Leadership Strategies to Improve Business Performance

Ineffective Leadership Practices in the IT Industry

Ineffective leadership can result in problems in the workplace, such as the decline and deterioration of morale, failures in performance, and increases in turnover (Verma & Kesari, 2020). Organizations can improve morale, performance and reduce turnover by implementing leadership strategies that resonate and are viewed positively by workers.

The background on this subject is rooted in the research of industrial organization and leadership studies, which are fields that have been investigated for more than a century. The connection between leadership and performance, turnover, and morale has been assessed by psychologists like Maslow and by scholars like Kotter, who have focused on change management. From education to medicine to business, leadership and morale and motivation have frequently been linked by researchers (Chen, Li & Zhang, 2021; Hebert, 2019).

When it comes to narrowing in on ineffective leadership practices in the IT industry, scholars have found that leaders who have abusive personalities, little to no social and emotional intelligence, a tendency to micromanage, and an inflexible approach to the workplace environment are most likely to be ineffective leaders who harm morale, performance and increase turnover (Radek, 2019). Moreover, workers have shown that they do not like to be labeled by leaders, as labeling is a way of marginalizing and pushing certain people to the side, preventing them from having access to power within an organization (Samo, Qazi & Buriro, 2019). Ineffective leadership practices in IT have thus been found to be thus that dehumanize the individual, make that individual feel small and incapable of working without a boss standing over his shoulder, and that create a general atmosphere of tyranny and lack of caring.

Literature Review on Maslows Hierarchy of Needs Theory, Scrum and Lean Management Theory

Motivation is a critical aspect of the relationship between leadership and employee performance, and Maslows hierarchy of needs theory has been found to help explain that relationship (Stefan, Popa & Albu, 2020). The needs hierarchy focuses on physiological needs, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization. As the lower level needs are met, the individual becomes more self-motivated until he reaches the top of the needs hierarchy at which point the person is self-actualizing, i.e., motivating himself intrinsically from within rather than relying on anything from without (Stefan et al., 2020).

Leaders can help their employees become self-actualizing by making sure those lower level needs are being metespecially the levels of love and esteem, which are so often ignored by leaders. The reality is that people like to feel valued by others and they like to feel appreciated and loved by their superiors. It motivates them to want to do a good job, as Stefan et al. (2020) have shown. That is why Maslows hierarchy of needs still applies today and is why leaders can apply it to help motivate their workers and improve performance overall.

Another method of leadership that is more and more used today is Scrum. Scrum is an approach that fosters an environment of shared leadership (Spiegler, Heineck & Wagner, 2021). Spiegler et al. (2021) explain that the dedicatedScrumMaster is aleadershipenabler who follows the goal to empower a team to work in an agile way and to shareleadership with others (p. 1). Scrum is associated with identifying short-term goals and then focusing meetings on how well everyone is doing in terms of achieving those goals. It is a goal-driven approach to leadership that relies heavily on constant communication flow, trust, and the notion of shared leadership. The Scrum Master is not there to stand over anyones shoulder: he is simply organizing the meeting of minds and then making...

…and work hard. Herzberg explains this phenomenon by way of the two-factor theory, highlighting the categories of hygiene and motivation factors as the best way to frame and understand the issues that go into shaping why workers work hard and why they do not.

Transformational Leadership vs. Democratic Leadership and Autocratic Leadership

Adha et al. (2020) conducted a study based in the Indonesian public health center, in which they compared and contrasted the effects of different leadership styles to see what worked best. Transformational leadership is unique in the sense that it focuses on managing change by highlighting a new vision, communicating it to stakeholders, justifying it with logic and reason and then getting everyone to buy-in to the transformation through the fostering of supportive relationships and positive returns for making the change (Adha et al., 2020). Democratic leadership is different in that it focuses on sharing leadership with stakeholders so that decision-making is not concentrated in the hands of one person but is rather spread around. Everyone is permitted to have a voie or vote in the decision-making process, and when there is a majority agreement a decision will be made based on that vote. Autocratic leadership is the exact opposite of democratic leadership in that power, authority and decision-making is concentrate in the hands of one leader, who makes decisions for the others and expects all commands to be followed through and obeyed. There is no delegation of authority in autocratic leadership (Adha et al., 2020). What the researchers show is that each leadership style appeals to different people in different settings, and each is effective in its own ways, depending on the context. Sometimes a strong leader is needed to make decisions in a hierarchical culture; sometimes, when change is needed, a transformational leader is required so as to reduce…