Role of Leadership Styles in Enhancing Organization’s Innovation

Question: Discuss about the Role of Leadership Styles in Enhancing Orgainzation's Innovative Capacity. Answer: Overview Leadership has been evident for as long as individuals have existed and interacted. It is present in every sphere and culture, regardless of its economic, political and social composition. The majority of the leadership studies is carried out in the context of private sector and organizations. But the leadership style practiced in the public sector is just as important, and this has been long recognized by all. There is generally a gap that is observed in the leadership style adopted in Abu Dhabis government sector. And not just Abu Dhabi, the studies of functioning of public sector all over the world have long been overlooked (Koech Namusonge, 2012). The public sectors have been following the rules established long back and hardly any change or innovative practice is being observed here. However, people have now started to realize the importance of the same. The citizens and policymakers of Abu Dhabi generally turn to bigger economies like US, UK etc. to learn about leadership, but studies conducted on the leadership styles in the UAE have suggested that the leadership pattern followed here is just as good and we must be given a chance to demonstrate a leadership style that is consistent with our own culture and national identity. This research proposal has a precise aim of going into the depth of the functioning of Abu Dhabis government sector and analyze the leadership style and structure practiced in the government organizations here. We aim to establish the dependency of the government sectors innovative capacity on the leadership style followed there. This will give us an insight into the working of the Abu Dhabis government sector and with that we will be able to find out ways to make it more adaptive of innovative ideas and hence more efficiently (Chowdhary, 2014). Research questions The Research questions are the statements that allow the research process to be directed in a particular direction. As the report aims to evaluate why the automobile industry faced such crisis and what it has done to deal with the crisis, the following Research Questions could be set for this study: What kind of leadership style is practiced in the government sector of Abu Dhabi? Do the employees of government sector consider the leadership style to be effective? What is the impact of leadership style on the innovative capacity of the organization? Is there any significant change in the leadership style in the Abu Dhabi government sector over the years? How can the leadership style be optimized to maximize employee output and make the government sector more open to innovative practices? As with most research reports, the results generated from this study will be limited to the confines of the case study only. Although the Research report will focus more on the government sector of Abu Dhabi, but at the same time the findings could also help the private sectors of our nation as well as others to effectively study their leadership style and also help the policy makers to draw practical implications and redesign their structure in the way most suitable for them and their employees. Objectives The objectives of this research include: To use a survey questionnaire to find out the leadership style practiced in the Abu Dhabi government sector. To gauge the general sentiment of the employees of government sector employees towards the leadership style being followed. To find out the current sentiment of government sector employees towards innovative practices. To determine through the survey and suggestions offered how the leadership style can be improved and how this sector can be made innovation friendly. Literature review In this section we are going to study the literature published related to our topic of research. We are going to study what leadership is, its relevance and the various leadership styles. We are also going to study the leadership styles being practiced in the government sector of Abu Dhabi and its effect on the employee motivation levels. The leadership style and its role in the sectors innovative capacity will also be studied. Leadership is defined as an individuals ability to influence a group towards realization of a common objective. Leaders are required to motivate their group members to improve their performance and help them motivate towards achieving the desired goals. Leadership is the ability to deal with and cope up with change while focusing on the long term goals and the big picture (Kruse, 2013). It is the ability to take risks and not always take the safe path, but strive to achieve even more. A leader in a team is a person who delegates, influences and motivates others to act so as to achieve specified objectives. He is anyone who has followers and is able to covert the vision of the team into reality. But with changing times, the expectations of a leader are also changing. A leader is not just anyone heading a group of people, he is someone people look up to and the one who empowers the team to achieve not just the bare minimum but make them strive for more (Bass, 2000). The business writer Daniel has categorized different leadership styles. He suggested that all the leadership styles can be explained with the help of a scale as shown in the figure below ranging from autocratic through democratic to participative to showing a degree of authority and decision making power of leaders and employees of the organization. The first leadership style that we study is Autocratic Leadership. It is the kind of leadership where the leader forms and dictates the rules and expects instant obedience form the followers without any argument. This kind of leadership is a directorial leadership and the leader never really becomes a part of the them but merely directs the team from above. The entire decision making power in an autocratic leadership style is with the team leader and an autocratic leader rarely recognize and expects absolute obedience from the team. This leadership is action oriented and is useful for short term goal achievement. Another leadership style is democratic leadership. This is theoretically defined as the best type of leadership. In this type of leadership, the leader does not simply makes the rules, but takes the opinion of each team member of the same. The opinions and taken and once the group reach a consensus, the leader simply validates the decision taken. A leadership style is said t o be participative leadership when the group members take part in the decision making process. The leader asks for the opinions of the members, and they are informed continuously of the decision making process. In this kind of leadership, the members as well as the latter are allowed to debate and discuss and suggest changes to the policies formed from the working of the team (Iqbal, et al., 2015). Nanjundeswaraswamy T. S. and Swamy D. R have studied the different styles of leadership and their effect on the quality of work life. Their research suggests that effective leadership style is necessary to reduce the attrition rate of the organization and is absolutely needed for the achievement of organizational goals in an effective manner. Their research concluded that the leadership style, work satisfaction and organizational commitment are interrelated. They have further classified the leadership styles into transformational and transactional leadership. To understand a little about each of these, a transformational leadership focuses on the development of the individuals as well as their needs. The organizations following transformational leadership concentrate on the developments of the members value system and their growth. As suggested by the name, the aim of transformational leadership is to transform and evolve the organizations members literally. The leader following tran sformational leadership upholds the best interest of the members and encourage them to achieve more. This kind of leadership has recorded high levels of satisfaction in the organization and higher levels of team spirit in the members. On the other hand, a transactional leadership is the one where the followers are expected to meet the specified goals or performance criteria. It can be more simply explained as an exchange of work and rewards between the manager and subordinates. It works on the principle of rules enforcement, contingent rewards and corrective actions (Nanjundeswaraswamy Swamy, 2014). The leaders practicing this form of leadership rely on rewards and punishment in order to drive the individuals to achieve the goals and targets. In their research, Mai Ngoc Khuong and Dang Thuy Hoang have studied the effect of leadership style on the motivation level of the employees. Their research suggested a strong connection between the leadership style practiced in the organization and their motivation level and retention in the organization in the long term. This research indicated that the relation-oriented leadership, charismatic leadership and ethic-based contingent reward leadership were positive contributors in employee motivation levels (Khuong Hoang, 2015). Emirates of Abu Dhabi has seen remarkable progress in the past forty years. This has only been possible due to the impressive and well aligned leadership. The government has made the best possible use of nations available resources and to drive the social and economic developments forward (Government, 2008). The position of Abu Dhabi has changed with the overhaul in its economic landscape and we have emerged as a hub for travel and tourism industry, investment and businesses. In order to attract great talent and resources, Abu Dhabi had opened its economy in the world. This has worked in favor of our nation and we have been able to position ourselves well across the globe and managed to grow our economy sustainable at a great pace. In 2006, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Executive Council His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan ordered the Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development, the Department of Planning and General Secretariat of the Executive Council Economy to design a long-term economic vision for the Emirate (Alsowaidi, 2012). This order was given for the ongoing economic success of Abu Dhabi and to deliver upon the vision of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, Ruler of Abu Dhabi. 10 years down the line, the vision has already begun to substantiate and realize and all this has contributed to the exceptional leadership style of the Emirates. The Emirati leadership style focuses on family values, relationships, loyalty and engagement. Various reports have verified that the world has so much to learn from the emirate leadership style and the way we get things done. Researchers have even proclaimed that this leadership style should be thoroughly studied, defined, promoted and taught all over the world due to its high success rate. The government in Abu Dhabi is liberal and openly respectful of the ways of living and cultural differences among the people. This has made it a booming international focal point for both culture and commerce (Mogielnicki, 2014). Research methodology The research methodology is a plan devised and followed closely to get information on the chosen topic along with the detailed outline of the steps through which the required information will be collected, how the data will be gathered and the instruments that will be employed in the process of this research. This section of the research constitutes of the study, research questions, sample population, sample space, instruments for data collection, procedure for data collection and procedure for data analysis (Timothy Okwu, 2011). This research study will be a descriptive study of the answers received by the respondents of the survey carried out among the government employees, yielding qualitative information that will be summarized through statistical analysis. The study will be conducted in Abu Dhabi. The target population for the research will be people working in government sector who are full time employees and who are exposed to management studies and researches of similar fashion. The sample size of the research has been planned to be 500. The questionnaires will be distributed through print and email to the employees. Both primary and secondary sources of data will be used for data collection for the study. Listed below are the primary and secondary data sources that we plan on using. Primary data sources Direct questioning using techniques like personal interview, group discussion and questionnaire will be used to gather the required information. Secondary data sources The secondary published and unpublished data sources like internet articles, research reports, magazines, etc. will be used to collect information about the entire research process. The research involves collecting primary data using a structured questionnaire as a research instrument. A questionnaire is the most widely used data collection instruments. It helps gather information on attitudes, behaviors, opinions, facts, etc. It will comprise of close-ended questions and one open ended question asking for suggestions for improvement. The questionnaire will be designed to collect information on demographics of employees, their state of mind and attitude, the leadership style being followed and their work motivation. The research and analysis method for the research will be both qualitative and quantitative. The data collected through the questionnaire will be arranged and studied according to the requirement of the research. The collected data will be analyzed and processed in the graphs and charts after calculating the percentage (Babatunde, 2015). The inclination towards most favorable responses will be estimated that way. Quantitative methods of data analysis involve working with the collected data on the basis of quantity. Mathematical tools are used to draw conclusions regarding the study performed. We will also use correlation as a tool to calculate the relation between the leadership style and the dependency of the same on the overall work related satisfaction and motivational factors for the employees working in the government sector in Abu Dhabi Outcomes The data collected for the research through the questionnaire will be cross-sectional in nature. It is the most common method in applied and field psychological research. By the end of the data analysis, we hope we are able to gauge the sentiment of the employees towards the leadership style being practiced and how open their workplaces are towards innovation. We will calculate the dependency of the leadership styles on the motivation and satisfaction of the employees with their job. We also aim to gather suggestions to make the leadership styles in government sector better, so that it is more accepting of innovative practices. Timescale The intended duration of this research is one year. This includes the time for designing the questionnaire, collecting the data and processing it to come up with conclusions. The first few months will be taken to study and review the literature. This will include previously published reports and articles on topics related to our research topic. The questionnaire will be prepared and finalized in next 15days. Over a period of 2 months, we intend on collecting the data using the questionnaire in various government offices in Abu Dhabi. And the data will be then processed to draw conclusions and give suggestions to bring improvement in the currently practiced leadership style. References Alsowaidi, N., 2012. Abu Dhabi Competitiveness Report: Improving the Competitiveness of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Available at: https://ded.abudhabi.ae/en/ded-center/Competitiveness-Office-of-Abu-Dhabi/reports-and-studies/DED-Report-R8-ENG.pdf Babatunde, O., 2015. The Impact of Leadership Style on Employees Performance in an Organization. Public Policy and Administration Research , 5(1), pp. 1-14. Bass, B., 2000. The Future of Leadership in Learning Organizations. Journal of Leadership Organizational Studies, 7(8), pp. 1-24. Chowdhary, R., 2014. A study on the impact of leadership styles on employee motivation and commitment: an empirical study of selected organizations in corporate sector, Available at: https://www.dypatil.edu/schools/management/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/A-study-of-the-Impact-of-Leadership-Styles-on-Employee-Motivation-and-Commitment-An-empirical-study-of-selected-organisations-in-Corporate-sector-Rima-Chowdhury.pdf Government, A. D., 2008. The Abu Dhabi: Economic Vision 2030, Available at: https://www.ecouncil.ae/PublicationsEn/economic-vision-2030-full-versionEn.pdf Iqbal, N., Anwar, S. Haider, N., 2015. Effect of Leadership Style on Employee Performance. Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review, 5(5), pp. 1-6. Khuong, M. Hoang, D., 2015. The Effects of Leadership Styles on Employee Motivation in Auditing Companies. International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, August, 6(4), pp. 1-8. Koech, P. Namusonge, G., 2012. The Effect of Leadership Styles on Organizational Performance at State Corporations. International Journal of Business and Commerce, September, 2(1), pp. 01-12. Kruse, K., 2013. What Is Leadership?, Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2013/04/09/what-is-leadership/#184f24545b90 Mogielnicki, R., 2014. Based on studies in the UAE, the Gulf Leadership Style is an example for leaders worldwide, Professor tells International Management Conference in Oxford, Available at: https://www.zawya.com/story/Based_on_studies_in_the_UAE_the_Gulf_Leadership_Style_is_an_example_for_leaders_worldwide_Professor_tells_International_Management_Conference_in_Oxford-ZAWYA20140518125223/ Nanjundeswaraswamy, T. Swamy, D., 2014. Leadership styles: Advances In Management, Available at: https://www.mnsu.edu/activities/leadership/leadership_styles.pdf Timothy, O. Okwu, A., 2011. Effects of leadership style on organizational performance: A survey of selected small scale enterprises. Australian Journal of Business and Management Research, October, 1(7), pp. 1-12.