Leading and Managing People Innovation Skills

Question: Discuss about the Leading and Managing People for Innovation Skills. Answer: Introduction The following assignment has evaluated significant aspects of the leadership style of Alan George Lafley who is considered for his remarkable contribution as CEO of Protector and Gamble (PG). The analysis has found several major facets such as ethics, theories, evolution and psychology of leadership in context to the leadership style of A.G Lafley. The assessment has tried to understand whether the leadership style of the mentioned persona matches with the concept of multicultural leadership or not. Leadership style of Alan George Lafley Alan George Lafley who has performed as CEO, president and chairperson for several years started his career by joining PG after his graduation from the business school of Harvard in the year 1977. After giving ten years of leadership as the CEO in PG, unfortunately, he was replaced by Robert McDonald due to having rapid complaints from the investors and constant decrease in sale. It has been Lafleys credible performance that PG called him back even after his retirement in 2000. According to the Journal report of Wall Street, his leadership doubled the sale rate and the company earned near about $84 billion (Tuna 2016). The consumer is the ultimate boss- has been the fundamental concept of Lafley that boosted him to become a wise and progressive CEO. According to A.G Lafley, a leader should perform as a bridge to the world outside. Additionally, he believes that an efficient leader should focus on a businesss structural charisma, a companys strategic curriculum about its core competency and its current position comparing with the rival enterprises (Tuna 2016). As per Lafleys point of view, robust and creative leadership is required to establish an organization's vision. Hence he stated that a leader cannot ignore his values and standards which have been shaped by him for the fellow subordinates. Leadership ethics A person should be called an effective leader when he would be found concentrating on what is right and promote positive influence upon subordinates by helping them to choose the right. According to Rice (2013), an efficient and fruitful business leader prefers to minimize the indulgence of negative interpersonal attitude and always considers taking other's opinions in the case of making any ethical decisions. It is essential to value other's point of view and show respect while serving as a leader. Lafley acquired the position of CEO in PG when the company has been suffering from the rapid downfall in the Asian market (News.pg.com 2016). Lafleys initiative to reinforce a management full of ethical values, principles and concrete purposes leading to the company's success for decades is indicative of the fact that he has considered following the basic leadership ethics. There has been a time when PG has been criticized for being ignorant about the laws and regulations. Lafley fought out all such criticism by defining the fact that the company has conducted its operations by following what is right. His leadership helped the enterprise to do business by giving fair treatment and priority to all (Wade 2013). Moreover, following his leadership the company concentrated upon not only their achievement, rather they focus on to investigate whether the success has been earned legally. Leadership Evolution The concept of leadership has gone through a rapid evolution over years as the idea of a directive and oppressive and autocratic leadership has now shifted to Democratic leadership (Rice 2013). In the current business scenario, leaders in business consider taking possible participation which in a way supports them in providing motivation which a possible aspect of leadership. CCL (Center for Creative Leadership) has identified that 83% of the survey upon leadership proves that the autocratic concept of leadership has gone through a rapid evolution over past few years. Lafley is among one of those leaders who have changed the concept of top-down management concept to a progressive and individual thinking oriented management. Lafleys innovative leadership skills like understanding consumer's feelings and point of views. He spent years to visit countries and going directly to the customers to get information about their demands (Bloomberg.com 2016). His leadership progressed from being a mere employee to the chairman to ultimately the CEO of PG. Leadership theory Evolution in leadership has changed from Great man, trait theory to Participative, Contingency, transformational, transactional and Situational leadership. According to Great Man and trait theory, histories are made by great men who have in born heroic traits like intelligence, charisma in behavior. As per participative theory, leaders should engage their fellow subordinates in time of decision making (Smith 2014). Based on contingency theory decisions and action by the leaders should be taken base on individual situation and their importance. Following Lafleys leadership pattern, it seems that he believes in taking decisions based on individual situation and therefore his leadership style changes rapidly. For instance, his initial role as a leader has been to visit Asian countries to have full control over the market of that domain finally. Later his leadership transformed to his return to the United States to take over PG's business operations for beauty products. On the other hand, in the time of the crisis in the year 2000, he changed his strategy and started to break and rebuild the company to keep RG's position secure in the market (News.pg.com 2016). Thus it seems that his leadership style matches with the Transformational theory of leadership. According to the theory, leaders interact with subordinates to provide a proper amount of motivation which enhances employee productivity (Smith 2014). Psychology of leadership and its multicultural trend Over years the psychological concept of leadership has changed as unlike previous time leaders now prefers to give ear to the values and point views of the subordinates rather than using intelligence and charisma. A.G Lafley is one significant example of it. Lafley believes that leadership should not be limited to the thinking that leaders are born and not made, and leadership only depends on traits like charisma, intellectual capabilities (Lafley and Charan 2014). According to Lafley, he grew to become a successful leader and his intensity to win helped him to gain that. It is, therefore, indicative of the fact that Lafley has followed the newly emerged psychology of leadership. Lafley specifically visited Japan and other parts of South East Asia and had good amount of interaction with the customers to acquire data about individual demand and desire regarding their products (Lafley and Martin 2013). As per multicultural leadership, leaders are driven to make geography oriented performance and should move outside their comfort zone. Conclusion From the above assessment, it can be deducted that A.G Lafley's leadership style matches with the transformational theory of leadership as he prefers to transform the behavior of his fellow subordinates by motivating them. Furthermore, it is understandable from the analysis that his steps and contribution to PG are an example of multicultural leadership trend. Reference Bloomberg.com. (2016).A.G. 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