Paper Example on Leadership and Technology Change: A GAI (Global Alive Inc.) Case Study

Introduction

Change is good and is inevitable. Everyone wishes and thinks of changing the universe, but the fact remains that change should begin by them changing their lifestyle and thinking. Well, in GAI (Global Alive Inc.), the main issue that is bringing in some disunity in the management team is regarding technology change. The study is limited to studying the leadership of the company, the influence within the organization and how effective is communication.

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Case Study Problem

The introduction of a spyware program that gets aimed at monitoring every employee's move is the primary source of disagreement at GAI. On the one hand, the new CEO, Helmut Schwartz has a lot of faith in technology and believes it is the solution giver to all the problems but, on the other hand, the management team believes that some instances do not need technology. Schwartz believes that the software will minimize their supervision work since every step made by the employee can get traced. Thuy Singh thinks that spaying will only break the trust that is between the employers and employees. Miller and Patrick Photo believes that Schwartz is too obsessed with making his impact felt in the company.

Leadership

To begin with, a leader is a person who finds solutions to problems and tries to mobilize the team to work toward a specified target (Nelson and Quick, 2020, p.218). Schwartz may get portrayed as a competent leader who always engages the team and who is a solution giver to most of the problems facing the organization. Schwartz aims at learning both his employees and management team, seeks for advice and is involving, encourages his employees as well as acts as a good example which makes him a good leader. According to the Trait theory, a leader is born with leadership traits. These traits make them distinguishable and identified from the rest. A leader with leadership traits is one that is confidence, has a great conviction, has a good origin and can adapt easily (Nelson and Quick, 2020, p.219). Schwartz seems to have a good background with technology since his diploma and degree was in that field. His working experiences involved technology, and that might be the reason as to why he is much obsessed with technology. Having a good foundation in that field made him so confident about what technology can do to an organization. As an optimism leader, nothing seemed impossible to achieve. He sets his mind on making the organization a global one and seems not to give up even when circumstances demand so.

Power/Influence

Power is the ability to influence other people's behavior. Power can be dependence or context. When power is dependent, one person relies on another to accomplish a particular objective, whereas, in context, power gets found from relating with other people (Nelson and Quick, 2020, p.200). At GAI, the CEO believes that to achieve their goals, they must work as a team. However, the main problem comes in where he wants to deny the employees their freedom by having their every action monitored. Establishing a good relationship with the employees would work best than having to spy on them. Thus, as much as his ideas of globalizing the organization are good, that one thing might make them not achieve their targets. Employees, on the other hand, has a legitimate power that demands protection of their personal information. PIPEDA or the Act of electronic documents requires the personal information of the employees is kept undisclosed. Introducing the spyware, it means that the personal information of the employees will no longer be private since it can view through their emails and personal accounts. Miller's idea of introducing HR Metrics seemed a perfect idea since it failed to dig into personal matters.

Effective Communication

The most vital component of any organization is communication. According to Paul Meyer, "communication is the key to personal and career success" (Nelson and Quick, 2020, p.147). Effective communication is two way, not one way. In any organization, the management should always engage their employees in decision making. A pleasant environment must get established where the employees get given an excellent platform to speak out their mind and provide any suggestions. Schwartz is a leader purposed to uniting workers and management team. He is much concerned with the well-being of his employees. However, his effort of trying to provide a friendly environment gets misjudged by fellow management team where they think that he is too nosy on their affairs. There is miscommunication between the CEO and the management team regarding the installation of the spying software. Schwartz's idea might be for the good and better of the organization since it will prevent misuse of the organization's resources. The management team, however, thinks he is doing all that for personal gain.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a good leader should be willing to work as a team with his colleagues and employees to accomplish the company's goals. A leader should be an excellent example through his/her actions for others to follow. He/she should seek advice, be innovative and give others a chance to speak their minds. Leaders should be able to use their powers the right way to support and not bring the conflict in an organization. Effective communication should get established to avoid miscommunication of information.

References

Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2020). Organizational behavior: Science, the real world, and you. Cengage learning. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rn6yh6Z7NNMC&oi=fnd&pg=PT5&dq=+organizational+behaviour+by+Debra+.L+Nelson&ots=NcEoFUYuWQ&sig=yTN3RPbU7cMk6yCLyh2Ovm3ORZQ