Leadership Exercising Issues - Essay Example

Leadership Name: University: Date: Leadership Introduction Good leadership as opined by Sarros and Santora (2001) depends on understanding professional and personal value orientations. Furthermore, leadership is entrenched in cultural and social values and beliefs; therefore, cannot be comprehended entirely except for the context wherein it exists. The managers’ personal values have an effect on the performance and behaviour and, eventually, on organisational performance. Therefore, organisations having clear values and strong cultures are more inclined to succeed. Given that the number of organisations operating in the multinational setting has increased tremendously, the increasing integration between countries and internationalisation of corporations have resulted in disappearance or reduction of cultural differences. Still, cultural barriers often go up when the economic borders come down; hence, leading to new opportunities and challenges in the business. For this reason, numerous principles of leadership have been considered to be very effective in a multinational setting. To become a successful leader, one must first define him/herself and understand his/her personal values. Imperatively, a successful leader should continuously challenge oneself and ensure his/her principles or integrity is not compromised. In addition, an effective leader should learn how to share power and should create an accommodating environment that promotes success. In the hospital emergency room (ER), every encounter with a patient results in leadership opportunity or challenge; therefore, the needs of the ER environment should be integrated with the strategic imperatives of the hospital. The essay discusses how leadership might be exercised by the CEO of a multinational firm, in a hospital emergency room, and on a battlefield in addition to the contextual factors that are relevant. By the CEO of a multinational firm According to Jokinen (2005), having knowledge about the international interaction is important for a multinational firm seeking to work successfully in the present global business environment. This knowledge is associated with having international competencies within the organisation. Even though the demand for leaders that have acceptable competencies has recently increased, Jokinen (2005) asserts that there is a major gap between the need for global strategies and achieving those strategies. To succeed in the international business market, leaders must promote leadership development as well as motivate employees to think like a leader. Furthermore, a multinational firm leader should be creative and innovative, ready to learn, have integrity, vision, be a good communicator and make sure the relationship between the firm and the stakeholders is harmonious. In their study, Rothacker and Hauera (2014) established that the situational leadership approach is the ideal model for motivating multicultural employees; therefore, the leader must be ethical, transformational, and authentic and also have emotional intelligent behaviour. In view of this, the situational leadership approach stresses that leadership constitutes of a directive and supportive dimensions (Rothacker & Hauera, 2014). Therefore, for a leader to be efficient in the global business environment, he must apply all the dimensions. The leader applying directive behaviour emphasises on what should be done, who is responsible and how to do it effectively; therefore, it is more of a one-way communication. On the other hand, a leader with a supportive behaviour exhibits social and emotional support and help employees to finish their tasks, therefore, it is considered to be a two-way communication. Transformational leadership is crucial in a global setting and help leaders to change people and concentrate on long-term goals, standards and values. The ability of the leader to exert control beyond and within the multinational business parameters depends heavily on his/her emotional awareness as well as the ability to tie such emotions together for greater success (Prewitt & Weil, 2011). Such emotions facilitate the leader to develop a favourable environment for creativity and growth and being able to realise self-actualisation. Being able to learn from unpredictable conflicts and interacting with difficult employees with no anger or condescension is a skill that can be learnt easily by a leader who has a sense of self-awareness. In the global organisations, some leaders unintentionally abuse their authority and power when they direct pressure outwards; thus, generating discord between employees. The discord is normally caused exclusively by passing on negative emotions in the place of work and withholding positive emotions (Pam, 2014). As mentioned by Kirkpatrick and Locke (1991), when a leader learns how to calm emotional pressures as well as overcome anxiety and stress with ease, he/she can face any form of crisis head-on. According to the Great Man Theory, leaders are born and great leaders will normally arise when a great need arises. This applies to a multinational firm whereby leaders normally lead based on their endowed traits. In global business environment, personal traits are considered to be crucial to the success of leadership. According to the trait theory, the personal traits of a leader are crucial for leadership success. Therefore, traits such as self-confidence, extraversion and courage are normally associated with great leaders. In a hospital emergency room Ineffective communication, lack of leadership and poor team performance may negatively impact the clinical outcomes in the emergency room. According to Sarcevic et al. (2011), teams in hospital ER such as trauma teams normally work in an extremely complex environment, and the composition of the team changes often changes in order to align with the patient needs that are evolving rapidly. Therefore, the availability of a leader improves team performance and guarantees completion of tasks at hand. Sarcevic et al. (2011) study findings point out how weak leadership structures in ER setting result in skipped evaluation steps, unnecessary procedures, or incorrect medication prescriptions. Such inefficiencies are mostly challenging when physicians with different experiences and careers share the ER leadership, and can result in conflict, lower care quality and teamwork inefficiency. As mentioned by LaSalle (2004), good leaders should not be self-centred and their objective should be to promote improved healthcare outcomes and not the organisational values. Normally, leaders in hospital ER recruit followers that complement and share their beliefs, develop and empower successors that could carry the hospital vision, and unselfishly share the successes with team members. Leaders should also ensure their followers are protected, and understand that promoting wellness is a necessary and crucial responsibility. In view of the skill theory of leadership, ER leaders require a number of skills (conceptual, human and technical skills) to be effective leadership in their roles. The skills model outlines numerous crucial components that can result in effective leadership: environmental influences, career experiences, individual attributes, competencies as well as leadership outcomes. In view of these components, effective leadership in the hospital ER depends on how the leader competencies are impacted by the leader’s experiences and attributes as well as the environment. In environments like emergency services, dynamics of leadership can be altered greatly by existence of smaller teams, integration of multiple disciplines and having multiple leaders in the same environment. Transactional style of leadership is needed in an ER because it is effective in motivating employees and also increases the efficiency of the established procedures and routines. In transactional leadership style, the leader gives the employees order with the anticipation they will follow, and it is more effective in crisis such as those experienced in ER (Bass, 1999). Besides that, transformational style of leadership is effective in hospital ER because it improves the performance and morale of employees. The style approach is amongst the numerous theories and models have been developed to explore the different behaviours exhibited by leaders. According to the style approach, leadership has two forms of behaviours: relationship-oriented behaviours as well task-oriented behaviour. In view of the hospital ER, relationships-oriented behaviours can help nurses and physicians feel comfortable while working amongst themselves regardless of the situation. On the other hand, task-oriented behaviours enable the ER leader to accomplish a set of goals, be able to improve the patients’ outcomes and enable employees to realise their goals. The main objective of the style approach is explaining how leaders integrate two forms of behaviours with the goal of helping the subordinates realise their goals. On a battlefield In Özlen and Zukic (2013) study, they highlight the tasks of leadership in today’s complex and unstable military environment. According to Özlen and Zukic (2013), the growth of a leader is affected by the sociocultural information; therefore on a battlefield, the leader must integrate different leadership styles and interpersonal collaborations. Utecht and Edward (1970) while examining whether leadership in the military can be predicted by the Contingency theory, they established that Contingency theory proposes relationship-oriented and task-oriented leadership (Özlen & Zukic, 2013). During a battle, some leaders would prefer relationship-oriented leadership while others task-oriented style. Basically, leadership style on the battlefield is different from the peacetime leadership, because the former requires a lot of physical courage. A leader and soldier’s courage is associated with his perceived likelihood of success. On a battlefield, leaders enhance courage by ensuring the units are cohesive and stable. Such elements improve the soldiers’ physical courage, which is always hoped-for during a war. Courage on the battlefield should be recognised for reasons such as promotion, and it is the duty of the leader to maintain cohesiveness and stability in the unit. Courage is considered by leaders as an essential that brings unity of action on the battlefield. Leaders find it challenging to prove their character and quality on a battlefield. They have to build bonds of understanding, trust, mutual respect and confidence, which are essential for a cohesive and disciplined combat unit (Wong et al., 2003). This is aimed at reducing instability in the unit. Furthermore, leaders in a battlefield rarely change the members of the combat unit because they believe that soldiers that know each other are more reliable and can attack resolutely as compared to those who do not know each other. This case is well explained by the situational leadership theory which is anchored on how people react to working and being led in groups. Basically, situational leadership is based on the task a behaviour concept which is the level of direction and guidance a leader offers. It is also rooted in the concepts of relationship behaviour, which is the amount of emotional and social support the leader offers his followers. Another variable of situational leadership is the ability of the followers to manage themselves while in a working environment. The style of leadership exhibited by many leaders on a battlefield is servant leadership because they dedicate to serve others before themselves. On the battlefield, the servant leadership style is considered to be effective since the leaders exemplify the attributes of a servant leader: acceptance and empathy, a calling to serve their country. Leaders give orders on the battlefield and the soldiers are expected to follow the orders; therefore, transactional leadership is also exhibited on the battlefield. Conclusion In conclusion, the essay has discussed how leadership might be exercised by the CEO of a multinational firm, in a hospital emergency room, and on a battlefield in addition to the contextual factors that are relevant. The essay has outlined the differences in style of leadership in different fields; business, military and health. As mentioned in the essay, the increasing change and globalisation have challenged how leaders manage relationships in the workplace. Effective leadership can help a business organisation, combat unit, or a hospital through times of peril, and also enables the organisation to fulfil their mission. Furthermore, effective leadership helps an organisation grow and become more productive. Lack of leadership is similarly dramatic in its consequences since organisations cannot succeed without leadership; they will stagnate and loose direction. Leadership is based on decision-making; therefore, when a decision is made timely, the organisation will probably meet its set goals and objectives. Leadership is important for all organisations; for instance, lack of leadership in a hospital ER can lead to inefficiencies and poor patient outcomes. In an ER environment, transactional and transformational leadership have been pointed out as effective styles that can lead to the expected results. On a battlefield, servant and transactional leadership are the most effective while in a multinational firm; transformational leadership has been mentioned as the most effective. References Bass, B. M. (1999). Two Decades of Research and Development in Transformational Leadership. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 8(1), 9-32. Jokinen, T. (2005). Global leadership competencies: a review and discussion. Journal of European Industrial Training, 29(3), 199-216. Kirkpatrick, S. A., & Locke, E. A. (1991). Leadership: do traits matter? Academy of Management Executive, 5(2), 48-60. LaSalle, G. (2004). Leadership and the emergency department. Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America, 22, 1–18. Özlen, M. K., & Zukic, A. (2013). A Descriptive Study on the Military Leadership. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 3(7), 707-719. Pam, C. T. (2014). Leadership Styles in Global Organizations. Working Paper, Walden University, Boston, MA. Prewitt, D. J., & Weil, D. R. (2011). Developing Leadership in Global and Multi-cultural Organizations. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(13), 13-20. Rothacker, A., & Hauera, G. (2014). Leadership in multinational management – A behavior-set to motivate multicultural teams. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 130, 226 – 236. Sarcevic, A., Marsic, I., Waterhousec, L. J., Stockwellc, D. C., & Burdc, R. S. (2011). Leadership structures in emergency care settings: A study of two trauma centers. 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