The Social Security Administration and its Leaders - Essay Example

 Introduction The selected organization was a social health institution that is mandated to take care of the needs of people in their immediate environment who may be suffering from one kind of psychological and psychiatric problem or the other. The functional set up of the social health institution is such that the people who come for treatment are not referred to as patients but as service users (Saunders et al, 2001). This is because there is a general principle that all people – normal or mentally retarded have some chance and tendency of ever suffering from a psychological or psychiatric problem and so it is not appropriate to tag such people who come to the facility for assistance as though their problem and situation were permanent and peculiar to them only (Barney, 2001). Indeed, the nature of the work that is undertaken at the facility makes it a very special place when it comes to the leadership of the facility. This is said against the backdrop that a lot of responsibility is expected from leaders involved to ensure that not only the workers of the facility are well managed but the clients or service providers as well. To this end, the leaders of the facility are always seen as people who have a duo-responsibility in their leadership tasks. Leaders are expected to show great expertise in their management such that all resources needed including human resource will be adequately available to ensure that each service user who comes to the facility has every need catered for to the letter. The leader of the facility who was interviewed is one who can be described as a great role model for the social health industry. This is said against the backdrop of some of the major achievements that the leader has achieved within the short time that he took over the affairs of the facility is tremendous. This is not as though he does not have his own weaknesses and faults but that the generalized impression that most people including staff of the facility has given to him is highly satisfactory. The leader of the facility has been in charge for three years now and took over the administration of the facility from an equally competent predecessor. He came to his position with so much expectation from him because of what his predecessors had done. Some of the key reforms that were expected from him as he took office were the need to undertake massive internal structural reforms that would bring about the harnessing of the human capital available to the facility. To this end, most of these strategies, some of which will be discussed into detail later centered on organizational changes that followed the principle of empowering human resource through motivation and effective placement. With three years of service now, the leader is hoping to continue being at post for some seven more years before seeking transfer to another facility but even now, he is highly confident that he has done enough and has a lot more of greater success coming his way. Leadership Interview Leadership style the leader embodies Having followed the types of leadership styles critically, it can be said that the leader uses a democratic leadership style. According to the leader in the interview, he believes in the principle of bringing the inputs and ideas of all people onboard when it comes to matters of decision making. This is because he believes that each person is specially gifted to bring on the drawing board some kind of knowledge and ideas that can ensure the collective success of the facility. Such collective style of leading is also synonymous to democratic leadership whereby leaders try to accommodate the views and ideas of all their subordinates (Barney, 2001). The leader in the interview was also emphatic that he does not allow his democratic leadership style to become a reason why decisions will be taken for him when he should become the facilitator of all major decisions in the facility. What I gathered from this was that the leader uses the dynamic democratic leadership style whereby he opens himself up to chances as and when they become necessary (Saunders et al, 2001). Consequently, he bases all his sense of management on prevailing circumstances but would very often ensure that he is not seen by his people as someone who is an extremist. How leader demonstrates the democratic leadership style. The leader demonstrates this form of dynamic democratic leadership style in a number of ways. First, according to him, he is acts as the facilitator of all decisions to be taken at the facility. What this means is that he is the initiator of most of the ideas that are brought to the table for deliberations. Secondly, he subjects his ideas to public debate whereby after conceiving the ideas, he allows for a round table discussion on how best to implement the ideas: including an appraisal of the ideas as to whether or not they are appropriate and useful. Again, as a way of ensuring that he becomes a major authority in the midst of the dynamic democratic leadership style, the leader says that he practices a bottom-top organizational hierarchy whereby in the ranking of authority within the organization, he is always the last authority. He also says that with the bottom-top organizational hierarchy, it is not possible that someone from the very lower ranks would get his decisions to him straight away without passing through all needed channels. In his opinion, this has been a way for him to common great authority and respect within the organization. Finally, the leader demonstrates his leadership style by allowing for external feedback on all his acts and actions including major decisions taken. This means that he opens himself up for evaluation, auditing and quality assurance to ensure that his acts conform to stipulated regulation (IOM, 2000). Qualities, characteristics, and skills of the leader Through the interview process, a lot of qualities, knowledge and characteristics were seen of the leader and some of them were said by him. Some of the qualities that were exhibited by the leader included fairness, tolerance and soft speaking. Of these, it can be said that the fact that he was fair and tolerant were great qualities that ensured that he was able to go about his responsibilities without much of trouble. For example his fairness led to him, treating all people within the organization equally and avoiding all forms of bias and prejudice in his judgments. He never showed favoritism and this made his subordinates respect his decisions, especially those on reward and punishment. His tolerance was also a major tool that made it possible for him to welcome the views and ideas of all people on board including those of external stakeholders. Yet again, his quality aided in his success as a democratic leader. All of these pluses not withstanding, it was evident that the fact that the leader was soft spoken was a major detraction to his effectiveness as a leader. This is because that has resulted in a situation whereby some few recalcitrant ones have taken the soft speaking character of leaders to be their weakness and have refused to heed to some of their instructions (Barney, 2001). With reference to the skills and knowledge possessed by the leader, interpersonal relationship, communication skills, guidance, counseling and technical handling of depressed people were some of the skills and knowledge that he often exhibited. These are indeed skills that have for long accounted for the success of the leader’s style of leadership without any doubt. This point is made particularly against the background of the duty of the leader in relation to the skills and knowledge he possesses. For example as a social health worker, he is mandated to constantly interact with people who have one form of psychological or psychiatric problem or the order. Therefore, his interpersonal relationship and communication skills allow him to approach the service users at a level and in a manner that best meet their needs. The same applies to his staff that work under pressure in most of the cases and so need a very excellent communicator who can appreciate the work that they do and speak to them in a way that will be most soothing to them. His mastery in guidance, counseling and technical handling of depressed people also makes him a favorite leader who is able to comprehend not just the physical and resource physical needs but their emotional needs as well. Motivational and empowerment strategies Motivational and empowerment strategies are used in a well defined and very coordinated manner in at the facility. This is because the very policies that are meant to empower the staff are also used as motivational tools. According to the interviewee, he appreciates and acknowledges the fact that different people are motivated differently. Therefore, he employs different motivational strategies. However, he has always given premium to intrinsic motivation which deals with the use of non-tangible elements to motivate the staff. This does not mean however that extrinsic motivation, which are tangible are lacking. As the leader puts it, it is intrinsic motivation that has the power of empowering his staff to become well equipped in the human capital delivery. To this end, he ensures that there are provisions like in-service training. Promotions, scholarships and sponsored conferences being used as forms of intrinsic motivation so that the capacity building that results from these motivational strategies shall become ways of empowering the staff to perform excellently at their post. Other forms of motivational strategies include the institution of vacations and holidays during which times the staff are empowered to refresh and renew their energies and strengths for undertaking all their tasks pending (Saunders et al, 2001). Yet again, the leader has instituted the best worker reward fr each week. This empowers the staff by creating health competition among them to deliver their very best and up to the max. Indeed there are extrinsic motivational strategies such as the provision of working tools and the resourcing of working environments. These empower the staff in the sense that it gives them readily available materials that they need to discharge their duties off effectively. The role of the leader during a time of organizational change A number of organizational changes have taken place in the organization since I became a member of it. Most of these were also made know to me in the course of the interview: especially those that happened in my absence. The one I want to report on now has to do with the organizational change, which took place in the form of recruitment and placement. As indicated in the introduction, the leader was someone who wanted to undertake a highly transformational international structural reform. To this end, he needed to readjust the human resource available and bring in new ones where necessary. Basically, some employees had to leave for others to come whiles others had to take new positions. The rational for the change was due to the need to make sure that no round squares were put in round holes at the workplace and that everyone was so conversant with whatever he was doing (Handler, 2012). In the leader’s own wisdom and way of doing things, he ensured that the change was undertaken by first giving consideration to internal recruitment and placement. What this means is that the leader considered employees on the lower rank of the hierarchy for promotions to top positions that were vacant. In his estimation, this was to be a way of motivating all workers to work hard and know that their efforts were going to be rewarded within the organization. It was also to ensure that the organizational culture was continued and adhered to as much as possible. As a democratic leader, the main execution of the organizational change took place through a series of departmental meetings were all departmental heads were made to being on board their contributions as to who should be laid off, promoted and replaced. Strategies used to address resistance to change One very clear fact that cannot be underestimated is that with all forms o f organizational change, there are some high levels of resistance that the leaders who are executing the changes may face. In the case of the present organization, the leader put in a lot of strategies in ensuring that all forms of resistance were tackled at their very early and initial stages. For example the leader ensured that the major decisions that were to be taken as a result of the changes were not taken on a monotonous basis. Again, there were no impositions of decisions on the stakeholders involved in the changes. Rather, the leader ensured that all stakeholders in the persons of departmental heads were brought on board at the decision making level. This ensured that the leader avoided a situation whereby he was going to be blame for any issues associated with the changes. Again, it ensured that the greater interest of the organization was implemented rather than the personal interest of the leader. Subsequently, there was very little room for anyone to express dissatisfaction on the grounds of bias or unfairness. Even more, there was a one-on-one section with all people who were directly affected by the change. This meeting ensured that each of them came to understand why the changes were necessary and why they needed to corporate. With all these, it can be said that the open ended strategy adapted by the leader worked to perfection. Literature Review Literature was reviewed on the topic of leadership in relation to organizational change and organizational culture. This was done as a way of establishing the leadership style exhibited by the leader who was interviewed and relating this leadership style with the management of the organization that the leader heads. The areas that were researched into as part of the literature review by using peer reviewed journal were identified as themes and have been presented below. Organizational change and Leadership Organizational change have been identified to be a phenomenon that goes beyond the need to change the way an organization is run and the bringing in of new resources. Rather, it involves an internal adjustment of the systems that control the entire regulation of the organization (Bersin and Associates, 2011). This means that once an organizational change takes place, almost every aspect of the organization must be affected in some way. Literature reviewed has showed that it is not always that organizational changes bring about positive impacts on the organizations involved. As a matter of fact, there are times that organizational changes result in the worsening of the organizational systems (Bersin and Associates, 2011). It is for this reason that it is almost important to have a very strong and effective leadership to regulate the effective manning of organizational changes. Leadership and organizational change have therefore been treated hand in hand with an emphasis that it takes only a good leader to achieve a success organizational change. Once an organizational change becomes successful, one of the quickest ways to know is that the aims for which the changes were proposed will be achieved (Bersin and Associates, 2011). This idea brings to discussion the fact that in the organization that was selected, the leader had an aim to achieve through organizational change and indeed with time, most of these aims have been achieved. Organizational change and organizational culture Another piece of literature was reviewed on the issue of organizational change and organizational culture. The reason for selecting this theme for discussion and review in relation to the leader who was interviewed is that the organizational change that the leader proposed to undertake had a direct relation with the organization’s culture as it had to deal directly with the staff of the organization. Through the literature that was reviewed, it was established that the heartbeat of any organization is its organizational culture (Gardener, 2006). What this means is that the day to day turnover of an organization depends directly on the organizational culture in place. This also explains that all major stakeholders of the organization including customers, shareholders, owners and the government react towards the organization based on the kind of organizational culture that is practiced. Hitherto, organizational culture would be seen as principles in play that dictates the dynamics of how the organization operates and is run (Gardener, 2006). Because of how important organizational culture is to the organization, it has been said that no kind of organizational change should break the organizational culture totally apart (Gardener, 2006). This is because if that happens, the implication is that the whole organization would technically have to be reconstructed. With reference to the given leader, he ensured that the organizational culture, which has its lifeline in the staff or human resource, was intact, despite the organization change by maintaining as many of the staff as possible when recruitment and placement became imminent. Types of leadership styles Having touched on the fact that both organizational change and organizational culture are dependent on the leader who mans them, the review was further expanded to touch on the theme of types of leadership styles as a way of analyzing how the available leadership styles could impact on the effectiveness of the leaders who practice them. Indeed the literature reviewed brought out the fact that even though there may be as many leadership styles as possible based on the types of organizations that one is dealing with, three forms of leadership styles are the commonest and these are the lassie faire leadership style, democratic leadership style, and autocratic leadership style (De Cenzo and Robbins, 2004). It was established that whiles a lassie faire leader would give almost all major decisions to his subordinates to take, an autocratic leader would do the opposite by taking all major decisions without including any drastic inputs from subordinates (De Cenzo and Robbins, 2004). A democratic leader on the other hand would combine the two forms and ensure that neither the leader nor the subordinates have an absolute power to take major decisions. Rather, decisions are taken in a group. One important point that came out of the review is that none of the leadership styles is entirely appropriate or wrong until it is linked with a specific scenario within the organization (De Cenzo and Robbins, 2004). Having noted this, the democratic leadership style, which is practiced by the leader who was interviewed, was singled out for further review so as to know how effective that leadership style is in relation to the running of the facility. The democratic leadership As it has been said earlier, a democratic leader would ensure that decisions are taken based on a unit compromise of all stakeholders who have a hand in the issue (Magloff, 2012). It has been said that the democratic leadership style is very significant in ensuring that it picks up on the advantages associated with the other forms of leadership styles and highlights them in its own practice. Consequently, a democratic leader is expected also to understand that the other leadership styles have their own weaknesses, which must be outshined when practicing democratic leadership study (Magloff, 2012). A democratic leader is therefore expected to exhibit some key skills, characteristics and knowledge that allows for this combined roles to be played more effectively. Due to the fact that a democratic leader must involve his subjects and at the same time ensure that he stamps his authority on his subjects, most of the skills, characteristics and knowledge that he is expected to exhibit has to do with human relations and interaction (Magloff, 2012). Some of these are given as good communication skills, fairness, trustworthiness, openness, firmness and decisiveness. Once a democratic leader has these qualities, he is sure to be effective in managing his organization, especially when organizational changes arise. Merits of using democratic leadership The leader who was interviewed had pointed to the fact that he had used the democratic leadership style for a very long time since he assumed office. This way, another theme on the advantages or merits of the democratic leadership style was reviewed to investigate how effective the leader’s leadership has been in relation to the democratic leadership style that he uses. Through the peer review literature, one thing that stood out clearly on the merits was that democratic leadership helps in minimizing all forms of organizational conflicts especially those that have to do with organizational changes. The reason why this is achieved is that almost all stakeholders who are directly or indirectly involved in the organizational changes are made part of the decision to effect the changes (Wade et al, 2009). Consequently, they all see themselves as part of the brains behind the changes and so embrace the changes without conflicts. Again, it helps in attaining the full benefits of diversity and dynamism at the workplace. This is said against the backdrop that the power to take decisions does not rest with only a few people who may be limited in their ideas for change but it is dependent on all other stakeholders within the organization. Finally, it was said that leaders who practice democratic leadership styles often win the trust of their subjects. Weaknesses associated with use of democratic leadership Despite all the advantages merits that were linked to the democratic leadership style, it was also established that there are some key weaknesses that are seen among most leaders who take up the democratic leadership style. Even though these weaknesses are general weaknesses with the democratic leadership style and do not represent the individual weaknesses of leaders, who practice them, it is important that the leaders will be aware of them so that they will have ways of devising strategies to avoiding them (Johnson, 2012). One of such weaknesses has to do with the fact that it delays the decision making process. For example within the present organization, the leader lamented on his own weakness of not being able to achieve most of the aims he sets for the organization from the beginning of the year because of the fact that most of these goals have to go through long and bureaucratic processes before they can come to the implementation stage. Another weakness is that the democratic leadership gives room for the leader’s authorities to be abused in some cases (Johnson, 2012). With the present leader for instance, it was seen that there were cases where some of his orders were flouted because his subjects misunderstood their involvement in the decision making process to mean that their leader was incapable of taking decisions on his own. Causes of Resistance to organizational change Leaders have not always had their way when it comes to the implementation of organizational changes and the need to make reforms to the organizational culture (Schein, 2002). This has mainly been due to the fact that some stakeholders involved in the change have resisted the changes. Though it is not always so, the worse offenders in this situation has been the staff. This is because in most cases, these people have a feeling that they will be at a disadvantage when the changes come on. Other causes are that the people of whom the change concerns have not always felt adequately involved in the changes (Schein, 2002). There are cases that they also feel highly cheated and treated unfairly through the changes. The review also established that some people would resist changes as a means or way of protecting the interest of other people (Schein, 2002). This scenario is however commonest among organizations who have interest groups and associations that are expected to defend the collective rights of the stakeholders. But the best part of all of this is that even though the resistance and antagonism may abound, there are ways of overcoming them. Using democratic leadership as a strategy for avoiding resistance to change The democratic leadership style has indeed been identified to have more power than just being used as a leadership tool. It has for instance been diagnosed to be a very effective strategy for handling or treating organizational resistance to change (Lopez and Nixon, 2011). In his study, it was established that leaders who want to use democratic leadership as a strategy for overcoming resistance do so with the main notion of ensuring that as much briefing as possible is done for people and groups who are affected by the changes as possible. An example is cited that no one fight against his believes and decrees (Lopez and Nixon, 2011). What this means is that through democratic deliberations, the people who are affected by the changes come to appreciate the changes as their own initiatives and decrees and so are put in a position, not to rise against them. Another dimension of democratic leadership in fighting the resistance canker is that it allows for the implementation of external regulations and so in most cases, the decisions that bring about changes are seen as decisions with universal backing and thus those that can be defended in every legal means possible (Lopez and Nixon, 2011). Conclusion In conclusion, it can be said that the leader is one who has taken charge of his organization in a lot of positive ways. Even though the leader has his own weaknesses, he has tried as much as possible to make his strengths to overcome his weaknesses. Interestingly, the strengths of the leader have been established in the leadership style that he practices, which is the democratic leadership style. Through this leadership style, the leader is able to get all his subjects on board on all major decisions that bring about organizational changes. Due to this, the subjects have always seen themselves as stakeholders in the change theory and have very limited reasons not to support the changes. What is more, the leader has always ensured that even though the organizational changes that have taken place have reformed the organizational culture, the changes have not entirely changed the basis of the organizational culture. Due to this, the organization has maintained his long cherished systems of conducting business. It has also created a situation whereby clients have been well identified with the organization so much so that they know where to turn to at any point in time to get their needs addressed. REFERENCE LIST Barney, J. (2001). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17: 99-120. Bersin and Associates (2011). Leadership Development in Support of Globalization. Accessed November 4, 2012 from http://www.bersin.com/blog/post.aspx?id=ca551505-c526-4b2d-9c58-4e10039341af De Cenzo, D. 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