Discuss about the Entrepreneurial Imperatives of Strategic Leadership.
Leadership is a research area and practical application of skill to lead the organization and individual to achieve the business goals and objectives. Leadership is the ability of an individual to inspire, influence, motivate and lead his team to the zenith of success (Bolman & Deal, 2017). The reflective journal here will focus on introduction to leadership, the personal side of relation and using leadership as a tool towards relationship building.
I believe that some people are born with the traits of leadership and are natural leaders, while some of the people have to work on enhancing their skill sets to become a successful leader. The world has given plethora of business leaders who have established that effective leadership is the primary contributing factors for the sustained growth of the organization. Steve Jobs of Apple, Jack Welch of GE, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Bill Gates of Microsoft are some of the prominent names who have defined leadership and given it a true meaning(Northouse, 2018). The study of leadership at the university helped me in understanding the qualities required to be a successful leader and how to lead the team effectively.
The biggest quality of a leader is his ability to inspire and transpire his vision into the culture of the organization. Leaders are excellent communicators who possess the skill to inspire thousands of people to work on the same goal (Goleman, 2017). For example, Jeff Bezos of Amazon made the company the largest e-commerce company on the face of earth, it was his vision and his transformation style of leadership which people resonated with, and moved swiftly to make Amazon a highly successful company. The organizational culture at Amazon is focussed on the customers, which is in sync with Jeff Bezos vision of creating a customer-centric company (Antonakis & Day, 2017).
It is a highly plausible statement that one leadership style is better than other; it depends entirely on the situation and the dynamics of the industry to adopt a leadership style. Some of the prominent styles of leadership which have been in vogue in the past and the present and have shaped the business around the world include Democratic, Transformational, Autocratic, Charismatic and Lassiez-Fair. Democratic style of leadership is where the leader involves every employee in the decision making process and gives them the freedom to work on their own accord. This style of leadership focuses on empowering the employee by the virtue of giving them the freedom to work and be responsible for their own actions (Heietz & Linsky, 2017).
Transformational style of leadership is the one which I mostly relate with, it is the ability of the leader to inspire the team by leading from the front. The leader here translates his vision into the organization and ensures that it prevails in the organization culture. A transformation leader engages with the employees at all fronts of decision making and values their feedback; he makes sure that his employees are up for the task and consistently working towards enhanced productivity and excellence (Renz & Herman, 2016). Transformational leadership believes in building a culture of sustainability in the business organization and inspire people to innovate for the betterment of the society. Autocratic style of Leadership is one of the extreme styles of leadership, in this the leader not only guides but dictates the employees everything to do in the business organization. He sets the rules, and dictates the term of work at the workplace. Lassiez-Fair is another extreme style of leadership, where the leader does not interfere in any employees work and give them full autonomy to work, to adopt the style of Lassiez-Fair the team at the organization has to be highly trust worth and efficient (DuBrin, 2015).
As mentioned earlier in the journal certain leader have the inherent traits and some leaders master the skills to become a highly successful leader, in both the cases the qualities of the leader remains mostly the same. A leader have to be futuristic, he should be smart enough to spot on the future trends in the business and leverage it to his business advantage. This quality of spotting the things well in advance and quickly than anybody else makes him earn respect of his employees and also create business opportunities for his business(Covin & Slevin, 2017). Steve Jobs for example was really smart at picking up the future of computers; it was his vision which translated into Apple becoming the number one tech company of the world. In my opinion this is one of the qualities of leaders which benefit them the most in delivering result for the business organization. Leaders also believe that feedback is extremely important for the business organization, thus they promote the culture of feedback in the organization and value the feedback of all the business stakeholders, it helps them to not only improve the business policies and practices, but also empowers the employees (Tourish, 2014).
Another quality of leaders is their understanding of the importance of employees in the business organization. Effective leaders not only value their employees but they do everything possible to keep them happy and satisfied at work. They are always involved with the HR team of the business organization and work towards increasing the job satisfaction factors and eliminating the hygiene factors which affect the motivation of the employees. The leaders empower their employees and involve them in various strategic decision making, this high degree of involvement with the employees help the leaders not only to win the trust of the employees but also create a hyperbole of positive synergies at the workplace (Komives, 2016).
Leaders are extremely good when it comes to communication with the stakeholders of the organization, they master the art of communication and are highly influential and effective while communication with the stakeholders. Communication is a skill which is most definitely one of the key facets of a successful leader; it is the ease at which a leader is effectively able to communicate the complex of things with the employees of the organization. Leaders use communication as a tool to inspire and influence his employees at work. Highly effective leaders give a substantial amount of weightage to openness in communication, their doors are always open for the employees and they establish openness in communication as an organizational culture. Communication also helps the leaders to tone down the resistance of the employees in the case of change management; openness in communication brings in a feeling in the employees, who then work for the achievement of the organizational goals (Raelin, 2016).
Effective leaders are innovators; they consistently work towards creating such products and services which will be beneficial for the society. They believe in optimum utilization of resources to co-create for the welfare and the development of the community. They are highly focussed and determined on what they want to achieve in the business and translate the same in the business organization. These highly influential people push the employees out of their comfort zone and make them accomplish the task which seemed impossible at the initial stage (Klenke, 2016).
My leadership style is an amalgamation of all these qualities, I have the knack of spotting things before than anyone, I am great at communication and I have a good understanding of people. I am also a great listener which helps me in understanding people, and then suggesting them the solution for their problems. I practice leadership at my university my working in Group assignment, I make sure that our work is completed on time and I also ensure that my team members are motivated and inspired to complete the work on time. In my opinion I have the required set of qualities to be an effective leader and a successful business manager.
Highly effective and successful leaders in the past have not only improved our society for the good by pushing the pedestal of sustained innovation, they have also created large families at the workplace. Successful leaders aims to build relationship with the employees at all fronts, they aspire to build the organization on the pillars of trust, mutual respect, honesty, transparency and enhanced cooperation. Certain leaders addresses the employees as the partners in business organization, this certainly gives impetus to the employees to work more closely with the business leaders for accomplishing the goals of the organization.
Leaders believe that organization should have the essence of team work and team purpose .They are of the opinion that teams can do better and more work in comparison to an individual. Thus they effectively promote team work in their business organization. A plethora of team building activity is the culture of the organization; it helps in building better relationship between the employees, reducing the cultural differences and creating the base of sustained relationship. This ability of the leaders to ensure that all the employees in the organization are valued and work as one large family helps in delivering sustained results for the business.
I personally concur with this view of the leaders, that it is important to build relationship with the employees. It is the pillar of success for the business organization and definitely one of the finest qualities of a successful leader. Leaders by the virtue of building relationship with the employees get to understand their sentiments and their rationale for their actions, this helps in motivating the employees. Every employee is different from the other, thus it takes different motivation strategies and techniques to motivate them towards the business goals. This can only be achieved if the leader knows them really well and knows what it takes to motivate them for sustained growth.
Leaders believe that creating an environment of learning and development in the organization is of prime importance. They see learning as the step for the growth of the employees and the business organization, thus they spend a lot of money in creating this environment at the work place. Learning and development has dual purpose, it broadens the horizon of the employees and also motivates them. It is further leveraged by the leader for succession planning, which is enhanced by the leadership development programme at the business organization.
To conclude the essay I would like to reiterate that effective leadership is the most essential component for the success of the organization. It is the inherent ability to inspire, influence, motivate and lead large teams to the path of sustained innovation. The unit leadership for managers helped me tremendously in understanding the basic and advanced concepts of leadership; it also helped me in analysing my own strengths and weakness which can be worked upon to become a successful leader in the future. The unit provided me with great learning and most certainly has helped in to broaden my horizon and leverage on my strengths to become a highly effective leader.
References
Antonakis, J. and Day, D.V. eds., 2017. The nature of leadership. Sage publications.
Bolman, L.G. and Deal, T.E., 2017. Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. John Wiley & Sons.
Covin, J.G. and Slevin, D.P., 2017. The entrepreneurial imperatives of strategic leadership. Strategic entrepreneurship: Creating a new mindset, pp.307-327.
DuBrin, A.J., 2015. Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Nelson Education.
Goleman, D., 2017. Leadership That Gets Results (Harvard Business Review Classics). Harvard Business Press.
Heifetz, R. and Linsky, M., 2017. Leadership on the Line, With a New Preface: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Change. Harvard Business Press.
Klenke, K., 2016. Qualitative research in the study of leadership. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Komives, S.R., 2016. Leadership for a better world: Understanding the social change model of leadership development. John Wiley & Sons.
Northouse, P.G., 2018. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Raelin, J.A., 2016. Imagine there are no leaders: Reframing leadership as collaborative agency. Leadership, 12(2), pp.131-158.
Renz, D.O. and Herman, R.D. eds., 2016. The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. John Wiley & Sons.
Tourish, D., 2014. Leadership, more or less? A processual, communication perspective on the role of agency in leadership theory. Leadership, 10(1), pp.79-98.
