Reflective Essay: Power Distance In Communication And Leadership Style.

Impact of Power distance on leadership styles and communication in multinational companies Woolworth, Wesfarmers

Write a reflective report discusses power distance in the communication and leadership style. 

This reflective report discusses power distance in the communication and leadership style. The leadership style could support to examine personality of the employee. It also demonstrates different kinds of leadership styles such as transactional, transformational, Laissez-faire, charismatic and an autocratic leadership style. The transformational leadership style supports the organization to improve their existing performance. It also discusses the issues of cross culture in the organization.                      

I understood that the cultural differences could directly impact on the leadership style. Moreover, the cultural misunderstanding could create the possibilities of business failure. I also observed that cultural problems are associated with the leadership. In addition, it is also evaluated that the leader of organization could be capable to perform many activities like recruitment and retention, making policy and regulation (Zhang, Ahammad, Tarba, Cooper, Glaister, and Wang, 2015). The leader could also deal with the cultural issues in the marketplace. When I was worked in Wesfarmers, I also observed that company face problem at the time of developing trust among employees. I also learned that the elimination of communication barrier could be a complicated task for the leader due to the lack of understanding about appropriate technique. It is also evaluated that lack of trust among diverse culture of employees towards their leader could also be complicated to attain the goal of company (Northouse, 2018). Hence, I gained my understanding about the employees and organizational culture to complete organizational task in the least time. It is found that the leadership theories and practices could support me for effectively implement the leadership style in the workplace and obtain a reliable outcome (Lee, 2016). I gained my understanding about certain components like compensation and employee training as it would be effective for eliminating cultural and communication issues from the working place. Hence, I used many approaches to lead diverse culture of employees and eliminating these issues. Moreover, I realized that self-efficacy technique is effective for improving my existing skills as it support to enhance my efficiency. Further, it is evaluated that self- efficacy is determined as the appropriate behaviour of a leader with respect to the accomplishment of the specified goal (Kahai, Avolio, and Sosik, 2017).The leadership self-efficacy demonstrates challenges that could be faced by the leader and how they resolve their issues. Through this technique, I was capable to evaluate different culture of employees activities as it support to accomplish specified task of company and make reliable decision. I also observed that power distance supports to determine the power equality and or inequality among top to bottom-ranked employees. I also observed that the power distance is a fundamental aspect of the organization because it enables to critically analysis the power of employee for effectively operates the business. From the analysis of Hofstead model, I analysed that a higher power distance demonstrates the inequalities of wealth and power. It will directly influence the growth of society (Berson, Halevy, Shamir, and Erez, 2015). In addition, it is also found that the inequality and hierarchy are the important factors for the culture. I also observed that the culture of an organization is relied on their leader, managers, and leaders of the organization. The managers of high power distance cultures could prefer to implement the authoritarian management style. I observed that if the power distance is higher in any multinational company, which means the leader of company want to earn by higher power. The higher power could enable the leader to force their subordinates for accomplishing the task. In this, employees are depended on their managers for accomplishing the organizational task. When I worked in Woolworth then I used Hofstede model to evaluate the power distance in Australia. I observed that the obtained value of power distance is 36 that means employees are not depended on their manager. For dealing with different culture of Woolworths employees, I used autocratic leadership style for accomplishing the organizational task but I was failed for long-term success. Through this leadership style, I forced to the employee for accomplishing their task that create the higher chance of employee’s turnover. Through this leadership style, I never considered to the employees in the decision making as it enhanced stress level among employee that negative impact on the performance of workforce. Thus, I pointed that autocratic leadership was not effective for Wesfarmers because it gives higher power to the leader that negatively influence their growth. After that, I used laissez-faire leadership style in the Wesfarmers, Australia.  Through laissez-faire leadership style, I gave freedom to employee and different culture team members for completing their task in their own style. This leadership style is based on “let them do” (Raina and Roebuck, 2016).  Hence, it can be said that this leadership style effective for that employee who does not like to any interference in their work while this method could be ineffective for those who are fresher (Engelen, Flatten, Thalmann, and Brettel, 2014). I realized that this leadership style was also not effective to retain the employee in the working place and obtain reliable outcome. Moreover, I observed that my lack of understanding about the power distance and appropriate leadership style could negatively influence growth of organization. Hence, I gained my understanding towards certain leadership styles such as transactional, transformational, laissez-fair, charismatic, and autocratic leadership. In this way, I also observed that the leadership style could directly influence the productivity of employees and organization (Tong, Tak, and Wong, 2015). I pointed that transformational leadership is a method that could equal to the leader and employee at the time of working in the team. I used the transformational leadership in Wesfarmers that enable me to works with subordinates to determine the needed changes in the organization as it would be supportive to make an effective decision. I analyzed that the transformational leadership enable me enhance the motivation level, moral, and job performance of different culture of employees by creating their interest in their specified work. I determine strengths and weakness of employee for improving their productivity. Through this leadership style, I obtained favourable outcome by different culture of employees.    

Leadership Styles and Cultural Differences

When I worked in the Woolsworth, Australia, I used the servant leadership style to obtain positive result from different culture of employees. Through this method, leader improves and boosts the morale of employee for accomplishing their task. This leadership style enables to prioritize needs of my team and encourage them to make a collective decision (Vidyarthi, Anand, and Liden, 2014). (Bedi, and Alpaslan, Green, 2016). But, at the same time, I also analysed that I failed to attain higher profit by using this leadership style among different culture of employees. Hence, I gained my understanding about the transactional leadership style that support to make chain process at the working place. I observed that this leadership style is based on carrot-and-stick approach to managing activities of different culture of employees. I learned that transactional leadership facilitates to use the reward and punishment structure wherein leader punish those employees who perform less than satisfactory while awarding those employees who perform better at the working place (Sarooghi, Libaers, and Burkemper, 2015). It would support to make a positive atmosphere at the working place by inspiring the employee towards their work. The employee of the workplace could be inspired to work hard and obtain a feasible result. I realized that the transformational leadership style could not be effective to deal with different culture of employees. Hence, I used transformational leadership style as compared to another leadership style. It is evaluated that transformational leadership enable employees to follow their leader with enthusiasm and energy that inspires them for accomplishing their job. Moreover, when I was working in Woolworths then I applied transformational leadership as it supports me to consider motivation, innovation, and individual concern in order to communicate with different culture of employees (Daniels and Greguras, 2014). The transformational leadership style enables me to prefer organization culture for obtaining a favourable outcome. I also learned about the characteristics of transformational leadership style that consider many factors like environment sensitivity, vision and articulation, performing the unconventional behavior, and sensitivity to employee needs. The transformational leadership supports me to influence diverse culture of employee’s values. The transformational leadership occurs when one and more people are engaging in the same activity for accomplishing their task (Graham, Ziegert, and Capitano, 2015).  Though this leadership style, my team member encourage me and each other to attain the same goal. It supports me to obtain feasible outcome by accomplishing the organizational task. In this way, I considered four factors for dealing with diverse culture of individuals at the same place like inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, and idealized influence. Though this leadership style, diverse culture of employee respect each other to attain the organizational aim (Bouncken, Brem, and Kraus, 2016). Through these factors, I was capable to easily inspire followers and make reliable relationship with them. Moreover, it is also evaluated that intellectual stimulation is determined as a transformational leader who demonstrates their intellectual capacity by inspiring their followers and innovative ideas (Appelbaum, Degbe, MacDonald, and Nguyen-Quang, 2015). Though this leadership style, I used innovative and creative idea, reframing problems, and questioning assumptions as it support me to effectively dealing with diverse culture of Woolworths employees in Australia. I also analyzed that this leadership style aid me and employees of Woolworths to obtain their aim in a reliable manner. Through this leadership style, both leader and team members are mutually working on the same goal that support to make effective relationship. But at the same time, I gained my understanding about many activates that could create an issue in the cross culture. These are inadequate trust, perception, inaccurate biases, and false communication. I also analyzed that team members of Woolworths have different religion and they make a community with same religion and use the different language as it create cultural issue at the working place (Owens, Wallace, and Waldman, 2015). In addition, it is also evaluated that perception of employees could create a cultural issue at the working place. The people who belong from the developed country and employee who belongs from developing country could create conflict at the working place. I also observed that biases could also create the cultural issues at the working palace (Naseer, Raja, Syed, Donia, and Darr, 2016). Hence, by using the transformational leadership style I resolved challenges, which are faced by me for dealing with diverse culture of employees. In addition, it is also found that the false communication could also create the cultural issue at the working place (Sousa, and van Dierendonck, 2017). I gained my understanding of leadership style and power distance that could a major element of the organization. This learning directly impacts on my professional and personal skills. This understanding is effective for me because I want to make my career in the human resource management team. 

Comparison of Leadership Styles

Conclusion

From the above analysis, it can also be summarized that the power distance could direct impact on the performance of the organization. It can also be concluded that the power distance has a positive impact on the communication and leadership style. It can also be illustrated that the power distance could be used to determine the equality and inequality of power between the top and bottom ranked employee. It can also be examined that an organization might be aware of the power distance due to developing a favorable environment at the workplace and obtain a reliable result. It can also be summarized that appropriate leadership style could direct impact on the productivity of the organization by gaining their interest in the assigned work. In last, it can also be addressed that the cultural values could occur for many reasons like language, perception, lack of trust, and working environment. It could influence the performance of the organization.

References

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