Organisational leadership is not established overnight, but something that has to be worked at over a long period. However, it is also important to look at what type of organisational leadership is being created.
In effect there are three different types of organisational leadership: authoritarian, participative and delegation type leadership. Each of these styles has its own merits, within different organisations, but this one looks at establishing delegation leadership within an organisation. This style of leadership empowers workers to make decisions and to own these decisions, so that they do not constantly have to ask a supervisor or manager as to what they should do. This does not mean that all staff run the company, but that at specific times, if there is a crisis or something goes wrong, workers and managers can take the decision that they think is the correct one, at that particular time.
1. Create the right culture. For any type of leadership to succeed, the culture of the organisation needs to be receptive to the leadership being established.
2. Earn respect. Respect has to be earned, it does not come along with the title of CEO or Managing Director, so whoever is establishing the leadership needs to earn the respect of the workforce or they will not be receptive to being led.
3. Establish trust with the workforce. The workforce within an organisation which allows them to make decisions and influence the workplace needs to trust management. Any decision they make needs to be backed up by management and they need to trust you on this very critical issue.
4. Communicate. Any type of organisational leadership needs to be built on solid foundations and without communicating effectively no one will know exactly what is happening or what they are striving for.
5. Consult the workforce about the aspirations and goals of the organisation. This does not mean that they should set the goals and priorities for the company, but they should be consulted about the goals that you want to set.
6. Recognise the strengths and weaknesses within your workforce; get to know them. No matter how good the leadership that you provide is and no matter how you try to empower your workforce, remember that there may well be resistance in certain parts of the organisation. Not all people want to be empowered and feel that they would prefer to be non-decision makers. They are potentially dangerous to your organisation because they can often undermine leadership and can offer ‘passive resistance’ to new concepts and ideas.
7. Also identify staff who feel that they should be the ones to make all the decisions. This type of arrogance is also dangerous, because they may make decisions but refuse to be accountable for having taken any decisions.
8. Ensure that all members of the senior management team are fully behind the leadership style that you are establishing; otherwise it will be doomed to failure because without their backing, the workforce will immediately pick up on the cracks within the relationship.
9. Set clear review dates, so that improvements, targets and performance will be reviewed at specific times and everyone in the organisation needs to be aware of this; so there is no room to hide, everything is done in a manner that is open and transparent. Setting clear review times will also help staff know where the organisation is headed and what will happen and when.
10. Ensure that whatever type of organisational leadership is established it needs to be implemented throughout the organisation and if it is not universally applied it will not succeed, so it has to be a management tool that is from bottom to top of the company; there can be no exceptions to this rule.
