business should not take too much time lest competitors get an edge over the company (Naile & Selesho, 2014, p.178). This, therefore, begs a serious question on the most effective leadership approach that should be adopted and developed for leadership success in future international businesses (Miner, 2005, p.34). Only transformational leadership strikes this delicate balance. Transformational leadership is defined as a leadership approach whereby leaders motivate employees towards achievement of specific well set out goals in the organization (Day & Leithwood, 2007, p.43). Unlike the other leadership approaches, this approach relies heavily on constant communication between management and the employees. There are several reasons as to why transformational leadership is set out to be the most significant leadership approach to handle international competition and negotiations. CHALLENGES IN INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION First, transformational leaderships relies on employee motivation. This is whereby leaders are in a position to inspire employees to work towards attainment of a set objective (Mendenhall, 2011, p.60). Leaders seeking to keep the competitive nature of their businesses will learn to inspire employees to go out of the comfort zones and produce great results (Winkler, 2010, p.102). One of the major disadvantages of competition is loss of customers. Therefore, leaders need to motivate their employees such that they feel part of the business and not merely workers employed to make the company profit. This is a major challenge that leaders will have to face in the next half decade and more. Employees should be inspired, the leadership should have confidence and shoe confidence in their staff. The overall effect of feeling part of the organization is that employees are able to create rapport with customers and overtime, this creates customer loyalty (Ober, 2008, p.56). Negotiation is very important in the success of any business. Negotiation is designed to set out a win-win situations for two or more willing parties in an agreement (Bertocci, 2009, p.65). Global corporations are in constant negotiations with other businesses and governments when looking for partnerships to expand businesses. As such, transformational leadership is the best leadership approach that shall allow international organizations to remain competitive and strike out critical negotiation capabilities (Arthur, 2009, p.89). This is partly due to the effect that transformation has on employees. Transformational leadership creates a situation whereby employees share the company’s long-term mission and vision. This enables employees to seek out the best interests of the organization before anything else. With the emergence of business-savvy businessmen, organizations in the next five years will inevitably require to have on board employees who are not merely working to receive a salary but also who understands the long term business goals (Bertocci, 2009, p.54). Microsoft Corporation has one of the most stringent interviews in the business world. Interestingly, the company also has one of the lowest employee turnover. Yet, there is intense competition in the Information Technology industry. Companies want to hire the best and will do anything to poach highly qualified employees in other organizations (Kurtz & Boone, 2009, p.66). What has made Microsoft stand out in hiring the best employees and keeping them is the leadership approach applied in the organization. This has been a challenge to many organizations. While most international corporations will hire very qualified personnel, they will equally lose them for better job prospects. Ultimately, organizations that will have high employee turnover in the next five years will register lower productivity. With transformational leadership, however, organizations can keep this in check by constantly encouraging employees to do their best and motivating high performing employees through promotions (Andersson & Holm, 2010, p.73). Further, international competition will also require that negotiations are handled in a very democratic manner. This means that the consultations in the organization should not be limited only to the top management. Employees should be consulted especially if the issues at hand can be solved at their level (Manzoor, 2011, p. 116). Ultimately, the success of such negotiations will be highly dependent on the business goals and the availability of other offers. CONCLUSION. In conclusion, it is notable that the challenge of international competition is one that will be solved through a combination of both effective leadership and negotiation skills. In the next five years, the burden of organization success is likely to shift from merely the organization leadership and will encompass the essential elements of successful negotiations and employee motivation (Wang, 2014, p.79). From this essay, it is evident that transformational leadership is the most prudent leadership style with the ability of developing employee motivation especially in a highly competitive business environment. However, to remain competitive, organization leaders will need to strike the delicate balance of embracing transformational leadership together with the strong elements of other leadership approaches. REFERENCES. ANDERSSON, U., & HOLM, U. 2010. Managing the Contemporary Multinational the Role of Headquarters. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Pub.  ARTHUR, D., 2009. The employee recruitment and retention handbook. New York, AMACOM. BERTOCCI, D. I. 2009. Leadership in organizations there is a difference between leaders and managers. Lanham, Md, University Press of America.  DAY, C., & LEITHWOOD, K. A. 2007. Successful principal leadership in times of change: an international perspective. Dordrecht, Springer. KING, D., & LAWLEY, S. 2013. Organizational behaviour. Oxford, Oxford University Press. KURTZ, D. L., & BOONE, L. E. 2009. Contemporary business. Mason, OH, South-Western Cengage Learning LUSSIER, R. N., & ACHUA, C. F. 2010. Leadership: theory, application, skill development. 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