The Role of Leadership in Strategic

Management at MySpace

Vickson Brito Daniel

Student ID 18031232

Assessment 2
MODULE MN7185
Leadership and Strategic Management

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 Part 2. Student self-assessment
2.1 Checking and proof reading

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following in line with the assignment brief: Illustrations (pay attention to referencing and titling) Y
Citations and References (do they correspond?) Y
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Please assess the following two aspects of EXCELLENT GOOD ADEQUATE POOR INADEQUATE
your work as: BELOW 40
70+ 60+ 50+ 40+

Quality of academic argument:

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Arguments (structuring and coherence) 
Evidence (supporting argument, 
referencing)
Application of Theory (relevance) 
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worth? 60+ 50+ -50


Name/Number Signature Date

Vickson Brito Daniel Signed 30th June 2019

MN7181
People and Organisations: Principles and
Practice in Global Contexts: Essay 70%
Academic Year 2017-2018

Student Name: Vickson Brito Daniel First Marker:

Student ID: 18031232 Second Marker:

Title of essay: The Role of Leadership in Strategic Management at MySpace

Assessment criteria Level of achievement

Distinction Merit Pass Refer/Fail Fail

Outstanding Good Average Poor Inadequate

80+ 60+ 50+ 40+ -40

Excellent
70+

 Use of course concepts, current and

emerging theories of HRM and
relevant examples of practice should
be used to develop the argument in
the essay.

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  Use of examples, theory linked with
practice

Weighting 40%

Notes from marker :

 Extent and breadth of literature

reviewed
 Critically evaluation of arguments
on all sides of the chosen issue.

Weighting 40%

Notes from marker:

• Professional presentation of the

essay including introduction,
coherence of writing-style,
conclusion and bibliography
/Harvard Referencing
Weighting 20%

Notes from marker:

Areas to concentrate on next time

Content Abstract Introduction Focus Discussion Argument

Examples Detail Work-related Reflection Work-related

English Spelling Grammar Punctuation Paragraphs/ Vocabulary

sentences
Layout Contents Titles Subtitles Spacing Word
processing
Illustration Figures Tables Plates Equations Calculations

HarvRef Citations Listing Range/Depth

Marker’s final comments

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2nd marker comments

Agreed Mark

Signatures: Date

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Paper Information

Topic : The Role of Leadership in Strategic Management at MySpace

Paper Type : Assignment

Word Count : 4207

Pages : 30

Referencing Style : Harvard Style

Educational Level : Masters in Business Administration

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 Table of Contents

Description ................................................................................................................................. 9

1. Introduction and history of MySpace .............................................................................. 10

2. Critical Issue / Problem Statement of MySpace .............................................................. 10

3. Leadership at MySpace .................................................................................................... 11

3.1 Blake and Mouton’s Leadership Module .................................................................. 12

3.2 Hersey & Blanchard (1969) Leadership Style .......................................................... 13

4. Current Strategy at MySpace ........................................................................................... 14

4.1 Three Levels of Strategy ........................................................................................... 15

4.2 Understanding MySpace Current strategy using SWOT Analysis ........................... 16

4.2.1 Strength .................................................................................................................. 16

4.2.2 Weaknesses ............................................................................................................ 16

4.2.3 Opportunities ......................................................................................................... 16

4.2.4 Threats ................................................................................................................... 17

5. Plan for the development of future Strategy requiring Leadership.................................. 17

6. New Strategy for MySpace .............................................................................................. 18

6.1 Strategic Plan............................................................................................................. 18

6.1.1 Future Vision ......................................................................................................... 18

6.1.2 Future Mission ....................................................................................................... 18

6.1.3 Goals and Objectives ............................................................................................. 19

7. PESTEL/ PEST Analysis of MySpace ............................................................................ 19

7.1 Political: .................................................................................................................... 19

7.2 Economical: ............................................................................................................... 20

7.3 Socio-cultural: ........................................................................................................... 20

7.4 Technological: ........................................................................................................... 20

8. Porter’s Five Forces/ Strategic Analysis of the MySpace ............................................... 21

8.1 Threat of New Entrants: ............................................................................................ 22

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 8.2 Threat of Substitutes: ................................................................................................ 22

8.3 Degree of Industry Rivalry:....................................................................................... 22

8.4 Bargaining power of buyers ...................................................................................... 22

8.5 Bargaining power of suppliers: ................................................................................. 23

9. Suitable Situational Leadership Model of MySpace ....................................................... 23

10. Transformational Leadership Concept .......................................................................... 25

10.1 Transformational - The four I’s ................................................................................. 26

10.1.1 Idealized Influence ................................................................................................ 26

10.1.2 Inspirational Motivation ........................................................................................ 26

10.1.3 Intellectual Stimulation.......................................................................................... 26

10.1.4 Individualized Consideration ................................................................................. 26

11. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 27

Demonstration of the Learning on the Module ........................................................................ 27

Reference ................................................................................................................................. 29

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Description

This assignment aims to discover why the social networking website MySpace went from being
a one of the market leaders in 2007 to loosing 71% of its unique audience by September 2011
(MediaTel, 2011) and what could have been done to save MySpace from competition using the
leadership and strategy theory modules studied.

In depth, this assignment assesses, how leadership e.g. competencies of the leadership affect
the design, planning and implementation of corporate strategy and identified the current issue
in the business. It also focusses on leader’s traits/ competencies influence the strategic plan/
management of the business and how is the organisational strategy communicated in the
business. It also given a detailed approach on the leadership role based on the theory worked
for MySpace. It also focuses on the leadership styles/role that was initially practised and the
leadership styles that could have prevented from losing the market share. This assignment
assesses the link between leadership and strategic management at MySpace.

This assignment also elaborate on the knowledge and the experience gained by the student
from this module using theories and practise of leadership and strategy.

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1. Introduction and history of MySpace

MySpace was created in August 2003, and launched in early 2004 by Tom Anderson and Chris
DeWolfe. In February, MySpace had more than 1 million users, which improved to 5 million
by November. It was created as a website to bring young individuals and fresh music together
as an entertaining social centre. The website rapidly increased popularity with the American
teen demographic (Hajdu, 2006). Intermix Media; the firm that owned MySpace and other
websites was acquired in July 2005 by News Corp for $580 million. News Corp were
considering to “boost its internet assets” (BBC, 2005), as admiration in the website rapidly
grows. From 2005 – 2006 the website had an upsurge user base of 367% in United States
(Bausch & Han, 2006). News Corp intended to bring MySpace to other countries that were
beginning to take a lively attention in the website. By July 2006 MySpace shattered out Google
and Yahoo to become the most visited website in the U.S., and had a leading 80% of all traffic
to social media sites.

In August 2006 Google paid MySpace $900 million for a three year advertising deal, affecting
MySpace’s projected valuation to surge. At this point MySpace’s annual income was stated to
be $525 million. In the same year, 2006 MySpace began to open up and inspire international
musicians, both small and well-known, to connect with their spectators on MySpace.

Facebook and MySpace shared for $650 million in advertising incomes and collectively
conquered the market with 72 % share. According to a 2007, in Forbes magazine, MySpace
was still receiving twice as many unique guests (68 million per month) as Facebook. From
2005 until early 2008, MySpace was the most visited social networking site in the world, and
in June 2006 exceeded Google as the most visited website in the U.S. By late 2007 into 2008,
MySpace was measured the leading social networking site, and steadily beat out main
competitor Facebook in traffic. As Mayfield (2008) notes, the appeal of MySpace is that it
helps to achieve peoples instant social needs.

2. Critical Issue / Problem Statement of MySpace

During 2008 MySpace began to drop popularity to new social network websites. There was an
active user weakening of 9% in the UK, losing out to the rising social network website
Facebook (Crawley-Boevey, 2008).

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Four years later, however, MySpace’s shine was blunted. Upstart Facebook has blown past
MySpace to claim leading leadership in the social networking space. MySpace’s market share
was fell from 66 percent of all social networking users in 2008 to 30 percent in 2009.

MySpace had its share of problems, not the least of which is a total disrespect for any kind of
worth proposition on behalf of their consumers. The MySpace user experience is known to
have tainted over time. MySpace users have had to struggle with pages messy with distracting
advertisements, maddening features, an unbalanced host platform subject to crashing, and
customizable profile pages that litter its network with trash in the form of flashing images,
auto-starting music players, and tacky background pictures that can reduce text unreadable.
MySpace is known to have more elasticity in terms of HTML formatting that permits
programme content, but causes some websites to get bogged down to the point that users report
page loads recurrently time out. The rational assumption is the MySpace network is under-
engineered where it cannot tolerate the user load.

A previous MySpace executive recommended that the $900 million three year advertising deal
with Google, although being a short-term cash bonus, was a handicap in the lengthy run
(Stenovec, 2011). That contract required MySpace to place even additional ads on its already
heavily advertised space, which made the website even slow, more hard and difficult to use,
and less adjustable. MySpace could not check or experiment with its site without losing
revenue, while rival Facebook was coming out a new clean site design to attract users. MySpace
once which conquered the social networking market, they lost sight of the value proposal
created by the user’s experience on the network. The problems degrading the user’s experience
on MySpace have been well documented. Users have consistently complained that MySpace:
has way too much spam, has too many advertisements, and has profile pages that are not
visually appealing, nor fun to browse through (Atal, 2007).

3. Leadership at MySpace

When News Corp acquired MySpace (officially, MySpace’s parent company Intermix), it
required to give its new project a high degree of independence. Nevertheless, it had MySpace
report to an executive Mr. Ross Levinsohn whose vision for the business varied from the
founded team. Levinsohn employed a team to hurry integration and begin to upgrade
MySpace’s original technology.

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Based on the Financial Times, MySpace’s founders continued to inspire rampant
experimentation, which unfulfilled the News Corp executives who were used to more
disciplined execution. “Every time we tried to professionalize the place they resisted,”
Levinsohn said. In 2007, News Corp told analysts how the business was poised to get to $1
billion in revenue by 2008. It had marvellous amount of traffic that looked good-looking to
advertisers. So it obviously increased the amount of advertisements per page and closed down
innovation efforts that reduced page counts, even if they increased user faithfulness.

3.1 Blake and Mouton’s Leadership Module

Examining the current leadership style of MySpace with the Blake and Mouton’s Leadership
Grid theory would give a good understanding of the leadership style that was being
practised. The Blake Mouton Managerial Grid is based on two behavioural dimensions, one,
Concern for People: this is the degree to which a leader considers team members' needs,
interests and areas of personal growth when deciding how best to achieve a task and two,
Concern for Results: this is the degree to which a leader highlights concrete objectives,
organizational efficiency and high efficiency when deciding how best to achieve a task.
Blake and Mouton defined five leadership styles based on these, as illustrated in the figure
underneath.

Figure 1: Blake and Mouton’s Leadership Grid

High
Country- Club Management Team
Concern for people

Middle of the Road

Impoverished Authority-Compliance
Low High
Concern for Results

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Authority-Compliance Produce-or-Perish Management – High Results/Low People. Also
known as "authoritarian" or "authority-compliance" managers, people in this category
believe that their team members are simply a means to an end. The team's needs are always
secondary to its productivity. This type of manager is autocratic, has strict work rules,
policies and procedures, and can view punishment as an effective way of motivating team
members. This approach can drive impressive production results at first, but low team
morale and motivation will ultimately affect people's performance, and this type of leader
will struggle to retain high performers. Currently MySpace practises authority-Compliance
in their business module.

3.2 Hersey & Blanchard (1969) Leadership Style

The term 'situational' designates that leaders should differ their method based on the folks
they are leading, and the conditions that surround the task at hand. Certainly, the Hersey-
Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory is one that is founded around variable leadership,
depending on a variety of circumstances. When a leader is able to adapt to the situation as
quickly as possible, everyone will benefit in the end.

Hersey & Blanchard (1969) Situation Leadership Theory

Task Behaviours
High

Participating Style Selling Style

Shares Ideas Explain Decisions
Relationship Behaviours

(Followers able, unwilling, not confident (Followers unable, willing, confident)

Telling Style
Delegating Style Give Instructions
Turn over decisions (Followers unable, unwilling, not
(Followers able, willing, confident) confident)

Low High

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 At this position MySpace followed Telling style: Refers a high-task, low-relationship style
wherein the leader gives explicit directions and supervises work closely. This style is geared
toward low maturity followers. These are the least experienced of workers. At this point,
they will need to be instructed on how to do just about everything that makes up the task
they are responsible for. While this usually means a leader is dealing with younger and less
experienced employees, it could also be that the employees simply don't have much
knowledge or background in the task at hand for a specific project. This maturity level
matches up with the Telling leadership style, as the employees at this point will require
complete direction for almost every task. But at MySpace all the employees were well
experienced in their job and knew what they were doing in terms of user experience. They
were almost on top of designing and implementing at MySpace. But unfortunately the new
management treated the employees by giving instruction on what to do which eventually
made MySpace fall. The creativity was killed.

4. Current Strategy at MySpace

It seems that MySpace is an example of a business that ached from the seemingly sensible
desire by News Corp to set a strategy, focus on execution, and achieve rapid growth.
Remember, it often takes a few twists and turns before a disruptor figures out the right business
model. The push for quick growth can shut off the good experimentation that can allow the
right business model to occur.

MySpace was all of two years old when News Corp acquired it. Today’s world a business
model has a natural life of about 20 years, MySpace was the equal of a pre-teen. Imagine
imposing rigor and discipline on a 10-year-old that has not yet found themselves. Most parents
would suggest that is not a recipe for success. Of course, not all experimentation is good — it
is likely that claims that the MySpace team just wasn’t up to the task have merit as well.

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4.1 Three Levels of Strategy

Figure: 3 Levels of Strategy

CORPORATE LEVEL STRATEGY

BUSINESS LEVEL STRATEGY

OPERATIONAL LEVEL STRATEGY

Corporate-level strategy is concerned with the complete scope of News Corp., and how
value is added to the basic businesses of the organisational whole. Corporate-level strategy
for News Corp issues comprise geographic scope, variety of products or services,
acquisitions of new businesses, and how capitals are allocated among the different elements
of the organisation. For News Corporation, diversifying from print journalism into
television and social networking are corporate-level strategies. News Corporation was clear
about corporate-level strategy is significant.

Business-level strategy for News Corp was about how MySpace business should contest in
their specific markets (business-level strategy is often called ‘competitive strategy’). These
individual businesses might be stand-alone businesses, for instance entrepreneurial start-
ups, or ‘business units’ within a larger corporation (as MySpace and Fox are inside News
Corporation). Business-level strategy of MySpace concerns issues such as innovation,
appropriate scale and response to competitors’ moves.

Operational strategies are concerned with how the mechanisms of an organisation deliver
efficiently the corporate- and business-level strategies in terms of resources, procedures and
people. For example, MySpace engineers had to keep emerging enough processing capacity
to cope with the strategy of rapid growth. In most businesses, successful business strategies
be contingent to a large extent on decisions that are taken, or activities that occur, at the
operational level. Operational choices need, therefore, to be closely linked to business-level
strategy. They are vital to successful strategy application.

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4.2 Understanding MySpace Current strategy using SWOT Analysis

To understand MySpace current strategic position in the market, SWOT analysis will give
a broad perspective of MySpace. The strengths, weakness, opportunity and threat of
MySpace is shown below.

4.2.1 Strength

They had celebrity profiles which are trustworthy on MySpace, A good platform for
entertainment and music. Myspace can function as a platform to share videos and photos
and it delivers modified profile appearance to users, obtainable in over 15 languages
internationally and has over 50 million visitors. Myspace has close to 1 billion registered
members on the website and users can also play numerous online radio channels offering a
wide diversity of music.

4.2.2 Weaknesses

The Strategic plan and the leadership at MySpace was so much different to what News
Corp (parent company) had. News Corp was a profit based organisation and kept
aggressive on MySpace to look in to profit than customer gratification. Result of that
MySpace users have had to contend with pages cluttered with distracting advertisements,
annoying features, an unstable host platform subject to crashing, and customizable profile
pages that litter its network with trash in the form of flashing pictures, auto-starting music
players, and tacky background pictures that can render text illegible. MySpace to place
even more advertisements on its already heavily advertised space, which made the site
slow, more problematic to use, and less flexible because of Google deal. The website has
been prone to data leakages and breach of confidentiality.

4.2.3 Opportunities

The markets devoid of internet can be tapped as long term future markets and to have more
credible celebrity profiles to engage & attract users. Myspace can integrate with more telecom
operators or similar companies.

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 4.2.4 Threats

The competitors present in the market can affect the business processes of Myspace and also
by new upcoming social networking websites. Fake accounts and personal data leaks can lead
to loss of trust and belief of the brand.

5. Plan for the development of future Strategy requiring Leadership

A complete analysis aids an organization to select the best appropriate leadership style for the
achievement of the organization. However, the identification is not sufficient, a correctly laid
plan is essential in order to get the extreme benefit of the leadership strategy that is being
adapted. Therefore, a strategy can be set in order to determine the upcoming circumstances
requiring leadership. Following is the process that can be used in this respect.

Figure: Strategic Planning Process

Vision, Mission, Goals & Strategic Elements

Analysing the existing leadership style of MySpace

Consider the strategic decisions against the required leadership strategies

Take measures to establish the new leadership styles

Evaluation

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6. New Strategy for MySpace

6.1 Strategic Plan

Mission and vision statement presents a starting point of creating the strategy. The word
“strategy” is derived for the Greek word “stratēgos” which literally means “leading an
army” (stratos: army, agon: leading, strategos: army leader). Huff et al. (2009) identified
strategy characteristics significant for the organization and summarized them as follows
and could be used by MySpace as well. Communication of convincing purpose or vision
of MySpace to all in the organization and outside it who want to know it; MySpace’s
connection between organization’s strength and market’s openings; Generating more
resources for MySpace than it requires; Managing activities directed to reasonable and
submitted achieving success & capability to adapt and react in new market environments
of MySpace. The understanding of strategy meaning explains “the desired goals and
information on what to do, who will do it, how it will be done, and finally for whom and
why the outcomes are valuable” (Huff et al., 2009:6).

6.1.1 Future Vision

According to Collins and Porras (Buble et al. 2005:86), vision has two key components: a
base ideology and visionary future. Base ideology gives the reasons of organization
existence, its persistent features and authentic identity. Myspace should aim at offering
highly personalized experience to its users through a social networking platform. It should
provide a user-friendly interface with customized personal profiles, blogs, photos, music,
and videos. Myspace should be recognized as the largest social networking platform during
next five years.

6.1.2 Future Mission

The mission statement details about the organization that brand it exclusive and labels ‘the
organization’s achievement hopes, such as the size of the organization, the scope of
endeavour and the number and diversity of the organization’s businesses, markets and
customers” (Alkhafaji, 2003). Myspace mission should be aiming at a Gen Y audience.
Myspace drives social interaction by providing a highly personalised experience around
entertainment and connecting people to the music, celebrities, TV, movies, and games that
they love.

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 6.1.3 Goals and Objectives

 To be become the Largest Social Network

 To increase web Traffic
 To provide Free Music
 To provide Live-Streaming Videos & Music
 To create presence in other countries

7. PESTEL/ PEST Analysis of MySpace

PESTEL analysis serves two purposes, first it allows the company to build a better business
acumen of the environment it will operate in, and second it will provide data and information
enabling a company to predict scenarios it might face in the future (Yuksel, 2012).

PEST analyses is a extensively used tool to analyse the Political, Economic, Socio-cultural,
Technological, Environmental and legal situations which can deliver great and new
opportunities to MySpace as well as these influences can also threat the company, to be
dangerous in upcoming years. This could aid identifying business opportunities and advance
threat warning for MySpace. Moreover, it also helps to the extent to which change is useful for
MySpace and also guide the way for the change. In addition, it also helps to avoid activities
and actions that will be harmful for MySpace in future, including projects and strategies.

7.1 Political:

 Next political elections and changes that will happen in the country due to these
elections.
 Strong and powerful political individual, his point of view on business policies and their
consequence on the organization.
 Strength of property rights and law rules of the country and its ratio with corruption and
organized crimes. Changes in these state and its effects.
 Change in Legislation and taxation.
 Trend of regulations and deregulations. Effects of change in business regulations.

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7.2 Economical:

 Position and current economy drift i.e. growing, stagnant or declining.

 Exchange rates variations and its relation with company.
 Change in Level of customer’s disposable income and its effect.
 Variation in unemployment rate and its effect on hiring of skilled employees.
 Result of globalization on economic environment.
 Attentions on other economic factors.

7.3 Socio-cultural:

 Revolution in population growth rate and age factors, and its impacts
 Effect on organization due to Change in attitudes and generational shifts.
 Standards of health, education and social mobility levels.
 Employment style or patterns, job market trend and attitude towards work according to
dissimilar age groups.
 Community attitudes and social trends, change in socio culture and its effects.
 Religious advocates and life styles and its effects on organization

7.4 Technological:

 Any new technology that company is using

 Any new technology in market that could affect the work, organization or industry
 Access of competitors to the new technologies and its impact on their product
development/better services.
 Changes in infrastructure and its effects on work flow
 Current technology that can facilitate the company
 Further technological factors and their impacts on company and industry

These headings and analyses would help MySpace to consider these factors and make a
“big picture” of company’s characteristics. This will help the top management to take the
choice and drawing conclusion about the forces that would create a big impact on MySpace
and its resources.

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8. Porter’s Five Forces/ Strategic Analysis of the MySpace
Michael Porter, an expert on competitive strategy contends that a company is most worried
about the power of rivalry inside its industry (Wheelen & Hunger, 2012). In appeal to attempt
an industry examination, a firm should dissect the five aggressive forces (Baltzan & Phillips,
2010). The more grounded each of these forces, the more restricted organizations are in their
capacity to raise costs and acquire more noteworthy benefits. Albeit Porter specifies just five
forces, a 6th different partners is added here to mirror the power that legislatures,
neighbourhood groups, and different gatherings from the errand condition use over industry
exercises (Wheelen & Hunger, 2012).

Figure: Porter’s Five Forces of Industry Competition (Porter; 2008. P27)

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

Industry Rival

Threat of New Entrants Threat of Substitutes

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

These forces refers to micro environment and MySpace’s ability to serve its customers and
make a profit. These five forces includes three forces from horizontal competition and two
forces from vertical competition. The five forces are discussed below for MySpace.

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8.1 Threat of New Entrants:

As the business have high profits, many new entrants will attempt to enter into the market.
Still, the new entrants will ultimately cause decrease in general industry profits. So, it is
necessary to block the new entrants in the industry. Next factors is describing the level of
threat to new entrants: Barriers to entry that comprises of copy rights and patents, High
wealth requirement, Government limited policies, Swapping cost, Access to suppliers and
circulations & Customer faithfulness to recognised brands.

8.2 Threat of Substitutes:

This describes the threat to company. If the goods and services are not up to the standard,
consumers can use substitutes and alternatives that do not need any extra effort and do not
make a major difference. For example, using Aquafina in substitution of tap water, Pepsi in
alternative of Coca Cola. The potential factors that made customer shift to substitutes are as
follows: Price performance of substitute, Switching costs of buyer, Products substitute
available in the market, Reduction of quality & Close substitution are available.

8.3 Degree of Industry Rivalry:

The smaller money and resources are required to enter into any industry, the higher there
will be new competitors and be an effective competitor. It will also weaken the company’s
position. Following are the potential factors that will influence the company’s competition:
Competitive advantage, Continuous innovation, Sustainable position in competitive
advantage, Level of advertising & Competitive strategy.

8.4 Bargaining power of buyers:

It deals with the ability of customers to take down the prices. It mainly consists the
importance of a customer and the level of cost if a customer will switch from one product
to another. The buyer power is high if there are too many alternatives available. And the
buyer power is low if there are lesser options of alternatives and switching. Following
factors will influence the buying power of customers: Bargaining leverage, Switching cost
of a buyer. Buyer price sensitivity, Competitive advantage of company’s product.

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 8.5 Bargaining power of suppliers:

This refers to the supplier’s ability of increasing and decreasing prices. If there are few
alternatives o supplier available, this will threat the company and it would have to purchase
its raw material in supplier’s terms. However, if there are many suppliers alternative,
suppliers have low bargaining power and company do not have to face high switching cost.
The potential factors that effects bargaining power of suppliers are the following: Input
differentiation, Impact of cost on differentiation, Strength of distribution centres, Input
substitute’s availability.

9. Suitable Situational Leadership Model of MySpace

Hersey and Blanchard’s (1977) situational leadership theory proposed that leaders should vary
their behaviours according to the member’s maturity. Hersey and Blanchard (1977) suggested
that the orientation of leaders behaviour should change based on the maturity level of the
member. A low maturity level prompted a high task/low relationship response from the leader.
High task/low relationship leader behaviour refers to one-way communication, or telling, to
define the roles of members.

A member with a moderately low maturity level required a high task/high relationship
behaviour from the leader. High task/high relationship leader behaviour included defining
member roles and allowing two-way communication to provide social-emotional support to get
members to believe in decisions. A low task/high relationship leader behaviour was necessary
for members with moderately high maturity levels. Low task/high relationship leader behaviour
referred to a sharing of the decision making between the leader and member, which allowed
members to participate with facilitating leader behaviour. Finally, members 20 with high
maturity levels dictate a low task/low relationship leader behaviour. Low task/low relationship
leader behaviour referred to the leader delegating responsibilities to members.

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 Situational leadership Model from Hersey and Blanchard (2011)

Task Behaviours
High

Participating Style Selling Style

Shares Ideas Explain Decisions
Relationship Behaviours

(Followers able, unwilling, not confident (Followers unable, willing, confident)

Telling Style
Delegating Style Give Instructions
Turn over decisions (Followers unable, unwilling, not
(Followers able, willing, confident) confident)

Low High

According to the Hersey & Blanchard model, MySpace has to practise the ‘participating style’
method. The author claims that a more mature follower requires less intense use of the authority
imposed by the leader and a greater orientation relationship. Hersey and Blanchard (2011)
believe that the maturity of a follower is the main feature of the situation faced by a leader. It
is also important to highlight the studies of Hersey and Blanchard (2011) which show that there
is no perfect leadership style.

The more leaders can adapt their behaviour to the circumstances with which they are dealing,
the greater their power to influence. In Situational Leadership, the readiness of the follower is
defined as the intensity with which he is demonstrating his willingness to perform a specific
task Hersey & Blanchard (2011).

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10. Transformational Leadership Concept

Transformational leadership is part of the “New Leadership” paradigm (Bryman, 1992), which
gives more attention to the charismatic and affective elements of leadership. As its name
implies, transformational leadership is a procedure that changes and transforms persons. It is
concerned with emotions, values, ethics, standards, and long term goals, and comprises
assessing follower’s motives, satisfying their needs, and threatening them as full human beings.
Transformational leadership involves an exceptional form of influence that moves followers to
accomplish more than what is usually expected of them. It is a process that often incorporates
charismatic and visionary leadership.

Bass (1985) argues that transformational leadership motivates followers to do more than the
expected by doing the following: (a) raising follower’s level of awareness about the importance
and value of specific and idealized goals, (b) getting followers to transcend their own self-
interest for the sake of the team or organization, and (c) moving followers to address higher
level needs.

Figure: Leadership Continuum from Laissez faire Leadership to Transformational

Laissez Faire Transactional Transformational

Source: Leadership: Theory and practice, Northhouse, P.G., 3rd ed., 2003

Transformational leadership is related with motivating people to do more than they originally
thought possible. The original anticipation for performance is linked to an initial level of self-
assurance in the peoples’ perceived ability and motivation. Therefore, peoples’ perceptions of
self-confidence, as well as their developmental potential, are improved through the
transformational leadership procedure. Bass and Avolio (1990) suggested that transformational
leadership can be thought to individuals at all levels inside an organization and that it can
positively affect a firm’s performance. It can be used in staffing, selection and promotion, and
training and development. It can also be used in improving team development, decision making
groups, quality initiatives, and reorganizations (Bass& Avolio, 1994).

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10.1 Transformational - The four I’s

10.1.1 Idealized Influence

These leaders are admired, respected, and trusted. Followers identify with and want to
follow their leaders. Among the things the leader does to earn credit with followers is to
consider follower’s needs over his or her own needs. The leader shares risks with
followers and is consistent in conduct with underlying ethics, principles, and values.

10.1.2 Inspirational Motivation

Inspiration is an important but ignored aspect of leadership. According to Yukl and Van
Fleet (1982: p.101) the inspirational leader can increase subordinate effort and
commitment that makes leaders effective. Transformational leaders have a vision of a
future state in which the organisation should be. The leader clearly communicates a
positive and hopeful outlook for the future of the organisation.

10.1.3 Intellectual Stimulation

These leaders stimulate their follower’s effort to be innovative and creative by

questioning assumption, reframing problems, and approaching old situation in new ways.
There is no public criticism of individual member’s mistake. New ideas and creative
solutions to problems are solicited from followers, who are included in the process of
addressing problems and finding solutions.

10.1.4 Individualized Consideration

These leaders pay attention to each individual’s need for achievement and growth by
acting as a coach or mentor. Followers are developed to successively higher levels of
potential. New learning opportunities are created along with supportive climate in which
to grow. Individual’s differences in terms of needs and desires are recognized.

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11.Conclusion

Transformational Leadership is one of the important styles of the success of MySpace.

MySpace needs more transformational leaders to overcome the current issues faced by the
company. Many successful organizations such as Microsoft Corporation, Google and Facebook
have excelled in their actions due to the effective leadership they received from their leaders.
Also we understand that proper planned strategic plan can be very useful to achieve greater
advantage in the organisation as well as in the industry. Therefore, it can be concluded that
having the right leadership style in the organization and having the best strategy are the success
factors that lead the organization to glory (Witcher and Chao, 2010). The theories and practical
facets discussed in the assignment became useful to understand the significance of leadership
and strategies play at My Space.

Demonstration of the Learning on the Module

When I started this module I was very moderate on the leadership subject and I did have a little
knowledge about the subject. But I was very much keen to study on the styles of leadership.
After attending to this session, I gradually started to understand the depth and entire leadership
styles and characteristics and how it impacts the organisation as well as individuals. I learnt the
history of leadership from Great man theory to transformational leadership theory and how it
has evolved in the past. While I was going through this module, I realises that I have also come
across certain leaders in my life and how I have worked with them. Also I realised the leaders
whom I thought was wrong, were right at that time. This module also helped me to explore the
vision and mission of certain leaders and how they push them self to achieve. There are some
leaders act on situations where they change themselves to cater the need of the situations. This
module helped to see the broader picture of leaders, leadership and management and how
leaders react to certain individuals, certain groups, certain cultures, and certain environment. I
also learnt the negative side of leaders as well where their vision and mission leads to something
against humanity, where their followers blindly start following them. It helped me to identify
those leaders and how to overcome. Now I realise what are the areas I need to develop and
experience to become a better leader in the corporate world and in the society.

27
Effective leadership skills are an invaluable asset to all aspects of your career and an absolute
must for effective implementation and execution of any corporate strategy. This module guided
for an opportunity to step back and observe my own leadership style and effectiveness.
Leadership exercises and case studies done during the class helped me gain new perspectives
of leadership style

A strategic management module was a great refresher of knowledge that I have acquired during
this semester. It helps me ensure that I am up to date on the latest business growth strategies as
well as on the newest tools for strategic planning models which are practised by big
organisation. It helped me to understand the significance of building cross-functional skills and
focus on how to implement corporate strategy across functions and also helped to have a better
understanding on international business management and developing new business
opportunities.

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