Developing Strategic Management and Leadership Skills

DEVELOPING STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP SKILLS LECTURER: Ms. SEETHA. A EDEXCEL ASSIGNMENT

YASHWARDHAN JAIN STUDENT ID: 105757-87 WORD COUNT: 1755 22nd July, 2011

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Table of Content Sr. no. Topic 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Introduction Leadership and Leadership Theories Situational Leadership Transformational Leadership Situational v/s Transformational Evaluation of Leadership style Page no. 3 3 4 5 6 7

Link between Strategic Management and 8 Leadership Conclusion 9 Recommendation References and Bibliography 9 10

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Introduction: A book store which has been underperforming over a period of time is acquired by a leisure business with a long term objective of making it a most profitable venture of its corporation. The overall awareness of business in the market is quite high with a captivating pleasant service environment which would have aided this decision of the leisure company. Even though there is a good market the business has been underperforming and prime reason for this is its demotivated employees. The task of the new manager/ leader is to lead his team out of this crisis by creating an environment that motivates and encourages employees to work. This report would deal with the analysis of the given situation with the help of various theories and models and then suggest the best possible leadership style in this particular situation. Introduction to Leadership and Leadership theories: Leadership has evolved a great deal over the period of time. It started with great man theories and has come a long way to transformational leadership, but till today there is no conclusion which particular leadership style is the best. Leadership styles vary from person to person and from situation to situation. The two traditional leadership theories are Trait and behavioral leadership theories. Trait leadership started from Great Man theory and describes that presence of certain traits in individuals personality makes him a leader. Few of these traits are Charisma, communication skills, confidence etc but there are no consistent traits identified that states that presence or absence of these traits makes a leader. This gave way to a new set of leadership theories called behavioral leadership emphasizing on human relationship, output and performance. (Bolden, Gosling, Marturano and Dennison, 2003). According to this theory there are certain set of behaviors that differentiate leaders from non leaders. The main point of differentiation between trait and behavioral leadership is that Trait theories believe leaders are born not made where as behavioral theories believe leadership can be taught.

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Situational leadership: According to the studies conducted by Ohio State University and the University of Michigan in 1950s there is no one best style of leadership. For building a successful team a leader must adopt different leadership style depending upon the circumstances, motivation level of followers, leader follower relationship etc. The various models of situational leadership are as follows: Hersey and Blanchards situational leadership theory (1977) supports the concept of situational leadership. This model is based upon the readiness level of the followers, and on that basis they have identified four different styles of leadership viz telling, selling, participating and delegating. Out of these there is no one best leadership style an effective leader can adopt Vroom and Yettons (1973) normative leadership decision model states that effective leadership necessitates taking decisions based on situations. They identified five different styles of leadership depending upon situation and level of commitment or participation of the followers in decision making process viz autocratic type1, autocratic type 2, consultative type1, and consultative type 2 and group based type 2. The Path goal theory of leadership as developed by Robert House (1971) concentrates on two major aspects viz., matching the leadership style to the situation and steps to be taken by leader to improve productivity and morale. According to this theory a leader must adopt any one of the four leadership styles of directive, supportive, participative and achievement oriented depending upon characteristics of member (organizational characteristic) and demands of the task (environmental characteristic) All the situational leadership models identify different leadership styles which they suggest should be used in different situations. They believe that leaders are effective only when they adjust their behavior depending on situational forces including people and task in hand. (Dubrin, 2007)

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Transformational Leadership: Transformational leadership was first introduced by James Macgregor Burns. According to Burns transformational leadership can be seen when leaders and followers make each other to advance to a higher level of morale and motivation. A transformational leader is one with vision and passion; he instills this vision and passion into his followers and energizes them to achieve great things. (Bhargave, 2003) There are four Is of Transformational leadership. These are called as its components/elements: Idealized Influence: The values of transformational leader and his conviction on it, his charisma develop a sense of trust and respect in the hearts and minds of followers. People accept him as a role model and his ideals. Inspirational Motivation: The strong communication skill of a transformational leader helps him to convey his message in persuasive way which develops an inviolable sense of purpose which motivates them to adhere to expectation level of the leader. Intellectual stimulation: Transformational leader encourages new way of doing things by challenging their status quo. He promotes creativity in the followers by taking away the fear of failure. Individualized attention: Transformational leader promotes supportive relationship by providing individual attention and required help and encouragement to the followers. This attitude fulfills individuals need of self-actualization that makes them self motivated to achieve greater heights. (Bhargava, 2003)

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Difference between situational and transformational leadership: Point of Difference Situational Leadership Situational Leader isnt much about concerned about developing peoples awareness about themselves Accomplishing Task by using appropriate leadership style depending on situation Relationship between leader and follower is highly dependent on the situation and the style adopted by leader. Adopts short term and narrow task related perspective His vision and passion is not transferred to the followers Transformational Leadership A Transformational leader always wants people to recognize their strength, develop it and exceed their past performance. Orientation is towards developing people and making them independent leader themselves Leader and follower help each other to achieve higher level of moral and motivation

Peoples awareness themselves

Orientation

Leader follower relationship

Perspective towards work Creating a Vision

Adopts more of a long range, broad perspective His Vision and Passion is instilled deeply in to the followers

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Evaluation of leadership style on the basis of current scenario: The new owners of the business have two goals a short term and a long term goal. The short term goal is to make this business place an exciting place for customer to shop in and the long term one is to make it the most profitable business of their corporation. The major problem that they are facing is low employee motivation and commitment towards work. As major problem is related to the work force and they are the one who can make this place a better shopping experience for customers, all the approach, strategies, and plans must be focused on them. It is better in this scenario that we adopt a combination of situation and transformational leadership which would be called as SIFORMATIONAL leadership i.e., transforming the current situation with keeping future goal in mind and transformational leadership to instill that passion and culture within the organization that would help it achieve its long term goal of making it the most profitable business because until and unless the employees do not make it a part of their personal goal it will not possible to achieve this target. Situational leadership would solve this current problem of employee demotivation. In this particular situation we could adopt a more participative approach. The new CEO must try to understand employee grievances and the reasons for their low motivation level. He must try to involve them in decision making process and make them realize that how contribution of each and every employee is important to the organizations success.

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Understanding Strategic management, leadership and their relationship: In the given scenario it is very apparent that the company lacks good leadership and a clear goal. With its acquisition by the leisure company the goal is set that the company wants this business to be its most profitable business in the coming future but now it needs a proper strategic planning and management backed by strong leadership to accomplish this goal. In todays cut throat competitive business environment strategic planning is a must. Companies that do not have a proper strategic plan are at a disadvantage when compared to the companies who have one. According to Ohmae (1982-91) strategic management is pursuit of superior performance by using a strategy that ensures a better or stronger matching of corporate strengths to customer needs than is provided by competitors. Strategic management is primarily used to manage various sections/departments and resources at work effectively and efficiently to get maximum return on investment. The strategies made needs implementation, if not implemented correctly they are just like a key getting rusted if not used, and without proper leadership it is very difficult to implement any strategy. According to Paul Thornton (2004) Leadership is a process of helping individuals, teams and organization become more and achieve more than they ever thought possible. From the above explanation it can be said that the link between strategic management is that, leadership is defining our targets and strategic management is overseeing issues in attaining those targets. Both are complementary to each other. Strategic management makes strategies for attainment of organizational objectives and leadership helps in implementation of those strategies. Similarly a leader makes strategic plans and implements them through effective management techniques. So we can say that both are interdependent on each other. The term used to describe this link between the two complementary sets is STRAEGIC LEADERSHIP. One may define strategic leadership as the ability of a leader who has the wisdom and vision to create and execute plans and make consequential decisions in the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous strategic environment.(Michael Guillot, 2003)
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Conclusion: According to Mary D. Poole (2011) Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing. If we see the current scenario of the company, its future goals and the kind of leadership required Pooles word fits the situation perfectly. The leadership style and the steps to be taken mentioned above will definitely help the company to solve this problem of employee demotivation and make most out of the strong business opportunity it has got and make this venture a more profitable and fulfilling for everyone involved in companys affairs.

Recommendation: Two points can be recommended to the company to sustain a competitive advantage in the market. First, there should be proper flow of information related to current happenings and new development in business within the company so that this information can be used to gain a competitive advantage and second, a combination of situational and transformational leadership should be used to motivate employees internally so that they willingly work for progress of the company.

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Bibliography and References: Dubrin, A. (2004) Leadership- Research Findings, Practice and Skills. 4th edn. USA: Houghton Mifflin Company. Bhargava, S, (2003) Transformational Leadership. New Delhi: Sage Publication Ltd. Chen, M. and Rybak, C. (2004) Group Leadership Skills. Canada: Thomas Learning, Inc. Western, S. (2008) Leadership- A critical text. London: Sage Publication, Inc. Dubrin, A. (2007) Leadership- Research Findings, Practice and skills Indian Adaptation. New Delhi: Biztantra. Thornton, P. (2004) Leadership Defined. Indiana: Unlimited Publishing LLC. Gulliot, M. (2003) Strategic Leadership defining the challenge. http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj03/win03/guillot.html Available at

Hersey, P. and Blanchard, K. (1997) Managing Organizational Behavior: Utilizing Human Resource. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. Bolden, R., Gosling, J., Marturano, A. and Dennison, P. A Review of leadership theory and competency framework. Exeter: University of Exeter, 2003. [e-book]. Available at: http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/cls/documents/mgmt_standards.pdf [Accessed: 7th july, 2011] Hughes. R., Ginnett, R., and Curphy. G., (2006) Leadership-Enhancing the lessons of experience. 5th edn. New Delhi: Tata Mcgraw Hill Yuki, G. (2006) Leadership in Organisation. 6th edn. New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd. Daft, R. (1999) Leadership- Theory and Practice. USA: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Burke. R. and Cooper, C. (2004) Leading in Turbulent Times. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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