Human Relations at Work - Essay Example

Page] Page II. Introduction 3 III. Body 3 A. Top managers’ leadership style 3 B. Individual leadership in Dell 4 C. Leadershipdevelopment in Dell 5 D. Impact on leadership training programs 7 IV. Conclusion 8 I. II. Introduction This paper aims to explore the leadership in Dell. This paper looks at the leadership style of its top managers: CEO Michael Dell and President Kevin Rollins, to the company culture’s emphasis on individual leadership, to the leadership development efforts in Dell, and the impact of these leadership programs on the company’s performance as a whole. III. Body A. Top managers’ leadership style In 2003, a growing problem had been brewing in Dell in terms of employee morale. According to an article in Business Week, the company morale was in a rapid decline because of the two executives’ management style: Michael Dell was impersonal and detached; Kevin Rollins was autocratic and antagonistic (Business Week 2003). While these management styles had become the basis for the company’s “off-the-chart introvert” culture (Business Week), they had become the root for the company’s problem. The two executives’ subsequent action, especially Michael Dell’s marked their leadership style and ability to turn the organization around. According to the article, within the week when the employee survey revealed the cause the two executives had taken action to address the problem. The problem, rooted from the executives’ personalities, was addressed in the following manner: “[…] Dell faced his top 20 managers and offered a frank self-critique, acknowledging that he is hugely shy and that it sometimes made him seem aloof and unapproachable. He vowed to forge tighter bonds with his team (Business Week).” As the issue had only been addressed in at the top level of the company, Dell and Rollins had made additional actions to communicate the solution to the whole company: “Days later, they began showing a videotape of his talk to every manager in the company -- several thousand people. Then Dell and Rollins adopted desktop props to help them do what didnt come naturally. A plastic bulldozer cautioned Dell not to ram through ideas without including others, and a Curious George doll encouraged Rollins to listen to his team before making up his mind (Business Week).” The way the two executives handled the problem had a significant implication in their leadership styles, especially that of Michael Dell. Since the problem originated from his individual personality, it was something that he had to address within himself and communicate to all the people in the company. To admit their own weaknesses before tens of thousands of Dell employees in their pursuit to elevate the level of the company’s overall morale, Dell’s and Rollin’s behaviors made them quality to what had been coined as transformational leaders. A transformational leader, as Stephen Robbins had defined it in his book Organizational Behavior, is “another type of leader who inspires followers to transcend their own self-interests for the good of the organization, and who is capable of having a profound and extraordinary effect on his or her followers (2005, 343).” By admitting their weaknesses, Dell and Rollins transcended their self-interests in order to address the sagging morale in Dell, Inc, which had caused a turn around within the company. According to an article published by the Capital University of Economics and Business in China on Michael Dell’s transformational leadership, “as a successful leader, he must have strong self-consciousness. He must know what he doesn’t know and face up his disadvantages. He should learn from mistakes and borrow others talent he needed (CUEB.edu.cn).” B. Individual leadership in Dell In 2003, Dell had announced its most ambitious global target of USD 62 billion by 2006 (Interaction Associates 2005, 1). In line with this target, Dell aimed to surpass all it had already achieved not only through its manufacturing capabilities, but also through its most vital resource, its workforce. In line with this, the company had to elevate its employees’ leadership capabilities in order to fulfill the company’s bigger objectives. According to an article by Interaction Associates, “[Dell] was at a point where it was asking its managers and leaders to lead differently than they ever have before. While reaching the aggressive numbers was essential, it was not enough. Instead, leaders were being called on to get to the numbers while engaging their people by offering inspiration and extraordinary leadership, integrating the Soul of Dell into their leadership styles. This called for a unique development program, linked to specific identified competencies (2005, 1).” In order to do this, Dell’s Senior Manager, Learning and Development, and Dell EMEA had made choices as regards what to emphasize in the program. The program, which was called Dell EMEA leadership journey, was also strategic tools for the company to come up with concrete leadership outcomes among its employees. With the Dell EMEA leadership journey, employees were expected of the following outcomes: “prepared for greater leadership roles, expanded support networks, greater support network, greater insight into self and others, [and] development plans (Interaction Associates).” The leadership journey was divided into phases, which included “kick-off, strategic leadership, leadership forum, [and] strategic decision making teams,” which will comprise the individual milestones in the form of “executive dialogues, [one-to-one] meetings with EMEA Leadership Team, 360 Feedback, Tell Dell review sessions [and] ongoing coaching (Interaction Associates).” Strategic Leadership @ Dell being part of the overall Dell EMEA leadership journey focused on certain competencies. These competencies included the following: “motivating others, business and financial acumen, building effective teams, customer focus, [and] strategic agility (Interaction Associates).” From Dell’s perspective, these competencies were required to develop the leadership skills that would enable the company to fulfill its aggressive objective. As mentioned in the article by Interaction Associates, “[…] Dell believes that at the heart of a successful leadership team is the individual leader, self-awareness was an important competency (2005, 1).” C. Leadership development in Dell In line with Dell’s commitment to develop leadership skills among its employees, Dell had embraced leadership development as part of its human resource management effort. More specific training programs under leadership development had become part of the company’s personnel policies. According to an article from the Pennsylvania State University Smeal College of Business, “Today at Dell, leadership development is a top management priority. ‘Were spending four-to-five times more time on it now,’ says Esparza. Its so important that Esparza even interrupted a meeting of the senior executive team to give them the news of Dells cracking the top 10 list. ‘Its been such a big issue for us that the senior execs felt even more proud than the HR team,’ Esparza [VP Talent Development and Retention at Dell] noted (Smeal.PSU.edu 2009).” In line with these efforts, the Development Dimensions International coordinated with the Training and Development department of Dell in order to conduct a study which incorporates the training programme of the company. This was to look at the effectiveness of the program as well as to determine the areas that would need to be improved and addressed. The focus of the study was to enhance leadership development within Dell, Inc. According to DDI, “The new training programme, managing@Dell, is aimed at newly hired, recently promoted, and experienced managers and directors. It consists of a number of modules, with a key focus on performance management and people management skills (2000, 2).” The trained skills included the following: maintain/enhance self-esteem, listen and respond with empathy; ask for help and encourage involvement; share thoughts, feelings, rationale; provide support without removing responsibility; track and review others’ progress; provide ongoing feedback; establish clear expectations; define actions needed to achieve goals; provide ongoing coaching and support (DDI 2000, 2)1. D. Impact on leadership training programs In line with the leadership development within Dell, Inc. the study that DDI had conducted through the training programme revealed astounding results as regards the managers. According to DDI: “On average, 85 percent of managers see at least a moderate improvement in the trained skills. More than half of these individuals see a great or very great improvement. […] Availability of programmes for development and manager/peer support are the strongest predictors of skill improvement. […] On average, 72 percent of managers agree that the training has positively affected many critical organisational outcomes (2000, 3).” The study had shown that leadership development through Dell’s training programme had significantly impacted many decisions within the organization. As shown in Figure 22, the Dell’s training programme had produced significant impact as follows: great teamwork, higher interpersonal skills, increased trust in leadership, more respect shown to employees, greater consistency of management behavior, [and] increased openness of communication (DDI 2000, 3). This study had an implication on Dell’s pursuit of increasing the leadership abilities of its employees through various training and leadership development. The company’s effort to put a premium in leadership in order to fulfill its advantage was very much apparent in its human resource management policies. As quoted from an article from Pennsylvania State University, “Key to Dells success was that Chairman Michael Dell and CEO Kevin Rollins jumped on the band wagon. They participated in their own 360-degree assessment and even shared their assessments with their colleagues, modeling the behaviors they were asking of leaders at all levels of Dell. ‘It sounds like a cliche," says Esparza," but it was very powerful.’ (Smeal.PSU.edu 2009).” IV. Conclusion Leadership was vital in Dell’s operations and business practice. The company puts a premium on leadership in order to achieve competitive advantage in business, by improving the leadership skills of Dell’s employees in order to fulfill the company’s objectives. Leadership development gained a strong support as the top executives of the company had demonstrated strong leadership skills when the company was in turmoil in the early 2000. As Michael Dell and Kevin Rollins developed a solution which the main root had laid in their personalities--especially Michael Dell, by admitting their personal weaknesses, their actions transcended their self-interests in order to serve the organization better. The two executives were transformational leaders. From the executives down to the individual employees, leadership skills were greatly emphasized as a major part of the corporate culture. This was apparent in Dell’s efforts in pursuing leadership development and continually improving them by conducting studies and survey among its managers. Part of leadership development in order to sustain Dell’s position in the market, as well as achieve its aggressive growth objectives, a leadership training programme was also created. The emphasis was developing certain competencies that were crucial to the performance of employees in order for them to exercise individual leadership and increase productivity. Leadership was a very important skill on the part of Dell. The company knew that in order to achieve its objectives, it had to utilize the talent of its people. And it had continually done that by the effort of the top management as well as training and development programmes that its Human Resource Management arm carried on. Bibliography Business Week (2003 November 3). “What you don’t know about Dell.” BusinessWeek.com. Available from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_44/b3856001_mz001.htm. [Accessed 13 February, 2009] Capital University of Economics and Business (2009). “Michael Dell--the CEO of Dell computer corporation.” CUEB.edu.cn. Available from http://wyx.cueb.edu.cn/download/disance/unit3/Michael%20Dell.htm. [Accessed 13 February, 2009] Development Dimensions International (2000). “Research results: leadership development.” DDIWorld.com. Available from http://www.ddiworld.com/pdf/ddi_dellcomputers_rr.pdf. [Accessed 13 February, 2009] Interaction Associates (2000). “Accelerating the development of high potentials: Strategic Leadership @ Dell.” InteractionAssociates.com. Available from http://www.interactionassociates.com/pdf/Dell_Reprint_ONLINE.pdf. [Accessed 13 February, 2009] ROBBINS, S. 2005. Organizational Behavior. 5th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill The Pennsylvania State University Smeal College of Business (2005). “Lessons to be learned in leadership development.” Smeal.psu.edu. Available from http://www.smeal.psu.edu/news/latest-news/mar05/oped.html. 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