Effective Leadership Styles at Australian Grand Prix
Discuss About The Understanding Change National Organizations.
The success of the AGP is attributed to the effective leadership styles. To manage this global event with a following across the world and which attracts a huge multitude of spectators coming from all over the world, the management has embraced the use of best sports management styles. Just like other successful organizations, the sports management of AGP uses effective approaches of leadership as well as emotional intelligence. The management uses leadership approaches such as behavioral approaches, situational approaches as well as the charismatic and transformational leadership approaches (Bass & Bass, 2009).
The organization has a hierarchical management structure. AGP is managed by some of the best managers such as Gillian Franklin, Laura Anderson, Mick Doohan, Trent Smith and Kate Lundy who are in charge of the sports management. The leaders are in charge of various departments such as the Marketing Department under Trent Smith and the Corporate Affairs Department under Laura Anderson. Managers in their specific departments are tasked with the responsibility of ensuring the success of the activities within their jurisdiction and have the liberty to implement leadership styles which will give best results. The organization does not impose any leadership style to the manager, instead, managers have the freedom to use the leadership style they deem best for the success of their departments according to the situation that may arise.
The promotion and management of the Australian Grand Prix is usually done by the Australian Grand Prix Corporation (AGPC) with the help of the Victorian Government (Fairley, et al. 2011). This event brings to the country both social, economic as well as cultural benefits. The enormous contribution of this event to the economy of Australia has made it very important not only to the government but to the life of the ordinary member of the Australian society as well as the entire world. The event creates employment, promotes industrial development, acts as a major source of tourist attraction into the country as well as leads to the development of infrastructural facilities across Australia.
The event which was first held in 1927 has seen evolution in its management to the current events characterized by best leadership and management styles. Initially, the event was a one country affair but this has changed as the management of the Australian Grand Prix today entails cross-cultural management. Today, participants in this event come from cross-cultures with sports persons from different countries participate in the event. This has necessitated the use of management styles which embraces cross cultural diversities. Initially, the sports management used trait-based leadership styles. Using this theory, leaders of the Australian Grand Prix were appointed based on the assumption that leaders are born. In appointing its leadership, the organization considered the physical, intellectual and personality traits of individuals.
Hierarchy of Management at AGP
The leadership followed prescribed styles in the sports management and did not deviate from the laid down leadership rules (Friedman, et al. 2004). This denied the leaders the chance of going out of the box and inventing new ways of addressing sports issues. As a result, there were no major innovations of news of addressing sports problems. However, the increased interest in the Australian Grand Prix from the government and major sports sponsors led to the need of using other creative leadership styles to make the sport match the massive interests. To effectively manage this event, the management has embraced the use of leadership approaches based on given situations.
The leadership of the event ranges from the management and coaching of the teams to the management of the event to ensure that it is successful. The Formula One Group, charged with the management of the Australian Grand Prix is a global organization owned by CVC Capital Partners, Waddell & Reed as well as LBI Group. The organization has branches in the various countries where the event is held such as Australia (Hambley, et al. 2007). The Australian Grand Prix have been contracted the right to host the Formula One events in Australia. They are in charge of controlling the broadcasting, promotional rights as well as the organization of the Australian Grand Prix events.
Similarly, the Australian Grand Prix is in charge of the provision of partial investment for the construction of new tracks and maintenance of the old tracks as well as provision of funds for the teams’ establishment in the sport and growth of Formula One’s presence in new markets. Furthermore, Australian Grand Prix is charged with the task of structuring the season calendar for the Australian Grand Prix event as well as movement of equipment and personnel from each race. To effectively manage and ensure success of the sports events, the Australian Grand Prix has a team of able leaders who use various leadership approaches based on the given situation. For instance, the leaders such as Gillian Franklin, Laura Anderson, Mick Doohan, Trent Smith and Kate Lundy are known for being successful and effective leaders at the helm of the leadership of Australian Grand Prix. The leadership tasked with the sports management use the transformational and charismatic leadership approaches.
The management of the AGP events has been influenced by power and politics challenges. Due to the significance of the event to the economy of Australia, the government and the current management have been at logger heads over the management of the sport. The event entails huge budgets with the government of Australia investing large sums of money in the event due to the economic, social and cultural benefits which the event bring to the nation. Moreover, the event has several sponsors such as Mitsubishi, Foster’s, ING, EDS among others. The Australian Grand Prix has massive impacts on the city and to the entire nation ranging from economic impact, environmental impact and to the social and cultural impacts (Farrelly, et al. 1997). Therefore, the event comes with a lot of clout calling for the need for effective management of the event to ensure not only the successful running of the event but sustainability of various sectors such as the social, economic as well as the environmental sustainability.
Sports Management of Australian Grand Prix
The event brings together people from varied cultural backgrounds, to manage the cross-cultural backgrounds; the organization uses the transformational leadership approaches. The transformational leadership approach encourages the employees to participate in the decision-making at the organization (Hoye, et al. 2015). This is meant to motivate the employees and inspire them to perform their roles effectively since they feel as part and parcel of the decisions of the organization. The Australian Grand Prix leadership works with subordinates in identifying needed changes at the organization and encourages the employees to participate in decision making. The leaders act as role models offering guidance to the subordinates to perform the tasks. The leaders challenge the employees to take great responsibility as well as ownership and interest in the management of the sports events. The assignment of roles to the employees is made in a manner that allows the employee to learn and improve his skills in the course of performing the tasks (Judge, et al. 2004).
To improve the skills and experience of the employees the management trains employees and allows them to take full charge of responsibilities under supervision of the management who view the making of mistakes in the course of performing the task as a learning step by the employee. This leadership approach therefore transforms the employees into future effective leaders as they are able to learn and improve their sports management skills. This leadership style enables the sports management to influence major changes in employee attitudes and makes them to assume the roles of the organization with great commitment towards fulfilling the mission and objectives of the Australian Grand Prix.
Moreover, to motivate the employees into performing their tasks effectively, the sports management uses incentives such as promotion as well as awarding of prices to top performers. For instance, during the 2017 Australian Grand Prix Annual General Meeting, the Chairman, John Harnden, acknowledged and rewarded the top performers in the organization of the previous event. Furthermore, the success of the sports event could be attributed to the use of the team management leadership styles.
Roles within the organization are assigned to teams of individuals (Kikulis, 2000). The organization has employees from diverse cultures; both male and female, from the different racial groups of Australia as well as employees from other parts of the world, all of them essential to the success of the organization. To ensure that the diverse group of employees is able to perform their tasks effectively, the sports management emphasizes on building strong interpersonal relationships. Roles are assigned to teams of employees based on their strength and qualification.
Power and Politics at AGP
The strong interpersonal relationships build by the management enables the employees from diverse cultural backgrounds to effectively co-exist and perform their tasks efficiently (Levermore, 2009). This also motivates employees to perform since the strong interpersonal relationship makes them free to share problems affecting them thereby separating personal problems from organizational roles. Due to the fact that the sports event brings together people from various countries, sometimes circumstances force the sports management to use the contingency and situational leadership approaches to effectively manage specific situations(Bass, et al. 1993). For instance, unpredictable situations such as racial abuse could arise during the Australian Grand Prix events. Such circumstances force the sports management to come up with situational variables to moderate the unpredictable situations.
The aim of the situational leadership approach used in the management of the unpredictable sports events such as racial abuse or terrorist attacks is to offer a supportive, instrumental and participative path way to assist in addressing the unpredictable situation and ensure that the event goes on despite the challenge. The Australian Grand Prix sports management comes up with contingency measures which best addresses the presenting situation and enables for the achievement of the task at hand.
Conversely, the Australian Grand Prix sports management uses behavioral leadership approaches. The sports management supports stakeholders to grow their sports management skills, facilitates interaction among various stakeholders, and emphasizes on the achievement of the goals of the sports events (Peterson, et al. 2003). This is meant to improve the behavior of the various stakeholders involved in the Australian Grand Prix and to improve their style of doing things.
Australian Grand Prix is one of the most successful sporting events attracting viewership from across the world. The successful organization of the event has led to massive benefits of the sporting event to the nation both economically, socially as well as culturally. The event creates employment opportunities, attracts tourists from across the world as well as bringing financial gains to the Australian economy. The success of the Australian Grand Prix in the recent years can be highly attributed to its effective sports management.
The management has realized that for the sport to grow and bring in maximum social, economic and cultural benefits, it is essential for the sports management to move away from sticking on the trait-based leadership styles and embrace the use of effective sports management theories in its leadership which are flexible and applicable based on the situation and circumstance presented in the course of the sporting events (Quester & Farrelly,1998).
Cross-Cultural Management at AGP
Some of the most common approaches used by the management of the Australian Grand Prix include the contingency and situational leadership styles, the charismatic and transformational leadership approaches as well as the style and behavioral leadership approaches. The use of these leadership approaches has enabled to Australian Grand Prix management to thrive amidst the various challenges in the sports industry. Nonetheless, on various occasions, the sports management of the Australian Grand Prix has faced numerous challenges due to loopholes in the leadership approaches used by the sports management.
Similarly, the changing trend in the sports management as well as the emerging challenges in the sports industry call for the use of better approaches to ensure the continued success and expansion of the Australian Grand Prix. For instance, recent terror attacks on the sporting industry calls for the Australian Grand Prix just like any other sports management to come up with better leadership approaches to ensure effective sports management that secures the lives of the sports persons. Moreover, the changing trend of the sporting industry characterized by increased interests in the sponsorship and use of sports for commercial purposes necessitates the use of better approaches to enable the Australian Grand Prix to remain relevant and gain a competitive advantage amidst the growing stiff competition in the sporting industry and avoid manipulation of the sector by business persons (Sharma, et al. 2011).
Use of effective leadership styles will enable the Australian Grand Prix to remain relevant, competitive and entertaining as opposed to being turned into an activity heavily focused on profit maximization at the expense of ensuring economic, cultural and social sustainability. Therefore, to ensure relevance and success of the Australian Grand Prix, I would recommend that the sports management embraces the following approaches of effective leadership;
First, the sports management should embrace the use of the team management leadership approach.
The increased interest in the Australian Grand Prix has led to the coming on board of people from diverse cultures to participate in the games. This necessitates the building of strong interpersonal relationships to forester stable co-existence among the people from diverse backgrounds. Moreover, building interpersonal relationship will help the organization reduce instances of racial and cultural abuse that is commonly witnessed in the current sporting world. Strong interpersonal relationship will encourage stakeholders be it sports persons, spectators or employees at the Australian Grand Prix to appreciate cultural diversities and to treat one another with respect and tolerance (Slack & Parent, 2006).
Transformational Leadership Approach
Assigning of roles to teams of employees allows people from diverse backgrounds to learn from their colleagues from other cultures and to develop friendship will ends up reducing prejudices. Moreover, through team management, the sports management will encourage the employees of the Australian Grand Prix to open up concerning personal issues thereby separating the personal issues from their work. Furthermore, building strong interpersonal relationships will help the sports management to overcome the issue of terrorism.
Some of the recent terror activities during sporting events are thought to have been carried out by the stakeholders or with the knowledge of the stakeholders such as the fans and the employees in the sporting industry. It is though that the only possibility of weapons such as explosives getting into the sporting fields amid the thorough surveillance and inspection at the gate to the fields is through aide by the employees in the sporting sector (Slack & Hininggs, 1992). This could be caused by the displeasure of the employees with the leadership styles of the sports management.
The team management leadership style which emphasizes on the building of strong interpersonal relationships among employees as well as between the employees and the sports management will encourage employees to open up and share their displeasures with the sports management thereby reducing the frustration which could have led them into resorting to destructive means such as aiding terrorists to attack the sporting events.
Secondly, the sports management should use leadership approaches which are friendly to the cross-cultural environment. The Australian Grand Prix sporting events have become global events drawing over fan base from across the world. This therefore calls for the sports management of the event to use leadership approaches that are conscious of the inter-cultural environment (Taylor, et al. 2015). For instance, fans of the Australian Grand Prix are drawn from cultures using varied languages such as Chinese, English, and French among other languages of communication. It is therefore of great essence that the sports management of the Australian Grand Prix takes such cultural variations into account and uses languages during live as well as televised commendation that will enable fans from the diverse cultural backgrounds to follow and enjoy the sporting events.
Third, due to the high rate of emergence of unpredictable cases in the sporting world such as terror attacks and racial abuses, the sports management of the Australian Grand Prix should use contingency and situational leadership approaches more. This will enable the sports management to put in place the necessary instruments to offer the needed support in the event of the in eventuality happening (Torkildsen, 2012). Using this leadership style, the sports management will be able to measure task motivation or the relation motivation using the least preferred co-worker scale.
Charismatic Leadership Approach
Due to the high likelihood of the occurrence of terrorist attacks as well as racial abuses judging by the recent happenings in the world of sports, the management will be able to assess the favorability of these two situations using the three factors of lead-member relations, task structures as well as position power to prepare adequately to address these situations in the event they occur during the Australian Grand Prix sporting events (Cuskelly, et al. 2006). The contingency leadership approach will enable the sports management to effectively address the in eventualities without having to necessarily change the leadership.
Finally, the success of the Australian Grand Prix can be associated to the use of the transformational leadership styles by the sports management. Nonetheless, the changing trends in the organization of international sports calls for the effective use of the transformational leadership styles by the sports management of the Australian Grand Prix. The increasing rate at which the sporting industry is getting commercialized calls for the training and equipping of more people with effective leadership skills to enable them take up the mantle of leadership in the sports industry. Its past success in the sporting industry is a clear indication that the Australian Grand Prix has well qualified leaders. The leaders should embrace the use of transformational leadership styles which will enable them act as role models to upcoming leaders in the sports industry (Beech & Chadwick, 2004).
The leaders should delegate challenging roles to junior employees of the organization and guide them into accomplishing the roles in a manner which will allow the junior employees to learn and acquire leadership skills by performing the tasks. Similarly, the sports management should use motivation as a means to improve employee performance. For instance, employees should be promoted and rewarded based on their skills and performance of the roles assigned to them. Furthermore, the sports management should focus more on the training of the employees to equip them with adequate and relevant leadership and management skills.
References
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