Strategic Leadership Agility Practice - British Telecom Group Ltd - Case Study Example

Strategic Leadership Agility Practice Student Name: Student Code: Unit Name: Unit Code: Lecture Name: Submission Date: Introduction Organizations survival in the highly dynamic business environment hinges on their ability to remain a head of the curve in their respective industries. The competence of organizations to accurately anticipate certain changes in the environment and form logical meaning out of these changes to enhance their adaptability is fundamental to their survival in turbulence periods. In agile organizations, learning and innovations aspects are inculcated into their culture thus making them transformational organizations. They keep on renewing themselves to keep in pace with the dynamics of business environment (Teece, Peteraf & Leih 2016). The objective of writing this essay is to have a personal reflection on everything I have learnt in this module: Development of strategic leadership module. I will use British Telecom (BT) Group as my study case to help explain how organizations are benefiting from the adoption of leadership agility practices. British Telecom (BT) Group ltd BT Group ltd is a state telecom operator serving the needs of clients from UK and over 170 other countries across the globe. The group of companies are among the world’s cream communication service providers whose main activities are to provide clients with fixed telephone lines, TV products and services, mobile, broadband and managing networked services (Company Spotlight: BT Group 2008). In addition, the companies also offer network services to operators who are licensed. BT Group encompasses companies that operate globally exposing it to extremely complex and turbulent global business environment. Continuous technological evolution across the globe makes BT Group susceptible to market shocks as the Group’s activities revolves and evolves around information technology IT (Company Spotlight: BT Group 2008). This poses continues challenge to the company’s strategic plans as technology will always evolve rendering the company’s original business strategy irrelevant. The dynamics in business environment has made it necessary for BT Group of companies to develop flexible strategies and leadership agility as its competitive weapon (Ojiako & Maguire 2009). Moreover, they have developed a sustainable business leadership team (SBLT) that helps to empower Group leaders on the need to be sustainable. The company’s leadership capabilities are inculcated to its values as shown in figure 1 in appendices. Organizational Leadership Agility Challenges Lack of Clear Communication Between Employees and Top Leadership Organizations particularly the multinational entities continue to grapple with problems of insufficient communications. Communication is very significant to the success of companies as it helps to share opinions and expectations of the organizations to their employees (Fourné, Jansen & Mom 2014). Leaders have to be able to communicate accurately the company’s strategic objectives and vision to their stakeholders.BT Group continue to remain fit in this turbulence business environment due to the Group’s proficiency in ensuring that there is open communication between the Group and all its stakeholders. This aspect has ensured that the group is able to act on the stakeholders ’demands through proper feedback thus continuing to be relevant to stakeholders. Changing of Leadership Model The hierarchical model of leadership associated with traditional leadership is becoming obsolete due to the current complexity in business environment. Traditional leadership style is based on hierarchical structures with different leadership levels (Lewis, Andriopoulos & Smith 2014). In this kind of leadership style, decisions are made from top down consuming a lot time. This kind of scenarios cannot be applicable in the dynamic business world where organizations not only need to react to changes instantly but have also to anticipate these changes in advance. BT Group has been able to tackle this challenge through development of leadership agility. This is a transformational and proactive kind of leadership which dwells on anticipating the market movements and changes in the business environment rather than staying in comfort zone and waiting to react (Tennant 2001). However, this new leadership models requires a complete overhaul of employees and leaders’ mindsets to accept it. To be able to succeed in changing leadership model, BT Group has ensured that their leadership capabilities are inculcated in the Group’s core values as shown in figure 1 in the appendices. Conflict Resolutions Conflicts are very common in organizations due to the dynamic team of employees from different walks of life with different ideas, potentials and backgrounds (Macaulay, Cook & Smith 2016). These employees have come together to achieve a common objective thus conflicts are prone to occurring. Constructive and healthy conflicts are always embraced as vital elements that spur up team performances (Buytendijk 2009). It is a challenge to leaders to encourage employees to have constructed and healthy conflicts that can result into comprehensive decisions for best interest of the organization.BT Group through its value of respecting human dignity ensures that every stakeholder’s contribution is of great importance to the organization and must be considered during decision. The Group’s leaders endeavor to always encourage employees to resolve conflicts amicably as they are always prone to occurring among people who work together for the same objectives passionately. Evaluation of BT Group’s Organizational Leadership Agility Evaluation of BT Group’s organizational leadership agility can be done via leadership agility index. This index measures the 12 leadership agility practices as applied by the organization. BT Group has embraced organizational leadership agility, an aspect that has enhanced the overall performances of the Group in turbulences and extremely complex business environment (Weber & Tarba 2014). Identifying the 12 leadership agility practices with organizational leaders is very fundamental as it aids in detecting organizational problems and how to rectify them in order to improve its sustainability. 12 leadership agility practices as exhibited by BT Group ltd Personal Value Sensitivity BT Group understands the importance of stability within the organization and that is why the group uses shared value index to combine stability with transformational strategic thinking to enhance its business sustainability. To ensure that communication services and products provided by BT Group are not interfered with during turbulence periods in the wider business environment, the Group needs to be stable. This company attribute has aided the group to withstand business challenges while mobilizing employees to surpass their target goals (Coleman 2017). However, it should be noted that despite all this challenges, the company endeavors to focus solely on providing quality communication services and products to customers. Sense Make-Give BT Group is an information technology firm thus proper studies about technological trends must always be conducted to help back the decision making process. This is why the Group has given employees complete discretion of coming up with appropriate ways of enhancing its communication services and products which they provide to customers. Create Learning BT Group understands the fact that they operate in extremely challenging business environment and must devise ways of dealing with these challenges. In this regard, the Group continues to inspire its employees to come up with new ideas of improving their services and products to customers to maintain the competency of the group in the communication industry. To create a learning culture, the group organizes workshops and on job trainings and sponsors its employees to undertake extra studies. Mindful Impact Important organizations decisions affecting varied stakeholders are carefully made after serious considerations of their impacts. There exist information technology expert teams both from within the company and external to help in evaluation of important technical decisions of the company and give appropriate advice. This in turn helps BT Group to make informed decisions that can hardly have diverstating impact on key stakeholders even during extremely turbulence periods. Emotional Intelligence BT Group values contribution of all stakeholders in its quest to enhance its communication services and products to its customers. the voice of employees is well respected in the company to ensure that the company understands the grievances of employees and ensures that it provides feedbacks (Macaulay, Cook & Smith 2016). This aspect seems to be the reason the company experiences minimal conflicts among employees and with key stakeholders as a whole. Access Capability The Group’s employees are the engines in which the success of company hinges on, due to IT knowledge they possess. As a result of this aspect, BT Group ltd has ensured that it recruits and retains IT experts who are then inspired to lead various departments of the company. Cultural Competency BT Group is a multinational company; thus it has people from different cultural backgrounds. The company understands the importance cultural diversity and that is why it values this diversity as an important intangible asset. Employees are encouraged to embrace diversity at workplace and learn from one another experiences for the best interest of the organization. One to Many Dialogue BT Group handles customers’ sensitive information that is tapped through their communications thus always seeks to seek to control the kind of information that employees have to learn in organization. This helps to avert cases where customers’ vital information is exposed to much public scrutiny. Total Leadership BT Group management always encourages employees to focus on the company’s main objectives and mission as guiding principles even during turbulence periods. This why the company has been able maintain its sustainability in the challenging business environment. One On One Dialogue I feel that BT Group encourages formal training of new employees to impact on them company values. The company uses one on one dialogue to enhance on job training of BT Group employees. Moreover, I also realize that BT Group attaches employees to senior communication and IT experts in organization to learn more on how to carry out their duties in the company. Performance Challenge Looking keenly on the operations of BT Group, I feel that the company has put in place proper structures that encourage employee feedback to challenge them surpass their targets. Employee feedback regarding their performances helps to motivate employees to strive to improve their performances which benefit the organization. Agility Resilience BT Group operates in extremely an extremely complex environment where competition is very stiff. In this regard, the company values new ideas and innovations to help the organization withstand the challenges posed by the business environment. When I evaluate this company, I see a company that is sensitive to the demands of stakeholders and always strive to come up with new ideas of satisfying this demands even better than competitors can do. Evaluation of Organizational Leadership Agility It is important to evaluate organizational leadership agility to help improve on practices that scores low points on the leadership agility index. From my evaluation of BT Group leadership agility, I feel that there is need for the company leadership to improve on one on one dialogue in order to capture vital skills that can be helpful from employees (Weber& Tarba 2014). Moreover, there is need to improve on Total leadership practices to help the smooth running transition from old leadership styles to new leadership model. Similarly, the company should up its efforts on its emotional intelligence to minimize employee conflicts within the organization. Finally, I also believe that it will important to improve the company’s one to many dialogue in order to enhance better communication in the organization. Another way of evaluating organizational leadership agility is to carry out organization’s environmental analysis using models such as SWOT analysis. SWOT Analysis This analysis helps to analyze both internal and external organization’s environment. it helps to identify the strength and weaknesses of the organization as well as determining the opportunities and threats posed by its external environment (Coleman 2017). Organizations’ leadership agility is evaluated through their abilities to accurately analyze their environment and how they use their internal strengths to maximize the opportunities presented by external environment and minimizes the impact of threats. It is important to understand that the turbulence business environment always presents both opportunities and threats thus it is up to organizations to properly utilize opportunities and minimize threats. Figure 2 in the appendices shows SWOT analysis. Development Plan to Increase my own Leadership Agility One On One Dialogue I believe I can develop my own plan to increase my leadership agility based on what I have learnt in this module through the help of models such GROW model (Tennant 2001). This model will help me determine my Goals in organization, ascertain where I am in terms of achieving my goals (Reality), attempt to close the existing gap between what the organization expects (change Options) from me and my current reality. Having evaluated all the available options, I will adopt the best option through my personal Will to move ahead with the required changes. The adoption of GROW model will also help develop my mentoring prowess in organization. This will also shape the way I deal with employees through determining what their goals are and help to challenge them to achieve their goals. Cultural Competency I understand the importance of diversity in organizations as it enhances the innovative aspect of organizations. It is this regard that I will always encourage employees to use their diversity to help generate divergent views and ideas that can help improve the decision making process (Sinar, Wellins & Neal 2015). The understanding that employees are from different cultural background but have one common objective in the organization will be guiding principle to help embrace their differences positively. A practical example can emanate from the fact that I am from Europe and dealing with our employees in East particularly from Asian countries can be very challenging due to cultural differences. They believe in saving face and quite often I may find myself injuring employees face. One to Many Dialogue I believe that communication in organization is paramount in ensuring that employees do what is right. Therefore, I will try to eliminate all factors that deter proper communication in organization. I will always check my attitude to ensure that it does not interfere with communication between me and employees. Moreover, I will also need to be able to check the emotions and attitudes of my intended audiences to ensure that they are in a good mental state to receive the information. Working in a multinational organization, it becomes very challenging to have one to many dialogues. I will therefore need to improve my email, phone and video conferencing to ensure that information flow in organization is not interfered with. Total Leadership Organizations need to eliminate all the barriers that exist between management and employees. On this note, to increase my leadership agility, I indent to endear myself to all employee in order to earn their trusts. I indent to do this through challenging employees to achieve their goals and ensuring they feel their contributions are valuable to organization (Lewis, Andriopoulos & Smith 2014). It is important for managers and leaders to inspire and coach employees and not only ordering them to deliver results. Thus I intend to intensify my engagement with employees to make them feel part of the organization and practice what I preach. Tracking of Progress I believe that it is important to track the progress of organizational leadership agility development in order to help improve in those practices that have low points on leadership agility index. From the knowledge that I have acquainted myself with in this module, I believe that the use of feedback tool such as a 360-degree feedback is the best to measure the development plan of increasing leadership agility both on personal level as well as organizational levels (Buytendijk 2009). The kind of feedback that one gets from subordinates, supervisors, self-evaluations and from peers reveals your progress levels. Positive feedback is a manifestation that the organizational or personal leadership agility development is on the right track and the opposite is true. A Summary of How I Intend to Increase My Own Leadership Agility I believe that what I have learnt in this module in regard to how I can increase my leadership agility will forever stand to guide me in my future career endeavors. Through the understanding of models such as GROW model (Goals, Reality, change Option and Will), I believe my one on one dialogue leadership agility has been shaped immensely, thus I intend to use this acquired skills to enhance the way I deal with employees by finding out what are their goals in organizations and challenging them to surpass these goals. The module has also helped me understand the importance of embracing cultural diversity in the organization. In this regard, I intend to increase my leadership agility by encouraging employees to use their diversity to generate divergent views and ideas to help improve decision making process. Similarly, communication in organization is important in ensuring that all employees are on right trajectory. Thus to develop my one on many dialogue leadership agility, I intend to eliminate all factors that deter proper communication in organizations through ensuring that my attitude does not hinder communication between me and other employees. I intend to improve my email, phone and video conferencing to ensure there is smooth information flow in organization. I also intend to offer total leadership in organization through increasing my engagement with employees to make them feel part and parcel of the organizational decision making process and always practice what I preach in the organization. Finally, I intend to ensure that I regularly track the progress of my leadership agility development in order to aid me improve on those leadership agility practices that will be having low leadership agility index. Conclusion From the above deliberations, it is clear that contemporary organizations like BT Group operate in complex and turbulent business environment. This is a challenge they have to content with thus those who can combine stability and transformational thinking are able to remain fit in the turbulence business environment. In this regard, organizations are now embracing new leadership model: leadership agility to be able to juggle around in this challenging environment. Leadership agility helps organizations to withstand various challenges that they face to remain competitive in their respective industries that they operate. It is also vivid that leadership plans increase both personal and organizational leadership agility and ensure that the progress of this leadership development plan is tracked regularly for corrective measures to be taken Bibliography Buytendijk, F.,2009, Performance Leadership: The Next Practices to Motivate Your People, Align Stakeholders, and Lead Your Industry, New York: McGraw-Hill Professional. Coleman, J., 2017, “The Best Strategic Leaders Balance Agility and Consistency”, Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 2-5. BT Group., 2008, “Market Watch: Global Round-up”, Company Spotlight, 7(11), 254-260. BT Group., 2008, “MarketWatch: Telecoms”, Company Spotlight 7(11), 13-19. Fourné, S. L., Jansen, J. P., & Mom, T. M., 2014, Strategic Agility in “Mnes: Managing Tensions to Capture Opportunities across Emerging and Established Markets”, California Management Review, 56(3), 13-38. Lewis, M. W., Andriopoulos, C., & Smith, W. K., 2014, “Paradoxical Leadership to Enable Strategic Agility”, California Management Review, 56(3), 58-77. Macaulay, S., Cook, S., & Smith, R., 2016, “Transformation Trends”, Training Journal, 30-34. Ojiako, U., & Maguire, S., 2009, “Seeking the perfect customer experience: a case study of British Telecom” Strategic Change, 18(5/6), 179-193. Sinar, E., Wellins, R. S., & Neal, S., 2015, “Seeing Leadership Differently” Training, 52(3), 32-36. Teece, D., Peteraf, M., & Leih, S., 2016, “Dynamic Capabilities and Organizational Agility: RISK, Uncertainty, And Strategy In The Innovation Economy”, California Management Review, 58(4), 13-35. Tennant, R., 2001, “Building Agile Organizations” Library Journal, 126(7), 30. Weber, Y., & Tarba, S. Y., 2014, “Strategic Agility: A State of the Art” California Management Review, 56(3), 5-12. Wilson, A., 2008, Leadership capabilities aligned to BT’s values, retrieved from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjDltOf2rrTAhUkBcAKHdPQCqwQFghAMAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcontent.iriss.org.uk%2Fpepe2008%2Ffiles%2FKeynote_Alex_Wilson.ppt&usg=AFQjCNGTt1aCZac5gETuoNlD33oi-aGFNw Appendices Figure 1: BT leadership agility aligned to its values Source: Wilson, A. (2008). Figure 2: SWOT analysis Source: self-generated Read More