Leaders behavior and the styles of their management largely depend not only on their personal qualities but also some external factors. In particular, the emergence of the new means of replenishing experience and training individual skills determines the necessity to use all possible conditions for self-development and the realization of professional goals. Social media is one of the areas that influence leadership and managers behavior. The principles of interaction that are promoted on the Internet imply adaptation to the modern norms of business interaction. As a result, the new types of leadership are designed, and the significance of the global network is felt due to the possibility of information exchange. In general, the use of resources from social media, an opportunity to study various management approaches at any time, and the availability of discussions are the key factors affecting specific leadership styles.
Variety of Resources
An opportunity to explore all the modern leadership approaches is one of the options that contemporary social media provide. According to Song et al., Interpersonal interactions on the Internet serve as a driver for personal growth and a factor determining the success of a certain control principle (17). If a managing employee is not able to apply the relevant ways of interacting with staff effectively, this indicates his or her incompetence. Consequently, in order not to undermine credibility, it is essential to be aware of current trends in personnel control, and social media resources help in this.
Permanent Trend Changes
Since leadership is rather a flexible variable, constant changes in market factors, the specifics of personnel training, and other aspects determine the emergence of new trends in management approaches. For instance, Madestam and Falkman give an example of political leaders and note that the representatives of this field utilize online media actively to monitor any fluctuations in public opinions (314). As a result, any changes in the social sphere allow managers to respond timely and take the necessary actions to preserve their image and reorganize the current system of interaction with subordinates.
Availability of Discussions
One of the most significant manifestations of social media influence on leadership is the availability of discussions. As places where many people have an opportunity to express their opinions and share experiences, various online platforms and communities are applied. For instance, Gruber et al. argue that Twitter has become one of the most powerful social media platforms through which organizations communicate with stakeholders (164). Leaders cannot ignore the issues that network users discuss actively. Consequently, the forms of control and management styles largely depend on the opinions of the population.
Conclusion
The role of social media in influencing leadership and its manifestations in modern conditions is observed in such aspects as the variety of resources, constantly changing trends, and the availability of discussions. Managing employees are forced to take into account the opinions that online users offer. As a result, the development of technologies in the Internet environment is the driving force of professional leadership development and adequate training.
Works Cited
Gruber, Daniel A., et al. The Real-Time Power of Twitter: Crisis Management and Leadership in an Age of Social Media. Business Horizons, vol. 58, no. 2, 2015, pp. 163-172.
Madestam, Jenny, and Lena Lid Falkman. Rhetorical Construction of Political Leadership in Social Media. Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 30, no. 3, 2017, pp. 299-311.
Song, So Young, et al. Personality Factors and Flow Affecting Opinion Leadership in Social Media. Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 114, 2017, pp. 16-23.
Transformational leadership is essential for the promotion of community, joy, and student growth. The promotion of change in individuals and social systems is necessary for school settings. These environments shape young minds, encourage the development of talents and prepare the young generation for the future. The application of a leadership approach that influences, inspires and stimulates young minds is integral for the achievement of success in educational contexts.
There are three key aspects of transformational leadership that can be used to promote community, joy, and growth. The first is idealized influence, which refers to the adoption of behaviors that can be modeled by followers (Li & Karanxha, 2022). It is essential to adopt mannerisms that encourage admiration, generate respect, and guarantee trust. Individuals at school sites should be able to identify with a transformational leader by emulating actions such as prioritizing other peoples needs, sharing risks, and consistency. The second is inspirational motivation, which refers to the extent to which a leader describes an alluring vision that persuades and encourages followers to perform beyond the set expectations (Li & Karanxha, 2022).
It is critical to express optimism about the students ability to meet set objectives and demonstrate the relevance of specific tasks and responsibilities. The final element is intellectual stimulation, which refers to the ability to inspire innovation, critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving (Li & Karanxha, 2022). It is critical to arouse the students imagination and enable them to find solutions to problems that limit growth, hinder the sense of community, and impede joy.
Success in educational contexts can be achieved through the application of a leadership approach that influences, inspires, and stimulates young minds. The ability to focus on other peoples needs and advocate for change has the capacity to transform social systems. Idealized influence, inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation are the key mechanisms through which individuals can leverage transformational leadership to promote joy, growth, and a sense of community.
Reference
Li, Y., & Karanxha, Z. (2022). Literature review of transformational school leadership: Models and effects on student achievement (20062019). Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 123. Web.
The main aim of this research is to examine leadership localization in Saudi Arabia and help in the understanding on its effect on business growth in the region. Various governments in the gulf region have put policies in place to enforce leadership localization. For instance, in Saudi Arabia the government gives sanctions that organizations that do not comply will not receive government contracts. Measures have been put in place to monitor the rate of localization in the region.
For example, in Saudi Arabia, the Nitaaqat program that was initiated in 2011classifies companies according to their observed rates of saudization. Companies are granted privileges according to their rates of localization. Future research can use quantitative research and probability sampling to generalize the findings to the entire Saudi Arabia nation and the extensive gulf region.
Introduction
Countries in the gulf region experienced rapid economic growth around 1960-2000, approximately about 4.1 percent in Saudi Arabia (Pakkiasamy 2004:192). Research indicates that the rate of population growth is slow compared to economic growth (Dyer 2006:71). Literature indicates that there are about 10 million foreigners in the Gulf Region who make a large percentage of the workforce that is approximately 90 percent of the employees in Qatar and Saudi Arabia (Abdalla 2006:15).
President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan in his speech in 2003 mentioned that the imbalance created by a high percentage of foreigners in Saudi Arabia posed a great problem that threatened the societys stability and the future generations (Mellahi 2006:123).
In oil and gas corporations, the need for leadership localization is to put an end to dependence on foreign experts (Lee and Larwood 1983:660). For example, the formation of Aramco in Saudi Arabia and its development to become a multinational oil corporation is a clear indication of the success that can be realized from localization and self-reliance (General Statistics Department KSA 2007:53).
The localization program is also meant to fight the problem of unemployment which is high despite continuous economic growth. Unofficial estimates put Saudi Arabia unemployment rate at 15 percent, out of which 35 percent range between 16 to 24 years.
Aramco has been successful in the practice of recruiting and retaining local employees at work. The firm was established 75 years ago and is the largest private employer in Saudi Arabia. The process of leadership localization is impressive with current statistics indicating that 87 percent of the employee population is local and 99 percent of the managers are local citizens.
Moreover, 95 percent of the managers were trained and groomed in the organization. One of the main challenges lies in dismissing local employees. The legal processes involved in dismissal are complicated and local employees perceive jobs as individual rights rather than scarce opportunities (Al-Dosary and Rahman 2005:501).
Research Rationale
Saudi Arabia remains a profitable business center characterized by fast growing multinational corporations in the oil and gas sector. For example, the construction of Dresser-Rand facility expected to be completed by 2013. The facility has a training center which will be used to train the recruits from the local community.
Due to continuous development opportunities in the Gulf Region, the companies rely on expertise talent. Currently there is a trend to enforce localization of executive employees in both multinational and local companies operating in Saudi Arabia and various Gulf Nations (The Economist 1997:41).
The current inclination toward leadership localization has been engineered by quest by the local companies to ensure a sustainable talent management that will promote long-term business, productivity, and prosperity. A policy to initiate leadership localization is also meant to provide economic opportunities for the educated population in the Middle East.
The aim of this study is to examine how the Saudization policy works with government and multinational private corporations in the country to replace the foreign workers with Saudi citizens (Harry 2007:145). It will also review employment quotas put in place to regulate recruitment of immigrants, to preserve the opportunities for the local citizens (Oddou 1991:331).
The campaign to enforce leadership localization in Saudi Arabia is meant to ensure self efficiency and internal security in the country. The strategy is also meant to reduce crimes related to unemployment and discrimination.
The multinational corporations and local companies operating in the gulf region have recognized the dilemma that can arise from lack of investment in long-term management of human resource. The outlined initiatives are being used by the government to promote development of leaders from the local population (Bhanugopan and Fish 2007:370).
This is enforced through hiring expertise that shows commitment to development of local talent (Godwin 2006:11). Companies in need of identifying talent have hired experts to assess the existing human capital in the company and talent future needs. Executives are obligated to mentor indentified talent, and the organizations are seeking guidance from executives (Forstenlechner 2010:137).
Relation to previous research
Research shows that Saudi Arabia has experienced rapid growth in the recent past. This led to increase in demand for individuals who could sufficiently take leadership positions in the companies (Kotter 2002:143). The companies in the region resorted to recruitment of expertise whose main objectives were overseeing project activities.
Human resource management skills and development of leadership were not prioritized and this led to poor imposition of quotas to enforce employment of the local population (Daher and F Al-Salem 1985:82). Senior executives focused on short-term goals.
At the peak of the global recession, regional growth rate decreased, the expatriates left leaving the companies without any leadership development strategies in the local population that could make up the next generation of business executives (Achoui 2009:46).
Realization of the importance of long-term sustainable business growth and utilization of locally available resources has led to a complete change in the corporations approach to leadership. Organizations seek to build good working relationship with the local population, and this is based on offering leadership opportunities to enhance leadership development. In addition, sufficient communication between the executives and the developing local talent is crucial toward realization of the set goals (Said and Al-Buraey 2009:76).
The localization plan at Dresse-Rand in Saudi Arabia is aimed at hiring local population. The oil manufacturing company plans to provide opportunities from the lowest levels to senior executive leadership positions.
The Dresser-Rand company reached an agreement with Saudi Petroleum Services Polytechnic (SPSP) to sponsor 37 students in several disciplines including: welding, electricians, pipefitting, and machinists. The company has a management team to help in the identification, qualification, and development of local suppliers in Saudi Arabia (Mendenhall and Oddou 1985:43).
Aims and Objectives
The main aim of this research is to explore how localizing leadership positions for multinational companies in the gulf, especially in Saudi Arabia can bring more business to the oil and gas energy sectors. The main question is
To find out whether culture sensitive leadership lead to realization of increased business growth in the oil and gas multinational companies in Saudi Arabia.
The importance of integration of cultural values into leadership to increase business productivity in the multinational corporations will be explored using literature review to create a better understanding of:
How leadership localization affects the productivity of the multinational oil and gas companies
How knowledge of the local culture and ability to deal with the local people affect business growth in the multinational oil and gas companies
Research Statement
The issue of leadership localization has acquired high significance in the current era characterized by high unemployment rates among the youth in the country (Lumsden 1993:47). This trend is continuously putting pressure on the government of Saudi Arabia to provide jobs for its citizens.
Although there are policies put in place to ensure the local citizens secure employment opportunities to balance the local and immigrant employment rates, research indicates that employers prefer expatriate workforce (Mahdi and Barrientos 2003:74).
This is attributed to good work performance of the expatriates as compared to the locals. Expatriates are willing to carry out demeaning and physically demanding duties, but their compensation is lower as compared to that of the locals (Synnot and Fitzgerald 2007:251).
Comparing the expatriate and local workforce performance enables business corporations to assess the effects of variables like education, age, training, nationality, and leadership position held by an individual in the place of work.
This information is used by business corporations in improving their strategies to promote the performance of the locals. This is considered as a means of solving the problem of economic leakage and boosts the rate of indigenous employment in the local and multinational corporations (Peng and Hao 2011:98).
Research indicates that although Saudi Arabia realizes great revenues from petroleum production which is also termed as a traditional economic activity in Saudi Arabia, the country experiences structural weaknesses because of external influences from foreign investors and this poses the risk of economic insecurity in the oil rich country (Heidrick 2012:2).
Success in the process of leadership localization and consequent realization of economic growth requires a change in attitudes of the human resource department which steer recruitment and oversee their retention in the workforce (Saad and Fadeel 2983:369).
The multinational; and local corporations looking forward to localizing leadership in their organizations should explore the factors that make talented employees choose some employers and not others (Oliver 1997:701). The process of leadership localization has economic, demographic and political perspectives and thus success will require multi-approaches to the problem in question.
Research Hypothesis
Leadership localization in the local and multinational oil and gas corporations will establish internal stability in management development among the local population, consequently leading to growth in business productivity.
Study Model
Leadership localization in Saudi Arabia will lead to growth in business productivity hence economic development and self efficiency in the country. Imposition of legal quotas to enforce leadership localization imparts negative mentality in the local citizens and thus reduces economic growth sustainability.
High dependence on expertise in the local and multinational corporations in Saudi Arabia can lead to economic sabotage and decreased economic performance in case of global recession that will reduce the countrys revenue inflow. Institutional training and grooming of the young population into leaders encourages employee sustainability hence economic growth in the institutions.
Methodology
The study will use information from detailed literature review, primary and secondary sources of data collection.
Literature Review
It will contain opinions from other scholars related to leadership localization in the gulf region. Through literature review, the proposal will bring out a clear grasp of the history of the research problem in Saudi Arabia and efforts which have been put in place by the government and private firms to enhance leadership localization. In addition, it will look into previous researches on the same problem and the results of implementation of research recommendations (Maxwell 2012:249).
Primary Sources
Information will be sought using population surveys and questionnaires to get insights on demographic, economic, political characteristics together with motivational behavior in the population. It will enhance collection of first hand information from institutions.
Structured and Standardized Surveys
To fulfill the study objectives, the study will use quantitative approach through survey questionnaires (Kumar 2005:43). The research sample will be drawn from senior executives and junior staff in local and multinational corporations operating in Saudi Arabia. The research Surveys will be conducted in the selected firms.
Information will be sought from companys records that indicate the rate of employee training to encourage localization. In addition, surveys will use employee registers from the human resource personnel to ascertain the rate of recruitment and retainance of employees in an effort to support localization (McKinsey and Company 2006:94).
A self-administered questionnaire designed in the light of research objectives will be distributed among 150 senior executives and 200 junior staff in the oil and gas multinational corporations in the western province of Saudi Arabia. The study will be limited to one part of the country as a strategy to control the cost of the research and to ensure achievement of the set objectives (Kothari 1985:65).
The researcher will administer the questionnaires which are to be completed in either Arabic or English. With the consent of the management of the specified corporations, the research will be carried out during official working hours, and the standardized questionnaires will require 30 to 45 minutes to fill in. participants will be selected randomly by the use of employee register but there will be no coercing for participation.
After giving the informed consent and explanation on the purpose of research, the selected employees will be given liberty to choose whether they want to participate in the research process or not (Kotter 2003:219).
The questionnaire will include questions to ascertain the effect of the Saudization policy in the effort to localize leadership in the business entities. In addition, the questionnaires will seek to get insights on individual perceptions of effect of localized leadership on growth of the business corporations especially the major oil and gas corporations.
Data Analysis
Following a logical reasoning from the studied literature, the research will present the localization determinants in Saudi Arabia. The determinants will be analyzed to ascertain their relationship with localization success in the country. The data collected will be analyzed using regression analysis and correlation technique.
The information collected will be interpreted and reduced to numerical terms (Dawson 2002:76). In the process of analyzing the information, the researcher will sample the collected information using the study variables. Sampling will be used to ascertain if the Saudi policy is targeted to particular institutions and if it is fairly applied to ensure business growth even in foreign investments.
Regression analysis and correlation analysis will enable the researcher to construct codes to enhance categorization of the collected information. The researcher will then be able to interpret data from the junior staff and compare it with the data collected from the executives and thus be able to draw his or her research conclusions.
Through comparison of data from individuals of different ranks, the researcher will be able to ascertain the authenticity of the research and thus make informed decisions if further research should be carried out or not (Ricketts 2009:1-7). Sampling will be used to ascertain if the Saudi policy is targeted to particular institutions and if it is fairly applied to ensure business growth even in foreign investments.
Regression test is used to explore the variance in leadership localization in various organizations (Kothari 1985:65). The test will also be used to ascertain the dependent determinants of business growth in Business Corporation are related to localization in Saudi Arabia. The analysis will also be used to show the relationship between organizations management and the success in efforts of leadership localization in the country (Melvin 2005:22).
Secondary Sources
The research will seek information from the government of Saudi Arabias statistics board and the department of labor. This will be meant to verify the information collected from the primary sources, and to gain some insights from the nationally documented information on unemployment rates and the measures put in place to enforce leadership localization in the country.
Conclusion
The proposed idea is to carry out a qualitative study on leadership localization in Saudi Arabia and its economic impact on the growth of local and international corporations in the region. A literature review to get an overview of other related research in the region.
The main study will use standard and structured questionnaires to give the researcher an opportunity to ascertain the validity of the responses through the use of standardized questions in the study. Probability sampling will enable the researcher to choose a reliable sample from which the data collected can be generalized to the target population.
Leadership localization has been planned for in the Gulf Nations since oil was discovered. Foreign companies and expatriates took advantage of lack of local individuals in possession of the required technical skills. Currently, gulf countries have put policies and other strategies in place to increase the percentage of the local population working in the multinational and local companies established in the region and this is attributed to economic, demographic, and political factors.
A quantitative study through the use of questionnaires will be conducted to give insights into the plans put in place to enforce leadership localization in oil and gas companies in Saudi Arabia. In addition, the questionnaires will seek information on the relationship between leadership localization and business growth in the multinational corporations in question.
The research will use non-probability sdampli8ng method in the selection of target companies. This will limit generalization of the research findings to the entire nation of Saudi Arabia. The research will seek to understand the relationship between Saudization policy and business growth both in the local and multinationals oil corporations in the Saudi Arabia.
References
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Achoui, M. 2009. Human resource development in Gulf countries: an analysis of the trends and challenges facing Saudi Arabia. Human Resource Development International, 12(1), 35-46.
Al-Dosary, A. & Rahman, S. 2005. Saudization (localization): a critical review. Human Resource Development International, 8 (4), 495-502.
Bartridge, T., Al Runaithi, F. et al. 2005. Localisation: GASCO21 success story. Human Assets Middle East, 13, 1-50.
Bhanugopan, R. & Fish, A. 2007. Replacing expatriates with local managers: an exploratory investigation into obstacles to localization in a developing country. Human Resource Development International, 10, 365-381.
Daher, A. & Al-Salem, A. 1985. Manpower in gulf Arab countries: a field study of the general situation. New York: Routledge.
Dawson, C. 2002. Practical research methods. New Delhi: UBS Publishers Distributors.
Dyer, P. 2006. Will the oil boom solve the Middle East employment crisis? Dubai School of Government Policy Brief, 1, 1-20.
Forstenlechner, I. 2010. Workforce localization in emerging Gulf economies: The need to fine-tune HRM. Personnel Review, 39(1), 135-152.
General Statistics Department KSA. 2007. The general statistics study: Jeddah, Government of Saudi Arabia.
Godwin, S. 2006. Education and emiratization: a case study of the United Arab Emirates. The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 27 (1), 1-14.
Harry, W. 2007. Employment creation and localization: the crucial human resource issues for the GCC. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 18(1), 132-146.
Heidrick, H. 2007. Struggles survey shows Middle East must do more to bridge talent gap. Web.
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The education system prioritizes students progress to graduation because academic progress significantly contributes to students career opportunities in the future. Moreover, the graduation rate is widely used as a measure of the overall success of the schools students (Barrington, 2022). On the other hand, the involvement of the schools leadership, students families, and communities in the school programs can also be associated with the quality of education. Therefore, the excessive focus on students efforts in graduation progress overlooks the influence of school leadership, family, and community on students.
Organization of Leadership, Family, and Community Collaboration Project
The Leadership, Family, and Community Collaboration Project targets directing joint efforts to improve the learning environment for students and promote lifelong learning. The project targets the areas of educators professional development and adjusting existing policies to provide more opportunities for the communitys participation in improving the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. Thus, more opportunities for collaboration with the community in education will allow for shaping a more effective and equitable educational process.
Implementation of Leadership, Family, and Community Collaboration Project
Implementation of the Leadership, Family, and Community Collaboration Project includes three prominent steps: preparation for SIP, its realization, and assessment of results for continuous improvement. Thus, the first step focuses on selecting the SIP development team, defining the students needs, and assessing the communitys satisfaction with the current course of study using data from surveys and interviews. The step also includes establishing which skills the students need to improve and what professional development activities for educators can help in achieving these goals. Next, the implementation of SIP focuses on allocating necessary resources for the identified changes and educators professional development activities. Lastly, the assessment of the projects results focuses on comparing data about students needs and the communitys satisfaction before and after the implementation of the project.
Professional Development Activities
Teachers learning capabilities define their efficiency in educating new generations of students. Therefore, educators should prioritize constant professional development to recognize and meet the needs of new students (Sancar et al., 2021). The modern perceptions of ethics in education emphasize the importance of a positive learning environment, equity, safety, and individual approach to students. Thus, the possible professional development activities for the plan focus on managing students positive behavior, promoting students cultural and emotional intelligence, and creating more opportunities for parents to be involved in students learning.
School leadership is now a priority issue in all schools around the world. As focus shifts on schooling and school results, leadership is now a mandatory issue of concern not only in Australian schools, but in all schools around the world (Pont, Nusche & Moorman, 2008). Nevertheless, school leadership is influenced by the various educational policy reforms that have been initiated in the recent years.
Some of these policies include changes in school governance, standardized tests, school funding arrangements, use of ICT in schools, and equity and social justice. These policy reforms have, to a greater extent, influenced school leadership especially in Australian public schools. Over the recent years, there have been shifts on policy concerning school governance in Australia towards devolution.
But how has these governance changes impacted on school leadership? In this paper, I have tried to investigate the impact of school governance on school leadership. My paper presents an analysis of the various governance changes that have occurred in Australian schools since 1960s and culminates into a discussion on how the current school governance system have impacted or is likely to impact on school leadership.
Defining school leadership and governance
Before I engage deeper in this discussion, I will start by defining the two important concepts; leadership and governance. Leadership and governance are not new concepts. The terms have been used in institutions, organizations and even in schools. Leadership and governance are two closely related, but different concepts as will be seen shortly.
Leadership is a relative term with no clear definition. In this regard, Cuban (1988) stated that, despite there being more than 350 definitions of leadership, explicit understanding as to what distinguishes leaders from non-leaders is still lacking (p. 190). Cuban (1988) defines leadership in the context of schools to refer to people who bend the motivations and actions of others to achieving certain goals; it implies taking initiatives and risks (p. 193).
In simple terms, leadership is more concerned with influencing peoples attitudes and motivations towards achieving certain goals. I will thus define school leadership to involve influencing teachers and students motivations, behaviours and attitudes towards achieving high academic performance. As we have seen in our schools, leadership is primarily the responsibility of school principals/head teachers.
School principals thus have to play administrative and managerial in addition to their role as practicing teachers. In most cases, the word leadership is used interchangeably with management and administration in school context (Pont et al., 2008). However, these three words are different.
While leadership involves influencing other peoples attitudes and behaviours, management is more concerned with maintaining current processes (Pont et al., 2008). Nevertheless, school leadership encompasses both management and administration. School leaders often undertake managerial and administrative tasks in their leadership process.
Governance, on the other hand, involves decision-making and implementation process. School governance involves the use of power, authority and legitimacy to oversee expenditures on facilities and resources within the school (Obondoh, Nandago and Otiende, 2005). As stated in ACER (2008):
governance is concerned with notions of legitimacy, representativeness and accountability, and how educational institutions interact with civil society, described as: the network of mutually supporting relationships between government, business and industry, education and other public and private sector services, community, home and voluntary agencies and institutions (p. 27).
School governance as I have used in this paper involves the use of power and authority to influence decision making on such important issues as: the dos and donts; accountability and information sharing; policies, laws, plans and budgets; power relations; determination and enforcement of rules and guidelines; and allocation, utilization and generation of resources (Obondoh et al., 2005).
Policy reforms on school governance in Australia
There have been major reforms in school governance in our schools since the 1960s as I will discuss shortly. In the 1960s and 1970s, Australian public sector witnessed structural pressures driven by its rapid expansion and growth making it difficult to manage schools from the central government. There were also changes in attitudes and values towards greater involvement of teachers and students in school decision making (Ainley & McKenzie, 2000).
I attribute the policy changes in school governance in the 1960s to the growing number of non-government schools. The 1970s further witnessed intense devolution pressures triggered by the need to redress educational disadvantage while embracing community involvement in addressing learning needs as well as the need to update existing curricula to cover new curriculum areas (Ainley & McKenzie, 2000).
One such important move towards devolution and head teachers autonomy was witnessed in South Australia in 1970, when the then Director of Education Department sent the Freedom and Authority Memorandum to school heads. This memorandum gave school heads the legitimate power to make decisions on school rules, implementation of curriculum guidelines, and school ethos issues (Thomson, 2010).
In terms of devolution, the Freedom and Authority Memorandum led to the establishment of local School Councils and decentralization of non-salary budgets to individual schools. In the 1980s, school governance focused more on accountability. Curriculum development was also moved back to central authorities as pressures mounted for stronger curricula. Another school governance characteristic of the 1980s was the emergence of state-wide assessment programs.
The 1990s continued with the centralized curriculum control and tight accountability, but with some form of devolution of school governance as outlined by Ainley & McKenzie (2000). First, the control over personnel matters and operating budgets were decentralized to school principals and councils. Second, both the central authority and the local community demanded accountability from school leaders.
Third, leadership enhancement interventions were sort through equipping schools with proper management tools. Fourth, professional qualification of teachers were recognized beyond state borders, qualification tests standardized and tertiary entrance scores made fair across states (Ainley & McKenzie, 2000).
These governance elements of the 1990s are still present in todays school governance. The need to devolve school governance to school principals and elected or representative boards featured clearly in Schools of the Future, 2003 initiatives in Victoria (ACER, 2008).
These initiatives characteristic of Victorian schools aimed at decentralizing school governance to individual schools and embracing schools autonomy. Another important policy document to guide school leadership and governance in this millennium is the Melbourne Declaration of 2008, which seeks to promote equity and social justice in Australian schools and to ensure that young Australians get access to quality education.
While this document does not directly touch on school governance, it calls for strengthening of accountability and transparency; the most important components of school governance (MCEETYA, 2008).
In this regard, Melbourne Declaration states that parents, families and the community should have access to information about the performance of their school compared to schools with similar characteristics (MCEETYA, 2008, pp.16-17). This presents a devolved system of school governance where by accountability is not only provided to the central government, but also to the local community and school councils.
Having outlined the main changes in public school governance in Australia since 1960s let me now elaborate the discussion to present the main structural features in school governance in Australia. Just like in most countries around the world, education in Australia is considered a state and territory responsibility. However, there exist differences in the governance structure of both primary and secondary education across different states and territories.
The traditional school system in most states and territories took the form of the old public administration with school governance highly centralized in the Ministry of Education and the Education Department (ACER, 2008). This old trend has, however, changed mainly due to the rapid growth of non-government schools on one part and devolution of decisions on day-to-day school operations and staff appointments on the other part (ACER, 2008).
While government schools have some commonalities across states and territories, non-government schools differ across states and territories in terms of mode of funding, autonomy, school leadership, and governance (ACER, 2008). Catholic schools, for instance, are funded and governed by catholic authorities.
School leadership in such schools is guided by catholic values and guidelines on service. Nevertheless, there exist some similarities in both government and non-government schools concerning school curriculum. This is because the central authorities retain the powers to specify broad curriculum guidelines while individual schools retain the autonomy to fill in curriculum details.
Both government and non-government schools alike are also required to comply with the various state educational legislation, regulations, and guidelines. For instance, both school systems have to provide accountability on performance through the national standardized tests.
School governance and leadership in Australia
As I have already mentioned in the previous section, Australia consists of varied school governance structures. Each governance structure has an impact on leadership either in a positive or negative manner. Even so, the current school governance in Australia is characterized by devolution with strong elements of accountability, market forces and organizational learning.
In spite of the structure of governance in place, principals as school leaders are vested with the responsibility of management, accountability, and educational leadership (ACER, 2008).
However, effective school leadership requires the sharing and distribution of leadership responsibilities among other staff members with significant leadership roles (ACER, 2007). Distributing leadership responsibilities ensures broad leadership skills base, role interdependence, improved coordination and problem solution, and complementarity of skills (ACER, 2008, p. 27).
In the old public administration system, our school principals were charged with the responsibility of providing leadership in the operation of individual schools, but governance of schools remained the responsibility of the central bureaucracy. In such governance systems, school principals had clearly set roles while teachers operated in isolation (Pont et al., 2008).
The school heads were considered the bureaucratic administrator with the overall authority within the school. The school principals had to ensure that individual schools comply with the set state or territorial guidelines, regulations and legislation. The school heads also remained accountable to the central authority for resource utilization within the school. School leaders work was more of managerial with less teaching, while teachers were considered experts who needed not to be supervised in the classrooms.
This approach to governance has, however, changed as our public sector is now moving away from the traditional bureaucratic form of governance to a decentralized form of governance.
Our schools are now being run by autonomous head teachers who have legitimate powers to influence decisions on important day-to-day operations of the schools and who are held accountable both to the community and the central authority. Nevertheless, the implementation of a devolved system of governance has not been easy, especially in Australian public schools.
Devolution of school governance has been defined by its proponents as significant and consistent delegation to the school level the authority to make decisions related to allocation of resources (Thomson, 2010, p. 11). From a decentralist perspective, devolution means deregulation and local governance of schools (Eacott, 2011).
However, devolved decision making seems to be more rhetorical as major decisions on school reforms in our nation continue to be made by those holding high offices following the old bureaucratic education system. This is in congruent with the social theorists like Foucault (1977) and Bourdieu (1977) who both argued that the roles of local powers in devolved governance rarely feature when major decisions are being made from the central authority.
The state control over major decisions on education in Australia traces its roots to the constitution, which places education a responsibility of the state government. For this reason, the state government, despite rolling out school autonomy, still has to play its mandate of providing quality education to Australian citizens. This includes setting of guidelines, rules and regulations governing important aspects of schooling.
For instance, we have the national testing regime and the national school curriculum that schools have to adhere to while at the same time trying to roll out school autonomy. This only means that school leaders role is reduced to implementation of decisions made by those in high bureaucratic offices. School leaders have to use the curriculum guideline as decided, but can only add in a few details. This situation is also made worse by the standardized tests policy.
With the national testing regime, school leaders only have to influence the teachers and students alike into achieving the national required academic performance standards leaving schools with very little autonomy concerning governance of its academic performance.
These policies directly affect head teachers autonomy both in government and non-government schools thereby impacting on leadership. The situation for government schools is even worsened by the fact that they entirely rely on federal funding hence they remain accountable to the federal authority, despite their autonomy.
As our country move away from the old public administration to embrace the new public management approach to governance, elements such as market forces for quality control, performance measures, participation, global competitiveness, and accountability are becoming the cornerstone of education policy (Eacott, 2011).
These elements were captured in the Blue Print for Government Schools, 2003 and mirrored well in the Melbourne Declaration, 2008 and are now the driving force behind the development of a national education curriculum to go hand in hand with the national standardized test policy. Our education system is currently being viewed from an economic perspective as a vehicle for building a strong economic background for the nation.
In this regard, the market demands for highly skilled labour are being captured in schools strategic plans for quality and performance control. The increased need for performance outcome is not only presented in the Melbourne declaration, but also necessitated by the standardized testing program. School leadership thus has to be directed towards quality and performance improvement.
One important aspect of our current school governance system is head teachers autonomy. The devolved system of school governance has granted school principals the legitimate authority to make important decisions on the day-to-day operations of the schools.
However, as John Walker once warned in his speech to school principals at a dinner held in North Adelaide Hotel when he stated that: We are going to give you freedom-freedom till it hurts (Thomson, 2010, p. 7), head teachers autonomy can easily be abused to the detrimental of school leadership.
For instance, granting head teachers the powers to hire and fire school teaching staff may be a good move, but in my opinion head teachers can use such powers to fire teachers on the basis of personal differences and not performance outcome as should be the case.
Head teachers autonomy was viewed as a landmark move towards granting school principals the freedom to run schools without any interference authority, but some states were a bit hesitant to embrace the new autonomy, except for Victoria and South Australia that even introduced school councils. New South Wales, for instance clang to the command and control form of governance whereby the school principal remains the overall commander and controller.
As our schools shift to decentralized governance systems, community involvement as well as participation from both the teaching staff and students has become inevitable. But what impact does participatory governance under the devolved system of school governance has on school leadership? Under the traditional school governance system, schools were locked out of community participation in decision making.
However, devolution has opened schools to involvement of both parents and the wider community in the management process. Integration of the community into the school system and making schools accountable to the community in my view is a positive move towards ensuring democracy and accountability in schools.
Parents involvement in school management differs across states in Australia, but parent representation is often done through state-level bodies that are consolidated into the Australian Council of State School Organization (ACSSO) at the national level. ACSSO has the right to participate in the decision making process of educational policies with direct influence on schooling. The body also has the mandate to demand information on school performance.
This thus has a significant impact on school leadership in that our school principals now have to provide leadership beyond the school border to the community to ensure that parents are empowered enough to play active role in key decisions on schooling policies (Pont et al., 2008). Further, our school principals also have to engage more in information dissemination, co-operation and coalition building to ensure that the local community is well integrated into the school system.
As Pont et al. (2008) pointed out, decentralized school governance requires school leaders to develop strong networking and collaboration skills and to engage with their peers and with intermediate bodies throughout the local education system (p. 23).
Such a system ensures that teachers, students, parents and the wider community are all represented in the school decision-making process, but school leaders are left with the burden of integrating the top-down demands from bureaucratic offices, internal demands from students and the teaching staff, and external demands from the local community and parents in the final decision made (Pont et al., 2008).
As such, our school principals work has become more political in trying to integrate and influence forces from within and without the school borders. Such levels of participation in school governance may also make schools vulnerable to local political influence leading to decisions that only reflect the interests of the local community, but may impact negatively on performance outcome.
The fact that schools now have to be accountable not only to the central authority, but also to the parents and local community is changing leadership approaches in our schools towards a participatory form of leadership where leadership roles are distributed among those with professional leadership skills.
Schools are now moving away from the traditional form of leadership in which school heads retained all the leadership powers to a situation whereby leadership is being distributed among teachers and school councils. Take, for instance, the state of Victorias Schools of the Future program whereby schools are considered autonomous and school heads are required to develop and implement strategic plans for performance improvement with the help of teachers and school councils.
Leadership in Victorian schools is guided by the Learning to Lead Effective, 2006, which has been closely interlocked with the Blueprint for Government Schools, 2003 reform agenda for decentralized governance of Australian schools. In this regard, I consider Victoria State a successful case study in the rolling out of devolved governance in Australian schools.
The state has managed to decentralize school governance to the local municipalities and schools, while at the same time focusing on improved school leadership with such important issues as accountability, quality and performance control, and participation closely paid attention to.
Under devolved systems of school governance, aspects such as operational budgets, recruitment of personnel and instructional delivery are all decentralized to individual schools. However, school leaders remain accountable both to the local community and the central authority in terms of resource utilization and performance outcome.
It is for the sake of accountability that the Commonwealth government of Australia introduced the standardized testing policy and is currently working on a national curriculum. The demand for performance accountability is also spearheaded by parents and the local community as the Melbourne Declaration grants them the right to hold schools accountable for the performance outcome of their children.
Hence, school leaders have to yield to pressure from all levels and provide documented evidence of school performance whenever needed. School leaders thus have to motivate teachers and students alike to achieve the high performance standards required. In such a situation our school principals are now being forced to supervise teachers in the classroom contrary to the old public administration system where teachers were considered to be experts and school principals needed not to supervise their work.
The increased demand for accountability also requires that school principals maintain up-to-date records on resource utilization, performance outcome, and personnel recruitment. As OECD (2001) noted, the devolved system of school governance is slowly evolving the role of school principals from the practicing teacher, with added technical and administrative duties, to the full-time manager and developer of human, physical and financial resources (pp. 20 and 24).
Most Australian schools now recruit school leaders and the teaching staff through the school councils as a way of ensuring transparency and accountability of the recruitment process. Under the Schools of the Future program in Victoria, school leaders are expected to submit school annual reports the state education authority as a way of ensuring quality assurance, despite the schools autonomy in terms of management.
According to a study conducted by Caldwell (1998), the Schools of the Future program reveals close association with school curriculum and learning outcomes, but has very little association with improvements in school achievement. The findings of this study only proves that while such systems of school governance may be beneficial in ensuring learning outcomes, they may have a negative impact on school leadership hence hampering performance improvement.
Conclusion
I have managed to draw the link between school governance and school policy in this paper. From my discussion, school governance in Australia and most countries around the world have evolved over the years from a centralized bureaucratic form of governance where the state and territorial authorities retain all the powers to make all decisions concerning school governance to a decentralized system where the state and territorial authorities delegate some decision-making powers to the local authority and schools.
However, the devolved system of school governance has also come with increased demands for participation, accountability and performance improvement. As such, school leaders role has changed with the changing governance policies. School leadership in the current governance system has added more responsibilities to school heads than was the case in the old public administration form of governance.
References
ACER (Australian Council for Educational Research) (2008). OECD improving school leadership activity. Australia: Country background report. Queensland: Commonwealth of Australia.
Ainley, J. & Mckenzie, P. (2000). School governance: Research on education and management issues. International Education Journal, 1(3), 139-151.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Caldwell, B. (1998). Self-managing schools and improved learning outcomes. Canberra: DETYA.
Cuban, L. (1988).The managerial imperative and the practice of leadership in schools. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Eacott, S. (2011). Liberating schools through devolution: The Trojan horse of the state. Leading and Managing, 17(1), 75-83.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish. London, UK: Penguin.
MCEETYA (Ministerial Council for Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs) (2008). Melbourne declaration on educational goals for young Australians. Web.
Obondoh, A., Nandago, M. & Otiende, E. (2005). Managing our schools today: A practical guide on participatory school governance. A manual for training and advocacy work. Kampala: PAMOJA: Africa Reflect Network in collaboration with ANCEFA.
OECD. (2001). Report on Hungary/OECD seminar on managing education for lifelong learning, 6-7 December 2001, Budapest. Paris: OECD.
Pont, B., Nusche, D. & Moorman, H. (2008). Improving school leadership volume 1: Policy and practice. Paris: OECD.
Thomson, P. (2010). Headteacher autonomy: A sketch of Bourdieuian field analysis of position and practice. Critical Studies in Education, 51 (1), 5-20.
Leaders require wide range of skills, behaviors, and traits in order to effectively manage their followers (Iqbal et al., 2012). The combination and execution of these qualities encompass leadership style. A leadership style based is usually chosen based on his or her ideas, values, beliefs, and norms. Different approaches by various leaders may lead to different leadership styles (Iqbal et al., 2012). This paper will analyze delegative leadership style.
Delegative leadership style
There is no a single leadership style that may be considered to be the best in the management of people. Nonetheless, a leadership style is chosen based the efficiency of the style and the effectiveness of the approaches adopted (Iqbal et al., 2012). Delegative leadership style is one of the best forms of leadership that most organizations may prefer using (Demand Media, 2011). Situations where people are directly involved in decision making in any organization are common.
Therefore, delegated leadership has demonstrated that it is possible to enhance the efficiency in the management of organizations. This approach towards leadership allows the subordinate staff to make decisions affecting them. However, the leader is still indirectly responsible for all the decisions made by the employees in an organization (Demand Media, 2011).
Strengths of delegative leadership style
This approach is one of the best leadership models because it rejuvenates employees bearing in mind that they are empowered by the management of the organization since they are made to have a sense of belonging within the organization (Demand Media, 2011).
Moreover, the levels of job satisfactions are generally high because employees feel their worth in the organizations survival. This leadership style also encourages deeper understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the employees due to increased levels of interaction between the management and the rest of the employees (Demand Media, 2011).
Furthermore, this type of leadership allows effective decision making in any organization since all the members of staff are used in generating ideas needed in decision making. This leadership style is therefore very effective because a lot of work is done in a very short period. Besides, employees are allowed to make decisions on what needs to be done.
Moreover, minimum monitoring of skilled workers has the highest probability of enhancing the overall output of employees (Iqbal et al, 2012). Workers in such an organization often feel that they are trusted by the top leadership and as such, they perform their duties without fear.
Weaknesses of delegative leadership style
Delegative leadership may portray some limitations especially if employees are poorly motivated or under qualified (Facts on File, 2009). Cases whereby the members of staff have great responsibility with minimal guidance from the top leadership may hamper the decision-making process resulting into stagnated of the organization.
As a matter of fact, this leadership style may lead into complicated job descriptions, unproductive decisions, and eventual job frustrations (Facts on File, 2009). Consequently, these negative effects may lead to reduced performance, customer disappointment and y declined profitability. In most cases, delegated leadership may be worsened by poorly defined roles of the employees and pitiable motivation to the employees who feel that their work is very important to the organization (Facts on File, 2009).
In some instances, employees may resort to sabotaging the functions of an organization. Additionally, the different decisions reached by various employees, may in most cases, increase the costs of running an organization since the employees can develop decisions that are favorable to their working conditions at the expense of the company (Facts on File, 2009).
Conclusion
Therefore, delegative leadership can only be effective in specific situations where employees are well trained and can be trusted with certain sensitive roles (Iqbal et al, 2012). This leadership style can be very effective and fruitful if well used. An example of an organization that has effectively used this type of leadership is the Village Earth international organization (Village Earth, 2013). The affiliates of this company are empowered to carry out their mandates without interference from the headquarters of the organization.
References
Demand Media (2011). Styles of Leadership. Web.
Facts On File (2009). Leadership Skills (3rd Edn). New York, NY: Infobase Publishing.
Iqbal, J., Inayat, S., Ijaz, M. & Zahid, A. (2012). Leadership Styles: Identifying Approaches and Dimensions of Leaders. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 4(3), 641-659.
Village Earth (2013). Philosophy and Guiding Principles. Web.
Generally, academic writing is a scholarly literature covering any topic and organized by the author(s) from an authoritative point of view (Kumar, 2010). In any field, academic writing should have an objective or purpose of writing, a clear explanation of the topic, well organized and have referenced or supported ideas from other scholarly works.
In organization leadership, academic writing is used to convey a body of information about particular subjects with target audiences comprising of the managers, employees and labor unions amongst others (Martin, 2008).
The question of what an academic paper must meet in this field has remained a subject of debate since there is a wider scope of topics to be covered. However, the primary requirements such as the purpose of the writing, ideological or rational explanation of issues, proper structure, and a detailed explanations of the findings are necessary to prevent other scholars from coming up with replicated results.
Commonly used primary Media by writers in in this field are the print media, namely, books, journals, and newspapers. Other common characteristics of scholarly writing in this field include use of economic theories, economic models, economic assumptions, and mathematical analysis of data (Daft & Marcic, 2010).
Commonly used rhetoric structures include symbolic motives, value language, narratives, and statistical or quantitative explanation of findings (Mary & Debra, 2009). In order to give a better understanding of this topic, the author chose to analyze an example of an academic writing in organizational leadership. The article was titled Fringe Benefits on Employee Compensation and was written by Arleen Leibowitz and published by the University of Chicago Press.
In the scholarly writing under analysis, the purpose of the text was clearly brought out. From the topic, we understand that the text specifically discuses the remuneration or compensation of an organizations employees.
In the introduction, Leibowitz (1983) explains that in most organizations, employees are remunerated using money wages i.e. employees are remunerated using money but subject to the time spent in the workplace. He further explains that employees received other fringe benefits such as insurance covers and other allowances. The author seems not to like these forms of compensation and therefore moves ahead to criticize them by referring to well thought out models and economic theories.
This text has a proper structure and used argumentative ideas to communicate the intended message. For instance, in the introductory bit, Leibowitz gave a brief narrative on the structure of the paper.
He explained that section 11.2 used a simple model to explain the division in remuneration between benefits and wages, section 11.3 dwelt on findings of the BLS survey conducted in 1972, section 11.4 gave a description on HIS data, and section 11.5.1 a comparison between the HIS data and the national sample. The author used the wage benefit theory and other economic models to support his arguments on the topic.
He used the labor market model to critically analyze the gains that an employee should get directly from the employer in addition to the normal wages. The explanations given were that if the wage model, which is used only as a part of compensating for the labor offered, has a negative relationship to other benefits, then using wages as a compensation measure is error-prone (Kumar, 2010).
The text has also discussed its findings in an elaborative manner. Leibowitz used data from various sources to support the findings of the text. For instance, table 11.4 showed the wage regression trend for full time employees. The table in itself did not bring out the intended meaning. The researcher therefore, went ahead to give well explained narrative intended to help the targeted audience understand it better.
In writing this text, Leibowitz (1983) used various rhetoric structures that are commonly used in academic literature covering organization leadership. For instance, the author made use of good reasoning to give his explanation. In the first place, he pointed out that there is relationship between wages, other benefits, and labor supply. He proved this argument by using a well explained wage benefit theory to bring out the relationship.
The theory had convincing arguments to support what the author was arguing. According to Mary & Debra (2009), academic writings on organization leadership should make use of symbolic motives. Leibowitz (1983) makes use of economic terms such as trade-offs, fringe benefits, wages, supply model, tax rates and several others to give a well thought out argument. Other rhetoric contexts commonly used in academic writing in this field include good descriptions and making references to past events (Martin, 2008).
In conclusion, I selected this text because it covered a very important topic in organization leadership. Good pay is the basic reason as to why people supply labor to any organization. This text is a good example of academic writing in organization leadership since it meets most of the primary requirements of scholarly writings in the field.
In analyzing this text, I realized that the format or structure of a scholarly writing in this field is fully dependent on the topic being discussed. For instance, this text covered economic issues and thus had to make use a mathematical or statistical analysis of data to present its facts.
References
Daft, R. & Marcic. D. (2010). Understanding management. U.S.A: Nelson Education Ltd.
Kumar, K. (2010). Human resource management: strategic analysis text and case. New Delhi: International Pvt Ltd
Leibowitz, A. (1983). Fringe benefits in employee compensation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Web.
Martin, J. (2008). Human resource management. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Mary, F., H. & Debra, J., F. (2009). Organization rhetoric: Situation and strategies. California: SAGE Publishers.
As opposed to leadership where a leader prioritizes needs of followers first, narcissistic leaders put their interests first. In addition, narcissistic leaders prioritize their needs at the expense of their subordinates. Narcissistic leaders can be identified easily as they tend to be hostile, embrace arrogance, and like to dominate over all matters. Currently, this type of leadership has been seen to prevail among most powerful leaders.
However, narcissism can exist where there is no specific individual holding the post of a leader (Nohria & Khurana, 2010). In such groupings, there tends to arise some people who perceive themselves as better individuals than others, and thus assume the leadership of the group. However, some narcissist leaders are positive for they possess crucial leadership skills that include charisma and grand vision. In my opinion, this type of leadership style would be suitable to a growing firm or one that had fallen previously.
To some extent, a narcissistic leader, through his or her vision, can help to build a stable firm. Moreover, narcissistic people are egoistic, and to sooth their ego, they will do anything within their reach to make sure that the firm performs optimally. These characteristics depict positive narcissistic leaders that can steer a growing business towards growth. For instance, Steve Jobs depicted this type of leadership style and he managed to make Apple Corporation one of the best technological firms in the world today.
Narcissism can closely be related to the character trait of the leader or a persons personality. Scholars have come out to acknowledge that some people are attracted by dominance and confidence portrayed by these leaders, hence choosing them. Some situations call for great visions by a narcissism leader. For instance, when some employees gang to bring down an organization, this leader can stamp his or her authority and settle the issue satisfactorily.
On the other hand, narcissistic leaders are likely to bring more harm to an organization than good. One negative aspect of these leaders is that they tend to incline their vision, plans, and actions towards individual psychological needs. In the quest to secure leadership positions, these people will even promote themselves even when not necessary. In addition, their psychological behavior entails traits such as arrogance, consistent need for recognition that is hardly satiable, and superiority complex.
It becomes a challenge for this people to lead a large organization successfully. In a large corporation, a leader deals with people of different cultures, personalities, and even backgrounds. These employees may depict an unpleasant behavior to the leader. A narcissistic leader may not put up with such differences. Additionally, narcissistic leaders have an inferiority complex, especially when they fail to achieve their goals.
Consequently, these leaders cannot align goals of an organization to those of individual employees. Narcissistic leaders are arrogant, which underscores one of the impediments of successful leadership.
If a leader cannot relate well with other employees, it will be hard for him or her to incorporate employees needs in formulating overall goals of an organization. Inferiority complex is a feeling that drives a narcissistic leader towards insatiable need for recognition, which leads to superiority complex, hence creating personal goals and expect others to adhere.
This move can jeopardize development of an employee significantly, thus hindering innovations. Their hypersensitivity and anger causes a trait of self-righteousness and being out of control, which forces them to make decisions that may be out of control and will tend to humiliate their employees to satisfy their selfish needs and ego.
Reference
Nohria, N., & Khurana, R. (2010). Handbook of leadership theory and practice: An HBS centennial colloquium on advancing leadership. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Press.
Apparently, it is important to understanding and practice true leadership styles due to the current trends of diversification in employment. Today the diversity patterns such as differences in age groups are common phenomenon. There is need for finding different styles that assists leaders to deal with these developments.
The leadership style determines the performance of individual employees and the organization as a unit. Foremost, a highly performing organization equally requires an ambitious achiever and strong leader to steer its activities. Secondly, leadership is guidance or assistance procedures that are mainly concern with the way people create rapport, communicate and live by the challenges (Hargreaves, 155).
According to Hargreaves (155), for a leadership style to be effective, it is imperative to share ideas. It is also important to understand the process of leadership in an organization or company especially when personnel comprise of different age sets/groups.
Considering the probable complexities such as different expectations over the issues concerning needs, differences in believes, synergy or energy levels, expectations, experiences, and technological advancements, a group of such nature requires proper implementation of management strategies.
The age difference is a source of diverse creativity that requires the leader to come up with resourceful styles of governance to meet the high expectations. Arguably, the leadership style has a reciprocating nature, where the leader and followers have different needs, requirements and expectation. In most instances, the leadership styles fail because the different needs lack measurable elements or factors to meet the expectations.
Lastly, it is evident that today there is need to search for or understand leaders and the different styles of administration that are in use. The set goals or performance levels are attainable only when the involved groups have trust on their leaders. Trust is a pre-requisite aspect of leadership, since it calls for those in charge to portray honesty and show concern or care for their employees needs and thoughts, but at the same time, leaders must remain accountable over their deeds (MacMillan, 6).
Respect is an inevitable aspect of leadership, therefore the leader ought to show commitments and pronouncements with respect to the opinion of others and respond to their requests amicably and respectably, owing to the thought that differences of opinion is an eminent sign of progress. Leadership presents a set of values that identifies with a firm, such as courageousness, reliability, integrity, competence, honesty, altruism, and fairness (MacMillan, 6).
Background/History of Leadership
Considering the social and scientific definition, leadership is the process that involves interpersonal communication to influence an outcome. According to Northhouse (73), history indicates that leadership is symbolic to the human nature of modifying the attitudes and behaviours of people in order to meet organizational goals and needs.
Leadership styles are therefore a requirement in a company or organization because the techniques involve acts enacted through persuasion or communication as opposed to force. Any instigated control of leadership is a benefit to unite a certain group of people through influence.
How does the leader create the positive influences? The leader must have strategies to influence the behaviours of others through communication. The designated leader is appointed or elected to a position, but she/he need to be an emergent leader because of exerting influences towards achievement of group goals. Every person in a group ought to be an emergent leader especially during various group tasks (Northhouse, 73).
Today, it is important for a designated leader to be acceptable in a group for better outcomes. The group may have shared leadership among members but eventually it is important to have someone responsible for coordination of communication among the members.
Current trends of leadership styles
Today the technological change has made the organizations and companies to be more dynamic, and therefore the leadership styles of focusing attention has equally become vibrant, on-going and very important procedures. The leadership style that attracts the attention of others requires the leader to aim at being in focus over others thought at all times.
Current trends indicate that the leaders values must substantiate human value. It is therefore important for a leader to have good solid knowledge and approaches to combat the organizational differences as well as engage in continuous and alternative choices that steers organization forward in terms of development (Hargreaves, 155).
One of the most fundamental issues concerning leadership involves the ability to communicate effectively. At present, a good leader must be in a position of convincing people on how to focus on the ideas perceived to be important and developmental, while cater for each group.
The methods and styles of communication lack good definition in most organizations/firms. Every leader has a personal way of pronouncement, which varies from formal to casual in both written and spoken structures. The main aim of a leadership style is to have consistency on the ability to attract attention and peoples actions.
Today the successful leaders realize that there exists no single and specific method of guiding. The leaders must guide a groups situation by coming up with the most appropriate leadership behavioral patterns, to combat a situation at hand. This is the only right and most appropriate procedures for the leaders because it involves the whole group and triggers the competency levels.
Conclusion
Leadership styles have a close connection to behavior. In the assessment of a groups leadership needs, it is necessary to translate skills to communicative behavior. For instance, if a leader finds that a certain group needs strong guidance, it is then wise to suggest direction, make different assignments, and possibly vet unrealistic suggestions. Leadership skills call for one to find and balance the thoughts of members, support facts, and give authority to act.
All the leadership styles have a strong basis on communication, and not skills, experience, or personality. The connection between group members brings about cooperation and unique leadership styles that solve group problem effectively, thus making the group to become more effective (Northhouse, 74). A good or efficient group only requires a small, early but strong guidance to become and remain productive.
Work Cited
Hargreaves, Andy. Teaching in the Knowledge Society: Education in the age of Insecurity. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. 2003. Print
MacMillan, Robert. Leadership succession: Cultures of teaching and Educational change. New York, NY: Routledge/Falmer Publication Press. 2000. Print
Northhouse, Peter. G., Leadership: Theory and Practice. London, UK: SAGE Publication press. 2009. Print
Progress in engineering and technology is determined by how every activity is conducted. As such, leadership and management play an important role.
Thus, John C. Maxwell terms the relationship as Maxwells 21 Irrefutable laws of leadership. In engineering the vertical bar, according to the T-Shaped Professional, concept represents the intensive skills in designing and developing technology and machines. Again, the vertical bar encompasses the ability of the leaders to solve problems through a wide array of leadership and technical skills, which ensure successful operation of the equipment and machines.
A variety of equipment and machine mechanical engineers make are the surgical instruments, elevators and air-conditioning equipment. They increase their competency and follow the trend through analysis of the feasibility and performance of the machines and equipment through research and development.
Therefore, engineering consists of a combination of disciples from various schools of thoughts. It includes management, technology, communication, science and mathematics.
The relationship with other disciplines enables one to find solutions in the engineering sectors, the banking sector and in social aspects, which enhance communication. In addition, Leadership and empowerment have been an increasingly critical organizational competency that has elicited growing global concern from organizations amid various circumstances that are great obstacles.
Leadership and empowerment are an extensive process that involves enhancement systematic change in the light of basic changes in the organizations overall attitude, traits, contingency perspectives and behaviors (Maxwell, 2007). The mode of carrying out commercial activities, traditional exchange, communication, and increasing growth has evolved in light of irrefutable leadership laws that call for influence, respect, intuition and empowerment.
Today the trend shows critical concern in corporate activities with deep focus on time, teamwork and mission for guaranteed quality productivity in the overall organization. Therefore, people from various backgrounds, character, behavior, and cultures, are involved together in one platform as employees
It also requires one to include information technology skills as well as analytical skills that will facilitate convenience in innovative approaches. Notwithstanding, the ability to plan and arrange the tasks in order of importance is essential in completing the complex tasks that mostly have deadlines while working under immense pressure.
Incorporation of engineering and knowledge from other disciples ensures the ability to ensure careful analysis of detailed information. The ability to have competence in judging and accepting responsibility in completing tasks is essential. Ultimately, the ability to communicate with other team members within one discipline and in working situations with other workers in the same department is necessary to complete the tasks.
Continuous progress in engineering through leadership
The horizontal context of the T-Shaped Professional concept in engineering and technology collaborates different disciplines with specialist areas of application in the industry. In essence, they have to lead and manage the operation of organization activities. Again, installation of the equipment, machines and maintenance fall within the horizontal context. Securing mechanical engineering skills require various personal characteristics and skills, like creativity, problem solving and strong communication skills.
Such traits will increase innovation and test of new designs. Other skills that contribute to the engineers development may include correspondence with management and patent office staff together with the aforementioned creativity and communication skills. They are fundamental for attaining competency as an engineer.
The Automobile and aeronautics engineers need mechanical engineering skills. To be a productive engineer in these fields involves being disciplined in assembling and troubleshooting exhaust systems. The manufacturing industry incorporates engineering concept in the creation of industrial machinery with an ergonomic design that ensures the safety.
The question if there is a distinction between management and leadership has elicited many arguments that developed into theories. The duties and responsibilities revealed the main differences and in part they play and the influence in business operations. GWS Motorsport leadership is outgoing by embracing the law of magnetism. As such, the management built diverse relationship with other motor companies like Allans True Blue Motorsport at the Bathurst in an effort to provide capability support.
Leaders who have succeeded in technological advancement have embraced the law of intrusion and responded to innovation and creativity according to their perception. Creative strategy is a fundamental approach in gaining market share and successes in business. The distinction between breadth of reference and depth of attention recollections is connected to the lateral and vertical accepted wisdom.
The contrast also is evidenced in divergent and convergent inventiveness. The industrious dilettante dichotomy is embedded in creativity strategy theory. Creativity calls for mental brainstorming and critical thinking in such a way as to bring cross-fertilization of ideas when operating across a set of connections of enterprises. Further, a creative capacity to flexibly apply creative thinking between engineering needs and technological solutions is perhaps the building of a new generation idea.
The leaders are mostly concerned with the administration of the company activities. They are concerned with maintenance of company resources and facilitation to emergency reactions. Again, the managers concentrate on the system and the structure of the company. The leaders have an innovative mind that focuses on the development of the company.
For instance, Samsung Electronics confirmed with its customer and loyal consumers that it has significantly contributed to the integration of a global world through the provision of electronic products. The company prides in the facilitation of a brighter or more advanced services in electronics, the unbelievable 3D TV, popularly referred to as the toy. Samsung has diversified its marketing with products ranging from the 9000 series, 3D TV without glasses.
The leaders are development oriented to drive the company into the next level. Notwithstanding, the leaders are more concerned with the people and company activities that involve people. Ultimately, it is significant to note that various authors have concluded that mangers fall into the current status quo of the company while leaders face the challenge to the next level.
The critical quest if leaders can motivate, build, empower and rejuvenate morale, of employees and people has evoked critically extensive and intensive research to convince the corporate world. Such talent, functions, ability and skills rests on the shoulders of the leaders. It is imperative to understand the perceptions and ideas following outstanding leadership and move forwards to advance leadership ability.
Conclusion
The need for progress in industrial technology and engineering is reflected in John Maxwells book Maxwells 21 Irrefutable laws of leadership. Leadership and empowerment are an extensive process that involves enhancement systematic change in the light of basic changes in the organizations overall attitude, traits, contingency perspectives and behaviors.
More concentration is going to be given to the industry sector specialists business leaders in a specific industry to shape the development of the business in improving the industry. Leaders have the responsibility to provide particular competency, and encourage formation of overall teamwork industry analysts to achieve technological development.
References
Maxwell, C. J. (2007). Maxwells 21 Irrefutable laws of leadership. Web.