Leadership

A Leadership Story:

A group of workers and their leaders are set a task of clearing a road through a dense jungle on a remote island to get to the coast where an estuary provides a perfect site for a port.

The leaders organise the labour into efficient units and monitor the distribution and use of capital assets – progress is excellent. The leaders continue to monitor and evaluate progress, making adjustments along the way to ensure the progress is maintained and efficiency increased wherever possible.

Then, one day amidst all the hustle and bustle and activity, one person climbs up a nearby tree. The person surveys the scene from the top of the tree.

And shouts down to the assembled group below…


“Wrong Way!”
(Story adapted from Stephen Covey (2004) “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” Simon & Schuster).

“Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things”
(Warren Bennis and Peter Drucker)

Types of Leadership Style :

Autocratic:

Leader makes decisions without reference to anyone else

High degree of dependency on the leader

Can create de-motivation and alienation of staff

May be valuable in some types of business where decisions need to be made quickly and decisively


Democratic:
Encourages decision making from different perspectives – leadership may be emphasised throughout the organisation

Consultative: process of consultation before decisions are taken

Persuasive: Leader takes decision and seeks to persuade others that the decision is correct

May help motivation and involvement
Workers feel ownership of the firm and its ideas

Improves the sharing of ideas and experiences within the business

Can delay decision making

Laissez-Faire:
‘Let it be’ – the leadership responsibilities are shared by all

Can be very useful in businesses where creative ideas are important

Can be highly motivational, as people have control over their working life

Can make coordination and decision making time-consuming and lacking in overall direction

Relies on good team work

Relies on good interpersonal relations
 

Paternalistic:
Leader acts as a ‘father figure’

Paternalistic leader makes decision but may consult

Believes in the need to support staff


Change Leadership :

The most challenging aspect of business is leading and managing change

The business environment is subject to fast-paced economic and social change

Modern business must adapt and be flexible to survive

Problems in leading change stem mainly from human resource management

Leaders need to be aware of how change impacts on workers:


Series of self-esteem states identified by Adams et al and cited by Garrett

Adams, J. Hayes, J. and Hopson, B.(eds) (1976) Transition: understanding and managing change personal change London, Martin Robertson

Garrett, V. (1997) Managing Change in School leadership for the 21st century Brett Davies and Linda Ellison, London, Routledge

Trait theories:

Is there a set of characteristics that determine a good leader?

Personality?

Dominance and personal presence?

Charisma?

Self confidence?

Achievement?

Ability to formulate a clear vision?

Trait theories:
Are such characteristics inherently gender biased?

Do such characteristics produce good leaders?

Is leadership more than just bringing about change?

Does this imply that leaders are born not bred?


Behavioural:
Imply that leaders can be trained – focus on the way of doing things

Structure based behavioural theories – focus on the leader instituting structures – task orientated

Relationship based behavioural theories – focus on the development and maintenance of relationships – process orientated


Contingency Theories:
Leadership as being more flexible – different leadership styles used at different times depending on the circumstance.

Suggests leadership is not a fixed series of characteristics that can be transposed into different contexts

May depend on:

Type of staff

History of the business

Culture of the business

Quality of the relationships

Nature of the changes needed

Accepted norms within the institution


Transformational:
Widespread changes to a business or organisation

Requires:
Long term strategic planning

Clear objectives

Clear vision

Leading by example – walk the walk

Efficiency of systems and processes


Invitational Leadership:
Improving the atmosphere and message sent out by the organisation

Focus on reducing negative messages sent out through the everyday actions of the business both externally and, crucially, internally

Review internal processes to reduce these

Build relationships and sense of belonging and identity with the organisation – that gets communicated to customers, etc.


Transactional Theories:
Focus on the management of the organisation

Focus on procedures and efficiency

Focus on working to rules and contracts

Managing current issues and problems

Leadership style may be dependent on various factors:

Risk - decision making and change initiatives based on degree of risk involved

Type of business – creative business or supply driven?

How important change is – change for change’s sake?

Organisational culture – may be long embedded and difficult to change

Nature of the task – needing cooperation? Direction? Structure?

WILL GO ON......

THE NEED

The main critical challenges with developing and sustaining local innovation include the will to change, the authority to act, the capacity to change and access to resources to make that change happen.

“Most new ideas do not come as a flash of inspiration to a lone genius inventor; they come from how people create, combine and share their ideas. The capacity to unlock and harness the talent, energy and imagination of all individuals is crucial to making innovation stronger and more sustainable. The effects of innovative people are self reinforcing: innovative businesses are attracted to highly skilled and creative workforces and, in turn, innovative people are drawn towards exciting and challenging career opportunities. Furthermore, innovative people generate new ideas that require skilled people to implement and exploit them.”
A-“The story of the long tail is really about the economics of abundance – what happens when the bottlenecks that stand between supply and demand in our culture start to disappear and everything becomes available to everyone” in Chris Anderson, The Long Tail, 2005
B-“Research on innovation in other fields has repeatedly pointed to the importance of intermediaries and brokers who can spot, assess and adapt innovations. They see the potential value of innovations that have succeeded elsewhere or how they need to be changed. There is a striking absence of such institutions in the social field and in local government. Instead there is either too much top-down prescription or too casual a view that a thousand flowers should be encouraged to bloom. More work is also needed on developing the key skills for successful intermediaries. In some cases, these skills are closer to investigative journalism and venture capital than traditional bureaucratic skills. They include the skills of spotting, investigating and discovering what elements of a particular innovation are transferable.“
C-“Most new ideas do not come as a flash of inspiration to a lone genius inventor; they come from how people create, combine and share their ideas. The UK’s capacity to unlock and harness the talent, energy and imagination of all individuals is crucial to making innovation stronger and more sustainable. The effects of innovative people are self reinforcing: innovative businesses are attracted to highly skilled and creative workforces and, in turn, innovative people are drawn towards exciting and challenging career opportunities. Furthermore, innovative people generate new ideas that require skilled people to implement and exploit them.”

LETS START

•The changes of success innovation are such that- although the performance of incremental innovations tend to be less skewed than radical innovations, the implications of these skewed returns are clear.
•Risk is also function of the uncertainties that surround innovation.

•While we know a great deal about innovation processes and their general dependence on opportunities.
•-incentives
•- resources
•- management capabilities

•İ claim, develop this knowledge to such a five level that we can predict the kind of product and process innovation that will emerge.
•Some innovations fail simply because the technology does not deliver what was expected of it. For ex: titanic, some innovations succeed technologically but fail to win the market. Ex:concorde, sony’s betamax and IBM’s os/2.

“innovation is not confused with invention”


•Nonetheless, any methods that make innovation investments more definite in their aim and more economical are certain to be welcomed by private and public sector investors alike.
•if used effectively in thinking, playing, and doing activities, valuably assist in overcoming some of the uncertanities Surrounding innovation

“innovation is not confused with invention”

•1-innovation has to be located in its historical context
•2- innovation is not a discrete event or activity, but results from and contributes to arrange of systemic relationships and interdependencies 3- innovation is socially mediated and results from organizational managerial and individual practises and decisions.