The Failed Vision
If I were consulting with the HTE Board of Directors regarding Harold’s Leadership, from a transformational perspective, I would have advised them that Harold wasn’t a good leader and that his leadership style was damaging to HTE. Harold tried to bring about many changes to the company without recognizing the effects of the changes, which made him seems to look like he didn’t know what he was doing, though his intention was good. His past records were great, but the results from HTE didn’t demonstrate what was said about him. His style of leadership was in line with the Pseudo-transformational leadership.
Pseudo-transformational leadership refers to leaders who are self-consumed, exploitive, and power oriented, with warped moral values (Bass & Riggio,2006). Pseudo-transformational leadership is considered personalized leadership, which focuses on the leader’s own interest rather than on the interest of others (Northouse, 20016, pg. 163). Harold was more worried about how he looks in position than what is good for the company.
Harold should have focused more on the people and inspire them to make the change he wanted a success, but he didn’t involve them at all in the change process. This was damaging, which finally cause a major failure and serious loss in revenue to the company.
Did Harold have a clear vision for HTE? Was he able to implement?
Yes. Harold did have a clear vision for the company but didn’t have the correct method of leadership to make his vision to transform HTE. Harold wanted to prove that new technologies and advance management could make the company one of the best manufacturing companies in the nation.
Harold created a vision, but it conflicted with his values and management style. It became very difficult for him to convey his vision to the employees in that they saw his vision as being against himself. The employees didn’t believe in the vision and were confused with all the changes. They were not involved in the change process and never had the voice when it came to feedback.
Was he able to implement?
No, he couldn’t implement anything because his leadership style was the Pseudo-transformational leadership which is an inspired leadership that is self-serving, unwilling to encourage independent ideas from followers and exhibits little care for others. This type of leadership has strong inspirational talent and appeal but is manipulative and dominates and directs followers towards his or her own values (Christie, Barling, et., al.,2011). This leadership also threaten the welfare of followers because it ignores the common good.
How effective was Harold as a change agent and social architect for HTE?
Harold at the beginning was very determined, but as time went by his vision seems to be uncertain. A blur vision which causes an overall effect of the reorganization was a precipitous drop in the worker morale and production. Harold wasn’t effective as a change agent because, in my opinion, I realize that Harold could not stand strong with his vision and mission. He could not influence the workers to follow his method.
This made the employees feel instability, as they also started to find it very difficult to support the company’s vision. He faced a failure of having gained the employee’s trust. There wasn’t a good relationship between Harold and the employees. Their words were neglected by him, resulting in a huge gap between the leader and the employees. Harold couldn’t be considered as a social architect for HTE, because he did nothing that brought positive change to the company. Instead, he destroys the valued organizational history of the company, its revenues and lost the morale amongst the employees.
What Would you advise Harold to do differently if he had the chance to return as president of HTE? I would advise him to humble himself and ask for consideration from all his senior and lower managers and begin developing a new relationship by communicating effectively with everyone and focusing on workers affairs and calming bad feelings, lifting spirits, and providing updates and progress reports as activities come. Then a new vision should be created that incorporates the needs of the company as well as feedback from the leadership.
From a Bible standpoint and perspective, I will like to be a kind of leader that is unselfish, and not only concerned about my interest rather the interest of others as well and to lead my organization for the common good of all.
In our quest for the marks of mature spirituality and leadership ability, we must not bypass that quality which so completely characterized the life of Jesus Christ, the quality of unselfish servanthood. Jesus said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45) The apostle Paul added to this focus when he wrote, “Each of you should be concerned not only about your own interests, but the interests of others as well” (Phil. 1:4). But then pointing to the Savior as our great example, he quickly added, “You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had.”
In conclusion, our leadership style as a believer in God Almighty should be model after our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Seeking not only our interest as leaders but for others as well and to also practice transformational leadership which is used in improving team development, (Bass ; Avolio,1994). Decision-making groups, quality initiative, and reorganizations.
References
- Bass. M., ; Avolio, B. J. (1994). Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
- Bass, B. M., ; Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational leadership (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum. - Christie, A., Barling., ; Turner, N. (2011). Pseudo-transformational leadership:
Model specification and outcomes. Journal of Applied Social Psychology,44(12), 2943-
2984 - Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publication
