Effective Leadership as a Key to Organizational Success

Effective Leadership as a Key to Organizational Success

A Link between Effective Leadership and Successful Organization 

In the days of technological development every organization, which wants to achieve success should not forget that optimization of work will not be obtain merely on the implementation of automation (Bass, 2000). Effective organizational management should be expanded to the essential of integrity, tolerance and discretion (Meeks, 2010). These essential elements interacted with organizational strategies embrace aspects of the effective leadership, namely: consistency, leading by example, realizing the necessity of the team, vision casting, showing appreciation, and managing authority (Stanfield, 2009). Therefore, leadership contribution to the organizational success is not always emphasized on the organizational level, but undertaken solely with unenterprising case study methods, which do not demarcate impact of the leader and manager (Parry, 2011). Moreover, technological development, organizational evolution and obtaining new experience all together undervalue importance of the leadership behavior, styles and effective leadership theories in practice (Boerner, Eisenbeiss & Griesser, 2007).

Abovementioned aspects require the following questions to be answered in the essay: a) what attributes of the leader help to prove leadership importance at the organizational level? b) how do leadership styles and behaviors at the different organizational stages help to determine effective implementation of the particular leadership theory? c) why leadership and organizational interaction is surrounded by trends and paradoxes that underestimate the value of the transformational/transactional leadership behavior?

The essay will discuss the interactions of leadership theories with organizational management and practices of the most effective development perspectives, considering organizational evaluation and advanced knowledge demand.

Leadership Importance in the Organizational Management

Essential elements of the successful organization are determined by the following aspects of effective leadership: a) simplicity, which does not overburden job of the working force; b) decisiveness as a tool, which  determines the acceptable levels of risks in the unfavorable conditions and limited performance; c) strict functional definition, which entails motivation responsibility and purpose accountability, according to the working scheduled scheme; d) development of the individual abilities of the followers by creating an open and honest environment (Meeks, 2010). In addition to abovementioned aspects, effective leadership includes: a) consistency of the overall methods conducted within the certain range of responsibility; b) demonstration of the appropriate action to be taken and decision to be made; c) recognition of own weaknesses, and surrounding with people, who compensate them; d) authority management by vision casting (Stanfield, 2009).

The latter aspect differentiates leadership accomplishments, measured by achievement of the combination of goals, from the manager’s effectiveness, measured by profit margins (D.I. Bertocci & D.L. Bertocci, 2009). Management of the organization prevails over importance of the leadership impact to it, since analysis of this contribution become more difficult to prove at the organizational level (Parry, 2011). However, management does not entail monitoring of subordinates’ performance and provisions of corrections, which became indispensible after new technology exploration (Bass, 2000). Moreover, management strategies alike leadership aspects do not include intellectual stimulation by creativity and innovations, individual consideration with giving and receiving feedbacks, and contigent rewards after suitable education and training efforts (Bass, 2000).   

Therefore, the essay proves that context and process of leadership behavior are examined by the hierarchical levels of analysis at all levels of organization and define leadership importance on the evolutional and educational levels of the organizational development.

Leadership Competencies at All Organizational Levels

Corporation’s strategic plan is linked with the leadership development of the continuous progress of senior executives (Hodson, 2003). It was proved that leaders do not achieve results by themselves, but influence organizational outcomes (Parry, 2011). Moreover, leaders do not have direct control over the result, but their impact is only one of significant influences in the complex system of organization (Parry, 2011).

Leadership competencies have been studied and described by the perspective theories, which seek to identify the conditions and factors that determine whether and to what degree leaders enhance performance of their subordinates (Singh, 2009). These theories are based on contingency perspectives, because unpredictable outcomes and external forces may suppress leader’s intentions and efforts (Singh, 2009; Parry, 2011).

Fiedler’s LPC (Least Preferred Coworker) Theory is effective at the individual level of leadership development, because it manifests leadership style and personal combinations and requires leader’s influence on difficult subordinates within the context of specific situation (Singh, 2009; Parry, 2011). Leader’s focus should be emphasized on the particular person and task implementation in order to achieve success (Singh, 2009).      

Situational Leadership Theory (SLT) is effective at the team level, which emphasizes leadership attention to tasks relationships and individual needs (Parry, 2011). This level indentifies team members’ perception of the relative importance of task-oriented and relationship-oriented strategies, implemented in virtual communication settings (Parry, 2011). Also called a remote coaching, this level’s approach is focused on taking advantages of available technologies, monitoring results and receiving feedback (Hodson, 2003). Factors that predetermine SLT are maturity of followers, job maturity and psychological maturity (Lunenburg & Ornsteir, 2008).

Path-Goal Theory defines effective leadership by subordinates’ job satisfaction, acceptance of the leader and his/her motivation (P.L.Chance & E.W. Chance, 2002). This theory identifies the following leadership styles: directive and achievement oriented style, which is useful when tasks are ambiguous or policies are not clear; supportive style, which is useful when tasks are stressful or dissatisfying; participative style, which is useful when workers are highly self-involved in the task, regardless of personality characteristics (P.L. Chance & E.W. Chance, 2002).

However, these theories are considered to be based on the psychometric methods and are used for the sound explanation of the leadership theories with methodological perception (Parry, 2011). In the light of abovementioned leadership theories, organizational theory is undertaken with “unenterprising case study methods” (Parry, 2011, p. 67). Technological progress requires additional learning and adaptation of the followers in order to avoid unnecessary downsizing of employees and additional spending on education of newly hired subordinates (Bass, 2000).

Since technological progress brings inevitable organizational changes, leadership tasks become oriented on the mobilizing others to absorb changes and manage resources in sight (Parry, 2011). Leaders are challenged with the selection of set actions to avoid followers’ resistance in changing individual behavior, and therefore transformational leadership becomes sufficient in changing employee’s reaction and enhances their ability to accept changes (Parry, 2011). Transformational leaders actively engage followers’ personal values systems to achieve desired performance (Parry, 2011). Moreover, transformational leaders serve as role models to stimulate followers’ willingness to challenge those values by creating for them an atmosphere of psychological safety and therefore, and involving their contribution to the changed effort (Parry, 2011). Transactional leadership theory is less effective at the organizational level of change, because it does not allow self-motivation of subordinates (Boerner et al., 2007).

Organizational evolution always entails ambiguity, anxiety and great need of orientation (Singh, 2009). Therefore, leaders are required to shift emphasis from controlling the organization to constantly regenerating motivations for maintenance of organized work (Parry, 2011). Thereby, it becomes clear that particular leadership styles are adaptive on one stage of organizational cycle and maladaptive on the other (Parry, 2011). On the late stages of organizational cycle, transformational behavior is suggested to be more important than transactional, because when there is a threat of decline, vital sources for the organizational success become changing of the organizational culture, creating of new vision and recruiting commitment (Parry, 2011). However, transactional behavior is more important on the middle stage of the organizational evolution, because objectives’ achievements are motivated by rewards and punishments (Bass, 2000).

Transformational and transactional leadership theories jointly describe how leaders have an impact upon the cultivation of knowledge, required by the technological progress and organizational evolution (Parry, 2011). Knowledge management is analyzed at the individual level, and as a task of senior manager, defines transformational leadership as a particular need of experienced workers, whose self-motivation require less direct monitoring (Parry, 2011). Transactional leadership becomes not less relevant as transformational on the grounds of the following conditions: a) transactional leaders strive to develop clear, specific goals and ensure that workers are rewarded for those predetermined targets; b) self-interest and working effort are motivated equally by the transactional leader; c) better performance is encouraged by the close connection between set goals and promised rewards (Parry, 2011).

Knowledge creation as a need of innovation occurs at the individual level, while sharing of knowledge at the team level (Parry, 2011). Organizational level helps to convert ideas into marketable products (Parry, 2011).

Therefore, leadership goes by different levels of organizational performance and reinforces effectiveness of the management. The essay assumes that leadership theories enrich the leadership practices. Enterprise case study of the transformational leadership behavior helps to identify its effectiveness.

Transformational Leadership Effectiveness in the Organizational SuccessThe main goal of transformational leadership is to move beyond the expectations (Boerner et al., 2007). Lower turnover rates, higher productivity and higher employees’ satisfaction are the overall evidence of the transformational leadership effectiveness (Boerner et al., 2007). Contigent reinforcement with the help of positive rewards, used by the transactional leaders, becomes aversive in the cases of failure (Bass, 2000). Therefore, transactional leadership is applicable at the particular stages of organizational development when motivation needs to be stimulated.

The studies of the transformational leadership’s effectiveness focused on the subordinates’ achievements of self-actualization and ideals, and raised awareness of the constituents (Bass, 2000).

As an example of the transformational leadership at the individual level Basque Nationalist Leader Antonio Aguirre’s case proves that charisma and orator’s skills, which helped him to become a youth director of Basque National Party at age of 17, are the best constituents of effective leadership (Bass, 2000).

Example of transformational leadership at the team level presents its effectiveness in the Canadian health care center, where team members found it more acceptable for the coordinators to organize, manage, control and evaluate their performance (Boerner et al., 2007). Moreover, the study proves that there were less role conflict, better interpersonal relations and more feelings of autonomy (Boerner et al., 2007).

Israeli Defense Force showed better results in effective work of military officers when their units were followed up by implementation of training as a part of knowledge of the management development (Bass, 2000). The same results of the benefits of training in the selective branches showed Canadian bank managers, after implementing similar training at the team level.

However, technological development often confuses organizational goals and sets them as a regulated monopoly, which makes the industry became driven up by the marketplace and technology (Bass, 2000). Thereby, incorrectly regarded automation as replacement workers with machines, made such companies like AT&T to implement ineffective management strategies and it appeared in the trap of their own innovation (Bass, 2000). Alike AT&T, Ford Motor Company proved that transferring and training employees are less expensive than terminating them and educating newly-hired ones (Boerner et al., 2007).

Therefore, the essay proves that transformational leadership is effective at all organizational and individual stages and determines organizational success, reinforcing management by creativity, motivation of education and assessment.

Conclusion

Leadership achievements should not be considered as succeeded by themselves, but rather as the outcomes of effective influence on organizational performance. Leadership and organizational theories interaction are studied by the levels of analysis. Because of the ambiguity of the leadership’s impact at the organizational level, contingency theories predetermined leadership styles and behavior out of complexity of organizational system. Moreover, unpredictable outcomes and external forces disregarded leadership impact to the organizational success, focusing efforts solely on the effective management.

The essay proves that effective management is possible with leadership interaction, because it is not only sets task and counts profit, but measures accomplishments and suggests actions improvement. 

Contingency perspective of the organizational performance has limited leadership theories expansion at the individual and team levels. However, technological development and organizational evolution required flexible leadership strategies of motivation, creativity and education. Therefore, leadership style and behavior undergoes gradational changes and becomes more relevant with the management’s complication. Enterprise case study examples proved that methodological explanation of the leadership psychometric methods entails misleading trends and paradoxes, which underestimate the value of transformational leadership, and transactional leadership as its supportive part, in the demand for organizational success in the conditions of technological development.