Management and Leadership Strategic Management and Leadership

Strategic management and leadership theories supporting organizational direction

TRW

This document focuses on the leadership theories based on transformational and contingency approaches as well as the management theories based on supporting the accomplishment of organizational objectives. It attempts to review the different approaches and deliver a subjective leadership style that will guide the organization to achieving its goals.

Application of leadership and management theories to support organizational direction

Organizations exist to make profit. That is the sole purpose of corporation and combined companies. Effective organizations are those that are able to adapt to ever changing forces in the general and task environment. Therefore strategic management plays a vital role in helping organizations achieve the means necessary to gain profits and build customer loyalty.

Strategic management is the set of decisions and succeeding actions taken by management that will provide a competitively superior fit between the organization and its environment.

Theories

Following is a summarized review of the existing theories of leadership and management that are coherent in maintaining organizational direction with the set path.

Leadership

Leadership is defined as the ability to influence people toward the attainment of goals (Daft, 2008). This definition captures the idea that leaders are critically involved with other people...

The theory explains that a manager must understand the level of readiness of his/her employees and adopt one of four leadership styles that vary between high relationship behavior, low task behavior and low relationship, high task behavior. On the hand Fiedler's Contingency Theory focuses on the situation itself and considers the factors that demand a manger to adopt a particular approach. (Miner, 2005). Fiedler suggested that a managers leadership style is rigid and hard to change and therefore maintained that it is according to a situation a suitable manager should be assigned.
Case Study

Earlham College library section made ample use of the contingency approach. Earlham College has long been known for its bibliographic and literacy program. Therefore the librarians were well versed in a wide variety of literature modern and classic and were away a third of the year teaching these courses. As temporary replacements to fill in these librarians, paraprofessional staffs with less than forty-hour work weeks were chosen. These individuals were schooled in bibliographic record keeping and charged with maintaining library records. (Kirk jr., 2004) In this way Earlham…