MBA Essay:企业领导与管理导论

一些人声称领导者是天生的，也有人认为他们是被创造出来的，在他们自己的情况下都是正确的，这取决于领导他人的人，这主要是由于形势的原因。讨论关于他们是否在领导之前有想法，还是只是及时做出决定？

 

Some claim that Leaders are born, also some agree that they are made, both are correct in their own context that depends on the people who lead others, mostly due to the situation. And the discussion is on about whether they had ideas to lead prior to the situation or was it just timely decision.

 

Who are these people who have a vision, who take timely decisions and live their words and become a role model to others and transform people by injecting faith to change and achieve the required goal? Are they one of us or are they special with traits that are very different than others? How do we identify these people and what makes us to follow them?

 

'Leadership' is the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals.

 

And the person who does the change or who influences others is called a 'Leader'.

 

Another definition would be: Leadership is an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes and outcomes that reflect their shared purposes.

 

(Richard L Daft, Leadership, India edition, page 17)

 

Intention

 

Influence

 

Shared

 

Purpose

 

Change

 

Personal responsibility & integrityLeadership would ideally involve few personality traits as shown below:

 

Followers

 

Leader

 

Comparing Management and Leadership

 

Management

 

Leadership

 

Direction

 

Planning and budgeting, keeping an eye of the rules and making sure that it's followed.

 

Creating vision and strategy. Horizon is the limit.

 

Alignment

 

Organizing and staffing, directing and controlling, creating boundaries.

 

Creating shared culture and values and helping others grow. Reducing boundaries.

 

Relationships

 

Focused on results. Production/selling based on power and position.

 

Acting as boss.

 

Focusing on people- inspiring and motivating them. Acts as coach, facilitator, and mentor.#p#分页标题#e#

 

Personal qualities

 

Emotional distance

 

Expert mind

 

Talking

 

Conformity

 

Insight into organization

 

Emotional connections

 

Open mind

 

Listening( communication)

 

Nonconformity(courage)

 

Insight into self(character)

 

Outcomes

 

Maintains stability; creates culture of efficiency.

 

Creates change and culture of Integrity.

 

(Richard L Daft, Leadership, India edition, page 27)

 

Roles of a leader:

 

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We can identify few of the roles that the Leader would play as:

 

Leader as relationship builder.

 

Leader as an effective communicator.

 

Leader as leading teams and resolving conflicts.

 

Leader as developing leadership diversity.

 

Leader as social architect.

 

Leader as shaping culture and values.

 

As designing and leading a learning organization.

 

Leader as Leading the Change.

 

Famous styles of Leadership:

 

Across the globe there are few styles of Leadership that are accepted by one and all. They can be mentioned as:

 

Autocratic leadership.

 

Bureaucratic leadership.

 

Charismatic leadership.

 

Democratic or participative leadership.

 

Laissez-Faire leadership.

 

People oriented or relationship oriented relationship.

 

Task oriented leadership.

 

Transactional leadership.

 

Transformational leadership.

 

Autocratic Leadership:

 

Transactional leadership at its extremes is also termed as Autocratic leadership. Here the leaders have absolute power over the people or teams. These kinds of leaders take decisions without consulting anybody of the team and want all others to follow their orders without questioning. Autocratic leaders are effective when there is nobody else required to participate in decision making and the subordinates are just expected to carry out the rules laid down by the leaders.#p#分页标题#e#

 

Bureaucratic Leadership:

 

It is a kind of leadership where the leaders go by the BOOK and hence follow the rules rigorously and also make sure that the subordinates abide by the rules laid very correctly and no mistakes in that. This type of leadership comes into picture where the precision of labor is very essential and little mistakes can cause a huge loss to the company.

 

Charismatic leadership:

 

This type of leadership involves leaders who are very energetic and enthusiastic which they use in motivating the team to drive them forward. They believe in themselves and sometimes it can be trouble to the project they are working on. However the charismatic leader would lead the people with his or her charisma and the way they carry themselves, living their words. Followers would naturally tend to get attracted to these leaders.

 

Democratic or participative leadership:

 

These are kind of leaders who will invite all the members of the team to involve in the decision making process by active participation, nevertheless take final decision considering all the aspects and involvement of the team members. "Let us work together to solve this" can be the policy applied here.

 

This will increase the job satisfaction of the team members as the leader would respect the knowledge the team has and the information.

 

Laissez- faire leadership:

 

French word meaning 'leave it to be' is used in the leadership style where the leaders don't interfere in the work of their subordinates and let them take decisions on their own. This means that there is very less monitoring and usually practiced with the employees who are very much experienced in their work and are self motivated. These leaders come into picture where there is something wrong and the team requests for leaders' intervention.

 

People oriented leadership:

 

In this leadership, the leaders are totally concentrated to organize, support and develop the people of the team. It's participative in nature and builds up very strong bonds within the team and task achievement is collaborative. Task orientation is least in this kind of leadership.

 

Task oriented leadership:

 

This is leadership where the leaders are only bent on getting the job done, without giving priority for their employees or their development. These leaders can be Autocratic and hence motivation factor can be very less here. These are the people who make rules and monitor if all are following it correctly or not.

 

Transactional leadership:

 

In this type, the team members are expected to follow the rules and obey their leader once they have accepted the transaction or a project. Rewards can be given to the employees as well. So this is actually a management style than leadership which includes the method management by exception. However, this style of leadership limits creativity of the team member.#p#分页标题#e#

 

Transformational leadership:

 

The leaders who follow this approach will continuously try to inspire the team members and inject a sense of vision and motivate them to work towards the goal. They are also known for their turnaround situation approach which means that they are very good at changing the bad situation to desirable one. They have timely sense and decision making ability which gives them an edge over others. People will naturally get attracted to these because of their talent and sense of vision.

 

Impact of leadership styles on an Organization:

 

Impact of Autocratic style:

 

People who are Autocrats or commonly called as Dictators are usually bestowed with powers and people are forced to accept the decisions made by the autocratic leaders. They make their followers to work towards the individual goals than a team goal. There are times when People don't like to be treated like this and hence this kind of leadership results in absenteeism, low morale, employee turnover

 

However, in the situations where the project or the company is under loss and there has been no integrity with the employees not concentrating on the work or when there is absolute control has to be gained on a group, then autocratic leadership works the best to bring in rules and regulations. When there is a team that fell flat but needs to prove the results before the deadline, an autocratic leader tells what to do, issues orders and wants them to be followed. In an Emergency, where is only leader can make decision, autocratic style is most appropriate.

 

Let us discuss the above style of leadership relating to my company and see what happened when such leadership traits were announced.

 

In my company people were lucky in a way that the people were removed from position quite some time before the recession hit all over the globe and due to this, the employees were able to find different jobs and company was ready to take the hit of recession. Due to such a great planning, company was stable during recession and people were happy as they found different jobs and none were jobless. The decision was very well Autocratic that many people (mostly who were not performing) were asked to quit and also there were many changes in the management level too. All this needs Autocratic style of leadership. Also during recession, company would anyways need a leader to direct the company and steer through the tough times, as cost cutting was majorly happening and that time everybody has to listen to the leader, because in those difficult times, Autocrat leader only can help his team to be on a safer path.

 

Impact of Bureaucratic leadership:

 

Bureaucratic leaders are always bound by rules of the book. They are very good monitors and hence try to get the solution the inflexible way.#p#分页标题#e#

 

Usually followed in organizations where high precision labor is required, for example, in defense manufacturing units, financial companies, and chemical industries and in Nuclear plans, they have to follow the set rules and derive the result. Here the creativity and self development may not be feasible. In such industries, skill is required by the employee only for that task and hence the job may become monotonous.

 

Also this kind of leadership can demoralize the people of organization; ability to adapt to the changing environment may not be tough which is not required by such companies as well.

 

As already discussed Bureaucratic leader is mostly bookish, he would be very inflexible. We can co-relate such leaders with Transactional leaders too. I can relate such a leadership style to an ex- manager of mine, who completely believed in policies laid and there was such a situation that he would not negotiate anything if it's not mentioned in the policy booklet. All of us know that there are some practical problems for which a book may not have a solution. In such scenarios we may have to bend the policies a little bit with all prior approval and these situations need negotiations. My ex manager was really not interested in such negotiation when there was such situation. This resulted in employee dissatisfaction and absenteeism. Such type of leadership can be harmful at times.

 

Impact of Charismatic leadership:

 

Charismatic leaders touch the emotional quotient of the people because of their qualities in heart and mind. They create an atmosphere of change and make their followers to believe that the vision of future is much better than what they are having now. They get trust of followers as they get willing to incur great risk. Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa can be best examples of Charismatic leaders. They had vision of changing the society and they lived for the same, in spite of all the odds.

 

Charismatic leaders play important role in an Organization, when the peoples' morale is down and there is no proper guidance, possibly because of the economic meltdown or war in the country or to achieve baffling success in a struggling organization.

 

In the eyes of the followers the success of a project or a job depends completely on the charismatic leader and if he/she were to leave them, the whole project may collapse.

 

I recall a situation in my company when such leader was present and what happened when he was moved to a different line of business. We had a manager who was accepted very well in a very short time and we used to consider him our leader naturally, which was due to his charisma. He was a natural leader and the moment he used to suggest something, we used to take it without asking anything about that or mend ourselves. He was such a person who used his smile and kind and friendly attitude to win over people. We were to follow him blindly. It is usual practice in any Organization that the managers are shifted over to different line of business in the same Organization. When such thing happened, entire team went on a strike demanding the same manager to be restored and also were absent for work for 3 consecutive days. The issue then went to site director level and finally the same manager was restored. All just because of his charisma that we could never let go. Such are the Charismatic leaders.#p#分页标题#e#

 

Impact of Democratic or Participative leadership:

 

The Government is a best example for democracy and the prime minister or President would be the leader. They take opinions of all the fellow ministers on a particular issue and collate the data and expert opinions, which they use to form a final decision of their own, keeping common interest in mind.

 

In an organization, when there are major decisions to be taken, either for a huge investment or a policy change during crisis, the board of directors meets and involve themselves in decision making process for the benefit of the company, all the data is collected and all the options are thoroughly pondered over and the chairman or the CEO comes to a conclusion and that decision would be final.

 

Thus a democratic leader involves every person of the team for decision making and makes final decision of his own. In case of certain crisis, policy changes or investments, such leadership style is followed.

 

Such a style would take lot of time and also when there are many disagreements among the team members, taking a decision may be difficult for the leader.

 

We can co-relate all the leadership styles to one or other incident in an Organization. For Democratic style of leadership I can give one incident as an example.

 

Usually Directors of the company are fed with information from his immediate subordinates and so is true in my company too. Our Area Manager reports to the Director of the project and his boss the Site Director. When there are major changes in terms of policy expected, there is a board meeting done to check how to implement the policy changes. Our Area Manager is such a gentleman, that he will consult us in case of any changes needed in the policy that is being implemented, much before its passed on to us. He is very Democratic and believes that he must consult the people who actually follow the procedures and help the company grow.

 

Impact of Laissez-faire leadership:

 

A leader treating all the members of the team as leaders and not interfering or monitoring the acts of his followers regularly is known as Laissez-faire leadership. Usually the team members in such cases are highly self motivated and very much competent to perform the required task.

 

Warren Buffet is a great example for Laissez-faire leader. He doesn't meet his subordinates regularly and sends a mail once or twice a year for any updates in the organization and if there are any issues cropping up. If there is intervention needed then he would come into picture else not. Team work and collaboration is what he emphasizes on.

 

There are some situations where if there are too many leaders in the team and everybody is working on his own than as a team, then the whole organization collapses. Few times, having control over teams becomes impossible due to the highest level of decentralization.#p#分页标题#e#

 

I may not be able to co-relate this leadership to my Organization as there is regular monitoring of the results obtained and hence they would check if the policy implemented is yielding desired results or it needs tweak.

 

Impact of People oriented leadership:

 

It's a participative style where the leader involves all his team members and motivates them to work as a team with creative collaboration. The people oriented leaders mostly think how the given task can impact his team members and hence he would think about people and the relationships ahead of tasks, unlike the task oriented leader who would consider task as his goal and may often see his team members as task or project. He would consider that the team is just a tool to finish the given task and hence shows no importance to the people.

 

In an organization it's better to be task as well as people oriented as if only one of these is considered, other would eventually fail. If the leader becomes too task oriented then the people will be stressed out and would lead to low morale and absenteeism. Also if only relationships are considered and task is next, many times the task would remain undone, with the people taking task very casually, thus it would lessen the productivity. Striking a balance between the two is crucial.

 

I can give example of such leadership in my own company. Though recession has changed outlook of companies towards employees and vice versa, there are still many companies which believes in keeping its employee happy. Some even initiate pension plans etc. So is my Director. If somebody says that there is something missing in the organization that can help us yield results better, or make it a better environment / workplace, he is the first person to do that in the next few weeks and he has been doing that consistently. All he needs is performance. He is people oriented and task oriented at the same time.

 

Impact of Transactional Leadership:

 

The transactional leader makes sure that the followers agree upon to the task they have chosen to pursue in his leadership, for which the team members are paid and hence the leader can punish the team members if the task remains undone.

 

Transactional leaders identify the needs and want of their team members and inform them as to how they can achieve their requirements, provided they complete the task given to them by the Organization. They achieve the task from their followers by offering them rewards. These leaders are very effective with their commitment of following the rules and they maintain stability in the Organization.

 

This is aimed at short term tasks and hence knowledge based or creativity has limited options, however, this is a common style accepted all over.

 #p#分页标题#e#

Transactional Leaders are quite common any Organization. Whenever there is a work to be achieved, these leaders come into picture. Our managers usually are transactional leaders. In daily office work, I can co-relate my managers to this kind of relationship.

 

Impacts of Transformational Leadership:

 

Transformational leaders develop leadership in their followers. The followers are shown the vision of the future and they elevate the concerns of the followers from just physical needs to the psychological needs such has self esteem and self actualization. They bring significant change in the Organization's vision, strategy and cultures as well as they induce sense of initiative in the followers.

 

Organization needs both transactional and transformational leaders. Transformational leaders are more sought after when there has to be a major change in strategy or when the people have to be moved from self interests to a common interest, which could be group interest or interest of the Organization. These leaders believe in personal values, beliefs, and qualities of the people and boost them rather than working on an exchange of process between them and their followers.They contribute to the complete changeover of the organization.

 

I personally believe that a Transactional Leader is the one who can change the scene of the whole situation. I recall one of my managers I worked only short time, however, changed my whole outlook. I had joined new and when we are new, we are given more time to learn things and prove ourselves. I was not into resolving technical issues with computers before and took a little longer than usual. I was already warned by the Area Manager that I was not supposed to be so very late in learning things, which could affect my future in the company. My Manager became my mentor and true leader who helped me come out my confusion and fear and achieve results very next quarter. The tips he gave and the way of approach and the vision he injected in me was so very helpful, which helped me to gain a position of Team Lead in the short time in the same company.

 

A good Leader is one who switches between the leadership styles according to the people whom he/she is working with or according to the situation.

 

Assignment 2

 

Profile of great Indian or

 

International leader describing the

 

leadership traits, behavior and situation.

 

Franklin Roosevelt

 

The leader of United States of America, who revived the nation and put it to the track of development, from Great depression, was Franklin Roosevelt. A true transformational leader, whose turn around table policy helped Americans to survive greatest economic meltdown and prosper.#p#分页标题#e#

 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, in Hyde Park, New York. 32nd President of United States (1933-45). He was the only President who was elected to the office FOUR times. Roosevelt led America through two of the greatest crisis of the 20th century- The Great Depression and the World War II. In doing so, he greatly expanded the powers of the federal government through a series of programs and reforms known as New Deal.

 

Early life:

 

Roosevelt was only child of James and Sara Delano Roosevelt. Young Roosevelt was privately educated at home until age 14, when entered Groton preparatory school in Groton, Massachusetts. His was a wealthy family. He was a distant cousin of Theodore Roosevelt.

 

In 1900 Roosevelt entered Harvard University, where he spent most of his time on extracurricular activities and a very strenuous lifestyle. His academics were excellent at Harvard. He then went to Columbia law school, passed the bar and started practicing law in a New York firm.

 

Political career:

 

He stopped being a lawyer and in 1910, he accepted the invitation by democratic leaders in New York to compete for state senate. He grew independent and was asked to leave the senate, for leading a revolt against the choice of the party bosses in selection of a candidate to fill a vacancy for a US senate seat. He then was reelected in 1912 and the same year he worked hard for the democratic convention to deliver the New York delegation to Woodrow Wilson. He then was appointed as the secretary of the Navy where he proved to be a very able administrator. In 1920, when the republicans experienced defeat in the elections, Roosevelt became a national figure.

 

Roosevelt's nomination and election of 1932:

 

He won the democratic nomination for Presidency. He could easily defeat Herbert Hover, his competitor, with the Great depression at the backdrop of the election campaign. He could gather trust of the people with the New Deal policy that he came with which got accepted by the public.

 

Second re-election in 1936:

 

Franklin won the nomination for the second time easily the second time, with a little opposition from the Republican Alf Landon who claimed that the New Deal was not effective for America and the relief has to be done at the state level. Roosevelt won the election when he started to emphasize on the programs' effectiveness.

 

Third re-election in 1940:

 

This time Roosevelt didn't try to get nominated but his name was in the ballot without even trying for it. War was raging in Europe and at this time, Roosevelt asked to keep America out of it and won 449 electoral votes out of 531.

 

Fourth re-election in 1944:

 

Roosevelt was easily and quickly chosen as the President, but there were issues regards to the vice presidency. His health was deteriorating and hence the republicans wanted strong person on the vice president chair. Harry S Truman was elected for the vice presidency.

 

Roosevelt's terms as President were marked by bold and strong moves in the world's biggest crisis at that time, Great Depression and World War II. Roosevelt died before he could see the Allies win during the WW II.

 

Great Depression (1929-1941)

 

It was October 1929 when the markets crashed, wiping out the value of money and stock. Though the politicians and leaders kept on promising better future, the Great Depression deepened, and confidence and happiness of people started to dry up. It was in 1933, the value of stock in New York stock exchange went down to one fifth of what it was in 1929. Banks failed to help, businesses and industries closed down and there were many thousands who went jobless. Economy fell and people were in distress, because of no job and money.

 

The major reason was the differences in the productive lot of the country and the consuming lot. They were over producing goods and since there were not many to consume it, the value of the goods went down rapidly. Most of the economic growth depended on the automobile and construction industries. As and when the goods were stocked at factory due to very less demand, the industries failed to pay back the loans and banks were unable to liquidate the assets. During 1837, the Europe had its own reason to borrow money from USA, which added on to the existing trouble in USA. The European countries had to pay huge loans to USA and also the money for buying goods from America. After the war, their own economy was shattered and hence they could not pay back to USA.

 

Another reason was that the wealth was not distributed among the citizens correctly. Farmers and workers got only a small share of the wealth and during this time one 1% of the families in America had access to 88% of the wealth. This meant that the share going to the potential consumers was very small so that they could create a buying environment. More than half of the families were poor to buy the goods produced and supply was out growing demand.

 

Herbert Hoover, president then, depended largely on the natural process of recovery, when the Transformational leader Franklin Roosevelt used the federal government's authority for experimental remedies.

 

Roosevelt as a Leader:

 

Franklin Roosevelt was accepted as a Leader by the whole of America. He had traits of humanitarianism, optimism, and practicality has been very well accepted and hence he could become Charismatic and Transformational Leader. These personal traits of Roosevelt have been very useful when he became the President of the United States. His traits were rekindled during the first three months of his administration as President, and he could mirror all these personality traits in his administration, especially when the country was badly hit by the economic meltdown. The peoples' ideal and attitudes were immature and naive regarding this basic change in their country. Roosevelt symbolized this change in the nation's make-up. He was a transitional figure, having received his personal values in the nineteenth century, and having come to power in the twentieth century. Finally, a change in the character of Americans did come about during this crisis period.#p#分页标题#e#

 

Roosevelt possessed extraordinary self confidence, which was portrayed during his era of administration, that too when the whole country was at economic downfall. He had very high sense of dutifulness towards the country people and he could make them see the vision he had seen himself for the country. His vision of America being the economic super power and his practicality in working towards what he spoke and visualized was very much helpful for the whole country and that gave him an edge over other Presidential candidates at that time.

 

Roosevelt possessed very high political expertise and he could achieve it in the conduct of foreign affairs, during the World War II. His vision led the fellow Americans to be transformed from isolationists to global citizens. His bold and strong character made him to steer between unregulated capitalism and socialism. This discussion shows that President Franklin Roosevelt possessed many leadership qualities such as:

 

Charisma

 

Task orientation

 

People orientation

 

Transactional

 

Transformational characteristics

 

And when required, he was autocratic as well.

 

Situations he faced and the decisions taken by the President:

 

1932 was the first time when Franklin Roosevelt came to power, which was a time when America was already hit by Great Depression. The economy was crashed and people were already getting to poverty line. This was the time when only a Leader could lead the country and make strong decisions for the betterment of the public. World War II was being planned and the other countries who owed money to America were not in a position to pay back. Country was facing a complete downfall and there was only a hope left for the people.

 

Roosevelt used his political power to make use of the federal authorities to come up with plans to resolve Great Depression, which was the very famous NEW DEAL.

 

New Deal:

 

In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt came up with ideas to curtail the Great Depression and called it New Deal. He said, "Fear is only thing we need to fear", he introduced types of social and economic reforms. Moreover, it represented the culmination of long standing trend of curtailing Laissez-faire capitalism, going back to regulation of railroads and the flood of the state and national reform regulated already by Theodore Roosevelt. What made the difference was the speed at which New Deal was implemented, which took ages previously. The Deal brought back the interest of a citizen in the government.

 

The Deal used a policy of moderate inflation of the currency to boost the upward movement of the prices of the goods, which would ease some debtors. New Government agencies opened up and started to give credit to industries and farmers. Severe regulations were imposed on the sale of securities on the stock exchange.#p#分页标题#e#

 

There was a new government body called Civilian Conservation Corps that came up and started employing youth between ages 18-25, for $30 per month, for which more than 2 million youth attended the same. The project involved teaching and maintaining of national forests, eliminating steam pollution, creation of bird and fish sanctuary, conserving coal, gas, sodium and helium deposits.

 

There was another government body that helped the famers to provide subsidy to raise the crops and also raise the value of it . Funds for this were raised by the tax paid by the industries that processed these crops. The draught hit areas were recovered by the funds provided by the government. They provided loans on excessive or surplus crops and also insurance for wheat and also a system where is scientific storage of crops were incorporated. Soon the prices of crops rose and economic stability began to become possible.

 

More jobs were made available in industries by arranging fair competition between the companies and thus enabling more buying. It's also during New Deal that the organized labor made more gains than in the history of US. This great progress brought working people a common interest.

 

There have been many leaders across. Some of them had their own interests and made the followers work for their dream. America needed a leader who could give life to the country, when everything was about to end, the resources, money, everything was scarce and whole country was looking for a change. Franklin Roosevelt was not just a leader, he was a master mind, had a genuine vision to improve the whole country. The ideas he had were to provide labor, pool in money into society with various economic reforms, created industries and employment through them, reformed the social wellbeing, generated revenue and helped people revive from greatest economic crises America had ever seen.

 

All these developments were planned by a single Leader, Franklin Roosevelt. He used all his capabilities to improve the country and brought it back from the great downfall, to prosperity. Such a leader was hence re-elected four times for the post of President of the country and he never failed in his endeavor. He had a vision and proved it with the support of his followers. The plans laid by Mr. Roosevelt are yet one of the best in the entire world, hence we consider him to be a great Transformational Leader, the world has ever known.