Getting Practice Writing a Scholarly Paper, Research Paper Example

Introduction

 Ideal organizational leadership in many ways is more art than science, but there are some specific criteria that separate the effective organizational leaders from the rest of the pack. The following research assesses the key aspects of organizational leadership in respect to theories like ethical leadership, transformational leadership, managing multicultural teams and being conscious of gender bias. The following research takes a deeper look at organizational leadership, the theories associated with its successful implementation and its practical application in the field.

Literature Review

Effective organizational leadership entails a variety of leadership styles. On the subject of leadership styles and organizational commitment, Pierro et al. (2013) examines the relationship between leadership styles and commitment within organizations. The interaction model that is created to demonstrate the impact of power on communication is an interesting framework used to analyze leadership within organizations. The authors found, after reviewing related research, that “transformational leadership style accentuates employees’ willingness to comply with soft power bases” (Pierro et al., 2013, p. 1133). Within the same context ethics plays a primary role in the implementation of effective leadership as well. Without socially responsible corporations many industries and markets can collapse. Whether a company is deemed ethical largely based on the perceived ethical integrity and actions of the individual leading the organization. There is a direct correlation with motivating employees to commit and ethical leadership and organizational commitment. Sedat, Bora, & Ali (2015) focused on analyzing the relationship between organizational commitment and ethical leadership traits. The authors clearly define ethical leadership; its traits and characteristics, while reviewing its relationship with organizational commitment and employees’ job satisfaction. A positive correlation between ethical leadership and both organizational commitment and job satisfaction was found. One commonly overlooked aspect of job satisfaction is corporate culture. While there is a wide range of research on the topic of corporate culture its inherent correlation with organizational leadership, specifically the collaboration between ethical leadership and the way it can shape or transform organizational culture and the employees, is rarely discussed. Research reveals that organizational culture tends to go hand in hand with transformational leadership.

One of the main assumptions of leadership research, according to Veiseh  et al. (2014) is that “leaders play a key role in the organizational transformation” (Veiseh  et al. (2014, p. 114).  Examining the impact of inspirational motivation, intellectual encouragement, purposive influence and individual observations on organizational culture, the authors found that some (not all) transformational leadership traits positively impacted organizational culture (Veiseh et al., 2014). In his text on evidence on the impact of ethical leadership on organizations, Demirtas (2015) examined how idealist and relativist ethical ideologies influence the culture of organizations. The field study provided evidence that ethics played an important role in creating norms for organizational behavior. The research was carried out reviewing the related literature and surveying one thousand public sector aviation employees. Servant leadership theory Parris & Peachey (2013) reviewed the servant leadership theory with regards to its impact on organizational behavior. The authors (Parris & Peachey, 2013) found that “servant leadership theory is applicable in a variety of cultures, contexts, and organizational settings”, therefore, it can be applied in various future research settings in order to create ethical frameworks for organizations. Organizational leadership as a whole is becoming more necessary for businesses to function effectively and secure opportunities for growth. This can especially be seen with the passing of the Affordable Care Act, as the healthcare industry has introduced a new healthcare that requires trained organizational leaders to ensure its successful adoption and implementation.

Authors note that, “although the ACA will spur team development, organizational leadership must use what we know now to train, support, and incentivize team function. Meanwhile, we must also advance research regarding teams in health care to give those leaders more evidence to guide their work” (Taplin et a, 2013, 279). This demonstrates that organizational leadership is a vital aspect of the business world today, specifically as it relates to the healthcare industry.

Discussion/Findings

The research demonstrates that organizational leadership as a field of study encompasses a wide range of theories. The primary point, Pierro et al. (2013) makes is that transformational leadership has an inherent value that extends beyond traditional management practices. The main idea the author presents within the understanding of organizational leaderships is that employees are much more likely to be compliant when they are being led by a transformational leader that presents new innovative solutions and possibilities for the future. The author shows that employees become more compliant with power bases under the management of transformational leaders because they identify a benefit from the leadership style, one in which they perceive as being worth investing a commitment. Companies that demonstrate social responsibility statistically show higher levels of performance due to newly prevalent concern over the environment and other issues. Public awareness that a company engages in ethical practices builds the credibility of the brand in addition to improving the performance of staff.  As previously noted ethics and ethics overall entails rational and moral rules that are applied within operations to create certainty within decision making about issues that present moral uncertainty (Crane & Matten 2010). In this respect, it makes sense that ethical leadership would have a significant impact on improving performance places an emphasis on heightened focus and morality in decision making. The relationship that exists within the leadership servant theory model is a codependent one. This is a relationship where the leader relies as much on the employee’s commitment as the employee relies on the leader’s responsible and just reward for services.

Recommendations

It is recommended that organizational leaders incorporate management concepts that are conscious of the above mentioned factors in this report, such as ethical and transformational initiatives that motivate employees and incite them to commit to specific corporate cultures. It is also recommended that more efforts should be invested in researching the theories behind optimizing organizational leadership. The final recommendation is for more approaches in the field of organizational leadership to be developed, specifically as it relates to preparing employees for succession and leading external stakeholders as well as internal.

Conclusion

In sum, transformational leadership plays an essential role in developing effective organizational leadership initiatives. Within transformational leadership, are a variety of objectives ethical practices which assist in shaping corporate culture environments that motivate employees to commit. More research needs to be conducted on the efficacy of certain organizational leadership initiatives and their impact on influencing progress in industries. The key takeaway from the research is that through the implementation of certain theories their application within an organization can generate significantly positive results.

References

Celik, S., Dedeoglu, B. B., & Ýnanýr, A. (2015). Relationship Between Ethical Leadership, Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction at Hotel Organizations. Ege Academic Review, 15(1), 53-63.

Demirtas, O. (2015). Ethical leadership influence at organizations: Evidence from the field. Journal of Business Ethics, 126(2), 273-284.

Northcentral  University (n.d.) Website. Accessed: 3/21/2015

Parris, D. L., & Peachey, J. W. (2013). A systematic literature review of servant leadership theory in organizational contexts. Journal Of Business Ethics, 113(3), 377-393.

Pierro, A., Raven, B. H., Amato, C., & Bélanger, J. J. (2013). Bases of social power, leadership styles, and organizational commitment. International Journal of Psychology, 48(6), 1122-1134.

Taplin, S. H., Foster, M. K., & Shortell, S. M. (2013). Organizational leadership for building effective health care teams. The Annals of Family Medicine, 11(3), 279-281.

Veiseh¹, S., Mohammadi, E., Pirzadian, M., & Sharafi, V. (2014) The relation between transformational leadership and organizational culture (Case study: Medical school of         Ilam). Journal of Business Studies Quarterly. March 2014, Vol. 5 Issue 3, p113-124. 12p.