HOW LEADERSHIP SKILLS AFFECT SUCCESS OF AN ORGANIZATION
Name
Course
University of affiliation
“Success of any organization depends upon leadership skill in the organisation”.
In line with this statement briefly discuss the role of leadership in the success story of any organization of your choice. With an example, critically analyze the leadership style which is suitable for the smooth decision making and effectively resolving business issues.
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other” John F. Kennedy. This is because a good leaner must learn for them to grow. Leaders have the mandate to influence, lead teams and individuals towards achieving a certain goal. For a business to be successful, the leaders should have certain virtues to help them succeed (Iqbal, 2011). Some qualities of a good leader include; empathy, integrity, resilience, humility, positivity and accountability. A leader with all these qualities is likely to help the business grow.
To begin with, leaders provide a vision to the company. Leaders are the ones who set goals in a business and assign employees individual roles to help in the success of a business. By assigning individuals goals, they are able to focus on more and perform well. Also, leaders establish the communication channels and organizational structure. This helps the employees to understand the chain of command for effective communication (Iqbal, 2011).. Leaders also develop communication protocols such as emails, memos or one on one communication for efficient information conveyance.
In addition, good leaders are good role models, they listen to their employees and clients, treat all e employees equally and make important decisions in the company. Besides, leaders inspire and motivate their juniors. They ensure that information is relayed on time, ensure training is done well and give timely feedback on performance of employees. Leaders also have the responsibility of delegating individuals and empowering them (Allen,2011). Finally, leaders should be good time keepers. They should balance between time for solving complains and developing the company.
Leadership skills determine the success of any business. To demonstrate this, I will describe IBM and AOL companies and the different personalities who took over the companies and their leadership styles. AOL was formed by two CEOs, Steve Case and Jerry Levin. both had a lot in common, they intimidated people with their wits. They did not listen to their junior’s complaints and could take credit of what others had done. They fired employees who criticized them (Kaufeld, 2004). Instead of the two CEOs working towards the growth of the company, the two scrambled for the available resources for their own benefit. After a long period of poor performance, AOL hired Richard Parsons as the new CEO to fix the company. Levin was supposed to step down but he couldn’t because could not want someone to be given credit for reviving AOL (Dweck, 2006). In 2002, the company ended with a loss of almost one hundred billion dollars. Case was also requested to resign but he refused and vowed to revenge against those who turned against him (Kaufeld, 2004).
The above leaders demonstrated poor leadership which led to failure of a big company. The two were non listeners, selfish and concentrated more on their status. They lacked managerial and leadership skills. They avoided critics by firing employees who questioned their leadership style. They did not appreciate or reward their employees instead they took credit of their juniors. The two leaders show how poor leadership can harm a company that was once stable to be unstable.
On the contrary, is the IBM company. IBM is an American corporation that deals with technology and consultation of business machines. The company was in real trouble and the directors requested Lou Gerstner to be the new CEO which he rejected at first but later accepted. For starters, Lou started by opening up communication channels up and down the company (Dweck, 2006). After some few months, Lou had visited almost all offices and operations of IBM and talked with the employees how they would strengthen the company. He even dedicated his book to the employees and called them “the IBMers who never gave up ion their company. They are real heroes of invention” (Dweck, 2006). Lou was against elitism and considered it as a way to show personal status rather than helping the company. He also encouraged teamwork. he stopped rewarding personal achievements and rewarded team achievements. He eliminated divisions within the company whereby employees were putting each other down. He encouraged clients to win businesses for themselves. Lou also focused more on customers as IBM had forgotten its customers and they even complained that IBM was not helping them to integrate their systems. Gerstner reduced the computer prices as a way of backing up customers. After three months, an audit was done and Lou had not done anything to the company. He did not lose hope, he was focused to reviving IBM from its near-death experience. When he gave back IBM in 2002 to the owners in 2002, the stock had increased by over eight hundred percent. IBM was live again and was the best company in the world offering information technology services (Allen, 2011).
From Lou’s leadership, “Success of any organization depends upon leadership skill in the organization”. Lou showed good leadership skills such as team building, motivating his employees, rewarding work well done, he concentrated on customer needs and preferences and also set up good communication protocols to enable easier communication within an organization. His leadership skills enabled IBM to revive. He put the company’s interest before his own and all he wanted was the growth of the company.
In conclusion, it is evident that success of any organization depends upon leadership skills in the organization. When leaders show good leadership skills, the company performs well but when leadership style is wanting, organizations tend to fail. Good leadership skills include, team building, good communication, humility, resilience, hardworking, employee motivation and customer appreciation. Leaders who apply all these qualities help their organizations to grow. On the other hand, poor leadership lead to failure of companies due to their selfishness. Poor leaders wish to prove how smart they are even when they are not. They want to take credit of every achievement in an organization even when they did not play part. To overcome this, organizations should do a training on good leadership skills often for leaders to be reminded on how they should lead. I believe leadership styles can be changed to be better. Leaders should read books and understand what it takes to bring organization to success.
References
Allen, J. E. (2011). Nursing home administration. New York, NY: Springer Pub.
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success.
Iqbal, T. (2011). The impact of leadership styles on organizational effectiveness: Analytical study of selected organizations in IT sector in Karachi. Munich: Grin Verla
Kaufeld, J. (2004). AOL for dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Pub.