Leadership and Leadership Types
According to Andreadis (2009), leadership is “the intrinsic ability to internalize a setting with the intention of empowering a group or team to proactively and creatively contribute towards problem-solving” (p. 8). In order to show leadership in a complex business environment, it is necessary to practice aspects of guidance that different balance dimensions of power in order to minimize the gap between supervision and perception of the subjects or subordinates.
A proper balance may lead to continuous and sustainable teamwork between the leader and subordinates in any work environment. The decision made in the friendly work environment is likely to be friendly to the subordinates and accommodative to different cultures, which creates a social environment that is motivational to all parties involved (Arslan & Staub 2013).
Among the notable leadership, theories are transformational leadership theory, leadership expectancy theory, and leadership motivational theory. According to Bloom and Reenen (2010), transformational leadership is critical in providing an environment where the subordinates can be easily motivated to perform at an optimal level. When transformational leadership is adopted in the work environment as a management strategy, “it is easy to convince the employees to be flexible to change and perform at their level best” (Bloom & Reenen 2010, p. 32).
Transformational leadership consists of characteristics such as commitment, critical problem solving, and adaptability of the workforce (Baxter 2014). Leadership expectancy theory is proactive towards influencing the behavior orientation of persons mandated by organizations to make critical decisions without influence from emotions, stereotypes, and personal prejudices. Besides, Avolio (2010) notes that expectancy leadership is ideal in offering the most ethical and effective options for managing behavior and expectation of employees in an organization that has a good work environment. This leadership theory has different efficiency measurement systems such as valence expectancy, performance-effort expectancy, and outcome-performance expectancy (Bloom & Reenen 2010).
According to Andreadis (2009), motivational leadership theory reviews the different aspects of employee motivation as a management strategy to improve the output of an organization. The main sub-theories of leadership motivation theory are incentive theory and arousal theory (Burns 2011). Cardenas and Crabtree (2009) note that incentive theory explores the individual perception that is held in regards to rewards based on performance levels.
This means that “higher the motivational expectation attracts the better performance of such an individual in an organization” (p.64). For example, a positive or negative shift in the perception of employees may be linked to the actual correlation that exists between performance and reward in such an organization. Therefore, the weight allocated on the reward by an individual is described by the theory as directly proportional to the level of performance motivation (Carson 2006).
Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship ability as a factor of production refers to the ability to combine the other factors of production, such as capital, natural resources, labor, and technology, to create a sensible and sustainable process of producing goods and services. Entrepreneurship ability provides foresight, which is very crucial since it gives a business rough perspective and an overview of the future concerning the expected and unexpected changes and challenges in the production of goods and services (Carson 2006).
The main measures of entrepreneurship skills are scored on motivation, personal attitude, and aptitude. Action planning in entrepreneurship is of importance to create solution-oriented task and strategy implementation secession for quantifying task orientation levels. Thus, a budding entrepreneur must possess task orientation leadership skills at an individual task management level in reviewing the actual and expected outcome of any business opportunity.
Therefore, psychological stability is a recipe for success in the field of entrepreneurship since the entrepreneur will have to sometimes work under pressure while at the same time monitoring the quality of his or her services (Chell 2008). The act of balancing these needs is possible when innovative leadership skills are applied.
Success
As part of the parameters of motivational factors towards being an entrepreneur, it is necessary to weigh a certain scale of possible success in order to create a strong appeal to control over situations. Besides, it is important to be prepared to face challenges and transform these challenges into self-efficiency responses to ensure sustainable freedom in handling business needs (Casimir & Waldman 2007).
Creativity and tolerance towards situations may make a business sustainable when faced with circumstances demanding perseverance. Thus, an excellent entrepreneur should possess transformational leadership skills that identify a range of problematic situations an individual faces in his or her social environment, and generates multiple alternative solutions to those problems. This is possible when the entrepreneur lays a series of procedures that are necessary to achieve desired results rather than postponing response strategies (Carson 2006). Therefore, an excellent entrepreneur must possess the attitude of being a ‘go-getter’ in addressing different situations by applying strategic and transformational leadership skills.
Decision Making
In the business environment, ethical decisions are actions that consider the basic principles of trust, proactive customer-company relationship, and sustainable production sustainability. In order to declare a decision as ethical, the element of commitment is critical in gauging the quality of the decision, in terms of rationality (Chell 2008).
Basically, an ethical decision can be defined as a decision with a moral and legal appeal to the wider community. Since a high-quality decision-making process operates on the periphery of the rationality parameter, the final verdict should be reliable and ethically sound (Eriksen 2009).
Given that different aspects of decision making, such as assumptions, integration of options, and rational control are integrated, most of the visible or invisible biases are dampened as the effects of social presence elevate decision science. High-quality decision-making functions on the presence of rationality and verifiable facts, irrespective of the position or situation that the decision making agents are in. High-quality decision making incorporates a series of perspectives through which the final decision is identified via a qualitative analysis (Dasgupta, Suar, & Singh 2013).
Therefore, high-quality decision making relies heavily on the pillar of alternatives through research and knowledge of the situation or problem. Since a high-quality decision-making process operates on the periphery of the rationality parameter, the final verdict can be described as reliable and accommodate variant views. Given that different aspects of decision making such as assumptions, integration of options, and rational control are integrated, most of the visible or invisible biases are dampened as the effects of social presence elevate the decision science when the dual-pillar strategy is integrated (Carson 2006).
In analyzing ‘good will’, Dasgupta, Suar, and Singh (2013) opine that the only intrinsically and unqualifiedly good is ‘the good will’. He clarifies that this has nothing to do with happiness. Further, the authors are specific in asserting that wit, intelligence, and judgment are generally of good value to human life but might turn out to be timid when employed for bad rationale. They conclude that good will cannot be perverted since it is ‘intrinsically and unqualifiedly good’. From this angle, it is in order to state that the aspect of good is but just a disposition since it functions around action oriented teleological system that is ideal when proactive leadership skills are applied (Dasgupta, Suar, & Singh 2013).
In order to understand the quality of a decision, it is imperative to establish the foundation of each of premise functioning within the decision. Questioning the ‘good action’ is the first step towards understanding the significance of a decision, especially in a crisis (Fitzgerald 24). Fitzgerald (2013) further delineates virtue as readiness and the inclination to jump into action with situational excellence despite the circumstances of the time (Fitzgerald 42).
Therefore, excellence in this case is the average between duo extremes; deficiency and excess. Apparently, the highest morals rest on ‘good will’ which allows mankind to undertake actions in the backdrop of peak morality or moral worth often based on origin priority. For instance, when the underlying command plans originate from the opinionated inclination of such an individual, the results would basically be aligned towards self contempt.
However, when the assessment dynamics are reviewed, the final decision would be ethical and rational (Bowman 12). Therefore, decision making for an entrepreneur must be based on addressing all the above aspects and not only one of them. An ethically correct decision may incur short-term loss to the company but in the longer run, this would be a more profitable decision since leadership skills are integrated in the situation assessment (Bustin 29).
The Business Environment
Irrespective of the organizational environment, leadership is a strategic tool in interaction and managing all aspect of business operations. As an important element of motivational functionality, leadership expectancy reviews different perceptions that individual hold towards the influence of on management environment. The expectancy examines different mechanisms of implementing leadership strategies to make the business environment friendly and sustainable.
This aspect is an important leadership functionality mechanism necessary for influencing the approach taken by different individuals in leadership position to make desirable decision, without influence from external distracters such as emotions and prejudice. According to Bloom and Reenen (2010), effort-performance (E-P) expectancy is critical in apprehending different perception held by individuals that are related to the level of performance in a work environment.
For instance, an experienced leader in a multi-cultural organization may inspire optimal performance of the employees if he or she applies ethics in decision making. On the other hand, an inexperienced and unethical leader may inspire fear and poor morale in organization, leading to sluggish performance level among employees. Therefore, the concept argues that better performance in terms of decision making is expected from a more experienced leader than a less experienced counterpart, irrespective of the environment where leadership skills are applied (Bloom & Reenen, 2010).
Flamhotlz and Randle (2007) note that, “what valence a certain object or activity and partly upon the needs is the state of the person at that time” (p. 273). Apparently, for this argument to hold, it means that people who earn low income in their work place have higher valence as compared to their counterparts who earn high income and are at the top of the functionality pyramid. This means that the level of motivation in an organization may be related to the income and position held by each employee, that is, subordinates at the base of the functionality pyramid may exhibit low levels of motivation in performance, as compared to the people who are at the top of the hierarchal ladder.
Therefore, to create an ideal environment for optimal motivation, there is need to roll out programs that are holistic, friendly, and soft to employee valence. Besides, the work environment should integrate healthy and sustainable ethical decision culture to create an ideal behavior modeling and social control structure for organization leadership sustainability (Gerber 2008). Other notable elements of the valence aspect of leadership are clear definition of engagement rules, organization behavior code, and strategies for addressing any deviation to ensure that all stakeholders are keen on sustainability of the employees.
According to Gerber (2008) series of desirable attributes of leadership are instrumental towards controlling behavior and perception of the subordinates towards the leadership decisions made by an individual in a higher rank. In most cases, these attributes are internalized in the management plans, different performance tests, and policies that address the efficiency and productivity of employees in an organization.
Therefore, for a leader in a management position to guarantee balance between the lower and higher valence, there is need to be calm, proactive, and dynamic to the politics or culture of an organization (Burns 2011). The ability to balance these dynamics has the potential of creating an ideal work environment where employees are accommodative of different policies and flexible to embrace changes without affecting their performance (Bloom & Reenen, 2010).
Complexity
In application, entrepreneurship complexity refers to the ability to survive a risk level while at the same time within profitability mode. In business environment, complexity is affected by the forces in the market, decision science, business structure, and real financial management both in short and long term. Therefore, a business must put in place stringent measures and strategies aimed and monitoring risk modules within feasible levels in order to effectively manage its operations strategies (Bloom & Reenen, 2010).
In the ideal, an entrepreneur should be good at tolerating operational risks which involve threats associated with processes, people, and technological elements of running a business. Notwithstanding, the diversification of the workforce in a business may ensure flexibility in the definition of the interdependent components that translate to the realization of an elastic business operation (Carson 2006). Action planning as leadership skill in entrepreneurship is of importance to create solution oriented task and strategy implementation secession for quantifying task orientation levels (Bloomberg Business Weekly 2016).
According to Bloom and Reenen (2010), an environment where valence is balanced between leadership strategies and business engagement can be defined as stable and accommodating to the entrepreneurship development. Such an environment is ideal for developing self confidence since it is flexible enough to elucidate values and norms of the entrepreneur, while respecting and encouraging proactive business engagement. This environment is achievable through creating universal shared values as part of the entrepreneurship culture and work orientation (Eriksen 2009). In the end, the stakeholders operating within different motivational programs will create a powerful vision of a common and sustainable future that has unlimited possibilities for an ideal performance environment.
Despite the fact that different parameters have been laid down to define what is perceived as right or wrong, (Cardenas & Crabtree 2009) argue that universal ethics on how an leadership should be applied in entrepreneurship is similar across the board. For instance, the ideal perspective might be full commitment to developing programs that promote fairness in a work environment to guarantee proactive participation between the entrepreneur and business activity, irrespective of the level of entrepreneurship in the responsibility allocation ladder (Darling & Bebbe 2007).
However, the issue of integrity has become a challenge in implementing such programs due unbecoming behavior that might be practiced by individuals who are working towards being entrepreneur. In order to create a sustainable reassurance strategy for continuous ethical functionality, leadership skills come in handy to reinforce positive behavior, performance, and attitude to ensure that business decisions made by entrepreneurs are ideal, ethical sound, and sustainable (Cardenas & Crabtree 2009).
Future Trends
According to Olmstead (2002), the previous leadership model was a linear procedure that was characterized by an individual in the higher rank conveys decisions to those below him or her without proactive involvement in the decision making process. As noted by Eriksen (2009), the linear process was replaced by the interaction model which is characterized by direct interaction in the decision process between the leader and subjects.
In the interactive model, the entrepreneur and the subjects are very active in influencing the course of communication and decision at the macro and micro levels of organization structure (Cardenas & Crabtree 2009). This means that the 21st century leadership model has proactive instruments such as efficiency, proactive interaction, and exclusivity as necessary to ensure optimal accomplishment of series of the current and future business goals in entrepreneurship (Gerber 2008).
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