Shared leadership

Shared leadership

Shared leadership implies the use of collective leaders’ efforts and capabilities. It usually entails integration of executive management’s teams of various corporate enterprises with the objective of getting better business solutions. Sharing leadership is gaining popularity in the present corporate world. This emerging trend can be associated with the increasing need to have vibrant flexibility in management and a wide base of skill and knowledge. Future leaders have the challenge of managing the business organizations and enterprises in a non-hierarchical and a multi-dimensional approach (Goldsmith, Greenberg and Hu-Chan, 2003, p.95).

One approach to implementing shared leadership is the use of the executive model. With the ever increasing merging of companies, so is the need for a wide base of management skill and experience. A successful example of such form of shared leadership was the 1997 marketing program. It deployed collective effort between the various departments that included the sales and marketing, customer support department and the planning and analysis department. The various departmental leaders share their views towards achieving financial success during the year. Collective leadership does not guarantee success at times. Some collective efforts fail due to wrong combination of people which will impair the decision making processes (Goldsmith, Greenberg and Hu-Chan, 2003 p.96).

Another approach to shared leadership involves either merging two or more executive management and they work together effectively towards developing successful strategies or creating a new management team with equal capabilities. An example of such approach is demonstrated by Intergraph Corporation and Betchel Global Engineering. Intergraph supplies software, hardware and technical support to Betchel.

The main objective of joint leadership is maximizing the available resources in an organization through empowering individuals and providing them with opportunities to exercise leadership in their various fields of skill. The need for collective leadership is due to the increasing complexity in the dynamic of organizational activities; which become overwhelming for one individual to manage an organization. An example of such is in the Electronik Company, the roles of the CEO are way too broad for one individual. As a result it was split into two positions with equal status but distributed tasks. (Goldsmith, Greenberg and Hu-Chan, 2003,p. 99).

Developing people

It is a challenge to retain people especially in organizations that do not show any progress. Retention of high-impact performers is always constrained by a number of recognized trends including: the declined status of working for a large company, the repeated lack of association connecting pay and contribution, the increasing influence that technical experts have and the reduced number of titles due to restructuring of companies.

Many current company leaders are faced with the challenge of retaining the staff and predicting the members of staff who could leave any time. The leaders therefore must gain knowledge of how to manage human resources with the same skills they apply to manage financial resources. Some of the ways of retaining employees in an organization include showing them respect and dignity, creating a thriving environment, providing sufficient training to the employees, being a coach and appealing to the employees and rewarding and organizing employees’ achievements (Goldsmith, Greenberg and Hu-Chan, 2003, p.133).

Successful leaders should tend to show respect and dignity when around their subordinates or followers. They should treat those around them in the same capacity they would expect to be treated. This can be demonstrated through how one communicates to his/her staff. Respect and dignity helps to build loyalty of the workforce to both the business and the leader.

The effective leader needs to appeal to his staff through issuing of individual roles; this is aimed at tapping the individual proficiency in everyone’s area of technical expertise. Coaching facilitates the development of a healthy working environment and relationships. It is also aimed at streamlining the behavioral traits of the employees to be in line with the organization’s goals and objectives ((Goldsmith, Greenberg and Hu-Chan, 2003, p136).

The ultimate goal of retaining the employees in an organization is maintain the successful trend of the business activities. Effective leadership involves integration of technical skills with improved personal relationship in order to maintain a competent and satisfying staff that is capable of achieving the organizations goals and objectives.

Empowering people

Empowering people entails motivation of individuals who have already accepted responsibility towards the realization of some goals and objectives. In a business environment, majority of the workforce want to have an influence on the decision making processes that relate to their areas of technical competence. Global leaders can achieve this through giving employees an opportunity to be leaders in their various areas of technical expertise. Efficient leaders must be able create an open working environment where there is open sharing of information and communication. It is thus the obligation of the successful leader to give opportunities to his staff a chance to be involved in the actual decision making process. It requires putting the business goals and objectives rather than more than just personal interests ((Goldsmith, Greenberg and Hu-Chan, 2003, p.166).

One of the ways of empowering people in an organization is through building their confidence. It is the duty of the leader to provide a beneficial environment through which sustainable growth and personal confidence can be realized among the workforce. Confidence within employees can be demonstrated through their ability to make their own decisions and act upon them accordingly.

Developing an individual decision making capabilities is one of the challenges that come with the need to empower people in an organization. The ever increasing growth in size and scalability of business organizations raises the need to have the workforce to be involved actively in the decision making processes. The effective leader therefore must replace the traditional way of leadership with a more suitable mode of leadership that incorporates exchange of ideas, answerability and responsibility in order to build a team whose objective is for the universal benefit of the organization. The ultimate benefit of empowering individuals is that leaders can be able to trust their workforce to go about their duties without immediate follow-up ((Goldsmith, Greenberg and Hu-Chan, 2003, p 169).

Demonstrating integrity

Integrity is one of the requirements of global effective leaders. Effective leader should not only say right things but also implement thing in a right way without violation of the ethical principles. In order to achieve these high levels of integrity, successful leaders must be plain and specific about their values and principles; whether they are self-directed or other-directed(Goldsmith, Greenberg and Hu-Chan, 2003, p.217).

It is the obligation of the successful leader to ensure that ethical behaviors based on high standard moral principles are observed throughout the organization. Precisely put, the organization should practice its well laid policies. The leader should ensure that the organization’s mission, vision and principles are clearly understood and observed by the workforce.

The increase in the globalization of companies results to an increase in the influence of the global leader. This poses the challenge to the leader of his undertakings. In order to tackle the challenge successfully, global leaders should make sure that their principles are compatible with the organization’s values. (Goldsmith, Greenberg and Hu-Chan, 2003, p.219)

Successful leaders can demonstrate integrity through avoidance of self-serving behavior. Success of an organization is significantly dependent on group effort. A self-serving leader whose motives are self-directed can impair the success of an organization. A global leader reaches on decisions that are aimed at achieving the company goals and objectives rather than on a personal interest. Lack of integrity can lead to a failure in the collective leadership.

In order to mould trust, effective leaders should practice integration of their personal values into their leadership procedures (Goldsmith, Greenberg and Hu-Chan, 2003, p.219). Their decisions should be based on moral ethical standards; they should be clear and consistent in their choice of actions.

Leading change

The executive management of majority of the current companies relies on authority vested on them. This approach to management is always effective in environments where the staff works is limited and require close supervision. The corporate world of today is more specialized with each individual having his area of specialization ranging from financial skills, management skills and many more. An effective leader should have a mastery of the various skill required in running of the business. His leadership approach should be all round, basing on all perspectives that are necessary for realization of the business goals ((Goldsmith, Greenberg and Hu-Chan, 2003, p.231).

The changes in complexity of the business environment pose a major challenge to the leaders of today. The effective leader should have a negative attitude towards these changes but instead should focus on ways of developing strategies to cope up with the changes and view them as positive. The next-generation leaders should deploy a leadership strategy that employs dynamism and flexibility so as to cope with the current complexity in the business atmosphere (Goldsmith, Greenberg and Hu-Chan, 2003, p.231).

Flexibility and self confidence are very critical traits that a successful leader must have in the current business environment in order to develop viable solutions to any business problem. Flexibility can be viewed from two distinctive categories: the capability to carry out ones duties irrespective of cultures and location and the ability to handle change and uncertainty in the complex business environment. In the context of cultural flexibility, efficient leaders should be able to go beyond cultural margins and come up with leadership approaches that are necessary for conducting business at the international level. They have to appreciate the fact that no single leadership methodology will be suitable for the different cultural orientations and therefore he should be able adjust his/her leadership approach in order to meet the situation (Goldsmith, GreenBerg and Hu-Chan, 2003, p.254).

Reference

Marshall Goldsmith, Cathy Greenberg, Maya Hu-Chan. (2003). Global leadership: the next generation. New York: Pearson education Inc Prentice hall.