Different Styles of Leadership in different Situations

In this project we have selected a case of Pakistan International Airline and applied different styles of leadership that could be implemented according to different situations

PIAC is a government organization under the influence of bureaucratic leadership. they follow one way communications. Decisions are always made by higher management and then announced to the lower staff to follow without considering their consent or agreement. This leads to an increase level of dissatisfaction in work force followed by absenteeism and lack of concern. There is severe lacking of target oriented approach in the employees. Their level of productivity and quality services tends to reduce day by day which is persistently taking the organization to huge loss. As compared to the productivity level there is a significant number of overstaffed workforces which are not even providing low services but also demand for high salaries. If we talk about customer services or flight operations we see a huge gap between the mission statement and the actual practice

We have recommended different leadership styles to take the company out of that chaos like retrenchment, downsizing. Hire more qualified and efficient staff, empowerment of subordinates, decentralization of decision making process, two way communication between upper and lower management, motivating the employees. Building self confidence, reducing their dissatisfaction, giving them authority to achieve the objectives their own way, assign a common objective in their favor and for the company as well. After taking all these necessary measures pia current situation will definitely be improved and it would be able to attain the best position as I was supposed to be. Currently they are enjoying the benefit of monopoly in air traffic industry in Pakistan but later on when market gets saturated with new private companies in future it might get impossible to with stand the competition with current practices

Intorduction

This Report is to discuss Leadership style and recommend Pakistan International Airline best style in situations.

The Company

Established in 1955, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is a national airline with a vast experience in the industry and runs a fleet of forty aircrafts. It operates passenger and cargo services covering eighty-two domestic and foreign destinations.. PIA is a huge corporation with more than 17,000 employees. This organization is divided into following departments: Human Resource and Administration, Marketing, Corporate Planning, Information Services, Finance, Flight Services, Flight Operation, Engineering, Procurement and Logistics, Customer Services, Training and Development, Quality Assurance. The organogram of the organization follows, with the Chairman at the top and directors of departments reporting to him. The structure is centralized with the top-level management making the decisions.

Vision

‘To be a world class airline exceeding customer expectations through dedicated employees committed to excellence.

Mission

As a Symbol of National Pride, We aspire to be a Choice Airline, Operating Profitable on Modern Commercial concepts and Capable of Competing With the Best in the International as well as Domestic markets

Values

Customer Expectations: Convenience, Care and Competitive Tariff

Service: Personalized and Courteous

Innovation: Cherishing new ideas, Translating into actions

Reliability: Loyalty and Consistency

Safety: Passengers, Employees, Environment and Health

Cohesiveness: Respect of individuals, Teamwork and effective communication

Integrity: Business ethics, Accountability and Transparency.

Culture

The vision and values of PIA communicates the distinct culture to the organizational members and the customers as well. Despite of being beurucratic organization, bearing cultural similarities with other government organization, PIA is improving its practices, to meet its objectives.

Organizational Attributes

Organizational Attiributes

PIA focuses on goals rather than focusing on the ways to accomplish it. The behavior of its employees and the overall business generation is a rational outcome of the oganization attributes and characteristics. PIA needs radical changes in the way it focuses their objective. It needs to intensify the focus on means of achieving it.

The Company’s Leadership

The Company’s Leadership is structured through the hierarchy, which is governed by the Board of Director and Chairman, going through the director down to the Middle Management. We can say it is much more Centralized.

Situation Analysis

PIAC is a Public sector organization, which has a decision making process down the hierarchy. The company is oversizedn upto 17,000 eployees.

Employee Attitudes:

At PIAC, every employee is expected to behave responsibily and prevent direct clash with the organization’s interest. In case of abnormal behaviour, administrative actions are taken by the standing rules of PIAC against the employee.

All HR problems are resolved according to the POLICIES AND PROCEDURES, which cover a complet scope of employee behavior, however being a part of Public Sector, the policies leaverage the employee more than necessary.

Employee Dissatisfaction:

PIAC believes that employees’ dissatisfaction affects the productivity level of employees and the root causes of such factors are identified. On the emergence of genuine reasons, the employees are helped in rectifying factors. If they are unable to do so, then the employee might get a letter of warning.

Employees at PIAC expresses their dissatisfaction through the ‘Suggestion Boxes’, which are placed at various location. Whereas, employee co-ordination meetings (ECM) are organized, to allow all employees to share their views with their bosses as well as their subordinates.

Recruitment and Hiring:

In HR & Adminstration Department, there is a Recruitment and Selection. Regarding the attribute rewuired for a position, decisions are taken by the top management at PIAC. Recruitment and hiring process is also influenced by the political situation of the country.

Employee Promotion

PIAC believes that experienced employees have the knowledge and expertise, gained over years, to handle diverse employees and unprecedented situations.

Sharing information:

Relevant Information Sharing systems has been improvised and rebuilt with a more candid approach. However, information through grapevine still exists.

Influence of groups in decision making:

PIAC has various formal and informal group due to its sheer size. There is an influence of the informal groups on the decision making process to some extent due to the nature of the workplace. These informal groups are formed because of many reason, one of which is that many employees sharing common interests, are in the organization for several.

SWOT

What is Leadership

Leadership derived from the word “LEAD”, a person who motivates the people and show out the path to a group of people towards the accomplishment of their common goals is called a leader. And a process by which leader moves a group of people to their organizational objectives is said to be the leadership.

Leader vs. Manager

Many of the organization workers didn’t understand the difference between leading and managing, there fore they were in a state of misconceptions which will not compel them to perform their jobs in proper directions.

The simple differences between these two are “manager is a career and leadership is calling”. For leadership you don’t need to be good looking, very well dressed, very well spoken and you don’t have to have a “very special something” is inside you. But for leadership you have to have well defined convictions and most importantly you have courage in your visions to manifest them into reality.

Managing is much broader in sense then leading which focuses on narrowing issues. Like mangers are looking for the issues related to the non behavioral as well as behavioral characteristics while if we talk about leader then it emphasize only on behavioral issues. Make it clear that not all mangers are leaders but most effective mangers over a long period of experiences will become leader.

Situational Approach

Situational approach is also known as contingency theory; it was given by Herbert Spencer in (1884). He said in his theory that the time and the situation makes the person a leader and not the other way around. This theory suggests that different situations calls different style of characteristics of leader. According to the Herbert spencer, in this theory of groups none of the single psychographic profile of the leader exist.

The theory defines the two types of the leader one is “Relationship oriented” and other one is “Task oriented”. In relationship orientated the leader must achieve their task and objectives by holding good relationship with the group, while on the other hand in task oriented the leader have it’s prime concern to carry out the task himself. According to the theory there is no ideal leader, in both the situation the leader can be effective if and only he fits in the situation.

Situations and Decisions

As it is obvious that one of the most important part of the leadership is to make smart decisions. So The Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum wrote an article in 1995 which deal with the study of leader’s appropriate decisions along with the behavioral characteristics of leader. That model defines the whole range of manager decisions and the situations where they use and got the best result out.

The following are the decisions & situational behavior of the leader:

The manger make the decision and announces it— In that situation the leader will follow these steps:

Identify the problem.

Analyze the different alternatives.

Select the best alternative.

Require the workers to implement the decision on the chosen one.

The Manager sells the decision— As it was mention above that the leader will identify the problem and find out the subordinator to implement the decision, but some time leader want to persuade the subordinate to accept the decision.

The manager presents the ideas and invites questions—- This situation of the decision allows the sub ordinate to raise the question on the decision that manger took himself in order to implement the solution of the problem.

The manager presents a tentative decision that is subjected to change—- Here in this situation the manager is subjected to change the decision accordingly, in that process the decision will not be the one side the subordinators are also the part of it. But the final decision will be taken by manager.

The manager presents the problem, gets suggestions, and then makes the decisions—- The manger will allow his co-worker to compliment on the problem and make the decision based on the suggestion given by the subordinators. It is the better solution of taking decisions.

The manger defines the limit and asks the group to take the decisions—– In that situation the subordinators are subjected to take the decision with keeping in mind the problem, but the limits are also defined already so that no one can cross it. In that way a democratic decision came into being and it is very effective and efficient way of taking decisions.

Forces influencing Managers’ Decision Making

There are many factors that influencing in manger decision making some are briefed below:

Individual forces

Organizational forces

Environmental forces

Cross interactions forces.

The above mentioned forces are few that influenced in a decision making process. Firstly the individual forces, as it was observed that there is a diversification factor in every organization. That diversification influences the impact on decision that is taken by the managerial staff because every one believes to have the decision in their benefits. The second factors is organizational forces, In that force the factors that effect are individual attitudes towards change, organization culture, expectations of the embodies that are responsible for openness, changes and risk taking. The last forces are assumed to be relevant because innovation adoption is likely to vary depending on the type of business and the nature of the competitor’s landscape.

Fources influenceing Managers’ Decision Making

Forces in Manager

There are four factors that manager should feel inside them, without them the manager is not emphasize on a proper direction by which he has a chance to solve the problems efficiently.

The first factor is manager’s values, as the manager in any department is the most responsible person who is able to take decision accordingly and who is responsible for the growth of efficiency, growth of subordinate, and company profit. Therefore it is very important to find out your position in an organization.

The second factor is the level of confidence on your subordinates. It is obvious if you trust more in your subordinators the decision style will be more relevant to the democratic style, and if your lesser believers in your co-workers then the decision will be one sided which is not good.

The third factor is personal leadership strength. Manager should find out the strength in them and ability to work in a worst situation very effectively. If manager is not clear with his piece of mind then he or she would not be able to direct their subordinate in a correct way.

The fourth factor in the manager is tolerance for ambiguity. Being a manager it is his responsibility to take decision after listening to their subordinates but if the situation is exactly opposite to it then the style will be converted from boss centered to subordinate centered style. A manger who is disturbed by this loss of certainty will find him self in a complete ambiguity situation and will not be successful as a subordinate centered leader.

Forces in Situations

There are many situational factors which force the manager to take decision. In an organization to work in group are beneficiary factors to all. In order to achieve the organizational common goals it is to be required to work as one team.

The second factor that influences in a situation is effectiveness of a group. As manager want to take a decision then first manager should analyze the performance of their subordinate either they are effective to achieve that goal or not.

The third force of situation is the problem to be solved. It is required in an organization to be co-ordinate the groups with each other in order to get the best result com up with. And if the question is to solve the problem then it is to be sure that every one pays deep attention to solve it.

The fourth situational force is the time available to make decision. It is obvious that group can took a long time to accomplish a task rather then individual can do it before. So before taking decision there has to be time defined.

Empowerment Distribution

What does empower mean:

to give authority

taking or seizing power

Process of gaining profit by giving strength.

Empowerment is a Process by which individuals and groups gain power, access to resources and control over their own lives. After doing so the workers will attain the power and strength to attain their highest personal and objectives goal of an organization.

Empowerment can be distributing the following factors:

Resource Consultant role

Sensitizer role

Cooperator role

Firstly we discuss resource consultant role:

Linking subordinators to resources so that they enhance their self-esteem and problem solving skills.

Linking co-workers to resources so they can also work towards achieving their own independence and own control over their lives.

Secondly sensitizer role:

Helping the subordinates to gain the knowledge which is necessary to take control of their own lives.

Empowered person and reliable workers recognizes and identifies their own strengths and the strengths of others.

Finally Corporate role:

Subordinators are the one who is self-determining in achieving self-efficacy and empowerment.

Connecting empowered person to others who share common histories, issues, and barriers.

Limits of Authority

As it was discussed above that there is the manager who defines the limits of authority to every subordinator. If the limits are not defined then every one will be the manager of the company or concerned department. So there must be applying of limits in each and every post of the organization.

Types of Leadership

Autocratic Leadership

This kind of leader ship involves absolute power over team members. even if the concern and involvement of team member is important but it is not considered all the decisions are made solely by leader. It is normally applicable to control the unskilled work force and to take instant control over chaos in the organization

Characteristics

These leaders have following characteristics

they take the whole responsibility on themselves and make the team members to accomplish the task appropriately

they feel that the close monitoring and supervision of team is required

they normally take the team members inexperienced and unable to fulfill the task independently

they only make the decision and announce it in team

they only rely on themselves to meet the objectives of organization

Situations

In PIAC current situation the level of task orientation is low where as aggressiveness of work force is also lacking .here is a gap between the level of productivity and skills of the employees. It seriously needs an autocratic leader who would lead the organization by his own decision and take full responsibility over himself in order to achieve the organizational objectives. At the same time he would monitor the whole working structure closely and with complete vigilance. As the staff currently working is not capable to take the organization out of such chaos.

Beurucratic/Transactional Leadership

It is quiet a mechanical sort of leadership as it involves only the designed rules and policies made by the organization that has to be followed at any cost by followers. Regardless of the fact that they accept it or make them feel comfortable or not. Such kind of leadership is applicable for those leaders who are leading factory workers involving machine handling and jobs involving precautionary measures

Characteristics

they show the supremacy of their powers on their followers and they have to obey

they try to maintain strict and systematic discipline in the followers

they promote the followers who are able to conform to the rules

they need their followers to accomplish the task just according to specified rules

Situations

Currently bureaucratic leadership is being practiced in the whole organization it should be confined to only engineering department as p.i.a deals with air traveling and may face technical issues in the aircrafts mostly due to malfunctioning of machinery in planes. there are many planes in p.i.a that are still not operational. if they assign any bureaucratic leader to achieve the task of fixing up the impaired machinery by the mechanical staff and engineers he can definitely make them accomplish the task efficiently and within the defined period of time. he would make them follow the safety rules and policies of the company with full acceptance. it would be helpful in increasing the fleet of p.i.a and hence increasing the number of flights and thus productivity levels and profits are also increased

Democratic/Pedagogical Leadership

This kind of leadership attains the maximum level of satistfaction and motivation from the followers as it involves the decision making process to be done not only by leaders but also the followers participate in it.team members feel equal importance and take the ownership of the task to be accomplished.it emphasizes on team work

Characteristics

they help the team members to express their skills by open invitation to take part in decision making process

they improve the productivity by emphasizing on team work

they focus on the quality of end result to be achieved regardless of time

they believe that financial rewards are not the only source of motivation but making them feel self governing is a major source

Consultive

Persuasive

Situations

In PIAC the employees face situations in which teamwork is mainly required for instance Human resource department plans a meeting to revise the hiring policy. Finance department decides to amend the obsolete salary structure. Marketing department plans to launch a new promotion to attract the customers. All these activities require team work effort rather than centralized decisions.If the whole department officials give their input in the decision making process it would definitely give a better picture of final objective The level of concern of team members will also be increased that enhance the overall performance of organization

Laissez-Faire

It is derived from French phrase “leave it be”.it involves the full empowerment of team members to achieve the task on their own.it is normally practiced to those teams in which every team member is a self starter and experienced indivisual

Characteristics

they rely mainly on their team member and normally don’t take the whole responsibility of task accomplishment on their own

they only communicate the requirement and then leave the members to perform the task their own way

they may loose the control over the team by giving them complete authority

they sometimes take the feedback of what is being achieved or to which extent

Situations

In PIAC this kind of leadership only applies in a situation where we hire highly experienced and qualified group of employee that doesn’t need any kind of strict supervision and include mainly self starters and motivated individuals. it seems quite an ideal situation in p.i.a as its employees are dissatisfied with the current salary structure so competitive salary packages should be assigned for them so work with complete satisfaction and ownership

Corrective Leadership

It involves the empowerment of group members in order to facilitate the collaborative and synergized environment. it results in equal participation of leader with employees in the process of task accomplishment

Characteristics

They treat the team members equally and fairly

They work with them as a team member to increase their motivation level

They standby the group members at every step to show his concern as a team

Situations

In PIAC there is a total one way communication from upper management to lower staff. there is a serious need of manager who better take themselves as team player rather a dictator as the decision making process is centralized here so rather than imposing the goals on subordinates and just over see what is being done they better work along with them in order to motivate and get better results from them. Suppose if you are manager finance in p.i.a so you should not only make decisions to design the budget, cost cutting etc. but also participate with team to implement that in an appropriate manner

Creative Leadership

It involves facing new challenges, and recognizes and track new opportunities through bold innovations. Experimentation with changing the current practice involves a factor of uncertainty in the success of outcomes. Risk taking attitude is important in creative leadership

Characteristics

They are good at generating new ideas to change commonplace thing

They try to experiment with those ideas which seems to be affective by their judgment

They are quiet independent and require less approval from subordinates

They have ability to manage the consequences of those experiments

They often change the working pattern of group by introducing new ideas

They have strong imagination to foresee how things would be after innovation

Situations

In PIAC if there is a situation that market gets saturated with competitors so marketing department requires a creative leader who can design an innovative plane to capture new customers and retain the old customer by taking many creative steps and experimenting new promotions and offers to capture the market share ,enhancing the quality of services and products etc

Bridging/Synergical Leadership

It involves the bridging of leader and follower relationship with confidence, trust and empathy by effective communication of leader with follower. It results in boosting the confidence level of group members thus motivating them to face the difficulty or challenge

Characteristics

They try to create a friendly relationship with employees by identifying their social need

They counsel the team members to help them get rid of any personal issue

They appreciate their achievements hence enhancing their confidence level

They try to create an environment of trust and coordination within the whole group

Situations

In PIAC if there is a huge gap between managers and subordinates that’s needs to be filled. They seriously need a bridging leadership style to gain the trust of employees and reduce their turnover. Issue like absenteeism which is due to lack of satisfaction of employees can be resolved by their counseling and seriously try to understand and resolve their internal issues. it would definitely help to improve the organizational environment and the overall impact would be positive in terms of employee performance and loyalty

Change Leadership

This style of leader ship involves supporting the alteration in current rules and policies. This results in thinking beyond resolving a single issue or individual concern and hence improving the whole system or whole organization

Charateristics

Such leaders focus on improving the current environment of organization

They don’t focus only on minor issues with in a specific department

They tend to change the rules and policies of organization in its benefit

They make decisions that affect the whole organization

Situations

If PIAC face severe deficit and over sizing of staff so it seriously needs a change leader that leads to change the policies of organization that emphasize on improving the current situation by making alteration in obsolete rules and restructure almost every department of company. Retrenchment and downsizing to recover the organization from further deficit might be one of the altering measures. there are some other modifications needed to improve the current condition of PIAC

Leadership Styles

Transformational Leadership

In this type of leadership organization’s success is achieved by profoundly affecting followers beliefs and values such as justice and integrity. Through this style of leadership a sense of duty is created, it promotes learning for organization and new ways of handling problems are encouraged. Working as a Transformational Leader is a wonderful and uplifting experience. You have to put passion and energy to achieve success.

Charactersitics

Task of Transformational Leaders

First the leaders creates the awareness about organizations issues among followers by inspiring them to follow you and the way to get things done is by injecting enthusiasm and energy among the followers.

Than they create a vision of the future that will excite and convert potential followers. The Transformational Leader should be very careful in developing the trust for him among followers, and their personal integrity is a very important and critical part of the package that they are selling.

Their role is to be at front and central during the action. They are always visible and will stand up to be counted among others. Their attitudes and actions clearly reflects how everyone else should behave. Transformational Leaders make consistent efforts to motivate and rally their followers.

Situations

PIA needs transformation from the image of a white elephant, just making heavy losses to a profitable public organization as it had been in the past.

Employees should be made aware of this need and he should always keep in mind what are the main goals of his organization. But employees needs, aspirations and interests should be fulfilled first only than he will be motivated to focus on achieving organizations goals.

Coaching Leadership

It’s a style of leadership in which followers are instructed to how to meet the special organizational objectives. Coaching is a one to one relationship where coach instructs the followers to focus on and achieve what is important.

Charactersitics

Coaching is defined at four levels

First its a belief system, coaches starts from making their followers to believe that their issues will be addressed and they will be solved .

Coaching in a well defined Leadership style, where leaders seeks to keep the ownership of issues and problems faced by their followers.

Third, coaching is defined by a set of tools and models like the GROW problem solving model so that they understand it better.

Finally, there is a coaching skill-set which is deployed at followers very skillfully coaching them their tasks

Situations

In engineering, cabin crew and customer service department head’s should instruct their followers to meet PIAC’s goal of better customer care and service. As a leader he should have good listening skills, insight, concern of welfare and patience towards followers to be able to lead them. Only by having good communication skills and attitude towards his employees he would be able to effectively instruct them

Superleadership

In this style the leader, leads his followers by showing them how to lead themselves. If he succeeds he develop followers who are very productive and needs minimum assistance from their leader in future.

Charactersitics

Here the leader teaches his followers how to think in different situations on their own and act constructively and independently. An organization can’t succeed unless its members become proficient in leading themselves and thus today it is one of the very basic requirements of any organization. It is the job of the super leader to develop such followers who have these qualities in them.

Situations

Senior directors and other senior managers at PIAC could be best to act as a super leader as they have vast experience and they have performed in several critical situations they can make decision on their own. And their guidance could be very helpful to the new staff.

But as a leader first he should develop in his followers these capabilities and then allow to make decision on their own. Only when these followers have the complete authority they will be confident enough to make such decsion.

Servant Leadership

Servant leaders place higher value of importance on the interest of others rather than their interests. Their primary role is to help their followers to attain their needs, interest and aspirations. They know the importance of human resource and lead their followers in becoming more wiser and autonomous individuals.

Charactersitics

Servant leaders posses several characteristics like they are good listeners, persuasive, aware of surroundings, empathetic and stewards in their behaviour.

Situations

Cabin crew to technicians all feels neglected in the public sector based hierarcy of PIA. In oreder to motivate them leaders

should effectively assist their followers

persuasive in making their followers to work rather than ordering them

capable of locating and eliminating problems in their tasks.

Committed to improve human asset of the organization.

Entrepreneurial Leadership

Entrepreneurial Leadership acts as they are playing the most critical role in the organization and hence they have the sense of ownership and they considers company’s losses as their personal loss. They even considers the smallest issue to be very important and they are determined of eliminating even those small issues.

Charactersitics

It posses one of the most important characteristics and that is Ownership.

Situations

Sense of ownership is most important in any organization and leaders should be able to develop this sense of ownership in their followers. By either understanding their needs or by rewarding good performance employees, it should be developed in the followers

Factors Affecting Styles

There are various factors on which the adaptation of Leadership style may depend. Some typcal factors affecting styles of leadership at PIAC are as follows,

Risk taking – decision making and initiatives

Type of business – Services

The Importance of Change – Continious Improvemnts

Organisational culture – Centralized

Nature of the task – Routine or Direction through the hierarchy

Determining best Style vs. Situation

Leadership Style slecetion depends on the situation, people, place and time. If a leader has a particular Characteristc of leadership on which he or she relies on completely, it is almost certain to develop into a combination of these, which in other words is a style.

The selection of leadrship style, in a situation will depend on:

the individual personality of the person or persons led

the frame of mind of the person or persons led

the leader’s own current frame of mind

the leader’s goals or objectives

the relative power between the leader and those led

the importance of time in the action the leader wants taken

the type of commitment required to complete the desired action

rules, laws, or authority of the leader in the situation

Conclusion

PIAC, Organizational Behavior puts vital bases for the preferences in choosing Leadership Style. Greater emphasis is required on unerstanding the situation and controlling it because in the present dynamic environment employees are the key to success in any organization.

This is mainly due to the varying situations and leadership styles. PIAC has a centralized structure which causes higher conflicts and bad management as decisions making rests with the top level management and not with the involving the employees, which also affects the sense of work ownership. This also creates difficulties for employees to comprehend their tasks as the information flow to the top level is very slow in organizations. The bureaucratic nature of PIAC is the main reason for the major inefficiencies and morale of the employees has been tarnished.

Recommendations and Suggestions

DECENTRALIZATION

The need of decentralizations is inevitable which would lead to the effective management, sense of Work ownership, motivate workers, better information sharing and resolution of Conflicts.

EMPOWERMENT DISTRIBUTION

Empowerment distribution is very improtant to create leaders in any Organization. Efforts should be made at PIAC empowerment distribution between the employees which will lead to enthusiastic participation in the decision making process and also result in more employee satisfaction and self motivation.

References and Citation

Websites

www.piac.com.pk

Books

Modern Management, 14th Edition by Semuel C. Certo & S. Trevis Certo