Leadership

RESEARCH REPORT

BC 407 EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATION George Kelley

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Table of contents Research Report August 16, 2011

1. 2.

Introduction ........................................................................... 3 Problem 4.1 Description of the Problem ....................................... 6 4.2 Problem Analysis ...................................... 7

3. 4.

Solutions References

.............................................................. 8 .............................................................. 10

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Introduction Leadership has been around for thousands of years, and yet we still are unable to contain it in a single definition we all agree on. Perhaps this is because leadership is continuously evolving, and more than what it seems to be, depending on how you look at it. It is a complex concept, with many applications, and the results that it creates depend highly on the context in which it is being observed. In these report I will explain an specific problem of a fictional company in order to describe how leadership affects an organization and how it can be develop through several steps. I will be focusing this report in transformational leadership because for most people this kind of leadership is a continuous process and so it can be learned, on the other hand there are other kinds of such as charismatic or emotional leadership in which the most important thing are aspects of the leader skills. Then I will describe the necessary steps of the process of developing transformational leadership. These steps will be recommendations of how the leader has to first have order in his performance and then how to apply all these in leading others. I will consider the information from an applied point of view, that is the interpretation of all the theory that can describe a transformational leader. But first of all I will define what transformational leadership is. "The goal of transformational leadership is to transform people and organizations in a literal sense to change them in mind and heart; enlarge vision, insight, and understanding; clarify purposes; make behavior congruent with beliefs, principles, or

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values; and bring about changes that are permanent, self-perpetuating, and momentum building." - Steven Covey. I fancy this particular quote

because it describes the most important skills a transformational leader has to have. The key phrases in that quote are that a leader has to transform people and that the change has to be done permanently.

According to James Burns who was the first person that introduced this concept in his book Leadership transformational

leadership occurs when one or more persons engage with other in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality. (Burns, 1978) Doing some research I found four common components of a transformational leader, which are (Northouse, 2001):

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1.

Charisma or idealized influence: which means that the leader has to behave in admirable ways that cause followers to identify with the leader. Charismatic leaders display convictions, take stands and appeal to followers on an emotional level. 2. Inspirational motivation: this makes reference that the leader articulates a vision that is appealing and inspiring to followers. Leaders with inspirational motivation challenge followers with high standards, communicate optimism about future goals, and provide meaning for the task at hand.

3.

Intellectual stimulation: a leader challenges assumptions, takes risks and solicits followers' ideas. Leaders with this trait stimulate and encourage creativity in their followers. 4. Individualized consideration: a leader attends to each follower's needs, acts as a mentor or coach to the follower and listens to the follower's concerns and needs.

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Description of the Problem Taylor Group is a logistics company dedicated to provide expert logistics management resources to meet their clients challenges. Their goal is to lead the global marketplace in the production of quality logistic solutions by strategic use of resources, development and implementation of automation systems. Their philosophy on development is to train and develop staff to promote loyalty, the expectation of better performance and knowledge, and the realization that change is necessary for survival. As the professional company they are they have a lot of departments such as IT, operations, technical management and standards, business development, corporate compliance, contracts, accounting and human resources. Taylor Group is facing a problem. The company is going trough a tough situation over the past few months with a manager of the human resources department. Recently, there have been reports that demonstrate that this department is not giving the expected performance, because the employees are not satisfied neither motivated, there are some delayed tasks that have to be done urgently and the manager is not doing well enough. Employees affirm they would like that their manager shows physically the example of a good work and what the company wants from them. The CEO of the company has decided that this problem has to be analyzed in order to give a solution as soon as possible because human resources is one of the most important departments of the company simply because they exists to assist employees in helping the organization to reach its strategic business goals.

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Problem analysis As we can see the main problem is the attitude of the manager, maybe he is doing his job but is obvious that he is lacking of organization and leadership. This department has made a list of goals this manager has to accomplish: - Develop and share an inspiring vision of the organizations expectations of the department. - Behave in ways that bring out the best in the rest of the employees. - Show genuine concern and respect for others. - Develop a culture of collaboration rather than command and control. - Recognize and reward his subordinates work. - Build trust between him and his subordinates. The kind of leadership he has to develop is

transformational leadership because working it will change his attitude and manners. Besides the change that he could have will be reflected also in his employees because one of the principles of

transformational leadership is to share and to make think his followers and to encourage them to keep this change as a continuous process.

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Solutions In order to accomplish those goals the manager has to follow the next program called Transformational Leadership. Step 1. Define what is leadership to him and explain the concept to him. Step 2. Do an introspective exercise in which he has to work with his self-esteem. In this step there are six pillars he has to understand: the practice of living consciously, the practice of self acceptance, the practice of self responsibility, the practice of self assertiveness, the practice of living purposefully and the practice of personal integrity (Branden, 1994). The idea of these is that he has to think consciously about the pillars in order to have personal results. Step 3. He will be given three compasses that will talk about the three dimensions a leader has to work with his physical, mental and spiritual skills. The first one will be about what he needs to work in order to accomplish certain goals, the second one will be about what he needs to have better relationships and the third one will be about planning the future. Step 4. He has to take an innovation workshop with the purpose of developing his creativity and to stimulate this characteristic that will help him to add goodwill in his performance. Step 5. He has to establish his own short term and long term goals plan, what he needs to do to accomplish those goals, what he will need from the others, and how much time will he need to accomplish them. Step 6. He will need to schedule and classify all his activities. He will classify them in what needs to be done in days, weeks and months.

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Once he has accomplished this program he will be free again to continue with his work, and in two weeks there will be a report in which the employees and his co-workers will express how they feel working with him, if they feel they are being motivated by him, etc.

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References 1. Korek, S., Felfe, J., & Zaepernick-Rothe, U. (2010). Transformational leadership and commitment: A multilevel analysis of group-level influences and mediating processes. European Journal of Work & Organizational Psychology, 19(3), 364-387. doi:10.1080/13594320902996336 2. Retrieved from http://www.tlc-inc.net/index.html 3. Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper TORCHBOOKS. 4. Colonel Mark A. Homrig - 21 Dec 2001 Retrieved from http://leadership.au.af.mil/documents/homrig.htm 5. Northouse, Peter G. (2001). Leadership Theory and Practice, second edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. 6. Branden, N. (1994). The six pillars of self-esteem. New York: BANTAM.

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