Leadership Development at BAE Systems

Introduction

The subsequent research study would be compiled to highlight the various factors associated with the development of practical skills of leadership within the non-strategic levels related to the fast paced transformations of the working environments of a selected organisation. To this purpose, the selection of the multinational aerospace, defence and security organisation of BAE Systems PLC of the United Kingdom has been undertaken.

1. Evaluation of the impacts of different leadership qualities and skills in Organisations

1.1 Identify different skills and characteristics of a successful leader

The different skills and characteristics of leadership are as the following:

1: Integrity and honesty: This could be of prime significance for the work unit leaders of the BAE Systems to instil effective values and operational ethics within the subordinates since the company deals in sensitive security and defence technology.

2: Unwavering confidence: This would be significant to ensure that the subordinates/team members of the work disciplines of the BAE Systems could be persuaded to follow the instructions of their group leaders since the demonstration of only absolute confidence in the decisions taken by the leaders could guarantee confidence amongst the working personnel.

3: Effective communication: This would be vital for the BAE Systems work unit leadership elements to properly develop comprehension within the employees regarding the work strategies and concerning the development of new methods of functioning such as introduction of new technological advances (virtual training).

4: Accountability: This involves, according to Reardon et al (2019), taking greater share of the blame than which could be logically accorded to the leader and lesser share of credit than that to which the leader could deserve. Accountability is the cornerstone of any organisational leadership process since this could ensure compliance, self-criticism, improvement of identified shortcomings and ultimately, the sense of responsibility amongst the employees of BAE Systems.

5: Transparency management: This aspect is assistive in terms of development of the most effective measure of confidence amongst the subordinates, within the BAE Systems operational procedures. The leader has to be transparent to instil the necessary measure of conviction amongst the subordinates to follow the instructions of the leader.

1.2. Assess how different leadership styles can influence an organisation

Yee, Tan and Ramayah (2017) have identified a series of characteristic skills of successful leaders in terms of demonstration of inspirational leadership qualities to the subordinates, both in the corporate sector and in other operational discourses as well. Shao, Feng and Hu (2017) have determined the different styles of leadership as Autocratic, Democratic, Charismatic and Laissez-faire styles of leadership. Democratic/Participative leadership is the most sought after since this engages the employees effectively without jeopardising the decision formulation authority of the leader. This also improves the performance of team members, fosters interpersonal inclusivity regarding the employees, ensure the necessary development regarding positive communication and cohesion of work to solve existing problems. Thus, the organisational work culture could as well be transformed through application of Participative leadership principles.

2. Be able to research current theories, models and principles of leadership

2.1. Appreciate and comment on different leadership theories, models and principles.

According to Strese et al (2016), several leadership development theoretical constructs could be evaluated to be applied as principles of human resource and work processes management at the BAE Systems. The initial one could be acknowledged as the Contingency Theory of leadership management which emphasises on the concept that particularity of business environmental variables could contribute to the determination of the exactitudes of leadership styles which could be best applied to any specific business organisation such as the one under consideration. The Contingency Theory highlights that no leadership method could be best applicable to all of the business environments. The factors such as situational aspects, employee competence and market conditions could influence the determination of such a leadership style. Next, Ding et al (2017) have specified the properties of the Transactional Theories of leadership which focuses on the supervisory roles of leaders to determine the organisational work procedures and group performance quality. The emphasis is on application of a system of punishments and rewards through which success achievement rates could be enhanced. This is primarily an impetus related theoretical approach. Rosile, Boje and Claw (2018) have propounded that, the Transformational theory of leadership could be utilised to focus upon the establishment of effective connections based on motivation and importance of work between leaders and their subordinates. This leadership theory places equal emphasis on the fulfilment of personal potential of team members as well as the enhancement of group performance effectively. Ethicality and moral standardisation of work processes are integral to this type of leadership theory.

2.2. Leadership skills for different tasks in organisations and at different levels, from strategic to team leader

According to Meuser et al (2016), the first leadership skill which could be effective for leaders of all of the operational spectrums, such as the strategic to team based approaches, is the development and management of interpersonal roles. This could be effective in terms of the following:

1:Figurehead activity management (at the strategic levels)

2: Informational roles management (communication and delegation based responsibilities such as mentoring, training and administration duties).

3: Separation of personal identities from the official designation which could be better termed as approachability management.

The second leadership skill is the art of delegation of both power and responsibility to the subordinates. This involves providing greater exposure to the subordinates in terms of performance of tasks which could be of secondary criticality by nature.

2.3. Evaluate the usefulness of leadership theories, models and principles.

From an academic perspective, all of the contemporary theories could be brought, in terms of their core principles, under three distinctive perspectives such as leadership in the procedural relationship, leadership as the combination of different personality based characteristics and leadership as the outcome of professional behavioural approaches. From these perspectives, it could be understood that different models and theories of leadership highlight a process which could influence working personnel groups to realise predetermined objectives.

3. Leadership skills required for specific situations

3.1. Organisational objectives influencing choice of leadership style

According to Ahmed and Anantatmula (2017), effective leadership elements could establish differential leadership styles on the basis of the situational imperatives which confront different business organisations such as the BAE Systems. The differential styles, such as the Autocratic, Bureaucratic, Charismatic, Participative, Laissez-Faire and Transactional, are generally oriented towards obtainment of results which could enable profitability and success achievement in the long term through aligning off organisational developmental objectives. Thus, it becomes necessary to enable the subordinates to meet the performance challenges within the concurrent business situations through application of effective decision formulation procedures. To this effect, the different leadership styles are utilised to establish working relationships between the employees and the strategic objective attainment prospects of the organisations. Certain types of leadership could accomplish particular tasks such as Autocratic style could become efficacious to discipline errant employees since this involves coercion. In case of fulfilment of objectives such as brainstorming, Democratic leadership styles could be required.

3.2. Different industrial sectors and suitable leadership styles

The variations are extensive concerning the industrial sectors and the associated leadership styles and this has been pointed out to be the reason by Nguyen et al (2017) for each industrial sector to have dominant and divergent patterns of leadership which transcend the traditional responsibility contribution aspects regarding management of task assignments. The leadership styles are decided through the levels of complications regarding financial functionalities, interpersonal skills development necessities, contract negotiations, project planning, cost control and human resource management.

3.3. Different organisational functions and situations with suitable leadership styles

In terms of the influences which such leadership styles could impart on functionalities of business organisations in an industry specific manner, the categorical analysis could be as the following:

1: Autocratic leadership: This leadership style relies on absolute compliance on part of the subordinates through provisioning of instructions regarding the work processes. This leadership style becomes effective when all the information could be available for task completion to the leader and the motivation level of workers is also high. However, the disadvantage is that the leader cannot benefit from the suggestions of competent employees.

2: Democratic leadership: The advantage of this leadership is solicitation of problem solving related solutions from all of the team members/subordinates. This tendency of fostering greater workforce involvement could instil sense of purpose into the subordinates/employees of BAE Systems. This is a collaborative and non-insular leadership process (Franco and Haase, 2017).

3: Laissez-faire leadership: This leadership style is effective in terms of fostering effective responsibility measures within the organisational subordinates through delegation of such responsibilities. The primary advantage is that successful Laissez-faire leadership pertains to high motivation of the workforce personnel since they become adept in making of decisions. However, at the BAE Systems, this leadership style would not be a success when the workforce personnel could be undertrained or relatively inexperienced.

4: Charismatic leadership: This leadership style involves emotional intelligence management through inspiration provisioning to the subordinates so that eagerness could be engendered within the employees by their leaders to learn and improve their professional performance from a definitive perspective.

3.4. Methods of leadership development regarding different contexts

The organisational contextual perspectives within the BAE Systems could require the combination of the positives of both Transformational and Transactional models so as to meet and overcome the consistently emerging leadership challenges. The rationale of it could be pointed out in the perspective that every individual demonstrates unique psyche involving distinctive talents, inhibitions, capabilities and insecurities. Thus, these variations would have to be factored in while having to develop effective leadership styles to sustain the motivational levels of employees at the aforementioned company and to align the individual capabilities with the organisational strategy.

Conclusion

The emphasis of the study has been concentrated on the evaluation of development of leadership styles, models and approaches for the selected organisation so that skilful management of human resources and work processes could be accomplished to fulfil the business objectives of the company under consideration. To this effect, cross-referential study of different industry based business leadership methods has been explored to develop effective leadership style development in context to the BAE Systems PLC.

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