Leadership Essay Sample

Leadership is the process of influencing others to accomplish a common task successfully together, and it is one of the most challenging tasks of a leader to transform an organization and restructure it in a way so that it could meet with all the expectations that the general shareholders and employees have on the company. After the recent financial slowdown, many organizations found themselves in very tight situations and they were failed to clear the expectations of them.

Here in the discussion we will deal with R&SD Company, who manufactures beauty products and a world wide name in the field, but after the financial slowdown had suffered a huge setback.

Back Ground of the company:

The company was established in the 1970 and after that it slowly gained its position as one of the leading beauty care products. Their ranges of cosmetics have been marketed worldwide and many prominent faces of the show-business had become their brand ambassadors in the past. But for the last three years the sales of the products had gone to a record low and it had really troubled the management of the company. More over that the shareholders are not really interested about the company; many distributors are refusing to stock and distribute the products of the company. And in the process the general people who can be termed as the loyal customers of the product are not getting the products in their hands and it also has caused a serious customer disgrace about the product. In the mean time several other companies have attempted to fill up the vacuum and two of these companies have made a good market for themselves (Walls, 2004). So it is clear that the company is in a very tough situation.

Current Problems/ Challenges:

1. The biggest problem of the R&SD Company is that after the global financial slowdown the company lost a huge amount of business and as well as a number of shareholders. More over it, the company was affected badly and has to lay out a number of employees too. Along with that it directly hit at the production of the company, which also made the distributors in many parts of the World to stop distributing the product. The business in a word came to a stand still. In recent times the company is in the dire need of a thorough re-structuring. The work force has been shortened, as well as the markets that once belonged to the company have been lost in the last three years. The managers should try to gain the markets, which is now controlled by the competitor brands. And to win over the markets they have to device new strategies and techniques (Bond, 2007).
2. Another problem is that the company has lain of a number of employees in the last three years and it is short with the work force. This can directly affect the company. Actually the problem will be on the distribution of work, and they have to increase the work force, and if they can not recruit new and good candidates the existing work force will be facing huge amount of work load. It is very important that the Human Resources department of the R&SD Company select the best of all the applicants who can work for both individual and organizational goals. This will be beneficial in several ways. One, there will be new blood in the company who will always want to prove their abilities and this will help the company. And secondly, the newly recruited employees and the old retained employees can together work out several new types of planning that might not happen with the earlier employees.
3. The final problem for the R&SD Company is that they have lost several markets through out the World, and all of these markets had been really profitable ones before the financial slowdown. More over it, many competitors have tried to gain access in these markets in the absence of the R&SD Company and in the present they have a comfortable footing in the markets. This can be termed as the biggest setback for the company in terms of sales and marketing. It is very important to regain access to these markets and also to find several other markets to business (Furlong, 2009).

The three aspects are very important in the process of sub-dividing the general goals of the company and what will be the most effective way to over come the problems. But the first of the needs will be a new work structure for the company.

A Model of Leadership:

Leadership is a very important term and to be successful in leadership it is important to follow a certain model. Here for the R&SD Company it is believed that the Team Model will be successful. There are several important aspects of a team based model, like:

1. Purpose of the Team: In a team all the team members share the same purpose and know the duties of each other as a team member and as an individual. It becomes a huge help in accomplishing the mission of the team and ultimately helps in the growth of the mother organization.
2. Priorities: The members are really clear about the general priorities of the team and so most of the work is done smoothly.
3. Roles: In a team every one is clear about the role in the team and what he or she should do to ensure success in the context of the team.
4. Decision: In a team decision making is considered as one of the most important aspects. Here there is always a leader who is the last word, but discussions always go on in a team to do the work in a well organized manner. And as there are several minds working towards building a plan every aspect of the plan can be discussed. Sometimes there can be certain conflicts in a team regarding the work procedures (Von Urff, 2009).
5. Conflict: In a team the conflict generally grows internally but a group based discussion can solve the problem.
6. Effectiveness and Success: Team work is really effective in accomplishing goals and being productive at work. And after the completion of the work the members know that what their contributions to the success of the team are.

Regaining of Shareholders and Other Aspects:     

As per the reports during the financial slowdown, the company has lost a number of shareholders as well as different financers as the company was financially lacked behind. So the first job of the leaders will be to gain number of shareholders for the company. But this is a risky proposition. So they will have plan out a strategy and try to get as much as financial support from different financial sectors and other avenues.

In recent times there are several banks that provide loans to commercial companies. R&SD Company can lend some money from the banks to improve the infrastructure of the company. The main focus that the leaders have to give is one the re-structuring of the basic aspects of the company.  There are several aspects that are very important in the aspect of a company and so one has to be very careful about making several teams that will focus their works on the specific jobs given on to them. For instance a team will work on accumulating the necessary funds for the restructuring of the company and new resources, another team will concentrate on finding new potential candidates who can serve the company among other things (Johnson, 2009).

Recruitment of Staffs:

Acute shortage of staffs is one of the very important aspects of the company. It is very important that the company recruits some new staffs that will be able to carry on the responsibilities and aim to make the company bigger than ever. And the Human Resources team will play a very important role in the case. The selection of the employees have always been one of the biggest concerns for every company and it is very important to choose the right personal who can really carry out the responsibilities that are given to that person and help both the individual and the collective goals to realize.

In the case of R&SD Company, the old and existing employees will have to take a very important role in the selection and the subsequent training of the newly selected personals. This will be helpful in two different ways. First, there will be no other training staffs and the newly recruited employees will get a direct feel of the working atmosphere of the company. Actually their training will be like the general on job training which is really important in the context of the companies like R&SD Company. Secondly, there will be a perfect mixing with the existing and the new employees which will make the working atmosphere soothing (Vecchio, 2008).

Marketing:   

And finally we come to the third and the most important aspect of the company. It is really a very big setback for the company to lose several big markets in the times of turmoil. More over the fact the company also have lost lots of ground as a number of competitor brands have captured the markets in the time of their absence. The leaders of the company have to deal with the aspect in the first place. To regain the old markets they have to start every thing in a brand new way, from product campaigning to marketing and innovative advertising, all must be done to ensure the business of the product. Market surveys have to be done and they will have to find out the strengths and weaknesses of all the competitor brands. The R&SD Company will have a strong point in the aspect, they will reap the benefits of their brand name, but still it will be tough. The leaders have to find out new territories to market the product, and possibly think of several new items that will be cheaper for the customers and easy for the company to manufacture (Bond, 2007). Most importantly the formal organization has to work in an impersonal way with the different clients and distributors so that they sense the familiarity of the company.

Presently, market is really tough and there is always a break-neck competition among the manufacturers. It is really tough to find a new footing or to re-structure a company to gain the momentum. And in the aspect the proper leadership is very important. The basic barriers of the company have all been discussed here and all the alternative routes by which these aspects can be recovered. The aim of a leader will be to take the group to a pre-determined position of success. The leader will be most effective when he will be successful with several constrains that are around him. Here in the case the main focus will be to gain market prominence, and the leaders will have to take steps to complete it.

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