INTRODUCTION
This analysis will discuss the use of power and politics together with the leadership styles and management skills of Catherine Walter and Graham Kraehe. The author will discuss the necessary implications of the case to the future of the subject company. Furthermore, the author will concretely discuss the use of power in a political organization. The analysis of the author will be based from what the author has learned from the discussions in class.
The case of National Australia Bank (NAB, for brevity). The said company has been suffering from a public major split. The said problem was attributed to the fact that a six percent of its annual income coming from the Hague Foreign Exchange Trading was lost due to the fault of Catherine Walter. Walter oversaw the existence of such problem, hence any matters that could help the company in preventing the said happening was not realized. Due to the happening of such problem, the company has been subject to many resignations of its Managers, from different departments. Furthermore, the company has been subject to different criticisms in relation to the proper use of power by the company in removing Walter from the company.
LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
Effective leadership can make a difference in the operation of the organization. There is a strong correlation between the leadership and an organization’s performance. Poor leadership is the kind of leadership that is apparent in the case of NAB. The leadership of the subject company is collective and not individually. The implication of power to an organization is important as it tries to create an atmosphere that will be conducive to a leader and subordinate relationship. The practice of power is successful if the company, as a whole, will benefit from it.
According to Fairholm (1993), achieving desired organizational results are dependent on the capacity to influence others to one’s own point of view. He further stated that power is an inducement to change another’s behaviors and attitudes. As a social structure of human interrelationships, the organization controls the action of individuals.
Hence, looking at the case of NAB, the problem has been apparent on the way the Kraehe manipulated a situation that is beyond to what the there are expected to be. The author perceived that their actions were all a product of a fact that the parties did not basically resort to a plan that would be a product of an effective leadership and management.
The author believes that the senior management as lead by Kraehe has abused her power thus creating an additional problem for the company to deal with. In corporate governance, the use of position must be for the benefit of the company especially in continuously attaining its goals. In corporate governance, the company must ensure the accountability, fairness, and transparency in the firm’s relationship with all the members of the organization. According to Oxford (1998), the universe best reveal itself through relationship and participation, then all work is about relation making or relation healing of some kind. In addition, creativity must be integral to all human work as it is to all work in the universe.
Sutler (2004) has stated leaders tend to tell people what they want to hear, rather than what they need to know. What people have needed to know is that the process of globalization is underway, traditional ideas of the role of national government are no longer relevant, and that there is limited capacity for any government to do much to slow the overall pace of global change. The application of leading and managing is a complimentary matter in the existence of an organization. The senior management was infuriated from the happening of such situation, hence they have decided to conduct a special meeting, on an instance there are still on rage. The senior managers especially Kraehe has a low emotional intelligence. He allowed his emotions to take over the matter leaving the company in a detrimental position. He did not resort to possible responses to the problem.
The need to take in to consideration organizational change is in order to minimize whether or not the company will have to minimize the bad politics inside the company or not. The use of Kraehe was rather coercive leaving no room for further development that can make the organization more efficient. According to Ratzburg (2002), organizational decision-making and problem solving, while seemingly a rational process, is also a political process. Organizational actors seek to satisfy not only organizational interest, but also their own wants and needs; driven by self-interest. Hence, in an organizational politics always involves the necessity to promote self-interest of another.
The move of Kraehe in influencing the senior managers as to the status of Walter in the company is coercive rather using enough charisma and an enthusiasm to show enough support to the downfall of the company. As Kreitner & Kinicki (2008) have stated organizational politics relates to the behavior that individuals or group engages in for their own benefit and often at the expense of the organization.
The decision of Kraehe for ousting Walter thru the use of a special meeting is indeed a kind of politicking, which is not fair. Kraehe is a leader and not a manager, using the theory of Kotter. Kraehe has not been subjected his position in the prowess of coping with complexity but he immediately decide to change the company, by ousting Walter from the company.
Furthermore, According to Randall (2004), in managing change, focus groups must be established across the organization, breaking down functional boundaries and working progressively on core ideas, business problems, and value change analysis. Kraehe was not able to incorporate enough skills in trying to better the situation. It is due to the fact that both are not anymore handling matters for the benefit of the company but only their rage and madness.
The happening of a serious loss of personal and organizational significance involve changing the way people actually work. According to Lorenzi and Riley (2000), many organizational decisions typically involve many different types and levels of personal loss for the people in an organization. Thus, barriers to effectively carry out decisions are a nuisance not only to the company but also to its progress. Kraehe lacks the capacity to forego issues, which are personally related to the management. The leaders within the subject company have set their barrier up high that their decision has blocked the growth of the company.
According to Thibodeaux (1990), organizational development professionals have continued to be cautious in grappling with the political realities involved in the implementation of organizational goals, despite the increasing acceptance of the fact that organizational change is inextricably linked with organizational politics. The need to look at the political realities of an organization in the implementation of a decision is vital, for the fact that organizational politics determines the capacity of the whole organization itself to handle changes in leadership and structure.
On the other hand, Walter also lacks the efficiency in managing and leading. Her irresponsibility was a deviation to the role that the company has provided for her. According to Greenburg (2003), norms for individual behavior are largely defined by an individual’s role within a context of a network. As individuals interact with others, a network of roles and their attending behavioral expectations known as role-sets are established.
Her actions are driven by her poor emotional intelligence. She did not make use of her skills to look into the situation. Her awareness on the matter was only on her situation and has not used an objective perspective to settle the dispute. Her attacked to the actions taken against her by the senior management is a problem to her personal disposition and hence it affect the way she handled her case. Evaluation of her leadership and management skills is an easy task because her capabilities are not suffice to meet any systematic way of being effective.
According to Miner (2000), the most dramatic features of a conflict situation need not be significant for resolution. In the process, there must be careful scrutiny of language used. The whole organization has not been able to give each other the chance to settle or enter into a compromise agreement. The use of language that has a bad implication to the personalities of each other hence, what they have in the company was manipulated in order to achieve their ends.
The impact of the bad situation for the individual members is attributed to the fact that if the top management will not be able to decide matters in a good way, the security of the individual members is vague. According to Lorenzi and Riley (2000), Studies of system dynamics frequently reveal that major problems that everyone thought were external are actually the unintended consequences of internal policies. The basic dynamic behind this phenomenon is that the organization is made up of a network of circular causal processes: A influences B, which then influences C, which in turn influences A, i.e., the snake bites its own tail. Understanding these internal organizational dynamics is a prerequisite for leading effectively.
Hence, the whole organization as a whole has suffered worst from what they could have prevented in the past. They have manipulated both their position and leadership in order to achieve their so-called ends.
CONCLUSION
It is right for the author to conclude that the case of National Australia Bank is not a healthy situation that can benefit the organization. The use of poor leadership and management in a company will dictate how the company will be able to progress. On the other hand, leadership is a part of organizational politics. The subjects of this paper were not able to handle the matters in the proper that could make both complement each other. What could have attained the success of the company is not the use of power and politics for the self-interest of the leaders but it must be for the success of the organization. According to Curtis (1961), Niccolo Machiavelli stated that, “The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.”
None of the parties of the case has acted for the benefit of the company. What dictated their decisions where only for self-preservation and because of that the company suffered a lot due to poor leadership and management.
REFERENCES:
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Kreitner, R. & Kinicki, A., 2008, Organizational Behaviour, Mc-Graw-Hill/Irwin, New York.
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