Understanding And Measuring Entrepreneurial Leadership Style

McClelland’s Need Theory

Simunovich Olive Estate limited is an enterprise that is generating olives in a huge region, and are manufacturing extra virgin olive oil, and skincare beauty natural products. For motivating personnel to accomplish up to their competence, one of the appropriate theory are McClelland Need for power, affiliation, and achievement.

This model is made upon the theory stated by Maslow’s with some progression. This theory is furthermore identified as “Learned Needs Theory.” According to the theory, three main motivating aspects are accountable for performance enhancement of workforces in the business.

Achievement- this aspect needs to accomplish which affects to a specific desire to become proficient at skills, substantial success, and developed standards. Internal and external drivers affect these desires. If personnel have high achievement need, this means they are eager to take failure risk, nevertheless wish to work for the tough and challenging task and select the optimum job. Moreover, if somebody is low achievement need, it indicates that an individual is not ready to take failure risk and is not impact to take difficulty and demand to evade risk.

Affiliation- some individual considers motivating aspects according to this factor as the need for relatedness, belonging, and love. Such personnel has a need for belonging to a social group, friendship, love, friendly environment, and kindness within the organization. These people require an additional interpersonal relationship with coworkers and other employees. To motivate such persons, the finest method is to show support and safety in the workplace.

Power- this aspect of motivation is essential to take control over others. This comprises a person with a sturdy need to thrive in their control, opinion, and influence people according to own decision. They are keen to lead a group and ensure effort to upsurge productivity (Smith & Barrick, 2015).

Another applicable motivational theory Simunovich Olive Estate limited is “Alderfer ERG theory.” Alderfer propounded this theory in 2008. This theory has classified three classes or stages of needs, which are existence, relatedness, and growth. ERG theory is quite flexible, as it present need not in form of hierarchy but in range because the need is for not only one but also a combination of two or more. For implementing this theory the organization have to analyses the need range of an individual and motivate them according to that. These need stages are as follows:

Existence needs- basic and necessary need are included under this category. This generally includes basics food, shelter, and sex needs are satisfied. Moreover, safety needs are also part of these. These are the initial stage, which is most important to even work in an organization and not be dissatisfied.

Alderfer’s ERG Theory

Relatedness needs- these include the need for relationships, and belongingness to the organization social environment, and love. They have the desire to have recognition and reach towards a public fame. These are a combination of esteem and social needs from Maslow theory of motivation

Growth needs- these comprise the need for personal growth, self-development, and advanced form of togetherness. These are the never-ending desire of a human being. Once achieve one position, the desire to have more increases (Miner, 2015).

For an understanding of leadership style, the company selected is Vodafone New Zealand, which it is Telecommunication Company, headquartered at Auckland since 1998. Russell Stanners (CEO of Vodafone New Zealand) is the leader of the organization who has adopted transformational leadership style. According to this leadership style, an individual takes the employees of the organization with due respect and positive aspect. They inspire their employees with their effective communication and reflect a healthy environment (vodafone, 2018).

In Vodafone, Russell has brought a complete change for the organization; he has transformed the organization from consumer mobile trading to a leader of digital technology while providing fixed, coverage mobile, and TV services to millions of customers across the nation  (nzherald, 2018). Moreover, he has established a work-life balance environment for the employees of the company. He encourages their coworkers to maintain work, connect socially, and with family (diversityworksnz.org, 2018).

Donna Simunovich, CEO of Simunovich Olive Estate, is considered to be one of the successful leaders for the company. His leadership style could be “Charismatic style.” The major feature due to which this style of leadership is justified for him is positive body language, communication skills, self-improvement, maturity, compassion, sense of humanity, listening skills, self-monitoring, and existence without substance  (Renko & Carsrud, 2015). The major activities performed by him that reflect his leadership style are

• Maximize potential- with his self-improvise quality; he had considered maximizing the potential of employees, harvesting, and organization as a whole. He did a production of extra virgin olive oil with optimal utilization of resources available
• Innovation- through his potential to merge innovation along with the production of olives with introducing innovative products like skincare and hair care with olive as the ingredient has lead company to peak.
• Crop monitoring team- it is a program initiated by him, according to which crops are monitored, so that prevention strategies can be applied in case of any damaged observer to any tree or leaves infection (tec.com, 2018).

A delegation of responsibility and authority is very essential because all the work cannot be done by an individual or team alone. To conduct a more important task, it is important to delegate. Top-level managers of Vodafone Company delegate the work to various leaders of the team for various activities to be conducted. For example, a delegation from top-level managers to research and development team, engineering team, marketing team, sales team, and customer service team (fastcompany, 2018)

In addition, the delegation is recommended to be according to the following step for Vodafone Company:

Step1: Prepare

Vodafone can prepare a proper plan for delegation

Leadership Style at Vodafone New Zealand

Step2: Assign

The potential staff is identified and the assigned the delegation planned

Step3: Confirm understanding

This step can be included to check if the delegated employees have the understanding of authority and responsibility gained

Step4: Confirm commitment

This is to check if an individual is committed towards their work and accomplishing responsibility

Step5: Avoid reverse delegation

The reverse delegation must not be conducted

Step6: Ensure accountability

This step can bead to ensure the timely completion of the task  (Brenner, 2015)

For Vodafone Company, many changes were observed in the company, the major area was product diversification. The company is running in a competitive industry, where for the company to grow, they need to either capture the new market or introduce new service to be provided to the customer. Nevertheless, this can lead to resistance to change. For example, the company used to provide consumer mobile service, but with innovation and an increase in the products, the company covered into digital technology through providing services on mobile and television. Kurt Lewin can understand the change process with the help of change model give  (Ali & Hussain, 2016). The stages for change are:

• Unfreezing- as per this stage, before adopting something new, it is important to be mentally prepared, for which communication plays an important role. The managers are liable to transfer the message of change in an effective way so as to make employees feel part of the change and work for it.
• Changing- this stage is where the change actually comes into action and is implemented. At this stage, the employees are allotted with new responsibility and process. If required, training is provided to the employees to conduct their duties effectively without resistance
• Refreezing – at this last stage, the change needs to become more in habitual and permanent. This means icing the change occurred(Brfidgman & Brown, 2016).

Through a metaphor of Whitewater in change management, it makes one understand the way an organization is considered, as a little raft that will navigate a raging river with whitewater, which is never-ending. Through this, it is understood that the change process is quite continuous and ongoing. Due to this, manager face stability, predictability, is broadening on chaos, and constant change  (Seatter & Lozano, 2015).

While understanding this, Vodafone has to tackle the change, which is conducted in a dynamic environment. Moreover, the telecom industry is a competitive and fast-growing industry in today’s world, due to the introduction of new technology very quickly. For Vodafone, introducing new services leads to change in job role of many individuals in the organization, like engineering team, and marketing team and most importantly customer service team. The need is identified and implemented, but the work is not over yet, it is ongoing, as the product would be requiring the change as per the customer requirement. Therefore, it was said that it is a continuous process (nzherald, 2018).

• Competition

Competition, is the major reason due to which, Vodafone brings innovation. As already discussed, it is working in a competitive industry, which is moving very fast. To compete in such a market it is important to bring innovation through its products and process with technical up gradation

• Stable market and economic factors

Donna Simunovich’s Charismatic Style of Leadership

The company to static market, which it was working for years did, not see the growth opportunity. The need for innovation that has raised for Vodafone, to introduce a new product to the market and comes up with a new trend  (Pyka, 2017).

There are many external forces like social trends, political factors, legal factors, competition, economic factors, and technological factors. Among these, the above-discussed factors play a key role for innovation and change in Vodafone.

The major changes observed at Simunovich Olive Estate were changed in organizational structure, and people’s position within the organization. There have been many times when, a person due to job rotation or promotion, or transfers, position of an individual in an organization has changed.  For example, when the crop-monitoring team was created, various changes have been bringing to the human resource and structure of the organization  (Raban & Ritcher, 2015). The strategies that can be adopted by the company’s manager are :

• Training – this is the best way to make employees comfortable in the organization, and learn new skills to perform their respective duties. The training initiated when a person is appointed at the company, this includes induction training in the organization. Moreover, if the position of an individual is changed, then the company through training and development can reduce resistance to change among employees (businessmapping, 2018)
• Rewards – this induces people through financial and non-financial incentive to, not resist any change in the company. The financial incentive includes bonus or promotions. Through this the employees would be comfortably adapt change, thinking that due to change their salary is been increasing or they have a chance to gain the bonus. Moreover, non-financial rewards can be in form of recognition, it includes appreciating an individual in front of all organizational members, to enhance their morale, and willingness to perform better in an organization (Raban & Ritcher, 2015).

Planning is required in every aspect of a business; considering new product development as an area to understand planning at Simunovich Olive Estate. Six major steps are included in the planning process to conduct an activity in a more organized way. This includes:

Step1: identification of need- the required courses of action is identified to be implemented at a specific area like new product development

Step2: setting objectives- the objective for this area is set, like the growth of the company is the objective for this course of action

Step3: development of premises- it includes assuming what can be the circumstances in future like a change in taste and preferences of customers

Step4: identification of alternatives- alternatives like skin care products, hair care products, or restaurant are various alternatives

Step5: evaluating alternative- considering the future growth options, all alternatives are evaluated  

Step6: selection of best alternative- among the mentioned alternative one suitable alternative is selected

Step7: Creation of a supportive plan- for implementation, a supportive plan is created

Step8: plan implementation – the major plan, and the supportive plan is implemented finally  (Kerzner, 2017)

For Simunovich Olive Estate that most appropriate type of plans is the operational and strategic plan.

• The strategic plan is a plan created and executed by top-level managers in the organization. It is related to the organization as a whole, and mission of the company. Top-level management includes CEO of the company, directors, equity shareholders, who provide a structure or aim where an organization requires reaching. For example, Simunovich Olive Estate strategic plan includes high-quality olives production. For this organization, this type of plan is providing the goal of producing olive to the organization, on which middle level and lower level managers will have to work (Craig & Dibrell, 2014). While
• Operational planning is a plan created by middle and low-level managers and executed by all the employees. Simunovich Olive Estate operational plan includes estimation of the budget, evaluating resources, utilization plan of resources for maximum potential, the process for task completion, scheduling plan, and human resource appointment plan (Craig & Dibrell, 2014).

1. Situation analysis
2. Direction

• Alignment

1. Execution
2. Evaluation

For the execution of this plan, the company can use strengths to gain opportunity and work on weakness to avoid threats. SWOT analysis of Simunovich Olive Estate, to aid strategic process is:

Strength ü Climate suitability, the climate of Estate is appropriate for production of good quality olives ü Quality monitoring, the system of monitoring the quality of crops are maintained and managed	Weakness ü The cycle of production is long, which means the whole process of production take a long time to reach out to the final product ü Damaged crops, this includes leaving infection and crop damage due to humidity and fungus to the leaves of olives, which harms the olive quality as a whole and can be spread to other plants as well
Opportunities ü Advanced technology, the technology is changing very quickly, and the company can upgrade technology for better performance ü Diversification of product, like invest in a restaurant in Estate	Threats ü Unsuitable climate- the climate can change and become unsuitable for olive production ü Change in customer preference and demand- the demand for olive related products can decrease

Controlling is required at every stage of business, at Simunovich Olive Estate major area for controlling is harvesting control. Since the chances of crop failure are very high, this area needs to have continuous control.

Delegation of Responsibilities at Vodafone

Step1: risk assessment- at the initial stage, the risk is analyzed and planning is done to mitigate that risk. The risk analyzed is crop infection due to fungus or increase in humidity, and to mitigate this the crop monitoring team is created

Step2: implementation and communication- this risk assessment is implemented and explained to the organization in a well effective manner to avoid change resistance. The separate team is created.

Step3: monitoring- this last step is to is to ensure that the implemented risk assessment is helpful, and as per the requirement. In case of any deviation, the plan or implementation is revised

Concurrent control ü Controlling the desired result, and ensuring standards of performance ü Conducted after the occurrence of deviation ü Checking quality after production is concurrent control of Simunovich Olive Estate

Feedforward control ü Preventive control, deviations in actual and standard performance is prevented ü Conducted well before the observation of deviation ü Simunovich Olive Estate, fertilizers usage to control the damage of crop or low-quality crop is fed forward control

 

References

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Brenner, S. (2015). Leadership style and the process of organizational change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 2-16.

Brfidgman, T., & Brown, K. (2016). Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. human relations, 33.

businessmapping. (2018). 5 Effective Change Management Strategies. Retrieved from businessmapping: https://www.businessmapping.com/blog/5-effective-change-management-strategies/

Craig, J., & Dibrell, C. (2014). Linking the formal strategic planning process, planning flexibility, and innovativeness to firm performance. Journal of Business Research, 2000.

diversityworksnz.org. (2018). work life balance. Retrieved from diversityworksnz.org: https://diversityworksnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/WLB15-Vodafone-WLB-Approved.pdf

fastcompany. (2018). 6 Steps For More Effective Delegation. Retrieved from fastcompany: https://www.fastcompany.com/3006643/6-steps-more-effective-delegation

Kerzner, H. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Miner, J. (2015). Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. London: Routledge.

nzherald. (2018). Russell Stanners to leave Vodafone . Retrieved from nzherald: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12068930

Pyka, A. (2017). Innovation, structural change and demand evolution: does demand saturate? . Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 337.

Raban, D., & Ritcher, G. (2015). Studying gamification: the effect of rewards and incentives on motivation. In Gamification in education and business, 21.

Renko, M., & Carsrud, A. (2015). Understanding and measuring entrepreneurial leadership style. Journal of Small Business Management, 54.

Seatter, C., & Lozano, R. (2015). Teaching organisational change management for sustainability: designing and delivering a course at the University of Leeds to better prepare future sustainability change agents. Journal of Cleaner Production, 205.

Smith, T., & Barrick, M. (2015). Collective organizational engagement: Linking motivational antecedents, strategic implementation, and firm performance. Academy of Management journal, 111.

tec.com. (2018). 9 common leadership styles: Which type of leader are you? Retrieved from tec.com: https://tec.com.au/resource/9-common-leadership-styles-which-type-of-leader-are-you/

vodafone. (2018). Our executives. Retrieved from vodafone.co.nz: https://www.vodafone.co.nz/our-company/ceo-executive-team/