Relationship Building in Business

Relationship Building in Business

Introduction

The world is in deep need of effective leaders, one who can inspire people not only through his words but by serving them as per their expectations and need. The critical verge in leadership arguments is the traditional ide of leadership through service to the people. The whole human race, if to mention, are in a desperate need of these kinds of servant leaders who take the initiative of attending to others and are source of hope in the human search for a society where care, fairness and justice for those who are considered to be weaker members together with love flourishes (Choudhary, Akhtar & Zaheer, 2013).  The need for leaders or rather managers who genuinely serve their subjects is undeniable in both political and social communities. It is also evidently needed within the economic sphere, in corporations and business organizations.

The high rate of turnover among staff in numerous places of work is a clear suggestion of the fact that people are looking for effective leaders who will always provide his or her servants with what the literature has termed as a soul space, a kind of environment in which people are not just cog within the production wheel but are put in situations where they are both comfortable and happy with. A leader who will bring active corporate cultures and growth in the organizations, as explained in various management theories (Choudhary, Akhtar & Zaheer, 2013).  In his operation as the Chief Executive Officer at the Blue line Company, Frederick Taylor has the characteristics one would call active and a great leader. Frederick Taylor has had a very significant impact at the Blue Line Company by demonstrating very clear management and leadership styles, leaving him highly recognized. This paper provides a critical analysis of the leadership capabilities of Frederick Taylor, relating the aspects of his effective leadership to several issues which include: Dominant Leadership Style, Emotional Intelligence, Modeling the Way, Inspiring a Shared Vision, Challenging the Process, Enabling Others to Act, and lastly encouraging the Heart.

Encouraging the Heart

What is highly extraordinary about the style and practice of leadership portrayed by Frederick Taylor is that it goes over the boundaries of race, religion, gender, culture, and age. Frederick Taylor has done much in a company which had extensively been polarized than any other business in the country. The greatest thing that is fascinating about Frederick Taylor is the fact that every individual who has encountered his leadership, felt being served and attended to (Schermerhorn, 2004).  That explains why Frederick Taylor is one of the few statesmen who can be described to have achieved almost universal respect across the globe and the commercial divides. Taylor has an encourage Heart. He brings hope even where seem to be no hope. His encouraging hope was more prominent during the time the Company was almost collapsing due to the bad leadership that had been left behind by the previous regime. The Company’s financial performance had declined by 50%, but Frederick Taylor kept on encouraging the employees that they should focus ahead despite the economic downfall the business was experiencing by then.

Leaders are expected to encourage people to come up with very simple and creative solutions for their problems. They ought to help the client come up with an appropriate support structure relevant for the already set goals (Schermerhorn, 2004). Moreover, they should support the completion of such goals by giving relevant suggestions and acknowledging efforts and progress.

Inspiring a Shared Vision

The role Frederick Taylor played in re-shaping the structure of Blue Line Company, the kind of sacrifices he would make in an attempt to help the Company achieve its shared vision, is incomparable (Anderson & Sun, 2017).  There was a time Frederick Taylor would call all the employees in his office to discuss into detail what were specifically shared vision of Blue Line Company. The leadership of Taylor has been one in which case all employees are involved in decision making towards meeting a shared vision. Frederick Taylor has always shown the skills of being courageous when one is a leader. He would bring every employee on board whenever there is something that requires action, something which very few leaders would do.

As a result of his opposition to the bad leadership that had been experienced at the Company during the previous regimes, he was demoted, and surprisingly when he took over the mantle of leadership at the organization, he never expressed any personal bitterness towards the previous manager at the organization. He knew what the organization needed and for that reason, championed reconciliation and togetherness at Blue Line Company, communicating his shared vision of the Company with everybody. As an effective leader, Frederick Taylor managed to instill confidence among the employees that with the right attitude, the business would move in the right direction.

Emotional Healing

The construct of altruistic calling seems to develop emotional intelligence that subsequently result in emotional healing. Du Plessis, Wakelin & Nel (2015) describes servant leaders as people who are highly empathetic with qualities of high listening skills, making them the most appropriate people to initiate the healing process within an organization. As argued by Jit, Sharma & Kawatra (2017), the essential part of developing an organization that has a successful legacy is the people in that organization, which include both the employees and the volunteers. “Leaders who are rated high in emotional healing are the one’s employees will always turn to when they are facing personal challenges because such leaders have created an environment in which the individual employees are capable of voicing their issues.”  “Emotional healing is characterized by taking the opportunity to understand other people’s problems and attending to such problems while they are at the place of work.” This was no different for the case of Frederick Taylor, who placed a higher priority on the concerns of other people working under him.

Du Plessis, Wakelin & Nel (2015) points out that intelligent emotional leader has, (1) the ability to identify the individual aspirations and needs of the people they are leading and (2) must be willing to share in both the pain and frustration the people they are leading are facing. “A leader must have a deeper understanding of his or her followers for him to offer the best services” (P. 3). These literature have also shown that active listening is critical skills required of all emotional intelligence leaders. Jit, Sharma & Kawatra (2017) argue that listening is critical for those who desire to be servant leaders, for it is by listening that most servant leaders are nurtured. The ability of one to (1) experiences and (2) to understand other people’s feelings is a key characteristic that Frederick Taylor poses, and he has used this to offer emotional support to numerous groups of staff. Sultan, Al Shobaki, Abu-Naser, & El Talla (2018) argues further that emotional intelligence is an essential construct in leadership.

Dominant Leadership Style

Leading through dominant style means impacting others by being both leveraging and assertive an individual’s power as well as formal authority. Like any other dominant leader, Frederick Taylor would achieve his goals by asserting his roles as the boss, incentivizing employees with promotions and bonuses and at times, coercing people with the threat of being punished (Smith, 2017). During meetings, Frederick Taylor would do most of the talking and sometimes could even lower the pitch of his voice as a way of trying to intimidate other people in the meeting. Literature has identified that dominant leaders usually crave power, since power makes them make relevant decisions, knowing very well that their subordinates are most likely fall within the line. As an excellent example of a dominance leader, when Frederick Taylor got pissed off on an issue, it would get corrected very fast as people would be reacting out of fear. Frederick Taylor would always want everyone moving very quickly and in the right direction. Literature identifies that when a given company has a clear strategy for how it plans to move forward, a leader needs to offer very firm directives so as to get the distribution, marketing, and salespeople working together and subsequently moving towards a single direction (Sultan, Al Shobaki, Abu-Naser & El Talla, 2018).  With a clear vision, Frederick Taylor would strive to enact the organization’s vision by employing a dominance leadership style to trigger properly coordinated responses. As some employees would always argue, one characteristic of Frederick Taylor was that he always love things being done on his way. He would force performance to be skewed towards his ways through all means, encouraging the employees always to remain focus in all their undertakings.

Modeling the Way

Modeling the way is an important practice based on the fact that it is how leaders usually obtain, sustain, and subsequently build a high level of credibility. Effective leaders usually do what they have communicated to their staff that they would do. It is important to note that nothing frustrates employees more than leaders who do not practice what they say. Frederick Taylor was outstanding on this as he never misses his words. He articulates issues one by one as promised during the talking. This enabled him to build much trust with his employees as he will always do as promised (Kouzes & Posner, 2012).

The work of a leader is to motivate, empower, and inspire people they are leading to realize their highest vision within the context of joy and love (Kouzes & Posner, 2012). The leader is expected to build a very close relationship and trust with the staff they are leading, and this can only be achieved if the leaders themselves accept to model the way. In doing that, Frederick Taylor has always maintained authentic rapports and humor with his juniors, touching the hearts with sincerity and care and practicing a high level of integrity even as they strive to build trust between himself and the people he is leading. As a leader, one is expected to practice the act of modeling the way, full of high integrity. Kouzes and Posner (2012) stated that trust “is the central issue in human relationships within and outside organizations. Without trust, you cannot lead” (p. 219).

Smith (2017) describes modeling leaders as transparent people. “They must be honest while communicating with each individual.” The literature defines modeling the way as a general adherence to identifiable morals. It is essential for leaders to practice openness with their employees. Frederick Taylor believed that honesty from a leader can never be an option but is something that must be portrayed by all great leaders of the world (Smith, 2017).  As he would always put it, “employees must be honest all times of their services and actions.” Fredrick would lead by example whenever there was a need.

Challenging the Process

It has always been said that within the face of difficulties or challenges, people are likely to respond with either flight or fight. Equally, within the face of conflict, the majority of leaders within organizations generate an intuitive default response by choosing either to retaliate or collaborate (Smith, 2017). However, these are not the characters of Frederick Taylor. He loved facing the challenges head-on. Frederick Taylor mastered the power of being courageous, by choosing to forgive even those who had wronged him before and humbly reconciliation with people who had perceived themselves to be his enemies. Equally, he would establish new and better ways of doing things whenever there were challenges. His major weakness was that he was over ambitious in his attempts to challenge the process to greater success. His collaboration approach in handling issues at the Company was equally not very strong. Scholarly literature report that collaboration personality changes countries, transform markets, enhance the growth and development of organizations, and in the long run, enrich lives (Smith, 2017).

Organizations operate like systems. A system comprises of numerous parts that operate together to achieve a given goal. System theory is a kind of broad perspective that gives room for the managers to make precise examination of the challenges experienced at the place of work (Smith, 2017).  It is the responsibility of the manager to ensure that all components of the system are working together for the effectiveness of the organization in addressing the challenges.

By being original, Frederick Taylor refused to be satisfied with “what is always done.” He would struggle to come up with innovations day by day. He was never content with the status quo, as he continued inventing and reinventing new ideas on how to make Green Line Company great. Frederick Taylor believes that ideas are never limited, and he takes every day as a learning opportunity. The majority of the employees at Blue Line Company understand Fredrick as a risk-taker, a person who never gives up in try almost everything that comes to his ways. He always stays tuned on any new idea that can be relevant and hence, worth implementing at the Company. This got the Company moving on the right path on the many occasions though some instances also saw the Company losing thousands of money.

Enabling others to Act

In order to enable others to act, Fredrick developed the coaching style of leadership to all his junior staff. Literature indicates that leaders usually have numerous responsibilities and even expanded duties to empower not only their colleagues but also the staff working under them (Al Zefeiti & Mohamad, 2017).  They act as a facilitator between the administration needs, and the staff needs to be appropriately equipped to act successfully with diverse interests to promote the mission of the organization. Studies have always shown that coaching leaders dedicate great support to their staff, coupled with many skills to coach the junior staff working under them. Today’s leaders are expected to act as a coach to the members of the staff working under them. They are expected to coach their juniors on how to handle different matters of an organization independently.

As per the study done by Al Zefeiti & Mohamad (2017), leadership style within an organization is usually highly instrumental in steering the organization forwards and enhancing the general performance of employees involved. Literature indicates that leadership which enables others to act on their own can cause a higher level of engagement together with the active participation of the other staff members, which subsequently results into higher performance of the institution or departments while improper leadership style results in less commitment from employees to their responsibilities.

Both mentoring and coaching are essential ingredients of a thorough career development strategy even though they always vary in duration, scope, and focus. Traditional mentoring or rather coaching is a kind of long-term relationship with more senior staff who offer advice and advocacy on the practices and development of an individual’s career, assisting an individual to get to learn the ropes of their field for upward mobility support (Batson & Yoder, 2012). Enabling to act is usually targeted, focused, and finite on improving the present performance and thinking capabilities of staff for a longer period of time (Al Zefeiti & Mohamad, 2017).  A leader is usually expected to provide an outside and objective perspective seeking to help in developing skills of an individual so that they can be able to appropriately manage their current and future career even as they grow to equally become leaders. Many organizations tend to use coaching as a kind of developmental intervention for the seniors to bring into the organization what others would always describe as cultural transformation. As it is stated by Batson & Yoder (2012), systematic one-on-one coaching intervention that also serve as a greater strategic objective usually foster the aspect of cultural change that aims at benefiting the whole organization.

Studies related to the act of enabling others to act have revealed that such approach can results into the teamwork benefits, job satisfaction, communication, quality, ownership, flexibility, career planning, successional planning among other things. Literature has always noted the process of enabling others to act as one of the most powerful methods for developing the soft skills required of employees. Anderson & Sun (2017) carried out a study to investigate the general effects of empowering at the place of work. The overall results did find significantly higher levels of general self-efficacy, when compared to a group of staff who were not empowered to work on their own. Some respondents in such studies reported that staff empowering help them turn the existing barriers or threats into greater opportunities.

Literature offers suggestions that the overall process of enabling employees to act at the place of work usually leads into learning from the leaders himself, representing what one would classify as untapped potential for making addition to the strategic value (Anderson & Sun, 2017).  Most staff members who are enabled to act by Fredrick have always reported an improved ability to handle issues and come up with solutions in a more effective manner so as to move towards realizing their personal goal for growth and development.  The outcome of this is that Blue Line Company has had highly productive employees, who do not only feel empowered to do what is required of them but are highly motivated and satisfied with their  duties at the Company.

Improvement plan

While in his operation as the Chief Executive Officer at the Blue line Company, Frederick Taylor has demonstrated exemplary leadership in regard to Dominant Leadership Style, Emotional Intelligence, Modeling the Way, Inspiring a Shared Vision, Challenging the Process, Enabling others to act, and lastly Encouraging the Heart, there is ever room for improvement as no human is limited. One of the greatest challenges faced by Blue Line Company in the contemporary world is employees’ retention (Batson & Yoder, 2012).  The organization has recently been witnessing a higher rate of employees’ turnover, with main cause being associated with matters of dominant leadership, which to some employees; they view it as a form of dictatorship. This has always resulted into low morale among the junior employees and hence their intentions to leave.

It is therefore important that as Frederick Taylor continues with his dominant leadership style, he need to be more tolerance on different employees, by giving room to the weaker employees to improve as time goes by.  On a broader spectrum, Frederick Taylor requires at least one month training on what constitute an effective leadership style. The leadership in this case need to be trained on how best they can always handle their staff (Batson & Yoder, 2012).   The training should specifically focus on dominant leadership style and emotional intelligence and the scenario in which they have to be applied. The proposed solution in this case is to help increase the rate of staff retention by offering a more effective leadership that continue enabling others working under him to act independently.

As has already been demonstrated, effective leadership is an approach that emphasizes specifically on building other employees and having honest relationship, as demanded by modeling the way principle. Effective leaders are people who have truthful self-concepts and promote openness. While Frederick Taylor poses some of these traits, there is need for further improvement as he continues driving the organization to its further destination. By receiving further training on effective leadership styles, Frederick Taylor will be in a position of improving the satisfaction of different groups of employees and therefore, their willingness to continue working at Blue Line Company.

References

Al Zefeiti, S. M. B., & Mohamad, N. A. (2017). The Influence of organizational commitment on Omani public employees’ work performance. International Review of Management and Marketing, 7(2), 151-160.

Anderson, M. H., & Sun, P. Y. (2017). Reviewing leadership styles: Overlaps and the need for a new ‘full‐range’ theory. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(1), 76-96.

Batson, V. D., & Yoder, L. H. (2012). Managerial coaching: a concept analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 68(7), 1658-1669.

Choudhary, A. I., Akhtar, S. A., & Zaheer, A. (2013). Impact of transformational and servant leadership on organizational performance: A comparative analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 116(2), 433-440

Du Plessis, M., Wakelin, Z., & Nel, P. (2015). The influence of emotional intelligence and trust on servant leadership. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 41(1), 01-09.

Jit, R., Sharma, C. S., & Kawatra, M. (2017). Healing a broken spirit: Role of servant leadership. Vikalpa, 42(2), 80-94.

Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2012). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations (5th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Schermerhorn, J. R. (2004). Core concepts of management. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Smith, D. L. (2017). The role of mentoring in the leadership development of pre-service school librarians. Education libraries, 36(1), 15-23.

Sultan, Y. S. A., Al Shobaki, M. J., Abu-Naser, S. S., & El Talla, S. A. (2018). Effect of the Dominant Pattern of Leadership on the Nature of the Work of Administrative Staff at Al-Aqsa University.