Tuesday, February 25, 2014

LEADERSHIP STYLE

Leadership style describes how top managers behave in leading and motivating their organizations to achieve their desired goals. Leadership style is a crucial aspect of leadership implementation. 
a style adopts A strategist adopts a style relating to the basic leadership functions of leading and motivating. The importance of leadership style in organizational success can be measured from the fact that it is considered as one of the elements in  7-S framework. 
  • A purely authoritarian or a purely participative style may not be effective. 
  • A nurturant- task leadership style could be more relevant. 
  • Nurturant-task leadership has a combination of concern for task as well as subordinates and is directive as well as paternalistic in approach. 
  • The predominant decision style in Indian organizations is consultation with limited participation.  
Essentially this aspect of leadership implementation relates to the following Issues. 
  • The strategist is able to lead the division effectively and relate well to peers, superiors and subordinate with his or her present style. 
  • The strategist can change the leadership style if necessary to make the new strategy work. 
  • The strategist can develop the right climate and culture for the strategy. 
The strategy needs to be reinforced with the right climate of managerial values and leadership style. This affects how willing the strategist is to delegate authority and develop the appropriate types and levels of controls. Different management skills appear to be relevant depending on the job requirements for a given strategy or Strategic Business Unit. Thus an SBU that is a cash cow will require leadership styles and characteristics different from those appropriate for an SBU pursuing significant expansion in new product-market areas. Strategists will have to determine whether existing managers can adapt to new roles or whether they will need to be replaced.

The leader is responsible for developing a climate conducive to the mission of the business. The organizational climate can be viewed in terms of the nature of leadership, motivation, decision, communication, and control processes and the development of a corporate culture.

Leadership processes as a component of climate refers to superiors' trust and confidence in their subordinates; the superiors behave in the manner that encourage subordinates to feel free to discuss important matters about their jobs; and the superiors try to get ideas and opinions from subordinates and use them constructively.

Motivational processes as a component o climate can be represented by the types of motives use for motivating the different level of employees, the amount of responsibility various managerial levels assume for achievement of goals, the types of interactions that occur, and the extent to which a feeling of team work prevails.

Decision processes as a dimension of climate is characterized by the level of formal decision, awareness of decision-makers of lower-level problems, and the extent of technical and professional knowledge used in decision-making and the involvement 9f subordinates in decisions related to their work. The communication process as a component of climate include the manner in which orders are issued or goals set, the manner communication primarily occurs, and the flow of communication. The control process is characterized by the extent to which review and control is concentrated, the extent of controls and standards and the extent to which control data are used for self-guidance.

The culture is a dimension of climate that leaders help develops. Other aspects of climate are also interrelated to develop an information organization that supports or opposes formal goals. A corporate culture might be defined as the overriding ideology and established patterns of behavior and norms that influence actions and decisions. There are forces that covertly or overtly resist the organization or fully support and accept the ways in which it operates. Also, the underlying values of the organization (its overall personality as distinct from the personalities of its members) constitute a dimension of some significance. 

An organization has to be perfectly clear about its culture so that new customers, employees and shareholders know what it is and what it stands for. But it may also be necessary to change the culture. And the change may require revolutionary shifts and wholesale personnel replacements. When firms consider merger strategies then the question of combining culture must be considered when choosing the strategy or determining a the structure. These aspects of leadership implementation are essential components of the administrative system that can make or break a strategy. They can be used to engender commitment and loyalty to the organization and its strategies. There is not much evidence suggesting which of these aspects is more appropriate for given strategies. 

Certain key aspects of excellence in management style and appropriate are appropriate regardless of the strategy a bias toward action, a simple form and a lean staff, continued contact with customers, productivity improvement via people, operational autonomy to encourage entrepreneurship" stress on one key business vale" emphasis on doing the best" and the simultaneous use of loose and tight controls. There is some evidence that suggests that chief planning officers recognize that problems in these areas can lead to frustration in translating strategy into operational terms. Some of the basic problems include difficulty in achieving goal consensus, communication breakdown, ambiguity with regard to the role of sub units, difficulty in obtaining commitment to a plan, lack of strategic thinking" and line-staff conflicts. Much of these problems are attributed to planners' lack of cognitive ability and the quality of top-level administrators Hence another aspect of leadership implementation is preparing managers to perform the appropriate tasks.

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