Executive Summary
Understanding leadership and management in lieu to the roles and responsibilities of leaders has been thought of in terms of the heads or chief executive officers of organisations (CEOs), regardless of the tasks or functions they may perform. It is easy to think about leaders and leadership in terms of authority and headship and to talk about leadership in management. Some leaders are charged with insuring that a program of activities is carried out, assignments made and reports prepared and delivered on time (Mintzberg, 1973).
With this regard, this paper discussed the actions and plans in response to the issues that ensures the current and future success of an organisation. Basically, discussion of relative arguments regarding HRM and leadership in a Scottish utility company was acknowledged. This paper clarifies the decisions ands moves to be considered by the president and CEO of a successful Scottish utility company that merged with four other regional utility providers to support their ability to weather the financial constraints of deregulation and the resulting competition. Thus, this paper considered three arguments to be answered i.e. 1. As leader, what challenges would you anticipate in creating a shared vision for this new organisation? 2. What internal and external environmental factors should you consider in carving out a multicultural leadership path that will support the success of your organisation? 3. How might you need to work differently to cultivate the organisational support within the different business units that is necessary to ensure the success of your multicultural leadership effort?
Discussions
It is often said that some managers are not leaders. Leaders lead while Managers manage. Leaders have a vision, are not afraid to make changes and are willing to accept responsibility for their actions and decisions. Just because a person has a title of authority such as a supervisor does not mean he or she has anything more than certain responsibilities. Being a leader, instead of just a manager, is a position granted by subordinates. You'll never find how to become a leader written into a job description.
The marked differences between a typical manager and a true leader are the being outlined by Weiss (2000) as follows: In terms of responsibility, the typical manager accepts responsibility, while the true leader looks for it; in terms of status, the typical manager demands respect while the true leader gains respect through achievement; in terms of goals and objectives, the typical manager follows company objectives while the true leader adds to company objectives; in terms of rules, the typical manager follows company line while the true leader exceeds them when necessary for results; in terms of getting results, the typical manager meets requirements while the true leader betters requirements; when dealing with subordinates, the typical manager protects self at all costs while the true leader fights for subordinates even at personal cost; and finally, when dealing with superiors, the typical manager accommodates to their requests while the true leader suggest ways to improve operations.
Leaders show they can help followers achieve their personal goals. To win that confidence takes effort well beyond that of a manager. But the effort is worthwhile. Once leadership is established, operations results and personal relationships show marked improvement. (Yukl, G., 2001)
Nowadays, managers face complex and seemingly contradictory advice about being effective leaders. Leaders must not only lead their units in task accomplishment, but also address expectations that they will play several other roles. Among these roles are coach, mentor, educator, communicator, obstacle breaker, and problem solver. Managers have the responsibility to create the right culture and communal vision for their employees, to select employees and define their roles and responsibilities, and to create measures that lead to innovation while offering effective incentives for accomplishing the organisation's mission. It is important that competing demands and approaches not paralyse managers but instead provide cumulative and integrative improvements to leadership effectiveness (Goldsmith, M. et.al., 2003).
There is a difference between the act of leadership and the act of management. Exactly where the difference lies depends on who is speaking. In general, acts of leadership are those activities necessary to define the destination of the organisation while acts of management are those necessary for making the trip a reality. Individuals can possess both the skills to lead and the skills to manage but, many organisations may confuse leadership skills with management skills. There are certain results that can be extremely restrictive organisational structures caused by detail-laden management being mistaken for leadership. Furthermore, management are good at the smaller pictures which combine to make sense of the larger picture and leadership are those that lose sight of the smaller pictures and focus on the larger picture (Kotter, 1990). In order to have a clear picture regarding Leadership and HRM in global context, this paper considers the following situation.
Situation:
For five years, you have been the president and CEO of a successful Scottish utility company that merged with four other regional utility providers to support their ability to weather the financial constraints of deregulation and the resulting competition. At the start of the merger, you are named CEO of the newly consolidated organisation. You now have former competitors and counterparts reporting to you, and are faced with the task of creating a shared vision for these individuals and the very different branches of the organisation they lead. Your business units, though all located within a 100-mile radius, represent significant diversity in their organisational cultures, physical locations, workforce composition, customer populations, and types of services they deliver. Additionally, the utility industry is experiencing significant technology updates and rising costs resulting in reductions in revenue, and the communities you serve are experiencing significant waves of immigration of limited or non-English speaking Africans and Eastern Europeans.
Basically, good leaders are made, not born. If you have the desire and willpower, you can become an effective leader. Good leaders develop through never– ending process of self–study, education, training, and experience.
According to the dictionary (Webster, 1913), a Leader is one who, or that which, leads or conducts; a guide; a conductor; one who goes first; one having authority to direct; a chief; a commander. From WordNet dictionary, a leader is describe as the person who rules or guides or inspires others.
Basically, the role of a leader is to create followers and bring out leadership to them. His task on the other hand is to bring about a constructive and necessary change within the context of the group or organisation and finally, the responsibility of a leader is to bring about the change in a way that is responsive to the true and long-term needs of all stakeholders.
From the given situation, this paper considered the possible actions and plans of the President and CEO of Scottish utility company with respect to HRM and Leadership concepts.
While the leaders point out the direction, managers are busy providing, guiding and directing the organisational energy toward the desired end. The manifestation of leadership/management imbalances in organisations can be commonly witnessed in daily functions. One of the most obvious organisational ailments caused by imbalances can be seen in the battles being fought among its members. Too many managers and organisational members spend an inordinate amount of time defending territory by arguing that their way is the best way. (Adair, 1986). As far as the situation is concern, it is very important to anticipate the possible outcome of creating a shared vision for this new organisation. Thus, consideration of new technology, multiculturalism, and new business environment should be anticipated.
Actually, some organisations sacrifice the leadership function for management-oriented approaches to governing. Leaders are needed at all levels of the organisation. Successful, dynamic organisations capable of maintaining vitality need this balance to maximise their performance and meet the demands of a changing environment. (Barker, 1992).
According to information, when there is an imbalance of managers over leaders, the result frequently is a lopsided organisation that forgets its overriding goal for the sake of polishing its immediate appearance. (Barnes, 1981) The function of problem-solving in such an organisation becomes a problem in its own right. Thus, it is helpful to realise that leadership does not only take place at the highest levels of organisations and it should not be thought of as a one-dimensional collection of traits existing within a few people at the top. (Barnes, 1981) Organisational leaders formally recognised or not, excel at addressing certain need areas. This is what makes them leaders. The However, many leaders miss the acts of leadership that take place around them, interpret them as threats to their positions, particularly if these acts occur beneath them in the organisation and that leadership is misunderstood to be legitimate power as opposed to personal power. (Kouzes and Barry, 1987).
Understanding the role and function of leadership is the single most important intellectual task of this generation and leading is the most needed skill. Actually, the best challenge to anticipate in creating a shared vision for this new organisation is to determine first the nature of this new business. The reason is simple. Leaders play a major role in helping in creating and maintaining a healthy organisation culture as leaders define business and its practice. They determine the character of society. They define teams, groups and communities. They set and administer government policy and in the walks of life, leaders’ behaviours set the course others follow and determine the measures used to account for group actions (Yukl, G. 2001). Success in the new millennium, as in the past, will depend on how well leaders understand their roles the leadership process and their own values and vision as well as those of their groups. Their behaviours set the course others follow and determine the values and other measures used to account for group actions (Senge, 1990).
Management as a role for the leaders of organisations involves control over others’ behaviours and actions. For most people a position of leadership centres on the management role, its tasks and techniques as well as its technology. It conjures up ideas like controlling interpersonal relations, making decisions, aligning individual member actions and perceptions with corporate goals, planning, budgeting and directing the effort of the several followers engaged in the work with people. (Yukl, G., 2001). The leader role involves insuring that group activity is timed, controlled and predictable.
Organisations culture is about how much members trust each other, if indeed they trust others at all. They are about attitudes and emotions and their impact on team performance. Organisations are definable best in these terms and in ideas like change, trust, cohesion, conformity and adaptability. Moreover, organisational culture is distinct from corporate strategy, structure and work processes and that there is value in looking at corporations from the perspective of physical facilities, structure, systems of workflow and the tools and equipment used (Steers, 1985). The leader’s task is to create a culture that integrates all individuals into a natural unity so individual actions can strengthen the results of the whole and when the prevailing culture is incompatible with the leader’s vision, the task is to change the culture to insure that it promotes needed integration and harmony as leadership involves changing people to find unity in apparent chaos (Wheatley, 1993; Kouzes, J. and Posner, B 1995.).
The idea is important as leaders begin to lead in cultures peopled by widely diverse individuals. Making these culturally diverse people a part of a harmonious whole has always been the prime role and responsibility of leaders. Successful cultures are characterised by enough mutual trust and respect to let members be free to make choices, to empower them to meet at least some of their needs.
What people need today are trained, focused and committed workers whom leaders can trust to respond appropriately in rapidly changing situations where top-level oversight is not desirable or, sometimes, even possible (Steers, 1985). Leadership is a function of the habits of interrelationship developed in a group. It develops out of the dynamics of the interaction between followers and between a follower and the tasks assigned. Leaders facilitate joint activity by accommodating difference, by redirecting it to joint action. Leadership is only possible in situations where people trust each other enough to be open and honest about their needs and the tension between those needs and organisational needs (Stogdill, 1989). The leader-created culture in turn determines the leader’s reality. It prescribes what leaders pay attention to their reaction to member behaviour, what is communicated to followers; it is the living model of the corporation they project to others (Stogdill, 1989).
The leader both creates and is constrained by, the culture created and its values. The culture sets the pattern for mutual interrelationships. Leadership is a values-displacement activity (Fairholm, 1991). It is a task of creating teams unified by a common mind-set about purpose and values that both leader and led can use to measure group and personal progress. The leader-created culture embodies institutional purpose (Selznick, 1957; McCauley C.D. and Van Velsor, E. 2003; and Kouzes, J. and Posner, B 1995.). Leaders preach it to others and behave personally according to it. They attain follower support because the attitudes and purposes they articulate come to mean as much to group members as they do to the leader. Organisations develop cultures that incorporate the values, practices and ways of thinking of their leaders.
According to information, such policies and practices intended to support a multicultural work force cannot fully succeed unless they are grounded in an organisational culture that embraces multiculturalism. Such a culture is open to new ideas and ways of doing things, supportive of differences among employees and flexible in responding to employee needs and concerns.
Communication is central to creating and maintaining this kind of organisational culture as the employees and managers must communicate with each other and that the Management must be willing to listen to employees, to value what they say and to respond seriously to employee concerns and ideas. Employees must take responsibility for communicating their concerns and ideas rather than waiting passively for others to speak for them and be assured that they are safe when they speak. Organisations must confront cultural difference as the norm in organisational life for understanding cultural diversity and to suggest strategies for creating leadership along those environments that develop the full productivity of a multicultural work force. A multicultural organisation and its environment must value, respect and recognise all employees, regardless of race, gender, class, ethnicity, age, sexual preference and religion which can be intended to help people in organisations better understand leadership management in the multicultural interactions in the workplace for managing a culturally diverse work force in creating a productive multicultural environments by bringing cultural assumptions into cultural awareness and learning to recognise the cultural assumptions of others is a difficult and sometimes painful process by means of working together to create a multicultural society within an organisation as it requires patience, hard work and its commitment to change as well as its willingness to change can be critical in the sense that it may affect such leadership contexts.
The reality does not take the perspective that managers in organisations should learn how to manage diversity; such a perspective assumes that the power dynamics in organisations will remain the same and that managers simply need to learn how to control and use people who are different from themselves that such people in the organisation must work together to create new organisations with new assumptions and values about people, the behaviour and how work was accomplished. (Cox, W., 2001) Organisations that have changed Human Resource policy to reflect the changing nature of the workforce are suggested to reap benefits of increased employee loyalty and productivity (Hofstede, G. 1992).
Cox (2001) describes organisations which practice diversity valuation as multicultural and that in the multicultural organisations the valuing diversity has become a facet of organisational culture and attitudinal and structural integration of women and people through diversity education, and through equitably rewarding employees for dissimilar contributions. The multicultural organisation represents a place in which differences are appreciated and used to gain competitive advantage in order to assimilate into the dominant culture (Cox, 2001). Less strong commitment to diversity may be the extent of organisational diversity initiatives in plural organisations.
Actually, the internal and external environmental factors to be considered in carving out a multicultural leadership path that will support the success of the organisation are Cultural Awareness, Best Management Practices and multicultural leadership itself.
As individuals begin to interact with those from another culture, impressions begin to form and such bonds begin to develop. As the individuals are also aware of the fact that most international activity now demands a cadre of personnel capable of operating easily with people from a variety of cultures and that labour and management that are both deficient in skills required of global business and leadership management as cultural awareness does not necessarily come with the recognition of the values and significance of a new culture per se.
In order to attain the success of a business, best management practices should be considered by most organisations. For this situation, the best management practices to be considered are:
Long term client relationships
Equity and consideration in managing people
A growing passion for quality
Results-based controls
Task before structure
Apparently, leadership in today's society demands recognition of the diversity and difference present in certain culture as the effective academic leader of the future must negotiate the multicultural environment by fully recognising diversity and difference upon exercising leadership that unites all individuals towards a common goal.
The process of leadership in multicultural environments must include the following:
In addition to the environmental factors in carving out a multicultural leadership, the use of Management Practices Survey (MPS) for supervisors and managers must be acknowledged. The survey should measure employees' perceptions of how both organisational factors and management practices are influencing performance and motivation. Hence, the results of the survey help individuals identify their strengths and target areas for performance improvement and development.
Feedback areas include:
Effective authority
Performance expectations
Rewards and recognition
Teamwork
Performance evaluation
Responsibility for results
Like for instance, in the given situation being a multicultural industry faces many challenges with increasing cultural diversity in the workplace and as the global trend continues in the new millennium by managing multicultural issues will become more and more of a priority. The specific cultural diversity issue considered in this contribution is the relationship between perceived leadership behaviour and subordinate job satisfaction in two different cultural groups such as non-English speaking Africans and Europeans. The validity of the leadership a theories in cultures other than the ones in which they originated is challenged and it is argued that the change in business environments such as globalisation, international mergers and diverse cultural workforces has made the universal assumptions of these theories questionable.
Therefore, in the management theory practice, the dealing with diversity in a diverse workforce has played a prominent role in recent years. In a globalising economy companies recognised potential benefits of a multicultural workforce and tried to create more inclusive work environments. However, many organisations have been disappointed with the results they have achieved in their efforts to meet the diversity challenge (Cox, 2001) and given the fact that diversity is essentially about cultural norms and values, appropriate reflection work becomes a fundamental task to create a truly inclusive work environment where people from diverse backgrounds feel respected and recognised on the challenge of building an inclusive diversity culture showing that has to be built on solid moral grounds and introduce the founding principles of reciprocal understanding, standpoint plurality and mutual enabling, trust and integrity. After revealing barriers that hinder a culture of inclusion from emerging we shed light on the process of developing such a culture which involves four essential transformational stages: The first phase focuses on raising awareness, building understanding and encouraging reflection. The second phase deals with the development of a vision of inclusion as an important step to define the change direction. In a third phase key management concepts and principles should be re-thought that helps implement change by doing both translating the founding principles via competencies into observable and measurable behaviour and fostering the development, reinforcement and recognition of behaviour.
Culture is an important factor in the art of HRM and Leadership, because for any organisation to operate effectively it must for some extent have a general set of believes and assumptions. Because understanding the term of the culture metaphor helps organisations to be aware of how employees are thinking about the organisation phenomena, and to recognise how different attitudes, value and beliefs affect the workplace. Thus, strong effort to cultivate the organisational support within the different business units that is necessary to ensure the success of your multicultural leadership effort must be applied.
Understanding and assessing the national culture and organisation's culture can mean the difference between success and failure in today's fast changing business environment. Cultural assessment can provide measurable data about the real organisational values and norms that can be used to get management's attention. Though, it can be said that the basic assumption, values and norms drive practices and behaviours. Hence when a “culture” is created it becomes a driving force for the shape and scope of the organisation.
According to McEwan (2001), culture is inseparable form the nation of human society which makes defining it a complicated task. As a result, there are many definitions for culture. McEwan, (2001) defines culture as “an integrated system of learned behaviour patterns, characteristic of the members of any given society”. In addition Hofstede (1991) identifies culture as “collective programming of the mind”.
According to Barbeschi (2002), the process of making an organisation is simultaneously the growth and maintenance of relationships among individuals who are working towards a common goal and the actual accomplishment of tasks, individually and collectively.
Organisational behaviour is an area of inquiry concerned with both sorts of influence: work organisations on people and people on work organisations (Brief & Weiss 2002). The organisations in which people work affect their thoughts, feelings, and actions in the workplace and away from it (Scullion, H and Linehan, M., 2005). Likewise, people's thoughts, feelings, and actions affect the organisations in which they work.
The central problems in organisational behaviour are influenced by changes in organisations themselves (Goodman & Whetten 1997). Although researchers have reported the durability of such traditional categories as work motivation and performance, absenteeism and turnover, climate and culture, and groups and leadership, other recent commentaries report more substantial shifts.
Leadership is a key issue in the development of groups, organisations and nations (Dowling, P and Welch, E. 2004). The study of leadership plays a crucial role in the behavioural and management sciences. It is generally accepted that good leadership is essential to the functioning of an organisation. It may be useful to think of the leadership process as the interaction between the situation, the leader, and the followers. Leadership is a behaviour so it is defined as a function of the leader's personality (Ratzburg 2001).
With the increasingly multicultural workforce in the current organisation needs to implement programs to address diversity for organisations adopting a multicultural approach as businesses. The utility industry's own team management theory which dismantles hierarchical structures in favour of participatory ones, suggests ways of dissolving barriers and creating unity. Working together to reach a common goal underlies team management theory. Successful teams in industry support the fact that collective decision making is more productive than that of the individual. New workplace structures should focus not on individual change but on cooperation and team goals.
Organisational structures based on multicultural pedagogy and team management theory can assist companies as they prepare for the increasingly diverse workforce. (Dowling, P and Welch, E., 2004) Business organisations adopting a multicultural approach can profit from academic research which defines the crux of multiculturalism as the problematic sharing of power and the valuing of difference and parallels how industry has refigured organisations through team management theory which dismantles hierarchical structures in favour of participatory ones and suggests ways of dissolving barriers to create unity. Working together to reach a common goal underlies both collaborative/cooperative learning and team management theory in response to the increasingly multicultural workforce on individual change in the successful corporate shift to a multicultural and cooperative philosophy.
In addition, culture and environment of an organisation tend to play a large role in determining structure. For example, more formal, bureaucratic organisations tend to have formal structures, while less formal organisations often choose flatter structures with dispersed responsibilities.
Basically, social interaction is the main essence of living. People gain knowledge of themselves and those with whom they interact based on many characteristics that become salient based on their cultural framework. For example, to an American the car that one drives has symbolic significance, whereas to an Indian, schooling is an important sign of position and status. It is through various types of social interactions that all people define themselves within their social community, and this self-definition lies at the very heart of human endeavour. People struggle with a desire for self-understanding and self-awareness in the face of the variety and ambiguity we encounter in a multicultural world. It is this struggle for self-definition in one's social system that is at the centre of face.
Apparently, individual decisions can frequently reflect the values of larger social groups. For example, organisations may establish "correct" core values for members. Personnel values can become carriers of organisational culture, thus affecting individual calculations of benefits and costs.
However, Berger and Thomas, (1967) believes that there are also factors related to the social and cultural aspects of a person's environment that can influence personal decisions and behaviours. Social and cultural processes may subtly shift individual perceptions of benefits, costs, acceptability and voluntaries of activities and situations. Worldviews and cultural beliefs can frame perceptions and establish meanings and experiences attached to risks, which in turn can determine behaviour. For example, attitudes of duty and dedication may be the result of cultural belief patterns and these attitudes can affect the perceptions of and responses to risky situations.
In particular, the paper of Smircich & Calas, (1987) justified that an organisation's shared history and stability can contribute to the internalisation and institutionalisation of specific attitudes in individuals. According to Schein, (1990), organisational culture is the pattern of basic assumptions that are invented, discovered or developed to help cope with problems of external adaptation and internal integration within an organisation. Furthermore, organisational culture definitely affects every individual in the organisation, the executives are cannot be exempted from this. They too, as individuals who are a member of the organisation are vulnerable and are subjects to the impacts of the organisational culture. Their decisions will be based on the existing culture in the organisation. If for example, organisations with different cultures merge, it could be expected that the dominant culture will predominate through time. Meanwhile, if this is not yet achieved, chaos and misunderstandings among members could be expected.
Synthesis
It is true that culture evolves through the accumulation of actions and events the members of a team experience. In order to create and maintain a healthy organisation culture therefore, certain recommendations are crucial and will focus on how the leaders perform in the organisation culture. Leaders need to play an essential role in the maturation process. Leaders, more than any participant, are critical in structuring experiences for team members that point them toward desired results. Some leaders, rise to positions having a great deal of visibility and legitimate power. However, I do agree that leadership is not limited to those leaders having such organisationally sanctioned legitimate power. In function, an offer of leadership by an individual is accepted or rejected based on the potential leader's perceived ability to achieve his followers' goals where the difference between personal and justifiable organisational power lies: Leaders are selected by their followers as a means to achieve perceived needs or goals (Kotter, 1990).
Leaders need to emphasise some experiences over others and in this way further focus the cultural integration process. It is a process of changing the way people thing about their work, their co-workers and their joint purposes. Creating a corporate culture involves leaders in several important mind-changing tasks and among them is setting the values base for mutual interaction and thinking strategically about the team and its future as it is systematically shaping a desired culture within which members can trust others and expect others to trust them.
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