Organisational Success and Leadership Matter - Essay Example

Organisational Success: Leadership Matter Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Leadership effective and organizational success Effective leadership does matter in influencing the organizational success. Organsiational leadership is expected to inspire and win the commitment of the employees. Able leaders in any given organization, have distinct and unique outlooks, strategies, and sets of skills and practices that can be learned and emulated. It is imperative for any successful leaders to seek to understand the organizational systems, its people and themselves and how they fit in the context. Leadership according to (Srivastava et al, 2006, p. 239) is one word that can actually be interpreted different ways. It is one of the many words that have continued to stir debate and opinions from various quotas and eliciting different perceptions about it with others seeing it as a set of personality traits, position characteristics and even behaviors. Irrespective of what kind of organization, leadership is very fundamental in influencing organizational success. The essay will present arguments that depict organizational success is related with effective leadership and this will make use of the transformational and transactional leadership theories to better explain why organizational success is depended on effective leadership. Leadership can be defined as the process through which a person can influence others to working towards accomplishing given objectives and at the same time directs the organization in such away that it remains cohesive and coherent. This definition is similar to that given by Northhouse (2007, p. 3) which states that leadership entails the process of where an individual influences the team or a group in working towards achieving a common goal. In a competitive business environment, leadership is important in ensuring sustainability of the business. This is by designing those strategies that seek to create a link with the external environment and management of those external factors that can impact on the performance of the business. The organization’s objective number one is to increase productivity and make profits in order to create value for the investors’ money. This therefore implies that an effective leadership can be measured in terms of performance and revenues generated from company ventures. Litsa (2004, pp. 237), argues that even though an organization may have good internal policies, connecting them with the external environment is very critical. This then goes further to bring into discussion the element of organizational goals and objectives. The purpose of an organizational leadership is to clearly stipulate what the organizational goals and objectives are and what is expected of each and the forces that may be on the way while trying to achieve them. Great leadership is characterized with its ability to inspire the rest of the team by always letting them get informed of what is happening within and outside the organization and the likely impact on the overall processes and operations within the business. Communication is therefore very instrumental in influencing the performance of the organization. This is because apart from explaining the company goals and objectives, mission and vision statements are also well elaborated through effective communication Michael (2002, p. 36). Ideas and opinions about leadership over the past view years, has changed drastically. This is in relation to what has been known to be the role of the leaders and that is now different according to the perceptions of different employees. This is because of the rapid change in technology which has continued to impact positively on the advancement in communication and leadership as well as skills that are no longer the same. What this means therefore for the organization, is that effective leadership should be the one that seeks to keep pace with regard to technological change so as to be able to bring into the organization different ways of doing business. Further, the training approaches used by the leaders have also continued to change and for the leaders to make the organization more successful, they ought to engage themselves more and have to lead the rest of the organizational team by example. (Sanjaghi, 2000, p. 23) argues that effective leadership should also be the one that seeks to get the necessary support from the subordinate staff. ((Litsa 2004, p. 221) states that different people do have different views and opinions about leadership styles and how they have been required and how they influence the reaction to different situations. What this implies is that leadership skills possessed by an individual are important in facilitating good and effective responses to various business situations. Leadership according to (Dewan & Myatt 2008, p. 356) is something that can be easily achieved by very difficult to maintain. This is because leadership is all about the ability to diligently and effectively as opposed to being in position. Different people do hold different views as to what leadership is and that it is something that cannot be asked for but can only be achieved by attaining high level competence in skills and traits and attitude. What this means is that for a leader to be effective and lead the organization to greater prosperity, must only have one such as education and experience but a range of qualities that will improve his competence as a leader. Leaders are not leaders unless they are in possession of qualities that make them outstanding from the rest in terms of leading, inspiring and motivating others. Any successful organization is always characterized by the way in which duties and responsibilities are assigned and taken by the staff. However, the leadership is always charged on the degree of embracing responsibility. Being a leader is not about being sitted in a given position without doing any constructive business planning. This can be determined from the attitude one has towards his work and job. It is expected that a successful orgnisation is based on trust has been structured and founded within an organization. Being in leadership, no doubt that there will always be followers and to lead them effectively towards organizational goals and objectives, to win their trust is very critical. It is expected that great leaders and who can make successful leaders, are able to influence rest of the staff and the society as a whole given their unique traits. According to Clawson (2011, p. 347) transformational leaders have the capability to initiate changes that will have impact on the productivity and performance of the business. He further argues that with the transformational leadership, it is always possible for the organization build a strong foundation for attaining better results. On the other hand, the transactional leaders work in different grounds and they always seek to create those structures that are clear both for themselves and their subordinates. According to Michael (2002, p. 33), comparing transformational and transactional leaderships, at earlier stage of transactional leadership is always considered for negotiating contracts. Many people do thing that it always looks obsessive to try and find out what entails an effective leader and ensure successful organization. This is because with the ever changing world of business, different orgamisations are going global and experience of the multicultural environment for every leader is almost assured. What this calls from organizational leadership is deeper understanding of cultural practices that affect organizational teams and how effectively they can be managed to while focusing on the competencies of the groups in the performance of the organization. (Litsa 2004, p. 217) the role of the leader in the global business world, is not about combining the position and the title or rank but much more. The position or the title can is identified as the vehicle through which the leadership can ensure that certain tasks can be achieved. In simple terms, the role of the leader is to lead and act but the role of a successful leader is to act within the prescribed organizational values take the organization to the next level of performance. In many instances, it has been established that it’s very easy to spot a company that is headed for failure whereas a successful organization is working towards maximizing the available abilities, skills and talents to reaching greater performance. However, as a matter of fact, not all leaders who have the capacity to impact positively on the performance of the organization but only those who have the capacity to create an impression and stand out from the rest can manage to contribute to organizational success. The success of any organization in the current business environment where competition is very stiff is directly depended on the available leadership. More often than not, managers can never be compared with leaders but they must they need to be leaders. This is because they are considered the builders of both organizations and people. It could be actually very wrong to carry and embrace the notion that leadership is not associated with organizational managers as they also have a stake in the company direction according to Clawson (2011, p. 349). Even though leadership continues to vary because of a number of reasons which include gender, culture, experience, education level, values and individual traits, the bottom-line is that organizational success is paramount irrespective of the leadership style that one embraces according to (Dewan & Myatt, 2008, p.314). World over various leaders have demonstrated that effective leadership is directly related to organizational success. In the Australian business industry, there are various leaders who have been considered as transformational leaders and that have contributed positively to the financial performance of their organizations. Janine Allis, is one of those leaders that have been very effective and have boosted greatly on the performance of the organizations. Janine Allis is the founder and the General Manager of Boost Juice Bars which are the fasted growing juice and smoothie. Being the founder of the company Janine has, a good understanding of almost every aspect of the business including floor painting, juice making and negotiating purchases other juices bar chains. Being in possession of these skills, Janine was able to learn about the various aspects of the growing business and how they can be developed. Further Janine’s leadership is characterized by naturalist, warmth, friendliness and giving as well as inspiring. This has helped her motivate his staff in working towards achieving greater results (Dewan & Myatt, 2008, p.351). Further, Janine has been very cautious on the kind of the relationship that she has with her staff, since she is very aware the success of his firm greatly depended on the employees she has. On the other hand, in fast growing economies like China and India, competition is the order of the day and yet organizations have continued to do very well in terms of financial performance and growth. Just to illustrate, Mukesh Ambani, is big and very common in the Asian markets and who can be possibly categorized as a transformational leader. His business and leadership styles are very unique from the majority of the leaders. This has earned himself numerous awards as a result of demonstrating great competencies in organizational leadership. In 2006, Mukesh Ambani, was appointed the ET Business Leader. In 2004, Ambani had been ranked the 42nd most respected leader and the second best performing CEO in India according to the survey conducted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and published in the London Time of November 2004. Ambani has also been influential leader in the Telecommunication industry of India. With these examples, it can be argued that different leaders have their own styles and traits in relation to leadership and which are distinct from the others, however, most notably is the ability of different leaders to be able to achieve the financial obligations of their organizations. This is because effective are always able to position themselves in such away that their followers will be able to consider appropriate according to (Goleman et al, 2002, p. 67). On the other hand, transactional leaders are known to employ the ‘management by exception’ approach whereby the leadership puts more effort on those areas that business plans are not working as ought to be so as to improve on them. In conclusion, leadership styles are different from one person to the other and are determined by such factors as traits, skills, values, attitudes and experiences. However, most important is the way utilization factors to make sure that he has a successful run of the business. According to Ozgoli (2004, p. 114) organizational success cannot be achieved by leaders in isolation but they have to engage the followers. This is because the rest of the people must know what the leadership is doing and in order to make them believe in them and support their ideas. References Clawson, J.G. (2011). Level Three Leadership: Getting Below the Surface. 5th Edn, Prentice Hall: New York. Dewan, T., & Myatt, D. (2008). Qualities of Leadership: Communication, direction and obfuscation. American Political Science Review, 102(3), p. 351 – 368. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R.E., & McKee, A. (2002). Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Litsa N. (2004). 'Business Leaders', Journal of environment and Leadership Styles. 52(3), p. 407–427. Moghali, Ali Reza (2002). "Designing Transformational Leadership Model in Iranian Administrative Organizations, Management Knowledge, vol. 62 Ozgoli, M. (2004). Strategic Perspective Leadership. Tehran: Imam Hossein University Publications. Sanjaghi, M. (2000). "The Role and Function of Cultural Factors in Transformational Leadership", Journal of management knowledge, 50(13), p. 23-47 Srivastava, A., Bartol, K. & Locke, E. (2006). Empowering leadership in management teams: effects on knowledge sharing, efficacy, and performance. Academy of Management Journal, 49, p. 1239-1251. Read More