Impact of Various Perspectives of Management and Leadership on Leadership Effectiveness in Organisations - Essay Example

A critical view on leadership effectiveness in organisational setup: impact of various perspectives of management and leadership on leadership effectiveness in two different organisations. Introduction: Leadership has been much debated concept of management and continues to receive attention owing to the vast amount of progress and milestones achieved by few people. Leadership comes with specific qualities, insight, observation, and a clean character. In contemporary organisations, where leadership demands supreme importance, effectiveness is achieved through management principles in addition to leaders’ qualities. This point has been explained in the present discourse by comparing two different organisations based on personal work experience. In the process, various aspects of leader and team behaviour, organisational systems, structure and management concepts have been used to explain leadership effectiveness and use of management concepts. This discourse presents an argument on leadership effectiveness in relation with leadership theories, management concepts and organisational culture. Leadership has been defined from different perspectives. Leadership at workplace has been the focus of many contemporary organisations. Contrary to the conventional management concepts and philosophy, the present-day organisations believe that leadership is essential for organisational sustenance. Daft defines leadership as the influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real change and outcomes that reflect their shared purposes (2007; p.4). In an organisational context, the essential elements in leadership include the leader, influence, intention, personal responsibility and integrity, change, shared purpose, followers. These elements, although essential in any leadership concept, are specifically significant in an organisational context because this context brings together leaders by virtue of their position and people with a purpose. Such leadership is assigned leadership (Northouse, 2009). Another form of leadership is emergent leadership, which refers to leadership acquired by one’s actions, and ability to earn followers; this leadership is more commonly found in political groups, and lesser in organisational setups. Leadership has been defined in numerous ways by different people, and from different perspectives. One of the broad definitions proposed by Yuki is that leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives (, p.26). According to Bryman, “leadership is the creation of a vision about a desired future state which seeks to enmesh all members of an organisation in its net” (1986, p.6). Jackson and Parry (2007) highlight three aspects of leadership, which provide sufficient reasons to explore leadership. These aspects include the contemplative notion whether leaders were born or made; secondly, what are the characteristics of an effective leader; thirdly, what is the difference between leadership and management. These three aspects provide significant insight into the concept of leadership and management. Theoretical construct on the concept of leadership is vast and delves deep into aspects such as individuals’ personality, style, background etc (Contingency theories) along with situations (Situational leadership), culture, perceived values, vision (Visionary and transformational leadership) and even characteristics of followers. Various leadership characteristics have been proposed by many researchers, which gave rise to the trait theories of leadership. Some of the traits explained in these theories include intelligence, insight, responsibility, confidence, cognition, self-motivated, emotional intelligence etc (Northouse, 2007). Fiedler’s contingency theory of leadership emphasizes that leader’s effectiveness or the group’s performance is determined by leadership style and situational need. Leadership style is unique for every individual, and depends upon personality. Situation is concerned with the relationship between leader and follower, the nature of the task and position power. The path-goal theory identifies four leadership behaviours namely directive (towards task), and employee-oriented supportive, participative and achievement-orientated behaviour. These behaviours determine followers’ work performance as well as job satisfaction. However, this theory does not explain the relationship between leader’s behaviour and motivation levels of the followers and does not consider followers’ characteristics (Northouse, 2007). Leadership effectiveness depends upon subordinate characteristics such as skills, confidence, needs and motivation as well as work environment factors such as organisational culture and sub culture, management style, power, policies and regulations, and nature of tasks. Hershey and Blanchard’s (1985) situational theory focuses on leadership style and developmental level of followers. This theory proposes that leaders need to change their style according to the developmental level of the individuals such as directive, coach, supportive, and delegation for enthusiastic beginner with low competence, disillusioned learner, capable but cautious performer and self-reliant achiever, respectively. Another theory of significance in the present evaluation is the Vroom-Jago model that proposes leaders choose their decision-making method based on the issue. This model offers choice of three leadership styles, authoritative, consultative (individual and group), and participative depending upon the issue. Another important leadership theory is the transformational theory that focuses on leadership which inspires and arouses extraordinary effort and performance from followers (Schermerhorn, 2006). Transformational leader behaviour is influenced by various individual and organisational characteristics such as adaptive and flexible organisational cultures. Transformational leaders possess characteristics such as extraversion, persuasive, proactive, inspirational, intelligence, compassionate, ethics and integrity (Kreitner &Kinicki, 2009). These main leadership theories provide sufficient understanding into leaders’ behaviour and impact on followers as well as outcomes, which can be applied to understand the differences in leadership displayed in the two organisations described in the present context. To provide a brief background for this study and setup, this discourse is built based on personal work experience in two different organisations. In this discourse, leadership and management in two organisations with different cultures are compared: the first work experience was with a high street bank in Nigeria, and the second one was with a UK-based IT firm. This comparison and analysis is based on work experience earned as a bank staff member in the back office and as a IT programmer. Leadership and management concepts are compared in both the organisations based on lessons learnt from this module. Both these organisations significantly differed in terms of their business, hierarchical structure, size, and location. The bank conducted its business within Nigeria and had about 1000 employees in all its branches within Nigeria. Hierarchical structure in the bank consisted of many levels and was headed by a board of directors and a chairman who was also its founder. Authority and power vested in the executive and senior management levels, which was actively involved in formulating business strategies. Managers and others were involved in executing the strategies and were responsible for achieving the organisational goals, targets and objectives. The UK-based multinational IT firm, head-quartered in London, employed more than 10,000 employees throughout the world. This company followed a flat organisational structure with minimum hierarchical levels and adopted an open and inclusive organisational structure. Employees at all levels were empowered and exercised authority to make critical decisions. Organisational goals and objectives were distributed among various units and locations, and so were control and power. Project managers enjoyed the liberty to make critical decisions related to the business, clients and employees. Although employee welfare was formulated by the human resource function, leaders in other departments were empowered to make changes to some of the policies and procedures in order to suit the local settings, regulations and employee needs. The organisational culture of the Nigerian bank can be referred to as bureaucratic and role-based culture, where leaders, by virtue of position, emphasized reason and logic for all decisions. This bureaucratic structure seemed to be the strong foundation for the organisation. All operations and responsibilities assigned according to the role and position were also guided by specific reporting procedures, communication policies, channels etc. The staff members are allowed to perform or act only according to their role, and not allowed to participate in activities higher than what their role defined. The higher the role, greater was the power and authority to take decisions and participate. The staff members that proved their mettle were promoted to higher roles and they enjoyed the seniority status, which again meant greater power and authority. All these characteristics can be related to the role culture displayed in organisations (Brewis, 2007). Leaders’ role in promoting organisational culture is vital. Contemporary organisations are laying much emphasis on developing strong cultures, which can earn long-lasting employee commitment. For this, organisations conduct various activities, events, practices etc and expect employees to adhere to such activities, which then become compliance factors rather than fostering commitment. A similar effort was seen at the Nigerian bank, which conducted regular gatherings in the form of town-hall meetings, annual conferences, reward and recognition podia etc. These events were driven by the senior management teams but only conducted by middle management, and the staff in lower roles only participated. Although these events provided insight into the bank’s performance compared to competitors, bank’s future plans, and recognition etc, most of the employees attended only for the sake of it or to please their superiors. On the other hand, the team meetings conducted in the IT firm were more inclusive and encouraging because all team members were encouraged to participate and provide valuable inputs. These meetings were also planned and had an agenda that was well informed to the team members. The leader/manager in the IT firm focused on the task, and hence included and encouraged staff members with the right skills irrespective of their role or position. This openness and approach encouraged teamwork, and the control rested with only one member in the group. The hierarchical levels were lesser, and greater empowerment existed. The team members were highly competitive, cooperative, and responsive. The nature of job required innovation and creative thinking, and hence involvement by each team member was equally important. Too much participation and involvement sometimes delayed decision making, but gave more opportunities to explore. Secondly, numbers of erroneous decisions were lesser. The main characteristics assigned to true leaders based on historical studies include integrity, compassion, empathy, courage, confidence, risk-taking, intelligence and communication. However, it is extremely difficult to find all these qualities in one individual. Transformational leaders do display these characteristics to some extent, and hence produce ‘transformation’ in the status quo of situations/tasks. According to Mintzberg’s study, managers display behaviours related to interpersonal relationships, informational, and decision making abilities, which constitute overall manager’s role. These roles were displayed by managers at both the organisations. For instance, at the bank, the manager monitored staff members’ performance by enquiring about progress against targets, checking customer feedback, etc; the manager also cascaded information from outside and top levels on a regular basis. This manager assumed authority for approvals and liaised with customers and clients. The manager had little involvement in decision making roles other than resource allocation within our department. In the IT firm, the project manager performed all these activities in addition to regularly conducting team meetings and reward sessions; moreover, the project manager had the authority to modify and/or innovate the methods used on the project. This manager performed resource allocation only one time, at the beginning of the project, but made adjustments whenever required. Both the managers, in other words assigned leaders, honed managerial competencies better than leadership skills because of the pressures from top management and organisational systems. While democracy did not exist in the bank, it was ignored in the IT firm owing to the pressures. Leadership style has a significant role to play in leading people effectively, as explained in the contingency theories of leadership. However, leadership traits and style cannot be ignored. Leadership traits are a result of experiences, background and associations, whereas style can be related to leader’s cultural association and personality. For instance, the manager at the bank was authoritative, as is with the Nigerian culture that condemns questioning, equality, independence, accessibility, sharing power, and trusting with blind faith (Hofstede, 2001). Secondly, leaders’ traits are also critical to leadership. Assigned leaders that lack confidence, courage, integrity, cognition, emotional intelligence will not be able to exercise effective leadership with their people. Contrary to this, emergent leaders with these qualities tend to produce transformational impact on the group and its outcomes. The project manager in the IT firm encouraged participation, innovation and involvement from the team members, which eventually resulted in the team becoming self-managed as every individual in the team was able to perform without the need for monitoring, controlling or direction from the manager. Not only culture, but the leaders’ (project manager) traits caused the exceptional performance. In this case, the non-leaders received recognition, which ultimately helped the organisation as well as the team members in the form of improved commitment, performance, and motivation. It is important that such leadership has to be identified and allowed to flourish in order to derive optimum from people. In addition to supportive and participative leadership styles, this would require supportive organisational culture, systems, and policies. Leadership has a strong impact on organisational culture and organisational goals at the top levels. Organisational culture is very often decided by the top management. In fact, Schein (2004) asserts that one of the key functions of leadership is the creation, management and even destruction of organisational culture (Jackson & Parry, 2007). Leaders accomplish this through role modeling, laying emphasis, reaction to crises, selection and promotion of candidates, and recognition of performance. The top management contributes to formation of organisational culture through culture-building activities such as organisational design, systems, procedures, mission and vision statements, etc. Jackson and Parry (2007) argue that organisational culture is a dynamic process and is continually created by every individual. This means the leader’s role is even more vital in creation, maintenance and destruction of the organisation culture. Organisational culture created by the senior management members is actually meant to foster performance and focus towards organisational goals; however, this culture, as in case of the Nigerian organisations, actually cultivates greater managerial control. However, Meek (1988) asserts that organisational culture is a socially constructed phenomenon, which is not transparent and keeps changing. This phenomenon is because of influence from the national culture where the organisation exists. Considering Hofstede’s (2001) propositions, this assertion can be considered true. In such case, leadership style is also influenced by organisational culture, which incorporates components of national culture. Hence, leadership style and organisational culture have a two-way relationship. Leadership happens by virtue of position and exists hidden. An important concept related to leadership emerges from the classification of leadership into assigned and emergent types (Northouse, 2009). Leaders by virtue of their position usually remain and grow as leaders/managers, not always because they possess the leadership traits to become effective, but because these assigned leaders are guided and guarded by management functions such as the need for planning, organising, controlling, coordinating and directing; unlike these, the emergent leaders that are proactive, innovative, risk-taking, positive, adaptable, competitive and confident emerge as entrepreneurs or true leaders. Organisational culture, design, and systems play a significant role in creating both assigned leaders and emergent leaders or entrepreneurs. For instance, the bank managers remained as assigned leaders more often unlike the IT project team, which developed entrepreneurs. If the organisational systems, design and culture are not supportive of innovation, people are not inspired to lead the change; they merely remain managed employees. In the wake of these themes, many factors can be assigned to the concept of leadership. At the individual level, leadership is influenced by personality, nature, cultural and social background, knowledge and intelligence, courage, confidence, enthusiasm levels etc. At the organisational level, leadership is influenced by organisational design, systems, culture, and management style. At the team level, in addition to the organisation-level factors, supervisor, co-workers, employee morale, and job design have an impact on leadership capabilities of team members. True leadership at these levels is also impacted by the type of leadership exercised; for instance, transformational and visionary leadership perpetuates entrepreneurship, motivation and direction unlike authoritative and directive leadership which will only facilitate management of tasks, activities, and accomplishment of organisational targets. Other factors that hinder innovative thinking and approach in leadership are availability of resources, communication channels, opportunities, capabilities and stereotypical identities. If these hindrance factors are addressed, emergent leadership can be facilitated and supported. Referring to the Nigerian bank, the major impediment, other than culture and leadership style, included accessibility to information because critical information was confined to the top management and needed many levels of approvals and passing before being cascaded to the staff. This entire setup created delays, incomplete activities and inability to take actions. The various levels of communication channels also contributed to these issues. Lack of information sometime crippled the staff members making them incapable of proceeding with concerned actions. Stereotypical identities associated with leadership, such as feminization or masculanization create perceptions of effective and true leadership is, which in reality is untrue. The feminine perspectives of leadership such as compassion, kindness, and cooperation do not create effective leaders; but, effective leadership is the result of fear, manipulation, ruthlessness, power hoarding, and the competitive will to win (Smith & Bornstein, 2007; p.64). In optimistic tone, these qualities indicate aggression, assertion, confidence, and authority. However, only these qualities in leadership can indicate arrogance, which will not result in effective leadership. True and effective leadership exists only when leaders/managers are able to use a blend of these qualities depending upon the situation, need and nature of followers. This conceptualization draws Hershey and Blanchard’s (1985) situational leadership concept. Although leadership has been conceptualized by many into different theories and models, the most essential component that influences leadership to a large extent is cultural background of the individual. Cultural setup has a strong hold even on the management style of a company. This is has been proven through seminal work conducted by Hofstede (2001), Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (2005) and others (Knieling & Othengrafen, 2009). This perspective has opened up new ways of studying management as well as leadership. For instance, in cultures with small uncertainty avoidance and small power distance, like the UK, does not tolerate aggressive behaviour and considers no difference between people at different hierarchies, unlike the cultures with strong-to-moderate uncertainty avoidance and large power distance, like the Nigeria, which considers aggression as the embodiment of leadership and power is exercised by the leaders. Considering these two dimensions, it would be difficult to assess leadership effectiveness if it is necessary to blend feministic and masculine qualities, as argued by Smith and Bornstaein (2007). Even if leadership is assessed only by individual characteristics and situation, and not culture, management function within the organisation would be framed according to the national culture, which cannot be left without. For instance, lesser hierarchical levels in the IT firm mean small power distance; lower control indicates less uncertainty avoidance. On the contrary, greater hierarchical levels indicate larger power distance and greater control. Even in such setup, leadership effectiveness cannot be determined based on specifics, because leadership is not just about leading people or achieving desired outcomes; it combines both. The same argument about management style, influenced by national culture, can be extended to the organisational policies and procedures, which could contrast with leadership styles. Assigned leaders that are docile by nature would not fit well in large power distance cultures, as in Nigeria, and aggressive leaders would not fit in small power distance cultures, as in the UK. Yet, these leaders have to lead people according their respective organisational policies and procedures, much against their own personality types. Leadership effectiveness would be questionable even if people achieve organisational goals. In such setup, employees would achieve desired goals because of pressures, but may not be able to give outstanding and sustainable performance, which again questions leadership effectiveness. Yukl (2007) explains that the fundamental difference between leader and manager is that the leader inspires people to perform and achieve, whereas the manager controls people in various ways in order to achieve desired outcomes. Managers use policies, control measures, metrics and targets, goals etc for controlling people. Managers focus on discipline and order to achieve desired and predictable outcomes. They use goal-setting, organising, scheduling, structuring, assigning tasks, monitoring results etc. Leaders inspire people by developing a vision that is shared and develop strategies to achieve this vision. Leaders communicate with their people before making any strategic decisions; they also allow participation and inputs from people. Both managers and leaders work with people to achieve desired outcomes, but the ways adopted are very different, one inspires and the other controls and directs. Considering Bryman’s (1986) view of leadership, it is extremely difficult to achieve such an ideal setup mainly because of the differences in individuals’ personalities, traits, backgrounds etc. For this view to be true the CEO of the company alone can be termed as the leader, which uses management systems, policies, practices are used to achieve the leader’s vision, as seen in the case of the CEO of the bank. This brings into light the conventional scientific management concept back as well as Foucault’s philosophy of management which uses power, knowledge and social systems considering dressage referring to obedience and control of the workers, to describe management. Foucault refers to these as components of prison and satisfaction is achieved only by the controller/manager (McKinlay & Starkey, 1998). This was probably the reason that employees at the bank were frustrated, uninterested and lacked enthusiasm unlike the IT firm where the team members were motivated, inspired and enthusiastic. Organisations use disciplinary systems and power to achieve desired goals. Even if leaders wish to lead by inspiring people, follower characteristics play an important role, as emphasized in the path-goal theory. Followers can be of various types such as isolates, onlookers, participants, activists, and diehards (Lussier & Achua, 2009). A classic case is the employees in the Nigerian bank; manager at the bank put in least efforts to bring all staff members on similar thinking and behaviour; i.e., alignment to organisational vision was lacking, a true characteristic of a leader. In spite, the bank was able to achieve its goals and make profits because the managers exercised power and control. Considering these aspects, it would be apt to support that leaders need to become managers that exercise power and control in order to achieve the desired goals. Summary and conclusions To sum up, leadership is explained on the basis of many theories and concepts. The main theories or conceptualizations include the contingency theories, path-goal theory, and situational leadership theory and are based on leadership qualities, personality styles, situations and follower characteristics. Organisational culture is set up by the leader/top management, which is conducive to realization of organisational goals. Leaders at all levels play a vital role in promoting, changing and/or destructing organisational culture; however, organisational culture is also a result of social systems and national culture. In organisational setup, leaders are formed by virtue of position and are also present hidden within the system. The latter type represents those with the ability to act, think and behave like leaders and can be of great significance for organisational achievements; however, management principles and systems have to be supportive to identify and nurtures such leaders. Leadership is influenced by various factors at individual, team and organisational levels. Factors that block leadership, such as lack of resources, communication, systems, and stereotypes also exist, which need to be identified and managed in order to encourage hidden leadership. However, lack of management support can also cause dampening of hidden leadership. Management style and structure is influenced by national culture and sociological systems, which further has an influence in leadership styles. Different nations exercise leadership in different ways, which reflects in their management styles. Such influence can challenge leadership concepts because even these leaders achieve desired goals. Organisational systems such as policies, procedures and structure are also influenced by culture and vice versa; in such cases, leadership is in turn influenced by these systems. This results in conversion of leaders to managers that exercise control, power, discipline and process to achieve goals rather than to lead people. In conclusion, leadership cannot be confined to theory and books. Leadership has been conceptualized in numerous ways by different people and from different perspectives. While theories explain leader characteristics and ideologies of leadership, these theories are limited to specific settings and situations. Organisations and leaders that have been successful have used management principles in addition to leadership qualities. Sometimes management principles and leadership qualities complement each other in bringing out the best in people, and sometimes they are contradictory. In lieu of this impression, leadership can be considered as a dynamic phenomenon and a philosophy, and a tough conduit towards achievement of goals and inspiring people. For practice, the most suitable approach for leaders would be to employ blend of all qualities depending upon the need as well as to abide by the management principles while displaying strong character and confidence. References Daft, R. 2007. What does it mean to be a leader. In The leadership experience. 4th ed. Ohio: Cengage Learning. (Ch.1; pp:1-34) Brewis, J. 2007. Culture. In Knights, D and H. Willmott’s Introducing Organisational Behaviour and Management. London: Thomson Learning. (chapter 7; pp:344-374). Bryman, A. 1986. Leadership and organisations. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul plc. Jackson, B. & Parry, K. 2007 A Very Short, Fairly Interesting, and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Leadership. London: Sage. Hofstede, G. 2001. Cultures in Organisations. 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