Introduction:

Leadership is the capability of a group or a specific person to impact and guide their supporters or other members within the organisation. Leadership includes making important decisions, generating and uttering a clear idea, founding attainable goals, and delivering the groups with the information and tools essential to attain these goals. The leaders are required and found in several characteristics of the society, from politics to businesses to region and community-based companies (Sosik and Dionne 1997). An efficient leader possesses strong communication, self-confidence, innovative and creative thinking, persistence in the expression of failure, readiness to take risks, honesty to change and many more. In business, the one who exhibits these types of leadership potentials can ascend to the executive management like the CEO, president or CIO. There are multiple meanings of leadership, although the dissimilar definitions are united in the theory that great leaders can make strategic and visionary decisions (Sethuraman and Suresh 2014). They can even convince others to follow these decisions. A leader's main aspect is to create a vision that can effectively work towards achieving the goals. The selected company for this assignment is Accenture, UK. It is an international business that delivers referring and processing services (Accenture, 2021). According to Fortune global 500, the company had revenues worth $44.33 billion in 2020 and has around 537,000 employees worldwide. The purpose of the company is to deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity. The company embraces the power of change in 360 degrees value to their customers, employees and the community. This paper's main aim and purpose are to discuss leadership within the company and how theories can be applied and implemented to overcome any difficulties.

Leader-follower relationship:

A leader and follower relationship are very important to be maintained. The first thought for the individual is to become a knowledgeable, strong, encouraging, influential, and inspiring person who will drive a person to go above and beyond to achieve achievement. The greatest importance is the relationship between the follower and a leader. Every person at a certain point in their lives has been placed either as a follower or a leader. A leader is most situations seen as the person who provides direction and leads a follower to develop and grow (Van Engen, Van der Leeden and Willemsen 2001). When this relationship is close between both the leader and follower, it feels a sense of gratification, turnover within the company is low, efficiency remains high, and followers' attitude remains positive, which helps them work effectively.

On the other hand, when the relationship between the leader and follower is not close, the connection between these two can cause tension, discomfort, high turnover and low productivity. Leadership has conventionally been seen as a relationship, but the research undertakes that the leader describes the relationship, which characteristics of followers can also reasonable. The debate on the relationship between follower and leader emphases on how the leaders and followers inspire each other to attain mutual meanings with the help of the co-construction of a common reality (Aronson 2001). However, it can be said that business life is multifaceted, whereas leadership is often basic. There is a very partial understanding of the leader-follower connections in the context of workplace dynamics and social eventualities. Several academics and practitioners have become attentive in handling the follower-leader relationships (Dulewicz and Higgs 2005). The divergence or convergence between followers and leaders is an important aspect that requires close attention, particularly in the multinational organisation.

Accenture, UK is facing serious issues related to the leadership. A survey stated that maximum number of employees within the company are having issues in understanding the direction of their business. The employees have expressed concern that a vital percentage of their employees do not understand what they are asked to do or where they are heading (Camp 1989). In addition to this, it was even observed that less than half of their total employees understand the corporate strategy and the rest of them do as they are asked to. Furthermore, the senior executives have indicated that they generally believed that a maximum number of their employees had the right skills to meet the existing business objectives, but the employees cannot work properly, which has posed significant challenges for the leaders at every level. These are one of the serious issues that the company must consider because it will hamper the leader-follower relationship, which will lead to high turnover, low productivity, and the creation of misunderstandings and will also impact the firm's overall profitability. The company needs to find out strategies through which this situation can be overcome.

Leadership skills play a vital role in an individual’s career development. The technical skills or a college degree can only take the person that far, but to be an actual leader to lead the team and guide them, soft skills are very important like the ability to be a good communicator and listener (Nanjundeswaraswamy and Swamy 2014). As Accenture, UK is facing several leadership issues, the company must implement several strategies through which the relationship among leaders and followers can be maintained. Whether it is about taking the inventiveness, evolving critical thinking skills, or learning how to inspire and authorise the people around, the person can constantly challenge herself to improve their leadership competences. The company's problem currently requires effective listening of the employees (Wood and Munshi 1991). The leader mist listen to their employees as communication skills are very important. Without listening skills, the leader will not be able to get feedback from others about their issues. In this situation, the company must discuss the strategic goals with their employees to know where the company is headed and this will also lead the employees to help the company along the way. The company can have annual meetings or monthly team interaction where the leaders will share every detail with their employees about where they need more support or focus and which part performs well (Van Maurik 2001). This will make the employees feel involved with the company and think of the company as their own and perform accordingly.

Leadership theories:

An effective leader stimulus their followers in an anticipated manner to attain the anticipated goals. There are diverse types of leadership styles that might affect the organisational efficiency or performance. Understanding the styles and theories of leadership can help the company to become more effective, mainly if the position requires a common teamwork with or management or others (Mulligan, Hatten and Miller 1996). Also, in some of the organisations, the interviewers might assess the leadership potential so that it can be obliging to understand the favoured leadership practice. This part will discuss the leadership styles and the leadership theories and will discover the main theories of leadership.

The theory of leadership studies the quality of a good leader. The psychologists have analysed and developed leadership theory. In addition to this, researchers have discovered some of the excellent leaders' common qualities or behaviour patterns. Some of the traits of leadership aspects includes actions, personality traits, situation, environment, decision-making process, how to maintain relationships and how the inputs are received (Houlden 1990). Leadership style is the method through which a leader slants managing of team members. Leadership styles were officially established due to studies on the leadership theory, and each of the styles includes diverse abilities. Some of the basic leadership styles comprises:

• Coach-They recognise the strengths and weaknesses and also helps the people to set goals. In addition to this, these leaders even provide a lot of feedback.
• Visionary-These leaders manage confidence and inspiration.
• Servant- These leaders focus on helping the team members to feel fulfilled.
• Authoritarian and Autocratic- These leaders decide with little or no input from the other people.
• Hands- off or Laissez- faire- These types of leader’s envoys the tasks and offer little supervision.
• Democratic- The leaders in this leadership style consider the sentiments of others before making any decision.
• Pacesetter- The leaders set a high standard and focus on the employee’s performance.
• Bureaucratic- The leaders in this leadership style follow a stern hierarchy and imagine their team members to follow the procedure.
  
  

Leadership is a common influence procedure where the leader pursues the voluntary contribution of the assistants to reach the goals of an organisation. A leader can be defined as the person who envoys or influence others to act or carry out the definite purposes. As Accenture is facing serious issues, they need an effective leader who understands the rapidly changing business environment to maintain the leader- follower relationship (Ackoff, 1970). If a particular task is highly organised and the leader has a good relationship with their team members, then the effectiveness will be high on team members. A study has further exposed that democratic leader take great care to comprise all the team members in a particular discussion and work with a small yet highly inspired team. The researchers have measured leadership's efficiency and role and its influence based on performance, behaviours, and attitudes (Cowley and Domb 1997). They have found out that high leadership indexes are not connected to the past performance records, rather they are linked with both higher capability or with improved performance to a high status of the firm, pointing out in the way of a expressive influence of the behavioural difficulty as well as dynamics on the leadership supposed level.

Some of the primary leadership theories are:

The great man theory- This theory states that outstanding leaders are born, not made. It was a common perception in the 19^th century and this leadership theory has stated that leadership is an intrinsic quality. These leaders often posses the natural characteristics of courage, intelligence, intuition, confidence, and charm among the team members.

The trait theory- This leadership theory positions those specific natural qualities tend to generate good leaders (Hammer and Champy 1995). Having particular qualities does not always mean have someone has a robust leadership skill but some leaders are outstanding listeners or communicators, but not every good listener and communicator need to make a respectable leader.

The behavioural theory- This leadership theory emphases on how an individual’s atmosphere (not ordinary skills) forms them into an effective leader. One of the main perceptions of this theory is that, it is contradicting. Conditioning conditions that an individual will be more probable to act or lead in a particular style due to the environmental replies to the behaviour.

The transactional theory or management theory- The transactional theory of leadership is also known as management theory and it is studied as the system of recompenses and consequences. It interpretates the operative leadership as hierarchical and results-focused. Transactional leaders rank structure and order over originality.

The transformational theory or relationship theory- This particular theory is studied as the effective leadership due to the positive relationship between the team and its leaders. The leaders who follow transformational characteristics motivate and inspire the people with the help of enthusiasm and passion. These leaders are the role model of their groups and they hold themselves to the same standard as they imagine others to be.

The situational theory- This leadership theory does not narrate to the specific type of leader or claim that any leadership style is finest. As an alternative, the situational theory contends that the best type of leader is the one who can familiarise their style on the basis of situation (Gill 2002). These leaders respond to the situation by coaching, impressive, participating, encouragement or delegation, whichever they think is essential. Their flexibility defines situational leaders.

Application of theories:

After analysing all the theories, it is recommended that the leaders within Accenture apply transformational leadership theories and implement the transformational leadership style. This leadership style will help the employees to motivate their people and will develop positivity among them. In addition to this, they will even exemplify the company's moral standards and encourage the same within others (Calingo 1996). The leader will foster an ethical work environment with clear priorities, values and standards. Accenture employees feel that they are not involved in decision-making of the company and they even do not know where the company is headed, which is making them least attached with their profiles, which will lead to a high turnover rate and low productivity of the company.

In order to apply the leadership skills among the team members, the team will have to be pushed out of their comfort zones. If the leaders want to excel their team, then they must not throw them completely in the deep end because in this way the team will feel negative about the particular task. They must be rather encouraged to take on the new involvements and treat every day as a chance to learn something innovative about the company (Bashein, Markus and Riley 1994). This way the leader will challenge them, but they will also be supporting them. In addition to this, a level of transparency will be provided. Naturally, the leaders cannot provide all the information about everything that is going on in the organisation, but its is also significant to offer some type of transparency to the staffs. If the staffs are kept in the dark about everything, then they will be less likely to share their ideas and thoughts about something. The team must be kept in the loop by notifying them about any main changes within the corporation and must also make sure that they outline the important objectives so that the employees can work to achieve them (Al-Mashari and Zairi 1999). The needs of employees must be fulfilled. One of the most notable theories of motivation is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which comprises of five levels: self- actualisation, esteem, belongings, safety and psychological (McLeod 2007).

To guarantee that the staffs are happy and satisfied, these needs must be met (Akao 1991). When these needs are met, the company will notice a difference in the attitude and performance of their employees and become more loyal towards the company, only if the company cares for them. Whenever a member of the team comes up to the leader with any type of concern or problem, it is important for the leader to listen to them. If the leader shows them that they care for them, it will have a positive impact on the employees. As a transformational leader, the leader will have to act as a role model to their employees, which is why it is important that they must lead by an example. They must make sure to show dedication and commitment in order to achieve goals and create a work culture which will cultivate team work and the leader will be able to effortlessly inspire their team members to deliver success. The employees need a convincing reason to follow the leaders lead, and this is why they need to generate as well as communicate an inspirational vision for the future.

Conclusion:

Lastly from the above discussion, it can be determined that leadership is one of the significant aspects in each and every company and it should be focused. An effective leadership helps to implement the vision and values of the company. Most businesses have the vision of where they will be in the future and how they would increase their client base. Sometimes, these visons can be forgotten due to the daily activities and pressure of work, but a strong leader always ensures and reminds every employee of the vision and shows them the path to achieve.  The leaders boost morale among the employees so that staff can be retained. It also helps to reduce the risk of miscommunication. The effective leader will ensure that communication reaches to everyone in the workplace. Accenture, UK is facing the leadership issues as it was found out through a survey that the employees are satisfied with their work and that, maximum employees do not know where their company is headed. Leader- employee relationship is not maintained within the company and it needs serious attention. Different types of leadership theories and styles have been discussed within the paper. It is recommended that the company focus on the transformational leadership style and theory, which is appropriate for the current situation. Transformational leaders do not dictate change among employees Rather, they inspire their people to change their perceptions, motivations, and expectations and work hard towards a common mission or goal.

References:

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