Leadership & Organizational Behavior - Research Paper Example

? Leadership & Organizational Behavior Question I believe that the role of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) in the current business context has become more multifarious and demanding than it was ever before. The responsibilities of CFOs have significantly risen due to many factors and economic conditions that have dramatically influenced the overall operations of organizations in the modern day context. The economic turmoil in the recent past years has further led towards assigning CFOs with the daunting task to achieve more with less effort and investment (Daum, 2008; Zorn, 2004). CFOs are now required to play a more hybrid role as an adviser, strategist, operational manager which makes it a challenging task indeed and give ample scope for applying managerial skills for professionals. Consequently, CFOs currently are required to think broadly for their varying roles within an organization. I believe that incidents in the recent past years have added new dimensions towards influencing the role of CFOs to be multifaceted that has further resulted in greater responsibility on professionals aspiring to function as CFO. Unlike in the past, today CFOs role are not limited to organization finance related activities, but has become a multi-disciplinary approach in the recent times and is further expected to expand in future (Hualun & Tao, 2006). I believe that in the next 5-10 years, I shall be able to perform varying roles as an effective leader and an efficient CFO. I would also like to stated that leadership skills would be the most important skills which I need to develop in the future period in order to render services as an efficient advisor, strategist and as a manager. I further believe that without proper leadership skills, it would be too challenging for me to successfully transform the assigned responsibilities into practice. Question 2 I believe there are many efficient leaders in the past as well as in the current business scenario who gained the ability to significantly influence the business world trends with their unmatched leadership skills. However, when it comes to me, I feel Judy Schmeling is the one who has been performing extremely well as an efficient leader as the EVP and CFO of HSNi LLC (Bloomberg, 2013). I firmly support that she has the ability to perform various tasks efficiently and successfully at any position within the organization. Thus, I believe that leadership style that is being practiced by her is indeed eligible for appreciation. I strongly admit, whenever I get opportunity in my life, I would definitely try to emulate her leadership style into my professional career. Notably, there are different types of leadership styles generally followed by organizational leaders. These different styles of leadership are often observed to be duly adhered in different situations by effective leaders rather than focusing on a particular style. It would be worth mentioning in this context that none of the leadership styles is most perfect to act as the most efficient solution in today’s business world. Thus, the selection of the leadership style should be flexible enough to meet the changing requirement of the business and the prevailing business circumstances. I further admit that different leadership styles possess certain advantages and disadvantages. Nonetheless, in my opinion, participative leadership style contributes significantly towards performing various tasks within the company with ease (Rok, 2009). In the most general sense, participative leadership style can be defined as the leadership style wherein joint decision making is duly in practice. In other words, participative leadership style seeks to engage employees, subordinates and peers to participate in the organizational decision making. I believe that participative leadership style dramatically results in making the most optimum use of the ideas and creativity of those participants involved in the decision making process of an organization. The major reason why I prefer participative leadership style is because other leadership styles do not provide the adequate scope or any opportunity for employees or the subordinates to express their innovative ideas which often lead towards de-motivating employees from contributing their best to the organization (Somech, 2006). Moreover, I believe that participative leadership is associated with team building that facilitates in attaining greater cooperation at the workplace. Responsively, it can be identified that participative leadership style not only leads towards team building, but it also results in maintaining cordial working environment, wherein employees are motivated to express their thoughts and ideas openly without any hesitation. In addition, the participative leadership style also acts as a catalyst for improving superior subordinate relationships which further results in making quality decision. This leadership style eliminates the reluctance factor among the employees and subordinates rendering with higher degree of acceptance of decision from employees. It can be hence affirmed that the participative leadership leads towards greater employee satisfaction (Ogbonna, & Harris, 2000). Thus, I strongly believe that a participative leadership style will result in meeting the needs of both employees and the organization in the most appropriate manner. Question 3 As much as the leadership is concerned with me, I consider myself to be under the primary category of perfectionistic thinking style. Perfectionist, in a sense can be described as a tendency of people to adhere excessive demands with respects to self as well as others. Furthermore, this thinking relates with higher degree of concern associated with avoiding mistakes (Burns & Fedewa, 2005). I firmly believe that this style have had the most significant influence on my personal and work life. However, I also pay due respect to emotions while performing tasks within a group. Furthermore, as much as my backup personal thinking style is concerned, I consider myself under the thinking style of Achievement. Notably, achievement thinking style relates with the way people think about their personal efficiency (Moghadam, Beheshtifar & Sefidi, 2012). This thinking style has vital influence on my work. Accordingly, I am duly focused and concerned about the quality of my performances and also about the results desired. I also like to prefer less supervision and I believe that I can perform better with minimum supervision or interference. Moreover, I have the tendency to set goals and impose those goals on others paying due concern towards emotions and kindness. I further believe that the perfectionistic thinking style tend to reduce my effectiveness at certain circumstances. This is because, most of the time I consider the work to be done by me and other is perfectly performed which often leads others to perceive me as a firm leader. Moreover, I do have relatively high degree of confidence on me but I believe that I need to work more on improving my level of confidence in order to serve as an efficient leader. I also have firm instincts and insight at work with respect to new employees. Additionally, I believe that the achievement style in me vitally impacts my managerial abilities. The achievement style in me has contributed towards managing my department more efficiently and effectively. This style also enabled me to set goals that are realistic and achievable by me and the team. I believe planning is the most important factor contributing towards the success. Unless effective planning is framed and executed, it is quite challenging to obtain a clear view of the objectives and therefore achieve the desired goals successfully. Hence, I attempt to duly organize my activities in order to seek the best possible outcome from the task that I have undertaken. I believe that everyone involved in performing certain specific tasks are familiar with their respective responsibilities and they should be aware of the task that they are required to perform (Zhang & Sternberg, 2000). Furthermore, I am not only concerned with imposing responsibilities on others, but I also attempt to ensure sharing and receiving feedback from team members that makes me familiar with the employees opinions’ which I can use to know them better and also to motivate them more effectively. In other words, I tend to pay due respect to every team member’s opinions and ideas. Thus, I firmly believe in gaining respect by rendering the same to others and motivating others to contribute their dedicated effort towards accomplishing the goals of the organization. Thus, from the above discussion I believe that my leadership skills match perfectly well with a participative leadership style. Question 4 This paper primarily focuses on evaluating leadership roles influencing the organizational behavior in accordance with my leadership qualities, managerial ideology and other related skills. The outline of the paper has been briefly summarized below: Question 1 In this section, this paper duly emphasizes on the changing role of CFOs in the current business context. It has been argued that CFOs, who were traditionally eligible to perform finance oriented tasks only, are now required to perform more hybrid tasks aligned with the management functions such as motivating, communicating and goal accomplishment. The changing business environment has therefore led towards increasing the challenges for CFOs beyond the areas of finance towards displaying the role of an advisor and a strategist within the company. Question 2 In this section, the paper also provides a brief introduction about Judy Schmeling, one of the successful leaders in the business world. This section deals with my aspiration to emulate her leadership style with my leadership practices. Furthermore, this section also discusses about the participative leadership as one of the best leadership styles to be practiced in the modern day business context. Additionally, the discussion duly emphasizes on the wide applicability of the participative leadership behavior owing to the fact that this leadership style promotes employees to contribute their best to the organization by achieving teamwork, greater employee satisfaction and by sharing collective ideas and opinions. This section states that there are no perfect leadership styles which can prove effective in all circumstances in today’s business world; rather, leadership should be flexible to adopt according to the changing business environment. Question 3 This section involves a brief explanation about the leadership skills which I possess currently. Additionally, this section illustrates my thinking style and its impact on my personal life and at work. Accordingly, the section describes the impact of primary and backup thinking on my management style that is instrumental in order to establish a strong relationship with leadership styles and understanding leadership styles followed by any individual. Accordingly, the paper duly relates perfectionist thinking style to be a dominant factor in my personality traits. It has been thus ascertained that those ranking high in the score of perfectionist thinking style tends to place relatively higher priority on getting work done with excessive perfection. Contextually, such people often strive to perform the tasks assigned to them with utmost perfection as well as these people also expect that others should also perform their task in the most similar manner. On the other hand, another important thinking style that can be helpful in determining the leadership style followed by me is the achievement thinking style. Accordingly, achievement in this sense can associated with personnel efficiency. The brief discussion of thinking style has been further related with my management style in this section. References Burns, L. R. & Fedewa, B. A. (2005). Cognitive styles: Links with perfectionist thinking. Personality and Individual Differences 38, pp. 103–113. Bloomberg. (2013). Hsn Inc (HSNI: NASDAQ GS). Retrieved from http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=47348309&ticker=HSNI Daum, J. H. (2008). The evolution of the role of the CFO in European enterprise. International Institute of Enterprise, pp. 1-11. Hualun, Z & Tao, G. (2006). An empirical research on the status and role of listed companies’ CFO in corporate governance. Canadian Social Science 2 (4), pp. 93-98. Moghadam, M. N., Beheshtifar, M. & Sefidi, F. M. (2012). Relationship between employees’ perfectionism and their creativity. African Journal of Business Management 6(12), pp. 4659-4665. Ogbonna, E. & Harris, L. C. (2000). Leadership style, organizational culture and performance: empirical evidence from UK companies. Int. J. of Human Resource Management 11 (4), pp. 766–788. Rok, B. (2009). People and skills Ethical context of the participative leadership model: Taking people into account. Corporate Governance 9 (4), pp. 461-472. Somech, A. (2006). The effects of leadership style and team process on performance and innovation in functionally heterogeneous teams. Journal of Management 32, 132-157. Zorn, D. M. (2004). Here a chief, there a chief: the rise of the CFO in the American firm. American Sociological Review 69, pp. 345-364. Zhang, L. F. & Sternberg, R. J. (2000). Are learning approaches and thinking styles related? A study in two Chinese populations. The Journal of Psychology 134 (5), pp. 469-489. Read More