What is leadership? According to Susan Ward leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act toward achieving a common goal. In a business setting, this can mean directing workers and colleagues with a strategy to meet the company's needs.
For any business, it allows for clear vision, and effective communication and gives a level of coordination within the business making sure everything is aligned and reconciled with all the personal interests and organizational goals.
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Leadership helps with building morale, being able to push someone to reach or meet their full potential with meeting the goals of the organization. A leader should be able to motivate and give guidance to they are set to delegate orders. It is the process of influencing people to direct their efforts toward the achievement of some particular goals (Richard Hodgetts & Kathryn W.Hegar, 2005).
In any organization there are different leadership styles that are very common, they are:
- Democratic Leader: A democratic leader is one who makes the decision but that they listen to the opinions of others, it is considered one of the most effective leadership styles because it allows the lower level of employees or subordinates to be involved with exercising authority. This leadership style is also called a participative style. Because this style drives participation and discussion, in this 21st century it's necessary.
- Autocratic Leader: This is the total opposite of a democratic leader, this is where the leader makes a decision without the input of the employees or subordinates who would report to them. They are expected to adhere to the rules or obligations that are given to them. These leaders are more on the results and creating efficiency. This style is normally in strict guidelines or heavy.
- Laissez-Faire Leader: This type of leadership gives employees or subordinates less supervision. Its managers are more interested in delegating tasks or tasking getting done than supervising this happen. This happens mostly when the organizations know the individuals are highly experienced and well-trained.
- Transformational Leadership: This is quite similar to a coaching style it’s heavy on goal setting and motivating employees. They believe in uplifting and putting energy into the individual goals in the organization's goals
- Transactional Leadership: In this type of leadership style the leader is focused more on instruction, mentorship, and training in achieving goals. Employees are able to receive incentives based on how well work they do which will motivate employees to continue doing more if they not achieving anything while there are disciplinary actions for being a failure.
- Bureaucratic Leadership – These types of leaders are similar to autocratic except employees adhere to the rules and regulations. Employees would have a set of responsibilities that might not need any sense of creativity or collaboration which focuses on the duties at hand. They are leaders that go by the books they may consider other individuals' opinions and might consider the input of others. They don’t let the input of other afflict the company’s policy in no way shape or form.
In line with John Kottler who feels that leadership is about coping with change, establishing direction by developing a vision of the future; aligning people by communicating vision and inspiring them to overcome hurdles. The National Commercial Bank has adapted to this concept which has resulted in them being one of the leading banking institutions.
Patrick Hylton stated in the Jamaica Observer that “The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on transformational leadership. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization, that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders, and continually develops them. -- John C Maxwell
At the National Commercial Bank transformational leadership is the leading coaching style. Transformational leaders change followers’ awareness of issues by helping them to look at old problems in new ways; and they are able to excite, arouse, and inspire followers to put out extra effort to achieve group goals. There are different departments with different targets to meet before the financial year ends, and no one wants to be considered unproductive, so supervisors and managers within the organization after a final year would pinpoint what aspect of the goal weren’t met and try to adjust at a quicker to give customers quality service.
Within the National Commercial Bank, democratic leaders are prominent. This style helps with greater job satisfaction, lower labor, and increased productivity. Democracy has a positive influence on the accuracy of the information transmitted between supervisors and subordinates it has allowed for the formation of a specialized team during this COVID-19 crisis as well with the institution transitioning to digitization this has allowed a better relationship knowing that the subordinates opinions and views are being considered by management; Additionally, it as shown, the quality of the link between the employee and the National Commercial Bank. Democratic leadership is characterized by the sense of equality between the employee and management and how activities and decisions are shared, and within the institution, it is achieved daily.
Comparisons and differences in the Leadership Styles
Consequent to the findings on both financial institutions it can be asserted that the National Commercial Bank capitalized on transactional and democratic leadership to keep the business growing. Patrick Hylton recognized that being a transformational leader can greatly impact business in a positive sense. This leadership style was effectively used to motivate staff to grow which ultimately improved their services and business to make it what it is today. Similar to the approach taken by NCB, Olint claimed to be transforming business with their proposals to grow wealth and the economy to an extent. Smith sold the idea that businesses in the financial sector could change to produce greater returns than traditional institutions offer. The staff and clients alike bought into the scheme which was short-lived.
While an environment of transformational and democratic leadership bore fruit for NCB the same can't be said of Olint. These approaches to leadership are characterized by proper management, part of which means adhering to governing protocols as is their responsibility. The continued success experienced by NCB is due to good business practices, the lack of which led to the demise of Olint. Smith’s inability to manage Olint as required by governing institutions saw the company’s failure. Additionally, it was an act by NCB that brought an end to Olint which was also a client of the bank. As detailed in court documents NCB brought a case against Olint which was believed to have been misleading its client to the extent of the country as well as misappropriating the money collected from clients. NCB stepped in and showed their leadership and management abilities based on the requirements governing the client relationship by law sets them apart from Olint as leaders in the sector. Poor business leadership, management, and principles are evidence of an unsuccessful Olint which saw its head being convicted of white-collar crimes.
References:
- Day, D. V. (2000). Leadership development: A review in context. Leadership Quarterly, 11, 581-613.
- Rothwell, W. J. (2005). Effective succession planning: Ensuring leadership continuity and building talent from within (3rd ed.). New York: American Management Association. www.thebalancesmb.com
- Jackson, M. (2017, November 15). Patrick Hylton: proving the doubters wrong. The Jamaica Observer. Retrieved from http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/patrick-hylton-proving-the-doubters-wrong_117103?profile=1373
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