The Changing Nature of Leadership
By: Andr Martin Contributors: Phil Willburn Paula Morrow Kris Downing Corey Criswell
CHALLENGES ARE BECOMING MORE COMPLEX Prior to examining leadership directly, it is important to first look at the challenges facing organizations and their leaders. It is clear that the challenges are becoming more complex and therefore more difficult to solve. Leaders consider these challenges to be within their problem solving expertise, yet most are taking more than six months to solve, suggesting that known solutions are not working effectively. Additionally, when leadership is viewed as a whole (across the organization), less than half of the respondents believe the expected outcomes of leadership are being met effectively. GREAT E R RELIANCE ON INTERDEPENDENT WORK Respondents agree that the challenges leaders are facing go beyond their individual capabilities, and that these challenges result in a greater reliance on interdependent work across boundaries. SHIFTING REWARD SYSTEM Leaders would like to see their organizations Shift reward systems to a balance of rewarding short-term, individual production and collaboration to reach long-term objectives. Specifically, teamwork will need to be a greater focus in rewards. THE RISE OF A NEW LEADERSHIP SKILL SET Asking leaders to focus more energy on creating an environment where others can help them succeed is another important trend. This becomes apparent when comparing the individual skills deemed most important in 2002 with those expected to be important two years in the future. Participative management, building and mending relationships, and change management rose to the top in the future, replacing skills such as resourcefulness, decisiveness and doing whatever it takes. VIEWING LEADERSHIP AS A COLLECTIVE PROCESS When examining an organizations approach to leadership from the past to the future, we see movement from more individual approaches (i.e., leadership as a position) to those that are more collective (i.e., leadership as a process). Specifically, respondents believe organizations will continue to move toward viewing leadership as a process that happens throughout the organization through interdependent decision making. GLOBAL ORGANIZATIONS ARE AT THE CUTTING EDGE OF COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP With the inclusion of a large international sample, we were able to examine trends in U.S. versus European and Asian populations. These findings show that organizations in Europe and Asia-Pacific made a significant jump from individual to collective leadership approaches from the past to the present, when compared to U.S. organizations. In the future, these global organizations expect to have fewer boundaries and rely more on emergent strategy when compared to U.S. organizations.
Transformational Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness in Recreational Sports
Submitted by: Chin-Hsien Hsu, Dr. Richard C. Bell and Kuei-Mei Cheng This paper explores the relationships between transformational leadership and organizational effectiveness in the field of recreational sport and leisure. First, it reviews a discussion on the problem of organizational leadership from the perspective of the transactional- transformational model, particularly the arguments of researchers such as Burns and Bass. It examines the components of transformational leadership, and then investigates several approaches to the conceptualization and measurement of organizational effectiveness. Finally, the controversy concerning the impact of transformational leadership upon organizational effectiveness is discussed, and an argument is made that greater transformational leadership seems to be at least indirectly related to a higher degree of organizational effectiveness. Leadership is an important but controversial concept in understanding organizational behavior. Burns (1978) and Bass (1985) provided a theoretical framework for two aspects of leadership, the transactional and the transformational leadership paradigms. Organizational effectiveness is no less controversial than leadership, and there are four approaches to measure and study it. The most comprehensive approach developed to date appears to be the integrated multiple constituency approach. While the existing studies of relationships between transformational leadership and organizational effectiveness are controversial as well, it seems that leadership has at least an indirect impact on organizational effectiveness. Further empirical research and theoretical exploration needs to be conducted in order to gain better understanding of the topic.
LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS AND LEADERSHIP STYLE
Cecil V. Martinette Jr. Lynchburg Fire & EMS Department Lynchburg, Virginia This research project analyzed seven operating departments in the City of Lynchburg to determine the leadership style of the department head and whether leadership style is conducive to establishing and maintaining a learning organization. The problem was that the City of Lynchburg leadership did not understand the components of a learning organization and whether the leadership style of department heads had any relationship to the success or failure of the departments in cultivating a learning organization. The purpose of this research project was to determine the components of a successful learning organization and to establish if the leadership style of a department head influences the ability of that department to successfully cultivate a learning organization. The Descriptive Research Method was used to analyze existing conditions in selected operating departments in the City of Lynchburg. The following questions were researched: 1. What was a learning organization? 2. Which departments in the City of Lynchburg had employees who consider that they worked in a learning organization? 3. Was there a relationship between the leadership style of the department head and their success at promoting and maintaining a learning organization? The procedures involved administering a Learning Organization Assessment Survey and a Leadership Profile Survey and then comparing the results to determine whether there was a relationship between the leadership style of the department head and their success at promoting and maintaining a learning organization. The results indicated the leaders were balanced in transactional leadership, transformational leadership behaviors, and transformational leadership characteristics. In addition, department heads with overall high leadership scores also had high transformational leadership characteristics and transactional leadership scores. The results further indicated that transactional leadership behavior (interpersonal skills) had less to do with creating a learning organization than did transformational leadership behaviors (managerial) or transformational leadership characteristics (organizational) leadership abilities. Recommendations based on this study and its findings are: A desired outcome statement be created that addresses the commitment on the part of leadership to create a learning organization, Conduct an organizational-wide Learning Organization Assessment, Determine deficiencies in learning organization leadership training, Shift the focus of leadership training for executives and mid-management level employees from interpersonal leadership skills training to managerial and organizational leadership training, and Establish transactional leadership traits and transformational leadership characteristics as hiring criteria for executive employees and promotional criteria for mid-management employees. BY:
Organizational Effectiveness
Organizational effectiveness is critical to success in any economy. In order to achieve increased and sustainable business results, organizations need to execute strategy and engage employees. However, our research indicates that most organizations are struggling to get it right. To understand more about the elements of an effective organization and the connection to productivity, Right Management conducted a global study of nearly 29,000 employees from ten major industry sectors in 15 countries in the Americas, Europe and AsiaPacific. To create organizational effectiveness, business leaders need to focus on aligning and engaging their people, the people management systems, and the structure and capabilities (including organizational culture) to the strategy. Our results confirm that this engagement is critical. Put simply, it results in higher financial performance, higher customer satisfaction, and higher employee retention. An organization that can sustain such alignment will achieve increased business results. Every organization, regardless of industry or country, seeks to be more effective and achieve superior results. Business strategy is developed to achieve this. It amounts to nothing, though, if it remains on the drawing board and is never executed. Execution occurs when structure, roles, capability, leadership, systems, and culture are all pulling together and aligned with the strategy. One without the other will create misalignment and success will not be realized. While the elements of success are the same for all organizations, the answer for your business is unique to your strategy, your customers, and your people. It is easy to discover the current reality and the drivers of success, but the big challenge is in equipping your business to act and embed the change, remaining focused and aligned with your strategy. The challenge brings a substantial benefit that ensures survival in a downturn and creates a competitive advantage when economic upturns arrive. Business cant afford not to get it right.
