MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

UNISA SCHOOL OF BUSINESS LEADERSHIP LEADERSHIP AND ORGANISATIONAL DYNAMICS (MBL921M) ASSIGNMENT 1 DUE DATE: 05 May 2011 SBL GROUP JHB0110A

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GROUP MEMBERS

STUDENT NO.

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BB Sodaba BL Seopela GW Jansen JSB Du Preez P Radana SLG Mahlangu TP Makhosi TR Ramabulana T Zororo VVP Jajula

72386355 70437165 72542608 72541539 72526084 72535172 72525967 72535725 72529970 72548215

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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

Table of content 1.INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 3 2. LEADERSHIP PROFILES .................................................................................................. 4 2.1 Indian Male ....................................................................................................................... 4 2.2 African Male ..................................................................................................................... 6 2.3 White Male ....................................................................................................................... 8 2.4 AFRICAN FEMALE ........................................................................................................ 10 3. GENERAL THEMES ACROSS PROFILES ........................................................................ 12 4. DISCUSSION OF THE GROUPS REFLECTIONS ON THEIR LEARNING .....................13 5. RECOMMENDATIONS ....................................................................................................... 15 6. LIST OF REFERENCES...................................................................................................... 18

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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

MBL 921 M : LEADERSHIP AND ORGANISATIONAL DYNAMICS 1.INTRODUCTION

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Leadership is the ability to articulate a vision, embrace the values of that vision and to nurture an environment where everyone can reach the organisations goals as well as their personal goals. Effective leadership is a skill that comprises many different traits or qualities. These qualities include amongst others, the establishment of a vision, whereby you are able to provide clear direction of where the organisation is heading.. A mission to support the vision as well as values that form the guiding principles of how employees including management intend to conduct their business and their behaviour. These values are critical as they will shape the kind of organisation that is to develop and the foundation of the organisational culture. A leader should have the ability to motivate others into action or drive commitment, since individuals are different, leaders should understand that diverse people respond to different approaches. A leader should have the ability to build an agreement among differing individuals within a group. Robbins,Marsh and Cacioppe, (1994) state that there are many muddy paths that people must cross in todays organisations and that leadership needs to be clear, decisive and appropriate to the situation. Leaders should not be prevented by ideas, rules and procedures but they should be able to look at what is needed. Robbins et al., further indicates that recent reviews and theories on leadership have consolidated the key areas of leadership into personality, situation/transactional and transformational forms of leadership. Senge (1999) describes leadership as being able to create change by taking part in reinforcing growth process that allow change to manifest itself in an organisation. It is further highlighted that successful leaders are able to tap into the dedication of their colleagues to shape a common and evolving future. A leader should be able to identify talent and have the ability to nurture it in order to realise results by optimally
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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

utilising all available skills. Leaders have to commit to and invest in both the organisation and the individuals around them, such leaders are regarded as critical in influencing an organisations culture and cultural changes. Senge et.,al further describes these leaders as transformational leaders, such leaders are able to uplift and encourage their co-workers and have values that enhance the good of all. As a leader it is important to adapt to the ever-changing internal and external environment. In recent years, with the challenging global economic climate, business leaders around the world have been confronted with a host of new economic, strategic and operational realities that were testing to their knowledge and skills. These taxing economic times caused rapid organisational changes that required managers at all levels to learn at an accelerated rate. 2. LEADERSHIP PROFILES

2.1 Indian Male

An Indian male, aged between 36 to 45 years, married, currently occupies the position of Special Projects Executive. He has been holding the position for nearly five years and he holds a Masters degree. He has been with the current employer for more than five years, occupying various managerial positions. According to the background profile of this leader, he is well educated which makes him more interested in the developmental needs of his team because to him acquiring skills is very important. He has been in the Executive position for a while hence he is able to bring his subordinates along, to ensure they share the same goals, he is not easily threatened. His leadership style seems to be a bit conservative maybe due to him being an Indian male, Indian culture is more conservative than other racial groups, they still believe in fundamental values This leader has no specific individual that inspires him, he gets inspiration from different people and what is important to him is determination. He is a self-driven individual who believes in stretching his potential. He is passionate about making a difference in peoples lives and helping others realise their potential and transferring his skills and knowledge. His leadership philosophy is not to be scared of something you have not tried and to be open to ideas and let team members take ownership. His leadership style is visionary, in that he believes in sharing the goals with the team to ensure they work towards the same goals. His fundamental values as a leader are integrity, commitment and to confront every situation. Believe in your contribution and to be honest with one self and importantly have self-drive. Leadership Philosophy Path- Goal Leadership
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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

According to Swanepoel, Erasmus and Schenik (2008), the Path goal theory is a situational theory developed by Robert House. This theory extracts key elements from Ohio State leadership research on initiating structure and consideration and the expectancy theory motivation. The theory explains how leaders can facilitate task performance by showing subordinates how their performance can be instrumental in achieving desired rewards or goal. Situational leadership is one of several transactional approaches to leadership, this theory describes the major task of a leader being to guide and motivate their followers in the direction of established goals and to reward their efforts in ways that are fair and valued by the employer. Path-goal leadership basically describes how important the behaviour of the leader is in influencing the satisfaction and performance of subordinates. Path goal theory describes the leader as motivating his employees by increasing personal payoffs to subordinates for work goal attainment and by making the path to these payoffs easier to travel by clarifying goals and reducing roadblocks. Path goal theory describes the afore-mentioned leadership as one where he believes his team should be part of the vision and have common goals. This said leader could be best described as being both a path goal leader and a situational leader. This leader is able to act as supportive, consult with subordinates and provide them praise for the job well done. He is also capable of motivating or influencing his team in order to realise the vision by showing them where they fit in the organisation and what role they will each play. He believes its important to share the goals with your team. His leadership style is visionary. The leader is more concerned about the subordinates satisfaction in order for them to be able to perform. The leader view building relationships as with subordinates as more important to ensure sound working relationship which will lead to excellent performance. He is also concerned about their developmental needs which is one of the characteristics of path goal leadership. In relation to decision making, according to Vroom and Yetton model, the procedure that leaders follow in making decisions affects the quality of a decision and how acceptable the decision would be to subordinates who are expected to implement the decision, it will determine wether they take ownership and ensure the decision is properly implemented or not. Vroom et.,al 1973 further explains five decision procedures for decisions involving multiple subordinates including two varieties of autocratic decision (AI and AII) and two varieties of consultation (CI and CII) and one variety of joint decision making by the leader and subordinates as a group (GII). According to Vrooms model the afore mentioned leader is a GII, he is the kind of leader who shares a problem with subordinates as a group and together evaluate and reach an agreement on the best decision (consensus). The leader believes if

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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

you make your team part of the decision making process you will realise ownership from them. The challenges the said leader faced was when people doubted his capabilities and didnt have confidence in him. For example there was an incident where he developed a policy and presented it at EXCO and he didnt get the response from members as expected as he was still new in the Company and seemed to doubt his capabilities. From that experience he learned it is important to have a good rapport with colleagues. He worked hard to establish his reputation and most importantly he has learned to be modest when challenged. Another challenge he faced was to bring together a team full of diverse individuals to work together towards a common goal. This leaders strengths are among others being a good listener, a peoples person and good interpersonal skills which makes it easy for him to network and being able to work with different people. His weakness is being stubborn which at times overtake his thought process and being irritable when things dont happen as they would like. With regard to his developmental experiences or highlights, the leader has achieved so much in a short space of time through his determination and perseverance, he has grown both professionally and personally. He moved his career from a specialist kind of role to expanding to other new career paths. He also oversees the developmental needs of his team, through continuous meetings. There are programmes tailored for their developmental needs and I assist them in identifying the skills gap and programmes suitable for them. In his organisation there is currently diversity programmes for all employees and everyone is sensitised on gender equality in the workplace, these programmes makes it easy for this leader to be able to work with people from different backgrounds. He further indicated there is an equal opportunity for both men and women and that employment equity plan is in place to ensure robust targets are set for women in leadership positions and training programmes exist to equip women with relevant skills at management level. The leader believes its time women are recognised for their skills to occupy leadership positions. His organisation provides for a work life balance by having special leave days for parents and other benefits. 2.2 African Male

An African male, a married adult, who is between the age of 36 to 45, holds an honours degree. He is currently a Manager, he has been in the position for over six years. The leader comes from an African background which could have to some extend shaped his leadership style, the leader believe in rising above difficult situations, that you humble background should not determine your destiny. As an African, who is middle aged, it means he grew up during the difficult times of the old regime which makes more understanding and empathetic of people who are faced with economic
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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

and social challenges. His background in a way shaped his leadership approach to being more compassionate and considerate towards his team. The leader managed to get a good education despite growing up in difficult times hence he is so passionate about skills development and sees the potential in everyone. This leader get to be inspired by people who overcome difficulties in life and have no bitterness about those challenges that life presents, i.e people with physical disabilities that went on and became great athletes, people with learning disabilities that managed progressed to being scientists. All these inspires the leader to believe anything is possible if you put your mind to it. The leader is passionate about making a difference in peoples lives, whereby he can identify who has potential and assist them in realising their potential and becoming an achiever. Being able to unleash talent and nurture it is very important to the said leader, that motivates him to go to work every day. This leader believes in sharing his goals with the team and ensure they all work towards a common purpose, he also instil a sense of ownership in them thereby motivating them to own the process of achieving that common purpose. His leadership philosophy is the one that treat others as you would expect to be treated and to take care of small things and big things will take care of themselves. Leadership Philosophy Situational Leadership Theory

The said leader could also be described as a task oriented person who strives to achieve what he has set to achieve and to some extent he is also concerned about building sound relationships with his subordinates. This kind of leader could be aligned to Situational Leadership theory which is described by Hersey and Blanchard,1997 as the type of leadership behaviour for different levels of subordinate maturity in relation to the work. A high maturity subordinate has both the ability and confidence to do the task and on the other hand, a low maturity subordinate lacks ability and self confidence. It was further highlighted that the level of subordinate maturity is very important in determining the appropriate mix of task-oriented and relations oriented behaviour for the leader, they have categorised four degrees of maturity (quadrants M1to M4), in that for a low-maturity subordinate (M1), the leader should use substantial task oriented behaviour and be directive when defining roles and procedures and the leader should closely monitor the achievement of objectives, at this level, the leader usually provides close supervision to ensure a task is properly executed and as a subordinate maturity increases up to moderate level (M2 and M3), the leader then has a more less task oriented behaviour and provide more relations oriented behaviour, at this stage of the relationship the leader becomes supportive, consult with the subordinates and provide praise, then at a high maturity level (M4), the

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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

subordinate has the ability to do the work without much direction or monitoring by the leader and they have confidence to work without much support from the leader. The said leader indicated that he prefers working closely with his subordinates, taking someone who has not realise their potential and help build them to realise their potential, this leadership behaviour is closely linked to situational leadership theory whereby the leader goes through different levels of maturity with their subordinates up to a level where they are able to work on their own without much direction or monitoring where they have developed a level of confidence to work and make decisions on their own. Kouzes and Posner (1993) describes the Michigan and Ohio State studies and the theory of Fiedler lead to the situational leadership approach. Kouzes et.al further states that the theory of Ken Blanchard called Situational Leadership II uses the two dimensions of supportive and directive to describe the four leadership styles that are most appropriate depending on the situation and the developmental level of the person or the group. This best describes this leader in that he is more supportive and also directive in terms of giving instructions . It is important to note that this leadership approach is the recognition that for different developmental levels and different types of situations, different leadership styles are more effective. It is important for a leader to analyse the situation and the kind of team they are leading to be able to apply a certain kind of leadership. The challenges that he faces as a leader is being able to change mindset of youngsters who have entitlement mentality and consistently leading by example. His strengths are being a focused kind of person and weakness is to expect everyone around him to have ambition and set goals. His career highlights are achieving 100% pass rate for artisan trainees and having mentored one learner from grade 7 through to tertiary and to being employed by Eskom as a Project Manager. His organisation embraces diversity in the workplace by having diversity programmes and everyone trained on them. There is an equal opportunity for women and men and policies to support those initiatives. The leader believes women can be good leaders if given the space and support they require and he comes from a home headed by a woman, which turned out very well. His organisation offers reasonable worklife balance by having policies that support family life i.e contingency leave, occasional leave and sport days for families. 2.3 White Male

A white male, aged between the ages of 36 and 45,married. He has a PHD degree and currently holds a Senior Manager position with Agricultural Economist as his area of speciality, he has been in the current position for five years. The leader seems to be conservative and bureaucratic, he is more into policies and procedures to help manage his team and to make decisions, these could have been
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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

shaped by his background of being a white male, middle aged, who grew up during the time when they were in control of instilling discipline. His level of education, a Phd, could be contributing to his bureaucratic kind of leadership, for someone with that level of education, everything around him should be in order and to him order means procedure. The leader get inspired by different people and events. He gets inspired by his parents who worked hard to ensure he gets quality education, and the values and discipline they instilled in him, his friends plays a role in inspiring him by teaching him to be honest and respect without prejudice. His other role model is Madiba, the former South African president, who stands out above the rest. The driving force behind this leader is to make a contribution to society by using his skills and talent to influence and have an impact in peoples lives. And he is passionate about being a change agent. He believes in sharing his goals with the team. The leader finds it easy to influence the team by giving them the platform to showcase their skills and give them support when needed, he strongly believes in the principle of TEAM i.e. together everybody achieves more. He shares the vision of the organisation with them and ensures they follow the same vision. It is very important for every leader to bring along their team towards a common vision. The leader also provide incentives as a way of motivating his team. He is aware of his teams developmental needs, the only challenge with assisting his members to achieve their goals is budgetary constrains and he is also of the view that the organisation overlooks the developmental needs of leaders. Leadership philosophy Path-Goal Theory

His leadership philosophy is sharing his vision and respect people and their opinions. Honesty and being ethical are top priority for this leader and he strongly believes in creating opportunities for staff. The leader could be defined as a Path-Goal theory, whereby the leader behaviour will be viewed as acceptable to subordinates to the extent that the subordinates see such behaviour as an immediate source of satisfaction or as instrumental to future satisfaction. This behaviour is aligned to this leader and the leader indicated that as a leader you should not expect your team to do something that you are not willing to do yourself, which means the leaders behaviour should be beyond reproach, the principle lead by example applies to this leader. On the other hand the leader is very supportive of his team in that he believes in creating opportunities for them and that a participative kind of approach in that together we can achieve more and pulling towards the same vision. According to Vroom and Yetton model, (1973), the leaders decision making could be defined as a process where there is a joint decision making by the leader and subordinates as a group (GII), in that the leader highlighted that he respects the teams opinions (right or wrong) and together they explore opinions further. This is
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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

the kind of leader who believe in sharing the problem with the group and together generate and evaluate alternatives and find consensus. The challenges faced by the leader are having to work with people from different cultures and beliefs. The current reporting lines pose a challenge to the leader as they are unable to reach out to every member of the team due to hieriacal structures, it makes it impossible to understand the needs of every member. Another challenge is that procedures to address issues in his organisation are not clearly defined which makes it difficult to manage a team. The leaders strengths are integrity, respect for others and always willing to assist people and his weaknesses are not being able to listen and easily irritable. His career highlights are realised everyday by making a difference in employees lives. With regard to diversity in his organisation, the leader indicated that there are no specific programmes to address diversity in the workplace however there is mutual agreement amongst management on issues of diversity. He believes there is an equal opportunity for men and women to occupy leadership positions. The leader believes women are capable of occupying leadership positions and importantly he is of the view that gender should not be the only criteria to assess capability and he indicated that even men occupying leadership positions have got flaws in their leadership. In terms of his organisation providing a reasonable work life balance, the leader is quite sceptical about it and indicated it depends on the circumstances. 2.4 AFRICAN FEMALE

Our last leader is an African female, aged between the age 26 and 35 years, she is single. Her highest qualification is Executive Leadership Programme. She is currently a Manager and has been in this position for nearly 10 years. Being a female leader has shaped her leadership style to be more compassionate towards her subordinates. The leader has built her leadership style on fundamental values such as among others, humility, respect, courage and love. These values are naturally embedded in women, they come naturally hence they are a priority in her leadership. It is important to note that being an African women who is in her mid thirties means she grew up during a time when there were no opportunities for women hence her leadership has more emphasis on believing in yourself and defining your destiny regardless of the circumstances at the time. The leader is inspired by different prominent people, her role models include the former South African president Nelson and Winnie Mandela, United States president Barak Obama, singer Bob Marley and the famous talk show host Oprah Winfrey. The common qualities she takes from these leaders is revolutionary, creativity, dynamism, humility, courage, empowerment and lasting legacy.

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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

The driving force for this leader is Self mastery, mastering the unlimited and understanding change. The leader believes that if you do not know yourself then you cannot be able to lead others. The leader believes she is able to influence her team by building trust, she is of the view that trust ensures long lasting relationships, trust is fundamental in determining the potential of that team. With regard to embracing change, the leader is inspired change brings and being able to embrace change. by the dynamics that

Leadership Philosophy

Her leadership style is that of sharing the vision to ensure you work towards a common goal, she is of the view that it is important when you share your vision, you are able to create trust and resilience. Her leadership philosophy is of transformational rather than transactional style. By pursuing goals that will not bring direct results to herself but goals that helps humanity move and grow into new heights. The leader could be aligned to Path- Goal theory as she believes in being more developmental than transaction based, she is supportive of her teams developmental needs and she walks the path with them. She encourages them to participate and work towards achieving the same goal, she believes in pursuing goals that will not bring direct results to herself but goals that help humanity move and grow into new heights. The leader believe strongly in creating long lasting relationships and that if you have got trust in place, then as a team you can be able to move to the next phase without hindrances and with the sound relationships it will be possible to execute tasks. This leadership behaviour could be defined as a Situational Leadership Theory. Her leadership is based on fundamental values, i.e humility, respect, consistency and authenticity. To identify her teams developmental needs, the leader has one on one coaching sessions with each and every member at least once a month, in that way she is able to identify their developmental needs and challenges they might be facing. The challenge faced by the leader is being able to instil the element of honesty in people and through the challenges she faced she has learned to be tolerant and patient of other people. Her strengths are being a very calm person and yet firm, focused and resilient and good listener. Her weaknesses are being impatient , no sense of humour and very rigid and too accommodative. She believes her developmental experience was to learn to be able to express her views which she has since improved on.

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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

With regards to diversity in her workplace, she indicated there are programmes on diversity even though they are not entrenched and believes people resist those kind of programmes. And she does not believe women and men have equal opportunity in the workplace, she quoted its a mans world. She indicated it is still a huge challenge because most men are still traditional and she further indicated it is generational challenge, which relates to how people were brought up, and the values instilled in them, in our era, men are regarded as superior. She also acknowledged that there is bit of paradigm shift but its very slow and may take time. The leader fully supports women leaders, and believes its very critical and should be pursued at all times. She highlighted that women are also human beings and they are not perfect. And that gender is complex notion, its not physical, and society has got a big role to play gender equality and condition their minds. The leader importantly indicated that women have a higher degree of nurturing energy that comes naturaly and she further emphasized that not all women know about this power that they possess or are willing to put it to good use, instead they often copy men to be regarded as equally capable like men. She believes her organisation provides work life balance to some extend and strongly believes its up to the individuals to raise their concerns around oppressive practices. The leader stated that in reality, organisations are more engineered (favourable) to men than women and it tends to be tough for women to operate in those environments, however she is positive that the work environment is generally evolving to accommodate women with families. 3. GENERAL THEMES ACROSS PROFILES

After thorough analysis of the four leadership profiles, there are characteristics that come across as common amongst the four leaders regardless of their race and gender. Four leaders were interviewed and one were African male, Indian male, one is a white male and one African female. The analysis was done on the four profiles and elements in their profiles that are similar and create a general theme. General themes that came across from the four leaders in terms of the leadership theories is the Path-goal theory whereby, the four leaders showcased a sense of being very supportive to their subordinates especially in terms of supporting them to ensure they work towards a common goal (vision) and more importantly as leaders they were able to identify developmental needs of their subordinates and assist them in closing the skills gap because that s one fundamental role that a leader should be able to play, to enhance their team with relevant skills to enable them to achieve goals set out for them. The leaders allowed their subordinates to participate in some decision making process, which created an element of ownership amongst the members.
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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

Another theory that was commonly shared by the leaders is Situational Leadership Theory. Situational leadership focuses on two dimensions of behaviours which are task and relationship behaviours. The commonalities amongst these include the importance of good working relationships with subordinates and other important stakeholders and tasks to be performed by whom and when. Even though they indicated that in as much as achieving task is important however maintaining relations is quite key. On the point of inspiration, even though the four leaders are inspired by different things or people to some extend there is a general theme amongst them, they are both inspired by people who come from humble backgrounds but are able to overcome the challenges that life has presented and are able to overcome them and realise their potential and achieve their goals. And most are inspired by the iconic leader, the former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. Another general theme across the profiles is the driving force behind their careers, the leaders indicated that they are passionate about contributing positively to peoples lives and using their positions to influence people in a positive way and impacting individuals by imparting their skills and knowledge. It was further noted that the leaders are driven by being change agents, embracing and contributing to change, they believe it is important for leaders to lead change interventions and that as a leader it will be easy to understand the change dynamics and leaders will be in a position to influence team members to be part of the evolution. These four leaders came out as visionary leaders, who believe in sharing the vision and ensuring subordinates take ownership of the vision. Another element that came out as synonymous amongst the leaders is what they believe to be the motivating factor for the team to believe in the vision, they all believe it is important to build lasting relationships to ensure there is trust and respect across all team members which enable the team to achieve more and will better position you as a leader to be able to influence them to buy into the vision. The common challenge that comes across the four profiles is having to manage or lead a group of different people with diverse backgrounds. The leaders share in the same values of having integrity, respect for other people, commitment and to lead by example. Most of these leaders are married and are family oriented therefore, they value work balanced lives. 4. DISCUSSION OF THE GROUPS REFLECTIONS ON THEIR LEARNING

With all the interviews that each member of the group conducted, the group has learned that being a leader means you have to be hungry to make a difference in peoples lives, be able to identify someone from humble circumstances and help unleash their potential and hone their skills to being an extraordinary person. The groups thoughts about these interviews is that sharing your vision and goals with
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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

your team as a leader, it will help each member understands where the business is going and how each member fits into the whole organisation, and one important lesson learned from this approach is that it makes each team member to take ownership of their work and be accountable. Another positive element from this leadership approach mentioned above is that employees that are motivated, engaged and empowered will believe in organisation they working for, and will be willing to go an extra mile and in turn the whole organisation wins and importantly benefit the bottom line. The group identified from these four leaders that the female leader is more nurturing and supportive at the same time which comes naturally for women. Her fundamental values revolves around love, humility and courage and these values comes naturally for women, and all these could be attributed to being strengths for women leaders. Another important aspect that the group identified from these leaders is that women leaders still feel marginalised, women believe they are not properly recognised as compared to their male counterparts. What was learned from this interviews is that there is still little transformation in the workplace for women leaders, men are resisting the new era of women being leaders and men leaders believe women are given leadership positions because of their gender not competence. Lessons learned from these is that its difficult for women to survive in leadership positions and there is no proper support for them. The group has learned that it is important for organisations to have in place diversity programmes where everyone will be trained as it will make it easier for men to accept and be willing to work with women as their leaders. The group also learned that the Employment Equity Act introduced by government to bridge gap on gender inequality in the workplace in not being effective. It appears there is a need to put in place other measures to redress this imbalance of the past. The groups reflection on worklife balance for family people is that most employers dont create a conducive environment for people with families especially women and it is very crucial that employers become compassionate and develop policies that will allow employees time off, grant them special leave on matters that affects their family members, this will create a sense of loyalty, this kind of compassion from employer will to some extend create a productive and efficient workforce Because it is important to maintain a balance between work and family. After thorough analysis of the four leadership profiles, the groups reflections and lessons learnt is that participative leadership, delegation and empowerment are very critical, in that they both bring together power and behaviour in a leader. Participative leadership refers to the use of various decision procedures that allow other people some influence over the leaders decisions. Likert,(1967) and Yuki, (1971) states that participative leadership can be regarded as a distinct type of behaviour even though it can be used in conjunction with specific task and relations behaviours. It is further
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highlighted that participative leadership offers a variety of potential benefits which maybe subjective depending on who the participants are, how much influence they have and other aspects of the decision making situation. The potential benefits are the quality of the decisions, the benefit of involving other people in making a decision is likely to increase the quality of a decision especially when participants have information and knowledge lacked by the leader and are willing to co-orperate in finding a good solution to a decision problem, however, cooperation and sharing of knowledge will depend on the extent to which participants trust the leader and view the process as legitimate and beneficial. Decision Acceptance, in that people who have considerable influence in making a decision tend to identify with it and perceive it to be their decision. There is bound to be a feeling of ownership and this increases their motivation to implement it successfully. This kind of participation also helps in providing a better understanding of the nature of the decision problem and the reasons why a particular alternative as accepted and others rejected. People get to be satisfied with the decision process if they were given the opportunity to express opinions and preferences before the decision is made as stated by Lind & Tyler,(1988). This process of involving subordinates to make complex decision can result in the development of more skill and confidence by participants. From the analysis of the four leaders, it was obvious that power is important to be able to influence and be effective but what was learned is that the amount of necessary power will depend on what needs to be accomplished and on the leaders skill in using the available power. Bauer (1968) highlighted that less power is needed by a leader who has the skill to use power effectively and who recognises the importance of focusing on essential objectives. 5. RECOMMENDATIONS Based on the above analysis of leadership profiles from various leaders, the proposed leadership theory/ model to develop people into leaders is the transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is highly recommended by Bass and Riggo,(2006) as highly effective, producing positive effects for individuals, groups and organisations. This leadership style comprises of individual consideration, idealised influence/inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation. One foundational component of transformational leadership is individual consideration. Individual consideration is characterised as a behaviour that allows the transformation of employees to occur and is further defined as paying attention to each individual followers needs for achievement and growth by acting as a coach or mentor, Bass,et.al., (2006). Bass (1985), indicated in his original concept that transformational leadership encompassed both development of and paying individual attention to followers needs. Developmental aspect which refers to activities related to developing
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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

employees job related skills, has been singled out as the most important in transforming employees and as less understood than the supportive aspect which refers to expressing concern for employees, as indicated by Rafferty and Griffin,(2006). The development of employees is the key aspect of individual consideration in transformational leadership theory and it distinguishes it from consideration as defined in the Ohio State studies, however it was found that self sacrifice may be an important aspect of both supportive and developmental individual consideration and that there maybe some gender differences in this regard, as stated by Rafferty,.et.al..,(2006). It will always be easier for female leaders to be more compassionate and supportive of employees than male leaders. Women by nature are more nurturing than men. Individual consideration, development, support and self- sacrifice It should be noted that according to Bass,(1985);Rafferty and Griffin,(2006), individual consideration was conceptualised as encompassing both developmental and individualised attention and development of employees include giving career guidance, ensuring that employees attend relevant training, delegating challenging work in order to facilitate employees acquiring skills and closely observing employee skill development. Individualised attention attention includes becoming familiar with each employee, knowing their needs and discovering their motivations. Moreover, recent findings have shown a shift in the construct of individual consideration towards being synonymous with supportive leadership, however, this shift could have potential problems because the developmental aspect of individual consideration is more likely to transform employees that the supportive aspect. In recent study, the differences between developmental and supportive dimensions of individual consideration were further investigated by Rafferty et.al, (2006). They defined supportive leadership as occurring when leaders express concern for and take account of followers needs and preferences when making a decision meanwhile on the other hand, developmental leadership included career counselling, encouragement for training, and observing and recording employee skill development. These two dimension, namely the developmental and supportive leadership have different outcomes on job satisfaction, career certainity, affective organisational commitment and role breath self efficiacy. Developmental leadership has stronger relationship with outcomes than supportive leadership. These findings clearly indicates that developmental leadership is more important as it ensures employees are in charge of their careers, destiny and they will be able to take ownership and accountability of their actions and goals. It is important to note that in order to be highly developmental and/or supportive as a leader, you should be able to put employee needs above ones own, for example, in relation to development, if the budget for training is limited, a leader should be able to send an employee to a training course rather than him/herself. And on the other
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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

hand supporting an employee might also require the leader to take time from his/her schedule. It is highly important for a leader to be able to sacrifice other things for their employees. Choi and Mai-Dalton,(1998), have put forward a definition of self sacrifice in an organisational setting as the total/partial abandonment and/or permanent/temporary postponement of personal interests, privileges or distribution of rewards, and/or exercise of power. They further indicated a link between transformational leadership and self-sacrificial leadership. It is highlighted that in the discussion on transformational leadership that suggests a socialised leader is one who is self sacrificial and that this type of leader will be more effective than a pseudotransformational leader who puts their own interest ahead of others. Avolio and Locke, (2002) further suggest that a balance between self interest and sacrifice are necessary for effective leadership. Further finding by De Cremer and van Knippenberg, (2004) shows that the charisma component (idealised influence/inspirational motivation) of transformational leadership has been linked to self sacrifice. It was noted that followers attribute greater charisma to a leader who engages in self sacrifice, which leads to self sacrifice being beneficial for leaders. Studies by De Cremer et.al., (2004) have further highlighted that trust mediates the relationship between self sacrificial leadership and cooperative outcomes. Trust has also been found to explain the relationship between transformational leadership safety outcomes. Self sacrifice is regarded as an integral part of individual consideration particularly for gaining employees trust that the leader is developing them in their best interest. Another important aspect to leadership is organisational culture. A companies culture differentiates it from other companies and organisational culture could be viewed as how members should act within a group and how things are done in the organisation i.e values, policies and procedures. And leadership plays a vital role in shaping the organisational culture, therefore, for certain leadership theory or model to be successful, it has to aligned to the culture of the organisation as they will be a perfect fit between leadership and organisational culture, the two complement one another. For leadership model to be effective, will greatly depend on the organisational culture because it defines how members should perceive, think and feel about problems. And to some extent, it is indicated that there is a relationship between culture and corporate performance, Kotter and Heskett,(1992). Which means the way people do their work, their level of commitment and values of hard work, all leads to the organisation performing well and they all indicate the kind of leadership for that particular organisation.

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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

6. LIST OF REFERENCES Avolio,B.J and Locke E.E. (2002), Contrasting The Leadership Quarterly,vol.13 No. 2 Bass, B.M and Riggio, R.E. (2006), Transformational Leadership,2nd ed.,Lawrence Erlbaum Associated Publishers,Mahwah,NJ. Bass,B.M (1985), Leadership and Performace Beyond Expections,Free Press,New York,NY. different philosophies of leader motivation: altruism versus egoism, Choi, Y. And Mai-Dalton, R.R. (1999), The model of followers responses to self sacrificial leadership: an empirical test. Leadership Quarterly, Vol.10 No. 3. De Cremer, D.and van Knippenberg, D.(2005), Cooperation as a function of leader self sacrifice,trust and identification, Leadership & Organisation Development Journal, Vol.26 No.5 Kotter,J.P. and Heskett,J.L. (1992),Corporate Culture and Performace, The Free Press, New York,NY. Kouzes,O. and Posner,B. (1993), Credibility, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco,CA. Rafferty, A.E. and Griffin,M.A. (2006), Refining individual consideration: distinguishing developmental leadership and supportive leadership, Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology,vol.79 No.1. Robbins,T., Waters-Marsh,R., Cacioppe,R. And Millet,B.(1994), Organisational Behaviour, Australian & New Zealand, Prentice-Hall, Australia. Senge,P.M. (1990), The fifth Discipline, Random House, Australia. Swanepoel, B., Erasmus, B., and Schenk,H. (2008). South African Human Resource Management Theory and Practice, 4th ed. Cape Town: Juta
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MBL921 M Leadership and Organisational dynamics Group Assignment 1 Group code: JHB0110A

Yuki,G (2010) Leadership inOrganisations,7th edition. Pearson,Global Edition.

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