Leadership in Business Theory and Practice

Question: Discuss about the Leadership in Business Theory and Practice. Answer: Introduction: In the business sectors, leadership does not depend on the person who you are but give importance of what you have to do. In the words of Avolio and Yammarino (2013), leaders are responsible for improving the collective work, mitigating the cohesion, achieving goals and reinforce in the group identity. In short, the leaders bring the change in society in an ethical and socially responsible manner. According to Nohria and Khurana (2013), the responsible leader is considered to be the person who takes the responsibility of social, economical and environmental sector. In this context, the chosen leaders are Marissa Mayer and John Sculley who are considered to be the contemporary leaders facing challenges in terms of their leadership. Marissa Mayer was the former CEO of Yahoo and John Sculley was the president of the Pepsi-Cola and the chief executive officer of the well known organization Apple. This research essay is enriched by analyzing the challenge facing by these two leaders along with the evaluation of their leadership styles and its effectiveness. Moreover, their strategy is assessed in terms of the effectiveness of influencing the stakeholders to invest more in their organization. Lastly, a suitable suggestion has been provided on how the above-stated leaders can improve their stand point as a responsible leader. Discussion: John Sculley was formerly the president of Pepsi-Cola and then he joined the Apple organization as a chief executive officer. At that time, the CEO has faced the problems of a dispute on the licensing of software of Macintosh to the other personal computer makers (Goldman 2016). At this moment, the board of this company wanted to approve the other PC producers to use the Apples software. Sculley did not agree with this decision. As a result, Sculley was overthrown from this organization and Apple licensed their software which was a big mistake for them (Goldman 2016). After this incident Steve Jobs returned to Apple and took him back along with banning this license. Another leader Marissa Mayer who was a former CEO of Yahoo has faced a tough challenge to recover the poor condition of Silicon Valley as it is overshadow by the rivals and under gone in a poor financial situation. This would create a negative impact on the investment amount of shareholders and as well as stakeholders (Yahoo 2016). Marissa Mayer wants to implement a new organizational culture in the Yahoo during the time of reviving the growth of this organization. In this perspective, as the company faces slow growth rate along with the several problems related to organizational culture, the CEO analyzes the root cause of this issue (Apple 2016). Yahoo is a well known internet organization which spread its networks globally. This organization earns its revenues from search processes, ad displays and fess system and compete with the Google, Facebook and Microsoft (Apple 2016). In this context, the former CEO of this organization Thompson cut back almost 2000 employees in respect of diminishing the stock prices. As a result, due to misrepresentation of this fact and unstable leadership style lead to create a negative impact on the employees, shareholders and customer base. At this moment, Mayer takes the challenges to reboot the entire organizational culture for mitigating this above issue. Apple is a one of the well known organization of i-phone maker. In the words of Braun et al. (2013), the potential organizational culture depends on the factors such as applying new strategies and policies with creativity and innovative ideas, supporting changes and revising their structures with new technology which would lead to reach in the successful position. Though, this organization launches various types of products namely Apple watch, iPad and iPhone, but during the leadership time of John Sculley, the organization has faced some problems in terms of moderate combativeness, innovation and secrecy (Apple 2016). John Sculley is considered to be a successful leader in the organization of Apple. As commented by Van Wart (2013), the authentic leadership styles include the quality of positive and stable psychological state, genuine and high awareness of other and self along with development and follower regard. In this perspective, it is observed that Sculley always deal with the big customer issues and want to mitigate this as soon as possible (Forbes 2016). In the time of severe difficulty, the concerned CEO takes the responsibility of solving the alarming issue with a stable and positive mind set. This would lead to solve the issue without any complications and fearless of the other employees. Moreover, as opined by Parris and Peachey (2013), the authentic leader always follows the morality during the time of taking any decision. As per this theory, John Sculley takes the risks and learns from the change system along with a great adaptability nature and proper emphasize on morality of the com pany. Apart from this, the above-concerned CEO takes the opinion from the junior employees of this organization to respect their knowledge and decision and follows it according to the necessity of the current situation. In other words, according to Chemers (2014), as per the ethical leadership style, the leaders have the quality such as fairly and justified behavior with the followers, trustworthy and integrity commitment with the work and development process. Furthermore, this type of leader has to maintain the quality in terms of taking a proper action with the help of prerequisite knowledge and real life experience. In this perspective, Sculley is an excellent leader as he fulfills all the commitment to the work with a great excellence and care. He always treats the employees in a fairly manner from the same corner. Apart from this, John Sculley mitigates the current problems by taking a required action which is acquired from the real life experience. In addition, the former CEO of Apple does not believe in democratic leadership style as it represents the centric type leadership along with a barrier of creativity and freedom (Carlos Pinho, Paula Rodrigues and Dibb 2014). In the words of Mohr, You ng and Burgess Jr (2012), the transformational leadership follows the way of motivating and inspiring the followers for achieving the foster growth and goals of the company. As per this theory, the former CEO of Apple, John Sculley described a concept that there exists a thin line between the failure and success during the period of transformational change in terms of high tech. In this context, the CEO sets the example of Intel and IBM who has faced a situation of bankruptcy for taking the high level risk without following any proper leadership style. On the other hand, Marissa Mayer has applied the supportive leadership style for bringing the democratic nature in the organization, Yahoo. During her leadership period, Yahoo has faced several problems regarding with the failure leadership style along with issues of organizational culture and low growth rate. In this perspective, Mayer follows the sound leadership style which is not beneficial for this organization. Moreover, Mayer joined Yahoo after leaving the Google Company because of building her good and positive image at that moment. The CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer thinks that by solving the alarming problem of Yahoo, she can be able to make her own destination and prospective growth (Forbes Welcome 2016). However, this is not the right decision for her at that moment. In the words of Carlstrm and Ekman (2012), according to the self leadership theory, it describes the nature of a leader in which improvement in self awareness and self behavior management exists. Mayer follows t he same type of leadership style in this organization. In addition, Marissa Mayer implements the rule of coming all the remote workers in the office which is an alarming issue in this organization. Moreover, according to Van Wart (2013), the self leadership style indicates the characteristics of a human behavior in which the person always involve in self punishing and rewarding process. This characteristic is seen in the CEO of Mayer as she believes in giving the reward that remains loyal to her. Moreover, she publicly announced that the Yahoo layoffs are over whereas, in real life it is not stopped along with a negative impact on the company and employees. As per the transformational theory, the effective leader needs to revive the strategy and policy of the organization for foster growth of the company (Chemers 2014). According to this theory, Marissa Mayer wants to boost up the organization by pushing Yahoo in diversified direction. However, this strategy is in vain as due to multiple changes in direction, Yahoo cannot accommodate this change. In addition, due to taken various strategies by Mayer, the actual growth is hampered. In this context, Mayer cannot be able to unders tand of her role in the case of huge amount of stake in Alibaba. As a result, the financial condition of Yahoo deteriorates continuously. Apart from this, Marissa Mayer motivating all the employees through the process of fear which is not a beneficial strategy for the company. Thus, the above-stated mistakes done by Mayer proves that she is not an effective leader and takes so many wrong decisions which ensure the stagnation condition of the concerned organization (Forbes Welcome 2016). During the period of John Sculley in Apple, all the stakeholders namely customers, investors, employees and distributors and suppliers are satisfied with the growth of this organization along with achieving a positive and higher amount of revenue, profit and dividend. As commented by Parris and Peachey (2013), the demand of the stakeholders ensures to maintain a better CSR policy from which the amount of sales revenue can be increased. In this perspective, John Sculley takes the appropriate strategy of CSR policy for which the amount of sales revenue and customer perception along with setting a strong customer base and customer loyalty can be done in Apple. With the help of applying proper CSR policy by Sculley, Apple can be able to launch new and innovative products along with the premium price strategy which has a high demand in consumers. This would lead to increase in production and selling part of this product. As a result, both the employees and investors get huge amount of bon us, dividend and return which is acceptable for them. Moreover, the financial condition of the organization is positive during Sculley as at that time the company earns huge profit margin which helps them to correct the debt of this organization. On the contrary, Mayer cannot be able to satisfy all the stakeholders associated with this organization as she diversified her decisions in terms of hires and acquisitions. The stakeholders think that due to absence of clear and proper direction in terms of which sector it wants to occupy, the potential and prospective growth is hampered in this organization. As a result, the existing stakeholders do not want to invest more in Yahoo. As per the stakeholders view, the strategies taken by Mayer is a mishmash situation of internet assets which cannot be cured by following this strategy (Yahoo stakeholder turns up pressure on Marissa Mayer The Mercury News 2016). According to Chemers (2014), as per the Contingency model, the responsible leader is the person who can manage all the difficult situations without any hesitation, achieve goals, and motivate all the employees along with maintaining a good relation. By following this theory, it can be justified that John Sculley performs better than Mayer as he fulfils all the above-stated conditions whereas, Mayer cannot. Conclusion: By referring to the above analysis, it can be inferred that two contemporary leaders such as John Sculley and Marissa Mayer have faced different types of challenges during their leadership in terms of issues in organizational culture. The different leadership style taken by them is effective for Sculley for motivating all the stakeholders towards them. On the contrary, due to some mistakes in case of taking decision, the leadership of Mayer is not effective for attracting the stakeholders towards them. In this perspective, Mayer needs to follow the transformational leadership style by which she can be able to mitigate the issues along with a prospective growth of the organization. Reference list: Apple, 2016.Business. [online] Apple (India). Available at: https://www.apple.com/in/business/ [Accessed 16 Sep. 2016]. Avolio, B.J. and Yammarino, F.J. eds., 2013.Transformational and charismatic leadership: The road ahead. Emerald Group Publishing. Braun, S., Peus, C., Weisweiler, S. and Frey, D., 2013. Transformational leadership, job satisfaction, and team performance: A multilevel mediation model of trust.The Leadership Quarterly,24(1), pp.270-283. Carlos Pinho, J., Paula Rodrigues, A. and Dibb, S., 2014. 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