Leadership Styles' Impact On Business Management In China - A Case Study Of Huawei And PetroChina.

Autocratic leadership style and its effectiveness in PetroChina

Question:

Discuss about the International Business for PetroChina and Huawei.

The topic discusses the importance of various leadership styles that can reflect the culture and performance of an organisation and allow for overcoming the challenges of contemporary management within the business organisations in China effectively. Leadership is an essential aspect of business, which not only drives the behaviours of individuals working within the organisations but also makes them motivated to perform to their potential and bring out the desired positive outcomes with ease and effectiveness. Leadership helps in motivating the workforce to perform better as well as build a good relationship with the employees of the organisation and make them committed to their work. Leadership styles promote effective communication among the team members and manage the extraction of the best quality of performances from the team members, thereby driving their performances primarily and contributing to the organisational efficiency (Ball et al., 2012). The two organisations that have chosen here as the case study are Huawei and PetroChina, both of which follow effective styles of leadership to reflect the culture and performance of the organisation as well as prevent the occurrence of issues and challenges faced by the contemporary business management.

Different leadership styles are followed by the business organisations PetroChina and Huawei in China to reflect the culture and performances of the workers and ensure that the challenges in contemporary management are overcome along with gaining better productivity (huawei.com, 2017). The autocratic leadership style enables the leader to make decisions without considering the responses and opinions of workers of the organisation. The leaders make their own decisions, as they remain confident about the business operations and strategic plans (Bhatti et al., 2012). This kind of leader possesses less creativity due to lack of contemporary styles of management and do not involve the employees while making any decisions in business.

The participative style of leadership, also known as the democratic leadership style can enable the management to provide help and support to the team members during the time of acceptance of inputs from the staff members. These kinds of leaders play major roles in motivating and encouraging the employees by encouraging feedbacks, ideas, opinions and suggestions from them before making any final decision (Busch et al., 2013). The participative leaders are more creative and create a content workforce where all the inputs made by individuals are considered while making a good decision in business.

Participative leadership style and its effectiveness in Huawei

These are the two major styles of leadership though there are two other leadership styles including the delegative and corporate culture leadership styles. The delegative leadership style, also known as the laissez faire leadership style enables the leaders to make decisions very rarely and the role is rather passed on to the group members (Cavusgil et al., 2014). The team members are not provided with any guidance or support, which further creates issues while making decisions and lack of motivation and encouragement of team members.

The different styles of leadership can create probable impacts on the culture because it is the workers who follow the ways by which leaders act to accomplish the organisational goals and objectives (Folsom et al., 2012). Leadership also promotes encouragement of team members and allow them to perform to their potential, thereby contributing largely to the company. By maintaining good leadership style, a good culture can be created that can further result in managing business operations properly as well as bring out positive outcomes in an effective manner too (Griffin & Pustay, 2012).

PetroChina Company Limited develops the Codes of Ethics according to the Chinese law, rules and regulations following the supervisory requirements of the locations where the company has been listed. This is done to standardise the professional conduct and has been applied to all the workers of the organisation including the leaders, employees and the other staffs within the organisation. This would not only protect the interest of the company but would also help in managing the workforce properly, thereby bringing out the best from the employees to accomplish the goals and objectives efficiently (huawei.com, 2017). The autocratic style of leadership has been followed by the organisation, and it is mainly applied during the time of decision making at a higher level without any need to consult or gain the opinions of other team members. The autocratic leadership style maintained within PetroChina has enabled the manager or leader to decide what is best own self and provide instruction to others rather than considering their ideas and opinions (Li & Sun, 2015). The autocratic leadership style is effective for the oil and gas industries in China because it is concerned with the management of safety related to adhering to the Minimum Industry Safety Standard that has been applied to the overall oil and gas sector. The MIST standards are needed to be fulfilled and are known to the leaders of the organisation. The autocratic leadership style will allow the leader to instruct the employees about the MIST standards and fulfill those for the assessment of risks, manage manual handling, maintain safety at work and even work at high altitudes or lift things that are quite heavy in a safe manner (Petrochina.com, 2017).

Importance of leadership in managing challenges in contemporary business management

The employers could assess all these safety policies for maintaining safe working conditions and ensure that positive business outcomes are derived. The Offshore Installations Manager of PetroChina, who performs his roles and responsibilities by maintaining safety and well-being of workers, plays the major leadership role (Rast, Hogg & Giessner, 2013). The workers based on the nature of work have followed the instructions provided by the leader and have managed to complete their safety training programs as well. By maintaining safety, a healthy culture has been created, which has allowed the individuals working within the organisation to perform better effectively (Wild, Wild & Han, 2014).

Huawei is a telecommunication equipments company with its headquarters in China. The company has followed the democratic or participative leadership style to engage the employees and consider their ideas and opinions before making any particular decision in business. Various matters are clarified by managing discussions and consultations that further can help in creating a positive mindset among the employees and make them understand that they are valued by the organization (Zhang et al., 2015). The democratic leadership style can help in motivating the workers and influence their performances by making them perform to their potential and then make a proper decision for the benefit of business. The team members have different ideas, opinions and information that can help to make an appropriate decision (Ball et al., 2012). For example, an employee possessing relevant knowledge can inform the leader about something and how can it benefit the organisation through enhancement of production level and creation of a better culture. This would also create better opportunities to assess the potential risks and create a hierarchical structure for improving the efficiency of the decision-making process (Bhatti et al., 2012).

Few of the major challenges of contemporary management include lack of ability to develop relevant skills and knowledge such as management of proper time, strategic thinking and decision-making abilities to enhance the efficiency of the organisation. Other contemporary management issues include challenges to motivate and encourage others, develop the skills of employees, challenges of developing a proper team consisting of skilled team members and managing changes by handling the reactions of employees to change (Busch et al., 2013).

For PetroChina, the alternative style of leadership could be the transformational leadership style. This leadership style helps to go beyond the task requirements as well as enable the leaders to go beyond boundaries and change the way organisation operates. The major factors for influencing the transformational leadership style are promoting the vision, mission statement and values to the members, encouraging the employees to remain creative, gain the trust and loyalty of workers and manage individualised consideration by rewarding them for their performance and dedication (Griffin & Pustay, 2012).  The leader of PetroChina has followed the transformational leadership style to keep up with the latest technologies and compete in the present market with ease and effectiveness. The use of internet has helped PetroChina to increase the global economy by entering new global markets and manage the shift in demographics for managing changes and improvements too (Li & Sun, 2015). This leadership style has helped in considering the new policies and fulfills the changing needs and requirements of customers from time to time and furthermore make information and choices available for the workforce. This leadership style within PetroChina has enhanced the level of motivation and engagement of workers, thereby directed their behaviours towards a shared vision effectively as well (Petrochina.com, 2017).

Delegative and corporate culture leadership styles

As an alternative, leaders of Huawei can follow the transactional leadership style to focus on the supervision of employees and enhance the organisational performance by promoting compliance by the workers through rewards and punishments. This would overcome the challenges of lack of ability to make decisions and lead a team. The transactional leadership within Huawei could help by providing monetary and non-monetary rewards to the employees for their better performances and even punish them in case they have failed to live up to the expectations of the company (Rast, Hogg & Giessner, 2013). The challenges can be overcome by setting goals and timelines at first, delegate more, enhance the unique value and gain clarity regarding the roles and responsibilities. This would help the leader to guide the employees in the right direction and make them understand their roles properly to achieve the organisational goals and objectives with ease through promoting of a better culture and enhanced performances (huawei.com, 2017). 

Conclusion

The essay discussed the various styles of leadership followed by the business organisations in China named PetroChina and Huawei. The different styles of leaderships were discussed here along with the best leadership styles followed by these two companies to overcome the challenges of contemporary management in business. The autocratic and democratic leadership styles had been followed by the organisations to create a good culture and provide better scopes for employees to improve their performances and enhance the production level. The alternative leadership styles that could be followed by these two companies for promoting a healthy work culture had been transformational and transactional leadership styles.

References

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