Leadership Theories and Approaches

Leadership Theories and Approaches

The needed change within the organization

Apple Inc. needs to change its organizational structure to increase flexibility. Apple Inc. mainly relies on innovation to maintain a competitive advantage. Therefore, increasing flexibility within the organization is vital to boost innovation. Flexibility can be achieved by adopting a flexible organizational structure that puts less emphasis on a strong chain of command and departmentalization by allowing lower-level employees to make decisions. A flexible organizational structure will also enable the company to adapt quickly to the changes in the technological environment to meet its mission to offer the best user experience and the vision to make the best products.

Leadership styles in the context of the organizational culture and proposed change

One of the leadership styles that can be applied in the context of the organizational culture and the proposed change is transformational leadership, which includes inspiring, encouraging, and empowering employees to initiate and embrace changes to meet an organization’s goals. Transformational leaders focus on completing an organization’s goals without compromising human principles and values. Transformational leaders also create a challenge, a sense of direction, broader viewpoints, trust, and respect among employees by acting as role models (Moradi Korejan and Shahbazi, 454). The second leadership style is authoritarian leadership. In organizations that use an authoritarian leadership style, the head of the organization makes all decisions and controls all organizational tasks and processes. Authoritarian leaders focus on installing discipline among employees to achieve a proposed change (Wang and Guan 2). The third leadership style is transactional leadership, which includes directing and motivating employees by appealing to their self-interests to create a mutually beneficial outcome. Transactional leadership emphasizes strengthening human relations to promote human interaction during change based on existing support systems and structures. The fourth leadership style is democratic leadership which includes allowing employees to participate in decision-making. Democratic leadership facilitates innovation by allowing employees and their leaders to exchange ideas. Employees can also give feedback on organizational processes and propose improvement areas.

Leadership style or approach that best supports the organizational change

The transformational leadership style would best support organizational change. According to Elsan Mansaray (21), transformational leadership enables leaders to identify issues that may disrupt progress during the change implementation process and their warning signs to prevent them from interfering with the change. The proposed change at Apple Inc. can only be successful if the company’s employees embrace and support the change. Therefore, transformational leadership can be implemented by identifying causes of resistance to change and leveraging employees who support the change to influence others to accept it. Transformational leadership would also best support Apple Inc.’s change because it recognizes the output of employees and rewards them for their contribution to the change, as proposed in Kotter’s change implementation model. Apple Inc. leaders can also use transformational leadership to align the company’s internal systems and structures to reinforce its goals and values.

How the leadership style will support sustainable organizational success

The transformational leadership style supports sustainable organizational success by raising consciousness among employees on the significance of change and their role in the organization’s continuous improvement through communication. Therefore, employees can put the organization’s interests first because they understand what is at stake. The five dimensions of transformational leadership also support sustainable organizational success. The dimensions include idealized behavior, attributed influence, intellectual motivation, personalized consideration, and inspiring motivation (Mangundjaya 1014). The psychological empowerment created through transformational leadership also supports sustainable organizational success by creating competence, meaning, self-determination, and the extent to which employees’ activities may influence the organization’s outcomes. Competence includes self-confidence or self-efficacy in employees’ capability to perform assigned tasks.

How the leadership style integrates the organization’s mission and vision

Transformational leadership integrates the organization’s mission and vision by creating an environment that fosters innovation through increased commitment, inspirational communication, and supportive leadership. The leadership style can create continuance and affective commitment to encourage innovation at Apple Inc. Affective commitment includes the extent to which employees identify with an organization. Continuance commitment arises when employees know that there are costs linked to leaving the organization. Apple Inc. can encourage continuance commitment by rewarding employees to keep them motivated toward meeting its mission and vision. Inspirational communication includes envisioning a desirable future, expressing how the future can be reached, leading by example, setting high-performance standards, and showing confidence and determination toward realizing a specific vision. Supportive leadership includes giving employees the resources they need to be innovative.

How the leadership style will increase value for stakeholders

Transformational leadership style will increase value for stakeholders by encouraging innovation. Apple Inc. operates in a highly competitive environment, hence the need to constantly innovate its products and services to create a competitive advantage. The transformational leadership style will also make it easier to initiate and implement organizational changes in response to the changes in the external environment, thus increasing shareholder value. The main environmental changes may include increased competition and the increase in substitute products, requiring the company to use innovation to either introduce new products or improve existing ones. The leaders at Apple Inc. can also use transformational leadership to increase value for stakeholders by continuously improving operations in the organization to meet stakeholders’ needs. The primary operations that can be improved include the delivery of products to customers and customer service. Apple Inc. can also use transformational leadership to increase shareholder value by increasing employee commitment to enhance productivity. High productivity can increase shareholder value by expanding the company’s profitability.

Works Cited

Elsan Mansaray, Hassan. “The Role of Leadership Style in Organisational Change Management: A Literature Review.” Journal of Human Resource Management, vol. 7, no. 1, 2019, p. 21.

Mangundjaya, Wustari L. “The Linkage between Transformational Leadership, and Organizational Sustainability: Testing the Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment.” Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Intervention and Applied Psychology (ICIAP 2018), vol. 229, 2019, p. 1014.

Moradi Korejan, M., and H. Shahbazi. “An analysis of the transformational leadership theory.” Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, vol. 8, no. 3, 2016, p. 454.

Wang, Honglei, and Bichen Guan. “The Positive Effect of Authoritarian Leadership on Employee Performance: The Moderating Role of Power Distance.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 9, 2018, p. 2.

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Purpose of Assessment

In this assignment, you analyze the organization you assessed in Week 2 and apply leadership theories and approaches to support organizational change that aligns to the organization’s mission and values. You will be measured on how you justify your assessment of the leadership approach.

Leadership Theories and Approaches

Write a 700- to 1,050-word paper for your Leadership Styles Rationale. Address the following in your paper:

Restate the needed change within the organization.
Analyze the various leadership styles you explored in Week 3 in the context of the organizational culture and proposed change.
Justify which leadership style or approach would best support the organizational change.
Discuss how this style will support sustainable organizational success.
Discuss how this style integrates the organization’s mission and vision.
Discuss how this style will increase value for stakeholders.