Dare To Be a Leader?

Have you ever led a team? How does it feel? Do you prefer to lead or to be led? Do you have preference style when you lead? What do you think are the key success factors required to be a great leader? What are the challenges?

My Preference Leadership Style

There are various leadership styles that can be applied when you lead. As for me, situational leadership style in which the leader uses different approaches in relation to different circumstances is my preference style. Circumstances here depends on the readiness of the people which measured by their ability and willingness to complete a task (Hersey and Blanchard 1993). For example, you may need to use selling leadership style if the people are not able to do the task and has very little commitment, in which you may need to explain very clear and specific regarding the task instruction as well as persuade them to do the task. However, if the people have high competence but low commitment, you need to adopt participating leadership style where you only need to encourage them without hardly explaining continuously about the task. As I discussed in my previous blog, Are All Managers Great Leaders?, I believe this leadership style combines management and leadership which is one of the reason why I choose this leadership style. I also think the flexibility in this leadership style is required especially in this continuously changing environment.

When I considered all alternatives of leadership styles, I was inspired by Jack Stahl, a former CEO of Coca Cola and Revlon. Jack argued that the best leaders are situational, in which they are able to step into any circumstances and recognise whether they need to engage at the strategy level or dive into detail (Prewitt 2007). Sometimes, leaders think that they only need to see the big picture and forget that the details which usually be done by their subordinates or followers are also their responsibility.

Furthermore, McGregor (1960) put forward two different human behaviour at work which lead to application of different leadership style. Theory X assume that people are lazy, dislike work, avoid responsibility, prefer to be directed and lack of ambition. Therefore, in theory X, leaders should adopt directing and controlling leadership style or commonly known as authoritarian leadership style. In contrast, theory Y believe that people are self-motivated, like work, not only accept responsibility but also seek for greater responsibility, are ambitious, exercise self-control and self-direction. Therefore, participative leadership style will work best for theory Y. Ouchi then recommends a new theory Z approach in which leaders should learn how to manage people in such a way that they can work together more effectively (Mullins 2013). These 3 different circumstances require different leadership style.

Path to be a Great Leader

I view leadership as a journey. Many people believe that leaders are born. However, I believe that leadership can be learned by experiencing it. There are several key success factors including characteristic required for a great leader. The first one as I suggested in my previous blog, Let’s Dive in Diversity, leaders have to ensure that the team works effectively in both homogeneous and diverse team. However, nowadays it is almost impossible to find homogeneous team. There must be differences among team members, even their personality or perception could be different. Therefore, leaders should be able to give clear direction, acknowledge differences, communicate effectively, respect each team member and judge their team members objectively by their performances not by their cultural stereotype.

In managing the team, it is also necessary for leaders to understand that there are stages of team development, for instance the five stages introduced by Tuckman and Jensen (1977).

In each stage, leaders should be able to position themselves differently. For example, in forming stage, leaders may need to communicate to all members their objectives. However, in storming stage, they might need to be a problem solver and find conflict resolution. This problem solving skill is very important and I have developed this skill by continuously trying to solve the problem asked by my colleagues and provide the best solution for it.

Apart from having leadership skill such as knowing how to motivate and inspire people, how to give feedback and delegating tasks, leaders should also have management skill including planning, organising tasks, giving orders, coordination and monitoring. I have been given an opportunity to exercise my leadership skill in every group work for my current MBA program, especially team working including motivating and delegating task for each member. However, I still need to develop my time management skill. I learned a lot from my classmates about the importance of this time management.

The fact that changing is inevitable is another important thing that leaders should realise. Therefore, great leaders should not only accept change, but also create change. It might not be an easy journey to create change because most people might resist to the change as I have stated in my previous blog, One Small Step To Lead: Be a Change Agent, but leaders should remind themselves that without changing, it is hard to survive in the changing world.

As I stated in my previous blog, Ethical Leadership: One Way for Competitive Advantage, without ethical behaviour, their great capabilities could lead them to wrong path. Therefore, a finishing touch for a great leader is demonstrating ethical behaviour. Leaders are role models for its followers. If they behave unethical, the followers will follow the same behaviour or at least are forced to act the same due to peer pressure.

Leaders should also lead without arrogance. Imagine if you are led by arrogant leaders. How do you feel? Do you want to be led by those leaders? Do you even feel comfortable working with them? Instead, they must be charismatic to build rapport and make people trust them.

The Challenges and My Personal Experience  

As a leader, it is not easy to influence people to follow you. I personally learned from writing this blog and influence people to give their valuable comments on my blog. Honestly, it is not that easy. Not all the people that I share the blog link will provide their comment. I think half of them did not even bother to read it. However, giving up is never a solution. How you influence and persuade others to follow and comment on your blog and not giving up is the key to overcome this challenge. Let’s look at this useful video.

The video First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy by Derek Sivers showed us that it takes courage to be different. The question is do you dare to be one? The dancing guy looks very ridiculous at first. However, by gaining more and more followers, the remaining people who do not dance at the end are the weird ones. Yet, it is not easy for him to gain followers. What he did is doing dancing movement repeatedly which looks like instruction for the followers. Only by providing clear instruction, leaders can gain followers. No one will want to follow a leader who is unable to provide clear instruction because people will not understand what and how to do the task.

Another challenge is different culture which requires different leadership style. For example, in Indonesia, where most people are more likely in theory X assumption, leaders should adopt authoritarian leadership style rather than participative leadership style. To avoid conflict, leaders should adopt different leadership style in different circumstances.

             

This is my preference style of leadership, What about your preference leadership style?

 

References:

Hersey, P. and Blanchard, K.H. (1993) Management of Organizational Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources. 6^th ed. London: Prentice-Hall

McGregor, D. (1960) The Human Side of Enterprise. New York: McGraw-Hill

Mullins, L.J. (2013) Management & Organisational Behaviour. 10^th ed. Harlow: Pearson

Prewitt, M. (2007) ‘The Situational Leader’ PwC Strategy& Inc [online] 11 September 2007. available from <http://www.strategy-business.com/article/li00042?pg=all&gt; [6 July 2014]

Tuckman, B. W. and Jensen, M. A. C. (1977) ‘Stages of Small-Group Development Revisited’ ABI/INFORM Global [online] 2 (4), 419. available from <http://www.freewebs.com/group-management/BruceTuckman(1).pdf> [6 July 2014]

Ethical Leadership: One Way for Competitive Advantage?

It has been proven that ethical leader behaviour can improve effectiveness of both individual and organisation (Rubin, Dierdorff and Brown 2010). What is ethical leadership? How do you measure whether your action or behaviour is ethical or unethical? How important is this type of leadership for the individual and organisation? What are the steps to develop this ethical leadership? Are there any challenges that you will face along the developing phases?  

Ethical Leadership

Ethical leadership is a type of leadership which considers good and bad, or right and wrong for every action that the leaders wish to demonstrate by themselves and their followers (Mullins 2013), while Yukl (2010) defines ethical leadership as consistency between espoused, what they say they will do with sets of justifiable moral principles, and their actual behaviour. Moreover, Rubin, Dierdorff and Brown (2010) summarise that ethical leadership is an expected standard behaviour through observable personal and interpersonal action as well as the promotion of such conduct to followers through two way communication and consistently role modelling this behaviour.

How Ethical is Ethic?

When we are saying ethical is to do with good and bad or right and wrong, how far can you justify that a person is doing unethical behaviour? There are two major ethics theories that can be used to justify this moral issue, one is deontological and another falls under teleological principle (Macdonald and Beck-Dudley 1994). So, what are the differences between these two theories? 

For further understanding about the two different approaches, let’s take a look at this video.

The video Deontology vs. Utilitarianism by Jason Miller describes a situation where a father is faced in a moral dilemma, whether to steal the highly expensive drug for his son who is diagnosed having a deadly illness or not stealing it and waiting for his son to be buried in coffin. This circumstance can be a really good example for explaining the differences between deontology and teleology. In the view of deontology, his father should not steal the drug because his action will be considered unethical. However, teleological approach suggests that he should steal the drug because otherwise the consequence or the result if he didn’t do it, his son will die and it will not give any benefits to either him or his son. Can you see the difference now? In the same situation, one approach considered the behaviour as unethical, while the other justified it as ethical. The problem between those two approaches is they do not consider combining the two which I believe will work better. People should consider the morality of their action and the outcomes of its behaviour prior to deciding to do it. These two approaches give moral reasoning to justify the behaviour. However, without the character or motives to do the right thing, knowing how to do the right thing is useless.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow 1943) should also be considered when discussing about morality.

From my previous blog, Let’s Dive in Diversity, I have clearly explained that different people might have different motivation. This different motivation often occurs due to different human needs. People who are still belongs to physiological level tend to not consider morality of its action because what motivates them to do the action is survival. By contrast, people who have already gone through all levels and reach self-actualisation phase will more likely think about morality of their action because they have already fulfilled all of their basic and other needs.

The Importance and Benefits of Ethical Leadership

Looking back at Enron scandal raised the issue of the importance of ethical leadership and morality (Johnson 2003). Enron and its audit firms, Arthur Andersen case has proven to us that a great capability of company will lead the company to an end with the absence of ethics or morality. In their case, Enron as the company has lied to the public, customers, employees and all other stakeholders by establishing Special Purpose Entity (SPE) which later on found out and costs a great loss to the company and its stakeholders. Moreover, Arthur Andersen also found guilty by shredding documents relating to the failure of Enron (BBC News 2002).

Leaders who foster ethics and morality within the company and team can actually benefit themselves, their team and organisation in the end. People will trust companies and leaders who demonstrate ethics while doing their business. This trust will lead to employee and team commitment. Sometimes, unethical behaviour becomes pressures for employee. Therefore, organisational ethical climate is necessary to release this pressure and the employees could shift their mind to find ways to contribute to the company instead of thinking the whole time whether they should do unethical behaviour or not. Studies shows that employees increasingly demand to work for company that aligns with their personal values and moral (Forbes 2013).

Companies also use Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to market their ethical behaviour to community which brings competitive advantage for the company. For instance, Ford Motor Company which is listed as one of the world’s most ethical companies in 2014 (Ethisphere 2014), has a strong code of conduct and its CSR emphasised on employee well-being, community involvement and sustainability in terms of financial, environmental and social which then lead the company to be one of the world’s top automobile companies (Daniels Fund Ethics Initiatives 2014).          

Developing Ethical Leadership and The Challenges

To become an ethical leader who demonstrates ethical leadership, you must have the basic character of leader which I discussed in Are All Managers Great Leaders? and this following characteristic (Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics 2006). First, you need to articulate and live the purpose and values of the organisation. So many leaders have failed to keep promises that they pledge upon their election as seen in my home country, Indonesia. Therefore, you can only be considered ethical leader if you not only tell nice ethic story, but also commit on doing it. Ethical leaders should also put the organisational success over their own interest. They also need to find the best people and develop them. Finding the best people here involves taking ethics and character into consideration in the recruitment process.

Ethical leadership can also be improved by continuously sharing about ethics and creation of values for stakeholders. Ethical leaders should create mechanisms of dissent where they allow the employees to refuse to do the given task if it is out of line and unethical. Understanding others’ values is also crucial to develop ethical leadership. Without acknowledging that different people will make different choices based on what they believe and value, a leader would not be considered as demonstrating ethical leadership.

As I discussed in my previous blog, One Small Step To Lead: Be a Change Agent, change is not an easy task, especially if most people are resistance to it. Leaders who have usually been conducting unethical behaviour will most likely resistance to promoting ethical leadership. This is one of the challenges in developing ethical leadership. Another challenge is sometimes the benefits of ethical behaviour do not cover the costs that the company has spent to do it. Most companies seek for profit, that is why for some companies ethical behaviour is considered a burden that will diminish the company’s profit.

             

Good leaders must realise that without ethical behaviour, their great capabilities could lead them to wrong path. Whenever you are faced with a moral dilemma, ask this question to yourself, Am I doing the right thing? If the answer is no, you may need to consider your decision once again.

 

References:

BBC News (2002) ‘Andersen Guilty in Enron Case’. [online] 15 June 2002. available from <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2047122.stm&gt; [2 July 2014]

Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics (2006) Developing Ethical Leadership [online] available from <http://www.corporate-ethics.org/pdf/ethical_leadership.pdf&gt; [2 July 2014]

Daniels Fund Ethics Initiatives (2014) Ford Motor Company Manages Ethics and Social Responsibility [online] available from <http://danielsethics.mgt.unm.edu/pdf/ford-motor-case.pdf&gt; [2 July 2014]

Ethisphere (2014) World’s Most Ethical Companies – Honorees [online] available from <http://ethisphere.com/worlds-most-ethical/wme-honorees/&gt; [2 July 2014]

Forbes (2013) The World’s Most Ethical Companies [online] available from <http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/03/06/the-worlds-most-ethical-companies-in-2013/&gt; [2 July 2014]

Johnson, C. (2003) ‘Enron’s Ethical Collapse: Lessons for Leadership Educators’ Journal of Leadership Education [online] 2 (1), 45-56. available from <http://www.leadershipeducators.org/Resources/Documents/jole/2003_summer/ JOLE_2_1_Johnson.pdf> [2 July 2014]

Macdonald, J.E. and Beck-Dudley, C.L. (1994) ‘Are Deontology and Teleology Mutually Exclusive?’ Journal of Business Ethics [online] 13 (8), 615-623. available from <http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25072568?uid=3738032&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104224964497&gt; [2 July 2014]

Maslow, A.H. (1943)‘A Theory of Human Motivation’ Psychological Review. 50, 370-396

Mullins, L.J. (2013) Management & Organisational Behaviour. 10^th ed. Harlow: Pearson

Rubin, R., Dierdorff, E. and Brown, M. (2010)‘Do Ethical Leaders Get Ahead? Exploring Ethical Leadership and Promotability’ Business Ethics Quarterly. 20 (2), 215-236

Yukl, G. (2010) Leadership in Organizations. 7^th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education

One Small Step To Lead: Be a Change Agent

When somebody told you “You should change….”, how did you react? Did you accept it in a positive way that encouraged you to do the change or resist it in any possible way? Why do people resist change? Why do people want to create change? Can change be managed? How can we manage change?

Resistance to Change

According to Mullins (2013), there are several common reasons for each individual resistance to change. First, most people have different selective perception in which they perceived things as It is, yet it is actually more a stereotype rather than the actual. For example, if people perceived that change is bad, they are more likely resistance to change. This different perception which I also discussed in my first blog Let’s Dive in Diversity, creates different response towards change.

Second, they used to their habit. Old patterns are very seductive because people are used to it. They prefer the comfort of their status quo, which commonly known as “comfort zone”. Therefore, it is hard for them to change their common behaviour into the new unfamiliar one. The next reason is inconvenience or loss of freedom. If the change makes people to be uncomfortable and inconvenient or even makes them feel losing their freedom, people will more likely resist to it. Economic implications is also another cause for people resistance to change. People perceived that every change will bring a negative impact on their economy, such as reducing either directly or indirectly their pay and other rewards or demanding for an increasing productivity in the same salary. Some people also tend to find a sense of security in the past. When people face difficulty with new unfamiliar procedures, they tend to reflect on the past and wish to retain the old methods which in turns lead to the behaviour of resistance. Finally, the most common reason on why people resist to change is fear of the unknown. For instance, imagine that you are on your way for crossing the bridge, however you realise that the bridge is covered with fog. Naturally, most people will resist to cross the bridge right away because they are afraid of the uncertainty that awaits them across or on the bridge. They will then continue their journey when the path is clear for them. This case can also be applied when people are subject to accept the change. The change that confronts people with the unknown and uncertainty might cause anxiety and fear which then results in their resistance to change.

Benefits of Change

Although there are some people who are resistance to change, there are others who believe that change will bring a lot of benefits. These people accept changes and sometimes they want to create changes which I believe as one attitude that a leader should have as I have also mentioned in my previous blog Are All Managers Great Leaders?. So, what are the drivers that trigger changes? The drivers of change can be either from external forces such as new government regulation that forces the organisation to meet the new requirement or from internal forces, like for example the decreasing of profitability or sales that requires a review on strategy. However, I believe that the most important factor which drives change is competition. In this globalisation and digital era where the technology is more advanced and the market is open all over the world, competition is inevitable. To survive in this highly competitive world, people and organisation should be able to deliver a competitive advantage in which change is required. If you can see from the picture, how change has been created from a traditional phone into a mobile smartphone. If you are a company that sells telephone, would you consider selling the traditional black phone in current market? Will you still produce the traditional phone? Or have you just realised that there is urgency to change to meet the need of changing market?

In addition to the drivers of change, people and organisation might actually get benefits from change. Growth is one that I can mention. If you stay in your status quo, it will only be a matter of time until you face a stagnant condition. That is why you need to change in order to grow and learn new things. Take for example Sir Richard Branson, a co-founder of Virgin Group who embraces change and turns the company into a global conglomeration. His risky decision to go into unrelated business diversification from only selling music records in 1970 to offer sectors ranging from mobile telephony, travel, financial services, music, leisure, holidays and health has been proven to a successful growth of the company (Johnson, Whittington and Scholes 2011, Virgin 2014). Another benefit you can obtain from change is opportunities. One will never know what each change will bring. When you turn from your usual path, there will be plenty of different opportunities waiting for you.

For instance, Steve Jobs, a co-founder of Apple who was widely-known for its revolutionary technologies in laptop, tablet and handsets (Bio 2014), had embraced change. If he was resistance to change, iPhone will probably not exist in this world. It means that change can give opportunities and rooms for innovation and creativity. Change can also bring flexibility to you. Someone who is highly resistance to change tend to be strict and less flexible to any different cases. For example, in my previous job as a member of Internal Audit Department, we were required to be flexible in handling different people and situation. One of our tasks is to provide the audit report and recommendation. If we think that our policy and procedure is perfect and does not need to be changed, we perhaps will miss some loopholes and could not provide guidance to solve certain cases.

We can also see a new beginning because each change is a turning page. It is about closing one chapter and opening a new one. One other thing that I personally believe is that change can bring motivation for some people. For people who are easily get bored with the routine that they face every single day, change could re-motivate them once again.

Managing Change

I have seen how uneasy people if confronted by change in my previous job. They are very defensive and resist in any possible way to our new proposed procedures. However, I believe that change can be managed. It is supported by Lewin who introduced three steps in a planned-changed effort (Mullins 2013), despite of its limitation in assuming that organisations operate under stable conditions (Burnes 2014).

The first step in Lewin’s transformational model is unfreezing, where the old pattern or status quo needs to be examined, increase the driving forces for change and decrease the resisting forces that against. In order to motivate people to change in this stage, it is necessary to overcome resistance. There are several strategies to overcome resistance. You can educate them regarding the change by giving them briefing, seminar or training. You can also communicate the purpose and the benefits of change with them. Another action you can take is making them participate and feel being involved so that they will experience that the change is actually not that hard. Give them support and assistance if they have questions regarding the change. You can also negotiate with them to reach an agreement about the change. The next step is changing, where we need to identify what needs to be changed, implement the change and involve people. The last step is refreezing to make the changes permanent.

Another model that we can use to manage change is Kotter’s eight steps to transforming organisation (Kotter 2007). It begins with creating a sense of urgency to change as also suggested by Lewin’s model. The second step is building a guiding team with the credibility, skills, connection, reputation and formal authority to lead change. In this step, find a change agent, someone who can sell and promote the idea of the change.

The next one is create a sensible and clear vision with appropriate sets of strategies and communicate them in order to induce understanding and gain people commitment. Remember the case of crossing a foggy bridge I mentioned earlier, most people will cross the bridge after the path is clear. Therefore, communicating the clear vision, strategy and purpose of change is very crucial to the successful of change itself. After that, you need to empower others to act on the visionwhere it might be necessary to get rid of obstacles to change.

Producing short-term wins where you are recognising and rewarding people involved in the improvements or change process is the next step prior to consolidating improvements and producing more change. After you make the change, it is important to make the change stick by maintaining a new procedure or culture. However, according to Appelbaum et al. (2012), this model has a limitation in which some transformations do not require nor are able to go through certain steps. Therefore, certain steps might not be applicable in particular transformations. Yet, you still need to remember that whatever model you choose to manage your change, change is a process, it takes time and it is not instant. Hence, you can be considered successful in change only after the change remains there.

   

It takes a small step to lead you to a bigger one. So, why don’t you try one? Be a change agent at least for yourself or for your small team.

 

References:

Appelbaum, S.H., Habashy, S., Malo, J.L. and Shafiq, H. (2012) ‘Back to the Future: Revisiting Kotter’s 1996 Change Model’ Journal of Management Development [online] 31 (8), 764-782. available from <http://www.appelbaumconsultants.com/articles/2011-/BacktotheFutureRevisitingKottersChangeModel.pdf&gt; [24 June 2014]

Bio (2014) Steve Jobs Biography [online] available from <http://www.biography.com/people/steve-jobs-9354805#awesm=~oI7NBPUMAO0SXf&gt; [24 June 2014]

Burnes, B. (2014) Managing Change. 6^th ed. Harlow: Pearson

Johnson, G., Whittington, R. and Scholes, K. (2011) Exploring Strategy. 9^th ed. Essex: Pearson Education

Kotter, J.P. (2007) ‘Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail’ Harvard Business Review [online] January 2007. available from <https://www.bestprincipledsolutions.com/uploads/2011_ClassicsCompendium_ Must_Read_Articles_for_Managerial_Success_.pdf#page=127> [24 June 2014]

Mullins, L.J. (2013) Management & Organisational Behaviour. 10^th ed. Harlow: Pearson

Virgin (2014) About Us [online] available from <https://www.virgin.com/about-us&gt; [24 June 2014]

Are All Managers Great Leaders?

There have been endless debates around definitions and distinctions between leadership and management (Mullins 2013, Burgoyne, Hirsh and Williams 2004, Kent 2005, Kotter 1990), however are they really different? Are they separable? Which one is more effective approach to ensure success of the team? How can we manage to adopt the two approaches appropriately?

Management Vs. Leadership

How do we define management and leadership? Management is getting work done through the efforts of other people (Mullins 2013), while leadership is the process of influencing others to share the same understanding and agreement on what exactly that needs to be done or our objectives and the strategy to get there as well as to facilitate individual and collective efforts in order to accomplish them (Yukl 2010). What conclusion can we draw from this definition? In management, managers tend to adopt passive attitudes and are less likely to involve in the process. In contrast, leaders in leadership place themselves as part of the team where they actively influence others to go through the process together to achieve their shared objectives. Furthermore, Kent (2005) summarise the differences between management and leadership. 

I found the last part is very interesting. The argument of managing creates stability is aligned with five elements of management by Fayol (1949), which are planning, organising, command, co-ordination and control. With all five elements in place, the process of managing is complete and can create stability because the process is well-organised and there will be a monitoring procedure to ensure that the process is going as expected. As for leading creates change, it supports Yukl (2010) argument that another key to effective leadership orientation beside task and relation is change. Therefore, leaders should dare to create change if necessary and not resistance to change.

In addition to discuss more about the differences between management and leadership, Waterman, Peters and Phillips (1980) introduced 7S organisational framework, which later on known as 7S McKinsey Framework. This framework basically divides seven interdependent factors into two categorize, hard elements and soft elements.

Strategy, structure and systems are considered hard elements because it is easier to identify and management can directly control them. On the other hand, shared values, skills, style and staff are categorised as soft elements because they can be more difficult to describe and are less tangible which leadership then needs to take place to utilise them.However, this model also has its limitations. According to Financial Times (2007), there is little empirical support for the model and it is difficult for analyst to explain what should be done for implementation using the model.

The Similarities between Management and Leadership

We have already seen some of the arguments regarding the differences between management and leadership. Now, let’s move to their similarities. I believe if there is difference, there should be similarity somewhere. For example, let’s assume that the orange in the picture is a manager and the apple is a leader. Well, they look different, they taste different but they are still under the same fruits category. This analogy can also work in the relationship of management and leadership.

First, both management and leadership need other people.Managers need to manage tasks that conducted by people and leaders must have followers if they want to be called as leaders.

Second, they still work towards achieving the same ultimate goals (Zhao and Xu 2012). Even if the process to achieve the goal is different, the objective for both approaches is still indifferent. Next, both managers and leaders must have certain skills and abilities. In order to manage people, managers must be seen as capable. The same goes to leaders, how can you influence others if you could not build rapport and make people give their trusts to you? Last but not least, management is leadership by function and leadership is leadership by personality (Mullins 2013). Managers have the authority to direct work and people behaviour to achieve the objectives, while leaders have the power to influence behaviour. I personally support the idea that the management and leadership are actually under leadership category but in different approaches. Perhaps, the debate still continued to occur because it is a matter of different perception and sometimes not all managers have leadership skills and personality.

Bringing The Two Together: A Better Approach?

Mintzberg (2011) does not accept the distinguishing between manager and leader as he posed the questions how would you like to be managed by someone who doesn’t lead? Why would you want to be led by someone who doesn’t manage? This is also supported by Zhao and Xu (2012), who suggest management and leadership are inseparable. But how exactly can we adopt the two approaches together in appropriate manner? What skills do we need to become a good manager and a great leader? First, let’s look at this interesting video.

The video Transitioning from Manager or Co-worker to Leader tells us that to be a good manager, you need to successfully manage the tasks. However, to become a great leader, you have to manage your people. If you want to become both, you simply need to manage the tasks and your people. It is easy to say, yet it is harder when it comes to implementation.

There are certain soft skills to become a good manager and leader assuming that you have already meeting all the hard skills or standard qualifications as a manager. Firstly, you must follow five functions of management as suggested by Henri Fayol, which means you have to be good at planning and budgeting, organising tasks, giving orders, coordination between other departments and within your department and monitoring whether the tasks are conducted in the right order and achieve the objectives. Secondly, as I stated in my previous blog Let’s Dive in Diversity, people might have different motivation. Therefore, how to motivate and inspire people is a necessary skill for a leader which is also discussed in the video. Leaders should understand that they need different ways to motivate different people as for instance, one person might be feeling motivated by money in which bonus scheme will work for this person and not for others who will feel more motivated by recognition or working conditions. Leaders should also learn how to give feedback so that the person who you give feedback to will feel positive about making the change. Another important skill for a leader is learning to trust others by delegating tasks. Sometimes, people are afraid to delegate tasks due to their lack of trust for others. They are afraid that the task will not be done or even if it is done, it is not done properly. As leaders, you need to avoid this thought. Only by giving them autonomy to handle something, those people will feel the sense of responsibilities and involvement in the team.

There is also a leadership style which I considered as combining management and leadership together, which is situational leadership style, a style in which the leader use different approaches in relation to the readiness of the people that the leader needs to influence which measured by their ability and willingness to complete a task (Hersey and Blanchard 1993). This leadership style supports Chartered Management Institute point of view which argued that the best approaches between management and leadership style will vary according to circumstances and characteristic of each individual (CMI 2013). This style also suggests that leaders could not survive in managing their team with one single leadership style because they may face different situation or condition. For example, if the person is not able to do the task but has high commitment, perhaps the leaders need to conduct telling leadership style, in which they will provide specific instructions to the person and closely supervise the performance. This leadership style I believe emphasise more on command and control in management approach. In other situation where the person who is given a task is highly competence and has high commitment, the leader may adopt delegating leadership style.

The theory will only be theory without real life and practical examples. Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft, with his proven skills as a great manager and also a great leader lead him to become the richest man in the world (Forbes 2014). So, who says that a manager could not be a good leader? It is true that not all managers can be great leaders, and not all leaders can be good in managing tasks. Yet, it is not impossible to bring the two together into one person. And with Bill Gates as an example, you can imagine how incredible the power of this merger is. Who knows that someday, if you possess all the skills for great managers and leaders, you will become a billionaire following the footsteps of Bill Gates. I also had the opportunity to meet one example of a person who I would say not only a good manager, but also a good leader in my previous job as an audit analyst. My head of internal audit who is also my direct supervisor has given me a different perception about manager and leader. At the beginning, I thought it is impossible to bring the two together. However, he can do all the management function without sacrificing his role as a leader. He can plan, organise, give order, coordinate and control the tasks very well and also at the same time influence, inspire, motivate, give feedback, delegate the task and give credit as appropriate to his subordinate.

My manager is also a great leader. Are yours too? If not, I think it’s time to look for another job.

 

References:

Burgoyne, J., Hirsh, W. and Williams, S. (2004) The Development of Management and Leadership Capability and its Contribution to Performance: The Evidence, The Prospects and The Research Need [online] Research Report No 560. Lancaster University. available from <http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/ http://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/RR560.pdf&gt; [19 June 2014]

CMI (2013) Understanding Management Styles Checklist 236. London: Chartered Management Institute

Fayol, H. (1949) General and Industrial Management. London: Pitman

Financial Times (2007) McKinsey 7S [online] available from <http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/imprint_downloads/ ftpress/bookreg/9780131873667/Ch12.pdf> [19 June 2014]

Forbes (2014) The World’s Billionaires [online] available from <http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#tab:overall&gt; [19 June 2014]

Hersey, P. and Blanchard, K.H. (1993) Management of Organizational Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources. 6^th ed. London: Prentice-Hall

Kent, T.W. (2005) ‘Leading and Managing: It Takes Two to Tango’ Management Decision. 43 (7/8), 1010-1017

Kotter, J.P. (1990) A Force for Change: How Leadership Differs from Management. New York: The Free Press

Mintzberg, H. (2011) Managing. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall

Mullins, L.J. (2013) Management & Organisational Behaviour. 10^th ed. Harlow: Pearson

Waterman, R.H., Peters, T.J. and Phillips, J.R. (1980) ‘Structure is not Organization’ Business Horizons [online] 23 (3), 14-26. available from <http://tompeters.com/docs/Structure_Is_Not_Organization.pdf&gt; [19 June 2014]

Yukl, G. (2010) Leadership in Organizations. 7^th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education

Zhao, Y. and Xu, W. (2012) ‘Discussion on Management and Leadership Similarities and Differences’ International Conference on Education Technology and Management Engineering [online] 16-17. available from <http://www.ier-institute.org/2070-1918/lnit17/v17/380.pdf&gt; [19 June 2014]

Let’s Dive in Diversity

Some people argue that diverse teams deliver better performance (Thomson Reuters 2014, Deloitte 2011, McKinsey & Company 2012), while others believe that working with homogeneous members allows the team to coordinate well that will lead to optimal results (Mannix and Neale 2005, McCain et al. 1983). Both arguments need to be considered carefully. What does exactly this diversity mean? How does this diversity occur? What are the challenges that diverse team will face? How does diversity benefit the team’s performance? What is the role of the leader in diverse team?

Diversity

Diversity here means difference not only limited to race and gender, but also culture, experience, style, generation, discipline, religion, social status, motivation, intelligence, abilities, perception and even personality. Every human was born with one unique identity that differ them from others,  even for twins that look exactly the same may have different personalities.

Culture plays important roles in shaping people behaviour and personality. Despite of its limitations on bringing potential for stereotyping and the simplicity of model that may not truly accommodates the complexity of culture (Hanna 2005), Hofstede’s 6 cultural dimensions can still be used properly as a tool to compare the cultures and values between countries (Hofstede 2014).

       

Culture in one country will be different from other countries. For example, according to Hofstede survey, Indonesia as my home country scored 78 out of 100 in terms of power distance which is much higher than United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US) whose scores only 35 and 40 respectively. This suggests that there are more unequal rights between power holders and non-power holders, the rich is very rich while the poor is very poor and power is more centralised in Indonesia. The significant difference is also seen in individualism vs. collectivism scores between the three countries. Indonesia scored very low (14 out of 100), while UK and US produce contrast results which are 89 and 91 respectively. What do these numbers tell you? They indicate that most people in Indonesia are more concerned about their society where they are living in instead of their individual interests, while people in UK and US who perceived liberty and justice for all people are more individualistic. I need to remind you once again that this is a generalisation which perhaps leads to a stereotyping for certain individuals that might not applicable to them. However, these differences in culture may bring different behaviour and personality. For instance, most employees in Indonesia will more likely expect to be told what to do by their managers due to high gap in power. However, their relationship between their colleagues might be stronger than employees in UK and US because they will go for gathering together outside the work.

The Challenges

Perhaps you also realise by now that this cultural differences will be a challenge for diverse team. Imagine that employees from Indonesia which tends to help each other due to their collectivism culture needs to work with US employees who think about their individual success, what is the team going to be? A catastrophe I bet. Indonesian will think that US are so mean that they do not want to help them, while American will think that Indonesian are not capable to do the job. Another example for cultural differences that can bring an obstacle for diverse team is different perception of time which could not be clearly explained by the simplicity of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions model. People in India perceived time in a polychronic manner where the meeting time is flexible, while British who values time think the time is fixed in monochronic. It means when Indian scheduled a meeting at 10 am in the morning, they may come at 11 and think of it as common and not consider it as late, however British who are already waiting for the meeting at exactly 10 am will consider it rude.

I also have experienced the difficulty in diverse team while pursuing my Master of Business Administration at CULC. As the only one student from Indonesia in my class that consists of people from multicultural backgrounds such as India, Nigeria, Thailand, Belgium, China and Pakistan, I found it hard at the beginning to communicate with these people due to our different language level of understanding. I also confront challenges in my previous job as an audit analyst where I need to get in touch with other people from other departments that sometimes come from different disciplines which have different perception regarding the importance of information system and lead to a poor coordination. At home, I also find out that talking and understanding people from different generation is not easy. Elder people sometimes have different perceptions for certain things and more experiences than us and they will more likely to teach and guide us, but younger generation most of the times do not agree with them and conflict is inevitable.

Benefit of Diversity

Although diverse team confront many challenges where coordination is weak and conflict is more likely to happen (Mannix and Neale 2005, McCain et al. 1983), it is not impossible to develop better performance with diverse team as evidenced by Thomson Reuters (2014). According to Thomson Reuters (2014), gender diversity increased sales revenue for approximately $599.1 million, diversity can increase economic performance by as much as 2.2 times for profitability and 2 times stock valuation, companies with the highest rate of racial diversity brought in nearly 15 times more sales revenue than those in the lowest level, companies that embrace diversity have higher customer loyalty and companies that rank in the top quartile of executive-board diversity outperform those at the bottom by more than 53% in return of equity. Leading company such as JP Morgan Chase that embraces diversity and has two women executives and two women in Board’s members ranked in a second place according to S&P ratings in 2012 (Calvert Investments 2013) in which at the same time they also ranked number 4 for the world’s biggest companies in terms of its sales, profits, assets and market value (Forbes 2012). The evidence is clear that diverse team can bring competitive advantage to the company. Diverse team also brings more sustainable innovation and creativity because different ideas might be generated from different people.

Role of Leader

Role of leader in diverse team is highly required to ensure that the team works effectively. Leaders should be able to give clear direction to its team so that they understand what the team needs to achieve. They also need to utilise the power of diversity in creating innovation and creativity while at the same time shift the potential conflict into collaboration. As leaders, they need to acknowledge that there are differences between people and they need to respect those differences and bring the best out of them. Moreover, they need to understand that each person might have different motivation, therefore there is a need of effective communication with their team in order to gain broader picture of what motivates them. Only after gaining these information regarding their differences and motivation, the leaders can then decide the right tasks to be delegated to each members of the team and provide appropriate rewards or incentives for each individual. Leaders are also role models for their subordinates. Therefore, they have to show them their best attitudes towards diversity, respecting each person culture, ideas and perception. Most importantly, leaders should never judge their team members by their cultural stereotype.

You want to be a leader in diverse team? Then, stop judging a person by its cover!

References:

Calvert Investments (2013) Examining the Cracks in the Ceiling: A Survey of Corporate Diversity Practices of the S&P 100 – March 2013 [online] available from <http://www.calvert.com/nrc/literature/documents/BR10063.pdf&gt; [15 June 2014]

Deloitte (2011) Only Skin Deep? Re-examining the Business Case for Diversity [online] available from <http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-Australia/Local%20Assets/Documents/Services/Consulting/ Human%20Capital/Diversity/Deloitte_Only_skin_deep_12_September_2011.pdf> [15 June 2014]

Forbes (2012) The World’s Biggest Companies [online] available from <http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottdecarlo/2012/04/18/the-worlds-biggest-companies/&gt; [15 June 2014]

Hanna, M.E. (2005) Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions: The Basics and The Criticisms [online] MS. Applied Psychology Thesis. Clemson University. available from <http://ioresearch.net/file_download/29&gt; [15 June 2014]

Hofstede (2014) National Culture Dimensions [online] available from <http://geert-hofstede.com/dimensions.html&gt; [15 June 2014]

Mannix, E. and Neale, M.A. (2005) ‘What Differences Make a Difference? The Promise and Reality of Diverse Teams in Organizations’ Psychological Science in the Public Interest [online] 6 (2), 31-55. available from <http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40062326?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104149880387&gt; [15 June 2014]

McCain et al. (1983) ‘The Effects of Departmental Demography on Turnover: The Case of a University’ The Academy of Management Journal. 26, 626-641

McKinsey & Company (2012) Women Matter: An Asian Perspective [online] available from <http://www.mckinsey.com/search.aspx?q=women+matter%3A+an+asian+perspective&gt; [15 June 2014]

Thomson Reuters (2014) The Power of Us: Our Diversity and Inclusion Commitment [online] available from <http://thomsonreuters.com/corporate/about-us/diversity-inclusion/power-of-us-2014.pdf&gt; [15 June 2014]

There is nothin…

There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction (Winston Churchill)