Introduction to Leadership Models
Leadership has attracted massive attention of various scholars around the world. According to Huy (2002), a number of theories of leadership have been put forth by various scholars. Leadership is one of the most important factors that always dictate success or failure of an organization in the world today. Leadership has been in existence for as long as the history of humankind can be traced. As Adrianna and Lester (2009) put it, leadership goes beyond providing direction to followers.
It entails going into details to discover the potential of the followers. It involves engaging the followers in a way that would make them discover themselves. It involves helping followers develop the urge to achieve. It is the art of making people realize that they have a potential to achieve beyond their current capacity. Leadership requires a leader to challenge the followers positively in a way that would make them feel that they need to rediscover themselves.
According to Maak (2007), the current corporate world has become very challenging. New firms are coming into existence with new strategies that never existed before. Technology is changing the face of the earth. This poses serious challenge to firms operating in the current market. Firms are currently facing challenges from various corners.
The customer in the contemporary market has access to vast information, thanks to the advanced means of communication through the mass and social media. These consumers know that they have an array of options to choose from when they want to make any purchase. They are, therefore, very demanding. They are willing to pay less for a product whose quality has been improved. Maak (2007) says that customers are currently asking for more, but are willing to pay less. This reduces profitability of firms.
On the other hand, suppliers are now demanding for more for the supplies they make to such organization. Such suppliers cite increased standards of living, inflation among other factors as reasons for increasing the prices of their supplies (Adrianna & Lester, 2009). The cost of maintaining a business is very high. Various input factors have increased in price. The environmental conditions for conducting business have also been subjected to various other bottlenecks making the entire process very complicated.
All these challenges are always presented to the leaders of various organizations to deal with. It is, therefore, important to come up with leadership models that would enable leaders be in a position to meet these challenges in the market. This research paper focuses on the leadership styles of CEOs and presidents who made a positive mark in their leadership styles. To help in this analysis, the researcher will first focus on some of the contemporary models of leadership.
Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid
According to Maak (2007), Black and Mouton’s managerial grid is one of the most relevant models of leadership in the current world. The grid is as shown below. As evidenced from the grid, the theory gives emphasis on concern for people, and concern for production. As a leader, there is always a concern to ensure that the organization functions effectively. This can be measured by increased productivity of the firm.
This theory says that productivity should not be overemphasized at the expense of employees (Adrianna and Lester, 2009). Employees are very valuable to any organization, and their interest should be taken care of. The need for productivity should be balanced with the need to protect the employees. At (1, 1) is impoverished management where employees concern is not taken care of, and production is poor.
At (9, 1), emphasis is laid on task, while taking middle ground (5, 5) would help the firm achieve its objectives moderately with moderately satisfied employees. At (1, 9), emphasis is given on concern for employees. The best grid is at (9, 9) also referred to as team management. Employees concern is emphasized while ensuring that production is put at maximum levels possible.
House’s Path Goal Theory
According to Adrianna and Lester (2009), “This theory has its basis on the premise that employees’ perception of expectancies between his effort and performance is heavily influenced by leader’s behavior.” According to this theory, four leadership styles are important in ensuring success within an organization. These four include supportive leadership, directive nature of the leader, result-oriented leadership, and participative leadership (Pielstick, 1998).
Employee Contingencies
- Skills
- Experience
Leader Behavior
- Directive
- Supportive
- Participative
- Result-oriented
Environmental Contingencies
- Task Structure
- Team Dynamics
These behavioral leadership characteristics will influence employee behavior, and manage environmental factors in order to achieve leadership effectiveness.
Great Man Theory of Leadership
There has been an argument that some leaders are just born great. Great man theory of leadership holds that some people are born with leadership characteristics that are exhibited even before ascending to power. Maak (2007) says that such individuals would have an aura of influence whenever they are.
Such leaders would have the ability to influence people who are around them. Such leaders as Alexander the Great, Abraham Lincoln, Julius Caesar, and Queen Elizabeth I are some of the leaders who have been viewed to have exhibited natural leadership characteristics. In the contemporary world, leaders such as Barrack Obama and Bill Clinton have also been thought to have such leadership characteristics that make them be seen as people naturally born leaders.
McGregor’s Theory X and Y
The current society needs self-motivated employees. This would help in ensuring that they are able to work with minimal supervision. This can best be elaborated using McGregor’s theory X and Y. According to this theory, employees can either be viewed as lazy people who need heavy supervision to work appropriately, which is theory X.
Theory Y holds that employees are self motivated and can deliver good work with very minimal supervision. Human resource management should always think positively of the employees, therefore should take theory Y in managing them (Pielstick, 1998). A leader should embrace theory Y.
Charles Handy PEST Model
Charles Handy came up with a different approach to leadership that focused on environmental factors. This model focuses on what Charles describes as new realities that a leader must take into consideration within an organization. The first is the political factors. Political environment has direct influence on operational activities of a firm.
It must be taken into consideration when a leader is formulating policies (Nahavandi, 2011). Economic status of the society will also influence the leadership style that a leader can apply. It will dictate what policies to apply, and which to suspend as the firm awaits a change in the economic environment. Social factors play an important role in defining leadership strategy.
The social structure of a society will help define the organizational culture that a leader can instil on the followers. In the current society, the role of technology in defining leadership has become significantly huge. Before formulating any policy, a leader must take into consideration the relevance of the policy and the prevailing technologies in the environment.
Porters Five Forces
Porter talks of market competitive forces that a leader must deal with to reduce their effects on the firm. New firms will always enter the industry where a firm operates. To tackle the threat of new competition, a leader has to been keen on developing new products to rival those of new competitors.
Such a leader should influence firm to introduce new products in the market to counter any possible threat. Threat of Substitutes also threatens operations of firms. To manage the threat of substitute products; a firm has developed different lines of products to satisfy different markets so that they may not be adversely affected if substitute products invade one line.
To increase a firm’s bargaining power with the buyers, the firm has continued to produce high-end products with qualities that make it easy for the customers to appreciate their high prices (Nahavandi, 2011). In so doing, this firm has been keen to ensure that the lower end of the market is not assumed.
To increase its bargaining power with the suppliers, it should create a scenario where it is a single buyer with various sellers. Porter says that merger is one of the ways of achieving this. This makes it able to dictate the terms of buying the products. To counter the intensity of competition, it should be able to acquire a special niche in this market that will render competitors irrelevant as their products are turned into mere substitutes of such company’s products.
Transformational leadership in Organizations (The Virgin Group)
Transformational leadership is defined by Maak and Pless (2006) as a type of leadership that uses motivation to enhance the performance of employees. Pielstick (1998) defines leadership as a process where an individual (a leader) offers guidance to a group of individuals (followers) in an organizational structure.
Leadership is one of the most important factors in any organization. Leadership and management share a number of attributes, but they differ in various fronts. Transformational leadership, as the name suggest, provides a completely new path to approaching various issues in an organization. It provides an insight to the employees (Nahavandi, 2011). One of the main aims of a transformational leader is to create a completely new approach in managing various issues within the organization.
This is what the current world demands of a firm, and it is what Richard Branson has been using to make the Virgin Group achieve its current position. Emerging technologies are changing various approaches of management. The emerging trends need new approaches that can be used to provide a way in which they can be managed differently.
Transformational leadership attempts to make employees discover themselves. According to York-Barr and Duke (2004), a transformational leader will always make followers realize that they have untapped capacity which they can exploit to get better results in every activity they are doing.
This is the exact description of the management style of Sir Richard Branson. Unlike management, leadership takes the front line in bringing change that is needed. It involves making the followers realize that they are part of the change (Huy, 2002). It makes employees own the whole process.
They feel that some changes that are proposed are part of them and are meant to make their work easier. This way, they develop the responsibility to ensure that these changes are accomplished successfully and within the specified time. Such leadership will evoke desire on the followers to ensure that specific objectives are achieved within the specified time. It is an art of tying the objectives of a firm to that of employees. Success of the Virgin Group is largely related to this.
The Concept of Influence Processes
According to Nahavandi (2011), in order to be considered a leader, one must be in a position to influence others to act in a way he or she desires. French and Raven’s five bases of power have gained fame in the recent past when describing sources of power. According to Nahavandi (2011), these include coercive power, reward power, legitimate power, expert power, and referral power.
Reward power is based on the fact that a leader has the capacity to reward loyal followers through increased salaries, promotion, increased responsibilities among other privileges. Followers will obey the leader in order to benefit from the possible reward that the leader may give. The coercive power is basically the opposite of reward power (Huy, 2002).
It is based on the fear that a leader can unleash to followers who fails to follow their principles. This may come in form of demotion, assigning fewer privileges to the employee, or even a possible dismissal from the current position. Followers will act in line with the directives of the leader for fear of the consequences that may follow if the leader decides to offer punishment.
Legitimate power has its basis on the fact that everyone must respect authority. Depending on one’s rank within an organization, he or she will be able to issue instructions that must be followed by the subordinates. Expert power is based on the belief that a leader has a given degree of knowledge that others lack. For this reason, people will trust any information coming from him or her.
Referral power is generated from the interpersonal relationship the leader has with the followers. The main source of power for Richard Branson has been expert power. The ability of Branson to come up with viable ideas and techniques in the market is unparalleled. This has earned him a lot of respect in this society.
Branson has demonstrated an ability to succeed in fields that other entrepreneurs have considered too competitive to venture into. The decision to get into the airline industry was considered a misplaced as British Airways dominated the regional market. Showing a unique management capacity, he presided over the growth of Virgin Airways to become one of the leading airlines in the world.
A summary of the various types of influence processes and the factors that affect them
The above discussion has elaborated the five influence processes. Coercive power is always determined by the ability of the leader to inflict fear on the followers.
If such a leader is not in a position to inflict fear, the leadership will be lost. Similarly, reward power will only exist if followers feel that the leader has the capacity to give a form of reward to them (Nahavandi, 2011). Legitimate power is determined by the fact that one is in a position of authority.
If this position is lost, the power will equally be lost. Expert power will be exercised when the followers feel that the leader has a level of knowledge they are lacking. If they get such knowledge then the leader will cease exercising power over them. Referral power will only be exercised when the followers feel that it is desirable to associate with such a leader. When this is lost, such a leader will lose his or her power to influence the followers.
Processes that the leaders and top management team are using to impact the organization
Leaders and top management are under constant pressure to come up with ways through which employees can be influenced to act in a desirable manner. This is because of the increased competition that is experienced in the market today.
Motivating employees has been one of the key focuses of various organizations (Huy, 2002). Leaders and top managements have been using various motivational techniques such as offering rewards, awarding promotion to exceptional employees, or giving of fully paid trips to places that employees may desire.
Some leaders have embraced team work as a way of ensuring that success is achieved. Others organize competitions where those who emerge the best are given a form of reward, and recognition within the firm. All these are geared towards ensuring that employees work effectively in order to be able to achieve the set goals and objectives.
Top managers in the contemporary world prefer managing teams instead of taking an individualistic approach to managing employees. This approach enhances performance as employees get to motivate one another in their respective groups. Within these teams, top management gets opportunity to give personalized approach to all the employees, but within their respective groups.
Delegation of duties
Delegation of duties refers to the process of assigning someone responsibility and authority of a given task. Pielstick (1998) defines it as a process where a leader leaves authority and responsibility in a given field to a junior officer that has the capacity to deliver desired results. In the current management system, firms have come to appreciate the importance of delegating duties.
Once a leader has delegated duty to another employee, the employee will exercise power that is equivalent to the power of the leader. Employees will view the personal the duty is delegated to be acting in the capacity of the leader. This creates a situation where the leader’s presence is felt everywhere, even when he is not physically present, especially when dealing with large organizations that have branches in various parts of the world. This would lead to improved performance in the firm.
Richard Branson is another manager who has demonstrated capacity of a leader in his Virgin Foundation. A brilliant entrepreneur, Branson has managed to grow the Virgin Empire to capture various industries around the world. Besides his entrepreneurial capacity, he has demonstrated leadership capacity that is beyond reproach.
According to Huy (2002), Branson believes that the strength of the firm is bestowed in the employees. He has therefore maintained a cordial relationship with the employees, always making them feel that they are appreciated within the organization. One of the most important cultures he has developed within the organization is trust in peers.
Employees spend much of their time with fellow employees. They interact with their peers when doing different activities geared towards achieving specific goals for the firm.
Employees should, therefore, develop positive attitude towards their peers in order to ensure that the internal working environment is peaceful. They should trust on one another, and believe that their problems can be solved when they work as a team. They should share innovative ideas amongst themselves and develop a working environment where each team member is a protector of others (Maak, 2007).
Trust in peers refers to the extent at which workers in similar job positions would be willing to cooperate amongst themselves to accomplish certain tasks. In the organization, it is understood that peers interact with their work mates as far as accomplishment of tasks is concerned. An employee would be tempted to work hard after realizing that his colleague is committed to realizing certain goals (Hong & Faedda, 2006). For instance, peers choose certain models of performance once they notice that they have similar objectives.
herefore, trust in peers refers to choosing appropriate models meant for realizing high results. This has helped Branson build a very strong Virgin Atlantic Empire. Upon building this trust in peers, Branson has found delegation of work a very simple process. Employees have mutual respect for one another, and when one is assigned a position of authority to help accomplish a given task, everyone tend to obey their authority.
While delegation of duties is considered an appropriate approach to management, ineffective delegation comes with serious consequences. Some leaders are known to delegate duties on the basis of friendship, but not expertise. In such cases, individuals without capacity to perform delegated duties would end up delivering substandard work.
This may be disastrous, especially when the delegated duty was a core activity within this firm. It may lead to serious consequences as loss of profits, unsatisfied customer or even litigation when the act contravened the law.
Steve Jobs is another outstanding leader and entrepreneur. He has been keen on guiding the behavior of individuals, groups and teams within this organization. According to a report by Halel (2000), Jobs has been keen on determining the behavior of every single employee and teams within the organization.
This scholar says that there is always need to shape the behavior of employees in order to ensure that they act within the expectations of the leader. To achieve this, Jobs has created an organizational culture that is unique to this firm. Creating an organizational culture within the firm helps ensure that the behavior of individuals or teams formed within the organization can be predicted by the leader (Drake & Salter, 2007).
A leader should be not be caught unawares by an action of an individual follower or a group of them because the leader is always expected to be on top of every situation within the organization. Being able to predict the behavior of the employees or teams gives the manager an upper hand in control it as would be desirable.
At Apple Inc., Jobs has been very keen on delegating duties to individual with specific desirable skills within the organization. According to Biswas (2011), Jobs was one of the contemporary managers who cherish change within their organization. He has been keen on influencing employees’ readiness for change by making change part of the organizational culture of this organization. He would always delegate duties to employees whom he felt were agents of change in their respective fields.
Nelson Mandela is another leader who has been considered outstanding in leadership techniques. The former leader of African National Congress and the president of South Africa, Mandela knew how to delegate duties to various officials in his government. He always insisted that a leader should always delegate duties to individuals based on merit. The person best qualified in a given field will be delegated the duty of running that particular field.
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