The purpose of this reflection paper is to provide an insight in my past experiences with leadership. Before I went to the United States to study at the University of Louisville, I worked for four different companies, ranging from one of the big six accounting firms (Moret) Ernst & Young to an agency of the The Ministry of Economic Affairs.
This paper deals with leadership experienced at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. First, I will define leadership from a theoretical point of view. Second, I will elaborate on current views of leadership. Finally, I will try to match my past experiences with the definitions and current views of leadership. Conclusions and recommendations will be presented at the end of this paper.
"Organizations are only as effective as the people in them.
People are only as effective as their Leaders enable them to be."
Many textbooks refer to leadership as "the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of goals." This is a simplified definition but can easily be expanded. For instance, what is the most effective style of leadership? Or, is the style of leadership correlated with power? Theory has given us confusing and contradictory approaches in answering these questions. In addition, a recent Fortune article mentioned that the definition of leadership mutates almost as fast as a 12-year-old's fashion sense. However, as a result of my experience with leadership, I will focus on one particular (transformational) style of leadership, namely charismatic leadership. This type of leadership can be defined as the ability to inspire or empower followers (subordinates) to transcend their own self-interests for the good of the organization. In my job as an Export Finance Consultant I have worked closely with a manager that, in my point of view, typically had a charismatic style of leadership.
When you boil it all down, contemporary leadership seems to be a matter of aligning people toward common goals and empowering them to take the actions needed to reach them. Ultimately that means a leader must become worthy of respect. As our manager started to relinquish the command-and-control model of leadership - the agency of The Ministry of Economic Affairs is in the middle of a Business Process Redesign - the job is to get people to follow voluntarily. However, not every employee will follow voluntarily. Especially employees in the bureaucratic type of organization I worked for. This type of organization gives employees the possibility to hide in their formal working procedures and job descriptions. They can perform routine tasks that are not necessarily congruent with the organizational goals (redesigning the organization in order to focus more on our customers).
It is my observation, consequently, that situational determinants affect the impact and effectiveness of the style of leadership. Recent research defined the following situational challenges:
1. The level of the role within the organization.
2. The function within which the role is placed.
3. The philosophy or climate of the organization.
4. Specific stakeholder characteristics—types of subordinates, peers, customers, etc.
5. Nature of the task: for example, turn-around versus maintenance, low morale versus high morale, inadequate structure,
or competitive conditions.
For example, research indicates that sales managers adopt very different leadership behaviors than do accounting managers. Similarly, the behaviors and practices of chief executive officers are often different in kind and degree than those of first level supervisors. There has also been a great deal of research demonstrating that differences in stakeholder and task settings impact the suitability of management and leadership practices. In the next paragraph I will discuss these five points in random order with my experience on the job.
Leadership at The Ministry of Economic Affairs
The Export Department of the agency of The Ministry of Economic Affairs (called Senter) I have worked for, carries out export stimulating programs, especially programs for large manufacturing companies exporting capital goods. Originally Senter was founded as a bureaucratic organization comprising of three divisions, however, the organization started a Business Process Redesign in order to focus more on its customers. This process is putting a strain on a large proportion of the employees. Most of the employees working at Senter are employees who started to work at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. In the course of their work, they adopted bureaucratic values. In general, these values are difficult to change, especially when the focus of the business turns to customers instead of a focus towards the Ministry.
The manager of my department is typically a leader with a charismatic style of leadership. He has a remarkable ability to distill complex ideas into simple messages. What's his secret? He communicates by using symbols, analogies, metaphors, and stories. However, considering the situational determinants, this approach is not always as effective in every type of organization. As mentioned earlier, employees with bureaucratic values tend to maximize their personal goals instead of the organizational goals. In addition, empowerment can be used for personal advantage. In fact, that's what happened (and still is happening) at Senter. The charismatic style of leadership worked for me because I used the empowerment and positive reinforcement to achieve the organizational goal. I think, however, the approach is to soft for employees who stick to old habits and behavior.
Conclusions and recommendations
Our manager is a charismatic leader, but failed to see that his approach was to soft for certain employees. One way to solve this, is 360-degree evaluation. Most important for leadership, feedback from 360s can signal opportunities to learn. Growth begins when individuals reach a more objective understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, enabling them to take responsibility for their own development. The higher executives get in an organization, the less direct feedback they get about their behavior. If I would have been able to evaluate my manager's leadership style, I certainly would have mentioned the inability to direct all of the employees towards the organizational goals.
Lloyd S. Baird, Managing Human Resources, Integrating People and Business Strategy, Illinois, 1992.
Stephen R. Robbins, Essentials of Organizational Behavior, New Jersey, 1996.
This reflection paper was written on October 6, 1996 and is part of the Management 600 course which focuses on human behavior in an organizational context. The course is part of the MBA program at the University of Louisville. Our professor is Dr. Reginald Bruce.
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