To what extent is appointing a new leader likely to be a good way to improve business performance? Justify with reference to leaders (20 marks)

Leadership is a relationship through which one person influences the behaviour or actions of other people. Leadership can be demonstrated as 'command' where leaders take direct control, 'vision' leaders set vision and one beliefs, 'symbolic' where leader is embodiment of the strategy but not day-to-day involvement and 'decision making' where leader weighs up options and decides. The performance of a business can be managed by profitability, labour turnover, low costs and labour productivity. I think that a new leader would be a good way to improve the business performance as it could change the culture of the business and make workers more productive. They could change the leadership style to more democratic, meaning that power lies more in the group, with more consultation, allowing people to feel more empowered thus motivates employees to be more productive. With reference to Tannenbaum and Schmidt continuum of leadership, it is more about consulting, by having more employee input and discussion. draw in the continuumA new leader particularly democratic can improve performance, the company 'Enron' is an appropriate example of poor leadership. Jeff Skilling had a brutal strategy, PRC is to get rid of 15% of employees every year. Therefore a new good leader with a democratic styles could reduce labour turnover and increase productivity. However, culture can be seen as 'DNA', meaning that it is difficult to change, therefore if a new leader comes to the business and tries to change the company's beliefs and styles it may not be accepted by all employees as it will take time and workers will oppose to change. In contrast, a new leader may not be a good way to improve business performance, Improving the level of motivation would be a more effective way. This idea can be supported by Maslow's hierarchy of needs, by providing the needs of each level of the hierarchy, employees can reach the 'self-actualisation' stage where employees are fulfilled and achieving targets, therefore motivating staff to be more productive. On the other end of the hierarchy is the 'Physiological needs', these are the most basic needs e.g. food and shelter, without these being met employees cannot work their way up the hierarchy to the top, thus unable to be motivated. However, to motivate staff it could be very costly, particularly the initial costs of applying workers with incentives to work towards, (could be money motivated) which according to Fredrick Taylor is the best way to motivate staff. Other methods like improving working conditions, for example better chairs, sofas and canteen can be very costly. Overall I think that adopting a new leader would be a good way to improve business performance as the change of strategies and leadership styles used could make workers more productive. In the short run, there could be a negative affect of the employees rejecting change and could take a while to get used to, however in the long run it is likely that workers will feel more involved with consultancy and more input and therefore as a result will motivate staff to be more productive as they are more understanding and have clear targets to achieve. Therefore can increase the performance of the business by increased output, higher profits and lower labour turnover.