Leadership Qualities in me

Leadership is all about building trust and relationship between you and your followers. It is the ability to influence people by showing them the right direction. A good leader always listens to the followers and motivates them to excel. The leadership style followed by a leader can take a company to heights and sometime even to downfall. Leadership style followed in the organisation varies according to the environment and the purpose of the organization.

For being a good leader one needs to be honest, it doesn’t matter how honest are you. But, when leading a team then you need to increase the level of honesty.  Whatever you do as a leader the kind of behaviour you show, it presents the image of your company and the employees tend to follow the same. A leader needs to have ability to delegate the task among different people and have trust on the employees. A leader should have good communication skills, as in business environment you need to make a clear picture of your vision and targets to your employees. Also, to guide them what are they suppose do and what would be the outcomes. A leader should be committed to his work, by showing his dedication at work he not only gains respect but also encourages the employees to do the same. A leader should never kill his/her positive attitude, whatever may be the situation keep your employee motivated and boost their energy level. This would divert them from the stress of work (Forbes 2012).

I got influenced by the leadership of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and he was a transformational leader. He used to follow what he said. India is a diverse culture country and he was the only leader to influence people of all groups, irrespective of their cast and community. He always lead by example, he followed the policy of non-violence and lead the Dandi march in 1930. He never treated people with humility and treated everyone as equal. For example, the letter he wrote to senior leader or even to children he followed same approach there were no sign of superiority shown by him. This showed how ethical he was. He was able to communicate well to people and was able to understand their feelings. He was a confident person and he didn’t have a great personality. He followed a simple life, but his confidence in himself held the people to follow him as a leader. And his leadership qualities helped India to gain Independence (Forbes 2011).

In order to talk about my own leadership style, I am a democratic leader. I like to listen to people and takes equal part in each activity within the group. I also have the ability to influence people by giving the actual justification to my views. Moreover, I am an honest and confident person. I have a never say die approach to my work. But when the issue is related to being ethical then I would behave as an autocrat and would take the decisions of my own. And I would not follow the wrong practices against the ethics. According to my colleagues, I am a good team member who collaborates, get involved, and concentrate on the task, a good listener, more practical, persistent and patient person. All these characteristic would help me to grow as a leader in IT industry.

There is always a scope of improvement and no one is perfect. I would like to improve on my communication skills as it is the most important factor to lead people. And one should have the ability to express himself. I would also concentrate on being more creative and to think beyond the limits. I am always able to complete my work on time. However, it takes me a lot of time to accomplish a task, so I would like to improve my time management skills. I am good at performing my own work, but do not have the ability to delegate work. This would increase burden on myself and might affect my performance in long term. For this I should develop an ability to delegate work within a group (Vincent, K. 2013).

References

Forbes (2011) Two Lessons from India’s Greatest Leader – Gandhi [online] available from <http://www.forbes.com/sites/karlmoore/2011/08/22/2-lessons-from-indiasgreatest-leader-gandhi/2/> [17 December 2013]

Forbes (2012) Top 10 Qualities That Make A Great Leader [online] available from < http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaprive/2012/12/19/top-10-qualities-that-make-a-great-leader/2/ > [17 December 2013]

Vincent, K. (2013) ‘Effective leadership’. FMCG [online] 19(8), 40. Available from < http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=995134d3-186b-4ab8-927b-f5bdebb7d813%40sessionmgr111&vid=40&hid=119 > [17 December 2013]

Ethical leadership

Ethical leadership, defining it as “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement and decision-making”… [and] the evidence suggests that ethical leader behavior can have important positive effects on both individual and organizational effectiveness

Ethics are the values and activities that are associated with doing something right or wrong. But, there is no clear perspective to differentiate between right and wrong. It becomes difficult for individuals to follow ethics in companies as they are not clear about them. In order to follow ethics in a business, one needs to know the vision and strategy of the organization and where they want to reach. This would decide the work ethics to be adapted by the organisation (Mullins 2013:677).

According to Barker, it is the leader who plays important role in promoting ethics at work place. If the leader doesn’t make decisions that are ethical and doesn’t show ethical behaviour themselves, this would discourage the staff to follow ethics (Mullins 2013:664). For example- if leader discriminate between employees on the basis of race, gender, religion etc. than this would spread a wrong message among the staff.

Ethical leadership is promotion of ideas, values, approach and good conduct that leads towards ethical behaviour. An ethical leader do not only show good conduct, but encourage the employees to do well. According to brown, a good ethical leader is the combination of morally good person and good manager. A morally good person is one who is honest, fair play, selfless, understands the felling of others and is a good listener. This kind of behaviour helps a leader to excel. But, this won’t all alone be enough to be an ethical leader. The leader should make a fair image in minds of the followers, for this he need to be a morally good manager. A leader should take care of his behaviour and convey the relevance of ethical decision taken at the organisation; this would promote the ethical behavior among the followers (Martinez, R. 2011:590).

There are two different approaches to business ethics, i.e. Milton Friedman’s shareholder- centred view, which states that business should make maximum profit for the shareholder by abiding by the rules and regulations. On the other hand, Cannon’s stakeholder theory states that the business should generate jobs, provide better goods and services, and improve its position by contributing to the society. For example, utilization of company resources to help in regional project could be good for the stakeholders and could be waste of money for shareholders. Moreover, a company that focuses on the long term benefits of their shareholders, might also advantage the stakeholders indirectly. For example, by giving better goods and services to the customer, build better relation between supplier and company and better ambience for the employees (Mullins 2013:677-678).

Let’s talk about the ethical issues of most booming industry i.e. Information Technology. In 1986 Mason summarized the computer ethical issues into four sections.

• Intellectual property– it worries about copyrights of information, as the information can be easily copied by anyone and spread over.
• Privacy- the fear of losing out private data which is stored on computers, due to lack of quality of  software and malfunction techniques used by hackers.
• Accessibility- it is the ability to access the available information, but sometime is hampered due to money demands.
• Accuracy- as there is not a proper control over the data published on the internet; it may lead to spread of wrong information among the people (Coklar, A. 2012).

To solve these problem to an extent IT companies have defined there code of business conduct and ethics (COBCE). For example, Wipro in its COBCE focuses on being ethical and take care of its stakeholders as well as the shareholders. And for its intellectual property rights, they get signatures of all the employees for maintaining the secrecy of the companies. They have given instruction to employees to use the material of others only when they are licensed to do so (Wipro 2012:17). In 2012, Wipro was named in the list of ‘World’s Most Ethical Companies’ by Ethisphere Institute at the US (Anon 2012).

In order to follow ethical leadership, one needs to balance the stakeholder view and shareholder centred view. The decision that leaders make and the behaviour they show plays an important role on the minds of an individual in the organisation.

References

Anon (2012) ‘Two Indian Firms in World’s Most Ethical companies’. Siliconindia [online] 15(4), 10. Available from < http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=342ee8fa-4461-4aec-919c-e82c969befb8%40sessionmgr111&vid=23&hid=119 > [16 December 2013]

Coklar, A. (2012) ‘ICT ethical leadership scale (ICTELS): A study of reliability and validity on Turkish pre-service teachers’. International Journal of Human Sciences [online] 9(1), 82-101. Available from < http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=e7a74776-4fc1-45d9-8046-96c5aeef0637%40sessionmgr112&vid=8&hid=117  > [15 December 2013]

Martinez, R., and Ruiz, P. (2011) ‘Improving the ‘‘Leader–Follower’’ Relationship:  Top Manager or Supervisor? The Ethical Leadership Trickle-Down Effect on Follower Job Response’. Journal of Business Ethics [online] 99(4), 587-608. Available from < http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=342ee8fa-4461-4aec-919c-e82c969befb8%40sessionmgr111&vid=51&hid=119 > [16 December 2013]

Mullins, Laurie J. (2013) Management & Organisational Behaviour. 10^th edition, Harlow: Pearson Education Limited

Wipro (2012) WIPRO LIMITED CODE OF BUSINESS CONDUCT AND ETHICS [online] available from <http://www.wipro.com/documents/investors/pdffiles/Code_of_Business_Conduct_and_Ethics_March_2011.pdf > [16 December 2013]

YouTube (2008) Ethics & Technology [online] available from < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFf7fYq5KO8 > [15 December 2013]

 

Organisational change and resistance to change

Change is nothing new and a simple fact of life. Some people actively thrive on new challenges and constant change, while others prefer the comfort of the status quo and strongly resist any change. It is all down to the personality of the individual and there is little management can do about resistance to change (Mullins 2010: 753)

Change is something that we can never escape from and it keeps on occurring during the life time. It could be social or organizational and we face it throughout our life. A change could affect anyone i.e. individual, group, organisation or society. Our focus is to look at, how the change in the organisation is responded by the individuals? Some of the factors that create changes to organisations are uncertain economic conditions, diverse workforce, advancements in technology, globalisation of business, deficiency of natural resource and government intervention (Mullins 2013:711).

The organisations that carry a change is all about the kind of culture and environment they create within organisation that is adaptive and transformational. The involvement of the employees is encouraged by giving them more responsibilities and to be part of decision-making. Such organisations are not frightened of their present status and they have individuals who are curious to learn more (Johnson, C. 2009:2).

According to Johnson and Scholes cultural web, there are seven different aspects to understand the organizational culture.

Figure 1: the cultural web of an organization (Mullins 2013:702)

The logo of a company is used to have brand image and to identify its products and services from others. For example, the boss parks his car at the backyard and living the free space at front shows that there is reserve place. All of these are symbols that show the nature of organisation (Johnson, C. 2009:2). The discussions about leadership style and the way an organisation works are the stories that tells about the environment of the company. The power distribution within the organisation shows the power structures (Mullins 2013:702).

Whenever there is change it is followed by resistance, the resistance could be shown by the individuals or by the organisation as a whole. Why individuals show resistance to change? The employees can have a stereotyped view and lack of faith in management. Whereas the manager could encourage the change by comparing them to their daily practice or would avoid by showing that they are of no use. If the change tends to reduce employee freedom, pay, rewards or the job security than they will show resistance. For example, change of technology at work place would raise the fear in the minds of people and attract resistance to it (Mullins 2013:716-717).

The management can play an important role to overcome the resistance shown by the employees. According to Kotter, the manager should communicate the message of urgency and need to change among the people. Clearly define the strategy that are relevant and give power to people to be part of the change. Provide skills required by the people to adhere to the change and maintain the pace with the change and make a trend that could be follow further (Mullins 2013: 718).

For example, Infosys introduced Enterprise Resource planning business transformation in banking industry; the employees showed a resistance to the new process as it increased the fear of being unprepared. But, Infosys overcome that by role-playing the situation by covering the common customer transactions. They considered the problems like issue of new checks and refer the old passbook to new account etc. The employees were also provided training to deal with the customers in the evenings and on Saturdays, and were paid overtime to attend the training session (Infosys 2009).

Moreover, manager could think of two things, why the people are showing resistance to change? And if I look at resistance as a feedback then how can I modify the change? The opposing nature shown could be irrelevant and selfish. If the manager could understand the ideas and behaviour behind the resistance to change than they would produce better results. However, if managers ignore the resistance of employees then it would lead to demolish their goodwill, danger the relationship and waste the opportunity to involve doubters in the development of better plan (Ford, J and Ford, L. 2009:2).

There are different ways to gain advantage from the resistance. In order to keep the change spread awareness, find out how it would affect the people at the bottom level and listen to their complaints. Try to explain the purpose of change to those who are not involved in the planning and the need to alter their job practice. Try to find out the pitfalls of change, by listening to the employees who knows the internal functioning of the organisation. Ask for the ideas of employee, this would give them a feeling of belongingness and commitment to change. And gather the knowledge about changes that occurred in past, to provide the explanation for the resistance in the present (Ford, J and Ford, L. 2009:3).

In my opinion change is something that is needed for the growth. But, can only occur when it is guided well. And in IT industry change can be managed by giving the experience of the real environment to the employees.

References

Ford, J. and Ford, L. (2009) ‘Decoding resistance to change’. Harvard business review, 1-7

Infosys Technologies Limited (2009) ‘Overcoming Organizational change management challenges in a core banking transformational program’ [online] available from < http://www.infosys.com/finsights/Documents/pdf/issue5/06-overcoming-organizational-change.pdf > [13 December 2013]

Johnson, C. (2009) ‘engaging in change’. Human Resources Magazine [online] 14(3), 2-3. Available from < http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=98a19269-cc21-4e46-b522-d0cf70a4cccb%40sessionmgr111&vid=83&hid=123 > [14 December 2013]

Mullins, Laurie J. (2013) Management & Organisational Behaviour. 10^th edition, Harlow: Pearson Education Limited

Leadership style

Which personal style should managers adopt to ensure success? What is the most effective approach to managing the work of subordinates? These questions have been extensively researched and debated over the last century, and while the general consensus has moved away from ‘command and control’ to management and leadership towards more consultative and participative approaches, there is no single ideal, as the best approach may vary according to circumstances and individual characteristics (CMI 2013).

 

Leadership is the power of influencing others to follow you and it is building of relationship between a leader and an employee. A leader plays an important role in motivating people and understanding their needs (Mullins 2013:369). Management is achieving the objectives of a structured organization with the help of employees (Mullins 2013:421).Leadership and management is the two drivers of growth for a company that operates together. But, there are few similarities and differences between management and leadership. Both leadership and management deal with the structuring of companies, communicating with employees, decision- making, examine the feedback and improving the networks (Bontas 2012:85).

However, according to Kent both of them differ as managers do things right, they are more commanding and create stability within the organisation. Whereas, leader do the right things, the influence the employees and create changes to the organisation that leads to further growth (Mullins 2013:370). For example, plan and budget are designed for the short-period in terms of management for 3 to 4 years. But in leadership, vision and strategy are designed for achieving long term goals. Leadership and management should work together to support each other, because differences between them can cause conflict at work. Strong leadership can destroy the management hierarchy and strong management can discourage the engaging of people with leadership (Bontas 2012:84-85).

There have been debates regarding the selection of a leadership style, which is more appropriate for the organisation and for an employee to be lead. But, till now there is no specific approach that could be followed. According to the Tannenbaum and Schmidt, there are three forces that play important role in the selection of leadership style i.e. characteristics of a manager, personality of an employee and their beliefs, and the situation prevailing at the organisation (Mullins 2013:378). On the basis of staff behaviour and power, leadership can be classified into three forms i.e. autocratic style, democratic style and Laissez-faire style.

• In autocratic leadership, the manager takes charge of each and every thing whether it is decision-making, designing of policies and procedures to achieve objectives, and giving rewards and maintaining the discipline. The manager has the main power and the employees are given direction to follow strictly.

• In democratic leadership, the power is shared within the group and interaction within the group is better; each one has equal say and plays an important role in decision-making, regulation of policies and executing the procedures. Here manager is part of the group and share equal power with the members.

• In laissez-faire, the manager observers the work of employees and give them freedom to perform their task as they want, but the manager is available whenever it is required. This type of leadership sometime challenges an employee to take decisions that are to be taken by the manager. And it shows the manager to be running away from his responsibilities (Mullins 2013:377).

Now, I would talk about a leadership style that is about improving performance of the organization i.e. called transformational leadership. According to Burn theory there are four basic parts of transformational leadership i.e. influencing power, motivational behaviour, seek new ideas from followers and listen to the needs of the followers (Mullins 2013:386). For example, Steve jobs CEO at Apple was a transformational leader, as he was an inspirational, innovative and used to set high standards for himself and then ask others to follow. He always lead from front, whenever the new product was launched, he was the one to present it with his complete involvement in the development of the product as well. But, the only thing that lacked was he didn’t hear to the requirements of employee and was demanding. Despite of it, in 1996 he took Apple to the heights from facing financial crisis and now the company is leading the world with its innovations (Mullins 2013:405).

As a member of a team, I would like to be lead by a leader who follows a democratic leadership style. A leader who get involved with the team, give us a chance to be part of decision-making and listen to our needs. For example, someone like Tim Cook the new CEO of Apple with a different approach, has made the company more open. And he is making special efforts to take actions that fulfill the needs of organisation and employees. He has designed a program to match the staff gifts to charity; this shows the caring nature of Tim Cook towards organisation and employees (Lashinsky 2012).

References

Bontas, D. (2012) ‘Management and Leadership in business’. Economy Transdisciplinarity Cognition [online] 15(2), 83-92. Available from < http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9b643bc7-9c26-4142-8a43-657b3d832a79%40sessionmgr113&vid=10&hid=118 > [10 December 2013]

Lashinsky, Adam (2012) ‘HOW TIM COOK IS CHANGING APPLE’. Fortune [online] 165(8), 110-118. Available from < http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=983deb98-6987-4945-a837-5aa2a3faf4a5%40sessionmgr112&vid=10&hid=112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=bth&AN=76348434 > [12 December 2013]

Mullins, Laurie J. (2013) Management & Organisational Behaviour. 10^th edition, Harlow: Pearson Education Limited

YouTube (2009) Dr. Judith Wright on Transformational Leadership [online] available from < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8RC7HXSNGQ > [12 December 2013]

 

 

leading diverse team

Research has consistently shown that diverse teams produce better results, provided they are well led. The ability to bring together people from different backgrounds, disciplines, cultures, and generations and leverage all they have to offer, therefore, is a must-have for leaders (Ibarra and Hansen 2011: 71).

 

In the era of globalization, diversity has been promoted by different organizations. Diversity is the uniqueness among people; it can be on the basis of gender, culture, race, religious belief, geographical location, age, sexual orientation or disabilities. It encourages different viewpoint and approach, which gives birth to an innovation of thinking process at the workplace in an organization. Now, diverse teams are promoted due to migration of people, expansion of business beyond the boundaries, international competition and portfolio workers etc. (Mullins, Laurie J. 2013:155).

Importance of diversity at workplace

Moreover, application of diversity is the bottom-line strategy for most of the businesses. As, the different perspectives produce better results. In IT industry diversity policies at work place is promoted very well, but the only thing that lacks is the ratio of women working in IT sector in comparison to the men. According to the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), only 13% of officers at Fortune 500 technology companies are women. Also, a study conducted by National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) shows that, the patents created by men and women in equal ratio in a team are praised more (Gilmore, Agatha 2008).

For example, International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation is a leading organization that incorporates diversity and has benefited from it to expand globally. They treat every individual fairly with no discrimination while recruiting, training and promoting them. Also, provide space for religious practices and give equal respect to all the employees, irrespective of their race, gender, religion etc. IBM has a competitive advantage as they hire diverse work force and promote diversity at their place. It helps them to attract creative employees that lead to integration of more efficient teams (IBM 2013).

Challenges faced by leader in promoting diversity

Leading a diverse team is a great challenge, as it requires taking charge in advance to get involved with the employees and to take care of the work practices that they follow as an organization. The constituency management could be a challenge for an organization that has diverse teams. As entry of new diverse individuals, might distract the existing employee and could feel like reduction of power for them. For example, a study of organizational attachment shows that, the white males were disinterested in work by the increase of women in the team. Being a leader, it is important to monitor the groups in the organizations and avoid the formation of alliances by providing team incentives. The team incentives would encourage the employees to work as a team (Daus and Joplin 1997:33-37).

The difference in the thought of individuals might raise a conflict among the employees. As a leader one should be good at conflict resolution, so it would be important to come up with a combined opinion, while considering views of each individual. The leader should monitor organizational processes and give intrinsic rewards for the positive returns to employees. This would result into rise in customer satisfaction and smooth movement of work that would lead to encourage employee performance. A leader should have empathy with his employees, to understand their needs and able to forecast the effects of a particular proposal on the individuals. Leaders with wide education background can better understand the different perception and could come up with better solutions. For example, leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy acknowledge the needs of the people and then included them in their own statements (Daus and Joplin 1997:37-41).

Tokenism creates it tough for a leader, as promoting diversity under quota system might raise the questions against the qualifications and capabilities of an individual. And the existing employee might exclude the new employee from their groups etc. Instead of having a quota system, a leader should set the basic standards for the recruitment of diverse force and then following them strictly to avoid the wrong perception. For example, Jody Grant, the Chief financial officer at Electronic Data Systems had recruited 40% of people from minorities, and he fixed two criteria’s i.e. created an environment where employees are ready to be lead by women and minorities and second to value the talent (Daus and Joplin 1997:41-43).

Also, a good leader should avoid stereotyping. For example, to assume that all the Asians are good at mathematics might result into misconception. The leader should show respect for differences within the organization, as they set the environment and to spread the message among employees that any misbehave with others would not be tolerated. Individual talents bring different views and approach to the organization, so a leader should influence and retain such talent (Sujansky, Joanne G. 2004:23).

Despite of the challenges for a leader to lead a diverse team, it is important for a leader to value the differences among people and use it as an advantage for the organization. The better a team is lead, the better are the results produced.

References

Daus and Joplin (1997) ‘Challenges of leading a diverse workforce’. Academy of Management Executive [online] 11(3), 32-47. Available from < http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=f4ad5768-3d95-40ff-9907-57b165959730%40sessionmgr112&vid=14&hid=123 > [27 Nov. 2013]

Gilmore, A. (2008) ‘Improving IT through Diversity’. Certificate Magazine [online] 10(11), 3. Available from < http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9b83b294-3f57-43a1-87a6-02bbc65b8148%40sessionmgr112&vid=21&hid=114 > [28 Nov. 2013]

IBM (2013) IBM Workforce Diversity Policy [online] available from < http://www-03.ibm.com/employment/us/diverse/equal_opportunity.shtml > [28 Nov. 2013]

Mullins, Laurie J. (2013) Management & Organisational Behaviour. 10^th edition, Harlow: Pearson Education Limited

Sujansky, Joanne G. (2004) ‘The Five Biggest Traps to Avoid When Leading a Diverse Team’. Occupational Hazards [online] 66(8), 23. Available from < http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=bf5d93d7-64bf-486d-860e-fb1ff341bd4e%40sessionmgr113&vid=19&hid=120 > [29 Nov. 2013]

YouTube (2011) Diversity @ IBM – Doing it differently [online] available from <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NMHQZjamLY > [2 December 2013]