Leadership Style & Challenges Faced By Alan â€Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Explain Leadership Style Challenges Faced By Alan? Answer: Introduction The leader I am going to discuss in this essay is Alan Joyce, who is the CEO of Qantas Airline. He is the best option for me for two reasons. First, he is has a rich and diverse work and leadership experience drawn from the different job positions he has previously held in his career life and secondly, he has over 20 years as a leader in the business world. For instance, between the year 1988 and 1996, he held positions in marketing, network planning, sales, IT, revenue management, operations research and fleet planning at Aer Lingus (Andrew, 2010). This implies that he has had a varied experience in different leadership capacities in major corporations. His leadership style is that which is based on classic leadership qualities (Andrew, 2010). He adds that such qualities include communication, decisiveness, teamwork and accountability. Communication is paramount to any organization, especially when giving duty instructions, assigning roles, negotiating deals and much more. Similarly, collaboration, informed decision making, and accountability are key pillars in the success of any entity. As such, he possessing such attributes places him better to steer the company to greater success heights. A chief setback Mr. Alan experienced as he took office as the CEO at Qantas Airways was the Great Recession (Andrew, 2010). This recession adversely impacted the global economy, and the airline was no exception. According to (Andrew, 2010), other regular challenges Alan faces include long decision-making processes, the ever fluctuating industry, the issue of establishing a balance between the here-and-now urgency and the longer term perspectives and then the mitigation of the adverse impact of rising fuel prices. These and other setbacks have proved quite resilient to completely overcome them. Brief overview of Alan Joyce`s background Alan Joyce was born in Tallaght, Ireland, in in the year 1966 (Andrew, 2010). According to him, he graduated from Trinity College in Dublin in the year 1987 with a Bachelor`s degree in mathematics and physics. Additionally, Alan obtained a master`s degree in management science in the year 1987 from the same institution (Andrew, 2010). This shows he holds commendable academic credentials. Between the year 1988 and 1996, he held positions in IT, sales, network planning, marketing, operations research, fleet planning and revenue management at Aer Lingus Airline (Andrew, 2010). He adds that, from the year 1996 to 2000, Mr. Alan was in charge of schedule planning, network planning and network strategy functions at Ansett Australia. According to him, between 2003 and 2008, Mr. Alan was the CEO at Jetstar and finally since 2008 to present, he is the CEO Qantas. This vividly shows how competent and vastly experienced he is. He has been passionately and aggressively involved in the aviation industry which has seen him earn immense respect, recognition, and fame. His leadership style Definition of leadership Leadership depicts the process via which a leader influences a team or followers to achieve a shared purpose (Amin, et al., 2013). Similarly, according to (Hur, 2008), leadership may be described as the managerial tasks which influence subordinates to willingly endeavor to achieve the organizational goals. The two definitions are stressing the aspect of influence by leaders towards their team members or employees. Such influence is meant to facilitate the effective accomplishment of the set goals, vision and mission of the entity. Most common elements in the definition of leadership include group, influence, and goal (Lewis, et al., 2006). This means that they are the foundations of leadership. Identification and demystification of Mr. Alan`s leadership style There is no single leadership style which can be ascertained as the perfect choice which works excellently under all circumstances (Babu, 2011). This means that a leader is expected to adapt the choice of his leadership style to the present situation. Three leadership theories include servant-leadership theory, business leadership theory and transformational theory (Hawkins, 2009). He adds that servant-leaders normally target the needs of their workforce, business leaders emphasizes results and quality methodologies while transformational leaders design all staff members` work towards the mission, create transparent communication systems within the entity and then direct their performance on reinforcing and maintaining their entities for the future. Mr. Alan`s leadership style is based on transformational and business leadership theories. This is evidenced by two particular actions he has executed in his current position. The first action is that he has been undertaking a transformation program that includes settling of debts and re-structuring the credit rates of Qantas (Jamie, 2015). This involves paying off debts of the company in a systematic manner and modifying and monitoring the rates of credit of the firm to ensure it does not stagnate due to accumulated debts. However, many people including the company`s stakeholders did not believe that could work, but it has eventually been fruitful. As such, he is one of the transformational leaders who are change agents and possess unbending commitment especially through the dull moments when some people may doubt whether the vision may ever be accomplished (Hawkins, 2009). Secondly, he has established a key restructuring that will ensure a freeze on enlarging the scope of the airline`s domestic operations and the official split of its local and international operations into distinct business units among others (Peter, 2014). This move is bold since it is not easy to halt the expansion of the company`s local operations as well as separating the domestic and international flight services. By this, he has been able to change the way the stakeholders including the management board perceive certain problems. A transformative leader stimulates and transforms followers to attain extraordinary results by changing their awareness on issues and aiding them to view old challenges in a new perspective (Odumeru Ogbonna, 2013). He has vividly executed this role through the mentioned action. Challenges he has faced and how he managed them Leadership is complicated (Betts Santoro, 2007). This implies that challenges are inevitable in leadership. In the current century, corporate leaders are highly pressured to ensure their operations are greatly adaptive, efficacious, innovative and humane (Palthe, 2000). This means that they face the challenge of being expected to fully and effectively perform. Sadly, this may not be the case at times. Two challenges he has encountered include; He has faced calls to step down from the media and politicians, who fault him of wrecking the airline (Jamie, 2015). This is chiefly because of his tough, transformative and seemingly ``bad`` strategies which do not favor the majority. However, the guy, who is described by his friends as a no ``bullshit street fighter`` in his way of doing business faced down his critics (Jamie, 2015). He adds that consequently, shortly after, he performed a commendable turnaround at Qantas delivering a profit of $ 206 million untaxed profits. This came as a shocker to many especially his critics. Secondly, in 2011, he encountered an industrial action by the airline employees, who were protesting for better pay and improved working environment (Jamie, 2015). Such actions are regular globally in every industry. At times they can be devastating for the entity. To mitigate this problem, after some time he locked out staff members and grounded the fleet, and this established the indispensable adaptability to transform the airline (Jamie, 2015). To him, this was a defining moment for a major turnaround. Suggestions to enhance his leadership There is no flexible and perfect leader, and everybody has strengths and weaknesses (Gurdeop, 2012). This means that leaders have to continually polish their leadership approaches for effective performance. I would suggest that Mr. Alan does the following to enhance his leadership. First, seek to consider the views of all stakeholders. Also, establish a functional structure of addressing the grievances of employees. Lastly is to create a framework which ensures optimal use of workers` strengths and work delegation. Lessons learnt The study of Mr. Alan`s leadership approach has enabled me to learn some things which are core to any leadership. First, sometimes it is prudent for leaders to make decisions which can deliver regardless of whether others agree or disagree. It is essential to be flexible and tactical. Leadership is about being a change agent. Conclusion In summary, the chief findings of this paper are as follows. Mr. Alan Joyce has a vast leadership experience drawn from the high number of positions he has held in the past. His leadership approach is remarkably efficacious although it needs some polishing. He has faced turbulent challenges in the execution of his leadership duties and responsibilities, but he has successfully triumphed. References Amin, M., Tatlah, I. Khan, A., 2013. `Which Leadership Style to use?` `An Investigation of Conducive and Non-conducive Leadership Style (s) to Faculty Job Satisfaction`. International Research Journal of Arts and Humanities, 41(41). Andrew, D., 2010. `Qantas Airways` CEO on Two Companies, One Leadership Style`. [Online] Available at: https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/videos/leadership-organization-joyce-alan/ Babu, V., 2011. `Divergent Leadership Styles Practiced by Global Managers in India`. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 46(3). Betts, S. Santoro, M., 2007. `Integrating Leadership Theories and Team Research: A Conceptual Framework Based on Level of Analysis and Type of Control. Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications, and Conflict`, 11(1). Gurdeep, S., 2012. Leadership Qualities for Effective Leaders. S.l.: Vij Books India Pvt Ltd. Hawkins, C., 2009. Leadership Theories- Managing Practices, Challenges, Suggestions. Community College Enterprise, 15(2). Hur, M., 2008. `Exploring Differences in Leadership Styles: A Study of Manager Tasks, Follower Characteristics and Task Environments in Korean Human Service Organizations. Social Behaviour and Personality: an International Journal`, 36(3). Jamie, S., 2015. Monday Interview: Alan Joyce, CEO, Qantas Airways-financial Times. [Online] Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/f0926118-c651-11e4-add0-00144feab7de Lewis, D., Medland, J., Malone, S. Murphy, M., 2006. Appreciative Leadership: Defining Effective Leadership Methods. Organization Development Journal, 24(1). Odumeru, J. Ogbonna, I., 2013. `Transformational vs. Transactional Leadership Theories: Evidence in Literature`. International Review of Management and Business Research, 2(2). Palthe, J., 2000. `Results-Based Leadership: How Leaders Build the Business and Improve the Bottom Line`. Human Resource Planning, 23(3). Peter, G., 2014. `Qantas turn-around: Is Alan Joyce the right leader for the job?`. [Online] Available at: https://theconversation.com/qantas-turn-around-is-alan-joyce-the-right-leader-for-the-job-31