The Rise of the Collaborative Structure of Business - Report Example

Corporations as Entities No More: The Rise of the Collaborative Structure of Business Corporations as Entities No More: The Rise of the CollaborativeStructure of Business Introduction The 21st century has brought with it a series of new problems that are requiring for changes in the way that businesses approach their goals. The new downturns in the economy have challenged the way in which business is conducted, questioning the operations of management, and perhaps calling for a new framework on how leadership is created. David Taylor and David Broadhead presented two different lectures that discussed the future of leadership, creating a separation between the idea of leadership and that of management. The following paper will discuss the definitions of leadership provided by both of the lecturers while discovering how core competencies will or will not play a role as well as collaboration over authoritarian ideas as used by leaders for the future. Themes Three themes emerge as primary focus for the discourse on leadership. Identifying and identifying leadership allows for the emergence of similar and dissimilar ideas from Taylor and Broadhead. The use of core competencies as a means of defining the potential efficacy of a manager or leader provide for evidence of differences in the views of the two experts on the subject. In the end, however, both call for changes that allow for collaboration over authoritarian types of leadership so that inclusion is the key to developing good strategy over the top down style that has lead to devastation in the last decade. Leadership Leadership is a vital part of creating a successful endeavor. Although management is important, the concept of leadership is defined not be appointment, but by the actions that an individual takes that influences the direction of an organization. David Taylor creates distinction between leadership and management, stating that leadership is in the organization of professionals who know how to do what they must to get to accomplishment. David Broadhead also creates a differentiation between management and leadership, citing that where managers are responsible for planning, leaders are responsible for creating direction. He breaks the concept apart by defining management as prescriptive and leadership as descriptive. David Taylor defines the upper roles through three different ideas about leading an organization. He had created the leadership role, the management role, and the command role in order to create a definition of the different types of leading roles within an organization. Those roles are leadership, management, and command. Leadership is the least likely to come up with solutions while command is the most likely (see Figure 1). The problem with command, however, is that in having one central focus for solutions, the many possible solutions that could emerge from the collective would be lost. Command and management both create a great deal of waste and suppress morale so that the advantages that could emerge are oppressed (Seddon 2005, p. 10). Taylor discusses the idea of leadership in relationship to the leader creating a story. In creating a story, the leader is formulating a path through which the chaotic can be given structure and used to meet goals. It pushes the group or organization on to the next actions that will be used to create the objectives that are intended. The leader creates loyalty and commitment in others be creating a cause and a focus on which the actions are based (Kerzner 2009, p. 188). Broadhead defines the nature of leadership through a variety of means, some which agree with Taylor, but in one way it differs greatly. He quotes Dr. Wess Roberts for defining leadership as a means of directing others towards their goals. If Broadhead meant to say guiding, then that would be similar to Taylor, but directing indicates a certain amount of controlling behaviour. A director of a play may allow the actors to make decisions about their characters, but ultimately he will decide where they stand, how they interact, and how the choices each of them make will be used. This is not the method that will provide for a better type of collaborative relationship in the future, according to Taylor. Allowing experts to perform and creating similar goals through which the organization meets their objectives requires collaboration, not direction. Core Competencies One distinct difference between the discussions that David Taylor and David Broadhead is that while Broadhead supports core competencies, Taylor believes that core competencies are not the path towards effective management (see Figure 2). Core competencies are about what a manager can do and have the knowledge to do, but the true effectiveness of a manager comes from how they can create effective strategies. Figure 2 A Managerial Model Snyder and Duarte (2003, p. 26) discuss the idea of using innovation as part of the core competencies, the idea being developed that the concept of collaborative leadership be a part of the managerial arsenal. Perhaps, it is semantics that allows for core competencies to either be accepted or rejected as a part of the management personality. It may also be semantics that makes a differentiation between management or leadership, but in reframing how people are lead, the result may be that a new way in which business and work is approached changes the nature of the economy. Major Eric J. Weiss discusses the nature of leadership in relationship to a differentiation between the leader and the non-ranking men and women in the armed forces. This can be seen as a difference between management and leadership as he discusses that leadership came from all ranks, those who were able to inspire, influence and motivate with purpose creating groups from which solid achievements could be attained. A leader who understood what his competencies were could use them to provide leadership through the collaborative method. Collaboration not Authoritarian Bush (2003, p. 127) discusses post-modern leadership in the framework of “the multiplicity of subjective truths as defined by experience and revels in the loss of absolute authority”. Leadership for the future is not defined by leaders who take an authoritarian approach, but by those who understand that the best strategy for success is through collaboration. David Taylor continues his interpretation of leadership through establishing that good leadership means creating a space in which the best possible use of strengths in his or her people can emerge. When a leader creates a space for creativity and innovation, managing and command are no longer needed. What emerges is a collaboration of ideas through which the best possible outcomes can be achieved. Taylor also lists a series of ways that changes have occurred in relationship to defining the services of a leader. Where a leader as a manager was once concerned with organizing, planning, working with subordinates and the boss, and being non-political as there is focus on organizational objectives, new strategies for leadership include being flexible or disjointed, being reactive and instinctive, understanding lateral relationships, understanding reciprocal relationships, and being political in that pursuit of the objectives of the group is essential for success. In other words, today’s leader is interested in the people of the organization rather than the organization as an entity. He or she is interested in their ideas and how the organization constructs its work from the inside out rather than top down. Analysis The future is not going to build on the corporate psychology of business management. Corporations are not going to survive if they continue to be considered entities, with the people inside being considered merely cogs in the system. Marx wrote that “the state is an abstraction…the people alone is what is concrete” (Barbour 2012, p. 38). In other words, the political system, or in this case the corporate system, is nothing more than an abstraction or reflection of the world in which it exists. The people in the corporation are what will continue, procreating long past the time that the corporate structure existed and on through the next incarnation of power and economics. As Taylor and Broadhead both discuss, the nature of guidance in business will need to change in order to create success that is no longer dependent on the influences of self-interested managers, but is a creative process in which leadership hones the talent of the people with whom they work until the product is the result of a collaborative environment. No longer will the mathematically defined nature of economics be the only driving force behind the development of business, but the nature of those things that are more creatively centred will support success on a more personal nature. Antonakis, Cianciolo, and Sternberg (2004, p. 26) discuss that defining a difference between management and leadership does not always follow traditional methods of definition, but it does provide for a means to reformulate ideas about business. They define leadership as a method of creating change and being adaptive, but management once again emerges as having a plan and organizing the processes. Motivation and alignment are the two words that are used to best describe leadership. In creating a new style of business for the future, it is clear that a more people centred function is the key to finding success. Oppressive top down management styles with hierarchies of management working towards strategies that are imposed on workers who are nondescript and expected to conform so that they are not unique is not going to work as the new economy emerges from the ashes of the downturns of the first decade of the millennia. In order to create new more developed structures in which leadership works with the group rather than as a task master over the group, the nature of how leadership is discussed will need to change. Reflection I believe that this new construction of leadership that sets aside the ideas of management and asserts the concepts of guidance provides a clear intention for the nature of business for the future. The cold concept of the corporation would be redefined by the humanity of work, the nature of purpose as it forms a better rounded experience for individuals who are providing work product. In recreating production, leadership is now forming guidance through purpose. Through creating purpose, life as a worker will be much more fulfilling and life as a leader will be better because workers will be more satisfied. Collaboration as a means towards creating work product means that all involved have a part in the decision making and creative processes. The people who work together, using their individual unique gifts have the ability to create in ways that top down directed groups cannot. Collaboration must be the method of the future with the robotic workers no longer inhabiting work places and merely making it until the end of the day. The only way that the future can be salvaged is through creating a world of meaning and purpose, which includes work that gives satisfaction through performing with one’s unique skills being the means towards production. Bibliography Antonakis, J., Cianciolo, A. T., & Sternberg, R. J. (2004). The nature of leadership. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications. Barbour, C. (2012). The Marx machine: Politics, polemics, ideology. Lanham, Md: Lexington Books. Bush, T. (2003). Theories of educational leadership and management. London: Sage Publications. Kerzner, Harold, Ph.D. (2009). Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling. London: John Wiley & Sons Inc. Seddon, J. (2005). Freedom from command & control: Rethinking management for lean service. New York: Productivity Press. Snyder, N. T., & Duarte, D. L. (2003). Strategic innovation: Embedding innovation as a core competency in your organization. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Weis, M. J. (2005). Quiet leadership. Leader To Leader, 200539-47. Read More