Critically evaluate the application of leadership theories to a leader in an organizational context and management theories to a contemporary organization. PDF

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Critically evaluate the application of leadership theories to a leader in an organisational context and management theories to a contemporary organisation.

Ashreena Nooradeen 74106687 Leadership and Management theories Module: BS4S16-V1 Janell Komodromou 20.07.2019

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Abstract The paper will critically study the leadership theories that can be used to assess the work of a main manager/leader within the company Deloitte an accountancy firm renowned for being ranked in the top four best companies in Mauritius. Employees who work closely with the head of the audit department Twaleb were interviewed to give their view point of his leadership style. This data was henceforth analyzed, and evaluated against the main leadership theories. The analysis will show several theories which can be related to his way of working and dealing with employees Deloitte is a contemporary organisation with well structured hierarchy. Deloitte has its own rules and regulations to abide by.

INTRODUCTION Short profile of the company and Leader Deloitte Mauritius is the DTTL member firm in Mauritius. It traces its origin back to the 1950s‘ and was among the first accountancy firms in Mauritius. Currently the company compromises of approximately 200 professionals, Functioning across four main service lines; Audit & Enterprise Risk Services, Financial Advisory, Tax, and Consulting. Twaleb butonkee occupies a high position in the company he is the lead partner in audit. He is down to earth, easy to communicate with, intelligent, highly professional, inspiring, energetic and charismatic. These traits are noticed by all the employees and he is well appreciated for it.

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Aim Purpose of the study The aim of this paper is to evaluate the leadership style of Twaleb Butonkee by the support of leadership theories . A critically evaluation will be done with the different theoretical approaches to leadership and management theories in an organizational context. Three leadership theories namely; Trait theory, Transactional theory, situational and contingency theory will be addressed and thoroughly analyzed by making use of authentic examples. In continuation of this, the consanguinity between leadership and management theories will be examined throughout this paper. The paper will also analyse how Twaleb’s leadership traits or management style affected the organization . Furthermore the paper will also look at the management theories that have helped the leader to attain its objectives, being successful and contributing the company.

Leadership and management are often associated together. It is important to acknowledge that leadership is an essential aspect of effective management. As a vital element of management, exceptional leadership behaviour encourages in creating a workplace in which employees flourish and outdo their competencies leader is someone that has potential influence over a group of people whereby guiding them to achieve specified goals. However the latter may be not so good in managing all the tasks involved in turning around a project. Hence, leadership can be said is more about inspiring, innovating and motivating. On the other hand, it is said a manager can fulfill its role only he has traits of a leader in him. Managers may not have the same impact on employees but they are great in running projects and getting things done within deadline set. Managers are smart in the sense that they know how organize, plan and coordinate. Below are listed some definitions of leadership and management by popular authors:

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Leadership “There are more than 350 definitions of leadership” (p. 44) as said by Bennis (1982),. The signification of leadership are established on group process leadership, situational approach, skills approach, trait approach, behaviour approach and so many more. To simplify the definition of leadership, it consist of influencing an individual or a group of people to work toward attaining a common goal as mentioned by Hersey (1979).

In the 20th century, leadership is seen as a modern way of guiding the organizations and management of these organizations as reported by Bernard M. Bass (2006). A Leader is recognized by of his leadership trait qualities that influences employees and motivates them to do their best. Leader is also an individual who watch over the managers, in point of fact leaders have some attributes of managers in his leadership.

Likewise, Northouse (2014) has described leadership as a way to inspire and influence groups of people, approach their skills, traits and target to build relationship and businesses (Adrienne, et al., 2015). Authors have been stressing over whether “Leaders are Born or Made”. Gentry (2012) affirms that born leaders will just go about identifying the right people rather than taking time to develop the right ones, on the contrary made leaders are the type of authors that will ponder upon the right opportunities for people to grow into leaders ( Deal, et al., 2012).

Eventually with time, we witnessed that there has been a switch in leadership styles and now it has major influence, enhancement and betterment through different leadership theories.

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Management Management refers to the procedure of setting objectives and goals of the organization regularly, shaping the work system and the organisation framework and try to create an environment in which individuals who work together meet the aims and goals of the organization effectively as mentioned by Narayana Rao (2008)

More broadly, Konntz and Weihrich (1990) defined management as the process of designing and maintaining a workplace in which individuals who work together, successfully and effectively accomplish selected goals. This definition needed to be expand, firs, as managers, individuals carry out the managerial functions of planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. Secondly, management applies to any type of organization. Third, management is applicable to managers at all organizational levels. Fourth, the goal of all managers is creatin surplus. Finally, managing is concerned with output and productivity which need be efficient. Thus, management refers to the development of bureaucracy that derives its importance from the need for strategic planning, co-ordination, directing and controlling of large and complicated decision-making process. Therefore, management compromises of managerial competence, and excellence in the following key areas: problem solving, administration, human resource management, and organizational leadership.

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Theoretical and Critical approaches to leadership Transformational Leadership Transformational leadership is one of the most renowned styles of leadership according to Kendrick (2011).Transformational leadership concept was first made known in 1978 by Burns to be adjusted and widely spread into organization by Bass and Avalio in 2002 (Jung & Sosik, 2002). According to a political leader James McGregor Burns (1978) the contrast between transactional and transformational leadership is that transactional leader motivates the employees by using the

rewards technique to rise up their efficiency and integrity. On the other hand, the

transformational leaders communicated and are involved with their followers which motivates them to give their best performance and loyalty so that they deliver and excellent outcome. The transformational leader changes everything like the values, attitudes and views of followers because such leaders have the capacity to drive the organisation even in changing situations. Burns (1978) suggested that transformational leadership "occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality" (Burns, 1978 as cited in Bolden, 2004 p.11 ). Transformational leadership is all about being honest with your followers, trusting your employees and creating an atmosphere of openness is the hallmark of such leaders. These type of leaders they will give importance to personal relationships and ethical interactions with people over money oriented benefits. Like Warrilow (2012) said is all about people who positively altered their followers behaviour, performance and morale which in the end contribute to a genuine collaboration. The transformational leadership includes four factors namely; idealised influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individual consideration.

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The audit department in the company Deloitte is one of the major service line. The leader of the function believes that knowing your employees are crucial as they are the main component. With his exemplary character and leadership style he really made a big history by wining projects an d increasing the Deloitte value . The transformational leadership style was a fundamental factor that has contributed in his success. His vision is to make employees love their job which is a difficult task. Moreover, instead of controlling people, he would inspire them to communicate their ideas hence emerging them into new leaders. During appraisals of employees he would show interest in you meeting your goals or what opportunities you are looking for to grow in your career. He would give you advises if you are unsure about certain decisions. This trait of him relates to Individual consideration, this characteristic describes leaders as mentors and guide who invest their time in their follower’s personal

development

and

he would not only acknowledge his employees

individual’s needs and desires but he eventually makes things happen so that employees develop a trust and bond with him which is so important. As stated by Rafferty and griffin (2004) the real transformational leaders are the ones who focus on positive changes and boost the employee’s moral by adopting honesty’s moral values, equitableness, and loyalty in addition to the maximum value human rights.Through charisma, individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation and inspirational motivation, transformational leaders have great potential to promote performance beyond expectations and to effect enormous changes within individuals and organizations.

Behind all these features, there are many criticisms against the transformational leadership one major criticism is the abusing power, the consultants of organizational development have questioned the transformational leadership’s morality (Rafferty and Griffin, 2004).Transformational

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leaders might affect their followers by showing strong emotions without considering whether followers will be affected. Leaders can bring dominant influence over followers, who offered them trust and in turn which can be a danger if there is any self-centered desires as stated by Russell and Patterson (2003). Furthermore, to avoid authoritarianism and protect the minority from being exploited by the majority, transformational leadership lacks the balance compensatory interest, the power and the influences as stated by Bass (1990). Therefore, the main challenge for transformational leadership is that despite being comprehend as morally positive, the objective of transformational leaders cannot be certain which could lead to abuse of power in the hands of a skilled operator.

The time has come for transformational leaders to ask themselves organizational questions that comprises of what their organization is all about, how it works and how the main stakeholders of the company is affected by its actions. Putting these deeply rooted questions in front of leaders will trigger them to understand how and why to use organizational culture to inspire positive values about the corporate goals into its employees. Employees need to understand the company objectives and how they will proceed in achieving them. Leaders will have to involve subordinates and make them feel important in the organisation.

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Trait Theory First there was originally the Great man theory, it postulated that great leaders are born not made. Afterwards it tried to identify the set if attributes that all of these natural have in common. There’s indeed truth to the notion that some people inherently have more leadership gifts than others. It spawned something called ‘The Trait Theory of Leadership’ a line of research that examines which individual characteristics we should pursue to lead effectively.Trait theory of leadership were developed for the sole purpose to determine the characteristics of leaders. The theory was put forward in order to help organisations to choose the right set of people to lead the followers. It is also used to anticipate the effectiveness of leadership that would be compared later to see if they are being successful or failing. A number of leadership traits have been classified by several studies

including

adaptability,

decisiveness,

cooperation,

dependability,

assertiveness,

determination, self confidence (Wheatley 2001, p. 92) on the other hand, it has been observed that it is not possible to measure leadership characteristics and there are no specific set of qualities that might support the concept of a true leader as stated by Baldoni (2005 ). Human beings have several positive and negative traits that are responsible in building up their overall personality. All leaders have the quality to influence others however, the set of fundamental traits that enables them to dominate over their subordinates might considerably differ (Pratti et al,2003). However, scholars have disagreed on the fact that leadership cannot be developed or emulate. Over the years, it has been criticized the fact that whether the “leaders are born or made (Stephenson, 2004).” A lot of research have shown that successful leaders are different from other individuals as they have certain traits and main personality to succeed. If you understand the qualities and personal traits it demands to be a great leader, it will eventually help organisations or followers to

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manage even in critical situations with the help of their characterized individual differences (Nichols & Cottrell, 2014).

As we explored earlier, we either have these traits or have to work through several years to develop them. Our leader Twaleb posesses several qualities namely being confident, a great speaker in front of a public, a mild personality that seem to get the attention of everyone and so many more traits can be related to him. He is eventually admired by his followers who are not only found in the organisation. Leadership qualities and behavior are limited to any level or professionalism, these can be evidence in any role.

A model was created by Zaccaro, et al., (2004) to better comprehend the leadership traits and its impact on leader’s effectivess and performance. The framework depicted that leadership qualities comes from a combined influence of numerous traits. Zaccaro argued that by taking into consideration social capability, cognitive ability and dispositional tendencies, he concluded that each set of traits influence each other.

Figure1: Traits of leader based on Zaccaro model (2004).

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The trait theory has been criticized for it being too general as it doesn’t not support the fact that trait change over time. . Traits of leaders do not necessarily change in different situations, as it remains the same. Many researchers said that trait leadership approach is too simplistic (Northouse, 2015). Focus is mainly on the effectiveness of leaders how they are perceived by their followers. The trait theory also generalizes by putting people into groups based on their results in personality inventories. Therefore, these tests are often too vague for a complete understanding of the person and their traits. The trait theory make use of group results to compare individuals, which can cause people to appear different than they are because they are being judged compared to others. The effectiveness of leaders is unexplored as it is only predetermined through the personality of individual. Alan Bryman (2013) has eplained that, trait leadership has low clarifying personal traits and low prediction power over their job performance. It also does not aid organisations to select good leaders who will perform the job well to achieve organisational goals.

Situational and contingency theory Neither the trait nor the behavioural approaches gave fulfilling breakdown of leadership in organisations, which caused the researchers to look for other theories. The supporters of situational theories believe that leadership is largely affected by a situation and to maintain that leadership pattern is the product of a situation at a particular time. It certainly depends how your environment is evolving and what are the circumstances, it can be said that the leadership styles has to be greatly flexible and adaptive in order to deal with the underlying organisational issues. After establishing the behavioural aspects of leadership, the next step would be to apply them in varying situations to evaluate their practicability. The situational theories does not put emphasis on

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personal qualities or traits of a leader, but take into consideration the situation in which he operates. A good leader is one who sculpts himself according to the needs of the present situation.

Leaders are not a special breed or born like explained in the great man theory but rather individuals are expected to develop their capabilities to lead a particular in an organisation. Contingency theories will include Situational, path goal, decision making and Fielder ’s theory which view leadership as being dependent upon the situations.

Fieldler’s contingency theory There are different theories that attempt to explain the situational leadership theory, the most renowned one is the Fieldler’s contingency theory. It was created in the mid 1960 by Fred Edward Fiedler, the model states there is no best style of leadership but is based on a leader’s effectiveness in a situation. The contingency theory put emphasis on adapting to whichever situations to better suit a leader’s style. Contingency advocates point out that leadership theories must be taken into consideration according to which circumstance a leader operate. As supported by Heslin, VandeWalle, Latham (2006), Fiedler’s Contingency Model was put forward with intention to address workplace issues that are highly dependent on situational factors where leadership styles will vary accordingly, you might progress well with autocratic leadership style whereas a participative approach is suited to a dynamic work environment which have a more flexible approach. The theory proposed that the effectiveness of a leader or the organization is contingent on two factors; the leadership style and the situational favourableness. Fiedler’s theory presumes leaders

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are affected to a particular set of leadership behaviours. Leaders can be categorized under two groups either task oriented or relationship oriented. Task oriented leaders are more directive, structure situations, set deadlines and make task assignments. In directive behaviour category the leaders make use of one-way communication strategy which means leaders are the decide maker, comm...