My leadership style

Throughout the literature, leadership is defined in different ways but the one that I found most suitable one would be “the ability of an individual to influence, motivate and enable others to contribute towards the effectiveness and success of an organization” (House et al. 1977:184). I would simply define a leader as someone to look up to. Personally, Oprah Winfrey is my inspiration as she is everything that I am not and would want to be.  However I realized when I joined the “Leading in a changing world” module of my MBA in Oil and Gas management that it takes a lot to become an effective leader.

It is through the leadership module of my MBA program that I understood what it takes to become a leader. The good news is that leadership can be taught. However, there is no particular drill or method to follow in order to become an effective leader. Indeed, it has been proved that “effective leaders use a pattern of behaviour that is appropriate for the situation and reflects a high concern for task objectives and a high concern for relationships” (Yukl 2010). Consequently, an effective leader is a situational one.

Through my MBA program, via self-reflection and my peers’ feedbacks, I have been able to determine the kind of leader I am. I am a task-oriented/ transactional leader with a democratic style, most of the times, always focused on the target. This concord with the result of the Belbin’s team roles test, which defines me as The Implementer of the team who is defined as:  disciplined, reliable, conservative and efficient (Belbin n.d). But, in order to become a good leader, I would need to develop the right aptitudes and attitudes to transit from The implementer to The resource coordinator or The shaper (Belbin n.d) who have, for me, effective leadership qualities.

Here is one illustration! I was designated as the leader of my group to prepare a presentation on, ironically, our individual leadership styles. The first thing I did was to take my team members’ contacts details in order to organise a meeting regarding the task. I forwarded them e-mails, discussing the points we need to cover during the presentation and asked their opinion on the more convenient day we should meet.  Since only member replied to my e-mail, I had to take initiative and address them the issue personally, because a date needed to be fixed. After consultation, we agreed and met on that particular during which we discussed in a democratic way about how to proceed during the presentation. I allowed all the members to give their ideas and after consideration, we unanimously agreed on the layout of our presentation and individual task was assigned. “Take initiative, give constructive feedbacks, plan appropriately, good team player, good listener”, these are few words my peers used to qualify me (see appendix). However, there is always room for improvement, and I intend to improve my task-oriented leadership style using Fayol’s 14 principles of management.

Charisma, ethics, honesty, expertise, and ambition, these are few criteria a transformational leader must have, and Oprah Winfrey does. Apart from the fact that she is a multi-millionaire black woman who managed to build an empire in a world dominated by men, one of the qualities that I admire in her is her communication skill and the way she understands people. Plus, she publicly acknowledged her problem with weight gain, showing her vulnerability, which brought her closer to her public.

I believe that you cannot lead others when yourself do not know where you are heading. And I have learnt this from Oprah Winfrey, who stated: “it does not matter who you are, where you come from. The ability to triumph begins with you. Always”.  Hence, the starting point is, leading my own life. How? By defining a career/life goal and adopt the right attitude and develop the aptitudes required to each that goal. In addition, the main feature of an effective leader I intend to develop is my emotional intelligence. I need to understand myself and others’ feeling and personality in order to be a good manager.

However, I had the opportunity to learn few things, through theories in this module, which I intend to apply throughout my career, in order to become a good manager/leader:

-Treat employees as humans not resources

-Motivate employees in order to increase productivity

-Build good inter-personal relations

-Always consult them, ask their opinion, put them in charge and be autocratic only if situation is out of control

In conclusion, my aim for the coming years would be to transit from a transactional leader to a transformational one, keeping in mind that situational leadership is the key to successful managerial career. The main aspects, I intend to begin working on, are my communication skills and my emotional intelligence. Being an effective leader takes years, mistakes will be made but at the end of the day it is the constructive lessons from those mistakes that will me mould as a good leader.

Ethical leadership

Ethical leadership can be defined simply as the action of leading by doing the right, morally right, things. The three building blocks of an ethical leader are: being an ethical example, treating people fairly and actively managing morality (Brown et al. 2005).  But to what extend can an ethical leader affect the organisation?

It was proven that ethical leadership behaviour was linked to the leader moral identity (Aquino 2002). Indeed, the individual characteristics of the managers, which are mainly related to the environment they grew up in and their genes, will determine their leadership styles and behaviours (Nahavandi 2008). If a person is honest, loyal, caring etc., all these personality traits will reflect on his leadership style. Leading with ethics has a visible and invisible part. The visible one is from the way the leader deal with subordinate, his statements and actions and the invisible part is while making decisions.

Social learning theories say that individuals learn appropriate behaviours via a role-model, by observing the behaviours of others (Bandura, 1977). Hence an organisation with an ethical leader will tend to be fitted with employees that engage less unethical behaviour due to the influence of their leader.

However the importance of moral identity differs from one person to another and so is the adoption of ethical behaviour. Employees, who have strong moral identity, will adopt an ethical behaviour regardless of the type of leadership they are under. While others will adopt ethical behaviour keeping in mind that the manager has a reward power since an ethical leader will encourage ethical practice and punish non-ethical ones.

Researches have shown that there was a relationship between ethical leadership and employee’s commitment and job satisfaction (Mayer et al 2012). Committed and satisfied employees will consequently lead to better organization outcomes and reduced the company’s expenses in recruiting and training new comers.

Ethical leaders are also more likely to define success not just by results, but also by the way these results were accomplished. For instance, if back in 1990s, Texaco CEO was ethical, he would have made sure that their activities would not cause harm to the Ecuadorian communities and avoid Chevron Corporation to pay over $18 billions as a results of lawsuits.

Ethics has been taken a new turnaround in the oil and gas industry. CSR and sustainability are components of an ethical organisation. But lawsuits against oil giants such as BP or Chevron have raised many questions regarding the status of ethics in the industry. Even if those companies are still assuring good return on investment to their stockholders, unethical behaviour had tarnished their image.  This is a cause of investors push back. As a solution, BP has engaged Roger Stear, a corporate philosopher, to design and deliver the BP Ethical Leadership program as part of BP’s “reset” after the Gulf of Mexico disaster in 2009. Such efforts have been registered in the history of the American oil companies whose aim was to create a national and consequently international code of conduct in the industry. Even though they have not succeed yet, few members, like UPS, decided to created their own code of Business conduct, which is, as they stated, a document to guide the company and employees at all levels in meeting with their legal and ethical obligations (Harker 2012).

History has proven that unethical behaviour from leaders will affect their organisation, sooner or later. Even though the definition of ‘the right thing’ is relative, there are basic concepts that are universally considered as morally incorrect. Knowing that subordinates look up to them, leaders must follow a code of conduct and aspire others to do so for the good of the individual, the organisation and the society. But in the oil and gas industry, the issue lies in finding a balance between ethics and profits at the managerial level.

Organizational change

Organisational change can be defined as the reorganisation or restructure of the company’s resources to improve its effectiveness (Mullins 2010:737) Resistance to change is commonly witnessed in organisation but as “changing the mind-set and culture of the employees always has to come from the top” (Kouzomis 2007 cited in Purkayastha 2007), managers role is important in the changing process.

It is imperative that managers implement change effectively as the “Employees’ attitudes are considered an indicator of the future success of an organisation (Hurst 1995). The personality traits of an individual will affect his attitude towards change (Carver et al.1998). As each individual is different, the response to change will automatically differ from one person to another. While some always seek for change, challenges and excitement, others see change as a threat to their comfort and well-being.

Cunnigham stated: “…people welcome change that makes things better” (2005:37). Personally, I see change as good thing but will I not resist it? It depends. When I had to go to India, for my undergraduate studies, I first resisted! Why? Well, I was scared and I was seeing India as an underdeveloped country where I could not be happy living in. After reflection, I ended seeing this as a journey that will help me toughen, obtain a good educational background, be independent and learn from differences. That terrifying idea of going to India became eventually an exciting one. This applies in organisational change as well. I believe, it is because the safety need of the employees is threaten.

Any change in organisation might affect its culture as well; hence culture can constrain change (Naylor 2004: 79). An organisation that encourages competition rather than collaboration, an organisation that is reactive rather than proactive will more likely to face resistance to change. Until and unless employees do not understand the reason and the personal advantages behind this change, some sort of resistance will be witnessed.  In some cases, the employee himself will find answers to those questions via cognitive reflection and welcome the change. However, others fail to self-reflect and do not see positivity in change and that is when the managers need to intervene.

I believe one of the reasons organisational change take place most of the time because it is mostly associated with downsizing. The economic climate makes competition fiercer, and cutting down cost is a priority to management teams. For instance, in 1990s, Shell changed from a matrix structure to a divisional hierarchy in order to reduce cost and compete with Exxon who started to outperform it. Due to this change in structure, 30% of the employees were dismissed in the London head office (Donovan 2010). But, of course, this is not always the case.

A study had described three types of resistance to change:

– affective: feeling about the change (anger, anxiety…)

– cognitive: thoughts about the change (is it necessary?…)

– behavioural: actions in response to the change (complaints, set others against the change…) (Oreg 2003).

Research shows that “adequate availability mitigates uncertainty and facilitates communication of the change goals and purpose » (Tvedi et al. 2009 :83.). It is important that the vision behind the change, which is “a picture of the future with some implicit or explicit commentary on why people should strive to create that future” (Kotter 1996:68), be conveyed clearly to the subordinates. Through communication, the change-agent can halt the different resistances, cited above. Managers need to psychologically prepare the employees to the future coming change and help them throughout the process of implementation (Evans 1996), using their emotional intelligence. Managers need to understand the gap between the prior and new company’s culture, using the cultural web ((Mullins 2010:743), in order to introduce changes  ‘smoothly’. Theilmann, the Chief Human Resources Officer at JC Penney called such small changes “quick hits” (Purkayastha 2007). I think it is important that managers need to adopt a sort of consultative style regarding the change implementation. This will not only give employees a feeling of empowerment but also ease the job of the manager in implementing the transformation since it will be based on employees’ ideas.

In conclusion, emotional intelligence plays an important role in the change implementation. An organisation’s ability to adapt to change is however enhanced through the learning organisation, which is the antithesis of the traditional bureaucratic organisation (Driver 2002). Hence it is imperative that organisations include change as a part of their culture, considering the actual business environment. But how such culture will be developed?

Situational leadership

Since managing consists of getting a work done through others’ efforts (Mullins 2010:434), it is imperative for managers to get the best out of his subordinates. In order to achieve so, they need to selectively adopt a managing style, depending on the situation, which will produce the best outcomes.

The Situational Leadership Theory is based on the idea that there is no “one best way” of leadership and that the most successful leaders adjust their leadership style to the maturity of the individual or group and the task to be achieved (Hersey et al. 2009).

Many leadership/management styles are discussed in the literature. However, the more common ones I have encountered are: autocratic, democratic, consultative, participative, laissez-faire, task-oriented or relations-oriented styles (Mullins 2010).

Research carried by Tannenbaum and Schmidt has revealed that the style to adopt will depend on three factors: the manager, the subordinate and the situation (1973).  Indeed, the situational leadership model used will be based on the interplay of characteristics such as: the level of guidance or direction that the leader provides, the level of socio-emotional support provided by that same leader, the time available and the subordinate maturity level regarding the task i.e their “readiness“ (Hersey et al. 1982)

All these factors will vary positively or negatively and will determine the choice of style. For instance, if employees are faced with a problem that they have already encountered before, the laissez-faire style can be adopted since they have the experience required to deal with the problem. However, if the issue is complex and that enough time is available, the manager could adopt the consultative style or let the most qualified employee take the lead. However, in some societies, like China, the command and control management still applies. Consequently due to cultural values, autocratic style seems to be the one applicable.

On the same theme, a study by Bowers and Seashore suggested that, even though it is important to have a designated leader, most of the leadership functions can be carried out by subordinates (1966). In that direction, at Canrig Drilling Technology Ltd, where safety of operations is part of the organization’s culture, managers have empowered operators to cease activities if operational safety was threatened. Hence there is a shift in responsibilities and this illustrates the case where, based on the circumstances, the most qualified employee is given the lead under situational leadership (The Ken Blanchard Companies 2011).

Throughout my studies, I have adopted and been under different types of leadership. I am usually the democratic/ task-oriented type of leader. However, few days ago, my group had to develop a plan regarding a petroleum project. Unlike me, most of them did not have a technical background and consequently had a low degree of ”readiness”. But actions had to be taken since time was ticking. I was apparently the more appropriate person to deal with this task; hence I took the lead. I have delegated specific tasks such as calculation of distance or specific researches on the Internet to complete the plan. However, after completion, I took the time to explain to my peers the whole logic behind the plan layout. It paid out since the teacher was very satisfied with the piece of work we submitted.

Hence, the effectiveness of the manager will come down to his ability to analyse these three elements as suggested by Tannenbaum and Schmidt. It is however important that the manager works towards building a team with members who are willing, able and confident enough, corresponding to a high degree of ‘readiness’ as defined by Hersey and Blanchard (Mullins 2010:389). This will facilitate the managers’ work and incline his style more towards a laissez-faire one.

I personally believe it is a style easy to adopt. However one of the limitations of situational leadership would be the constant analysis the managers need to carry, since situation frequently changes. Nevertheless, this will allow position/responsibility flexibility within the team as all the subordinates, based on their ability and the type of problem to deal with, will be delegated different tasks.

 

 

Style to be adopted will depend on:

–       The trust the manager has on his employees

–       The manager’s confidence in applying that style and his personality

–       The style the subordinates will better respond to

–       The skills/experience of the employees regarding that specific issue

–       The employees’ ability to make decisions which is related to their confidence

–       The dependence of the subordinates on the manager

–       The cultural values

–       The nature of the problem and the time span available to solve it

 

Diverse teams

Businesses have been unable to avoid the impact of globalization (Chung et al. 2012) and this is one of the reasons for the actual diversified work force. Hence being able to lead diverse teams successfully is very is a key success factor for current and future managers. The following discussion will examine the advantages and disadvantages of diverse teams, steps that a leader must take in order to successfully manage them and the relevance of this statement to the oil and gas industry.

In a homogeneous team, members are more likely to have shared values and it is proven that such teams perform less well due to lack of creativity, which is a direct consequence of “group-thinking” (Irving 1972). Meanwhile, according to Lambert (1977), a diverse/heterogeneous team will exhibit creativity due to different ways of thinking. It is clear that, faced to the same issue; a white, single, English man will have a different approach than a black, African, married woman for instance. Indeed, several different solutions could be generated for the same problem and such team will also respond better to complex tasks as different perspectives and ideas can be put together to come up with a “complex” solution. On the same theme, research concluded that bilingual individuals have better levels of “divergent thinking” and “cognitive flexibility” than monolingual people (Lambert 1977).

In addition, heterogeneous teams offer to its members the opportunity to share knowledge via brainstorming. Even though more cohesive, the lack of innovation referred to above, makes it less productive. Indeed, “the worst kind of group for an organization that wants to be innovative and creative is one in which everyone is alike and gets along too well” (Neal 2005). Hence, with a diverse work force, companies secure a competitive advantage.

Research has shown that an organisation‘s culture moderates the level of co-operation or competition in teams (Chatman et al. 1998 cited in Mannix et al. 2005). Nevertheless, it all comes down to the leader since leadership has a profound impact on team’s functioning (Burke et al. 2006 cited in Mannix et al. 2005). It is only, if managed properly, that the intellectual conflicts, which arise from the different point of views, will give birth to creativity and better performance.

Team diversity is encouraged and exhibited in all big corporates. For instance, in Microsoft, which is the leading IT company worldwide, heterogeneous teams had been one of their key to success as stated: “We believe that a diverse employee base with varied experiences enables us to better serve our customers’ needs and creates a competitive advantage in the global marketplace » (Microsoft 2013). This confirms the statement that diverse teams are more productive than homogeneous ones.

Study shows that diversity may bring intergroup bias, which will lead to less group identification and consequently less performance (Hagele et al. 2008). Hence one of the challenges that a manager will face will be to create cohesion within his diverse team. In order to do so, he will need to determine the different personalities in his team and work on how to successfully give each member a sense of belongingness.

A leader can make use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to understand his team personality portfolio (Myers n.d.). He will need to identify and value the differences among his team members in order to build a spirit of co-operation and enthusiasm. A study based on managing multicultural and multi-ethnic groups suggested steps to be taken by the leader in order to successfully manage a heterogeneous team (see appendix). Based on those steps, it is clear that intelligence and communication are key factors to lead diverse teams (Miller et al. 2010)

For instance, the manager of the Learning Division of Shell Australia, Rob Hart, decided to conduct constructive exercises, in order to improve the performance of one of his refinery-operating diverse team. Those exercises were carried out to assist strengthening and developing the connections of individual and team types. During the exercises, participants were asked to discuss with colleagues who had one or more different preferences from their own and discuss how ‘opposites’ could maximise effectiveness (CPP Australia n.d.). Through this exercise, Rob has encouraged employees to understand and value their colleagues’ differences, through communication, steps indeed advised by Miller.

As a future manager and member of the oil and gas industry, knowledge of challenges involved with such a working environment and solutions to overcome them are of extreme importance. In conclusion, the main requirement for a heterogeneous team leader is to value the differences within his team and use them in a productive way. However, the number of active women in the oil and gas industry is predicted to increase in the coming years, hence how managers should help women integrate men dominated environment must be more investigated.