Bh7705 LCC Assignment Sample 2023
Question 2
Introduction
Modern business is more in demand than the physical resources available with them. The excellent use of the material and human resources is out by the leaders. Leadership is the ability to influence the decisions and actions of individuals and teams (Northouse, 2021). Modern businesses have included the concept of digital Leadership along with conventional age-old Leadership. It is necessary to assess both leadership styles’ significance and appropriate implementation. The report has been prepared to emphasize the difference in Leadership and their optimal use in the different organizations.
The report also provides a comparative analysis of both styles by assessing them in leadership theories implemented in the current times. The information will also present the leadership theories to understand better using one of the leaderships. Digital Leadership is the initiative that includes digital methods in the business arena to achieve success. The report has reflected a comparative analysis based on the different factors, allowing a better understanding of the adoption of digital leadership against the traditional leadership styles.
Leadership
Leadership is the ability to inspire others to a guided and common goal. Leadership is not a narrow term associated with performance (Iszatt-White and Saunders, 2017). Still, it has also got the broader expression in grabbing opportunities, awareness about the market trends and many more. Leadership conducted by leaders need to be good decision-makers as times require typical decision-making stances in business. The leaders are expected to be articulate, have innovative thinking, effective management and communication skills and openness to change. This would allow the least resistance from the change in the organization and raise the degree of adaptability in the employees.
Significance of Leadership
Leadership is considered the function that implies the best possible use of the organization’s resources to increase efficiency and gain organizational objectives materially. Leaders are essential to set a vision for the firm. Image can be understood as the long term roadmap of the company and the way it wants to concrete itself in the upcoming years. Leaders are responsible for harnessing the talents available in the organization to the most optimal use (Lussier and Achua, 2015). Leaders are a connecting link between the management and the ground-level workers who are supposed to have fluent and sound communication for effective working. Motivation influences the employees to be cheerful and loyal towards their work. Effective Leadership is meant to motivate the workers for better productivity. The coordination of function with a high degree of motivation would allow the firm to achieve excellence (Al Khajeh, 2018). Therefore, Leadership can be understood as of great significance in a firm.
Types of Leadership
Leadership in any organization can be undertaken in different forms and styles. There is no particular suitability for any organization to choose one type. Hence, there can be a combination of one or more leaders in an organization (Antonakis and Day, 2018). These are classified into five different categories:
- Authoritarian Leadership
- Participative Leadership
- Delegative Leadership
- Transactional Leadership
- Transformational Leadership
Digital Leadership
Digital Leadership is the process where the digital assets are deployed for achieving the organizational objectives in the long term and short term. The digital leaders involved in the process are well aware of digital Leadership’s significance, which have been enlisted in the following way. The high paying value can foster digital Leadership on communication and innovation measures (de Araujo et. al. 2021). The use of digital information to achieve the mission would be helpful in other ways as:
- Increased Employee productivity: Various tools and tactics are devised to reduce employee time and efforts wastage. The infusion of digital Leadership would ensure that the employees use the technology and other resources to save time and use their energy for more valuable functions.
- Building Digital Culture: All the functions and departments require different tools and techniques that would ensure the accomplishment of the objectives. Digital Leadership is the affirmation of allocating the right tools to the proper departments.
- High Customer Retention: The customers served with the digital assets will gain lesser operation costs and a higher level of satisfaction (Sheninger, 2019). This, in turn, would be a factor for the business to increase the revenue in the firm and raise the profitability standards.
The digital leadership roadmap is also quite different from everyday Leadership, the general managerial functions. The way for digital Leadership is shown in the following way:
- Setting up Digital Strategy:
- Setting timelines
- Identification of the stakeholders
- Decision on KPIs
Digital Leadership is characterized by various factors that affect business operations and the actions of human resources. Digital Leadership is not merely focused on the scale of flashy projects but the conversion of the mindset of the people towards digital information. The development of digital skills is not within a separate department but in the whole organization.
Digital Leadership provides a way for the management to allocate budgets and infuse digital technology in working (Wagner, 2018). The tangibility of small success of digital Leadership can be used for the teams to motivate and raise their morale.
Differences
Digital Leadership and conventional Leadership are not all the same and hold some fundamental differences in working patterns, the pace of changes, or digital assets’ adaptability. The organizational culture, a combination of actions, behaviour, and values of the individuals and teams, is handled differently under digital Leadership than in everyday Leadership. There are leaders in the regular industries who are the founders of the promoters of the organizations. In contrast, digital leaders are the ones who can effectively put to use the digital assets and information. The leaders, in general, are expected to have the attributes like communication skills, knowledge, tact, innovation and responsiveness to the risk. Still, digital leaders are expected to have a transformative vision that can help the easy conversion of physical assets to those of digital assets. Leaders need to be change-oriented and have a good hold on technological advancements to keep pace with the ongoing improvements in the industry.
Digital Leadership needs to be transformative, unlike Leadership, as the vision is accompanied by direction and pre-defined purpose. Therefore, digital leadership’s difference lies over the traditional style where the leaders maintain a stable position and foster change management. The conventional form of Leadership does not need excellence in technology and digital literacy, which is a must in Digital Leadership. A better understanding of digital information would allow informed decisions making by the leaders.
Another factor that creates the point of difference between conventional and digital Leadership is adapting to the dynamic and ever-changing technological environment. Digital leaders need to update their knowledge in accordance with the ongoing trends in the technological environment, unlike traditional leaders (Kane et. al. 2019). The latter is concerned with all the macroeconomic factors like the political, social, legal and technical aspects.
Leadership theories
Leadership theories trace the typical behavioural pattern and interpersonal attributes of different leaders. There are various aspects of studies in leadership theories like decision-making capabilities, actions, relationship maintaining ability, receipt of the input, and expected outcomes.
There are various theories associated with the concept of Leadership. Conventional Leadership goes well with different approaches, but digital Leadership may need transformation and changes while applying them in business operations. Various ideas and their preview with traditional and digital Leadership have been explained as:
| S. No. | Theory | Details |
| 1 | Trait Theory | Trait theory proposes that effective Leadership is solely based on the attributes possessed by an individual who needs to lead the teams. Trait theories involve personal leadership factors like self-confidence, interpersonal skills and their imagination of doing things. The researchers focus on the criteria like appearance, weight or demographic factors such as education and familial background. That is the reason it traces its roots somehow to great man theory rather than other styles. |
| 2 | Behavioural Theory | Behavioural Theory is the one that pays emphasis on the role of a person’s environment in transformation into a leader and not the personal qualities acquired or inherited. The critical idea behind behavioural Theory is conditioning (Nawaz et. al. 2016). Conditioning is the act or leading of a person in different circumstances.
The behavioural theory requires specific skills such as technical, human, and conceptual skills. Adopting these skills will help one adopt behavioural changes with ease. |
| 3 | Great Man Theory | Grand man theory focuses on the fact that Leadership is highly based on the inheritance of the attributes of being a leader. Leaders are born, not made is the appropriate line defining this sort of Leadership. The leaders in such styles are presumed to be heroic, mythic, and reach heights. This Theory is loud and clear that Leadership is an inherent quality. This leadership style was reserved for males who served in military backgrounds. |
| 4 | Contingency Theory | Contingency theory is also referred to as situational Theory. This theory claims that there is no particular best style of Leadership that is suitable to all kinds of organizations. The best way to lead is to maintain a balance between the behaviours, needs, and context. It states that great leadership is a combination of various styles together (Gandolfi and Stone, 2018).
Situational Theory argues that the leader should mould the skills as per the situation. There may be flexibility in the actions to persuade, participate, or command (Ayman and Lauritsen, 2018). |
| 5 | Transactional Theory | The transactional Theory of Leadership is also called the management theory. It is the conventional approach where the excellent work is rewarded, and the poor are held for the penalty. This is more focused on results and is outcome-oriented (Shafique and Beh, 2017). It rarely accounts for motivation and is quite hierarchical. Unlike transformational leadership, the innovation is subsided by the order and structure, which guides a high degree of inspiration and innovation among the employees. This is the most often used style of leadership but has been losing its importance with a flexible working style preferred by the employees. |
| 6 | Transformational Theory | The theory’s relationship theory reflects the positive relationship between the leaders and team members. Transformational Leadership is associated with the charisma and enthusiasm of the leaders to motivate productive working in the organization (Ghasabeh et. al. 2015). Leaders set themselves as the role models for the team members and hence keep themselves at the same standard as they want others to maintain. |
Grand man theory sometimes may fit traditional Leadership as the leader requires the attributes like confidence, intuition and intelligence but does not hold suitable for digital Leadership. It is because digital excellence and literacy can only be acquired and not inherited. The trait theory can be accompanied by digital Leadership as the indulgence of certain qualities like forward-looking vision, and the digital leaders can develop transformational behaviour.
The best-suited form of leadership theory can be experienced in transformational Leadership for Digital Leadership. It is because the digital leadership characteristics are well adjusted in the atmosphere where the employees are flexible, adaptable to the changes, and highly motivated to work (Petry, 2018). Thus, conventional transactional and grand man theories do not support the digital leadership style. Behavioural Theory depends on the external environmental factors, and hence the technological aspect is covered as well. Digital leadership is deeply affected by external changes, and hence there is a need for keeping such leadership in accordance with the organization’s needs.
Conclusion
Digital Leadership is considered a combination of leadership styles with the involvement of digital technology. Leaders’ competence and interpersonal skills combined with digital assets would yield sound and quick decision-making and deliver fruitful results for any organization. There are different leadership styles where the adjustment of digital transformation may seem easy or difficult. Still, the nature of management, digital leaders, and the organizational culture would allow easy digital leadership implementation in firms.
The fastened speed of service provision would allow higher satisfaction to the stakeholders and enhance the capability to retain the customers for long. The entwined benefits of digital Leadership and the undeniable need for traditional Leadership make it necessary to indulge both the concepts in the current business line. The report has intensely discussed the differences between digital Leadership and traditional Leadership.
References
Al Khajeh, E.H., (2018). Impact of leadership styles on organizational performance. Journal of Human Resources Management Research, (2018), pp.1-10.
Antonakis, J. and Day, D.V., (2018). Leadership: Past, present, and future.
Ayman, R. and Lauritsen, M., (2018). Contingencies, context, situation, and leadership.
de Araujo, L.M., Priadana, S., Paramarta, V. and Sunarsi, D., (2021). Digital leadership in business organizations. International Journal of Educational Administration, Management, and Leadership, pp.45-56.
Gandolfi, F. and Stone, S., (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4), pp.261-269.
Ghasabeh, M.S., Soosay, C. and Reaiche, C., (2015). The emerging role of transformational leadership. The Journal of Developing Areas, 49(6), pp.459-467.
Iszatt-White, M. and Saunders, C., (2017). Leadership. Oxford University Press.
Kane, G.C., Phillips, A.N., Copulsky, J. and Andrus, G., (2019). How digital leadership is (n’t) different. MIT Sloan Management Review, 60(3), pp.34-39.
Lussier, R.N. and Achua, C.F., (2015). Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development. Cengage learning.
Nawaz, Z.A.K.D.A. and Khan, I., (2016). Leadership theories and styles: A literature review. Leadership, 16(1), pp.1-7.
Northouse, P.G., (2021). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
O’Sullivan, N., (2015). Leadership: a critical introduction.
Petry, T., (2018). Digital leadership. In Knowledge management in digital change (pp. 209-218). Springer, Cham.
Shafique, I. and Beh, L.S., (2017). Shifting organizational leadership perspectives: An overview of leadership theories. Journal of Economic & Management Perspectives, 11(4), pp.134-143.
Sheninger, E., (2019). Digital leadership: Changing paradigms for changing times. Corwin Press.
Wagner, D.J., (2018). Digital leadership. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
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