Introduction
Globally, the hierarchical leadership model was a prevalent form of leadership, but today it is being faced out by the partnership styles. The partnership makes people who are involved to value other’s ideas and performance power. Today’s leaders are using the power of influence as opposed to earlier styles of influencing performances through the power of command or control.
Leadership was never relinquished when directors changed from the earlier hierarchical styles to modern influential styles. The influence of performances enables leaders to have power over other’s actions even outside the work setting. The partnership is an ability to form mergers among industries or business communities. A good example of a successful partnership facilitator is the worldbid.com, which forms a link between firms up to the international market levels. Corresponding to (Laury, 2009) the current interconnections between global environments indicates that ideal leaders ought to be skilled at enhancing partnership among global leaders and firms.
Enhancing Trust among Partners
Trust is established when the involved parties have fair treatment of each other as development associates and not potential competitors. They should thus share knowledge openly in an honest manner. Broken trust leads to competition, which in turn causes breaking down of collaborative ideas and exploitation of resources. Trust requires partners to have common goals, the ability to share resources and proficiency in utilizing time to build business understandings. According to Goldsmith (2003), the partnership is supposed to be a forum that enhances a natural style of sharing knowledge, talents or ideas. Trust is built through having forums that develop finding and sharing of ideas or talents.
Trust also calls for respect for other’s thoughts or confidence to act by choosing keenly the information that requires sharing or deliberation. The open form of communication fosters trust since more informed persons have specialties in various functional areas. The innovative and open form of communication also fosters the partner leadership style since it is a way of encouraging participation through the delivery of feedback and positive dialogue. In line with Birkin (2000), being positive denotes avoiding unhelpful comments and considering other’s opinions as constructive and honest proposals.
Relationships across companies or organizations have become very essential due to the complexity of work environments and technological advancement. It has become essential to have a cross-functional form of interaction as opposed to the traditional hierarchical way of management, which forces people to collaborate.
Failure to implement a partnership form of management is attributable to the decreased loyalty from employees. Employees work on assumptions that they can face instant layoffs, job restructures or downsizing implicated to poor economies and thus the lack of assured job security makes them restrict their loyalty. Current and future leaders are thus focusing on creating a win-win situation for the employees by being sensitive to their requests so that they can offer dedicated services for the organization and coordinate with the leader. Future leaders are thus working partners and not superior administrators (Pride et al, 2009).
Lack of partnered relationship between the leader and the subordinates or co-workers compromises the sharing of ideas, limits mobility and strains the long-term growth since workgroups fail to share ideas, expertise, capital, and resources. Mature enterprises need to share or transfer funds to developing entities. The sharing of ideas also enables people to understand the right procedures to earn success and avoid mistakes that others have suffered. Building partnerships among firms, therefore, requires a person who can lead within a network of followers as opposed to managers who wish to have a hierarchical form of power.
Team Building
Collaborating with management is today becoming an essential requirement in organizations since it is a measure of improving performance. Companies are thus today forming teams that have skilled personnel, who are in a position of deciding on the structural level of their areas of expertise within the firm and make a decision on the organization’s plans. The teams can share and assist each other when they are involved in team-building activities because the leaders learn how to deal with and influence the team members.
Competitors are also today focusing on building alliances or collaborative networks, based on mutual trust and understanding. The joint ventures have blurred competition that was based on business antagonism and today firms/organizations can enforce diversification of energy. The informal strategies of building partnerships require organizations to form alliances that can cause positive development and long-term relations that enhance growth for all the involved parties. Organizations should also improve on the unstructured and unplanned collaboration between leaders from different parts of the world. The partnership caters to the relationship with customers as well as suppliers.
Conclusion
Building partnership especially with potential competitors is very difficult and therefore requires negotiation between various parties especially on their roles and responsibilities. It is a risk-taking process that is catalyzed by the push for achievement. There are important components that any form of the partnership must enforce. First is a belief, which mainly involves partners’ skills for forming or managing a joint venture, capabilities, and promises. Secondly, trust plays a key role in ensuring that involved partners are capable of following through various commitments. This calls for well-nurtured associations and involvement. Lastly is the need for accountability. There are various anticipatable shortcomings of partnership and the involved parties must be responsible and accountable for the outcomes.
References
Birkin, M. A. (2000). Building the integrated company. England: Gower Publishing Limited.
Goldsmith, M. Et al. (2003). Global Leadership: The Next Generation. New York, NY: Financial Times Prentice Hall.
Laury, H. (2009). Growing Local Value: How to Build Business Partnerships That Strengthen Your Community. San Francisco, SF: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Pride, W. M., Hughes R. J., & Kapoor J.R. (2009). Business. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.