Theme 5: My vision of leadership

I have a strong determination to become an honest, empathetic and impactful leader. In my opinion, a good leader needs to always understand the employees and protect them from unrealistic demands. Then, always lead the team to move to the same direction and goal. Inspiration and motivation to the team is necessary all the times. As a good leader also need to be a good role model of honesty, integrity, attitude and work ethic.

From these couple of years, the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz has brought me some positive influences and inspirations about the leadership.

Source: Google free download image

Although Howard Schultz is from a poor family, he never gives up his dream but continues his courage, hard work and determination to achieve his goal. Under his outstanding leadership and well-planned business strategy, Starbucks from a small Seattle coffee shop become a worldwide well-known brand (Forbes 2015). Even he is in the glow of his own success, he also interested in helping others to succeed as well. He plans to pay for all his employees to get a degree. Furthermore, he concerns about employee’s welfares and benefit. He offers medical insurance to all employee even part-timers and encourages environmental or societal projects (Fortune 2015).

Moreover, Transformational leadership is applied by Howard Schultz in his business management world. He is confident and able to convey a clear vision to the team. He executes the changes and able to inspire the followers to move towards common goal. Empowerment strategy applied in the organization can assist in workforce development and retain employee’s loyalty (Conger & Kanungo 1988).

Below is a link shows Howard Schultz’s leadership insight at the London Business Forum:

The McKinsey 7-S model can be used by leader in managing a team successfully. The leader can identify what needs to be realigned to improve the performance, or to maintain the alignment during the period of change (Mindtools 2015). Thus, the leader can understand the employee better and motivate them to strive for company’s vision. This framework has been collaborated with leader’s role for bringing organizational change and excellence (Singh 2013).

The McKinsey 7-S model involves 7 factors which are categorized as “hard” or “soft” elements. Combination of “hard” and “soft” elements will create a harmony atmosphere. Organizational communication problems can be effectively resolved in by aligning the McKinsey’s 7-S model with transformational leadership.

Figure 10: McKinsey 7S framework

The link below shows the McKinsey 7S Framework and learns how to align all parts of organization’s strategy:

I have done the MBTI personality type test and get the result as sensing types, ISFJ. The details of the personality type test result are shown in Figure 11 below. Based on the result explanation, I am someone very responsible, work devotedly to meet the obligation (Human Metrics 2015). Moreover, I am very patient with necessary details, considerate and concerned with how other people feel (Human Metrics 2015). Hence, I believe that I can be the leader who always concerns the employee and motivate them all the times. They will work with me loyalty and devotedly due to the mutual understanding among us.

Figure 11: My MBTI personality type test result

In conclusion, I believe that I can achieve my vision of leadership. My personality is suitable for the leadership style which I am desired. Situational leadership will be applied in my working life as well to ensure mutual communication happens all the times. After determining the ultimate state for each potential factor, I can move the organization or team forward. It is important for a leader to use the emotional intelligence, be flexible and apply the right strategy at the right time. Leading an outstanding team to achieve the company business goal successfully will be a high satisfaction for me. It will be a great experience for achieving something important in our life. I will continue to improve myself and equip myself with all the necessary skills in order to achieve my personal goal and become a great leader.

List of references:

1. Conger, J. & Kanungo, R. (1988) ‘The Empowerment Process: Integrating Theory and Practice’ The Academy of Management Review [online] 13 (3), 471-482. available from < http://www.jstor.org/stable/258093?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents&gt; [18 July 2015]
2. Forbes (2015) Top 10 List: The Greatest Living Business Leaders Today [online] available from < http://www.forbes.com/profile/howard-schultz/&gt; [19 July 2015]
3. Fortune (2015) The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders (2014) [online] available from < http://fortune.com/2014/03/20/worlds-50-greatest-leaders/&gt; [19 July 2015]
4. Mindtools (2015) The McKinsey 7-S Framework [online] available from < http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_91.htm&gt; [19 July 2015]
5. Human Metrics (2015) ISFJ Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging [online] available from < http://www.humanmetrics.com/personality/isfj&gt; [19 July 2015]
6. Singh, A. (2013) ‘A Study of Role of McKinsey’s 7S Framework in Achieving Organizational Excellence.’ Organization Development Journal [online] 31 (3), 39-51. available from < http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.inti.edu.my:2048/ehost/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=c37273a0-364e-4847-aa7c-3bd11b741c44%40sessionmgr114&hid=107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=bth&AN=94502348&gt; [18 July 2015]

Theme 4: Leadership & change

According to Mullins, change is a reality of life. It happens every day, everywhere and on everyone. However, some of them are happily accept the change and take it as the challenge. But some of them strongly resist any change and always remain in the original place (Mullins 2013).

“Who Moved My Cheese?” which is a popular book mentioned about the change. Those who can anticipate the change and adapt to change quickly, they can overcome the obstacles easily and become successful. When meeting the change, adaptation is needed for adjusting to fit the changed situation or environment (Langer 2012). Actually, people realize that the change and adaptation will produce the better result (Hokanson 2001).

Below is the diagram for “Who Moved My Cheese?” story:

Source: Google free download image

The differences between the people accept to the change and against to the change are shown in Table 7 below:

	Accept to the change	Against to the change
Advantages	After adapting to the change, will improve and upgrade to higher level and become better.	No need to waste time to try and error the new method, can stay at comfort zone without worry too much.
Limitations	Actively thrive on new challenges is not an easy task, need to be determined and highly motivated.	Things will continue to change, if not adapt to the change, cannot achieve the desired and necessary end.

Table 7: Comparison between the people accept to the change and against to the change

Different change situations require different types of change agent. It is because different personality of the individual will respond to the change differently. Figure 8 below shows the perspectives on the change agent.

Figure 8: Perspectives on the change agent (Caldwell 2012)

(The chart above is constructed by author)

But the situation of resistance to change will stop the organization improvement and development, so managers play in an important role to avoid and overcome this issue.

According to Burns, managers can diagnose how people react to change by different stages and it can be shown in the Figure 9 below.

Figure 9: Diagnosing how people react to change (Burns (2009: 341))

During the initial of unfreezing stage, people will always resist to the change. Normally they will defend themselves and take times to understand the situation first. When they accept it, transformation stage happens and adaptation comes in place. After they have learnt the whole process, they will refreeze their mind-set again. The critical discussion about this theory is shown in Table 8 below.

	Lewin’s Force-Field Model (Diagnosing how people react to change)
Principles	Organization development will improve the team to function better and upgrade to higher level.
Advantages	Managers can train and develop the people to a better person.
Limitations	However, managers cannot control the people change to the person they want. It is because normally people will change in different way.

Table 8: Lewin’s Force-Field Model (Burns 2009)

The good example of the effective change management to let the employee to accept the change is GE Healthcare. The CEO, Jeffrey Immelt restructured GE Healthcare in three centers in order to combine the operation and shared service there (GE Healthcare 2015). When the management is changed, this company is restructured again and globalizing its services in order to become a global organization.

Below is the link to show how the GE Healthcare works in terms of global services:

However, there are some companies reflect the negative outcome after the changes are applied to the management system such as Hewlett-Packard. The organization undergoes some strategic change but due to lack of internal communication, the change does not bring the positive impact (Tanya 2011). When strategy moves to another level, resistance needs to be expected. The company encounters the losses due to not planning in advance for any changes made.

Source: Google free download image

Thus, I strongly suggest the managers to apply the Lewin’s Force-Field Model in managing the changes. Based on this model, managers can know how to handle the employee at different stages. In addition, the leader needs to show that he or she wants the change to happen. Then it is followed by communication and engagement. Finally, we need to make sure people to internalize the change. It is because only when the change is internalized are benefits realized and the change becomes sustainable. The better we can manage the organizational change, the better we can manage employee satisfaction, effectiveness and loyalty.

List of references:

1. Caldwell, R. (2012) ‘Systems Thinking, Organizational Change and Agency: A Practice Theory Critique of Senge’s Learning Organization.’ Journal of Change Management [online] 12 (2), 145-164. available from < http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.inti.edu.my:2048/ehost/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=46c3c855-ed44-4916-b9b3-ac26263a1faa%40sessionmgr4004&hid=4112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=bth&AN=76170997&gt; [18 July 2015]
2. Consulting Success (2015) Lessons to Learn from “Who Moved My Cheese” [online] available from <http://www.consultingsuccess.com/making-the-cheese-as-a-freelance-writer-lessons-to-learn-from-who-moved-my-cheese&gt; [18 July 2015]
3. GE Healthcare (2015) Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO of GE [online] available from < http://www3.gehealthcare.com/en/products/categories/healthcare_it/centricity_live/jeffrey__immelt&gt; [18 July 2015]
4. Hokanson, J. (2001) ‘Who Moved my Cheese?’ Urologic Nursing [online] 21 (1), 10. available from < http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.inti.edu.my:2048/ehost/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=f0173b45-c70b-471e-b9c6-3c70b7a7fb2b%40sessionmgr114&hid=107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=6714085&gt; [18 July 2015]
5. Langer, N. (2012) ‘Who Moved My Cheese? Adjusting to Age-Related Changes.’ Educational Gerontology [online] 38 (7), 459-464. available from < http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.inti.edu.my:2048/ehost/detail/detail?vid=9&sid=f0173b45-c70b-471e-b9c6-3c70b7a7fb2b%40sessionmgr114&hid=107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=74435232&gt; [18 July 2015]
6. Mullins, L.J. (2013), Management and Organisational Behaviour, 10th Edition, Pearson Higher Education
7. Tanya, S. (2011) Strategic Change Management and the Use of Internal Communication [online] available from < http://pure.au.dk/portal/files/40655497/Strategic_Change_Management_and_the_Use_of_Internal_Communication.pdf > [18 July 2015]

Theme 3: Most effective leadership & management styles & approaches

According to Mullins, management is a kind of the work to make sure the task is completed with efforts of other people (Mullins 2013). Then, based on Yukl’s explanation, leadership is a kind of process to influence the people to understand and agree with what they need to do. Moreover, the leader should share the same direction or vision to the team and facilitate the process in order to make sure the objective is achieved successfully (Yukl 2012). Thus, it is clear that both management & leadership have the same final objective which is to complete the work with efforts of everyone. But the difference is leadership more on people influencing if compare to management.

The comparison between leadership and management is shown in Table 4 below.

Table 4: Leadership vs. Management

(Source: Kotter (1990), cited in Huczynski& Buchanan (2001)).

With reference to the Table 5 below, it discusses about the principles, advantages and limitations of the Fayol’s definition of management. According to Fayol,  managers need to follow 5 stages while doing the decision and they need to refer to the 14 principles for their approaches as well. So, they can manage a team successfully without any problems occur.

	Fayol’s definition of management
Principles	Emphasis on production, people and responsibility. Management is influenced by organization structure. Manager’s decision need to be taken based on 5 Elements of Management  (Rodrigues 2001).
Advantages	Managers can learn how to organize and interact with their employees in a productive way. It is a guidance for today’s managers and influence the managers to position themselves with a deep appreciation of corporate, business and functional level strategy in dynamic or complex environments (Mindtools 2015).
Limitations	However, the contemporary managers still have much to learn. It need to be improved according to different situations.

Table 5: Fayol’s definition of management (Mullins 2013)

Figures 3 & 4 below show Fayol’s definition of management which is the combination of 5 Elements of Management and 14 Principles of Management.

Figure 3: 5 Elements of Management (Mullins 2013).

Figure 4: 14 Principles of Management (Mullins 2013).

(The chart above is constructed by author)

However, leadership style could be explained by Situational Leadership model. The figure 5 below shows the relationship between the task behaviour and relationship behaviour, at the same time it is correlated to the authoritarian and democratic leadership style as well.

Figure 5: Situational Leadership Curve (Hershey and Blanchard (1939) in Mullins, 2013))

The principles, advantages and limitations for Situational Leadership will be shown in the Table 6 below:

	Situational Leadership
Principles	The leadership is based on the “readiness” of the followers that the leader needs to influence.  The appropriate leadership style is based on the combination of task behavior and relationship behavior.
Advantages	The leader can refer to this model to develop the employees based on their readiness and willingness to accomplish tasks.
Limitations	The same leader cannot have two types of the leadership style, i.e: Authoritarian style and Democratic style at the same time. Then, it is not too flexible for the management. It need to have more leaders with different leadership styles in the same organization for business operation.

Table 6: Situational Leadership (Mullins 2013)

It is very clearly stated that good quality leadership is very important to develop company business performance (CIPD 2015). Quality of leadership can make or break the success and sustainability of any organization. It can be proved by the research done by CIPD in 2011 about the global leadership forecast and the result is shown in Figure 6 below.

Figure 6: Leadership quality related to organizational performance survey result (CIPD 2015)

Furthermore, according to the CIPD report, it mentions that the type of leadership that an SME needs changes as the organization grows in size, expands across different locations, and matures in its approach to people management. The ranking of different leadership and management skills are shown in the Figure 7 below.

Figure 7: Leadership and management skills ranking (CIPD 2015)

However, there is no single ideal and best approach for leadership or company management (CMI 2013). It is because the best approach will vary according to circumstances and individual characteristics. A rigid and conservative method cannot be applied to a group of people who are from different background. Thus, use the situational leadership while managing the people will be very useful to avoid any negative consequences happen.

In real-life industry examples, the founder of Virgin Group, Richard Branson is a good leader example in company management. He emphasizes on employees’ benefit and promoting equality of opportunity in the workplace (Branson 2014). He likes to mingle with the employees and understand them better instead of isolated himself as the CEO position. He knows the importance of solving problem with the flexible way while dealing with different types of people. Innovation and creative approaches will be more effective than the traditional methods.

Source: Google free download image

Richard Branson has explained his secrets to success in the web link below:

However, the example of the bad leadership skill is Thorsten Heins who is the former CEO of BlackBerry. He cannot lead the company with effective business strategy. Although the research shows smartphone market is at emerging trend, he still insists on traditional technology. Then, this action causes the company stock fell nearly 60% during his 22-month tenure (Forbes 2015). Moreover, the company promotes and develops people based on tenure rather than on performance or skills. When competence is not the primary and considered reason for a promotion, a company will surely sink.

Hence, I personally believe a good leader should be flexible and adaptable. He or she should know how to handle themselves in an unexpected situation. Then, provide a good solution while encountering the problems. The good leader should know how to collaborate the team and inspire them to work together.

List of references:

1. Branson, R. (2014) The Virgin Way: How to Listen, Learn, Laugh and Lead [online] London: Random House. available from <https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Jkp1AgAAQBAJ&hl=en&gt; [12 July 2015]
2. CIPD (2015) Hands-on or hands-off: effective leadership and management in SMEs [online] available from <https://www.cipd.co.uk/binaries/hands-on-or-hands-off_2014-effective-leadership.PDF&gt; [11 July 2015]
3. CIPD (2015) UK highlights Global leadership forecast 2011 [online] available from < https://www.cipd.co.uk/binaries/uk-highlights-global-leadership-forecast_2011-12.pdf&gt; [11 July 2015]
4. CMI (2013) Understanding Management Styles Checklist 236, Chartered Management Institute: London
5. Forbes (2015) The Worst CEO Screw-Ups Of 2013 [online] available from <http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/12/18/the-worst-ceo-screw-ups-of-2013/&gt; [12 July 2015]
6. Mindtools (2015) Henri Fayol’s Principles of Management [online] available from <http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/henri-fayol.htm&gt; [11 July 2015]
7. Mullins, L.J. (2013), Management and Organisational Behaviour, 10th Edition, Pearson Higher Education
8. Rodrigues, Carl A. (2001) ‘Fayol’s 14 principles of management then and now: a framework for managing today’s organizations effectively.’ Management Decision [online] 39 (10), 880. available from < http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.inti.edu.my:2048/ehost/detail/detail?sid=1e53521a-98db-4e97-8ac6-c9df15137dca%40sessionmgr111&vid=0&hid=110&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=bth&AN=6428545&gt; [11 July 2015]
9. Yukl, G. (2012) ‘Effective Leadership Behavior: What We Know and What Questions Need More Attention.’ Academy of Management Perspectives [online] 26 (4), 66-85. available from <http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?sid=4c76559e-dcdc-4082-a78f-09d74c985f58%40sessionmgr4004&vid=0&hid=4207&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=bth&AN=84930149&gt; [1 July 2015]

Theme 2: The challenge of managing diverse teams

Source: Google free download image

“Research has proved that diverse teams produce better results, provided they are well led” (Ibarra & Hansen 2011: 71).

Based on the statement mentioned above it shows that an organization could perform well if its team is formed up from the different backgrounds.

However, it is very true that a real leader is the person can lead a diverse team and bring them to follow a same pathway to achieve a same goal. A good leader can understand people’s thought and know how to communicate effectively with all of them. Then, everyone can know each other better and share the knowledge among them. Miscommunication will not happen but unity created in the community.

According to PWC, talent supply and demand are impacted by economic transformation and demographic changes (PWC 2015). Thus, talent mobility will be the key trend in the business world. Talent mobility levels have increased by 25% over the last decade and it is predicted that a further 50% growth by 2020 (PWC 2015). Normally, global talent mobility and global expansion will create a diverse portfolio of capabilities. Different talent or skills can be shared in one organization, so the cultural organization is created. Therefore, it is very crucial and important for an organization to manage its diverse team successfully.

Below is the link for “Talent mobility: Global trends and best practices”:

With reference to the Table 2 below, it shows different countries own different cultures, Thus, an intelligent leader needs to understand this theory and apply it in working life. For instance, the culture in USA is more to Individualism. So, the leader need to be more open-minded and trusts on their independency while dealing with them. Different approaches need to be used.

	Hofstede Cultural Dimensions
Principles	Different countries own different cultures and the cultures can be categorized as Power distance, Individualism, Masculine/ Femine, Uncertainty avoidance and Long-term orientation (The Hofstede Centre 2015).
Advantages	Different cultures are having different specialty, so it is very useful for an organization to has the resources from different areas. It helps the business expansion for that company as well.
Limitations	The cultural gap will create the conflict, so mutual understanding is needed in managing the diverse team, otherwise it will cause the disordered situation in the team (Corey, Fok & Payne 2014).

Table 2: Hofstede Cultural Dimensions (The Hofstede Centre 2015)

Other than that, the types of organizational culture will be one of the references for organization management as well (Gupta & Raman 2014). The details can be shown in the chart below:

Figure 1: Types of organizational culture chart.  (Source: Hofstede Culture Framework)

Other than culture, employees from different generations are categorized in different groups. The list could be shown in the Table 3 below:

Cohort	Entered workforce	Dominant work values
Veterans	1950-1964	Hard working, conservative, conforming, loyalty to organization
Boomers	1965-1985	Success, achievement, ambition, dislike of authority, loyalty to career
Xers	1985-2000	Work/life balance, team-oriented, dislike of rules, loyalty to relationships
Nexters	2000-current	Confident, financial success, self-reliant but team-oriented, loyalty to both self and relationships

Table 3: Generational values (Mullins 2013)

Source: Google free download image

Thus, the leader needs to use different approaches to manage the team from different generation groups, because they have different dominant work values in their mind (Chalofsky 2014).

Overall, an organization which is having the combination of different culture and different generation employee, actually owns a lot of advantages (Hymowitz 2005). It is because different types of intelligent resources or knowledge can be shared among the team, cross country co-operation will happen more frequent too (Gupta 2009). All of these could encourage the company to develop to globalization level with less investment involved.

With reference to the theories mentioned in the previous paragraphs, IBM is an organization which can apply those theories successfully in their business management. IBM is recognized for its diversity leadership and the bridge between the workplace and marketplace will be the workforce diversity (Harvard Business Review 2015). From this statement, it brings out another meaning that greater diversity in workplace could help IBM attract more diverse customer, then expand the company’s business opportunity (Harvard Business Review 2015). Moreover, IBM emphasizes of the employee’s benefit and employee engagement. The leader in IBM can manage the employee successfully, even though all of them are from different backgrounds.

Source: Google free download image

In conclusion, for IBM, there are two key areas in its business culture. First, IBM needs to get closer to its customers and become more externally focused. Secondly, it needs to focus on talent. In this case, attracting, developing, promoting and retaining the best people is a must in IBM business culture (Harvard Business Review 2015). IBM is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. For them, they will always consider the qualified employee without regard to religion, race, color, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, and gender (IBM 2015). Moreover, all fair employment practices such as citizenship and immigration status is committed to compliant in the company (IBM 2015).

Below is the link to show IBMers from different backgrounds and areas of the business share their stories about diversity:

However, Berkshire Hathaway is one of the companies which emphasizes on diversity is not important on its business. It was the only company never considers diversity in selecting its board of directors. According to a survey, it received the lowest diversity score out of all the S&P 100 companies (Calvert Investment 2013).

Generally, there is an increase of diverse labor force and consumer base. It can be shown in the result of corporate diversity practices of the S&P 100 survey below (in Figure 2).

Figure 2: S&P 100 Diversity Ratings Survey.  (Source: Calvert Investment 2013)

So, I believe diversity leadership is a kind of important intangible value in business management. A leader who can understand the employees from different backgrounds is very important because it could bring benefits to company and the team itself. However, group discussion is needed in order to avoid the misunderstanding because everyone sure has different idea and certain perspectives on each matter.

List of references:

1. Calvert Investment (2013) A Survey of Corporate Diversity Practices of the S&P 100 [online] available from <http://www.calvert.com/nrc/literature/documents/BR10063.pdf&gt; [29 June 2015]
2. Chalofsky, Neal E. (2014) Handbook of Human Resource Development [online] New Jersey: Wiley. available from < http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy.inti.edu.my:2048/lib/intiuc/detail.action?docID=10952056&p00=hofstede+culture > [29 June 2015]
3. Corey, C., Fok, L. & Payne, D. (2014) ‘Cross-cultural Differences in Values and Conflict Management: A Comparison of U.S. and Puerto Rico.’ Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications & Conflict [online] 18 (2), 59-78. available from < http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?sid=578d703e-6852-48e3-9c2f-7984b6047356%40sessionmgr4004&vid=0&hid=4207&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=bth&AN=100277140&gt; [29 June2015]
4. Gupta, A. & Raman, K. (2014) ‘Board Diversity and CEO Selection’ Journal of Financial Research [online] 37 (4), 495-518. available from < http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jfir.12044/pdf&gt; [29 June2015]
5. Gupta, V. (2009) ‘When Diversity Differentiated for Success’ The Journal for Decision Makers [online] 34(4), 108-111. available from <http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=f1176162-2578-4d4e-b91b-f568d491a57c%40sessionmgr4004&vid=0&hid=4207&gt; [29 June2015]
6. Harvard Business Review (2015) Diversity as Strategy [online] available from < https://hbr.org/2004/09/diversity-as-strategy/ar/1&gt; [29 June 2015]
7. Hymowitz, C. (2005) ‘The New Diversity’ The Wall Street Journal [online] available from < http://tedchilds.com/files/TheNewDiversityWSJ.pdf&gt; [29 June2015]
8. IBM (2015) About IBM [online] available from <http://www.ibm.com/us/en/&gt; [29 June 2015]
9. Mullins, L.J. (2013), Management and Organisational Behaviour, 10th Edition, Pearson Higher Education
10. PWC (2015) Talent mobility: 2020 and beyond [online] available from <http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/managing-tomorrows-people/future-of-work/global-mobility-map.jhtml&gt; [29 June 2015]
11. The Hofstede Centre (2015) National Culture [online] available from < http://geert-hofstede.com/national-culture.html&gt; [29 June 2015]

Theme 1: Leadership and Ethics

Theme 1:  Leadership and Ethics

“Ethical Leadership is described as the demonstration of proper conduct through personal actions… [and] positive effects on both individual and organizational effectiveness will be influenced by ethical leader behavior” (Rubin et al 2010: 216-17).

Based on the statement above, it can be defined that ethical leadership is a kind of behaviour which performs the right and wrong or good and bad action. Then, we need to understand the reasons to make things good or bad (Mullins 2013).

Source: Google free download image

Ethics can be categorized into two different groups such as deontological and teleological ethics. The differences between these two theories can be shown in the Table 1 below:

	Deontological	Teleological
Principles	•       It is designated by duty based. •       Things must be done or refrained from, irrespective of the results. •       Goodness or badness is evident in the action itself.	•       It locates moral goodness in the consequences of behavior and not the behavior itself. •       A ‘bad’ act can have ‘good’ results. •       This means can be justified by the end result (White 2005).
Advantages	•       People could estimate the outcome based on the other’s behavior, and then could understand it earlier instead of waiting for the last result.	•       It could encourage the people to observe the situation until the end, because sometimes people may misunderstand other’s action.
Limitations	•       It might cause negative feedback if the action done is negative although the outcome is positive.	•       It causes negative feedback if the end result is negative although the action done or process actually is positive.

Table 1: Differences between Deontological and Teleological Ethics

The web link below shows the “Introduction to Ethics”:

There are some organisations showing good examples of good ethical behaviour such as Microsoft. The world’s largest software business, Microsoft, was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in United States in 1975 (Microsoft 2015).

Bill Gates is interested in helping poor people, so the largest foundation trust for charity named ‘Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’ is established (Gates 2012). He mentioned that the goal of the foundation is to enhance healthcare and reduce poverty, at the same time expand the education opportunities and innovation technology in rural areas (Gates 2012). In 2006, due to the reason to concentrate on the charity works, his position is transferred to Mr. Steve Ballmer (Microsoft 2015). Normally people never give up their power to others easily, so this action proves that he is an ethical person. But the philosophy of giving back to the community is always in his mind. He likes sharing and he never thought to keep all his assets for himself, although he is the world’s richest person.

Source: Google free download image

Microsoft was named in the 2014 list of the World’s Most Ethical Companies, which was released by the Ethisphere Institute. Microsoft expanded on their efforts to minimize their environmental impact and remove their supply chains of raw materials from war zones (Ethisphere 2015). Furthermore, Microsoft also expects its suppliers to reflect the company’s stance on sustainability, the ethical treatment of workers, upholding human rights, safety and business ethics (Microsoft 2015).

At this current situation, for having the respectable leader like Bill Gates for the growth of societal awareness among the needing group it is a very valuable thing. He put an effort to drive a campaign for encouraging the wealthiest people to give most of their money for charitable purposes. This is a global mission to end poverty, indifferences and diseases, then at the same time to motivate the people from different leading sectors. It is very important for them to promote the welfare of others as well (Forbes 2015).

The web link about “My Hope for 2030 – Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”:

On the other hand, there are some companies showing the unethical action, such as Sanlu Group which is the China’s biggest dairy producer and it is 43% owned by New Zealand’s Fonterra Cooperative (BBC News 2008). In 2008, there were a total of 1,253 Chinese children have fallen sick after drinking the poisonous milk powder produced by Sanlu Group, and the saddest incident was two babies have died because of that as well (BBC News 2008).

Source: BBC News 2008

According to BBC News, Fonterra had tried for weeks to get official recall of the poisonous product but the local authorities in China refuse to do it at the beginning (BBC News 2008). In the end, two brothers were arrested because they have added the uneatable material, melamine to the 3 tonnes of milk they sold on from farmers every day (BBC News 2008).

Thus, I believe that ethical leadership plays a powerful and significant role in building a successful organization as well as a society. With the ethical core value, it will implant the trust, respect and harmony among everyone in order to create a perfect community.

List of references:

1. BBC News (2008) China milk poisoning cases rise [online] available from < http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7628622.stm&gt; [2 June 2015]
2. BBC News (2008) Toxic milk toll rockets in China [online] available from <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7616346.stm&gt; [2 June 2015]
3. Betzler, M. (2008) Kant’s Ethics of Virtue [online] Germany: Walter de Gruyter. available from<http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy.inti.edu.my:2048/lib/intiuc/detail.action?docID=10275853&p00=deontological&gt; [31 May 2015]
4. Ethisphere (2015) World’s Most Ethical Companies – Honorees [online] available from < http://ethisphere.com/worlds-most-ethical/wme-honorees/&gt; [2 June 2015]
5. Forbes (2015) The World’s Most Ethical Companies 2014 [online] available from < http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/03/20/the-worlds-most-ethical-companies/&gt; [2 June 2015]
6. Gates, B. (2012) ‘Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: 2012?’African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition & Development [online] 11 (7), 1-25. available from <http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.inti.edu.my:2048/ehost/detail/detail?sid=61e076e2-53be-4773-818c-4e536435682d%40sessionmgr114&vid=0&hid=124&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=71887518&gt; [2 June2015]
7. Jackson, S. (2013) ‘Bill and Melinda Gates honored with Lasker ~ Bloomberg Public Service Award.’ Journal of Clinical Investigation [online] 123 (10), 4107-4110. available from < http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.inti.edu.my:2048/ehost/detail/detail?sid=3b894e12-7b2b-4813-821e-cdda4d3eca0b%40sessionmgr114&vid=0&hid=124&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=90520271&gt; [2 June2015]
8. Microsoft (2015) About Microsoft [online] available from < https://www.microsoft.com/en-my/default.aspx > [2 June 2015]
9. Robinson, S. (2011) ‘New International Studies in Applied Ethics’, Leadership Responsibility: Ethical and Organizational Considerations [online] Germany: Peter Lang AG. available from<http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy.inti.edu.my:2048/lib/intiuc/detail.action?docID=10600387&p00=ethical+leadership&gt; [31 May 2015]
10. White, R. (2005) Moral Inquiry. Unpublished PhD thesis. Ohio: College of Mount St. Joseph