Question

1. Definition of leader and leadership and highlighting the importance of leadership in your organization.
2. How theories such as ‘Behavioral theory’ and ‘Situational Theory’ apply to the organization for sustainable growth.
3. There are different styles of leadership. Consider your company and its nature of business then justify that which style of leadership is appropriate for your organization.
4. Transactional and Transformational theory of leadership is considering as modern theory of leadership? Which one is more appropriate for your organization and why?

Answer 1

In a general sense, a leader is a person or individual who can positively motivate and inspire other people through his or her skills, knowledge, experience, wisdom, conducts, ideology, principals, body language, etc. to accomplish a common goal or objective and in this context, leadership involves the art of motivating and inspiring a group of people to identify and achieve their common desired goal/s or aspiration/s. Now, considering a hypothetical start-up or a completely new sales and marketing firm mainly based on business to consumer(B2C) sales and marketing activities, proper and effective leadership is extremely imperative as much of the sales and marketing related activities and conducts involve group or collective participation, cooperation, and functioning. In this regard, given the nature and difficulty of conducting sales activities, it is essential to properly guide and motivate the sales team or the workforce to accomplish the desired sales targets. This basically includes adequately training the workforce regarding the various techniques and skills required for successful sales activities or conducts, guiding them by providing them necessary on-job assistance and valuable feedbacks/suggestions so that they don't feel helpless, and consistently inspiring and motivating them so that the team can be persistently focused. Hence, an experienced, efficient, and diligent sales team leader can effectively fulfill these professional expectations or responsibilities and positively influence the operational functioning of the company.

The Situational Theory of leadership basically states that specific leadership needs arise from different situations and contingencies and based on specific situations or circumstances, the individual leaders are needed or required. From an organizational standpoint or perspective, situational leaders might be important to handle a specific situation or emergency and effectively mitigate any adverse consequence/s of such undesirable situations or circumstances. Therefore, situational leaders in any business organization are particularly important for effective and fruitful crisis management and situation handling which evidently and commonly involves various commercial and infrastructural predicaments such as falling sales revenue or profitability, declining employee or staff productivity, managerial instability, negative market reputation, falling public relations, decreasing customer satisfaction/loyalty, and so forth. Under specific circumstances like these, a situational leader can effectively analyze the particular crisis in concern and visualize and implement appropriate remedial measures and actions by utilizing his or her relevant expertise, experience, and skills. The Behavioral Theory of leadership states that leadership skills and abilities basically develop and evolve over time through experience and proper training. In the context of organizational setting and work environment, the management or the administration of any business organization or company should focus or emphasize create a positive, collaborative/engaging and constructive work environment and ambiance which would positively contribute to developing and strengthening confidence level, mutual trust, and work productivity or efficiency of the organizational employees or staff. This would also expectedly enhance the participation and involvement of the employees and staff in various internal organizational affairs and functioning thereby increasing a sense of responsibility and commitment among them which is critical for developing and nurturing leadership traits thereby creating future organizational leaders through experience and positive work atmosphere.

Considering a new or start-up B2C sales and marketing agency or organization with a relatively small and limited sales team or workforce, it would be apparently effective or fruitful to have an experienced coach or sales team leader who can properly and effectively guide the team or workforce to achieve individual professional goals and aspirations thereby contributing to the commercial growth of the entire business. Therefore, it is extremely crucial for the concerned leader to adequately understand the potentials, working style, strengths, and weaknesses of the individual members within the team or workforce. In this context, mindful of this requirement, coaching style of leadership would be seemingly appropriate as any individual with coaching style would perhaps be able to properly understand the respective capabilities, strengths, weaknesses, etc. of the individual team members and guide or train them accordingly. In this regard, the team leader has to act as a personal coach to each individual member and make sure that he or she thoroughly understands the strengths, capabilities, requirements, and weaknesses or difficulties faced by the team members while in the field. This enables him or her to better train or coach each individual member of the sales team or workforce by helping them to overcome their respective difficulties, deficiencies, and difficulties and capitalizing on their individual strengths and potentials.

The Transactional Theory of leadership fundamentally states that leadership is based on supervisory roles, managerial functioning, and collective group performances mainly intended to alter the organizational status-quo and attain long-term future organizational endeavors. On the other hand, the Transformational Theory of leadership mainly explains organizational leadership in terms of its main goal to motivate and inspire the organizational employees and staff to attain a shared and common goal/s or objective/s. It is flexible in its practical approach and doesn't necessarily follow any pre-established or specified organizational pattern and work structure. Now, based on the new sales and marketing company and its operational or functional framework in consideration, transformational leadership would be relatively more appropriate compared to the transactional leadership as the sales team leader should be able to effectively motivate and inspire the individual members or the employees by understanding their work patterns and styles and help them to collectively work towards achieving the common organizational goals and endeavors. In this context, the workforce or the team should collectively abide by the organizational values and vision and the transformational leader must be completely open and receptive of any positive change or adjustments in the internal organizational setting and/or the behavioral and functional aspects of the team members that would positively contribute to work productivity st the individual level and attainment of the common organizational goals and objectives.