El Pasha: Implementing Strategies

. Introduction

In this assignment, the first question is about the theories of the leadership and the second question is about the leader-follower relations. In the first question, I shall attempt to discuss the Traits Theory, Behavioural Theory and Contingency Theory briefly in order to demonstrate my understanding for these theories. After each theory, I will critically evaluate the usefulness of the theory for the business in the twenty first century. In the second question, I am going to talk about the different types of change to be context specific while I am describing and discussing the importance of effective leader-follower relations in the management of change. In the assignment, I shall attempt to use some examples from to support my discussion. Finally, I will write my conclusion indicating the main point that I include it in the assignment.

2. Question (1)

“Briefly discuses three theories of leadership, critically evaluate the usefulness of these for business in the twenty first century?”

2.1 Introduction

In my answer to this question, I will briefly discuss three theories of leadership, which are the Traits Theory, Behavioural Theory and Contingency Theory. While I am demonstrating my understanding, I shall attempt to critically evaluate the usefulness of each theory with regard to the business in the twenty first century. At the end, I will write my conclusion, which will include the result of my evaluation.

2.2 Main Body

What is a leader? Industrial/Organizational psychologists do not seem to be able to agree on a definition. One way to understand leadership, however, is through the differences between a leader and an authority. Authorities are those who hold formal positions that give them the power to direct the behaviour of their subordinates. Managers, supervisors, and bosses are authorities. They may or may not also be leaders, depending on whether they rely solely on their official positions when applying influence on others. A true leader does not use force and coercion to direct his or her followers toward a common goal. There are many leadership theories and I will discuss some them in my answer to the question.

2.2.1 The Traits Theory

The Theory

The Traits theory premise that leaders are born and not made encouraged researchers to look for the key traits or characteristics demonstrated by leaders. They did this by, in the first instance, by comparing the traits of those people who were leaders with the traits of those people who were followers. Secondly, they tried to differentiate the characteristics of those leaders deemed to be effective from those of leaders deemed to be ineffective (1).Early research on leadership was based on the psychological focus of the day, which was of people having inherited characteristics or traits. Attention was thus put on discovering these traits, often by studying successful leaders, but with the underlying assumption that if other people could be found with these traits, then they, too, could also become great leaders (2). The personality traits helped Ralph Szygenda transforming General Motors into the first totally weird car company (3). The trait approach is one of the only leadership theories that focus exclusively on the leader. However, is it only traits that will make a leader?

Evaluation

Pioneer leadership researchers were confident that personality traits essential for leadership effectiveness could be identified through research. Because the trait approach focused exclusively on the leader, however, and not on the followers or the situation, researchers failed to discover any traits that would guarantee leadership success. If we take a look to leaders like Mother Theresa, Bill Gates, and Nelson Mandela, we will find that we cannot find common traits between them. Therefore, we should ask ourselves is the leader or the follower or even the situation. It is nearly impossible to develop an inclusive list of leader traits, and no conclusion can be made regarding the connection between a particular trait and leadership effectiveness. Although a connection between personality traits and leadership effectiveness was discovered,cause and effect were not addressed (4). Early trait theorists failed to acknowledge that being in a leadership role might facilitate the development of leadership traits. In addition, the theory neglected to account for why some individuals might be effective leaders in certain circumstances yet not in others. The trait approach is not particularly useful for the business in the twenty first century because it presumes that personality traits are relatively stable across time, which cannot be happen. It consequently fails to offer a guideline for leadership development. In other words, you should accept what you have because there is no way that you could develop. How we could relay on today business on theory that has not been proved. Traits do not help us to train future leaders because we are accepting the belief that ability is bestowed upon some at birth and therefore cannot be learned. With the complexity of today business, we cannot focus only on the leader but we need to take also in consideration the follower. The traits theory cannot offer us what we need in today business.

2.2.2 The Behavioural Theory

The Theory

The behavioural theory based on that leaders can be made, rather than are born. Successful leadership is based in definable, learnable behaviour. The behavioural perspective of leadership holds that anybody who demonstrates the appropriate behaviours can be an effective leader. The underlying premise here is that it is behaviour and not traits that determines the effectiveness of a leader. Leaders can be made (by learning the appropriate behaviours) and are not necessarily born (1). There are important research programs on leadership behaviour were conducted at Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Texas (5). Researcher at Ohio State University surveyed leaders to hundreds of dimensions of leader behaviour. They identified two major behaviours, called consideration and initiating structure. At the same time, University of Michigan took a different approach by comparing the behaviour of effective and ineffective supervisors. Blake and Mouton of the University if Texas proposed a two-dimensional leadership theory called leadership grid that builds on the work of the Ohio state and Michigan studies. The "Managerial Grid" has its advantages and disadvantages. It focuses on observable actions of the leader in order to determine if the leader's main concern is for production or for people. This provides a more reliable method for studying leadership than the trait approach. The Managerial Grid, however, adopted the universal approach. It aims at identifying the most effective leadership style for all situations, which is not supported by evidence in real organizations

Evaluation

Behavioural is a big leap from Trait Theory, in that it assumes that leadership capability can be learned, rather than being inherent. This opens big gates to leadership development. However, Can we relay on this theory to determine leadership effectiveness. Is it possible that the same style would work as well in a gang or group of friends, and in a hospital emergency room? The styles that leaders can adopt are far more affected by those they are working with, and the environment they are operating within, than had been originally thought. By looking to the business today, it is difficult to relay on the behavioural theory for the leadership development for the business in the twenty first century. The behavioural theory did not define a clear relationship between style and performance outcomes. Therefore, two different leaders in same organization adopting the same style their performance outcome is not essentially the same. The behavioural theory has failed to find a universal style suitable for all situations. I could say that this theory along or companied with the traits theory failed to determine leadership effectiveness. Therefore, it may be suggested that we should relay on them because of the uncertainty. Just imagine a big organization like ChevronTexaco is relaying on a theory like for their leadership development plan. Uncertainty is something unacceptable for today business.

2.2.3 Contingency theory

The Theory

The leader's ability to lead is contingent upon various situational factors, including the leader's preferred style, the capabilities and behaviours of followers and various other situational factors. The style selected by a leader in any given situation will depend upon two variables, the personal characteristics of the leader, and how confident that leader is in his or her own abilities. Contingency theories are a class of behavioural theory that contends that there is no one best way of leading and that a leadership style that is effective in some situations may not be successful in others. There are six contingency theories: the LPC Contingency model, Hersey and Blanchard’s situational leadership model, the path-goal theory of leadership, the multiple linkage model of leadership, leadership substitute theory, and Vroom and Yetton’s normative decision model.

Fiedler’s contingency model ‘least preferred coworkers’ is on of these models, which divides the leadership situation into three variables which is leader-member relationship, task structure, and position power. These may be either advantageous or disadvantageous to the leader depending upon the style of leadership chosen. The following table explains how it could be either advantageous or disadvantageous (6).

	Leader-Member Relations	Task structure	Leader's Position-power	Most Effective leader
1	Good	Structured	Strong	Low LPC
2	Good	Structured	Weak	Low LPC
3	Good	Unstructured	Strong	Low LPC
4	Good	Unstructured	Weak	High LPC
5	Poor	Structured	Strong	High LPC
6	Poor	Structured	Weak	High LPC
7	Poor	Unstructured	Strong	High LPC
8	Poor	Unstructured	Weak	Low LPC

Evaluation

Contingency theory does not explain why individuals are more effective in some situations than others; also, contingency theory does not explain what to do if there is a mismatch between the leader and the situation he or she faces. Effective leaders could be promoted or moved to new roles that do not fit them on the strength of performance in a role they did. Therefore, with the complexity of today business the contingency theory is not useful up to a certain limit. It stills a step ahead in the way of leadership development. We still are asking for more specially with the tremendous development in the business today. Researchers often find that Fiedler's contingency model falls short on flexibility. However, Fiedler's contingency model is an important model because it established a brand new perspective for the study of leadership. Nevertheless, is this what we need for the business in the twenty first century? I could say that the contingency theory is useful as it gives us a direction to the leadership development but still more researches needs to be done in order to increase the usefulness of it.

2.3 Conclusion

Leadership studies can be classified as trait, behavioural, contingency, and transformational. Earliest theories assumed that the primary source of leadership effectiveness lay in the personal traits of the leaders themselves. Yet, traits alone cannot explain leadership effectiveness, which I did explain in my evaluation to the traits theory. Thus, later research focused on what the leader actually did when dealing with employees and it was the first step toward understanding the relation between the leader and the follower. The behavioural theory of leadership sought to explain the relationship between what the leaders did and how the employees reacted, both emotionally and behaviourally. However, as a result of my evaluation I found out that we cannot always account for leadership in different situations. Thus, contingency theories of leadership studied leadership style in different environments. However, contingency cannot account for the inspiration and innovation that leaders need to compete in today's global marketplace. I lot of research needs to be conducted in the field leadership development.

3. Question (2)

“Describe and discuss the importance of effective leader-follower relations in the management of change? Your answer should take account of the different types of change in order to be context specific.”

3.1 Introduction

In my answer to this question, I shall attempt to describe and discuss the importance of effective leader-follower relations in the management of change. I will do that by explaining the two types of change, which is the Evolutionary and Revolutionary change, and the importance of the relation on each of them. At the end, I will write my conclusion.

3.2 Main Body

The extent to which a leader can lead is directly related to the extent to which followers are prepared to follow, yet followership is not a role permanently assumed by a person or a group of people, it is a transitory state through which even leaders pass. For any vision to be realised, the roles of both the leader and follower must be proactive, they must positively seek mechanisms and methods, which will propel them and others closer to the goals (1). The reciprocal nature of the leader–follower relationship is based on the notion that the thoughts and actions of the followers are influenced by the leader and that the thoughts and actions of the leader are in turn influenced by the followers. There are two types of follower behavioural, which are actively and passively. Followers behaving actively integrate themselves fully in the organisation were they are in control of their own successes and failures and it is not left to fate. However, followers behaving passively tend to have an external locus of control. They are guided through life by fate, chance and coincidence. The importance of the forces of change and resistance was pointed out already in the 1940s by the psychologist, Kurt Lewin, who showed how the force field can be used to explain human behaviour (7). Lewin maintained that it is fruitless to concentrate on changing the behaviour of individuals because the individual in isolation is constrained by group pressures to conform. Consequently, the focus of change must be at the group level and should concentrate on factors such as group norms, roles, interactions and socialization processes to create ‘disequilibrium’ and change (8). Lewin also recognized the need to provide a process whereby the members could be engaged in and committed to changing their behaviour. Therefore, the importance of the leader-follower relation is enormous and I will try to discuss more in details concerning the two types of change. According to Miller, the types of change fall into two broad categories, viz. evolutionary and revolutionary.

“Evolutionary change is gradual, incremental, and narrowly focused, and revolutionary change is rapid, dramatic, and broadly focused”

(George and Jones, 1996:608

3.2.1 Evolutionary Change

Description

Evolutionary change is an organisational change process that blends in with the current organisational values, beliefs, structures, systems and styles. Evolutionary change progresses at a speed with which the organisation is comfortable, allowing for the involvement in the process of all those people affected by the change (1).

Leader-follower relations

Evolutionary change is a gradual, staged, socio-technical approach. Gradual is the key word for the evolutionary change. Followers should be proactive and contribute to the development and maintenance of the leader-follower relationship. Followers should actively live by the organizational values of openness, honesty, confrontation of problems, participation, feedback, commitment, learning, and innovation. Leaders and followers should mutually agree to these organizational values. The relationship between the leader and the people who is affected by the change, the follower, is important because they could behave actively or passively. If the followers behave actively, the evolutionary change will become more effective. However, the leader should justify the need for change in order to gain the followers support for the change. The influence of the leader on the followers is important because they needs to feel comfortable with the speed of the change as they are the people that will be affected by the change otherwise they will resist it. On the other hand, if they behave passively the leader should develop the relation with follower in order to influence their behaviour to become active. Leadership-followership under perpetually changing conditions presents a challenge because of the surprise in and imponderability of events. Such chaos is evident in a system that is unstable at every point. Yet there can be order, and even a form of structure, in the absence of predictability (9). As a result, we could say that the relationship between the leader and the follower is the key player toward the final goal, which is change.

3.2.2 Revolutionary Change

Description

Revolutionary change is change that transforms an organisation. To achieve such magnitude of transformation, the change process should impact all the major organisational change levers, namely organisational structures, organisational culture, organisational processes, and organisational systems (1). In order to support the change processes, the behaviours of everyone within the organisation need to change substantially. Revolutionary change cannot be accomplished gradually, comfortably but it needs to be explosive in the way it impacts the organisation. Theorists argue that radical or revolutionary change is best suited to a situation of organisational crisis – where people perceive a real threat of loss they will be far more willing to take on board the discomfort and uncertainty of revolutionary change. To support the revolutionary change effectively, there is a need to bring in an external agent who can direct the process and implement the results. Those people affected by the change are wholly excluded from the process for two reasons, which are they have behavioural and cognitive rationales for retaining the status quo, and they are likely to be influenced by other stakeholders who would also like to retain the status quo

Leader-follower relations

The leader-follower relations should be excluded in order to have a proper implementation for the revolutionary change. A good example to revolutionary change is what with Nissan in

Japan

. Renault moved Carlos Ghosn to Nissan in

Japan

in 1999 and has vowed to quit if the automaker is not profitable by March. His so-called Nissan Revival seems to be working. However, Ghosn is definitely an iconoclast. He passes up power breakfasts to stay home and eat with his four kids. He defies Japanese business etiquette and shakes hands with every employee he meets, not just top managers. Moreover, he has cut thousands of Nissan jobs, shut the first of five domestic plants, and auctioned off prized assets such as Nissan's aerospace unit. However, his radical moves have made him Public Enemy No. 1 to Japanese traditionalists, not to mention the influential Japan Auto Parts Industries Assn., which has publicly rebuked Nissan's new management (10). As an outsider in charge of one of

Japan

's largest companies, he has been extremely successful from a $5.6 billion loss in 2000 to $2.5 billion profit in 2001. He was voted Man of the Year 2003 by Fortune magazine's Asian edition. He is also on the board of Renault, Alcoa, Sony, and IBM and CEO of Renault, Nissan's parent and largest shareholder, in 2005, succeeding Louis Schweitzer (11). Therefore, I could say that this example demonstrates the revolutionary change with a situation of organizational crisis. It is important to have a respectable relation with your follower but they should be excluded from change process because they could affect the change by their behavioural and cognitive rationales for retaining the status quo. It will be difficult to convince the follower because most likely they can see the need for a change.

3.3 Conclusion

In my answer to this question, I tried to describe and discusses the importance of effective leader-follower relation. I did explain that to what extent it is important in the evolutionary change. A high-quality leader-follower relation is very important for the organizational change in the evolutionary change but it may be agreed that it should be excluded with revolutionary change. There are some challenges inherent in the leader-follower relationship in today's changing organizational contexts. The importance of leaders understanding the impact of their own culture on their leadership behaviour, as well as being able to understand how culture impacts on their followers and the expectations followers have of them. Leaders and managers are moral agents who can help others get in touch with their spirituality. Such self-directed contact with one's core set of values makes for a deeper awareness of purpose. The role of leader involves making moral value judgments, and showing concern for ethical, responsible action. With this goes a willingness to be accountable, rather than standing aloof as a distant power figure; otherwise, the sense of leader-follower identity in a mutual effort can be severely undermined.

4. Conclusion

By using the textbook and other references, I was able to answer the questions. In question one; I did demonstrate my understanding for the theories of leadership while I was evaluating its usefulness in the twenty first century. In question two, I explained the importance of the leader-follower relations in the evolutionary change, however it should be excluded in the revolutionary change. I did support my discussion with example.

5. Limitation of the Sample

My answer to the questions in this assignment is based on a limited amount of references. Therefore, my conclusion could possibly be faulty because of the limitation of the sample. We should also keep in mind that what is leadership theories is purely a Western study and what could be acceptable in Western mind could be unacceptable in our culture due to religion influence. In addition, the leader-follower relations, in our culture the religion has a great influence on it. My conclusion cannot generalize on all Muslim countries; more research would be needed especially in our cultural.