By Finan Nechikkadan Published 23rd June 2021
Leadership/Sustainable leadership/Benefits
Leadership Overview and How I Can Influence
Sustainable Leadership Approach in the Workplace
Leaders do have a great responsibility in their respective companies and organisational performance is based on their decisions that they make on daily basis (Georgiadou and Jasonos, 2014). This means that if they make poor decisions on how employees should work and the policies, values and culture to guide, they are not likely to attain success and this is a good reason for the body to relieve them their duties. However, if they get their decisions right, they are highly likely to drive the company towards success and this will win them the recognition of the board or the top management in their respective firms and this is accompanied by monetary and non-monetary rewards. This is the main reasons that leaders are willing to sacrifice anything in front of them to ensure that the targeted organisational figures are attained. They can do anything possible to tackle obstacles that they face along the way even if it’s firing the entire workforce and hiring new workers that they believe will enable them realise the goals that they are targeting (Colgan, 2017). This is however, a traditional approach to leadership that has for long led employees to occupational stress and depression. This down not mean that this leadership style is not in existence anymore because most leadership spots are held by aged people who still believe in leading with an Iron fist. They do not believe on their views and opinions of their employees and thus, they prefer giving them commands that they have to fully comply with and failure to do so, the employees are seen to be unproductive and thus, they are highly likely to be fired. This leadership approach ignores the social factor that outlines the need for good management of people, be it workers, customers or fellow leaders and managers (Ghosh, 2016). This is the main reason why most companies are having unhappy and stressed employees although, they are attained their financial targets. This threatens the sustainability of the firms as workers may end up living the companies and this will lead to their down fall.
This means that the competitiveness of the firms in the markets such as Unilever or industries that they trade in will diminish and they will not be able to attain the success that they are after. This is likely to occur sooner than expected because modern day workers despite lacking the opportunity to lead, they have qualities that can make them good leaders. Thus, they tend to disagree with the traditional leadership approach and they are advocating for a more modern and sustainable way of influencing them. With this regard, it is a high time that the leaders did the right thing.
It is high time
the existing and aspiring leaders to change their mindset towards leadership
(Green et al., 2012). They need to adjust to the new approach known as
‘Sustainable Leadership’, which is more focused on ensuring that on top of
focusing on economic gains, social and environmental demands are also met. This
means that the Unilever Company will head in a direction that will ensure
growth is inclusive. This means that as the company grows, the shareholders
also grow with regard to their gains and environmental conversation is also
attained. This is important in ensuring that leaders are able to shape a
sustainable future for their respective companies.
I believe that having a good experience in leadership gives me the ability to ensure that sustainable leadership is fully implemented in the workplace. Personally, I am aware of the best leadership style that should be implemented in the company. I am against autocratic leadership because it denies employees the opportunities to exploit their potential and they are poorly treated, hence causing conflicts within the workplace. I am supporting participative leadership because it’s on line with situational leadership and it’s likely to enable empowerment and involvement of employees in daily operations. It fosters creation of a good working environment for all workers to deliver on what is expected of them. I have an idea that by focusing on the social and environmental aspects of Unilever Company, the chances of attaining the economic goals will be high. Thus, I will have to adjust the working culture in the company to ensure that the workers or employees are valued as the most important resources in the workplace. I will have a meeting with them to understand their grievances and their expectations in order to put in place policies and measures that will make them more comfortable and happy in the workplace. I will prioritize assisting them solve the challenges that they face and regain their confidence by creating a good working environment for them. By doing so, I will ensure that they are not in any manner threatened either physically or mentally so that they are comfortable within the workplace. As a result of this, I will be able to win their trust and they will be very cooperative. I will be free to them and thus, their opinions will be welcomed in making the workplace a better place. Also, I will educate them on the importance of handling the customers well so that to extract the most important information from them on how to improve the company’s outputs and the unmet needs. This means that I will gather sufficient information that will aid the creativity and innovation of the company. Having happy employees will make them maximise their innovation potential to come with ideas to improve existing products and develop new ones that will fully meet customer needs and expectation and this will aid the company’s market growth and this will make the entire workplace to celebrate success together and in the process, they will pledge their loyalty to the company and this will give it the stability it needs.
In implementing the sustainable leadership strategy, I will have to ensure the company contributes towards dealing with climate change, societal injustices, hunger, and empowerment challenges among others. For instance, I will actively engage the research and design department to innovative come up with ways of reducing the plastic packaging materials that are used in the company. I will explore options together with the employees on areas that renewable energy, mostly solar can be used to avoid the excess reliability of fossil fuels as the mode of energy. This will be vital in reducing our carbon emission figures and we will be able to make significant contributions towards environment protection. I will have to review the CSR of the company in order to adjust it and focus on more urgent issues or challenges faced in the society at large. For instance, I will ensure that our company is involved in campaigns against child labour, gender inequality and violence, hunger and racism with the purpose of making positive contributions towards society development. I will lead the company to act the talk by ensuring that in the workplace, such vices are not experienced.
I will influence
the situational leadership in the company to ensure that economic gains are
realised alongside customer satisfaction. This means that customers will be
involved in designing the products and services of the company. Market surveys
will be frequent to gain their views and opinions and this will ensure that the
company’s products and services are relevant in the market. In the process, it
will be much easier to promote these outputs and I will ensure that the
advertising activities are honest. Doing away with false advertising will aid
the company’s reputation and this will significant in guaranteeing it a sustainable
future.
Based on this
discussion, I recommend that the top management of firms needs to organize
training programs for their respective employees to be able to move from the
outdated leadership approaches and adapt the new one, sustainable leadership.
There is need for them to be taught of the important of this approach in
ensuring that the company’s long term ambitions are attained by having
supportive workers, customers and shareholders. These leaders need to make all
concerned parties believe in them and thus, they will assist them to foster
realisation of set environmental, social and economic targets (Northouse, 2016).
Another option that these firms can adapt is to hire younger and well proven
leaders because they are fully aware with the modernised leadership approach.
They need to ensure that the views and opinions of the younger employees are
incorporated in the workforce planning and this will foster improved employee
satisfaction and focus on solving social and environmental challenges. The
firms need to keep empowering their workers to grow their competencies in order
to be happy and highly motivated all the time. By getting the sustainability
leadership right, the companies will improve their market competitiveness and
this will improve the chances of realizing their vision and growth objectives.
I am of high
spirits that this article has been of great significance to you and I hope to
have convinced you on why firms need to move from traditional leadership
approaches and adapt the recent one, situational leadership. I also believe
that I have been given convincing remarks on how I can implement sustainable
leadership in a company. I will also be happy to get to know your views and
opinions on situational leadership and how you can influence it in the workplace
by giving your comments on this article.
References
Colgan, F. (2017), Equality, diversity and corporate
responsibility: Sexual orientation and diversity
management in the UK private sector, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 30: 19–734
Georgiadou, A., and Jasonos, C. (2014), Diversity as a strategic
competitive advantage: The impact
of cultural diversity on hotel employees’ satisfaction and retention. 7th International Conference on Equality, Diversity
and Inclusion, EDI, 2014
Ghosh, K. (2016), Creative leadership for workplace innovation: An
applied SAP-LAP framework, Development
and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal, 30, 10–14
Green et al., (2012), Diversity in the workplace: Benefits,
challenges, and the required managerial
tools. UF/IFAS Extension publications, (HR022), 1-3
Northouse, P. G. (2016), Leadership
Theory and Practice, 6th ed, Sage publications, CA.
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