Leadership Engagement & Employee Engagement –

Organizational Excellence & Business Excellence in VUCA

Business Environment
Harish C N 1

Abstract:

Purpose: Purpose of the study is to analyze & advocate how Leadership Engagement &
Employee Engagement can lead to Organizational Excellence (OE) which in turn facilitate to
achieve Business Excellence (BE).

Implications: Leaders in Organizations need to focus on helping every manager & every
employee at each level to learn how to be a good coach, give effective feedback & provide
enough direction without micro managing. By understanding the importance of Leadership
Engagement & Employee Engagement, Organizations should develop strategies to keep their
employees engaged & motivated to remain with the organization.

INTRODUCTION:
Leadership in VUCA2 world:

With the present VUCA (V: Volatile, U: Uncertain, C: Complex, A: Ambiguous) Business
Environment prevailing all over the world, Leadership Engagement & Employee Engagement for
Business Excellence through Operational & Service Excellence is of utmost significance. It is time
for Leaders & Leadership to frequently ponder over 3 questions–

a) Are we doing the right things?

b) How well are we doing them?
c) Are we on the right track to world class performance?

Answers for such questions reflect current levels of performance & reveal significant opportunities
for improvement. Irrespective of Organizations being large or small have drawn lot of interest with
respect to Leadership Engagement not only due to the organizational growth or its legacy, but the
way the leadership behaves, acts and performs. This has in the recent past raised good amount of
debate & has drawn whole lot of intellectual minds in looking, how Leadership Engagement could
help organizations in Operational & Service Excellence & in turn Business Excellence is achieved.
Business Excellence focuses on stakeholder, integrated performance management, innovation &
collective learning. Today, it is necessary, but not sufficient to satisfy or even delight our
customers. It is also necessary to satisfy the other stakeholders – People (Workforce – Associates),
Business Partners, Suppliers & the Society, while achieving best financial results for the
shareholders. Sustainable development unfolds the concept of society in two directions, the social
aspects & the environmental constraints, which adds the dimension of time as future generations.

Key Words: Leadership Engagement, Employee Engagement, Organizational Excellence,

Business Excellence, VUCA,
1
Research Scholar, Batch Jan 2013 (Management), Jain University, Bangalore, Karnataka
2 VUCA:- V: Volatile, U: Uncertain, C: Complex, A: Ambiguous
Factors of today’s business landscape:

Executing business strategies in today’s VUCA world is challenging:-

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is
the one that is the most adaptable to change.” - Charles Darwin

With innumerable articles, approaches & methodologies made available by the internet regime on
the subject of Leadership Engagement, the author through this paper is trying to analyze & hence
thereby advocate what approaches or methodologies which might help Leadership wizards & the
intellectual young generation moving to the Leadership roles (Prospective Leaders) to steer the
Business in the present VUCA business environment & achieve Business Excellence..
To grow and compete in a VUCA world:-

Excellent results with respect to Performance, Customers, People & Society are achieved
through Leadership driving Policy and Strategy that is delivered through People, Partnerships,
Resources and Processes.

Unfortunately, despite the number of ideas & circumstantial evidences, laid down in numerous
articles & reports, business professionals lack sound, broadly accepted & approved theory that
can help them to measure, apply & develop corporate sustainability within their business
environment. They are stuck in a trial & error approach, with a risk of never achieving the
desired aspirations.”

What is Leadership?

Overview: The classic model of the good business Leader was - the top person who directed &
who was in control of all aspects of the business. He / She operated through a hierarchy of
management & the organization had a fairly well-defined & right structure. This type of Leader
had some good points & survived throughout most of the 20 th century. But businesses today do
not have the luxury of stability, they face an ever-increasing change in markets, customers &
technology.

Their core business is constantly under threat from newcomers to the marketplace with a
different business paradigm. Organizations cannot afford to depend upon the Leadership of
individuals or small elite of senior executives to meet this challenge alone. They need to harness
the ideas, skills, energy & enthusiasm of their entire team to succeed. Since the 1980s, the
concept & practice of Leadership has evolved to meet these challenges.

Defining Leadership: Leadership is not about authority or power, but the ability to influence,
capability to understand & support the team to work towards the Organizational & Individual
aspirations in order to achieve the goals, which in turn help the greater good of the society &
environment. There have been many questions on whether Leadership is ‘Born’ or can it be
‘Developed’, this has also rendered enormous quantities of great authentic research papers. This
topic though is not part of & not intended to be continued as a discussion for this paper. The
paper assumes some of the Leadership traits (Avolio & Luthans, 2008) as inborn & some of that
can be cultivated by continued systematic training efforts.

A review of the leadership literature reveals an evolving series of 'schools of thought' from
“Great Man” and “Trait” theories to “Transformational” leadership. Whilst early theories tend to
focus upon the characteristics & behaviour of successful leaders, later theories begin to consider
the role of followers & the contextual nature of leadership.
Leadership in this context is restricted to the top management in the organizational echelons who
are responsible for the Organizational health & sustained growth, as the authors feel that any
further scope change may not justify the topic under discussion.
Great Man Theories: Based on the belief that leaders are exceptional people, born with innate
qualities, destined to lead. The use of the term 'man' was intentional since until the latter part of
the twentieth century leadership was thought of as a concept which is primarily male dominated,
military and Western. This led to the next school of Trait Theories.

Trait Theories: The lists of traits or qualities associated with leadership exist in abundance &
continue to be produced. They draw on virtually all the adjectives in the dictionary which
describe some positive or virtuous human attribute, from ambition to zest for life.

Behaviourist Theories: These concentrate on what leaders actually do rather than on their
qualities. Different patterns of behaviors are observed & categorized as 'styles of leadership'.
This area has probably attracted most attention from practicing managers.

Situational Leadership: This approach sees leadership as specific to the situation in which it is
being exercised. For example, whilst some situations may require an autocratic style, others may
need a more participative approach. It also proposes that there may be differences in required
leadership styles at different levels in the same organization.

Contingency Theory: This is a refinement of the situational viewpoint & focuses on identifying
the situational variables which best predict the most appropriate or effective leadership style to
fit the particular circumstances.

Transactional Theory: This approach emphasizes the importance of the relationship between
leader & followers, focusing on the mutual benefits derived from a form of 'contract' through
which the leader delivers such things as rewards or recognition in return for the commitment or
loyalty of the followers.

Transformational Theory: The central concept here is change & the role of leadership in
envisioning & implementing the transformation of organizational performance. From ‘Great
Man’ to ‘Transformational’ Leadership: Although there was little consistency in the results of
the various trait studies, however, some traits did appear more frequently than others, including:
technical skill, friendliness, task motivation, application to task, group task supportiveness, social
skill, emotional control, administrative skill, general charisma, Knowledge & Intelligence. The
main leadership traits & skills identified by Stogdill in 1974, are as below:-

Traits:-
- Adaptable to situations
- Alert to social environment
- Ambitious & achievement orientated
- Assertive
- Cooperative
- Decisive
- Dependable
- Dominant (desire to influence others)
- Energetic (high activity level)
- Persistent & Self-confident
- Tolerant of stress
- Willing to assume responsibility

Skills:-
- Clever (intelligent)
- Conceptually skilled
- Creative
- Diplomatic & tactful
- Fluent in speaking
- Knowledgeable about group task
- Organised (administrative ability)
- Persuasive
- Socially skilled

The Behavioral School

The results of the trait studies were inconclusive. Traits, amongst other things, were hard to
measure. How, for example, do we measure traits such as honesty, integrity, loyalty, or
diligence? Another approach in the study of leadership had to be found. After the publication of
the late Douglas McGregor's classic book “The Human Side of Enterprise” in 1960, attention
shifted to ‘behavioural theories’. McGregor was a teacher, researcher & consultant whose work
was considered to be "on the cutting edge" of managing people. He influenced all the
behavioural theories, which emphasize focusing on human relationships, along with output and
performance.

McGregor’s Theory X & Theory Y Managers

Although not strictly speaking a theory of leadership, the leadership strategy of effectively used
participative management proposed in Douglas McGregor's book has had a tremendous impact
on managers. The most publicized concept is McGregor's thesis, leadership strategies are
influenced by leader's assumptions about human nature. McGregor summarized two contrasting
sets of assumptions made by managers in industry, out of his experience as a consultant.
There have been continued discussions on whether Leaders are just good managers or great
managers’- Good Leader. Luthans & Mintzberg have in their respective observational studies
have provided direct empirical evidences between the roles (Mintzberg) and activities (Luthans)
of Leaders / Managers. Similarly Hersey and Blanchard’s life cycle study provides information
about the Leadership styles (Luthans, 2008). There have been good studies to indicate links
between some of the leadership styles and the styles of successful and effective managers.

Important Quotes on Leadership:

1. No person will make a great leader who wants to do it all by himself or to get all the
credit for doing it! by Andrew Carnegie

2. The most important single ingredient in the formula of success, is knowing how to get
along with people! by Theodore Roosevelt

3. Leadership is getting people to do what they don’t want to do, to achieve what they
want to achieve! by Tom Landry
REFERENCES:
1. Learning Agility in Action - Applying Agility for Yourself & Your Organization,
Leadership Academy, October 2014, Rio Grande Puerto Rico.
2. Building Effective Leadership Skills - Creating Your Own Leadership Legacy, 2007
CANE Spring Meeting, Dan Hogan, Vice President, Personal and Small Business
Insurance, The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc.

3. Bolden, R., Gosling, J., Marturano, A. and Dennison, P. June 2003, “A Review of
Leadership Theory & Competency frameworks”, (Edited Version of a Report for Chase
Consulting and the Management Standards Centre) Centre for Leadership Studies,
University of Exeter, Crossmead, Barley Lane, Dunsford Hill, Exeter EX4 1TF, United
Kingdom.
4. Marcel van Marrewijk, Iris Wuisman, Wim de Cleyn, Joanne Timmers, Virgilio
Panapanaan and Lassi Linnanen, “A Phase-wise Development Approach to Business
Excellence towards an innovative, stakeholder-oriented assessment tool for
organizational excellence”.

5. Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, How to survive in the VUCA world | Lessons in
agility from today's meta-winners | The seven principles of the Light Footprint approach |
Prepare your company for the future, October 2013

6. Harish Manwani, Chairman, Hindustan Unilever Limited- “Leadership in a VUCA

World”, at the Annual General Meeting, held on 26 July 2013.

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