Leadership and its importance in organizational success
Discuss about the Impact Of Transformational Leadership On Employee.
Leadership is all about mapping the direction for the organization with a sustained vision and strategy to go places with the team with an intention of winning in the ever evolving dynamic business environment. Leaders are required to set the direction for the organization and its employees to ensure that the organizational goals are met with enhanced productivity of the employees (Bolden, 2016). Leadership style varies from person to person, the underlying truth here is that there is no magic combination of characteristics to become a successful leader and it entirely depends on how a leader reacts to a particular situation. It is this underlying understanding of leadership which states that leadership is both dynamic and flexible in its approach (Lunenburg, 2011). The purpose of the essay here is to discuss about leadership and one of appropriate theories of leadership. Also, as a part of the assignment questionnaires were created, hence discussion of the same and the self-reflection of the document will form the core structure of the essay. Towards the end, the areas of development in leadership have to be identified and the improvement strategy to overcome the weak links in leadership.
It is extremely important that leader work in collaboration with different teams and employees in order to create positive synergies in the business organization (Bolman & Deal, 2014). Leadership is all about understanding the important virtues of team work, and the simple understanding that a team can achieve far greater results in comparison to an individual. Leaders have to understand this fact and have to work closely side by side with them. It also becomes important in order to work with other employees that leaders value them, understand their business concerns, appreciate them on their work and make them feel empowered (Osland & Turner, 2011). In true sense, human resource is the single biggest asset of the organization and leaders have to accept this fact and work together to achieve common goals and objectives. As mentioned earlier in the essay that there is no such theory which in comprehensiveness can define leadership, however, transformational leadership is the one which encompasses almost all of the qualities which a leader should have in order to achieve desirable results for the business (Wang et. al., 2011).
Transformational leadership is one of the style of leadership in which the leader work with his subordinates to identify change, create a vision to guide the change through inspiration and execute the change in tandem with the members of the team (Avolio et. al., 2013). Transformational leadership besides doing wonders for the organization also keeps the employees motivated, engaged and empowered (Braun et al., 2013). Jeff Bezos (Amazon) is one of the greatest visionary of the present time himself follows transformational style of leadership. Earlier in his career he was flaked for working in solitude and not involving subordinates, which resulted in huge employee turnover, low employee satisfaction index which eventually resulted in losses for the company. He then did a 360 degree change in his style of leadership and turnaround the situation at Amazon. There are 4 simple yet complex steps in order to adopt transformational leadership and become a transformational leader. The first and one of the most important steps in leadership is to create an inspiring vision for the future, this is important because employees need strength in the compelling vision for them to follow (Tourish, 2013). The inspiring vision is good enough to set the purpose of the organization which can then be replicated in the employees. A sense of purpose gives the employee a motivation to get up in the morning and work together to fulfil the vision of the leader or the organization. The second step comes in making employees understand the long term mission of the organization and convince them in order to make them an important component of the shared mission. A transformation leader motivates them through effective business storytelling and other numerous ways (Ahmed et. al., 2014). The third step is to manage the delivery of the vision envisioned by the leader or the organization. This can be done by bringing discipline in the team and commitment towards the deadline. Creation of smart objectives and setting up of milestones further help the process of change management which is required to attain the goals of the organization (Gopal & Chowdhary, 2014). Last, but the most component of transformational leadership is building trust based relationship with the people in the organization. Richard Branson of Virgin fame said in one of his interviews “If you take care of your employees they will take care of your customers”, this holds true even in the present day. Employees work towards the goals of the organization if there is presence of trust, strong relationship and bond between them and the leader (Chen et. al., 2013). The leader can build trust and relationship among the employees by empowering them, giving them the responsibility and freedom of making their own decision. This will give them a higher sense of purpose and fill them with energy, enthusiasm and motivation to attain the goals of the organization. Thus, transformational leadership style in a gist is the art of create a compelling vision and moving forward with the entire organization to fulfil the vision envisioned.
Essential virtues of teamwork and value of employees
Leadership is all about practical application of skills gained in the business journey. As a part of leadership development at Amazon I was asked to fill in a number of questionnaires to understand my style of leadership and how I perceive leadership. There were in total 5 questionnaires focussing on type of leadership style, the traits of leadership, qualities in a leader, analysis of leadership style of Steve jobs and team activities based on developing strength of a leaders .The finding of the questionnaire were not a shock to me because I always knew how I act to leadership and what is my personal style of leadership. I believe in transformational style of leadership as it is widely accepted, more relevant in the present day context and is based on creating positive synergies by involving all the team members in accomplishing the goals of the organization. In my opinion I resonate high if I have an inspiring and compelling vision in front of me, it makes me easier in taking step forward with a clear defined path. Further, involving subordinates, motivating and empowering them to walk the path together goes well with my inherent nature of working in teams. The second questionnaire was focussed on the traits which define leadership, in my opinion honesty and integrity, ability to inspire other, strong and openness in communication, strong decision making capabilities, creation and innovation are some of the traits which are must in business leader. The questionnaire made me aware of plethora of other qualities which a business leader must have to be successful in his conduct. Another questionnaire was focussed specifically on the highly controversial and innovative leader Steve Jobs; it was on how I perceived Steve jobs leadership style. In my opinion Steve Jobs leadership style was pretty much unconventional and is seen as authoritative and dictatorial, yet he was a loved leader then and even now. This makes me believe more that leadership style highly depends on situation and not specific traits. Besides questionnaire the leadership development programme was also focussed on team activities to see how a leader would respond in an adverse situation (Refer Appendix)
One of the team activity involved brainstorming session on the usage of technology to create better solutions for the e-commerce customers. Here in the activity, we all were in middle of the situation and I was made the main coordinator of the group. My role was to bring best ideas on the table and make people participate by contributing their ideas; it was a very delightful experience as it allowed me to be more participative which ensuring discipline was at the core of brain storming session. In the similar manner, another team activity was organization, in which we have to work together and create an elevated pitch for the investment meeting with the CEO of Soft Bank. Here, I was responsible for creating strategies for the way forward in the company and how the funds will be utilized for business expansion. I was to create a marketing and a business diversification strategy for the Asian markets, the report was based on the quality of information other team members gathered from the market and other sources. It was a wonderful experience seeing 10 minds working together on a common objective. It did make me closer to my team members and helped me in increasing my horizon of wisdom and knowledge. Thus, the activities and questionnaire were highly engaging and helped me in developing plethora of insight on leadership (Refer Appendix).
Introduction to transformational leadership
Towards the end of the activity, we all were given time to ponder on the activities, analyse the finding of the questionnaire and create areas of development for self-improvement. I identified 4 areas of development for myself, which according to me would help me in becoming a better and a successful leader. One of the area of development was my inability to delegate the work responsibility to others, most of the time I end up doing most of the tasks myself, which increases the decision making time and reduces the effectiveness of the organization. I believe that I am the better person suited for the task as the task requires perfection, this is one of the biggest development area to work upon. I have decided to stop micro managing the tasks and develop strong relationship with employees by delegating the task to the group of people whom I trust as my inner circle. The second area of improvement is my inability to apply negative enforcement of motivation to derive result out of the employees. I always believe that positive motivation is the best way of pushing the employees out of their comfort zone and make them enhance their productivity, however, this does not hold true at every given point in time. Thus, I have decided to overcome this, by applying both positive and negative motivation one after another and analyse the results, this will help me in overcoming my fear and enhance my leadership skill. I am not too great when it comes to managing schedule and time during business hours, at times I get so occupied with a task that I completely forgot that I have other deadlines to adhere as well. This is definitely one of the areas of improvement for me, in order to overcome this I have decided to use Covey’s time management matrix at the start of the day to assign the task on the basis of urgency and importance and work on them accordingly. Another area on which I am already working but it requires more skill enhancement is reducing the decision making time. I am already working on it by delegating responsibilities and using best employees to bring out the qualitative data for my analysis, however, still needs a lot of improvement to expedite the decision making process(Refer Appendix).
Towards the end of the essay, I can easily define what leadership means for me, in my opinion leadership is the optimum utilization of the resources available to move forward on the path of sustained vision for the organization leading the team from front by inspiring and motivating them. The keywords which matter the most to me in leadership are; communication, integrity, inspiring, visionary and employee empowerment, I strongly relate to these keywords and encompass all of these in my leadership style. I see myself more of a transformational leader than just a participative leader because I focus more on transforming the business organization by inspiring and leading the process of change management than just being participative in nature. I believe that human resource is the biggest strength of any business organization, and in order to become a customer-centric organization, it is first important to become an employee centric organization, rest the results will be driven by the employees. I would thus conclude the essay by saying that leaders have to be dynamic, flexible and adaptive to different situations and be contextual in their approach.
References
Ahmad, F., Abbas, T., Latif, S. and Rasheed, A., 2014. Impact of transformational leadership on employee motivation in telecommunication sector. Journal of management policies and practices, 2(2), pp.11-25.
Avolio, B.J. and Yammarino, F.J. eds., 2013. Introduction to, and overview of, transformational and charismatic leadership. In Transformational and Charismatic Leadership: The Road Ahead 10th Anniversary Edition (pp. xxvii-xxxiii). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Bolden, R., 2016. Leadership, management and organisational development. In Gower handbook of leadership and management development (pp. 143-158). Routledge. United Kingdom.
Bolman, L. and Deal, T., 2014. Leadership and management. Christian Youth Work in Theory and Practice: A Handbook, p.245.
Braun, S., Peus, C., Weisweiler, S. and Frey, D., 2013. Transformational leadership, job satisfaction, and team performance: A multilevel mediation model of trust. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), pp.270-283.
Chen, C.Y., Chen, C.H.V. and Li, C.I., 2013. The influence of leader’s spiritual values of servant leadership on employee motivational autonomy and eudaemonic well-being. Journal of religion and health, 52(2), pp.418-438.
Gopal, R. and Chowdhury, R.G., 2014. Leadership styles and employee motivation: An empirical investigation in a leading oil company in India. International journal of research in business management, 2(5), pp.1-10.
Lunenburg, F.C., 2011. Leadership versus management: A key distinction—at least in theory. International Journal of Management, Business, and Administration, 14(1), pp.1-4.
Osland, J. and Turner, M., 2011. The organizational behavior reader. Pearson.
Tourish, D., 2013. The dark side of transformational leadership: A critical perspective. Development and Learning in Organizations, 28(1).
Wang, G., Oh, I.S., Courtright, S.H. and Colbert, A.E., 2011. Transformational leadership and performance across criteria and levels: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of research. Group & Organization Management, 36(2), pp.223-270.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
