Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's leadership patterns and crisis management

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia MSO

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia or MSO as it is widely known is a Company founded by Martha Stewart. The merchandising and diversified media company operates in a number of segments including Merchandising, Internet, Broadcasting as well as Publishing.

MSO Earlier Success: Leadership Patterns

It is important to note that the earlier success of MSO can be attributed to a number of leadership patterns. According to Weaver (2011), Martha Stewart who was at the helm of MSO then, is a business leader who is known to have a number of distinct leadership qualities as well as characteristics. Hence in this regard, it is a combination of her leadership approaches that saw MSO become so successful. Autocratic leadership is Martha Stewart's most visible leadership style. Lussier & Achua (2009) describe autocratic leadership approach as an instance where the entire decision making process is left to a single leader. In the case of MSO, its empire was founded on an unwavering personal attention given to each and every detail by its founder, Martha Stewart. Given her demand for tangible results in regard to divisional performance, executives of the company's various segments were under constant pressure to deliver. This is what saw the organization to perform well even in industries that were seen to be legally competitive i.e. The entertainment industry.

Leadership Approaches during Periods of Success and Crisis

It is important to note that the effectiveness of leaders is largely dependent on the situation. During success periods, leadership should be focused on influencing groups to pursue and achieve organizational goals. This has been the case with Virgin Airlines where employees are given a wide range of incentives so as to enhance their performance as well as motivation levels. On the other hand, during times of crisis, leadership should be focused on damage control. Organizations that have applied this leadership approach before apart from MSO include the Trump Organization in mid-1990 (Greenbaum & Thakor, 2007).

Relevant Changes in MSO & Organizational Politics

The current crisis in MSO has informed falling prices of the company shares as well as a significant decrease of the company's profits. To begin with, the company needs to deviate from brand personification. One of the main downsides of brand personification is the inherent tying of the brand to an individual. This essentially means that personal tribulations of an individual may end up affecting the very performance of the brand. The company may also need to borrow from Dell where though there is a significant level of brand personification, the individual and the brand in this case are cleverly kept separate.

When it comes to organizational politics, it is important to note that the Withdrawal of Martha Stewart from MSO as CEO cannot be seen to be an incident of organizational politics at play. Mainly, organizational politics is taken to be a manipulative undertaking where its manifestation is largely through influence (tactical) designed to attain power or coalition building. Neither of this can be anticipated in the scenario.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be noted that the approach taken by MSO to handle the crisis could end up being a classical case in business management. It is also interesting to see the changes that shall be effected to make the company more competitive in a marketplace that is increasingly being seen to be highly competitive.