leadership thesis
TRANSCRIPT
Business Administration
Leadership: Past, Present & Future
The Role of Leadership in Business and Management
Abstract
The fundamental objective of this research paper is to discuss the concept of leadership
from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Leadership probably is one of the most
essential aspects of business and management. Leadership is a crucial role of managers and it is
in this particular area that the actual distinction in performance and efficiency can be made
evident. This paper predominantly focuses on discussing the various principles of leadership and
how efficient leaders lead their teams. Great leaders of the business history and their leadership
styles are provided as evidences in this paper. Later on an analysis the ethical challenges that are
faced by leaders and potential solutions for such ethical challenges are provided. In addition to
the above, the research also presents the lessons that may be learnt from past leadership and how
efficiently they can be implemented in future leadership.
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ContentsAbstract..........................................................................................................................................2
1. Introduction................................................................................................................................4
1.1 Problem Statement..............................................................................................................9
1.2 Purpose of Research...........................................................................................................9
1.3 Hypotheses..........................................................................................................................9
1.4 Scope of the study...............................................................................................................9
2. Research Methodology...........................................................................................................10
2.1 Research Process..............................................................................................................10
2.2 Aims and Objectives of the Research................................................................................11
2.3 Research Design...............................................................................................................12
3. Literature Review.....................................................................................................................13
Carlson Ghosn.........................................................................................................................19
Arthur C Martinez.....................................................................................................................20
Jacques Nasser.......................................................................................................................20
Jack Welch -.............................................................................................................................20
Giovanni Agnelli.......................................................................................................................24
3.1 Significance...........................................................................................................................44
4. Analysis of Findings.................................................................................................................45
5. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................48
6. Recommendations...................................................................................................................51
7. Appendix..................................................................................................................................53
8. Bibliography.............................................................................................................................54
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1. Introduction
In today’s swiftly changing business milieu, employees go through more work pressure,
greater frustration, and possess higher job expectations. All such various dimensions would tend
to have impact on the larger workplace behavior. In the recent past, awareness has dawned upon
business enterprises that the workforce, i.e. the human resources is its most essential asset
(Frederiksen, Handbook of Organizational Behavioural Management, 1982). Human resources
can be defined as the sum of the inherent capabilities, gained facts and skills as epitomized in the
skill set and propensities of people working in the organization. Aptitude and ability of
employees can be sharpened by training, motivation and proviso of prospects for education and
personal development.
Employees vary as individuals, in their requirements, outlooks and behaviour. When
their requirements are not fulfilled or their objectives are not accomplished, the result is
dissatisfaction of employees. It is not a simple task for the organization to keep all the
employees contented and enthused, at all times. Though this fact may not sound very realistic, it
is very true. There can be various reasons for an employee being discontented. A manager
should spend plenty of time in improving interpersonal relations and motivate the employees to
develop their performance quality. It is very imperative for the superior to know the various
dimensions that motivate an employee as the modern day employees are more knowledgeable
and well-informed. Organizations as well have become more multifaceted than what they were
earlier, and hence require greater managerial skills for efficient management.
Leadership is as learnable as any other expertise. Abilities are an expression of the
personality traits possessed by an individual. However, as extensively accepted, human beings
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are remarkably good at familiarizing their personality to suit the circumstance. Therefore,
leadership skills being the yield of personality traits, the traits can accordingly varied to the
necessary skills and abilities.
In the view to Warren G. Bennis who is known to be the Chairman of the Leadership
Institute that was founded at the University of Southern California, “Failing organizations are
usually over-managed and under-led. ((ICMR), Introduction ot Organizational Behaviour,
2003)”. Even if an organization is conferred with ample resources, in the lack of effective
leadership, it will not be able to operate smoothly. Incompetent leadership worsens employee
confidence; encourages dissatisfaction amid employees and impacts organizational productivity
and efficiency negatively.
Quite a few theorists have tried to characterize leaders and leadership. A leader may be
characterized as a person who creates a clear vision, sets objectives, encourages people and gains
their commitment to accomplish the goals and realize the vision. All theorists have the same
opinion that leaders persuade people and that leadership entails persuading people to strive
towards the desired goals.
Three skills that are primarily used by leaders have been identified, namely,
Technical skills – An individual’s knowledge and ability to make efficient use of any
procedure or system comprises the technical skills. The people working at the
operational and professional levels are obligated to possess certain technical skills.
Human skills – A person’s capability to co-operate with other members of the
organization and work effectively in teams is referred to as human skills. Human
skills also involve developing positive interpersonal relationships, solving people’s
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problems and gaining acceptance of other employees. Effective human skills are an
essential requirement at all levels of the organizational hierarchy and especially for
people in leadership positions.
Conceptual skills – Conceptual skills refer to the capacity of an individual to evaluate
complex situations and to realistically process and understand available information.
It also includes an ability to anticipate the future outcomes of his present-day actions
from the organizational perspective. Additionally, leaders have to define the proper
organizational structure and create long-term strategies and goals.
Communication is one more vital and essential characteristic that a leader needs to
possess. In all organizations, individuals and groups try to exchange ideas, thoughts and
feelings. This communication is vital for sharing information and synchronizing action (Weiss,
2000). Communications is important for accomplishing administrative and organizational
efficacy.
Lack of proper communication results in employees not being aware of what their
colleagues are doing and they will also fail to have no idea about what their goals are, and will
also not be able to evaluate their performance. In the lack of channels of proper communication,
leaders will not be able to give directions to their subordinates and consequently management
will not obtain the information it needs to design plans and take proper decisions.
Participation is one another important skill that a leader needs to possess. Participation
proves beneficial for the organization in numerous ways. It improves the motivation levels of
the workforce, reduces the attrition and absenteeism rate in the organization, and additionally
improves communication within the organizations (Wayne, 1998). In order to make sure that
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there is utmost participation of employees in all the various organizational activities, the
employees must also have the pertinent capabilities and skills, and at the same time they also
need to be interested in that particular area of work.
Participation directs to development in both the quantity and the quality of the
productivity of the organization. Since participation increases the motivation levels of
employees, it augments their involvement in the task that they undertake. The resultant increase
in self-esteem and job satisfaction of the employees consequently results to better cooperation
with colleagues and managers and therefore an overall improvement of organizational
performance. In order to ensure the true participation of employees, it is necessary that the
organization creates such an ambiance and impression so that the employees are both
psychologically and emotionally involved in the organizational activities.
Participation also has numerous other advantages in the form of lessening the attrition
rate and absenteeism level amongst the workforce. A few less concrete benefits that may result
from employee participation are reduction in the number of organizational conflicts, lower stress
levels in the minds of the employees, improved commitment of employees to the
accomplishment of goals, and a smaller amount resistance to change.
The support of top management is very crucial for the growth of the organization which
can be further translated to individual growth. It is very important that organizations emphasize
people-oriented values apart from the performance and profitability of the organization.
As already stated in the above paragraphs, innovation is a new idea that is being applied
to initiating or improving a change in existing processes. This fact is true with respects to
individuals also. Innovation is not just making something new and different from the existing
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processes or products. It is rather a value addition to the existing processes or products. The
structural variables of an organization, the organization culture and the support of the
management to its employees are the three important sources of innovation in organizations.
Structural variables form an important source of innovation. The structure of an
organization has got a profound impact on the innovation that is expected to happen sooner or
later in the organization. Secondly, in innovative organizations, the vision, mission and
strategies of the organization are communicated very clearly to the human resources of the
organization. In such organizations, the employees are never forced to adopt traditional methods
to achieve the goals of the organization. Instead, the management encourages its employees to
take risks, experiment with innovative ideas and assume the responsibility for implementing
them. It is only then that the organization would be able to successfully reach higher heights and
progress well (Bennis, 2009).
For instance, 3M fosters a culture of innovation in its organization. It allows its
employees to spend 15% of their working hours on independent projects. In addition to this, the
key elements that foster innovation at 3M are its capability to recruit and retain talent, construct a
challenging atmosphere within the organization, support knowledge sharing and design suitable
systems for rewarding employees who outperform.
Likewise, management in innovative organizations trains and develops its workforce to
update their talent and acquaintance and encourages them to become idea champs. Idea champs
are those people in an organization who are highly enthusiastic in promoting the ideas they have
newly developed, systematize essential support for their ideas within the organization, overcome
confrontation if any and ensure that the organization implements their ideas or innovations.
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Such individuals succeed in obtaining support for their innovation by communicating their vision
pertaining to its potency, to other members of the organization. Furthermore, their confidence
and dedication plays a predominant role in persuading others about the potential of the
innovation.
1.1 Problem Statement
Leadership can determine the success or failure of an entire organization. However, the
problem is that a lot of modern day organizations forget to focus on effective leadership, team
leadership and managerial ethics. This paper focuses on explaining the drawbacks in modern
day leadership and highlights how leaders can succeed and emerge as exemplary leaders in the
current day challenging environment.
1.2 Purpose of Research
The main purpose of conducting this research is to get an overall understanding of leadership and
at the same time to learn from the past and present mistakes and try implementing the lessons
thus learn in future leadership.
1.3 Hypotheses
Various problems will be investigated during this project, and valuable solutions will be offered
depending on the success of the various researches.
1.4 Scope of the study
A detailed approach to any issue or the topic can help in gaining deeper insights. For any
dissertation to be meaningful, a lot of ground works on the contemporary issues and especially
when working on the key aspects, greater amount of attention has to be paid to the issues which
are to be correlated to the fundamental aspects.
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The key aspect of any academic study is to deeply acknowledge the objectives of the
study. The objective of this paper is to understand the concept of leadership from various
dimensions and also to look at the ethical challenges that may be faced by efficient leaders. In
order to meet this particular objective, research was conducted in relevant areas by reviewing
many secondary sources.
2. Research Methodology
Any researcher faces the dilemma of choosing the most suitable approach to meet the aim
and objectives of a study. Therefore this chapter becomes one of the most important chapters. A
wrong approach may hamper the objectives and significance of the whole study. However, there
is no one best approach to follow since the choosing process is different to each research as well
as the objectives themselves. Besides choosing the most suitable methodology also depends on
the availability of resources among many other variables.
This chapter seeks to discuss and justifies the methodology used in this research. It starts
by describing the research process and its objectives. It moves to explain the most relevant
approaches, research designs, data collection methods and data analysis to finally select the most
suitable methodology for the current research and it finishes by concluding the main points
through the chapter.
2.1 Research Process
The purpose of conducting research is to find a suitable solution for a specific and
immediate problem that is confronted. Research is generally assumed to be a complicated task
which is actually not if the various parts or phases of the research are clearly understood. This
research project is basically a well-structured process which has a beginning, intermediate part
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and the end. In today’s world, research is alternatively being termed as logical reasoning
(Trochim, Philosophy of Research, 2006) ((ICMR), Marketing Management, 2004).
The problem formulation was the first and the most important step of the research
process for this study. The problem was defined clearly and specifically, as an ill-defined
problem may result in an ineffective solution. The problem was properly translated into a
research topic and the reason why the research was required was also spelt out. Secondly, an
exhaustive revision of the theoretical and empirical framework within the related review of
literature was made ((ICMR), Marketing Management, 2004).
The literature review was based on secondary research conducted by reviewing various
journal articles, books, research evidences of past research and of course the worldwide web.
This step helped the study by generating and refining the research objectives. Another step was
the research approach and design of the research. This step covers the way in which data were
collected to answer the research objectives. This step also influenced the data collection method.
The data were collected according to the chosen method. Finally, the data were analyzed,
interpreted and presented in this research.
2.2 Aims and Objectives of the Research
The fundamental objective of this research study, as already stated, is to look at the
aspect of leadership from both theoretical and practical perspectives. A wide research in the
field of leadership is conducted and the findings of the same are presented. Apart from this, a
prominent CEO of an organization of decent size has been personally interviewed in order to
obtain his inputs which are of great help in making this research paper better. The interview with
the results has been given in the later parts of this paper. The objectives should cover question
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regarding the purpose of the study, how the study will be done, the information needs and the
sources of information. It is against this background that the above objective has been
established.
2.3 Research Design
Research is considered to be an effective tool that provides a linkage between the
corporate environment and the organization. It can thus be viewed as a most important tool used
as an aid for tackling various problems. Research can formally defined as the objective and
formal process of systematically obtaining, analyzing and interpreting data for optimal decision
making. Furthermore, the above definition of research lays emphasis on two important aspects.
They are objectivity and systematic process in data collection and analysis. The most important
fact that needs to be borne in mind while conducting research is that the research should not be
influenced by individual views and considerations of the person conducting the research.
Research is generally assumed to be a complicated task which is actually not if the various parts
or phases of the research are clearly understood. A research project is basically a well-structured
process which has a beginning, intermediate part and the end. In today’s world, research is
alternatively being termed as logical reasoning (Trochim, Philosophy of Research, 2006).
In a nutshell, research is a methodical and purposeful study conducted to obtain solutions
for specific problems. Research is a process of collection of data in an organized manner with
subsequent recording and analyzing of such data that will help in an effective decision making
process.
The design of the research plan determines the tools and techniques that are employed for
conducting the research (Language Center - Thailand). Normally the research design is broadly
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classified into exploratory research, descriptive research and causal research (ICMR - ICFAI
Center for Management Research, 2004) (ICMR - ICFAI Center for Management Research,
2004).
Moreover, there also exists an implicit assumption with regards to research that the
ultimate findings of the research should have the actionable quality. To be more specific, the user
of the research data must be able to make use of the results for the purpose of effective decision
making. In absence of such actionable quality, the utility of the research findings would be
significantly undermined.
Exploratory research helps in the identification of the presence of potential opportunities.
The data for this kind of research is obtained from books, journals, magazines etc. Descriptive
research is generally conducted after the above research. As the problem is clearly defined in
exploratory research, the quantum or intensity of the problem is identified in descriptive
research. In causal research, the cause and effect relationships between two variables are
analyzed (ICMR - ICFAI Center for Management Research, 2004).
Research Design can be simply defined as the structure followed by the researcher.
Research Design is the important component or key ingredient which holds all the various
elements of the entire research (Trochim, Introduction to Design, 2006). A design is elaborately
explained by using a succinct data which further enables in the summarization of a complex or
difficult design structure in an efficient manner. A research design consists of various elements
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3. Literature Review
Warren Bennis is a pioneer in leadership who claims that – “Leaders do the right things;
Managers do things right (Bennis, 2009).” In his book ‘On Becoming a Leader’, he collects a set
of lessons from the varied experiences of 28 dissimilar cases of triumphant leadership. It is
recommended that the book is surely read by a broad spectrum of people, since practically every
one of us are drawn in the leadership process either as leaders leading a team or as followers or
as both leaders and followers.
The author examines varied experiences of 28 different cases of leadership and clearly
presents the ‘how’ of leadership. Form the 28 cases of varied leadership experiences, the author
segregates and presents common themes and aspects. In addition to these, the author also
examines the personal characteristics of all the 28 leaders who have been interviewed and the
milieu in which they emerged as successful leaders.
Warren Bennis’ significance is in his research – specifically in his capability to distill
from the experiences of triumphant leaders a set of interesting lessons on how to become a
successful leader. These lessons are further interspersed in the book with the help of subjective
stories and vignettes by the leaders who have actually experienced all those lessons. This format
generates a highly realistic, persuasive, and occasionally a very remarkable presentation that is
very clear and inspiring. The author also strongly remarks that courses for leadership will help
gain skills but not qualities like vision and character which are highly essential to become a
successful leader.
Interestingly, the author depicts in a very delicate way that failure is actually a process of
learning and is nothing to get annoyed of. To substantiate this opinion, he presents his own
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experience of a failed coaching. His experience was portrayed as the case of “Ed” in the first
chapter of the book under the section Surrendering to the Context.
The above case is a personal experience of the author that he presents in the first chapter
of the book. It is about a coaching failure in which that author – Warren Bennis personally takes
part. He fails as a coach to mitigate the coaching. He describes the same as a failure of
leadership. The author highlights specifically that the ability to lead and successful leadership
can be indefinable and that final success is not assured.
This case of “Ed” and his leadership failure makes the discussion extremely truthful.
The case demonstrates that leadership capability can be indescribable; however success is not a
guaranteed aspect. The most significant lesson that Warren Bennis extracts from the 28
successful leadership experiences is the fact is the necessity to make mistakes, which is held by
all successful leaders virtually identical with development and progress.
In addition to the above chapter, there are also other chapters which discuss the aspect of
failure in leadership namely ‘Learning from Adversity’ and ‘Reflection and Resolution’. The
author has provided a wide range of material. One of the most significant messages that the
author has conveyed from these chapters of the book is that, according to him ‘embracing’
failure necessarily means abode on it, reflecting on it and carefully investigating it. The author
strongly believes that if only this sort of considerations to failure would the fruits of such failure
are reaped.
Warren Bennis deals with the age old question of whether can be successfully trained in
leadership skills with a smart and perceptive response. Leadership is impossible to be ‘taught’ in
a classroom setting, however it can obviously be ‘developed’ or possibly more precisely
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‘realized’. One of the most significant catalysts is the espousal of life’s prosperous experiences
principally the adversities.
In page 39 of the book, the author lists certain Core Leadership Ingredients. They are
namely a guiding vision, Passion, Integrity, Trust and Curiosity and daring. According to the
author, individuals who strive continuously to achieve more things in less time, even in the face
of opposition are believed to be ambitious and achievement-oriented. They try to be fast in
everything they do, whether it is eating, talking, walking etc. The pace at which things generally
happen upsets them. They try to involved themselves in more than one thing at a time and are
always busy and find themselves unable to cope with leisure time. They emphasize numbers and
quantity and measure their success in quantitative terms like amount of output produced etc.
The author feels that there is surely a definite difference between a leader and a manger.
The author feels that this difference is similar to the difference between people who master the
situation and those who surrender to the same. The differences between a leader and a manager
were very excellently explained by the author in page 45 of the book. According to him,
““The manager administers, the leader innovates”
" The manager copies, the leader is an original”
" The manager maintains, the leader develops”
" The manager focuses on systems and structure, the leader focuses on people”
" The manager relies on control, the leader inspires trust”
" The manager has a short range view, the leader has a long range perspective”
" The manager asks how and when, the leader asks what and why”
" The manager has eyes always on the bottom line, the leader's eyes are on the horizon”
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" The manager imitates, the leader originates”
" The manager accepts the status quo, the leader challenges it”
" The manager is the classic good soldier, leaders are their own people”
" The manager does things right, the leader does the right thing” (Bennis, 2009)”
Self-knowledge is another aspect which Bennis highlights in this book. He claims that it
is necessary for people to re-evaluate the way they learn things. The traditional methods of
teaching restrain a person’s ability to develop a sense of individuality (Bennis, 2009). He also
believes that innovative learning that comprises of anticipation, listening to others and
participation is effective in developing one’s individuality. Reinforcement is better approaches
for making individuals learn. Hence reinforcing is considered to be the most vital principle of
learning. Reinforcement necessarily means ‘to strengthen’, and it particularly refers to a
stimulus which strengthens the probability of a particular response being repeated.
In the opinion of the author, innovative learning necessitates the person to be aware of his
past and present, and consequently try and differentiate both and figure out the difference in
situations and thereby figure out or anticipate what may possibly happen in the near future and
getting prepared for handling the same. The author also feels that participation is a very crucial
aspect of innovative learning. For true participation to happen, it is vital for a person to be both
mentally and psychologically involved in the activity. It is not just the skill of the person, but his
entire self which has to be involved in the activity. A person who is engrossed completely in an
activity is said to be involved in the activity with complete ego. On the contrary, an individual
who only makes use of his skills to perform the activity without any emotional involvement in it
is said to be involved in the activity just for the sake of doing the task.
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The author also portrays the significant role played by organizations in fostering
leadership and innovative learning and thinking among their employees. Organizations can be
designed and managed in numerous ways. There exists the bureaucratic way which is
characterized by innumerable set of rules, regulations and standard operating norms, and there
also exists the informal management method which on the contrary is characterized by flexibility
in rules and norms. Though individuals differ in various aspects, they generally share certain
common rudiments. Learning is one such rudiment. The process of learning is the same for all
individuals but the variation lies in what they actually learn which further depends on the
environment in which they are present. The vital aspect that is associated with learning is the
understanding of individual behavior. The behavior of individuals working in an organization is
known as learned behavior. They tend to align their individual behavior with the group to which
they belong in the organization. It is noticed that learning brings about noteworthy changes in
the behavior of an individual.
The support of top management is very crucial for the growth of the organization which
can be further translated to individual growth. It is very important that organizations emphasize
people-oriented values apart from the performance and profitability of the organization.
As already stated in the above paragraphs, innovation is a new idea that is being applied
to initiating or improving a change in existing processes. This fact is true with respects to
individuals also. Innovation is not just making something new and different from the existing
processes or products. It is rather a value addition to the existing processes or products. The
structural variables of an organization, the organization culture and the support of the
management to its employees are the three important sources of innovation in organizations.
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Similarly, in the book ‘Organizational Behavior and Design’, Barry Cushway and Derek
Lodge present the difference between being a manager and an efficient leader. They argue that
management and leadership are not one and same and leadership is a distinct process that is
mastered through experience as the time passes. Various theories of leadership are presented in
brief in order to give an overview of the theoretical perspective of the concept.
Here are few examples of some remarkable leaders in the business world. The styles followed
by them are also discussed.
Carlson Ghosn – The Cost Killer: Known as ‘le cost killer’, a name acquired during his days
as Chief Operating Officer at Renault, Ghosn engineered the turnaround at Nissan with a ‘scrap-
and-build’ philosophy. The main problem at Nissan was the increased debt burden of the
company. Carlos Ghosn had to take drastic measures with respect to cost cutting and debt
reduction in order implement his turnaround strategy and review (Riès, 2005) Nissan from its
perilous situation. Additionally, according to Carlos Ghosn – “Financial operations worldwide
will be centralized to develop global financial controls and risk management. Nissan, which has
share holdings in 1,394 companies, will realize assets by selling-off its interests on the basis of a
cost/benefit analysis. In addition, Nissan will dispose of land, securities and non-core assets and
will adopt an inventory reduction program to decrease by 30 percent its inventory-to-sales level
by 2002 (Nissan, 2004).”As already mentioned, cost cutting and debt reduction were the two
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things that helped Nissan to overcome its bad state and regain its position in the global auto
industry.
The first objective: Trim the flab at Nissan by eliminating 21,000 jobs, closing five
factories, and demanding 20% savings from suppliers. Then came an overhaul of the product
line and the introduction of such winners as the new March subcompact – Japan’s third best-
selling model in May – and the Altima Sedan, winner of the 2002 North American Car of the
Year Award (Prasad, 2005).
Arthur C Martinez – The Customers’ King: When he moved from vice-chairman of Saks
Fifth Avenue to the top spot at Sears in 1992, he uncovered problems deeply enough to require
two complete transformations. To effect change, he killed the revered Sears catalo that was
losing so much money. He also closed dozens of unprofitable stores, shed long-time affiliates
like Coldwell Banker and Allstate and oversaw a cautious entry into e-commerce. The story of
Sears has always been a storey of American Retailing (Prasad, 2005).
Jacques Nasser – Jacques Nasser, former CEO of Ford Motors had successfully led his
organization through a massive transformation process cruising through the various factors that
resisted change. A company spread across 200countries and employing approximately 340, 000
employees
Jack Welch - Another great leader who has great respects and also has set an example for
corporate leaders is Jack Welch, CEO of GE. “All CEOs want to emulate Jack Welch. They
won’t be able to, but they’ll come closer if they listen carefully to what he has to say” says
Warren Buffet, The Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway about Jack Welch. Such is the charisma
this tough but humane Chairman of GE carries about him. Jack Welch created history as the
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Chairman of General Electric. From a modest post PhD beginning in the 1960s at the lowest end
of the ladder the climb to the top was one of great journeys ever witnessed by an individual in
the corporate history that was every witnessed.
One of the earliest things that really created a deep impact on the young Jack Welch was
at the end of a hockey game, which his team ended losing - the seventh loss in a row! The
statement was made in front of the whole team at the team lockers – “If you don’t know how to
lose, you’ll never know how to win. If you don’t know this, you shouldn’t be playing.” As Jack
Welch says his mother – Grace Welch was the most influential person in his life. Her passion,
energy, and love had deep impact on Jack Welch’s life. Jack Welch acknowledges that his
leadership style, “a way of getting the best out of people,” he owes it to his mother – Grace
Welch.
Some of the management skills that Jack Welch is known for - competing hard to win,
facing reality, keeping the motivation levels high in people by alternating between the stick and
the glove handling, monitoring people to ensure compliance and setting how much to stretch a
person were among things that Welch learnt at a very tender age from his mother. He had a
equally impressive father – a ticket collector on a local train – who with his unique way of work
impressed on the young Welch to work hard – very hard, never miss a day of work and ensure
that each and every customer – traveler on the train was greeted – these were the things that
Hack Welch did practice at his work place too.
Jack Welch started is work at GE in 1960 with a modest pay of $10,500 per year. He
learnt one of his earliest corporate lessons early that year itself – To get out of the pile – winning
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teams come from differentiation, reward the best, remove the weakest and always fight to raise
the bar.
One of the biggest lessons that Jack Welch learnt in his earlier days at GE was that to
succeed one had to really take chances and risks – big calculated risks and the company culture
permitted him to do just that. Jack Welch actually blew up a factory or at least a good part of it in
his fourth year at GE. He was promptly called the next day, what he envisaged could be his last
day at GE, much to his surprise the entire analysis was so intellectual and bereft of emotion that
he came out positively from that experience. And this experience taught him a very important
lesson – not to push someone down when their chips are down or when they have made a
mistake – that does not mean that any one at GE can do anything and get away with it. If the
circumstances were genuine and the mistake was totally unintentional it was to accept the
mistake. The GE team that came up the $ 10.95 halaracs electric bulb – a product that never
came into the market – was actually rewarded with promotions and increments – in the GE
language “it is ok to take swing, even a big swing and miss it.”
This Chairman of GE – one of the most admired CEOs in the world also had his flop
sides. During the time when he was being considered for a promotion to head a $400 million
business division, the GE head of Human Resources noted that Jack Welch over reacts
emotionally that too to criticism and gets too personally involved in the work. He was also noted
to have the anti-establishment attitude. This was attributed to his youthfulness and immaturity.
Jack Welch himself acknowledges the appraisal, which he found much later, was actually very
useful in his career.
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Jack Welch was not the type of manager that one would expect – he did not like to sit
down to have one to one canned conversations. He did not like them. He was quick; he was blunt
to the point where people actually considered him to be rude. He actually encouraged conflict – a
controlled type of conflict which he calls as the constructive conflict. Jack Welch was known not
to hide his feelings or emotions. He created a very informal but a very strong work environment
for people to perform. People who did not fit into this environment either left the organization
themselves or were asked to leave. Bad hires that did not perform also met with the same fate.
Pompous and arrogant people did not have a place on his team. But those who delivered took
home great bonuses and excellent salaries. He says he kicked, but also hugged! (Welch, 2001)
One of the simplest things that Jack Welch always practiced was to be himself. He had
developed some habits and he stuck by them throughout his entire stint with GE. For instance he
was always in a habit of send a person a handwritten note after a meeting on what was decided in
the meeting. He had a habit of intolerance with people. Who did not fit in to his scheme of things
had to go. But the way he handled it was that there was never a shock or disappointment the way
he handled things. He made sure that people knew it before he actually told them to leave.
Jack Welch believed that the human element in an organization was quite crucial for the
success of the company. Possibly this was one of the first and the best things that he did in his
first address to the Wall Street as the Chairman of GE. He envisioned that to be a winner an
organization not only had to be no. 1 or no.2 in the business but also be in touch with the
intangible soft values. Welch spoke of the need to permeate every mind at GE with attitude, with
atmosphere that would encourage them to see things as they are and deal with the way it is and
not the way it ought to be.
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Jack Welch was characteristic for his leadership style of lecturing, questioning and
cajoling people to perform and perform at their best. While he did push his people to outperform
themselves he also had set clear limits to how much he would push each one of them and also
himself. He had a very strong entrepreneurial vision of balancing the short term and the long
term. Also in the modern day management parlance referred to balancing the operational
excellence and strategic excellence. (Prabhat, 1997)
Jack Welch’s style has always been hands on performance. He was always known to
question – not be anti-establishment but to be sure of what he was getting into. He was one
person who was known to ask questions even if they were uncomfortable. The questions were
aimed to get more clarity for himself and his team members rather than cynical questions. He
was clear on what he wanted and went about pursuing it in an unabashed manner. Jack Welch is
known to motivate the entire GE team by the sheer force of his personality and unbridled passion
for winning the game of business. To all this energy and vitality add attention to detail that very
many CEOs at his level lack. Then you have Jack Welch, the one and only Jack Welch that
history of human kind has ever witnessed.
Giovanni Agnelli- The Italian automotive giant FIAT was started and grew gradually under
the leadership of Giovanni Agnelli, one of the members of the Agnelli family. He strengthened
the production system of the group’s automobile division. It was as a result of his leadership and
innovative strategies; FIAT was able to offer many vehicles at affordable prices through FIAT
Auto. After the death of Giovanni Agnelli, Vittorio Valletta who was a close associate of the
later and also a key executive of FIAT Auto became the chairman of the group. It was under his
leadership that the group entered an era of prosperity. Fiat’s era of prosperity can be largely
attributed to the growth of the mass car market in Italy during the 1950s (Piper, 2002).
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Right kind of leadership makes the difference. Most often a turnaround situation may
demand an outsider to lead the company out of the mess. But sometimes, all it may need is a
change in leadership style rather than a change in the leadership.
Leadership is as learnable as any other skill. Skills are a manifestation of the personality
traits of a person. But, as widely accepted, human beings are exceptionally good at adapting
their personality to suit the occasion. So, leadership skills being the output of personality traits,
the traits can be varied to the required skills ((ICMR), Introduction to Orgnizational Behavior,
2003). The resources of an organization along with its skills create unique competencies. These
competencies in turn help the firm identify its cost or differentiation advantages and ultimately
create value for the customers (Harvard Business Review, 2000). The resources of the
organization include its brand value, technological know-how, patents and trademarks, and the
goodwill of the firm in the market. The skills include its service quality, employee skills and
efficiencies (Andrew C. Gross et al, 1998).
The ability to integrate and co-ordinate the various groups of the organization is the main
aim of core competency of the leader. It is not sufficient if a company hires brilliant people of a
particular technology. This does not simply mean that the company has gained core competence.
It is only when there is effective coordination among all the groups involved in developing a
particular product and bringing it into the market, the firm is said to have gained core
competence.
In today’s rapidly changing business environment, employees undergo more stress,
greater frustration, and have higher job expectations. These factors may affect their
performance. Lately, realization has dawned upon organizations that employees, i.e. human
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resources are its most important asset (Frederiksen, Handbook of Organizational Behavioural
Management, 1982). Human resources is the sum of the innate capabilities, acquired facts and
skills as exemplified in the skill set and aptitudes of people in the organization. Talent and skill
of employees can be honed by training, motivation and provision of opportunities for education
and personal development.
A manager who acts as a leader should spend ample time in improving interpersonal
relations and direct the employees to improve their quality of performance. It is very important
for the superior to know the factors that motivate an employee since the present day employees
are more educated and more demanding. Organizations too have become more complex than
what they were earlier, and so require greater managerial skills for effective management.
Several theorists have attempted to define leaders and leadership. A leader may be
defined as a person who establishes vision, sets goal, motivates people and obtains their
commitment to achieve the goals and realize the vision. All theorists do agree that leaders
influence people and that leadership involves influencing people to work toward desired goals
((ICMR), Introduction ot Organizational Behaviour, 2003).
Three skills that are primarily used by leaders have been identified, namely,
Technical skills – A person’s knowledge and ability to make effective use of any
process or technique constitutes the technical skills. The employees at operational
and professional levels are required to have certain technical skills.
Human skills – An individual’s ability to co-operate with other members of the
organization and work effectively in teams is referred to as human skills. Human
skills also involve developing positive interpersonal relationships, solving people’s
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problems and gaining acceptance of other employees. Effective human skills are an
essential requirement at all levels of the organizational hierarchy and especially for
people in leadership positions.
Conceptual skills – Conceptual skills refer to the ability of an individual to analyze
complex situations and to rationally process and interpret available information. It
also encompasses an ability to foresee the future consequences of his present-day
actions from the organizational point of view. Further, managers have to define
proper organizational structure and establish long-term plans and goals.
Leadership Theories – As already mentioned above, there are numerous theories that attempt to
explain the qualities required by an individual in order to be an efficient leader. However, it is
pertinent to be noted that not all the various theories that exist about leadership are in agreement
with each other and hence this tend to result in confusion ((ICMR), Introduction to Orgnizational
Behavior, 2003).
There are predominantly three very important theories of leadership that attempt to
describe leadership. They are-
Personality Trait theories,
Behavior Theories, &
Contingency Theories
According to the trait theory of leadership, leaders tend to possess certain personality
traits that non-leaders do not have at all, or possibly possess to a very minimal extent. The
behavioral leadership theories tend to explain the behavioral aspects of leaders. Although both
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the above mentioned theories tried to explain leadership in a very simple manner, they were
however very severely criticized for the reason that those theories were not supported by valid
evidence and they had oversimplified assumptions regarding the conceptual framework of
leadership.
Further research into this field resulted in the development of contingency theories which
tried to overcome the inadequacies of the above mentioned two theories and also eliminated the
contradictions involved in them.
Trait Theories
Initial research into the field of leadership concentrated on leaders’ traits. It was believed
that there was something unique about a person which enabled him to emerge as a leader. Early
researchers studied the personality characteristics that make an individual a leader and concluded
that leaders are born and are not made ((ICMR), Introduction ot Organizational Behaviour,
2003). For instance, famous personalities in history like Napoleon and Alexander were natural
leaders and would have become leaders even if they were made to face situations which were
different from what they actually were confronted with. The researchers also suggested leaders
possessed some personality traits that are unique and essential for efficient leadership.
One famous trait theory is the “great person” theory of leadership. According to this
particular theory, leadership traits can be acquired with the help of training and experience.
They may not be inborn. Contrary to the former view that leaders are born with certain unique
qualities, this theory led to a more pragmatic approach to leadership because it believed that
leaders might not be born with the desired traits. The ‘great person theory’ was perhaps the
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outcome of the influence of the behavioral psychologists, who believed that leadership traits can
possibly be acquired through learning and experience.
Research aimed at identifying universal traits which are applicable to all leaders has not
resulted in crucial results. The only common trait identified among all leaders was intelligence.
Research to recognize the physical traits associated with leadership was also likewise
unsuccessful. Actually, some researchers also found that many followers are taller, stronger and
even brighter than their leaders.
Application of trait theory to organizational leadership yielded even more puzzling
results. Researchers were not able to support the theory with the traits as noticed in successful
leaders. Hence, modern researchers have now started to highlight on multiple intelligences of
leaders rather than trying to segregate a single most important characteristic leading to their
success. For example, some researchers who studied the emotional intelligence of leaders have
suggested that empathy, graciousness, optimism and ability to read non-verbal cues in a social
setup are important characteristics of successful leaders. “Some general characteristics found in
leaders are ambition, high levels of energy, desired to lead, honesty, integrity, self-confidence,
intelligences, and job-relevant knowledge ((ICMR), Introduction to Orgnizational Behavior,
2003).”
Nonetheless, trait approaches only give a portrayal of leaders; they have little logical or
prognostic value. Although some researchers still clinch to the trait theory of leadership, their
emphasis has changed from personality traits to job related skills.
Behavioral Theories
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As the trait theories did not successfully establish the connection between traits and
effective leadership, researchers shifted their focus to the behavioral aspects of leadership,
paying particular attention to successful leaders. They attempted to recognize the behaviors that
were unique to leaders, and which distinguished them from non-leaders or non-performers.
“This was quite hard, as it involved finding out answers to questions such as – “If most of the
leaders they study are found to be autocratic, and distant from the follower, would it mean that
this kind of behavior is a characteristic of all successful leaders? ((ICMR), Introduction to
Orgnizational Behavior, 2003)”
The four important theories that fall into the above category are the Ohio State Studies,
the University of Michigan Studies, the Managerial Grid and the Scandinavian studies. All of
these four studies sought to identify the specific behaviors demonstrated by effective leaders.
According to the researchers and psychologists of behavioral research, the personality
development of an individual is influenced by a variety of factors such as inheritance,
surroundings, maturation and knowledge.
Even as personality theorists have the same opinion that human personality development
takes place in different stages of physiological and psychological development, they vary in the
opinion about the precise stages and the kind of development that takes place at each and every
stage. Several of them disagree that there are no precise stages with respect to individual
personality development process and consider that personality development is an incessant
process and that the level of development is based mainly on the available opportunities of
learning opportunities.
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The outcomes of all the above mentioned four studies were almost similar. The Ohio
State studies resulted in the conclusion that a “high-high” type of leadership resulted in obtaining
best performance results. This is because the researchers found out that people who scored high
on both dimensions of initiating structure and consideration were able to attain higher levels of
performance and job satisfaction compared to those individuals who scored low on either one of
the above stated dimensions or even both of them. Conversely, the researches of this particular
study also found that some exceptional situations in which the above type of leadership may not
even be successful ((ICMR), Introduction to Orgnizational Behavior, 2003).
The researchers and psychologists concluded that leaders who are more employee-
oriented achieve higher levels of job satisfaction and increased levels of group productivity.
Production-oriented leaders attain low levels of job satisfaction and group productivity.
Similarly the managerial grid and Scandinavian studies resulted in the evolution of a new
dimension of behavioral leadership named the development-oriented behavior. According to
these researchers, leaders who possessed the above dimension tend to constantly experiment with
new ideas and practices and embrace change and this new dimension is believed to be the most
important aspect of modern day effective leaders.
All the above studies also concluded that development-oriented leaders are more
competent than leaders who fail to have this particular dimension in their approach and style.
Though the above theories were successful in explaining leadership in terms of behavior and also
successfully established a relationship between behavior of leaders and the performance of their
subordinates, they somehow failed to take into account the situational aspect and the various
situational factors that influenced the success or failure of leaders to a large extent. This
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ultimately led to the emergence of yet another leadership theory – the Contingency theory of
leadership.
Contingency Theories
The contingency theory postulates that leaders have to change their style depending on
the situation they face. The theories also suggest that a leader should carefully analyze the
nature of the situation before deciding on the appropriate style of leadership to be adopted. The
five Contingency theories are discussed below:
Fiedler’s contingency model
One of the earliest models of contingency leadership was developed by Fred Fiedler and
his associates. Their model was an extension of some of the existing theories relating to task and
employee orientation. According to this model, leadership requirements depend on the situation
facing the leader; and the choice of the most appropriate style of leadership depends on whether
the overall situation is favourable or unfavourable to the leader. The favourability or
unfavourability of a particular situation to a leader is analyzed based on the following
parameters:
Fiedler's Contingency Theory of Leadership – Pictorial representation
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The above can be further explained as follows:
According to Fiedler, a situation is considered to be favourable to the leader if the scores on all
the three dimensions namely- leader-member relationships, degree of task structure and the
leader’s position are high. Fiedler proposed that a task-oriented, tough-natured leadership style
is most effective in highly favourable or highly unfavourable situations and a people-oriented,
lenient type of leadership style is most appropriate in moderately favourable or unfavourable
situations ((ICMR), Introduction to Orgnizational Behavior, 2003).
Fiedler’s model suggests that managers must examine the situation in which they operate
in terms of people, task, and organization; they must adapt their style of leadership to suit the
situation. If this is not possible, they must at least attempt to change the elements of job to suit
their style.
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Leader- member relationship
This indicates the extent to which a leader is accepted by his subordinates. If a leader has
friction with majority of his subordinates, then he scores low on this dimension.
Degree of task structure
This refers to the degree to which the task on hand can be performed efficiently by
following a particular method.
The leader’s position
It refers to the power or formal authority that the leader is bestowed within the
organization. For instance, a leader has more power if he is in a position to decide the rewards
and incentives for his followers.
The LPC scale requires leaders to think of all the persons with whom they would have
worked, and then requires them to describe the one person with they would have worked the
least well with. That particular individual may be someone from the past or somebody with
whom the leader is currently working with. From a scale of 1 through 8, leader are asked to
describe this person on a series of bipolar scales such as those shown below:
Unfriendly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Friendly
Uncooperative 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Cooperative
Hostile 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Supportive
Guarded 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Open
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A situation is considered to be favourable to the leader if the scores on all the three
dimensions are high. Feidler proposed that a task – oriented, tough natured leadership style is
most effective in highly favourable or highly unfavourable situations and a people – oriented,
lenient type of leadership style is most appropriate in moderately favourable situations.
Fiedler’s model suggests that managers must examine the situation in which they operate
in terms of people, task, and organization; they must adapt their style of leadership to suit the
situation. If this is not possible, they must attempt to change the elements of job to suit their
style.
Hersey and Blanchard’s situational theory
According to the situational leadership or ‘Life – Cycle’ model developed by Hersey and
Blanchard, the maturity level of the subordinate plays a major role in influencing the leadership
style of the superior. The ability of an employee to carry out a particular task and the extent to
which he is motivated to perform the task constitutes the maturity of an individual. According to
this model of situational leadership, it is felt that leaders have to adopt different leadership styles
to deal with different subordinates.
Blanchard and Hersey characterised leadership style in terms of the amount of direction
and of support that the leader gives to his or her followers, and so created a simple grid:
35
Directing (Telling) - Leaders define the roles and tasks of the 'follower', and supervise them
closely. They make decision are the same are announced by them and this type of
communication turns out to be predominantly one-way communication.
Coaching (Selling) - Leaders still define roles and tasks, but seeks ideas and suggestions
from the follower. Decisions remain the leader's right, however communication is probably two-
way.
Supporting (Participating) - Leaders dictate day-to-day decisions like task allocation and
processes, to the subordinates. However the leader eases the process of decisions, but control is
with the subordinate.
Delegating – Though Leaders are still involved in decision making and problem-solving, the
control remains with the subordinate.
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The strength of the Hersey Blanchard model lies in its simplicity and intuitive appeal.
Moreover, the model emphasizes on an individual’s capabilities and willingness to undertake a
specific task.
Leader – Member Exchange Theory
Most of the traditional theories of leadership assume that leaders treat all subordinates alike.
But George Green and his associates observed that leaders often act very differently towards
different subordinates. This observation led to the development of the Leader – Member
Exchange (LMX) Theory of leadership.
According to the LMX theory, leaders establish a special relationship with a small group of
subordinates, usually early in their interaction. This usually happens due to the time constraint
the leader faces in interacting with all his subordinates. “This small group of subordinates is
referred to as the in – group while the rest are referred to as the out – group. The leaders trust
the subordinates, who belong to in – groups, give them more attention, interact with them
frequently and offer them special privileges. The out – group people get less of the leaders’ time
and attention ((ICMR), Introduction to Orgnizational Behavior, 2003).” Also, the interaction
between the leader and the out – group people are less frequent and purely formal.
Although the theory does not explain the basis on which a leader chooses his in – group
members, research has indicated that generally, leaders favour the people who have attitudes and
personality characteristics that are similar to their own, and tend to select such people as in –
group members. The other factors that form the basis of selection into the in – group include a
higher level of competence than the out – group members and extroversion. The LMX theory
suggests that the in – group people receive high performance ratings and thus obtain rewards and
37
promotions quickly. As a result, there is greater satisfaction with the leader and lower turnover
among the in – group members when compared to the out – group members.
Leadership – participation model
In the year 1973, Victor Vroom and Philip Yetton conducted extensive research on
leadership behaviour to establish the relationship between leadership behaviour and decision
making style. Different situations demand different activities – routine and non – routine – to be
carried out by leaders and thus, according to Vroom and Yetton, leaders have to adjust their
behaviour depending on the situation.
The leadership – participation model proposed by Vroom and Yetton is normative in that it
provides a sequential set of rules that can be followed fro ascertaining the type and amount of
participation required in decision making in different situations. Initially, the model consisted of
a decision tree with seven contingencies and five alternative leadership styles. Later Vroom
worked with another academician, Arthur Jago and came up with a revised model. The new
model included twelve contingencies instead of seven as in the original mode which are also
called problem attributes.
Problem Attributes
According to the model, the leader should assess a situation in terms of its problem attributes.
The twelve problem attributes can be broadly classified into two classes – decision – quality and
employee – acceptance. Decision – quality dimensions include cost considerations, information
availability, and nature of problem structure i.e. structured or unstructured. Employee –
acceptance can have dimensions like need for commitment, their prior approval, congruence of
their goals with that of the organization, and conflict among the employees.
38
Other factors considered in the model are level of subordinate information, time constraints,
geographical distance between subordinates, leader’s motivation to conserve time, and, finally,
the leader’s motivation to develop subordinates. Even complex and apparently unique problems
can be identified and categorized into known classes, if the problems are analyzed using the
above format.
The leadership – participation model is based on three important assumptions which are yet
to be proved: Leaders can precisely classify problems by following the decision tree format;
leaders are willing to and capable of adapting their styles to suit the situation; employees accept
the leader’s classification of the situation and changing his leadership style from situation to
situation.
Path – goal theory
The path – goal theory is a contingency model of leadership developed by Robert House.
It borrows some important elements from the Ohio State Studies and the expectancy theory of
motivation. According to the path – goal theory, the leader should provide required support and
guidance to his followers and help them achieve organizational goals. He should establish
individual or group goals for employees that are compatible with the broad organizational goals.
Thus, the leader defines the path to achieve goals; he also removes any obstructions that come in
the way of employee achieving these goals.
Further, according to the path – goal theory, the behaviour of a leader is acceptable to
subordinates as long as:
The subordinates find that the satisfaction of their needs such as promotion and
rewards depends on their effective performance, and
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They are provided with guidance, support and rewards that are needed are
effective performance.
Robert House suggested four types of leadership with the help of the path – goal theory.
They are:
1. Directive Leadership – The leader clearly tells his subordinate what is expected
from them, gives them work schedules and instructs them on ‘how’ to do the task.
This is similar to the initiating structure defined in the Ohio State Studies.
2. Supportive Leadership – The leader tries to focus and be attentive to the needs
and problems of his subordinates. This is similar to the consideration dimension
identified in the Ohio State Studies.
3. Participative Leadership – The leader discusses and takes into account the
suggestion and comments made by his subordinates before making a decision.
4. Achievement – oriented Leadership – The leader attempts to develop his
subordinates by giving them challenging tasks and higher responsibilities, and
encouraging them perform at their best.
The path – goal theory suggests that the leader’s behaviour depends on two contingency
variables – environmental factors like the formal authority system or the nature of task, and
personal characteristics of the subordinates like experience, capabilities and locus of control. Job
satisfaction and employee performance are likely to be influenced positively when the leader
compensates for things lacking in the work – environment or in the employee.
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Contrary to the Fiedler’s Contingency Model of Leadership which states that a particular
leader consistently exhibits a particular behaviour which does not change over time or with the
situation, Robert House assumes that a leader behaves in a flexible manner. He suggests that a
leader can exhibit any of the above types of behaviours depending on the situation. Also, this
theory suggests that the leader’s behaviour depends on two contingency variables namely the
environmental factors like the formal system of authority or the nature of the task, and secondly
the personal characteristics of the subordinates like experience, capabilities and locus of control
etc. Job satisfaction and employee performance are likely to be influenced positively when the
leader compensates for things lacking in the work environment or in the employee. House also
proposes that the leader’s behaviour will be ineffective if it is not consistent with the
environment and subordinate’s characteristics.
Communication is one more important and crucial feature that a leader needs to possess.
In all organizations, individuals and groups attempt to exchange ideas, feelings and emotions.
This communication is essential for sharing information and coordinating action (Weiss, 2000).
Communications is essential for achieving managerial and organizational effectiveness.
Without communication, employees will not be aware of what their co-workers are
doing, will not have any idea about what their goals are, and will not be able to assess their
performance. In the absence of channels of communication, supervisors will not be able to give
instructions to their subordinates and management will not receive the information it requires to
develop plans and take decisions.
In all organizations, individuals and groups attempt to exchange ideas, feelings and
emotions. This communication is essential for sharing information and coordinating action.
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Communications is essential for achieving managerial and organizational effectiveness. Without
communication, employees will not be aware of what their co-workers are doing, will not have
any idea about what their goals are, and will not be able to assess their performance.
In the absence of channels of communication, supervisors will not be able to give
instructions to their subordinates and management will not receive the information it requires to
develop plans and take decisions. In other words, the basic management functions of planning,
organizing, directing and controlling cannot be carried out without communication.
Participation is one another crucial skill that a leader needs to possess. Participation
proves advantageous for the organization in many ways. It improves the quality and quantity of
output. It also improves the motivation levels of employees, decreases the rate of attrition and
absenteeism, and improves communication within the organizations (Wayne, 1998). In order to
ensure the maximum participation of employees in all the activities of the organization, the
employees must also have the relevant abilities and skills, and should be interested in that
particular area of work.
Participation, according to Warren Bennis, motivates people to contribute their ideas and
creative suggestions. In a participative environment, people try to use their capabilities and
creativity to accomplish the goals. Participation is also believed to enhance the motivation levels
of an individual by offering them the opportunities to offer their opinions and suggestions for the
accomplishment of the organizational goals and in the process giving them the direction to
accomplish their own individual goals. Hence, the contribution aspect of participation offers
individual a path to accomplish their goals. However it is very pertinent to note that,
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participation is a social process wherein individuals are actually involved with their profession
and attempt to make the same a successful affair.
An interview that has been conducted with Mr. Thomas Graf, CEO of Century Casinos,
Inc. also yielded very useful information regarding leadership. According to him, only if strong
leadership is established, employees will follow and help building strong business organizations.
The interviewee told me from his experience that he tries to motivate his employees on a daily
basis and tries that they ultimately keep the organizations goals in mind. Make them feel like
they belong to something bigger. Even he feels that leadership is a learnable skill, an opinion
that matches with the views of Warren Bennis. However, Mr. Thomas Graf feels that the same is
not easy. He feels that in order to learn leadership skills from the get go a lot of passion, time and
the willingness to learn and evolve must be taken into consideration. When asked if leaders are a
creation of situations and circumstances, Mr. Thomas replied in a very skeptical manner. He
said both Yes and No as his answers. The clarification that he gave for such an answer is that
Situations can create leaders, but it is not always the case. Some people are meant to be leaders
and if they are confronted with certain situations they can emerge as leaders. Some people can
learn the theory their whole life, but will never emerge as a leader. Another important aspect that
Mr. Thomas clarified was if good leaders are always good managers. He feels that Good leaders
might have a vision and know how to motivate and influence people, but at the same time they
could also lack managerial skills (organizational control etc.).
Participation makes individuals very good group members. It persuades them to happily
acknowledge their responsibilities in the activities of the group. Once individuals start taking
responsibilities, they tend to display greater amounts of interest in performing their duties and
usually find a path to accomplish their task in a successful manner. Therefore, participation is
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believed to help in constructing a spirit of cooperation and enthusiasm to accept responsibility in
the minds of individuals working in a group or organization.
Right kind of leadership makes the difference. Most often a turnaround situation may
demand an outsider to lead the company out of the mess. But sometimes, all it may need is a
change in leadership style rather than a change in the leadership (Frederiksen, Handbook of
Organizational Behavior, 1982).
Transformational leaders are believed to have a vision which they are able to clearly
communicate to others. They establish a mission for their followers and make them take pride in
working towards that mission (Newstorm, 1997). They gain the respect and trust of their
followers. They are also inclined towards inspiring their followers by communicating to them
the high expectations the organization has of them and assure them of their capacity to meet
those expectations. Transformational leaders are good at expressing complicated goals and
objectives in simple terms. They may even use non-verbal communication to communicate with
their subordinates. They appreciate and encourage rationality and careful problem solving
among their followers. Servant leadership model is one among the various transformational
leadership models.
As already stated above, Servant leadership is one of the most popular models of
leadership that has gained popularity in the recent past. This model was developed in the year
1970 by Robert K. Greenleaf. According to this model, leaders are defined as individuals “who
serve the people he/she leads which implies that they are an end in themselves rather than a
means to an organizational purpose or bottom line (McCrimmon, 1996-2009).”
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Servant leaders tend to devote themselves to serve the organizational needs. Their main
focus is on the individuals whom they actually lead. They motivate their team members
excellently and try to bring out the best out of every individual team member. They train all the
other members and encourage them to express their inner self and also strive to facilitate
personal growth in every team member. Servant leaders’ exhibit excellent listening skills and
they also build a feeling of oneness.
Servant leaders are believed to be efficient because the needs of all the followers are
taken such good care that they tend to reach their complete potential, thus perform at their finest.
The major strength of this kind of leadership is that it forces people away from self-serving,
dominant leadership and makes those in charge imagine more about how to revere, value and
encourage people who report to them (McCrimmon, 1996-2009).
Leaders tend to earn influence by maintaining compliance with the legitimate needs of an
individual; this would in turn help in building trust and cooperation in organizations. Confidence
and trust along with cooperative nature of the teams are supposedly the key components of
efficient organizations. In order to remain effective, the leader needs to be an individual who
posses excellent character and integrity and needs to have a pertinent zeal and commitment to
lead people through serving them.
3.1 Significance
In the world of modern day organizations, “this idealization of great leadership leads to
an endless search for heroic figures who can come in to rescue the rest of the world from
recalcitrant, non-competitive institutions (European Institute for Public Administration, 2005).”
But might this very thinking be a key reason how such institutions prevail? Might not the
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continual search for the hero-leader be a critical factor in itself, diverting out attention away from
building institutions that, by their very nature, continually adapt and reinvent themselves, with
leadership coming from many people in many places, not just from the top? The significance of
this study lies in finding out an answer to the above question.
4. Analysis of Findings
The following are the major characteristics or qualities that are to be possessed by an
individual in order for him to become a servant leader.
Listen to all aspects that are uttered and also expressed and not said
Empowerment is very essential through which other members of the group are given
opportunities
Positive attitude is very essential in order to influence people positively as it contagious
and reflects one’s self
Escalate issues in order to quickly solve the problems
Better results can be obtained through resolution
Honest feedback gathering will help build trust
Serving by way of leading gives an individual the ability to influence people
Apart from the above mentioned aspects, certain other characteristics like effective
communication, making an objective assessment of situations, the ability to call a spade a spade
and communicating this reality to the team members opposite in a way to empower them in their
current situation and give feedback effectively are also the traits of servant leaders.
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Servant leaders also tend to possess balanced objectivity or subjectivity. This refers to
private, personal and unique ways of experiencing situations. Both these characteristics have
their own disadvantages when not balanced properly in a profession. These are actually opposite
end of the continuum. If the servant leader is too subjective in his approach to group members,
then there is a possibility that he becomes too involved emotionally with the problems of the
other person and this may not allow him to help them properly.
Now, if the servant leader is too objective in his approach or relationship with the team
members, then there is a possibility of the servant leader being viewed by the client as uncaring
and uninterested in the well-being of the other person. This in turn would lead to a great
difficulty in communication and cause resentment. Increasing miscellany, knowledge and
information explosion, strategic affiliation, global competition and prominence on total quality
management are the challenges confronting modern organizations. In order for organizations to
effectively meet these challenges, managers require support from individual employees and their
work groups who often defy change. So, for an effective management of organizations, an in-
depth study of the behavior of individuals within workgroups, including an analysis of the nature
of workgroups is required.
The reason behind highlighting one specific model of leadership- servant leadership
model is that most of the turnaround artists about whom discussions were presented in the earlier
parts of the paper fall into this category.
Effective Decision-making is yet another important aspect that is to be possessed by every
successful leader. “Decision-making describes the process by which a course of action is
selected as the way to deal with a specific problem ((ICMR), Introduction ot Organizational
47
Behaviour, 2003).” People at all levels in an organization are constantly making decisions and
solving problems. For managers, the decision-making and problem-solving tasks are particularly
important aspects of their jobs (Drucker, Post-Capitalist society, 1993). Which employee should
be assigned a particular task? How profits should be invested? Whether the problem is large or
small, it is usually the manager who has to confront it and decide what action to take.
Managers make decisions which deal with a specific problem and also an opportunity
simultaneously. For example, making decisions about cost cutting in the organization by five
percent represents a problem. The manager also needs to make decisions when there is an
opportunity which is readily available for exploitation. For instance, if the organization has
excess funds, the manager needs to decide whether they should be used to boost shareholder
dividends, reinvested in existing operations, or to spread out into new markets.
Apart from the above, innovation is also a very important aspect in the study of
leadership. Structural variables form an important source of innovation. The structure of an
organization has got a profound impact on the innovation that is expected to happen sooner or
later in the organization. Secondly, in innovative organizations, the vision, mission and
strategies of the organization are communicated very clearly to the human resources of the
organization. In such organizations, the employees are never forced to adopt traditional methods
to achieve the goals of the organization. Instead, the management encourages its employees to
take risks, experiment with innovative ideas and assume the responsibility for implementing
them. It is only then that the organization would be able to successfully reach higher heights and
progress well (Bennis, 2009).
48
For instance, 3M fosters a culture of innovation in its organization. It allows its
employees to spend 15% of their working hours on independent projects. In addition to this, the
key elements that foster innovation at 3M are its capability to recruit and retain talent, construct a
challenging atmosphere within the organization, support knowledge sharing and design suitable
systems for rewarding employees who outperform.
Likewise, management in innovative organizations trains and develops its workforce to
update their talent and acquaintance and encourages them to become idea champs. Idea champs
are those people in an organization who are highly enthusiastic in promoting the ideas they have
newly developed, systematize essential support for their ideas within the organization, overcome
confrontation if any and ensure that the organization implements their ideas or innovations.
Such individuals succeed in obtaining support for their innovation by communicating their vision
pertaining to its potency, to other members of the organization. Furthermore, their confidence
and dedication plays a predominant role in persuading others about the potential of the
innovation.
5. Conclusion
In the era bygone, leadership was restricted to very few concepts and situations. The few
areas that really needed leadership historically were either leading a war or limited to providing
leadership to the kingdoms and religious institutions. Like the great kings of various kingdoms
across the civilized world and institutions like the church. This ultimately translated to physical
prowess one way or the other or ultimately it led to controlling the physical superiority.
Physical superiority meant either in terms of being larger in size, space or numbers.
However it is pertinent to recollect the fact that economies were primarily agrarian and
49
electronics were nonexistent. There was extremely limited thought leadership involving higher
levels of human intellect. The safety and security was of the paramount concern and the one who
was able to provide this became the choice of mates as well as great leaders.
As the complexity of human society increased and the thinking patterns diversified in
human beings along with technological innovations there was another kind of leadership that
began to emerge, the leadership in thoughts that was trying to control or in the least influence the
way the physical might acted – this was the era of brahminical superiority in or similar ones in
the Asian context and the era of religious superiority in the European and African Contexts. This
kind of arm chair leadership that inherently tried to play a role in managing / controlling the
thinking as well as the actions of the kings and the powers that were.
Over a period of time what started off as a benevolent situation turned malicious and even
perverted. This led to various kinds of harassment and negative situations in the society that led
to the kings / powers realizing that they were in the clutches of the religious minority.
Alternatively the oppressed class also realized that they were actually being exploited. This
generic negative situation led to alternate leadership mechanisms being evolved in the society in
general.
In addition to the changes in the social fabric and systems, the development of
technology and scientific applications began to accelerate and accelerate rapidly. This led to
creation of various gadgets that began to ease the life of people and started creating a middle
class – a new layer in the society.
Technological changes and improvements along with rapidly accelerating technological
developments led to creation of a different kind of leadership – the mental and intellectual
50
prowess. This along with the realization that physical prowess is more or less not really
important, but what really matters is the economic superiority called for a new set of leaders to
be created. This situation calls for leaders who can clearly and quickly create economic
superiority either for themselves, their organizations or their countries.
Slowly the face of leadership has changed. The systems of kings and monarchs have
disappeared or have been relegated into the background to be of ceremonial importance. This is
more or less true across all the countries globally. The leaders who are really making an impact
on the global directions are either the political leaders or the business leaders.
As the industrial economy has transformed to service economy to information economy
to knowledge economy to skill economy the faces of the leaders is also changing. The leadership
has changed from that of physical superiority to that on the intellectual superiority. The one who
can actually respond the fastest and the best to the given situation and create economic advantage
to himself or his affiliate is the one who becomes a leader. The type of leadership that is popular
and effective is also changing from the authoritarian style to the participative style of leadership.
What is critical today is not to be able to establish physical superiority but the need to establish
economic superiority.
In line with the changing demands of the business situations today, the need for
leadership also has changed. What really matters today is the ability to provide thought
leadership that would lead to economic superiority either for self or the organization.
What matters today is the ability of a leader to be able to grasp a current or future
business situation and turn it into one of an opportunity for himself and the organization. Being
51
able to provide better returns to self and all the stake holders in whatever form is what leadership
is all about today.
In the same breath it is pertinent to note that perversion exists even today at the
leadership level. The recent episodes of financial failures of large corporations in the United
States that led to a global economic crisis is an ample example of economic perversion – the
single minded devotion to create wealth for self over the interests of the society. This kind of
perversion leads to large scale global failures.
Thanks to the strength of political leadership and institutional leadership that the world
was drawn away fairly safely from the brink of collapse. This kind of perversion comes into play
and plays havoc with global balance when human shortsightedness and greed overtakes the need
for maintaining a health welfare outlook for the human race in general.
Leaders have changed. Leadership styles have changed. Need for leaders has changed,
but what remains constant is the ability of leaders to keep an eye and maintain a balance between
the benefit for self and their institutions and the human race at large!
6. Recommendations
Faced with the practical needs for considerable change, companies usually choose the
hero-leader rather than extracting and developing leadership ability all over the entire
organization. A new hero-CEO turns up to propel new life into the organization’s anguishing
fortune. Usually, today, the new leader implements cost cutting measures and enhances both
productivity and profits. However, the improvements are not sustainable in nature. Most of the
grand strategies proposed by leaders are never put to action; as an alternative, people cling to
52
customary ways of doing things. New ideas do not emerge from people at the front lines because
they are too scared to take risks and get exposed. “Energies are not released to create new
products or new ways to meet customer needs because people are too busy competing with one
another to please their bosses. Sooner or later, new crises ensue, giving rise to the search for
new hero-leaders (Senge, 2000).” This is the modern day scenario.
Most organizations, at some time in their existence, face decline in performance. During
a company’s lifespan depicted in the firm’s lifecycle a stage comes when it may need a
turnaround in order to survive. Here, the right kind of leadership makes the difference.
Most often a turnaround situation may demand an outsider to lead the company out of the
mess. But sometimes, all it may need is a change in leadership style rather than a change in the
leadership. Leadership is as learnable as any other skill. Skills are a manifestation of the
personality traits of a person. But, as widely accepted, human beings are exceptionally good at
adapting their personality to suit the occasion (Prasad, 2005). So, leadership skills being the
output of personality traits, the traits can be varied to the required skills.
Organizations are increasingly focusing on improving the knowledge and skills of
employees because of the continuous advancement in the technology and changes in the business
environment.
53
7. Appendix
Interviewee: Thomas Graf, CEO of Century Casinos, Inc.
I chose 10 out of 15 questions from the questionnaire. Besides the Yes/No options I included additional
answers from the interviewee.
Is leadership necessary for building strong business organizations?
Yes, if strong leadership is established, employees will follow and help building strong business
organizations. The interviewee told me from his experience that he tries to motivate his employees on a
daily basis and tries that they ultimately keep the organizations goals in mind. Make them feel like they
belong to something bigger.
Is good leadership sufficient to handle all dire situations in an organization?
Yes, but it should always be a good combination of managerial and leadership skills.
Is leadership a learnable skill?
Yes, it can be learned but it’s not easy. To learn leadership skills from the get go a lot of passion, time and
the willingness to learn and evolve must be taken into consideration.
Managerial skills can be acquired through formal education.
Yes, but experience is more important than plain theory.
Leaders are a creation of situations and circumstances.
Yes and No. Situations can create leaders, but it is not always the case. Some people are meant to be
leaders and if they are confronted with certain situations they can emerge as leaders. Some people can
learn the theory their whole life, but will never emerge as a leader.
54
Good leaders always are good managers.
No. Good leaders might have a vision and know how to motivate and influence people, but at the same
time they could also lack managerial skills (organizational control etc.).
Leaders always have solutions for all problems.
Yes and No. Even if there’s no solution at the beginning, a good leader never gives up and knows how to
motivate others. Never give them a feeling that something is out of control.
Business owners always make great leaders.
No, because business owners might have monetary resources available to own a business, but that doesn’t
make them a good skillful leader automatically.
Situations create leaders.
Yes, the most successful leaders in the business world today are created by situations. But a good leader
in one situation might not be a good leader when the situation differs.
Managers and leaders are essential for business.
Yes, both are the most important factors in an organization and have to work closely together to assure
long term success.
55
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