Leadership Style of a Senior Executive in My Previous Organization

Leadership Style of a Senior Executive in My Previous Organization

Effective leadership may involve adopting different leadership styles as the organizational context changes. Cultural differences for example may render some of the leadership styles redundant in some cultures even when they are effective in others. Other aspects such diversity in workforce demographics as younger generations join the workforce and technology advancements that have led to virtual work teams pose challenges for leaders to motivate employees. As such, organizational leaders are likely to face increasing challenges that will test their leadership capabilities to unprecedented levels. In this paper, I analyze the style of leadership of the Chief Operating Officer (COO) in my previous organization and organizational factors such as structure and culture, and their effect on employee outcomes. Following such analysis, the subsequent sections will highlight practices organizations can use to motivate employees, and challenges in managing diversity and importance of diversity in enhancing competitiveness in a global environment. Finally, a business strategy to address issues identified above is presented.

Leadership Style of the COO of a Previous Employer

The leadership style of the COO in my previous organization espoused various characteristics that helped to motivate employees to commit to the organizational goals. Her core strength was her participative approach to decision making. This was for instance evident in divisional teams where she allowed team members to discuss aspects such as team objectives, team procedures and expected behavior within the team. Through such an approach, team members were able to develop a sense of ownership of the team’s work and thus commit to the goals they had set out to achieve. Studies evaluating effect of participative (or shared) leadership on team outcomes have revealed various benefits of such an approach. The benefits cited in studies include promoting team and individual learning (Liu, Hu, Li, Wang, & Lin, 2014), trust in leadership, job satisfaction, and better performance (Braun, Peus, Weisweiler, & Frey, 2013). Such benefits were also evident in the teams that our COO led.

Use of the participative approach at times however tended to lead to delays in decision-making, which was disadvantageous in cases where projects were urgent. Secondly, the approach may not have worked with novice employees who would have needed a more directive approach to build their skills to perform organizational tasks.  Such changing organizational contexts may necessitate a situational leadership approach, which, as discussed by Thompson and Vecchio (2009), involves modifying the leadership style depending on the organizational context and the expertise level of the followers. Nevertheless, the effects of failure to adopt such situational leadership approach did not have a great effect on the organizational outcomes since the COO mainly delegated direct supervision of new employees to line managers.

Organizational Structure and Culture of the Company

The organizational structure and culture of an entity influence organizational processes thus affecting how employees work. Organizational structure refers to ways through which power and authority is distributed within the organization. Such ways influence how organizational processes are carried out. In my former entity, the organizational structure was divisional. Such a structure involves ordering organizational processes according to a specific criterion such as geography, products or services, processes, or target customers (Stanford, 2010). Although such a structure confers advantages such as skill specialization, lower resource duplication, and career development within the department, it is not supportive of cross-functional teamwork (Stanford, 2010). Due to such a structure, although projects were assigned to teams, the teams tended to be within the same geographical division without engagement of international units. However, the divisional structure helped to enhance relationship skills within the same division since experts in the industry would mentor new employees.

Organizational culture also helps an entity to enhance performance by inculcating values that are supportive of innovation. Definitions of organizational culture share the perspective that it “consists of some combination of artifacts … values and beliefs, and underlying assumptions that organizational members share about appropriate behavior” (Detert et al., 2000, p. 851, as cited in Prajogo & McDermott, 2011, p. 713). According to the four dimensions of the competing values framework (Quinn & Spreitzer, 1991 as cited in Prajogo & McDermott, 2011, p. 14), my previous organization tended towards control than flexibility. Control emphasizes stability and continuity whereas flexibility emphasizes spontaneity and development (Prajogo & McDermott, 2011). On the internal-external focus continuum, my previous employer emphasized an internal focus. As such, emphasis was on maintaining and improving existing features of the entity rather than creating the capacity needed for adapting to external environment (Prajogo & McDermott, 2011). In respect to employee development, this was evident from focus on internal training rather than external training. As such, the organizational culture of my previous employer was not suited for development of cross-functional teams that would learn from external environment to provide solutions to the entity’s challenges.

Performance of the COO based on her Ethical Conduct and Effective Communication

The COO in my former organization exemplified various behaviors that made her an ethical role model across the organization. For example, she expressed concern and compassion whenever an employee under her leadership was experiencing hardship. For example, she acted as an advocate for employees to have flexible work arrangements when dealing with family aspects such as caring for young infants, pregnancy, bereavement and sickness. Further, she espoused a high degree of fairness in her leadership, always allocating tasks and responsibilities to employees equitably. Even whenever there were disagreements among team members, the COO never acted in a condescending manner and showed respect to every employee.

From such traits, the COO had been able to earn the trust of many employees, with her honesty and integrity helping in building such trust. For example, when disappointed with the performance of any employee, she would schedule a meeting with such an employee and explain clearly her disappointment. Such confidential sessions helped to avoid embarrassing the employee in front of other employees, while ensuring that the concerned employee committed to better performance in future. Through such meetings, the COO would also learn of factors that may have contributed to the employee’s poor performance thus help to redress them. Further, the COO often communicated the need for employees to act ethically even when there was pressure to increase the profitability of the entity. Weaver, Trevino and Agle (2005) argue that such characteristics of leaders help to develop a culture of ethics throughout the organization. Through the COO’s involvement, the entity was able to develop a code that would guide employees when faced with ethical dilemmas.  Such characteristics established the COO as a beacon of ethical practices within the entity thus placing the entity on a trajectory for sustainable growth.

In respect to communication, the COO was also an effective communicator. She used various opportunities for example to stress the importance of providing exemplary service to the entity’s customers. Further, whenever there were changes in the organization, the COO would communicate well beforehand to prepare the employees for the changes that were forthcoming. Such communication involved various channels such as employee emails, notices on organization’s notice board, and through departmental meetings either in person or through the heads of department.

Three Practices Organizational Leaders can use to Motivate Employees

Organizational leaders can use various practices to motivate employees. One of these is to give employees rewards that matter to them most as advocated for in the expectancy model of motivation (Isaac, Zerbe, & Pitt, 2001). This would involve interacting with the employees to learn of what they value most and then using such information to provide relevant rewards. For example, leaders may offer employees who have families a flexible work schedule to help them manage their family and work responsibilities. This may be through allowing such employees to work from remote locations when possible.

A second approach to motivation would be to apply the principles espoused by Herzberg’s motivation theory. In this respect, the leaders would ensure that work tasks and organizational processes are designed in a way that respects employees’ values and beliefs. Through such redesign, leaders would help to tap into intrinsic factors of motivation, which offer a better opportunity for the entity to encourage employees to commit to the entity’s vision in the long-term (Bassett-Jones & Lloyd, 2005).

A third way through which leaders can motivate employees is by tapping into McClelland’s theory that recognizes people’s need for achievement, power and affiliation (Lawrence & Jordan, 2009). In this respect, the leaders can motivate employees by empowering them to make decisions and lead organization’s projects. Further, leaders can motivate employees this way by providing clear career progression avenues within the entity.

Challenges Leaders Encounter when Managing Diversity

Diversity in the workplace can arise from various aspects including culture and demographic differences.  In respect to cultural diversity, managers face challenges such as differences in languages, values, and beliefs (Seymen, 2006). Such differences may lead to conflicts when one culture considers a specific behavior acceptable while the leader’s culture considers such behavior unacceptable. Examples of these differences include perception of time, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and collective responsibility as envisaged by Hofstede (Bird & Fang, 2009). In respect to demographic differences, as Gratton (2011) notes factors such as better healthcare have led to the occurrence of employees of diverse generations within the workplace. Such diversity may present challenges for example where the leader is leading employees who might perceive him or her to be inexperienced due to his or her age.

Irrespective of such differences, managing diversity effectively can help organizations to compete effectively globally. For example, in respect to culture, diversity helps an organization to have access to diverse perspectives that would help it to provide products or services that are relevant to its diverse customer base (Seymen, 2006). In respect to demographics, diversity in an entity allows to preserve an entity’s memory thus fostering learning (Gratton, 2011). This is enabled where employees nearing retirement act as mentors for young employees thus avoiding loss of important skills when such retiring employees leave. Eventually, this would translate development of competencies for the entity to compete effectively globally.

Business Strategy to Address the Challenges and Issues Identified

To address the challenges noted, an entity needs to have a strategy for enhancing leaders’ skills to manage diversity as part of the human development strategy. The strategy would involve training programs for managers to create awareness about diversity, especially where managers are deployed to international areas where the host culture differs significantly from home culture. In one study, for example, Waxin and Panaccio (2005) note that cross-cultural training helps expatriate managers to adjust rapidly to their host culture thus enabling them to guide the entity to achieve its goals.

A second approach is for the entity to run exchange programs where managers from different regions can be posted on temporary basis to other regions to enhance their awareness of diversity in areas where the entity does business. This would enable the entity to have a repository of leaders who can lead its operations in different regions when the need arises. Further, the entity can encourage diversity among its workforce through just recruitment practices that enable different individuals who have the qualifications to perform tasks for the job positions to apply for such jobs.

Conclusion

Effective leadership has become a core organizational aspect that determines success in a competitive workforce. From the analysis of my former employer’s COO leadership, aspects such as participative approach to leadership, modeling ethical behavior and effective communication enabled her to influence employees to achieve the organizational goals. In respect to diversity, increasing diversity in workforce has presented managers with challenges such as diversity in values, philosophy of work, and beliefs. Such diversity have necessitated managers to enhance their diversity management skills to enable the entity to reap benefits of diversity such as increased innovation and enhanced organizational learning.

 

References

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