Category: Leadership

Introduction

Leadership is one of the most discussed issues in the contemporary society. According to Liz & Grout leadership is the ability to hold and exercise power and control over subordinates (2011, p. 23). Authority that comes with leadership positions grants the holders a sense of dominance that accords him/her the ability to make decisions (Liz & Grout, 2011, p. 57).

It is important to note that leadership applies in many situations; differently according to the context it is applicable. For instance, there is religious leadership, political leadership and corporate leadership. This paper will focus on corporate leadership with special emphasis on Sir Richard Bransons leadership of Virgin Group and how his leadership applies to corporate America.

Corporate leadership that will be the special focus of this paper gained momentum in the last three decades of the 20^th century with the growth the productivity law. Under this law outstanding employees got rewards or honor for their stellar performance. A subsequent evolution of productivity law to the management law laid emphasis on better management of people to increase productivity effectively evolving to the leadership law.

Most of the leadership styles and models that exist apply across the board (Green & Cameron, 2008, p. 84). In other words, there are only slight changes in the models when applied especially to political and corporate leadership. Otherwise, the concept is more or less the same.

Most scholars contend that models of leadership fall in either democratic, autocratic and laisez faire. Under these models, there exist different styles that mainly stem from the approach an overall leader takes in administering an organization.

These styles include transformation leadership, participative leadership, situational leadership and charismatic leadership. Sir Richard Branson belongs to one of the above models and styles.

Sir Richard Bransons Leadership and its effectiveness

Branson is the leader of virgin group that comprises of 200 companies with varying business interests. Besides his entrepreneurial spirit and huge appetite for risk, many analysts agree that the Chairman of Virgin Group has distinct and exceptional leadership qualities that clearly distinguish him from other business leaders like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

According to Deresky, Branson believes that all people regardless of their position in the organizational structure must participate in charting direction of the business entity (2008, p. 187). Branson therefore displays qualities of a democratic leader with a firm belief that his employees are the key to his success.

Though Branson controls his entire business empire and also makes most of the decisions, transformational leadership qualities come out through his appreciation of his employees input effectively inspiring them to perform better. The optimal performance of Virgin Group is thanks to Branson inspirational democratic leadership that makes his employees feel part of something through words and actions as well as rewards.

Bransons businesses traverse different territories including the United States. The US has traditionally believed in individual freedoms both in public and private life. Democratic principles that grant people space to make decisions to their convenience are highly cherished in the US.

Though there are various other factors like political affiliation and government regulation with considerable effect on democratic principles, effectiveness Bransons style of leadership is almost guaranteed in the US.

With the US now turning its attention to small and medium enterprises, only an inspirational democratic leaders with a firm belief in employees ideas is likely to cobble together a successful business group like Bransons Virgin group. It is important to note that Bransons leadership is far from perfect.

Despite the benefits associated with openness and belief in employees, strict and near autocratic leadership has also resulted in corporate successes such as Microsoft and Facebook. The above entities have a more established chain of command and only a select few make most of the decisions. Adopting their style is not necessarily going to make Branson a better leader.

According to Fletcher however, there is not a single leadership model or style that is going to produce optimum results for an entity (2002, p. 199). It is therefore wise if leaders can incorporate other leadership styles and qualities to complement their weaknesses for optimal performance.

Different styles and approach

Branson already has taken a people centered approach in running his vast business empire. However, it is necssary to expand on his current style to increase its effectiveness and the eventual long-term success of Virgin Group. Given the dynamism that characterizes businesses in the 21^st century, it is almost a requirement for any leaders including Branson to employ situational leadership.

This dynamism coupled with possible change of personnel creates ample space for the making of varying decisions. Different situations call for different approaches in decision-making (Green & Cameron, 2008, p. 68). Green & Cameron further say that; situational leadership comes in handy when seeking solutions to the different problems (2008, p.70).

Virgin group for instance comprises of 200 companies, most of which belong to different industries and sectors (Nahayandi et al, 2008, p. 79). Bransons group therefore is likely to gain more from increased situational leadership because of the nature of their business operations.

Because situational leadership calls for versatile leaders Branson can easily add this approach to his leadership given that he has already demonstrated the ability to wear many hats and be open to a variety of solutions.

Additionally, it is necessary for Branson to expand on his participative leadership approach. Nahayandi et al. says that participative leadership allows personnel from all levels of an organization to make important decisions (2006, p. 93). Furthermore, participative leadership aims at encouraging ownership of the companys mission and everything else it stands for.

Already, Bransons leadership greatly encourages employee input into the running of the company. However, most analysts agree that he makes most of the decisions unilaterally after care consideration of employees input. While his approach is welcome, Branson will find it easier to include participative decision-making when making important decisions about his companies as well as new ventures.

This is because several people making decisions are likely to make better informed decisions compared to only one person. Also, it is proven that there is more collaboration and less completion when making joint decisions. Additionally, joint decision-making helps improve understanding among those people who are directly involved in implementing the arrived decision.

Leadership on Major Global Project

Virgin group for a few years now has been developing a space tourism project that will tap into the increased interest in space tourism among the elite. Besides, it is almost guaranteed that Sir Richard Branson will most likely venture into new projects thanks to his entrepreneurial nature. Given the magnitude and the eventual goal of the project, Bransons leadership qualities must come in handy.

First he will need to come up with an idea mostly from his interactions with people. Typical of his approaches, he will assemble a team of like-minded people who will brainstorm through the proposed idea to determine if it is workable or not. According to Northhouse, most of Bransons businesses are mainly as a result of ideas he seeks from people and the input of his employees regardless of their rank (2012, p. 139).

Branson normally makes unilateral decisions based on the input from employees and if he feels the risk is worth it. One of the hallmarks of Bransons approach to entrepreneurship is research and development (Northhouse, 2012, p. 50).

Given that mostly he delves into different fields with little or no experience, research and development comes in handy in mitigating the negative effects that are likely to come along the way.

Branson would then finance the development and trial stages of the project before he decides whether or not to make the venture part of his group. It is important to bear in mind that throughout the development stages of such a venture, his characteristic openness to ideas and input from employees plays an important role.

For instance, the Galactico Space tourism project is still in its trial stage and Branson has entrusted his team with all the resources they need to make it a success (Deresky, 2008, p. 35). In fact, it wont be far from the truth to characterize some of his leadership traits as laisez fair (Deresky, 2008, p. 40).

Incorporation of Bransons Traits

As earlier said, leadership traits apply across the board. Both school and workplaces need distinct leadership qualities to increase performance. In school for instance, Bransons leadership qualities will be crucial in leading a study group where members will be free to determine the direction the group will take concerning its functioning and existence.

The group is likely to perform optimally and achieve its goals if there will be participative decision-making and belief in the importance of every member. Bransons approach when applied in a school group will boost every members confidence besides helping them all feel equal.

At work, Bransons traits can to everyone in the position of leadership. In the 21^st century, only a few business and work places still believe in autocratic rule. Rule by fear is highly unlikely to succeed in the long-term.

Employing Bransons traits will help boos employees confidence besides helping them feel part of the process. Incorporation of Bransons approach is possible through granting of extra freedom to different units in the workplace. Also, continuous implementation of ideas generated by employees will foster the aforementioned ownership feeling effectively increasing loyalty to the company.

Conclusion

The above discussion hardly delved into the details of Bransons leadership qualities and his successes as a business leader in Virgin Group. Despite his success in running Virgin Group, Branson is not the perfect business leader.

However, there is consensus that his approach is unique and is largely responsible for the enormous success so far experienced. Many scholars agree that the kind of leadership displayed by Branson is what both business and politics need. It is therefore not drastic to suggest that Bransons leadership approach be replicated in other areas of the society, especially in business.

References

Deresky, H. (2008). International management: managing across borders and cultures. London: Sage Publishers.

Fletcher, W. (2002). Beating the 24/7: how business leaders achieve a successful Business. New York: Spinger.

Green, M. & Cameron, E. (2008). Making Sense of Leadership: Exploring the Five Key Roles Used by Business Leaders. Chicago: Springer.

Liz, F. & Grout, J. (2011). What You Need to Know about Leadership. New York: Routledge.

Nahayandi, A. et al. (2006). The art and science of leadership. NJ: Springer.

Northhouse, G.P. (2012). Leadership: Theory and Practice. New York: Cengage Learning.

The success of organizations in different economic sectors is extensively determined by the leadership style adopted. Findings from studies conducted to determine the relationship between leadership and personality reveal that there is a strong connection between an individuals leadership effectiveness and his or her personality (Ewen, 2003, p. 300).

Individuals personalities determine their behavior. An individuals personality is a strong predictor of his or her performance across different occupational levels and jobs. Different frameworks have been developed in an effort to establish the relationship between leadership style and personality.

One of the dimensions used is the Big Five traits, which include agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, introversion-extraversion, and conscientiousness (Ewen, 2003, p.302). The agreeableness trait refers to the degree to which an individual is trusting and helpful as opposed to being uncooperative. On the other hand, neuroticism entails an individuals emotional stability while introversion-extroversion deals with an individuals socializing characteristics.

The openness trait refers to an individuals ability to welcome new ideas and opinions. Finally, conscientiousness evaluates an individuals personality based on his or her reliability and hard work (Ewen, 2003, p. 302). To understand how an individuals personality is related to his or her leadership traits, the paper uses the observations made on a 31-year-old black female supervisor with an experience of 6 months. The paper aims at evaluating how the results of the Big Five Traits compare or contrast with the observations made.

From the observation made, the supervisor portrays a number of personality traits that have made her successful. For example, in the course of executing her duties, she illustrates a high degree of agreeableness. Agreeableness entails the degree to which an individual is helpful, cooperative, understanding, trusting, and able to relate with others effectively (Ewen, 2003, p. 302).

This has arisen from the fact that most employees have developed trust in her decision-making capability as evidenced by their agreement to her supervisory judgment. Her agreeableness has enabled her to offer help to subordinate staff. Additionally, the supervisors enthusiasm has enabled her to connect with the employees thus establishing an effective learning opportunity for employees (Biech, 2007, p.52).

As one of the dimensions of the Big Five traits, the conscientiousness trait asserts that a leader should be reliable and hardworking (Ewen, 2003, p. 302). Analysis of the supervisors personality reveals that she is very conscientious.

Considering that the supervisor works for a service company that specializes in providing care to individuals with mental challenges, the supervisor is very concerned about the effectiveness of the staff in the delivery of their services during their training.

This is evidenced by the fact that she conducts comprehensive analysis of each employees strengths and needs. This has significantly contributed towards ensuring effective crisis stabilization services for staff.

An understanding of the needs of employees is very important in the success of an organization (Biech, 2007, p. 53). This arises from the fact that it contributes towards the development of an environment conducive for working. One of the factors making the supervisor conscientious is that she has developed effective communication skills. By nurturing effective communication within a firm, organizational leaders are able to develop a high degree of cohesiveness (Ewen, 2003, p. 302).

As a supervisor of a service based institution, she appreciates the fact that development of an effective human capital is one of the major sources of competitive advantage for firms. Additionally, her conscientiousness has enabled her avoid possible misunderstanding that may occur in the course of executing her duties.

This has had significant effects in her decision-making with regard to the best course of action in line with findings of the analysis conducted. The resultant effect is that she has been very successful in influencing the employees positively. Additionally, her conscientiousness has also enabled her to be effective in offering directional influence to employees. Provision of directional influence to employees is very vital in firms effort to achieve their goals.

As a result, she has nurtured a working environment that all the employees like. The supervisors conscientiousness, as one of the leadership traits, is also evidenced by the fact that she is hardworking. For example, she is ready to sacrifice her time and work overtime when requested by her seniors. Therefore, it is possible for the supervisor to inspire the employees to develop such a behavior in order to be successful (Griffin, 2007, p. 217).

To be an effective leader, one should associate and socialize with others effectively. Through socialization, a leader will understand the employees and issues affecting them. Additionally, socialization contributes towards the development of a strong bond between the leader and the followers.

In executing her duty, the supervisor is very committed towards understanding the staffs strengths and needs. This has been attained by nurturing an effective communication environment with the employees. This makes it evident that the supervisor is not an introvert but rather an extrovert.

In their operation, organizations cannot rule out the occurrence of challenges considering that they constitute different employees of different backgrounds. An example of such challenges entails the occurrence of conflicts amongst the employees. For example, conflict between employees may arise because of cultural and ideological differences.

To ensure that such employees conflicts do not affect the operation of the organization, it is paramount for the leadership to be effective with regard to problem solving. This means that team leaders should act as mediators to situations facing them.

One of the ways through which leaders can be effective in problem solving is by fostering an atmosphere that results to the development of openness between the management staff and their subordinates (Biech, 2007, p. 53). One of the factors that have contributed towards the supervisors effectiveness with regard to problem solving arises from the fact that she is a team player.

Because of her openness, the supervisor is willing to provide her staff with an opportunity to air their opinions and ideas with regard to certain issues facing them. This has played a critical role with regard to the organization being successful in attaining the established goals. In line with this, her ability to nurture and maintain an effective relationship with the employees enables her to recognize the problems they are experiencing.

Additionally, her openness to new experience has significantly improved her creativity with regard to problem solving. This is evidenced by the fact that she can incorporate effective problem solving method thus maintaining cohesiveness amongst the employees. Considering the dynamic nature of the business environment, it is paramount for organizational leaders to be non-conformist and creative (Biech, 2007, p. 54).

On the other hand, neuroticism refers to the degree to which an individual is either emotionally stable or unstable (Ewen, 2003, p. 302). In their operation, leaders have an obligation to provide direction to their subordinates staff. As a result, they are supposed to act calmly despite the fact that some situations may be emotionally destabilizing. From the observations made, the supervisor is quick in recognizing and adapting to staff problems.

This has enabled the employee to dispel possible anxiety that might arise. Her ability to interpret situations facing employees enables her to be calm. According to Griffin (2007, p. 265), possessing less negative emotionality is very important amongst organizational leaders. This arises from the fact that they can cope with job pressure, tensions, and stress.

Based on the detailed expositions made in the paper, it suffices to declare the Big Five Traits test a working criterion of telling where a person lies in terms of his or her characteristics. Therefore, an analysis of the observations made reveals that the supervisor has a relatively higher rating based on the Big Five traits.

This is evidenced by the fact that the supervisor depicts a high score with regard to being agreeable, an extrovert, open to new experience, and conscientiousness. Because of these traits, the supervisor has been able to develop a high degree of cohesiveness, in addition to creating an effective working environment.

Additionally, these traits have enabled the supervisor to be effective in inspiring the staff towards ensuring the attainment of optimal performance in the course of executing their duties. With regard to neuroticism, the supervisor portrays a relatively low score with a degree of emotionality. In summary, the supervisors success with regard to her leadership ability is strongly related to her personality traits.

Reference List

Biech, E. (2007). Thriving through change: A leaders practical guide to change Mastery. Alexandria: ASTD Press.

Ewen, R. ( 2003). An introduction to theories of personality. New York: Routledge.

Griffin, R. (2007). Fundamentals of management. New York: Cengage.

Introduction

A project is a temporary endeavor that is undertaken to produce a product or provide a service. Project management is an analysis that seeks to define how a particular project executes its operations, monitors the already executed operations, and how the executed operations are controlled (Kerzner 2010:14).

Any project has some requirements that are necessary for the successful completion of the project tasks; these requirements are commonly referred to as resources.

Project resources are not standard since individual projects will call for different capital resources, human resource, scope, technological skills, and target market, among other factors. To accomplish the mission and vision a given project, the project must take into account the analysis of the scope, the financial requirement, as well as the short, middle, and long-term goals of the project.

Most importantly, project management cannot thrive without adapting to leadership style that is congruent with the needs of the employees. The subsystems of the firm have to adjust to an effective organizational structure in order to facilitate success of the project.

The effective integration of values can be achieved by leadership development, as this helps to highlight the changes that are taking place within a particular market segment. This study will be guided by one key question: is the issue of leadership an extremely complicated task while motivating the employees working in projects?

Background Of The Study

Jovanovic
& Petrovic
(2000) affirm that proper dissemination of project management plan should be provided to the employees in a manner that outlines vigilant steps, which point out the corresponding responsibilities, the person responsible for the task, the timeline for performing the task, and the expected output (Kerzner 2010: 23).

However, the management of projects highly depends on the flow view theory, which seeks to eliminate the unforeseen risks (Hanisch et al. 2011). Additionally, the theory of value generation view is used in project management to facilitate an assessment of the clients prior to provision of goods and/or services. This theory substantiates that the needs of the clients should be viewed differently from the work process.

Thus, the project management should define the plan, the cost, the activities, the projects human and capital resources planning, and judgment of duration of time for the completion of the projects (Rad 2002: 36). An effective budgeting of the projects cost facilitates this, while an effective execution should define time and quality specification, as they are critical in ascertaining a projects sustainability.

Controlling, on the other hand, should be designed in such a way that it is able to use performance reporting that executes corrections or overall change control that recommends changes at the planning procedure (Kerzner 2010:94).

But while all the above are valid procedures and theories that aim at ensuring that projects achieve their main objectives, the strategy of using the resources and time constrains remains unconvincing, given that motivation plays a critical role in the performance of a project.

Some of the key motivators include organizational hierarchies, relationship with the boss, working conditions, relationship with the peers, and recognition in the workplace (Miner 2007:158). However, these theories often seem challenging in the process of their implementation, making some organizational cultures disapprove their authenticity in the project management.

This stems from the fact that different cultures have different opinions regarding the use of organizational theories in the projects.

The United States, for case in point, believes that the use of hierarchy tends to break a projects task into smaller achievable and manageable task and find vertical leadership more appropriate, while the Asian culture, which believes in authority ranking, finds the vertical form of leadership more appropriate(Miner 2007:169).

Thus, the Western culture manages their projects by encouraging employees participation through brainstorming sessions as opposed to the some of the Asian cultures. These two perceptions need to be substantiated in order to come up with an effective management of projects.

But according to Maslows Hierarchy of needs, organizations as well as peoples needs change overtime, and therefore, employee motivation is a continuous practice rather than a task (Miner 2007:177). Thus, a good motivation theory for projects should involve finding new ways of motivating their employees.

It is imperative to note that a number of factors associated with the leadership/ managerial practice may lead to higher than necessary rates of departure prior to ending the projects contracts. Key among them include restricted motivation, insufficient socialization, cases where employees feel discriminated, exempted from making decisions that regard them, insufficient levels of commitment, and lesser acceptance (Miner 2007:142).

There are some empirical studies reporting on the experiences of leaders taking the role of motivation to explain the complexities of projects with regard to productivity (Miner 2007:69). Some of the studies also link the motivation role mostly to management outcomes.

These studies contribute to a research gap on the importance of the managers role in improving project management processes and outcomes based on data from a qualitative perspective. The results enhance leadership knowledge by providing another perspective of the managers role with implications on the acceptability and viability of employees participation.

Methodology

Purpose of Study

The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigative whether the issue of motivating employees is an extremely complicated task in project management. Using a qualitative study allows a thorough investigation of the research problem because it collects data on the accounts and descriptions of employers as well as employees working in a construction project (Creswell 2003:183).

The research design involves causal investigation of the research problem by using a wide range of resources (Yin, 2006). Thus, the causal relationship investigated involves linking leadership and motivation with the productivity of a construction project.

The study answers one key question: is the issue of motivating employees an extremely complicated task in project management? This question draws insight into the challenges surrounding the leadership role as they seek to motivate employees working in projects.

Design of the Study

The study employs the qualitative method. This method applies to studies that require in-depth investigation of accounts and descriptions of the research problem studied (Creswell 2003:194). This included companys structure, the work processes involved, and the relationships between the employees, as well as the relationship between the employees and the managers.

This is the appropriate method because it is able to investigate how important motivation is in improving project management process and outcomes based on qualitative data. While the study also involves variables, the intention is to determine the importance of the role of leadership to the employees in the construction project, and not to measure the relationship of variables.

The research design involves an in-depth inquiry into a single finding by using multiple data sources to provide understanding of the multiple factors attributed to the research problem (Yin 2006). This supports a thorough investigation of the research problem, as it uses a wide range of data collection methods, including document analysis, interviews, archival research, and observation.

The selection of the sources was carried out in a manner that interconnects all the theories of leadership and management, and therefore facilitated an effective analysis that created room for understanding how they motivate the employees differently. The primary data, on the other hand, was obtained from the employees working in a construction project

Data Collection

The data collection method for the secondary sources was carried out by determining the scope of the research and then defining the extent to which management and leadership theories influence employees working in projects.

This was followed by determining the evidence that demonstrates the challenges facing the leadership theories and frameworks while motivating the employees towards achieving the goals of the projects. Finally, the researcher organized the ideas collected from the secondary sources, including textbooks as well as from the journals articles. These ideas worked as the background for the questionnaire provided in the case study.

Results of the Study

The primary data revealed that the construction project has already adopted modern communication technology in an effort to facilitate effective communication between the employees, as well as between the employees and the clients, due to tight working schedule and a high turnover of customers.

This strategy, however, is faced with challenges due to poor company structure and work processes such as lack of prioritizing projects information due to huge number of emails, presence of scattered data due to saving data in diverse formats, low levels of email security , ambiguity due to unclear terms used for products descriptions, and work overlap between the workers.

The findings obtained from the qualitative design are consistent with the Fiedlers contingency model as they portray that employees working in projects would only be motivated if the leaders put much emphasis on organizational culture that seeks to achieve organizational goals through close human relations (Daft & Marcic 2010: 196).

This stems from the fact that the model provides a link in the organizational structure as the go-between of management and employees. More so, the model helps the employees increase a sense of accountability for their tasks since they have already developed a sense of confidence with their leader.

This model is imperative since it introduces the employees to a thorough analysis that facilitates definition of how a particular project executes its operations, monitors the already executed operations, and defines how these operations are controlled through teamwork amongst the employees (Daft & Marcic 2010: 197).

More so, using this model helps the leaders express confidence on the subordinates abilities to learn how to share great information with their leaders. And in this regard, the leader advices the subordinates to learn how to focus on results by providing them with tips on how best they can acquire expected results based on teamwork.

This claim is supported by Herzbergs theory of motivation, which states that a good relationship between workers, as well as between the workers and the managers, serves as a key motivator towards the employees (Miner 2007: 183).

However, according to Kerzner (2010: 95), adopting a theory that is relationship oriented does not motivate task-oriented workers, simply because relationship oriented models are vulnerable to teamwork discrepancies. This translates that one or two members of a team will not work, and hence, others will be working for such an individual(s).

Additionally, adopting relationship-oriented leadership does not help because at the end of the day, evaluation of the projects employees goes back to an individual level as opposed to a teamwork level. Therefore, each individual has to undergo self-reflection to establish his/her contribution towards the success of the project.

Kerzner (2010: 98) affirms that employees working in projects are always looking for individual recognition and that employees who do not attest to this fact are ordinary performers who are fond of preferring teamwork because they do not want the public to know that they do not have many talents at an individual level. This idea, therefore, complicates the role of leadership in motivating the employees working in a project.

Additionally, the study used the Hezbergs theory to highlight how leaders can motivate employees working in projects by exploring the extent to which employees can be motivated by job enrichment as well as job rotation.

And while the primary sources revealed that a project could only acquire a good leader/ employee relationship when the leader is charismatic as opposed to autocratic, Miner (2007: 210) affirms that motivating employees depends entirely on the character of the employees.

In this regard, the employees from group X necessitate carrot and stick motivation, while employees from group Y necessitate recognition and job enrichments as the prime motivators. All these show that using leadership theories to motivate employees is an extremely complicated task in project management.

Limitations of the Study

Even though the research attempted to employ casual investigation of the problem by using a user-friendly approach that would encouraged the participants to be honest with each other, the research study was still imperfect because some respondents proved to be unresponsive.

This was more evident when it came to discussing the Adams equity model, perhaps due to the sensitivity of this area because some responses could be termed at discrimination following unfair judgments of other peoples inabilities.

Conclusion/ Recommendations For Future Leadership Strategies For A Project

From the finding presented in this paper, it is clear that the use of leadership theories to motivate employees is an extremely complicated task in project management.

However, despite the challenges faced with leadership in an effort to motivate the employees working in projects, effective leadership calls for a close cooperation between the employees and the leaders/ managers of the organization. It is from this cooperation that the leaders demonstrate full responsibility of assessing the key motivators of the employees.

Thus, evaluating the future strategy of leadership potential in the project should bring rise to a number of questions: what are the theories of leadership/management that the workers consider as motivators?

What do employees anticipate as some of the disadvantages that would result from such theories? And most importantly, what do employees anticipate as some of the advantages that would result from such theories and frameworks.

The answers to these questions should be achieved through a brainstorming session comprising of employees who have dissimilar theoretical backgrounds relative to motivation. This emanates from the fact that a project management is greatly enhanced by leaders who adopt a leadership style of sharing their personal knowledge and opinions with all their employees (Mears 2009:57).

Through sharing of views, the management should realize that one of the main challenges experienced by a project while coming up with a new line of business is inadequate training that would ensure the employees take the upcoming jobs.

However, this challenge can be countered by adopting a talent development approach, which takes into account that projects should always assess the talents of its employees in order to outline the level of competence along the new line of operation.

Therefore, the management should encourage the employees to develop their skills before the actual shift occurs, as this helps to eradicate fear and resistance to the proposed vision of the project. This can be achieved through a performance management program, which should be characterized by the following feature: standardization, validity and conciseness, and due process.

In standardization, the ideal performance management system requires that the aspects of performance measured are uniform and there is a constant level of strictness in its operations. (Kerzner 2010: 114). This is meant to ensure that employees do not loose faith in their managers and the system that might result from variations, such as unreasonable teamwork.

According to Kerzner (2010:123), validity and conciseness translates that evaluation criterion of every employee is done only on issues that regard their line of work, as this would serve to motivate the workers who view work itself as the key motivator.

Due process, on the other hand, should endeavour to motivate employees who are lowly rated by giving them set guidelines that dictate the appraisal of good performers with high salary increases and bonuses should they improve their performance.

List Of References

Creswell, J. W. 2003. Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.

Daft, R., & Marcic, D. 2010. Understanding Management. Independence, KY, Cengage Learning.

Hanisch, B., Wald, A., & Project Management Institute. 2011. A project management research framework integrating multiple theoretical perspectives and influencing factors. Project Management Journal 42(3).

Jovanovic
, P., & Petrovic
, D. 2000. Project management and multiproject management in a company. Senet Project Management Review (1)1, 34-43.

Kerzner, H. 2010. Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. Hoboken, N.J., John Wiley & Sons.

Mears, M. 2009. Leadership elements: A guide to building trust. New York, iUniverse.

Miner, J. 2007. Organizational Behavior: From theory to practice, Volume 4. Armonk, NY, M.E Sharpe Publishers.

Rad, P. 2002. Project estimating and cost management. Management Concepts, Vienna, Va.

Yin, R. K. 2006. Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, Calif, Sage.

Abstract

Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is a modern project design method that makes use of the synergized capabilities of different work groups in a manner that will create higher productivity, minimize waste, reduce expenses and maximize quality of the final product.

This kind of a working structure involves a greater variety of team players in the decision making process and thus a high level of common trust and understanding is needed to steer progress. For a leader in charge of such an organization, the ability to keep the interests of individual members and the entire team synchronized plays a significant role.

In this paper, I shall review the effectiveness of such leadership in IPD by assessing Phil Bernsteins experience of working on the Autodesk Inc Headquarters project. This paper takes into account the positive and negative sides of his chosen style of leadership and his management decisions. Based on this assessment, I shall then give my own preferred approach to handling the project.

Introduction

Given the dynamic industry expectations for new project designs, we note that most clients expect a high degree of innovation for each project. Bernsteins team was bent on proving that IPD (Integrated Project Delivery), BIM (Business Information Modeling) and sustainability would give them the edge over other building companies.

In IPD, the level of complexity in building projects is accommodated by the advancement of new building technologies (Hobbs, 2008). To harness this, a collective and intensified effort is required. I would thus propose the mission statement. Fostering quality project delivery through integrated industry networks.

Achievements

Phil managed to maintain a good working relation between all teams involved. The choice to ask Chriss engineering group to head over to Cambridge was not only critical in staying on course with schedule but created a spirit of collaboration towards the projects completion. Another key move in Phils leadership was instilling the right working principles amongst team members.

As opposed to working for the sole interests of individual firms, all participants were encouraged to view the success of the project as their own success. This kind of mind set allowed them to get over conflicting issues such as the contingency cost matter.

The project team scored highly on quality. Given the short project deadline they still managed to stick to technologies that produced exceptional results. This can be seen by the high score of that the building received from an independent evaluator (+1.76). The highest average score came from the aesthetics which were rated as substantially better than comparable projects in the industry.

This was a result of Phils decision to stick with Autodesks Corporate Real Estate design prescriptions. Part of these requirements were the 35 additional workstations that Bernstein managed to pull all working partners in the project to deliver within the limited time.

The creative implementation of BIM technology was a hallmark achievement for Bernstein. He managed to use his technical team to convert the 2D designs produced by the furniture vendors into 3D version thus maintaining a singular working language for all teams.

They also posted images of the BIM within the site environment for construction workers who didnt have laptops. This was a critical enforcement of clear communication pathways between the implementation and management teams (Applied Software, n.d).

Shortcomings

Despite Phil Bernsteins enormous effort in delivering a remarkable outcome from the project work, there were a number of shortcomings that could have cost the team.

A number of issues concerning the costing of contingencies arose when scope modifications were made to the project. A conflict emerged on how savings from these modifications would be handled.

Some of the working groups, (KlingStubbins and Tocci) expected that they would be included in the contingency sums. Unfortunately, the cost was taken to be a saving. If the matter had been cleared out before hand by Bernstein, it would have prevented the possibility of conflict from the IPD teams.

Another potential hindrance to the successful completion of the project would have been the lack of a common understanding with vendors. There is always a need for mutual cooperation towards mutual benefit in IPD (Environmental Building News, 2012)

The first issue that came up was that of the Customer Briefing Center ceiling. The team had not expected that their millwork contractor would have chosen to go into non-disclosure of his pricing structure. On the other hand, it took the project management team too much time (3 months) to find out that the vendor was not going to work within the budget allocation of the project.

One of the essential principles of integrated project delivery is the open exchange of data with the aid of transparent structures and technology (AIA California Council, 2007). The value of maintaining the project cost at a minimum is always higher for any project management team and so more cost effective methods had to be sought.

My Project Plan

A lot of innovative alterations to the project sequence were made in order to keep up with the deadline. My approach to unforeseen time lags would be quite similar only that it would have resolute control systems. These would include a set of implementation documents that clearly define what can and what cannot be changed in the course of construction (Construction Specifications Institute, 2011 ).

For instance, in the case concerning the choice of window shades, I would have a set slack time in which the choice had to be finalized. If no conclusive agreement is reached, an internal decision by the most suited authority in this area of the project work and I as the project manager would have to prevail.

I would also have had proper costing information from all contracted material vendors. Details on the final expected fee for materials would have a bearing on the contingency fund set at the commencement of the project. Therefore, such details would have to be covered during the tendering stage.

Being a common phenomenon, scope changes need to be addressed by specifying a universal policy at the onset of the project. Such a policy creates confidence in all working groups involved in an IPD based project. We can already see that this was Phils resolve later on when he realized that the scope reduction interfered with the overall compensation plan.

References

AIA California Council. (2007). A Working Definition: Integrated Project Delivery. Web.

Applied Software (n.d). Integrated Project Delivery  The next generation of construction optimization. Web.

Construction Specifications Institute (2011). CSI Project Delivery Guide. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Environmental Building News (2008). Integrated Project Delivery: A Platform for Efficient Construction. Environmental Building News, 17(11), n.p.

Hobbs, J. (2008). Integrated Project Delivery pulls together people, systems, business structures and practices. Daily Commercial News. Web.

Leadership style is an approach that a leader uses to influence others in order to achieve the leadership goals. The leadership style enables the leader to provide direction, motivate followers and implement plans. Leadership styles can be categorized into authoritarian, participative and delegative leadership styles (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy, 2012).

Authoritarian leadership style is also known as autocratic, where the leader has power and authority to make decisions without consulting the followers. With this leadership style, the leader controls and closely monitors the efforts of the team. Although, this leadership style is closely associated with past empires and occasionally has some negative connotations, it is in use today as it was several centuries ago.

This leadership style is appropriate in situations where control is necessary. If the team is operating under dangerous conditions, strict rules will help people stay away from danger and minimize loses. When a member of staff is inexperienced or not familiar with the work, then close supervision is necessary, especially if they are working on dangerous machinery (Kurfi, 2009).

This leadership style is used in rigid organizations, though it may lead to strained morale among workers. They are often appropriate in the military, where discipline is required and manufacturing or construction, where precision is the norm. Authoritarian leadership presents challenges when balancing between using authority and boosting the morale of the members, because too much control creates despondency.

However, authoritarian leader can be effective if he adopts strategies such as respecting the subordinates, explaining the rules and remaining consistent at all times because inconsistency brings confusion and misunderstanding.

All members in the team have to understand the requirements upfront in order to minimize surprises, and communication has to be clear to all. The leader needs to be attentive and listen to suggestions of the team (Heller, 2003).

In a Participative leadership style, the leader is open and friendly to the team, and ideas flow freely within the group. All members in the group are given equal chances in the discussion to give their opinions and suggestions. This leadership style is appropriate if the organization is facing a changing environment (Kurfi, 2009).

All suggestions from members will be used to assist the group stay focused during the period of change. This leadership style requires the leader to initiate conversation and encourage members to give suggestions that will aid in making the decision. The leader has to communicate the final decision to members to ensure support of the chosen plan.

In a changing environment, then participative leadership offers the best option of doing making decisions. On the other hand, decision making would be exceedingly slow because many people are involved in the process.

Participative leadership style offers a superior decision making because it utilizes the experience, talents and skills of the team members. This leadership style would be suitable in creative groups such as those in advertising, design, education, consulting and service industry (Hodgkinson, 2009).

Delegative leadership style requires the leader to trust and delegate duties to the followers. Trust is developed over time with close supervision until such time when the leader is contended that the follower is ready to take up the challenge (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy, 2012).

Delegative leadership has to go with empowerment in order to be meaningful and to achieve the desired results. The person being delegated has to be given the responsibility to execute all the necessary measures. For instance, one has to be given authority to direct the other staff and other resources to handle the situation.

Before delegating any task, there are factors to be considered, like the competency to accomplish the task (Heller, 2003). If the individual is new or inexperienced, then it would be risk delegating duties to such a person. There should be clear communication of the allocated resources to accomplish the task and the expected results.

The peers have to be aware of the delegated responsibility to ensure support and corporation. Delegative leadership style would be appropriate for a small and growing organization, though it may be used in any organization since no individual can do everything single handed. Even in large organizations there are varying degrees of delegation (Hodgkinson, 2009).

Leadership style is developed over time as the individual interacts with the members of the team and this will involve how to solve conflicts and problems within the group. Building confidence is a way of developing personal leadership style, because people always underestimate their abilities. Lack of self assurance is an impediment to developing leadership style.

The best way to build confidence is through speaking in different meetings and asking relevant questions, which serves as a way of knowledge acquisition and gaining self confidence (Hodgkinson, 2009). Communicating ideas to others will increase the credibility, visibility and recognition from the members of the group. Individual leadership style is also developed through observation from others.

People will learn and adopt leadership styles from their role models, for example, a young leader will adopt leadership style from another leader he perceives as an exemplary leader who may have brought success to the team (Heller, 2003). This is one the most effective ways to understand which type leadership style will work for the individual.

Once the observed leadership style is put into practice through trial and error, it is finally perfected and fully adopted by the individual as ones leadership style.

Different circumstances may lead to change of leadership style, for instance, leadership style in a small organization may differ with the leadership style in a large organization. If the organization changes its core business activities, it may require a different leadership style to match the requirements of the new business environment (Kurfi, 2009).

My leadership style is participative, which involves all the members in the group when making a decision, and there are advantages associated with this leadership style. When all members are involved in decision making process, there is a sense of ownership and participation from members.

This could translate into higher productivity because everybody would be glad to witness the success of decisions they made. This leadership style serves as a motivation to the whole group because professional skills of all members are utilized and, therefore, giving members greater job satisfaction (Hodgkinson, 2009).

However, there are challenges in this leadership style, which include slowing down the process of decision making. The inputs and feedback flow back and forth among members before finally making the decision.

There are security issues because members who are privy to sensitive information within the organization could easily leak out the information to competitors. Despite the shortcomings, the advantages of participative leadership outweigh its disadvantages (Heller, 2003).

Reference List

Heller, F. A. (2003). Managerial decision-making: A study of leadership styles and power- sharing among senior managers organizations, people, society. Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis.

Hodgkinson, J. (2009). Leadership styles for program and project managers. Retrieve from web.

Hughes, R.L. Ginnett, R.C., & Curphy, G.J. (2012). Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience (7^th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Kurfi, A. K. (2009). Leadership styles: The managerial challenges in emerging economies. International Bulletin of Business Administration. Web.

Introduction

The concept of leadership is very critical in any given society or institution particularly when it comes to guiding peoples behavior. The success of any society is highly connected to the type of leaders who manage the various affairs. Many researchers have conducted investigations to explore this concept which has proved difficult to obtain a universal definition.

However, significant amount of findings have been gathered from research. Leaders have been found to possess specific qualities and responsibilities once they are in positions of leaderships. This paper provides a summary of the prominent theories and theorists who have contributed significantly to leadership which are discussed in Chapter 2 of the book, School leadership that works: from research to results, by Marzano, Waters, and McNulty (2005).

Transactional and Transformational Leadership

The chapter starts by providing a description of the prominent theories of leadership which have influenced many school leaders (principals). The first theory that was used by researchers in the analysis of data collected was transformational and transactional leadership.

These two leadership terms are normally used in the educational and business fields. A definition of leadership according to Burns is offered. Burn defines leadership as the act of leaders persuading their followers to drive towards certain objectives that are both deeply desired by the followers as well as the leaders themselves. The ability of leaders is measured by their interaction with the followers relative to what the followers believe in.

Transactional leadership has been defined as the trading of one thing for another while transformational leadership is geared more towards change. The chapter identifies three forms of transactional leadership: management-by-exception-passive, management-by-exception-active, and constructive transactional. Constructive transactional leadership is regarded as the most effective of the three.

Transformational leadership, on the other hand, is identified as being more effective of the two since it produces exceptional results. This type of leadership empowers the followers to become leaders while leaders assume the role of agents that guide the followers. Four outstanding characteristics have been associated with transformational leaders: individual consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation, and idealized influence. They are commonly known as the Four Is.

The application of transformational leadership in the education sector has also been covered in this chapter. It is noted that the Four Is of transformational leadership can be very useful for school principals in order to be in a position to deal with the challenges that modern schools face. Each of the Four Is is critical in ensuring that all the needs of the school stakeholders are sufficiently met.

Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management (TQM) was founded by Edward Deming (1986) when he designed how businesses could recover from the effects of WWI. He formulated 14 principles that are applicable to all institutions. The revised and summarized versions of Demings work have been developed and are used to characterize effective leaders. They are: change agency, teamwork, continuous improvement, trust building, and abolition of short-term goals.

Servant Leadership

The use of this term in leadership books was first witnessed in the 1970s. Robert Greenleaf (1970, 1977) believed that effective leaders emerge as servants of the people. This type of leadership presents a different picture of who a leader is as compared to that given by transactional and transformational leadership.

In the case of transactional leadership, for instance, a leader is expected to be a controller or manager of the followers. A servant leader occupies a central position in the organization and is in touch with virtually everything that happens in the organization. The other types of leadership place the leader at the top of the hierarchy in an organization. The role of a servant leader is to nurture the members in the organization.

A servant leader ought to possess critical skills in order to be described as one. First, the leader should understand individual needs of the members.

Secondly, must be able to resolve conflicts and reconcile members. The leader should also be the custodian of organizations resources. Fourthly, a servant leader should help the members in developing their potentials and lastly, be an effective listener in order to understand the members within the organization. Although not very popular, this style of leadership has received approval from some theorists.

Situational Leadership

Another key theory explains the situational leadership which is associated with the work of Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard. A situational leader adapts his or her leadership skills to followers readiness to perform a given task. Different styles of leadership relate high and low willingness and ability to execute specific tasks. The first is the high task-low relationship focus where the leader directs followers who are not motivated.

The second is the high task-high relationship focus where the leader interacts freely with the followers without loosing the power to command. Thirdly, there is the low task-low relationship. In this case, the relationship between the leader and the followers is generally low.

The last style is the low task-high relationship focus where the leader delegates most of the work to the followers who are motivated and able to perform a given task. The proponents of this theory of leadership argue that an effective leader knows how to balance the four styles of leadership.

Instructional Leadership

Instructional leadership has been the most popular theme in educational leadership over last twenty years. However, this concept has note been clearly defined in the field of education. Wilma Smith and Richard Andrews (1989) identified four major dimensions of an effective instructional leader. The instructional leader is the resource provider, source of instruction, communicator, and visible presence. These roles help the leader in the organization to coordinate the activities of the followers within the organization.

Some Prominent Theorists

A significant number of renowned theorists have greatly influenced the leadership styles in the education sector. The chapter highlights some of the influential theorists that were crucial in the analysis of the research literature.

Warren Bennis (2003) is concerned with the future of leadership. He is concerned much with the need to adapt to the changing times as far as leadership is concerned. He identifies four major characteristics of an effective leader in the 21^st century. First, Bennis notes a successful leader encourages participation in facing the future.

Second, the leader must be easily identifiable by the followers due to unique qualities. Third, the leader must set high moral standards and demonstrate optimism of achievement. Lastly, a leader must be able to adjust to relentless pressure to change.

Peter Block (2003) describes leadership as the skill of effective questioning and the ability to provide good environment to facilitate the development of solutions to the questions. James Collins (2001) points out that there are five levels of leadership with those at level 5 being very effective and lead great organizations.

Level 5 leaders are characterized by determination and commitment to achieve the set organizational goals. Stephen Covey (1989) is another famous theorist who has influenced the field of education. He wrote about the habits (7) of effective leaders/persons. Other prominent theorists identified in the chapter who have contributed various theories of leadership include Michael Fullan, Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, and James Spillane.

The chapter goes ahead to offer other synthesis efforts examined in the research. 25 categories of principal behavior that positively affect the dependent variables of student achievement, student attitudes, student behavior, teacher attitudes, teacher behaviors, and dropout rates were identified by Cotton.

Conclusion

The paper has provided a brief summary of Chapter 2 of the book, School leadership that works: from research to results by Marzano et al. (2005). Major theories of leadership have been discussed. Transactional, transformational, total quality management and instructional leadership have significantly influenced educational leadership. Some of the major theorists and their contributions have been highlighted. Other synthesis efforts were also used in the research thus enhancing the perspective/framework of the findings.

Reference

Marzano, R. J., Waters, T. & McNulty, B. A. (2005). School leadership that works: from research to results. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

School managements should ensure that leadership practices exceed previous systems regarding their administrative roles, this can be realized when the administration makes involves other stakeholders in decision-making proceses.

In order to ensure that the relationship between the management and the stakeholders is fruitful, the objectives of the two parties must coincide. In this article, Legotlo and Mathibe prove that a schools administration can collaborate with the local community in issues such as decision-making, and the benefits of this collaborative effort.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the article in the areas of style, problem definition, methodology, originality and analysis as used by the author in coming up with this document.

Literature Review

In this section, we attempt to give a summary of the document under analysis. As an introduction, the article mentions that if a school relates with the society positively, the partnership will lead to the schools development, whereas the neglect of such a relationship would lead to the schools alienation.

The stakeholders in the society who can collaborate with the school comprise of students, teachers, parents, non-governmental organizations and the state. School managers should incorporate decentralization in their leadership style as opposed to the former principles of centralization in which school heads make all the decisions (Legotlo and Mathibe).

The authors then attempt to define leadership both in general, and when applied in a school setting. The authors say that a school leadership should motivate the community to support their visions by being actively involved in their implementation. He explains that, in the 21st century, there is a requirement for transformational leadership to empower all stakeholders.

Legotlo and Mathibe then embark on a case study of South African schools. From their findings, they state that the country produces outstanding leaders despite South Africas rating as one of the countries with the least developed educational systems in the world. This success, according to statistics, is because schools meet the interests of the entire body of stakeholders.

The stakeholders, on their part, do much in ensuring that schools meet their objectives. In addition, the South African government stipulates that decision making in schools should be decentralized. The authors conclude that this decentralization concept of leadership will work only if the stakeholders and the schools have a common vision.

Method and Analysis

The research articles used by the authors are crucial to understanding organizational behavior and the effectiveness of such organizations, however, one has to read the article numerous times to have that clear understanding concerning UAEs organizational behavior patterns.

The topic, though, suggests that decentralization of decision-making in a school is vital to incorporating other stakeholders such as parents, students, non-governmental organizations, staff members and the state. From the findings of this research, many of the management bodies ought to borrow organizational practices of decentralization from schools in South Africa.

The authors introductory note and the assigned studies are significant in the education sector. The introduction gives useful information, for example, the government of South Africa insists that there should be a partnership among all stakeholders.

For us to relate the introduction of the article to the problem statement, one would have to read the introduction several times. Nevertheless, the authors thoughts in the introduction have a decent flow. They start by emphasizing the importance of human relations and serving people, since these promote the development of a school.

In the second paragraph, they show that partnership with stakeholders leads to joint decision-making and equal distribution of power. The authors conclude that it is necessary for school institutions to upgrade their leadership structures to transcend past management practices of centralization.

When it comes to the relevance of the sources, we can conclude that they are comprehensive and up-to-date. According to a website dictionary, educational leadership is the process of capturing talent and resources that are available within the school staff, pupils and parents.

This definition coincides with the definition given by one of the cited authors, who mention that educational leadership is the process of acquiring knowledge and making prerequisites for development.

These similarities prove that the document and its claims are up-to-date. Nevertheless, the authors need to state clearly that they are discussing the topic of leadership in the education circle, although we can get that from the text. It would have been better if they added educational leadership in the section title where the topic on leadership is under discussion (Legotlo and Mathibe).

The tone of the article is stern and objective, and the authors go straight to the point. Legotlo and Mathibe vary their findings from factual to comparative. For example, they state clearly how the Education Department in South Africa is heavily involved in the participation of stakeholders in the development and management of schools.

Table 2 in page 6 gives a comparison between leadership and management. The authors conclusive research is evidently by their use of numerous sources. Their choice of words is appropriate although other sections are complicated to the average reader. For example, the thesis statement is not easy to comprehend.

In the article, there is the incorporation of statistics, where the authors cite the Beehive Survey in page 4. This survey expounds on community participation in organizations and the way it leads to the production of outstanding leaders.

Nevertheless, one would expect to find more than one set of statistics for such an informative article. In addition to the statistics given, the use of graphs and charts to present these statistics would bring out their findings in a more profound way.

There is some limitation to the authors originality since he is citing too many articles to support their claims. There is no problem in using these citations, but the authors original thoughts seem to get lost within the numerous citations quoted.

The authors did a lot in analyzing leadership and management as shown in table 1 and 2 of pg. 3 and 4 respectively. Table one gives the differences between transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Table 2, on the other hand, gives a comparison between leadership and management.

Nevertheless, from the discussion, we would expect to find a table comparing performance of schools, where the involvement of the community in decision-making and where community is not involved. Such a table should have social relevance of the content taught in school on one side, and its outcomes one the other as the variables.

The authors conclusion, though wordy, emphasizes the need for partnership between schools and communities, to improve the quality of education. However, stakeholder interests may be in conflict with those of the school, and this would lead to a stalemate. The ideal situation would be when the schools vision and the stakeholder interests are in line.

There were sources that could prove that the above findings were accurate and executable. In addition, Legotlo and Mathibe made an excellent reference page. He arranged the references in alphabetical order, according to APA citation style requirements.

For the in-text citations, there were good citations quoted from other sources, showing that the author is knowledgeable. The only concern was that most of the sources dated before the year 2000. This implies that some of the findings in the article might be either irrelevant or outdated.

The article contributes to the organizational behavior of an institution given that other organizations, apart from schools, can adopt the authors findings and use them for their benefit. An example of such institutions is local government offices, which would benefit from a partnership with the citizens.

This would improve their service delivery and the government would be more accessible to people. Although few leaders are aware of the advantages of decentralized management, the knowledge and implementation of the findings can become truly profitable to their organization.

The essay shows complication, and reading the content can be difficult. There are sections in the article where spotting the main idea that the authors want to bring out is difficult. It would be advisable that the reader should be able to understand the main idea of the section or paragraph within the first few lines of their reading, yet this is not the case. For example, the diction used in concluding the article is complex, and not easy to understand.

The article is lengthy, and the authors needs to improve on structuring the hierarchy to improve the logical flow of the document. The headings and subheadings stand out, and the lines are of reasonable length. The writer has used many paragraphs, and this helps the document improve on its readability although none of the paragraphs is indented.

The use of tables is commendable since it breaks the monotony of the plain text. Such a document would be even more appealing, if the author included graphs and charts to explain his findings in a better way. As stated above, the relationship between academicians, practitioners and other stakeholder, where there is sharing of leadership and decision-making, would be extremely fruitful, if their objectives are in line.

Conclusion

Legotlo and Mathibe conducted in-depth research before coming up with the article, this is readily evident from the volume of sources that they use to back-up their arguments. The advanced language used made the article complicated; thus it was not so easy to read, although it was appropriate for the intended audience.

The argument was logical, and the authors facts were accurate. The text was well organized and clear, and this helped the reader to have a better understanding of what the concepts put across by the authors. There is sufficient evidence to back-up their claims, bedsides, there is clear definition of relevant terms and the arguments made supported the main points.

The texts did not have an opposing point of view (or a counter-argument), though the writer concluded that all stakeholders had to have a common goal.

From the article, the writer makes it is clear that whenever the school or any other organization incorporates all stakeholder in the decision-making and leadership process, both stand to benefit, as long as they have come together to achieve a common goal. This information would be beneficial to UAEs organizational behavior and organizational effectiveness.

Work Cited

Legotlo, Modise W., and Mathibe, Isaac Ramoloko. The Leadership of the School Community as Sharing Power and Decision Making in the School. No Date. Web.

Discussion and Implications

This study provides important management insights concerning the relationship between leadership style and job satisfaction. Findings from the study show the sales managers and supervisors at GE obtaining much of their job satisfaction from internal factors. On the other hand, external factors at GE, such as company policies, do not contribute as much as intrinsic values, to employee job satisfaction.

Employee Job satisfaction

Nevertheless, the study at GE shows that the influence of transactional-reliant reward factors varies from one sales managers or supervisor to another. The study explains how different variable affect the individual considerations towards their jobs. There were variations of the responses by sales managers and supervisors. The differences occurred because everyone has personal desires of initiating relationships with their superiors.

It illustrates to the leadership that there are additional factors to look at, in addition to leadership style, when they analyze employee performance. The sales managers and supervisors conducted a personal evaluation of the companys leadership, which then became apparent in their responses.

For example, the high emphasis on how the leadership treats individuals was important for most sales and managers. However, the absence of the criterion on others indicates that it is not the only factor influencing their perception of their job. However, when it is a factor, it has a strong effect on the results.

Consequently, while the context of the research by Rose (2011) and this research are similar, the outcome is different because the organization studies are distinct. The underlying relationship is that both extrinsic and intrinsic values affect job satisfaction. Sales managers and supervisors can still be satisfied with the absence of an appropriate leadership style as long as the other factors retain a strong influence.

The absence of material rewards makes the leadership style, of a firm, crucial to its overall performance, which depends on the employee satisfaction. Thus, the study shows that employers are able to obtain high performance without necessarily altering their leadership style. However, the level of success will not be optimal until all extrinsic and intrinsic values for part of the organizations culture.

Furthermore, the study findings show that extrinsic values could lead to large degrees of job satisfaction. However, this would only occur where there is an absence of intrinsic values or in the case of this study; the praise given to sales managers and supervisors was physical.

A similar study conducted at Islamic Azad University branches in Tehran, Iran, Fathemeh and Hamidifar gave the same results. It demonstrated that individualized consideration, as a sub-variable, was a powerful predictor of job satisfaction just like transactional-reliant reward factors.

Here, job satisfaction included promotion, supervision, fringe benefits, recognition and the nature of the work (Rose 2001). Thus, we can rightfully state that supervision, which extends to leadership style, plays a crucial role in employee job satisfaction.

Other studies have as well found out similar relationships of job satisfaction and intrinsic or extrinsic values. For example, Rose (2001) also views job satisfaction as a two-way concept between inherent and extrinsic satisfaction dimensions. Rose (2001) explains that intrinsic sources of satisfaction depend on the personal characteristics such as a show of initiative, relationship with supervisors and type of work performed.

The characteristics symbolize features of their jobs. On the other hand, extrinsic sources of satisfaction are situational. They depend on the environment. These include pay, promotion, job security and praise. Concisely, extrinsic sources are financial and material rewards of the job.

The absence of extrinsic factors in the determination of job satisfaction at GE could be explained by the leadership style and the organizational culture within the firm. The factors come to play more when the firm has enough resources to create the desired environment for employee satisfaction.

In the case of GE, either external benefits were nonexistent or their impact was too little, compared to the daily interaction with the firms leadership. Typically, a firm will provide more extrinsic factors when it wants to attract additional talent over the short term. Intrinsic factors of job-satisfaction take time to manifest are only effective after a long time.

The heavy dependence on intrinsic factors by GE shows that the firm has no immediate talent recruitment need. Looking at the overall job satisfaction of the sales managers and supervisors, we can say that the job market if fairly saturated.

Therefore, GE does not encounter the pressure to provide extrinsic factors to retain its talent. Another reason to explain why the values do not contribute as much as intrinsic values on job satisfaction at GE could be the business environment standard the company operates. If every other firm in the same industry provides all the values, then sales managers and supervisors take it for granted that their jobs come with those benefits.

In a very competitive market, there is little distinction of products. For this case, there could be very pithy differentiation in the employee packages provided by competitor firms.

Therefore, firms compete on the quality of their organizational culture, which affects the relationship between sales managers and supervisors and the leadership. In looking at job satisfaction, we shall examine the perspective of the employee more than that of the leaders because, the subject is relative to the perception of the former.

This study shows that sales directors and overall company leadership act as a factor influencing sales managers and supervisors job satisfaction.

Therefore, people occupying similar positions in companies like GE should consider the impact of their actions toward their juniors. The position of a sales director should be people oriented and decisions should resonate with the majority of the staffs under the director for most of them to remain satisfied with their jobs.

Leadership Style

In this study, sales directors at GE scored highly on the consideration dimension compared to the initiation dimension. The former closely links to the ideas of people-oriented behavior while the latter refers to task orienting behavior. The leadership styles at GE borrow heavily from the type of interactions the managers have with their sales managers and supervisors.

The reaction of sales managers and supervisors towards specific assignments plays carry a higher value than the task that should be performed. For that reason directors consider more of how an assignment affects the employee, than how its impacts on the business.

The interpersonal relationships at GE show that the leadership works closely with sales managers and supervisors and meets their needs in non-material ways. Briefly, a consideration dimension puts the employee at the forefront of decision making while the initiation dimension regards the task first. Therefore, the resulting leadership style at GE is democratic.

High scores on the people-oriented behavior side, show that a democratic leadership style relates positively with employee job satisfaction. Furthermore, examinations of my findings show that representative style yields elevated job satisfaction levels because it involves sales managers and supervisors in decision-making processes and improves their buy-in for decisions.

Despite its benefits, the democratic style suffers from a slow settlement process because it involves many people. When the tardiness leads to a poor relationship with supervisors, then the type of leadership becomes a source of employee job dissatisfaction. The delays in decision making also delay the chances for sales managers and supervisors to show initiative.

At GE, the effect of slow decision-making manifest in both sales managers and supervisors and directors preferred way of interacting with each other. The sales managers and supervisors see no immediate need for extrinsic values as factors of their job satisfaction. On the other hand, the directors take very long to change their styles, and everyone tends to prefer the present conditions.

This has become part of the culture at GE. Past performance affects how much initiative the leadership will undertake to improve or maintain the current competitiveness of the firm. Therefore, the preferred choice of leadership could have been influenced by the position of the company in the market.

The outlook of the company plays a role in giving sales managers and supervisors a sense of belonging and purpose. In addition to leadership style, the staffs might exhibits high satisfaction levels because of the business environment context.

Thus, the sales managers and supervisors may affect leadership style, and not the case assumed here that leadership affects job satisfaction. Nevertheless, the amount of literature supporting the contrary position is scanty. The results of this research are more credible because the pretest and posttest analysis exhibits a significant change, attributable to leadership style.

It is worthy to note that the organization and its leadership affect sales managers and supervisors in a similar way. Leaders are the face of the organization and rules or regulations become an extension of the leaders. In the company, sales managers and supervisors look at how strongly the leader enforces the companys culture. They equate the enforced attributes with the leaders style.

For example, where some rules are overlooked and the companys supervision does not care much; sales managers and supervisors disassociate the rule, with the company. They view it as a foreign culture and do not use it to define their satisfaction. On the other hand, the most stressed rules become synonymous with the leader who enforces them, hence his or her style as perceived by the sales managers and supervisors.

At GE, the sales director used a single approach on every situation. They preferred to make decision based on the reaction of their juniors showing that they valued the feedback.

The persistent use of the same method in conducting their duties became their recognizable identity in the eyes of sales managers and supervisors. Even when situations cause a variation in their response, the predominant qualities mentioned above still emerged.

Sales managers and supervisors have little power to influence the management competence of their company, and thus have a decreased influence of extrinsic factors on their job satisfaction.

For example, the study shows that praise of sales managers and supervisors inside GE does not always result to tangible rewards that bring lasting job satisfaction. The rewards could be early yearly raises, promotions to higher offices or bonuses. Instead, most sales managers and supervisors ended up with a good job email or job phone call.

General Managers (GM) operate more on the consideration dimension while higher directors put more effort on the initiation structure dimension. In this study, the sales director leaned towards consideration dimensions more than he operated in the initiation structure dimension.

Similar studies on job satisfaction in relation to leadership style, such as Brooke (2007), show that it would be appropriate for the general manager to work also in the structure dimension. There is a need to delineate the relationship of the leader and members of his group. This is a way to establish a well-defined pattern for the organization, with communication channels and procedures (Brooke 2007).

The findings of this study show that even when a leader uses a style with mixed characteristics, only a few techniques that resonate with the members will become dominant. The inclusion of praise as part of the leadership style yielded no change in the predominant perception. This is important because it contributes to the knowledge of efficient leadership.

Job Satisfaction and Leadership Style

Sales directors at GE favored a coaching approach, which fits into the democratic leadership style category. Here, they made decisions and acted to motivate their juniors and increase sales at GE.

An appropriate explanation on why sales directors favor the democratic style of leadership as a way to offer maximum employee job satisfaction dwells on their experience with the style. At GE, some sales directors stuck to one style that assisted them in achieving successes early in their careers. Past results coerced them to use the same techniques and personality traits in trying to achieve similar or better results.

Sales managers and supervisors thought that learning in the organization was a rigid process, and the leadership did not find compelling reasons to use alternative leadership styles to improve satisfaction, participation and performance. They mentioned that sales directors did not experiment with different styles.

Those who were dissatisfied thought that the sales directors lacked a credible finding that would inform their choice of leadership style. The style matching the personality of the leader becomes the dominant style. Absence of feedback mechanisms also promoted the establishment of one style irrespective of its effect on job satisfaction.

Previous research has shown the proven benefits of varying the leadership style, in response to the company environment (Goldsmith 2006).

At GE, there was no diversification, as explained by sales directors and supervisors, because the objectives of the firm did not explicitly define the desired level of employee job satisfaction. Those who were dissatisfied mentioned that the leaders at GE did not have a scorecard to record and evaluate the impact of their leadership style; therefore, they did not see the advantage of trying different styles.

The lack of pressure from sales managers and supervisors could also have led to the instance of using only the democratic leadership style. When sales managers and supervisors do not differentiate between the company culture and the style of the leadership, they will accept any form of leadership and shift their satisfaction perception to different factors.

If this occurred at GE, then it explains why sales directors stuck with a given style and thought it was appropriate. The effectiveness of a leadership style in enhancing the job satisfaction levels for sales managers and supervisors depends on the absence of other factors that also shape the employee experience, at the firm.

Where the other factors pay a more crucial role than the leadership style, like the case of GE, one may be tempted to ignore the connection between the two variables. The recurrent use of a specific style by the different directors at GE shows that there is a relation between the style used, and the results obtained from their sales managers and supervisors.

This clarifies that there is indeed a relationship of leadership style and employee job satisfaction. Leaders will seek to improve the performance at their firm and sales managers and supervisors will perform better when they have a high value, for their jobs.

Different situations called for a change in the leadership approach used by sales directors. When there were mismatches in the leadership style and expectations, the sales manager left the department. These findings contribute to the understanding that it is important for leadership to act on feedback and alter the leadership style appropriately.

Conclusions

This study was to explore the leadership styles exhibited by sales directors in the sales department at GE and the level of satisfaction by managers and supervisors within this department. To establish this relationship, the study examined the leadership style of the sales directors at GE.

Furthermore, it looked at how the identified style affects the employee job-satisfaction and explains the relationship in the overall context of job satisfaction. The paper demonstrates that the relationship of leadership style and job satisfaction is linear; there is a positive relationship between a considerate or initiating structure of leadership of sales directors and the satisfaction levels.

Moreover, the degree of influence a leader has on sales managers and supervisors depends on the presence of other satisfaction values and their importance to sales managers and supervisors. While employee satisfaction depends on leadership style, it can still prevail without an appropriate style if other attributes of job satisfaction are met.

Implications for Future Research

Further research should develop more understanding of the source of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. For example, job stresses could have a positive relationship with job satisfaction. Thus, studies should examine leadership style relative to job stresses.

Implications for Managers

The study has investigated the relationship of management style and job satisfaction. Findings elaborate the absence of a specific style, which fits all sources of job satisfaction. Therefore, management should adopt an amalgamation of leadership styles, which are both responsive to organizational structure and employee expectations.

This is achievable through proper communication as findings show a strong relation of satisfaction and directors consideration of employee needs. The study shows how leadership style affects satisfaction levels similarly within GE. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the absence of negative results from the use of a specific style prolongs its use within GE and hinders sales directors from experimenting with other leadership styles.

To realize the potentials of extrinsic values on job satisfaction at GE, there needs to be a shift of the leadership style. The acclaimed executive coach Marshall Goldsmith states that the application of one-best-style on all situations may work at first but eventually fails (Goldsmith 2006).

Thus, sales managers need to learn and adapt, to succeed. The positive and significant relationship between extrinsic factors and job satisfaction, from this study, also support the above claim. Yousef (2000) conducted a research on organizational commitment and its relation with job satisfaction.

He confirms that to improve employees satisfaction, an organization has to adapt to the appropriate leadership behavior. As the survey shows, the ideal leadership style of the sales director is a mix of democratic and autocratic styles.

The ensuing behavior should enhance organizational commitment and increase both, job satisfaction and performance (Yousef 2000).

Effective communication between senior management and sales managers and supervisors is important because it will help sales managers and supervisors understand the organizations business goals, policies and vision, and keep sales managers and supervisors informed about what is going on in the organization.

Senior management could keep sales managers and supervisors well informed through company-wide meetings and the use of technology in top-to-bottom communications.

Implications for Policy Makers

Given the findings of this study, the following recommendations would lead to a positive relationship of leadership style and job satisfaction at GE. Policy makers could compel firms to adopt the quality working life approach (QWL), a job design system that has proven to be effective with regard to the enriching employees jobs, and providing a higher sense of challenge and achievement.

The QWL advocates for the provision of intrinsic rewards such as, a feeling of success, and extrinsic rewards such as benefits, recognition, and promotion.

Results that are more effective would come through job training, which includes modifying organizational objectives and developing new methods of coordination such as, planned progression, job rotation, re-assigning supervision, and temporary promotion until the employee prove his or her capability.

Limitations

The respondents of this study could have withheld or altered their responses because of intimidation. Both the sales directors and sales managers had prior knowledge of the questions to be administered in the study. The limited period could have negated the understanding of previous leadership actions that would lead to present changes.

Reference List

Brooke, SL 2007, Leadership and job satisfaction, Academic Leadership, vol 4, no. 1, via The On-Line Journal.

Goldsmith, M 2006, Coaching for leadership: the practice of leadership coaching from the worlds greatest coaches, 2nd edn, John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco.

Rose, M 2001, Disparate measures in the workplace. Quantifying overall job satisfaction. Web.

Yousef, DA 2000, Organizational commitment: a mediator of the relationships of leadership behavior with job satisfaction and performance in a non-western country, Journal of Managerial Psychology, vol 15, no. 1, pp. 6-24, via Emerald Insight.

Leadership is a new concept which requires people to influence others to achieve goals. Leadership concerns about doing the right things. This implies that leadership should be practiced through attitude and actions rather than words. Leadership should be taken as a process of influencing others to achieve organizational goals.

In this context, a true leader is the one who has the capability to influence a given group towards achievement of group targets and mission. Some people regard a good leader as a person who embraces the best leadership style and has the desirable qualities of leadership.

For instance, an individual can be regarded an excellent leader if he or she embraces transformational leadership and possesses traits such as charisma, honesty, integrity, magnanimity, trustworthy, or considerate. According to Drouillard and Kleiner (1996), strong leadership can be defined in terms of morality and goodness.

It involves influencing others through reason and inclusion to achieve long term interests for the well-being of the organization, individuals, groups or society. Management and leadership cannot be interchangeable.

For instance, leaders and managers should influence the thoughts and actions of the followers or subordinates through commitment, creativity, concern for others, and embracing experiments or changes. At the same time, exemplary leadership should recognize self and potential mistakes and take appropriate measures to minimize them (Drouillard & Kleiner, 1996).

Business governance is concerned with how a business should be efficiently managed. The major purpose of governance is to ensure efficient allocation of resources.

This creates stakeholders value from the business. Good corporate governance enables firms to generate adequate revenues for sustainability of the business. Corporate governance has a net impact on the performance of a business and should be applied efficiently (Strange, Filatotchev, Buck & Wright, 2009).

Efficient and effective leadership are the key drivers in efficient and effective corporate governance. Managers should embrace change in the organization if the organization has to achieve goals. Mistakes at the corporate governance level can be fatal to the organization.

Change in the organization should be reasoned out and should be viewed as a continuum from incremental to transformational. The business managers should have a starting point for driving the change and should be aware of the difficulties to be encountered during change periods and devise means of overcoming the difficulties (Strange, Filatotchev, Buck & Wright, 2009).

The most difficult change situations are individual beliefs, political power and culture. It requires strong leadership at the corporate level to initiate change for all these dimensions. For instance, a change in corporate culture requires management to focus on the result of such a change (Mason, 2006).

At the same time, change process should focus on how change should be executed and the relationships between the subordinates. Managing change at this level also calls for maximum and appropriate involvement of groups and individuals within an organization.

Another example of how managers can manage change is through facilitation of discussion through prioritization and polling. The management can design a pathway to action, share and inspire the subordinates and groups towards achievement of change purpose.

The management should lead in developing new ideas and forcing the pace of change in an organization. There is no distinction between management and leadership since management is action oriented. Through the involvement of subordinates, the obstacles and resistances to changes are surmountable, and business goals and objectives are achieved efficiently (Mason, 2006).

Reference List

Drouillard, E. S., & Kleiner, H. B 1996, Good leadership, Management Development Review, vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 30  33.

Mason, C 2006, What makes a good leader? (Cover story), Primary Health Care, vol. 16, No. 10, pp. 18-20.

Strange, R., Filatotchev, I., Buck, T., & Wright, M 2009, Corporate Governance and International Business, Management International Review, vol. 49 no. 4, pp. 395-407.

First Part

Promotion

Many organizations have a way in which their employees behave, interact and do things. These things include promotion and the need to climb the corporate ladder. It is the desire of every employee to climb the corporate ladder. This has become competitive with the advent of youthful employees, who have all that it takes to climb the corporate ladder.

On the other hand, it is an almost universal culture in organizations to promote older employees. This has brought some form of collision in the work place. Generation Y, which refers to these youthful employees, want to climb the corporate ladder fast. This ambition, justified from their point of view by the fact that they have all it takes, is real.

This is especially true in the ICT departments of many companies. However, most companies have a culture where employees who have experience get promoted to high-managerial positions. Managers and company owners alike are in constant balancing of the two. This is presenting the current company structure with a perplexing situation (Grusky, 2003).

Academic Link

The issue of promotion in companies is quite crucial to ensure continued production and the need for growth. Promotion, however, has become a vitally challenging topic in current organizations. These organizations have to grapple with the need for younger people to be factored. These young people, fresh from college, have so much knowledge that can be applied organizations to enhance growth.

Having trained in many fields and technologically savvy, they want to climb the corporate ladder fast enough and retire early. Managers need these young people if they are to survive the current world of business.

However, on many occasions, the managers grapple with a culture that has continually manifested itself in the majority of the organizations world wide. This culture requires that those employees who have worked for a company in along time deserve promotion and not those that managers deem to have all the qualifications (Haveman, 1993).

Example as a Manager

Faced by such a situation, as a manager I would look at many factors before suggesting someone for promotion. I would not choose age as a factor; rather, I would choose the input that a certain individual has compared to another in that particular organization and managerial set up.

For example, if I am faced by need to have a new supply chain manager, I would mostly consider the holders ability to understand the whole process. Two factors would qualify candidates: experience and training. Experience can only win if the candidate in question demonstrates insurmountable levels of knowledge in that field.

However, if the company wants to overhaul its supply chain and employ automated processes, it follows that a young person, who has fresh knowledge, will conquer. Therefore, culture should not be a factor in this case. It will automatically take a backseat and other vital factors put into consideration like company growth (Phillips, 2001).

Example as an Employee

As an employee in a department where a void, maybe technical assistant, is to be filled by way of promotion I would recommend class knowledge rather than experience. This culture of experience is good as it promotes other equally crucial aspects of an organization in the long term. However, short term goals are lost in the process.

According to me short term goals determine how well a company will achieve log term ones. In filing the technical assistant position, young people will be likely candidates as they work quite well with that nature of work. These people want a situation where they do not have to stay hooked at a position for the rest of the day.

They are only summoned when they are needed and that gives them time and space to work on contractual basis. Studies have shown that this greatly improves their workability and motivates them. This job environment is suitable for such young people. In an organization where promotions are pegged on a culture of experience these young people lose out on these opportunities, and so does the company on revenue (Phillips, 2001).

Second Part

Training

Training is a crucial are in any organization. It determines what employees the company has and hence its out put. However, there is a constant indecision in company circles as to its importance. Is it more economical to train than hire an experienced employee? What are the benefits of training and what is the down side. How much does culture affect a companys decision in this front?

If a company has a culture of training its employees, is it mandatory for a departmental manager to also go the same route? I will put this question into perspective in the next few paragraphs with regard to culture in general. However, training will be the topic in question in comparison to experience (Rowe, 1990).

Academic Link

Training, many scholars agree, is quite crucial for the growth and goal realization of any company. It however is influenced by many factors. One of them is the question whether it is economical or the experience hiring route is more beneficial. Both achieve the goals of an organization but training is more beneficial. By training, it is even more profitable and clever to engage young employees.

These youthful people fresh from college are better molded than employees snatched from another company. Otherwise, the whole essence of training is lost. Experience is what a company wants in the long run and loyal employees. Studies have shown that trained employees find it more sensible to stay in a certain organization. This is because of the acclimatization process that individuals fear.

Therefore, going to a new organization means subjecting oneself to a whole new environment which is not the desire of many individuals. The studies further suggests that employees who shift camp from one organization to another are mostly motivated by better salaries and not the desire to impact in an organization.

All these factors enhance the importance of training. However, some organizational cultures require managers to hire experienced employees so as to evade this process of training. It follows that these companies lose out on genuine employees in an attempt to escape training fees. This in the long-term denies them more revenue and profitability.

Example as a Manager

Accounting and finance are two vitally critical departments in an organization. Employees in those departments needed to maintain high level secrets. A company that employs retrogressive hiring based on a culture of experience hiring is doomed to fall victim of fraud. These new employees, who replace fired or retired employees, should be trained from scratch.

An accountant who is trained has lesser ground to commit acts of fraud because the bonds created with bosses. This bond restricts them from committing acts of fraud. As also mentioned earlier, there is a high likelihood that the employee will serve in that position longer. This is in comparison with an experienced employee who is taken from another company.

This experienced employee may be after something other than quality service. I would, therefore, train my employees. I would occasionally hire experienced employees from other companies.

This is especially true for such departments like accounting that are very vital to company survival. I will work with the belief that trained employees understand a companys other objectives better than an experienced employee from another company (Scully and Segal, 2002).

Example as an Employee

Taking a janitor as an example, I will critically analyze the importance of training. Janitors are responsible for cleaning and sometimes security in an organization. In as much as their contribution to the company revenue may not be significant, they play an important role in enhancing security. Simply put they are aware of the security apparatus of a company.

This is because they have access to many offices and entrances to the whole compound of the company. This unrestricted access means that they can easily collude with fraudsters to defraud a company of its property. Training will ensure that the possible misdemeanor of these employees is monitored.

This monitoring emanates from them not from the company as they have developed a psychological set up that and bond that links them to the company. However, an employee who is hired and entrusted with such responsibility purely from the fact that they have experience, is a dangerous move as it may compromise security (Scully and Segal, 2002).

Third Part

Leadership Question

Culture is diverse and manifests itself in many facets of a company. The dimensions that it takes have partly been discussed above. Firstly, we have discussed promotions. This aspect of an organization, as noted earlier, is quite paramount to the success that is desired in any company.

However, it is bogged down by a problem of culture. Many retrogressive mangers continue to believe that the only way a person attains credibility as merit-deserving promotion wise is by gaining experience.

This is not true and it continues to be vetoed by a generation of youthful people that has come up. This generation, known as generation y is challenging this aspect on many angles. They have gained insurmountable knowledge while at school. This knowledge is both in the field of the managers they find in those organizations and in new fields like technology as noted by Gronn (2002).

Technology is a paramount branch of a company. To survive in the new competitive field, a company must have technologically savvy ICT department. This is in advent of a virtual global world. In this world, everything, including market domination, is shifting to the internet. Therefore, it has become increasingly important for a company to engage the services of generation y.

However, this youthful generation has come with many demands. This has left nothing to chance and managers are grappling with nothing less than the need to rethink their institutional cultures. This rethink should be accommodative of that generation. This is even more emphasized regarding the fact that they will form the next bloc from which companies will be expected to get their employees (Gronn, 2002).

Culture has also brought another aspect to the fore of the current mangers. This aspect entails training. Is it an organizational responsibility to train employees? Is it also financially sound to train employees? What is better: training or hiring experienced employees? Many mangers are bogged down by organizational bureaucracy that dictates the terms when it comes to hiring.

The two above-mentioned cases present a leadership twist in the current organizational set up. The current set up has a lot of mistrust and cut throat competitions within and between companies. Within companies, there is the constant jockeying for position. Outside the company, there is cut throat competition for market leadership and profit.

The growth of revenue continues to dictate the nature of each step taken for company leadership. The balancing act is mostly challenging. Leaders of the various departments continue to grapple with challenges that are presented their way by this evolving way of things (Scully and Segal, 2002).

My Thought

Based on the research I have conducted, it is quite evident that leadership positions nowadays need an overhaul. Leaders in corporate organizations need to rethink and format their initial mental set up. The demagogue that is culture, which restricts many organizational endeavors also need to be overhauled.

This is crucial to accommodate the dynamism that is been witnessed in this sector. It has continued to grow in a phenomenal way. Leaders and managers can only grow with it if they are to remain in business.

Trends in the market is shifting and the ground for market war is no longer physical, it is digital. All these are pointers that the earlier group of managers cannot apply in the current world. New strategies and goals that put into consideration these changes must be adopted.

There is no better way to do that than to adopt the same change makers in the companies. These calls for a rethink of two aspects of corporate cultures: training and promotion. As discussed and supported by academic evidence, these two are quite important.

Reference List

Gronn, P. (2002) Distributed Leadership as a Unit of Analysis. The Leadership Quarterly, 13(4), Pp 423-451.

Grusky, O. (2003) Managerial Succession and Organizational Effectiveness. American Journal of Sociology, 69, (1), Pp 21-31.

Haveman, H. A. (1993) Ghosts of Managers Past: Managerial Succession and Organizational Mortality. Academy of Management Journal, 36 (4), Pp 864-881.

Phillips, D. J. (2001) the Promotion Paradox. American Journal of Sociology, 106 (4), Pp 1058-1098.

Rowe, M. (1990) Barriers to Equality: The Power of Subtle Discrimination to Maintain Unequal Opportunity. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 3(2), Pp 153-163.

Scully, M. & Segal, A. (2002) Passion with an Umbrella: Grassroots Activists in the Workplace. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 19 (1), Pp 125168.