Leading business organisations

Part 1: Reflective assessment

1.1 Reflective Questions

1. Why do aspiring leaders need to have a clear understanding of leadership theories and organisational behaviour?

It is necessary for the leaders to have a clear understanding of leadership theories and organisational behaviour, so that the leaders can have basic and clear ideas to develop their leadership style where they can manage the people. The leaders also need to have proper understanding about the theories of leadership in order to manage transparency and accountability and treat all the members fairly at the workplace. For developing proper organisational behaviour as well as suitable organisational environment, it is important or all the leaders to have concise knowledge about the leadership theories and practice so that they can understand the ethical code of conduct of becoming a fair and transparent leader in the company. Moreover, it is necessary for the leaders to have proper understanding about the leadership theories so that they can identify the tactics to become a good leader and achieve the future organisational success through strategic planning and resource management.

2. What are the main contributions that individuals, leaders and stakeholders make in creating and executing the mission and vision of an organisation?

The major contributions that the leaders make are developing proper strategic planning and executing the planning properly through technological innovation and employee’s creativity, managing change in the organisation, planning and delivery of the strategies, managing people in order to create and execute the vision. The shareholders and the other stakeholders of the business are also important to make the vision and mission successful by their positive contribution in the organisation where they are responsible to conduct their task and perform better for making the business successful. In this regard, the leaders and the managers are also playing crucial role to manage the organisational resources, reallocate and physical resources and financial resources as well as manage the employees who are the major stakeholders through monetary and non-monetary rewards to achieve the organisational success.

3. Why do aspiring leaders need to understand a broad range of potential leadership strategies (and specifically change management strategies) in order to maximise organisational potential in a variety of different business contexts?

The aspiring leaders are efficient to understand the ethical practice as well as change management procedure at the workplace in order to maximise organisational potential in a variety of different business contexts. In this context, the leaders try to encourage technological innovation and employee’s creativity as well as motivating the employees to improve their innovation so that organisational potential to perform better can be enhanced soon. The leaders are also providing proper training and development program to enhance business performance where the senior management team and diversified skilled workforce are recruited for making the business innovative and explore more different business potential in a variety of business context. The leaders also need to understand the strategic planning of recognising the alternative solutions, responding each strategy at the workplace and managing changes to the vision and plans so that it is possible to lead the employees towards more innovation and creativity for making the business successful.

4. Why do aspiring leaders need to be able to critically evaluate a range of motivational (employee engagement) theories within a specific organisational context?

The aspiring leaders need to critically evaluate a range of motivational theories within a specific organisational context so that the leaders can understand the strategic planning to encourage the staff members in the organisation. It is also necessary to create values for the employees and maximise their wellbeing so that the employees can be interested to work with their full potential. Moreover, it is necessary to understand the motivational theories for the leaders so that they can understand the ways of improving engagement with the employees successfully and manage them proficiently. Hereby, employee’s engagement, improving operational and enhancing communication are the reasons of understanding the motivational theories where the leaders can acknowledge the ways of providing monetary and non-monetary rewards to the employees to build trust and loyalty among them and lead them towards achieving organisational success by maximising the organisational performance as a whole.

1.2 Questionnaire assessment

‘Potential Leadership Style’ questionnaire

1. How would you define your potential leadership style?

• Depends on empowerment, managing safely, and equality, where I can manage the safety and security of the staff members.
• Can build strong relationships with all the staff members and employees.
• Can manage the organizational culture with equality and freedom.
• Try to encourage all the members to work as a team.
• Can communicate with each of them and manage transparency and accountability at the workplace.
• Can improve trust and loyalty to become a potential leader where proper organizational culture can be developed well.
• Try to provide proper monetary and non-monetary incentives to all the members to lead them towards achieving success.
• Can empower the employees in the organizational practice where they can be interested to perform with their full potential and utilizing their knowledge and technical skill.

2. What are your key strengths?

• Cooperation and engagement with the followers
• Communication skill
• Positive interactive power
• Problem-solving skill
• Distributed leadership style for managing diversity
• Maintaining equality and transparency at the workplace
• Managing leadership ethics
• Through the above mentioned strengths, I try to handle all the followers at the workplace and encourage them to communicate with each other and develop partnership working practice so that the organisational performance can be enhanced successfully.

3. What are your key challenges?

• Motivating the employees with extra new incentives
• Lack of management for resource allocation
• Less analytical skill for contributing to organizational decision-making practice
• Poor management for ethical leadership, where it is necessary to follow all employment rules and legislations and organizational culture to become an ethical leader
• Less knowledge in change management
• Poor participation in influencing people or demonstrating advantages in the workplace

4. What personal development do you need to undertake in order to develop your leadership ability?

• It is necessary to improve my critical analysis skill so that I can analyze the existing problems of the organization and develop alternative solutions to achieve future success.
• I also need to develop my knowledge for understanding the ethical code of conduct so that I would be an ethical leader in the future.
• I also need to improve my interactive power for managing the people at the workplace through positive interaction, cooperation, communication, respect, and building a strong relationship with all the members.

Part 2: Management report: A case study on Boeing

2.1 Introduction

Leadership style and strategic planning of the organisations are the most important success factors for the companies to run their operational activities and achieve success in near future (Holten, and Brenner, 2015). The aim of the study is to discuss the ethical, authentic and distributed leadership style through which it is possible to explore the practice of leadership as well as acknowledge the challenges of leadership style. In this study, the leadership style of Dennis Muilenburg, who is the chief executive officer of Boeing, will be evaluated. The study is important to understand the Muilenburg’s leadership style and identify the challenges that he has faced during the consequences of the crashes involving the company's 737 Max 8 aircraft where it is also effective to identify the tactics of Dennis Muilenburg to handle the situation.

The study also helps to recommend some suitable suggestions for the CEO of the organisation where he could improve his leadership style to enhance the growth of Boeing in near future and achieve future success. In this regard, Boeing is the American multinational corporation, which is engaged with designing, manufacturing and selling of the aircrafts, satellite and missiles across the globe, it is a reputed company in the airline industry and it has been recorded that, the company is successful in enhancing their profitability and sales volume. In 2017, the company achieved $93.3 billion sales and it has been ranked 24th on the Fortune Top 500 list and 19th in the world’s most admired company’s list in 2018. The reputation and financial strengthen of the company are helpful to provide quality products and efficient services to the customers worldwide and the company is also engaged recently with the projects of jet bio fuels, corporate citizen’s programme and electric propulsion (Boeing, 2019a).

2.2 Ethical, authentic and distributed leadership and challenges of leadership style

Ethical leadership is directed by respect for ethical beliefs and values in the organisation for dignity and rights to others, it is beneficial for trust, honesty, consideration, charisma and fairness where the leader is able to manage transparency and accountability in the organisation for future success. Through implementing ethical rules, the leader is efficient to balance the organisational purpose and personal needs of the people (Iqbal, Anwar and Haider, 2015). The implementation of Employment Act 2002, Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, as well as ethical practice such as equal treatment, fairness, providing proper salary and incentive and creating values for the employees through delivering monetary and non-monetary rewards are effective strategic planning for ethical leadership style, where the leader can enhance organisational performance by managing the employees at the workplace and maximising their wellbeing (Nguyen et al., 2017). Authentic leadership approach emphasises building the leader’s legitimacy through honest relationship with the followers which in turn value their input and build string bond among the staff and leaders in the organisation. In this context, the authentic leadership is beneficial for trustful self concepts who promote openness (Dugan, 2017). As per the distributed leadership, the leader is focusing on the primary practice of leadership rather than its roles and responsibility. Through developing practice in the organisation, the distributed leaders are aiming to enhance the organisational performance and leading the employees towards success (Antonakis and Day, 2017). In this regard, as per the distributed leadership style, there is shared, collective and exerted leadership practice that builds capacity for change and improvement in the organisation. Through distributed leadership style, the leader is able to manage the team members and resolve the internal conflicts and resistance to change the organisation which in turn helps to lead the changes for more innovation and creativity (Ford and Harding, 2018).

The major challenge of Boeing is due to the crashes involving the company’s 737 Max for which the brand image has been hampered and deteriorated in the market. For the airline crashes, there were 346 people who have been killed and it portrays negative brand image in the market worldwide. It is difficult for the leader of the company Dennis Muilenburg to resolve the issue and promote positive brand image in the market. The 737 is accounting for 37% revenue and almost 55% of its profit which have been deteriorated in the company (Boeing, 2019b). Hereby, the major challenges associated with the crashes are negative brand image, poor leadership style, and deterioration in the sales volume and profitability of the company which are serious and it needs to be resolved soon in the company so that the leader can enhance their performance and gain customer’s trust and loyalty further in near future. in this regard, the ethical and authentic leadership style are effective for the leader of Boeing Dennis Muilenburg, where he can promote ethical code of conduct and build strong relationship with the stakeholders including the employee, staff, engineers, shareholders, partners of the business, government and customers. Through ethical and authentic leadership, the leader also can enhance the performance of the brand and manage the rules and legislations for running the operational activities ethically. Fair treatment and the treatment of safety and security in turn provide a scope to the leader to manage the employees and deliver high quality service to the customers which in turn helps to promote positive brand image (Sterlin, 2006).

2.3 Evaluating Muilenburg’s leadership style

The leadership style plays a crucial role to develop effective strategic planning in the organisation, where the leader can lead the organisations towards achieving success. In this context, Dennis Muilenburg has efficient experience in the leadership in aerospace industry, where he is proficient to lead the organisations successfully. He is experienced in airline industry and knows the tactics of developing proper strategic planning that would be beneficial for the organisation to enhance future growth and achieve success in the industry worldwide. In this regard, the CEO of the company Boeing focuses on the market trend of the airline industry as well as understands the actual needs and preferences of the customers so that the he can fulfil the expectations of the customers in the market and satisfy all the people across the globe. This in turn helps him to strengthen their customer’s base and retain more new customers for their quality products and services. Technical depth and engineering intuition further help him to achieve future success, where he is proficient in developing engineering strategic planning to serve the customers more uniquely and manage safety and security of the products and services for the customers. He is also efficient to manage the customers and employees who are the major stakeholders of the business and he focuses on satisfying both of them to lead the business towards achieving future aim of the business. The leader Dennis Muilenburg believes in willingness to draw upon a wide spectrum of talents where he is interested in recruiting the experienced and knowledgeable staff and engineers who can manage the company’s innovation and creativity (Sterlin, 2006).

In this context, the leader focuses on recruitment and selection of staff and engineers with proper knowledge and technical skill so that they can contribute efficiently in the organisation to develop quality products and services to serve the customers uniquely. Moreover, the leader also aims at managing the team by empowering the team members in the organisational process, so that they can contribute positively with their technological knowledge and capabilities. Hereby, the leadership style of empowering the staff in the organisational process and grow working practice of the leader Dennis Muilenburg are effective to lead the team members to achieve future success. The leader focuses on knowledge gap and arranges training and development program so that it is possible to improve the knowledge and skill of all the engineers and staff members in the company and enhance the overall performance of the organisation as a whole. Hereby, group discussion and training sessions are effective for maximisation of the performance where all the staff is interested to attend the program and improve their knowledge and technical skill for enhancing the innovation and creativity in the organisation through strategic planning and technological enhancement. Having teamed with different thoughts is the target of the leader where he is efficient to recruit diversified skilled workforce to enhance the innovation and creativity in the organisation (Sterlin, 2007).

The leader Dennis Muilenburg is also inspiring all the staff members and focuses on the mission of the company to produce best workplace in the aerospace industry. In this regard, the leader develops the mission which is connected with all the stakeholders of the company including the customers and in this context, Dennis Muilenburg tries to improve their service excellence by enhancing their performance and reducing the impacts of crashes involving the company’s 737 Max. The leader is efficient top handle the brand image where due to crashes involving the company’s 737 Max, the personal image and global leadership style has been hampered where as per the public statement; the people are not feeling safe to decide to travel with Bowing. It is a negative situation where the brand image has been deteriorated and it is the responsibility of the leader Dennis Muilenburg to overcome the problems and lead the organisation towards achieving success (Crichton, 2009). In this regard, the leader focuses on mission and motivates the organisational employee and engineers to enhance their service excellence and promote the quality serve with safety and security so that the negative brand image can be resolved. Connecting people through satellite, aeroplanes and communications is another strategy of the leader to improve their service excellence and through connecting people; the leader tries to strengthen their customer base for near future. Protecting freedom of the individuals working in the workplace of Boeing is also another strategic planning, where the leader manages the safety and security of the employees, an implement the employment rules and give them freedom to work at the workplace. Proper organisational culture in this regard further helps the leader to manage the employees and lead them towards achieving success.

Additionally, the leader of Boeing focuses on product and service innovation by technological advancement and creativity of the engineers so that it can deliver diversified products and services to the customers in the market and it would be beneficial to gain market share worldwide. In this context, the leader launched the new commercial aeroplanes to the marketplace like the 737 MAX, the 77XX and the 787 as well as new space vehicles for low-Earth orbit travel for managing customer’s safety. This is also beneficial for the comp-any to improve their brand image again in the market and retain more customers for their products and services in near future. Hereby, the leadership style of innovation and creativity as well as the management of the employees and engineers are effective for the leader to fulfil the mission of the organisation and strengthen their customers base through service excellence. In this regard, the leader Dennis Muilenburg also focuses on diversified knowledge and technical skill so that it is possible to improve innovation and creativity so that the performance of the company would be enhanced in the market in near future (Stephens, 2006). The leader is hereby efficient to resolve the issue of negative brand image due to crashes involving the company’s 737 Max and regain the market share in the aerospace industry across the globe.

2.4 Recommendations

It is necessary to recommend some suitable solution for the benefits of the leader Dennis Muilenburg, who can improve the performance of the brand and resolve the issue of crashes and provide positive brand image in the aerospace industry across the globe. First of all, recruitment of more efficient engineers and skilled workforce is necessary through which the leader can enhance innovation and creativity. Hiring the skilled workforce is effective for resolving the controversy associated with the crashes in Boeing where the efficient engineers and skilled staff can manage innovation and creativity as check the safety and security successfully. Through innovation and creativity, the leader can improve the service excellence which is the main mission of the company where they can serve the customers proficiently by delivering quality services as per the needs and preferences of the consumers. Arranging induction process and effective training program for the staff and engineers further helps to improve overall capabilities of the team which in turn provides a scope to improve their service excellence and build trust and loyalty among the customers by delivering quality service.

The second strategy is to improve ethical and authentic leadership where the leader Dennis Muilenburg needs to build string relationship with all the stakeholders of the company including the employees, engineers, shareholders, investors and partners, customers and government through which it can manage the corporate social responsibility and fulfil the choice and preferences of all the stakeholders. Providing high return on investment As well as satisfying the stakeholders are possible through this strategy, in which the leader can motivate the stakeholders to participate positively and achieve the company’s aim. Moreover, this strategy is useful for managing the workforce ad developing suitable organisational culture through managing transparency and accountability at the workplace. In addition to these, managing safety and security of all the stakeholders, enhancing the communication through implementing Information and Communication technology (ICT) at the organisation as well as enhancing aerospace engineering process for managing the operations would provide an opportunity to enhance the organisational performance and it further helps to develop appropriate leadership style in the organisation to achieve future success. Thirdly, the leader also needs to be authentic and distributed where he can motivate all the employees and encourage their innovation and creativity where they can work as a team at the workplace. Through this strategy, the leader can provide proper training and encourage partnership working so that there will be no mistakes in the safety and security check in for the customers and the workforce can manage the customers well for providing positive brand image in the market and satisfying the customers worldwide. Through developing appropriate leadership style, the leader is able to manage the skilled workforce and distribute their responsibility among the group so that the group members can rely on each other and work cooperatively by enhancing internal communication and contributing positively with their full capabilities.

2.5 Conclusion

It can be concluded that, the ethical, authentic and distributed leadership style are beneficial for the leader Dennis Muilenburg to enhance their performance and lead the employees towards achieving success. Through ethical leadership, the leader of Boeing can manage their controversy and improve public image by representing the brand innovatively. Product diversification and service excellence are effective for Boeing to regain the market share and on the other hand, the authentic and ethical leadership style are beneficial for the leader Dennis Muilenburg to manage the brand image and provide excellence service to the customers. The recommendations such as recruiting skilled workforce, encouraging innovation and creativity through technological advancement as well as managing ethical code of conduct are effective for the leader to handle the situation and resolve the controversy due to the crashes.

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