Leadership theories and models

Task 1:

Definition of leadership:

Leadership can be defined through different ways. But in simple, leadership is the process of motivating or influencing the group of people to do something or doing their work more effectively and efficiently. To be a leader, a person must have the ability to motivate or influence other people. In fact, leaders and followers use the leadership as a process of motivating and influencing others for gaining the objectives of an organization.

There exist more similarities between leadership and management in different sector such as: motivating or influencing people and these are done both by manager and also leader. The process of leadership and management are done with the people. The main purpose of leadership and management is to accomplish the goal effectively. There are many activities of management which are similar with the function of leadership. But some dissimilarity is existed between leadership and management. A manager of British Airways should have the ability to lead to other that means he should has the skill of leadership because as a manager he plays the role of managerial and also leader. But the leader doesn’t need to play the role of manager.

Leadership theories and models:

There are lots of theories regarding the leadership. Such as: trait theories, contingency theory, behavioural theory, participative theory, situational theories. These theories are described below:

Behavioural approach:

In case of behavioural leadership, the Ohio State Studies uses the questionnaire on leadership behaviour and conduct a sample survey through this questionnaire on different school, manufacturing companies or leaders of students. After completing the survey, the studies of Ohio State get the two different views of leadership which identifies the roles and responsibilities of leaders. These two aspects are: the leadership behaviour which is task oriented and another one is consideration. First one that is task oriented behaviour mainly consist the activities of directing, monitoring and designing the employees work and the consideration implies the leaders behaviour or concern towards their welfare, help them and monitoring their task accomplishment.

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Int-Loc/Leadership-Theories-and-Studies.html

There is another study which is done on leadership behaviour that is Michigan study. This study mainly focuses on the methods and processes of leadership which is indicated to the subordinates’ performance and their satisfaction to the job. Simply, it can be said that this study is related to the productivity and the employee.

(http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Int-Loc/Leadership-Theories-and-Studies.html)

Contingency approach:

Contingency approach is also called situational approach. This approach is also concentrated on the team work and indicated to the activities of the leader to motivate his subordinates to work as a group and this group work or the leaders’ orientation on this is more effective. Contingency theories include Path goal, situational theory etc. and also the contingency theory of Fiedler.

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According to Fiedler contingency theory, the role of leader should be task- oriented in both the situation of favorable or unfavorable. But this theory was not clearly defined about the style of leadership. Path goal theory indicated to the performance of subordinate that is their experience, performance, their skills and ability etc. and to the working environment which is related to style of group work, authority system, quality of task etc.

Impact of leadership styles:

Two different styles of leadership:

There are various styles of leadership which are used in different situations within the organization and the examples of these styles of leadership are: autocratic leadership, bureaucratic leadership, charismatic, democratic or participative, laissez faire, task oriented and transactional leadership etc. Among these forms of leadership styles, here I make comparison among the autocratic and democratic leadership.

1. Autocratic leadership:

Transactional leadership with an extreme form is considered as the autocratic leadership where absolute power has been contained by the leaders to direct their worker or subordinates or team. Little opportunities are getting by the members of staff and team in order to suggestion making which is related with the best interest of the team or organization. It has been intended by many people to treat in this way of liking by them. Hence, the situations of high level absenteeism and the turnover of staff within the organization are leaded by the autocratic leadership. Therefore, effectiveness of this style of leadership is shown on the job of routine and unskilled work, the reason of which is that disadvantages can be outweighing by the control advantages.

2. Democratic leadership:

Though, final decisions are made by the democratic leaders where other team members are invited by them to make contribution towards the process of decision making. Job satisfaction is not merely increasing by this through the involvement of the members of team, but it also provides support to skills development of the people. The team members can control their destiny by themselves through which they get motivation for working hard by getting the financial reward. The reason of which is time is needed to make participation of the members of team and may be more time is needed but the better result can be come. The situation on when this approach is used, in the time of working on a team as required and when quality gets more priority rather than the market speed or the productivity of the workers.

Leadership Qualities:

Leadership skill is considered as the managerial skill which is used for the purpose of motivating the peoples of the group in order to achieve the common goal. In this competitive market, it is very much needed to contain the skill of leadership by the manager through which he or she can lead the organization effectively and efficiently. Leadership is mainly related with the capacity where leader contains the capacity to listen others’ opinion and observe the activities of employees. Not only is this, in the decision making areas, the skills very much needed for the manager of an organization. One more thing is that if the employees are not motivated to do their works then the business can’t be run and the manager with leadership skill can be greatly motivated to the employees of their works and try to give their best.

1. Forecasting and planning:

the leader should have clear vision in relation to the forecasting and make planning within the organization from the perspective of SMART objectives of achievable, measurable, specific, realistic, and time boundary.

2. Organizing:

leader should make the structure of the plan

several parts are made for the specific task so that it can be easily get understand by the employees and as well as can be easily accomplished

leader should determine the resources such as: the resources of human, monetary, technology and materials

make sure about the work of sensitivity and job security of the employees

3. Command

manager should have to distribute the task among the employees

manager should maintain the level of hierarchy within the organization and as well as reported this

controlling activities are taking by the manager for the purpose of leading the work force

4. Co-ordination

manager should unified and harmonised the activities of the organization and as well as organized these activities

the manager supervise the activities of the organization as coordinated and the activities and efforts are also harmonised and unified by the manager

manager should also provide the support to the organization and as well as the employees of the organization to do their job and motivate them

lead the organization and along with motivate the subordinates to give their best efforts on their job

Task 2:

For the purpose of describing the companies’ present status on the current condition of economy, after that, the significant changes which have been occurred since from the last five years within these organizations and positive or negative effect of the changes on these organizations, it should be needed to analyse the internal and external factors of the organizational changes where all these subject matter are explained.

Internal factors:

1. Technology infrastructure:

In order to exchanging the information, facilitating the system of communication and operating the business, internet plays the significant roles which can be included on current infrastructure of technology. British Airways, on this organization, rapid changes are happened on the technological sectors and as well more knowledge is demanded for ensuring effective management system within these organizations for the purpose of resources managing and along with developing these resources where competitive advantage is also maintained by the organization.

2. Change in leadership:

Services are restructuring by these organizations such as: British Airways for the purpose of fulfilling the customer demand. It seems to be very difficult to spend money by the organization for solving each and every problem and this matter is well known the top leader of the organizations. In relation to solve the problem, workers of highly committed and flexible are needed within the organization. For make adjustment with the recent changes of the organization, great support can be getting from the leader in order to change the attitude of the employees for the purpose of accepting or welcoming the new changes.

3.Change in Employees Morale and Motivation:

Employees’ morale and motivation are affected by making changes on leadership policies and practices in British Airways. It may also affect the productivity, production and profits of these organizations.

External factors:

For the purpose becoming successful in the current condition of the world, the organizations also should focus on the external environmental factors, along with the considerations are given toward the internal environment by the organizations. Resources and employees are included on the internal factors where external factors consist of political, economical, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors. Through describing these factors, it can be found out about the current conditions of the organization and the positive and negative effect of changes on the organizations.

Political factors:

In modern organizations such as: British Airways, there has the significant affects of the global politics. The activities of global politics for example: the incident of 9/11, Soviet Union collapse, Germany’s reunification, WTO policies, have significant effect on the British Airways’s business operation and the results of which may impede the development of the organization.

Economic factor:

British Airways, this organization handle the scarce resource allocation which is related with the economic system. The economic progress of the country is done by leaps and bounds as the phase of progress. In the flourishing stage of economy rising level of people’s standard of living may result to grow the business of British Airways.

Social factor:

Inspiration, outlook and activity are considered as the foundation of the progress of the society in relation to the human affairs. Therefore, customer actions which are related with the approach and activities of them keep contribution on affecting the business of British Airways. There are some factors for example: level of maturity, vocation type and along with activities of sparing time and these factors are considered as the basis of bringing changes on the attitude and approach of the customer which results the changes of growing the business of British Airways.

Technological factors:

Tremendous effect is brought by the technological factors in order to the operation of the business development of British Airways and their status and as well as their program of marketing. These incidences are directed towards the rapid movement of the new trends generation and if the organizations don’t know about these rapid movements of new trends then the growth and development of the business operation of the organization may impede. In British Airways, world class bid of this organization, management with cutting edge in order to the program of ethical auditing, a deal is signed by this organization with the management system of BSI in relation to the entropy software provision.

Environmental factors:

Natural gifts are included on the factors of environment which keep contribution on the change management of an organization where lands, water, air all are comprised. In fact, the movement of cost efficiency of British Airways result turned out the production progress of British Airways in order to affiliation alert where it has been showed that for the purpose of ensuring more earning, the organizations should also think about the environmental factors.

Legal factor:

Legal system is consisting of the rules and regulations which are considered as the framework on the basis of which the business of British Airways operate. The activities of promotion keep contribution towards the development of the nation’s administration policies for example: natural environment can be polluted through ventures put off by others.

Task 3:

Change management is considered as the approach of structuring and strategy in order to initiating and managing the process of change at the structure and culture of organization along with the behaviour and attitude of individuals or team to the transition of change at the business process field, implementation of technology, or the organizational policies. There has been shown the dramatically increment of the pace of change. The feature of operating environment is high dynamism and ever more complex as faced by the business and managers. At the todays market place, for the purpose of continuing the success and competent the leadership of change, change is going to make necessary requirement where it is mostly related with the executive leadership skill. The organizational environment within which the operation of the organization is conducted now becoming complex, turbulent and not certain. Therefore, the application of the proper form of changes in the requirement of the environmental challenges is applied for the long term sustainability of organizations. It also consists of the shifting of the organization’s perceptions and beliefs in relation to the employees, customers, competitors and products

Managing change is an important requirement for the success of strategy implementation that is also stated by Al-Abri (2007) who says that managing change controls the changes by plan, evaluation and implementation to make the changes worthy and relevant. But Dowson and Andriopoulos (2009) completely disagree with them because they say that managing change is the moving of new technologies and techniques to develop products and services so that organizations can compete in the market.

Sengupta et al (2006) covers most of all issues of managing change and they more or less agree with all except Dowson and Andriopoulos because they establish managing change is as a set of factors like psychological, social, personal and demographic that introduces resists, modifies, alters and accepts the changes gradually.

Task 4:

Change management has consisted a goal which is related with the aspect of human to overcome the change resistance for the member of organization to buy into change and achieve the goal of British Airways of the transformation as orderly and effectiveness. The change management of the British Airways is considered as the both process and tools which are used by the management in order to making changes at the level of organization. It has been expected by most organization to implement the change along with the least resistance and also the most buy- in. For the purpose of occurring this, structured approach is used to implement change so that smooth operation of the transition from the behaviour of one type to other organization widely.

Through following ways, the issues of change management can be dealt:

At majority of the cases, the first responsibility of the management of British Airways is to processes or behavior identifying which is not proficient and coming up with new behaviors, processes, etc which are considered as more effective inside the organization. there has been occurred the identification of one changes, it is required for the manager to impact estimating which they should determine for the organization and the employee as individual at many levels such as: technology, employee behavior, work processes, etc.

The main job of the management of British Airways is to provide supports to the workers of the organization by the changing process which is seemed to be very difficult. In addition, hard work is needed to adopt by the each and every individual and the whole organization in order to making modifications of necessary behavior.

Task 5:

The imposing or enforcing effective change is seemed to be impossible and very difficult. Unexpected results, inertia or best compliance as reluctant are leaded by the entire approach of top- down. Parish et al (2008) conducted the research which focuses towards the change antecedents for example: matching with vision, relationship quality of employee and manager, motivation to do the job, autonomy role, change commitment is influenced by all. Implementation success and improved performance have the great impact on the significant affective commitment in British Airways.

At functional change in British Airways, training and development is considered as the significant part of it. The significance of it may identified in terms of new skills, attitudes and behaviors as required but it has also the aim of giving staff understanding and empowering them to increase confidence of them by pursuing continuous improvement (Burnes, 2004, and Kotter, 1996). There is needed to establish the comprehensive program of training along with the placing of the system for evaluation and feedback. Therefore, training resistance and common problems for example: inability of transferring new skills of the workplace; is discussed by Rusaw (2000), which stemmed from the struggle among the domination and efforts of the organization to employee emancipation.