Concept of Leadership as Organizational Behavior Tenet - Essay Example

Leadership Name University Course Title Instructor Date Leadership 1.0 Introduction While there was initial belief in earlier years that managers required more technical skills such as managing costs and business initiative to soft skills, the notion of late as changed. Managers and employees now acknowledge the importance of soft skills such as communication, conflict management, leadership, perception and persuasion as integral part for success (Gillard, 2009: 725). Soft skills are “those skills over and above the technical knowledge and expertise in the chosen field, required for an individual to relate to and survive and succeed in his or her environment” (Ramesh, 2010:3). Further, he observes that soft skills are “built on attitude, manifested through communication and polished through etiquette”. Thus, soft skills are used to give a vision and make organization responsive to change while technical skills are used to achieve efficiency in operation. One of the soft skills that are critical in managing people is leadership. The significance of leadership can be best exemplified in the re-emergence and success story of Steve Jobs at apple (Issacson, 2012:94). The second critical observation is that of International Business Machine (IBM) under the leadership of Louis Gerstner from 1993 till his retirement (Tung, 2001:41). Leadership deals with the future, ideas, people and personalities (Gillard, 2009:726). This means it is one of the core competencies of current managers who wish to take their organizations to greater scales. This paper seeks to explore the concept of leadership as one of the tenets of organizational behavior and managing people by examining what the concept entails. Moreover, the paper reviews theoretical propositions to the concept and give best examples of the significance of leadership. 2.0 Concept of Leadership as Organizational Behavior Tenet Ramesh (2010:2) engages in a discourse so as to understand why some employees or managers are successful yet they have limited managerial education. He draws an observation that emotions and emotional intelligence are important and affects how we interact and perceive things at work place. Those who have higher emotional intelligence which translates to effective social skills are more prosperous and effective. He defines soft skills as “those skills over and above the technical knowledge and expertise in the chosen field, required for an individual to relate to and survive and succeed in his or her environment” (Ramesh, 2010:3). On the other hand, Gitman & McDaniel (2008:226) posits that technical skills comprises of specialized areas of knowledge and expertise and the ability to apply that knowledge. Technical skills are acquired through formal education, through training and job experience. Leadership is about soft skills and doing what you believe in through people so as to attain organizational goals (Barman, 2009:205). Leadership is a soft skill or people skill that is derived from interpersonal skills and cognitive power (Papulova & Mokros, 2007:4). Leadership deals with the future, ideas, people and personalities (Gillard, 2009:726). There are numerous theories that have been developed to support the same. Trait theory is grounded on the premise that leaders are born. On the other hand behavioral theory posits that it is what a leader that makes him/her different from others based on energy, passion, self confidence and ambition (Bolden et al., 2003). One of the important requirements in any organization is human capital. Employees’ play a critical role of ensuring that organization’s vision is attained (Weightman, 2004:3). This is only possible if the top level management put in place personnel management mechanisms that aid in enhancing productivity. The above aspirations can be achieved by having multi pronged approach like visionary and motivational leadership and recruitment of managers with not only technical skills but also soft skills/peoples skills/interpersonal skills/ emotional intelligence who can understand formal and informal relations between people (Armstrong, 2001:7). The essence of all this is to ensure team work, motivated workforce and thus, enhanced productivity (Armstrong, 2001:13). 3.0 Leadership and its Nexus with Success One approach to managing people and increasing performance has been management by objective. This approach in a participatory manner sets out what is to be achieved by employees or departments over time (Koontz and Weihrich, 2008:92).This objectives cannot be achieved if the performances of employees are not well managed. One way to improve performance of an individual or a department is through performance management. Performance management is the creation of collaborative effort between the supervisors and employees by aligning them with the firm’s strategic management plan. This is done by explaining shared expectations and reducing barriers to poor performance (Bacal, 2012:4 & 5). According to Edwin Locke (1968), one of the earlier proponents of goal-setting, posits that goals formulated by individuals themselves contributes a huge portion towards motivating that person for unrivalled performance. The basis for this argument is that the employee will try to attain goals set out and even if they are not met, the employee shall have made a tremendous effort in achieving them and thus, contributing to improved performance. Precisely, this is what performance management aims at. One way of guaranteeing performance is through visionary leadership. Moreover, Brim (2012:3) notes that human beings performs well when they have goals and objectives set out for them. On the other hand, expectation theory looks at performance in relation to anticipated satisfaction of valued goals set by them. According to Victor Vroom (1964), people adapt their behavior in certain way so as to attain desired goals. The essence of these theories is based on participatory approach to formulation of the desired objectives by having attainable, specific and measurable objectives. This would make the employees part and parcel of the procedure. This collaborative approach can only be realized with a properly formulated organization structure that has leadership which motivates, sets out vision and creates the need for its people. Goal-setting theory success in the organization is reliant on how the management treats objective setting process in the organization (Bacal, 2012:8). Setting objectives is a sub step in planning (Koontz and Weihrich, 2008:82). This should be done with short and long term focus in mind. Moreover, in this kind of approach, vertical and horizontal information flow with guaranteed feedback is critical. In a nutshell, the essence of this is to link human behavior with organization’s vision. 4.0 Leadership and Innovation The role of a manager as a leader who enshrines innovation can be best understood through Kolb’s learning cycle. Kolb in his experiential learning theory noted that learning takes places between two intersecting continua of perception and processing. Moreover, he notes that this takes place in four stages with each continuum (perception and processing) having two (Morris, Porter & Griffiths, 2004:93). Other authors refer these continuums as passive and active. The faculties under the continua are watching, thinking, doing and feeling. Watching involves observation and reflection about an event. The second phase which is feeling involves abstraction and conceptualization of the issue at hand. The third step is doing which involves testing the implications. The final step is thinking and it involves applying concrete experiences to the event. In this situation, the manger should be the source for abstract thinking so that it is implemented. A best example of this scenario is on Steve Jobs leadership at apple (Issacson, 2012:94). 5.0 Case Examples of Business Organization Leadership and Lessons to be learnt 5.1 Apple’s Case When Steve Jobs finally took over Apple as the CEO in his second stint, new business model was molded around improvement on the company’s core product line. First, Jobs killed the Macintosh clones that were eating into Apple’s PC sales. Thus, the company shifted its strategy towards the Macintosh. Here, Jobs made the PCs look more beautiful than before in order to look appealing to the customers. Additionally, under Jobs, the company acquired digital production programs from its rivals in order to ensure that the Macintosh produced was able to work well out of the box. In collaboration with Jonathan Ive, Jobs oversaw the production of the iMac, iPhone, iPod and the iPad. Apple was revived through a strategy that aimed at making the Macintosh much better. Thus, the Macintosh became user friendly, powerful and prettier. The key strategy here was producing consumer solutions based on technology, as well as design. As such, the business model shifted from simply diversifying products to increase the company’s market share. Additionally, Jobs realized the need to utilize the talent of employees in the company (Muehlhausen, 2010). Consequently, Jobs encouraged his employees to be innovative and creative “Innovating is the dominant value of Apple’s culture. Employees are rewarded for experimenting, risk taking, and creativity” (Wooten, 2010:8). Technology has meant that the software and hardware development industry changes from time to time. Consequently, it is essentially for organizations to change their business strategies in the wake of the advent of information technology. Changes have seen the introduction into the market of new products like the MP3 players, tablets and cell phones. In recognition of this, Apple reacted to this through the creation of products that were based on design, functionality and ease-of-use, just as the Macintosh. This resulted into an increase in the Macintosh sales. “While Steve Jobs did not anticipate these new markets, he opened them up by creating products that shared the new Macintosh's emphasis on design, ease-of-use, and functionality” (Muehlhausen, 2010). Over years, the strategic management at Apple has focused on improving on a single product in various ways to ensure it remains competitive on the market. The key features of Apple’s business model are its ability to marry art with technology and the use of Word-of-Mouth (WOM), as well as a Buzz for its products. In marrying art with technology, the company not only makes its iPhones perform better in comparison to products of rivals but also make it appealing to consumers. Essentially, customers feel nice when having good looking products. “Apple iPhones do not just perform better than competing products; they look better, as they marry art with technology, which makes people feel good in carrying one around, and even showing to their friends” (Mourdoukoutas, 2011). On the other hand, the Word-of-Mouth and Buzz strategy is where the customers who have used Apple products spread the message to their friends, who too could be tempted to try out these products. As such, more and more people buy and use these products increasing sales, and hence revenue. According to Satariano (2012) of Bloomberg News, Apple is currently ranked as the most valuable company in the world (Miller, 2012). 5.2 IBM’s Case International Business Machine (IBM) is one of the oldest computer manufactures. With time (from 1990s), their emerged shift in market trends which made them cede some grounds to other players thus, loosing market leadership (Tung, 2001:41). How leadership can turn around a company is best exemplified by this. The first competency and source of restructuring was the board’s decision to source for a top level manager from outside who would view things from different angle. One of the competencies that Louis Gerstner brought was being customer oriented rather than just investing in innovation for no sake. In this line of thinking, the CEO was able to precisely pin point that the market trends were shift and thus, being able to engage and formulate new management and marketing strategies for IBM. At the initial start, he emphasized on speed, customers, teamwork and execution. He did this through standardizing the company operations and centralizing them so that IBM would act as one stop shop solution provider to its clients. This started giving them some leverage and market leadership again as they returned to profitability in 1994(Carter, 1998:90-95). The next phase of turnaround was based on repositioning and reclaiming of the IBM brand. He directed most of the operations towards high profit- margin opportunity. To strengthen the brand value of IBM he consolidated the advertisement section into one rather than a scattered one with different themes. The second last competency that they engaged in from 2000 was the strategic partnership and acquisition. In this instance, the company acquired stake or the whole company so that they could add value to the customers and the shareholders. The last affront that they embarked on and which is being carried out by Louis successor a one Mr. Sam Palmisano is the standardization and globalization of the company platform so as to reduce operating cost, increase profit margin and value (Carter, 1998:90-95). 5.3 Lessons Learnt 5.3.1 Organizational Change One of the greatest lessons that can be derived about bold leadership is on driving organizational change so as to guarantee market leadership. Change in organization is inevitable if an organization wants to stay afloat. However, these changes in work place in one way or another affects the employees more than employers due to their reliance on their employers. In order to avoid these unnecessary friction caused with change, there is need to plan for change and place communication at forefront. This can only be partially achieved if the firm adopts pluralistic approach in solving employment relations (Denning, 2000:2). The best way to introduce change in absence of extreme factors is through planned and progressive approach. In this world there are two situations. Change with the changing time or be changed by the changing time. Change can be incremental or radical. The best way to anticipate change is through taking the lead initiative so that a firm can enjoy first mover advantage. For a company to stay afloat, it has to be responsive change either at industrial level or the larger macroeconomic environment. Organizational change can only be attained through a visionary leadership that is able to churn out strategic management plans that will guide the internal operations of the company. The both two companies under the leadership of their Chief executive officers were able to implement various changes that elevated the companies from the brink of failure to greatest companies in the world 6.0 Conclusion It is indeed true how a bold leadership that is anticipatory in nature and also participatory can be used to change the fortunes of an organization. From the above discussions, it is clearly evident that leadership deals with creation of vision within an organization. It is about making people believe in you and them that all is possible. Organizations that have been able to experience phenomenal growth can attest that leadership is crucial. Thus, in the light of this observation, there is need for all organizations to recruit and entrench leadership rather than focus on traditional management approaches. 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