Role of Leadership

FULFILLING THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP:

OPTIMIZING ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

By
Lisa Smith, Troy University
Abstract
Current post-downturn business environment demands more production and service from the organizations at less cost, which in turn requires more production and service from the employees at less cost. However, the age-old dominance of extrinsic rewards makes it difficult for the organizations to get more production from the employees at less cost, which in turn sets the leadership task to achieve the same by employing appropriate leadership behavior. This study explores the literature on leadership and motivation and reward systems to ascertain what could be the ideal role of the leaders under the context and circumstance and how they can fulfill the same, before coming to the conclusion that leaders can adopt servant leadership style to achieve the desired organizational outcome.

Introduction

Rapid advancement in communication technology in the recent years has eliminated the continental boundaries and accelerated the globalization process, which in turn spread much faster than the anticipation of the business community and resulted into a far more dynamic and fiercely competitive global business environment. Where the organizations are now functioning much like complex, constantly changing and organic pinball machines, and the decisions, actors, plans, and issues are constantly rebounding through an elastic and dynamic labyrinth of cushions, barriers, and traps (Bolman and Deal (2003). Therefore, under the changed context of business, the role of organizational leaders has become extremely important, as they are not only the captain of the ship, but also the rudder of it. This essay thus explores the role of leadership in optimizing organizational performance through appropriate literature review, before coming into its own conclusion regarding what could be the ideal role of the leaders to optimize the organizational performance.

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