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Along with the set Of capabilities and personal characteristics a potential leader should possess, he has to act in a retain way and follow different traits of behavior. Acknowledgement of leadership becomes even more important in case of organizations. The way the leaders behave within the organization and their impact on organizational performance is a crucial point. All of this became a great concern of plenty of scholars, who were trying to identify and understand the ways a person becomes a leader.
Some of them (Chatham and Kennedy, 201 0; Guile, 2010) try to describe a leader from psychological perspective, another refer to sociology, or even economics and management. I suppose, in order to build a throng and deep understanding of leadership, it is vital to have a look through all these disciplines and perspectives. And of course, needless to say that in today’s global environment leaders have to possess specific capabilities to succeed in multinational context. Would like to start with the model of effective leadership. This model consists of 3 levels.
First level implies personal attributes and qualities of leader, his capabilities and specific mindset, which enable him to behave successfully in various situations, overcome difficulties. Second level contains et of actions and behaviors, which leader uses in order to achieve his goals and results. Third level represents leader’s global mindset due to which he is able to sustain effective in contemporary multinational business environment. This level spans two other levels implying interdependence of all levels in global world. The explanation of each trait of each level is provided below.
Model of effective leader: Personal attributes Diagnostic capabilities imply such necessities as accurate understanding of various situations and acting in a proper way. This approach results in situational leadership concept. Assessing social and emotional cues in the situation” (Chatham and Kennedy 201 0, p. 161) in important as well as it enable to construct a certain patterns of reaction on the particular problem. Leader at the same time should be emotionally intelligent, which means managing emotions and self-monitoring, which enables leader to understand needs of group and act accordingly.
According to Chatham and Kennedy (201 0), leader has to decide which way to act, thus the flexibility of leader’s repertoire is required. Unlike most of people, leaders should have a set of behavioral patterns, in order to avoid the name reaction in various situations. The counterparts and followers perceive flexible persons as more effective. Authors also identify such qualities as integrative and behavioral flexibility. Integrative flexibility reflects in better understanding and cognitive reactions on different situations, while behavioral flexibility leads to transform thoughts into complex plan of actions.
However, it is necessary to remind followers about common goals (for instance, organizational success) and to show a great commitment to both leaders and followers success. Authors also define such capability as understanding of leadership paradox hat implies that one of the greatest challenge for leader is to be able to make followers do their work the best they can, as leader’s success depends on success of his followers. Of course, leader can’t exist without followers. Thus the ability to communicate, motivate and persuade people is vital for leader.
In this case, leadership “is about understanding the way people and organizations behave, about creating and strengthening relationships, about building commitments, establishing group identity, and adapting behavior to increase effectiveness” (Chatham and Kennedy, 2010, p. 192). Leader is able to motivate people in he way that they start to want to do their work, in other words, not to force them to do something, but to make them want to do this or that. In this case, it is important for leader to have some extent of narcissism or constructive narcissism (Chatham and Kennedy, 2010).
This makes leaders be more convinced of the uniqueness and importance of each task and they are able to address such importance to followers, establishing an effective teamwork. Actions Another crucial ability of leader is transference, which implies “using relationship patterns from the past to deal with situation in the present” (Sets e Varies and Magellan, 201 0, p. 196). This often useful in case of crisis as helps to make followers perceive problem situation from past, pre-crisis perspectives. This leads to a greater durability of followers and creates a common vision.
In this regard I would like to point Out another important trait Of leader, which is learning from experience. According to McCall Jar. (201 0), even if leader is “born”, his talent is not enough developed, and he needs to constantly improve his capabilities, and deriving an useful lessons from the experience is one of essential things that help to do so. Chatham and Kennedy (2010) state that leader should possess special capabilities that enable him to organize the teamwork and to manage groups. We can identify 3 main tasks. 1 . Creating identification with the working group and verifying meme beers.
The main thing here is to pursue diversification Of group members. The members who strongly identify themselves with the group are likely to have better results. The main task of leader in this case is to develop a strong commitment of group members to group and organizational goals and values. Thus team leader Will be able to unify all the members and make hem concentrate on common objectives instead of their personal ones. Deader has to remind people that they work together, which means that they fail together and succeed together. 2. Coaching members and publicizing their strengths is important without any doubt.
However, coaching should be exercised in an appropriate way. It is important to focus coaching tasks according to present stage of team development. Thus team leader should try to predict the upcoming phase of evolution Of team and provide the relevant coaching. Another point here is importance of advertising talents of group members, as it helps to avoid a Seibel discrimination of them by the group and improve his or her confidence and desire to work. 3. Setting group norms means developing patterns of behavior within the group. Some suggest that this is one of the key tasks of team leader.
Group norms influence the cooperation and communication between group members. Throughout plenty of possible group norms, two can be defined as most important. First one is promoting cooperation, as it is vital means of goal achievement. Leaders should develop and maintain in-group cooperation, especially in heterogeneous groups, what can be achieved by rumoring collectivism, increasing member’s perception of themselves as a group members, and developing common goals and values. Another crucial norm is developing political correctness, which helps to avoid harassment.
Chatham and Kennedy (2010) also mention that while leading organizations, leader has to do certain tasks, in order to develop an organizational identity. 1. Developing an intentional model Of Organizing implies the fact Of importance of leaders actions at the beginning of organizational existence. Establishing a mental model of organization in its inception has a long-lasting influence on its further development. Moreover, attempts to change “blueprints” may be harmful for organization and lead to financial declines, decreasing productivity etc.
Additionally, leaders are required to establish and promote corporate culture. Besides its impact on organizational development, it helps leaders to exert employees more efficiently while achieving organizational goals. 2. Developing and managing organizational culture is crucial and has to meet few requirements. First Of all, leader’s task is to build culture that fits organizational strategy in order to develop tools for accomplishing goals. Culture has to be strong and supported by all members of organization.
To sustain a high-level performance, organizational culture must focus on innovations and changes. Leader should emphasize on increasing member’s openness to organizational culture, thus making people accept and follow it. 3. Consistent signaling. 1 . Leaders are most visible persons in the organization, thus they attract much of employee’s attention. In this case, leaders have to show their commitment to organizational culture they established in order to reinforce people’s commitment to it as well. Even in time of crisis, leader should be insistent in his words and actions, thus leading by example. . Leaders at different levels of organization must be consistent in their communication as well. As tasks and objectives are being sent from higher hierarchical levels to the lower ones, leaders of each level have to be aligned in order to avoid misunderstanding and tasks variations. Developing the discussion on relationships between leader and followers within organization, it is logical to mention few more aspects. First of all, as it was already mentioned, leader must lead by his own example. However, many prospective leaders fail, as they are not visible to their braininess.
Leader should be visible in order to promote organizational values, goals. But what is most important, being visible, leader shows his involvement in organizational life and commitment to its values. Another important issue that was investigated by Nee (2009) is how leader exercises power. In organization, leader is likely to be treated as a formal (boss, executive etc. ). Thus he is able to use his so-called hard power, which implies hiring, firing, financial power and so on. Of course, using this type of power is the main instrument for making subordinates do their job properly.
However, there is another power, called soft power, embodied in “attracting others rather than manipulating their material incentives” (Nee, 2009, p. 307). Thus, leader should emphasize on mixing both types of power, which is called soft power. Global leadership. In today’s world of globalization leader faces different challenges, one of which is making people representing different nationalities work together effectively. Many people working in global companies have to communicate with counterparts from culturally different locations and their amount is increasing.
Moreover, leaders themselves have to travel a lot if they work on international projects within multinational groups. In order to succeed in in the global context leader should act according to several traits: 1 . Make people focus on individuality thus avoid identity. Leaders need not a set of stereotypes about countries or types of people but the ability to see people as individuals and to put themselves in others’ shoes. Leaders should promote diversity and try to avoid identity. People should focus on personal characteristics and qualities rather than on national or ethnically features.
The aim is to make people more open to each other. 2. Avoid home-country nationals superiority vision. Leader should promote the importance of the fact that company is international, and though it was founded in a certain country, it no longer implies any priority 3. Focus on finding commonalities among variety of people 4. Create common way of connection between affiliates in different countries. This would make a sense of commonality. 5. Promote common values, such as global product, global organizational goals, international projects and so on.
Leader should develop a global mindset to be capable to act effectively within global environment. Global mindset implies developing cultural sensitivity and lobar business knowledge. In order to attain a cultural sensitivity, potential global leader should acquire following capabilities: ; Deep understanding of how cultural differences may impact global decisions and relations ; Ability to distinguish cultural differences ; Capability to act and think in intercultural appropriate ways ; Passing 6 stages from ethnocentric to tentatively experience When I thought about an effective leader, I remembered my former boss.
I suppose he possesses most Of the qualities and capabilities I described in this part of the assignment. Moreover, he IS not a top manager yet; currently he manages a planning department, which is the part of supply chain department of famous international food company. However, I’m sure that he will achieve great results in his career soon. Under his control the planning department shows great performance. First of all, he is committed to a company’s values and successfully provides them within the department he controls. Thus he is able to make people constantly improve their performance.
He is an embodiment of genuine team management. By combining formal and informal power, he developed effective managing process. People started to follow the rules themselves without any need of telling them what to do and what to avoid. Part 2. The topic I have chosen for examination within the second part of my paper is strategic leadership. Assume that this issue is of a great importance especially in today’s era of international companies and uncertain environment. Possessing the strategic mind and abilities is crucial for a modern leader and helps him make important decisions that lead to a company’s success.
In this regard, B. Davis and J. Davies (2007) suggest such abilities, as being strategically oriented, creating and promoting a vision, reading and implementing strategies, communication, aligning people and organization to be most important for strategic leader. Gang (2010) states that leading changes is one of the most important issues within strategic leadership. Many Of our contemporaries demonstrated the necessity Of such qualities while saving companies and making them thrive. For my analysis I chose Anne Mullahs, who is definitely one of the most successful business leaders of our times.
Firstly, I would like to justify my choice. Anne Mullahs, CEO of the year 2008, #10 in Forbes 100 most powerful women, became a CEO of Xerox in 2000, when company suffered great cline and was at the brink of bankruptcy. It was clear that Xerox business model was not sufficient no longer; expenses were extremely high along with the low margins, which apparently did not lead to profitability. Investors dumped their shares thus decreasing its stock price at 26 per cent in one day. Anne had been working in Xerox for 26 years before becoming CEO.
She started as after graduation joining the sales team. She also worked as HRS director. At the moment of crisis, even being a CEO, she was not deeply experienced in financing, so she asked a financial department for tutoring her. Her advisers urged her to declare a bankruptcy in order to write off 18 billion dollar dept. Anne replied with denial stating that getting bankrupt the company would not be able to recover and sustain being one of the major players. Thus she decided to restore Xerox and make it an iconic company again. Meanwhile, situation in the company was getting even worse.
Many shareholders and another advisors suggested that she must cut expenses on field sales and even shut down R&D, but Anne refused all of this. Instead, she tried to make organizational structure more agile. Thus she “sold off pieces of Fuji Xerox, the company’s crown jewel, and farmed out manufacturing to Flatirons. She reached a painful settlement with the SEC. Along the way, she had to eliminate 28,000 jobs and billions in She focused on innovations, as it was vital in order to stay competitive. From the beginning, Mullahs and her team devised a bold plan for recovery.
Gang (2010) defines a strategic capacity, which strategic leader possesses. This capacity consists of salient knowledge, learning process and motivation. According to Gang, leader is more likely to develop an effective strategy in such conditions. The example of Anne proves this statement. First, she spent her entire professional life working in Xerox. Definitely, she gained enough knowledge about company’s practices and management in general, thus she was able to incorporate such knowledge while devising a strategy for company’s revival.
Second, as it was mentioned above, Anne asked for a tutoring in finances, which means that she is not afraid of asking for help and new knowledge. Finally, she was dedicated and committed to the company, and this is where her strong motivation comes from. After becoming a CEO, Anne met with a huge amount of directors (about 100), here she discussed the importance and feasibility of new company’ strategy. In this regard Davies stress the importance of creating the strategy with others, and not just communicating it to others… , and argues that such way of strategy development and implementation might be one of the strongest leader’s tools in terms of straightening. Once Anne Mullahs said, “If you are a big company, the only way to deliver progress quickly is to get people aligned around a common set of objectives”, “Thinness, it looks good but it doesn’t stick” Here I would refer to a Davies and Davies (2010) again, as authors fine another vital ability Of strategic leader which can be described as the ability to align people and organizations. A key element of this ability is to encourage commitment through shared values” (Davies, Davies, 2010, p. 32). In order to persuade people for stay and contribute to company’s survival, Anne emphasized on existing values, behavioral models, and acted the proper way herself. Moreover, Anne used such leader’s tool as transference (Varies, Magellan, 2010). As she has been working in the company for over 26 years, she tried to show that existing patterns with slight changes would work ND make company survive. It relates to a visionary leadership as an important part of strategic leadership.
Davies and Davies argue that “visioning depends on understanding existing realities (culture, history, formative context) and developing a clear sense of direction for the organization”. Authors examine this issue within the ability to be strategic oriented. This is what Anne herself thinks about this issue. ; “… in a state of crisis, its hugely important to create a vision for why people should stay; why it’s worth it “. To make a conclusion I’d like to mention that Anne Anomaly is a great example of effective leader, not only from strategic perspectives, but in general.
She was strongly convinced about the way she should act and did well. Even at the beginning, she received many suggestions about the ways of saving the company, the ways, which were easy to follow. Instead of this, Anne decided to choose more complicated and difficult path, and she succeeded. The company was in a great need for changes, and Anne became a most appropriate person to conduct them. In order to implement changes, Anne was not going to create a new culture, as it is close to impossible in such well established company as Xerox.