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Question 1: Leadership & Diversity

Global leadership needs to manage diverse issues in managing a team. Cross cultural leadership is an implied concept in global team based leadership. Global leaders have to deal and manage various diversity issues related to the people they manage. Diversity is of various kinds that a leader has to manage for example gender diversity, age and experience diversity among the team members, cultural diversity and also ethnic issues. A leader needs to manage a cross cultural team from diverse background in a manner to understand their style of working and how to motivate them in the right manner. Gender diversity brings to the table different methods to lead men and women employees as their orientation towards work are different. It is critical as in New Zealand neutral and egalitarian approach is adopted towards women in general and in workforce. This brings up the issue of managing both the gender in an equal manner by the leader.

Similarly a team may comprise of people from all age, qualification and experience which would determine how they should be handled and led towards the right direction in achieving the organizational goals. Employees belonging to different age category would have different ways and motivation to perform like young people would be more focussed towards targets where elderly employees may be more focussed on stability. Similarly qualification and experience also would determine the way they can be directed in the desired manner.

Another diversity issue which is cultural differences is very difficult to manage as cultural beliefs and values are hidden and latent but have a far reaching impact on the employee’s behaviour and working style. Cultural diversity is very difficult to lead and manage as the background and cultural ethnicity determines the person’s ways of working and motivation level. A team comprising of cross cultural employees with the leader from New Zealand would be a completely global team. The leader of such a team needs to be well versed with the cultural background of his team members in order to manage then better. Also ethnic or race based diversity is again needs to be understood as it influences the person’s personality and temperament towards work.

Project GLOBE which is Global leadership and organizational behaviour effectiveness research has been an advanced research on Geert Hofstede’s cultural study to include countries in cultural clusters so that the leader is able to have a common way of working for the employees belonging to a particular type of cultural cluster. Then these cultures would be analyzed upon various dimensions like performance orientation, assertiveness, humane, future orientation, individualism, gender egalitarianism, power distance and uncertainty avoidance, etc. Few of these dimensions are directly related to work behaviour but few are more concerned with how the society works. Hence these dimensions in totality develop both the individual and social behaviour of the employee in a global setting.

An understanding of the GLOBE dimensions would be very meaningful for a international leader in managing his team. These would help the team leader determine the decide upon his leadership style based on the kind of culture that the employee belongs to and what would be his orientations. Through this a match can be developed between the leadership style of leader from New Zealand and employees who may belong to various countries and cultural heritage. For example  based on cultural clusters of Latin America, South East Asia pacific, European, etc he would be able to understand their performance drives, future orientation, assertiveness as an individual and a team member, individualism or collectivism, power desires and also risk taking ability. This would help the leader to put them into right kind of teams and also determine the relationships between them.

The leaders from New Zealand have a strong influence of Maori leadership style from the history of the country. Maori leadership style which has originated from the history of New Zealand also needs to be considered before managing a team as Maori leaders where leaders are hierarchically identified but have a collectivist approach towards managing teams. Hierarchy of the leader is determined but each member plays a critical role in the overall team work and no distinction is made between the leader and the members. They adopt a democratic approach towards managing their team which helps them in keeping a close connection with their members.

Both Maori women and men have a collectivist approach that they adopt with their team and stand like a tree for them to provide all support to them. This has been seen throughout the New Zealand culture in the companies which have origin from there. As a tress they provide all support and direction to them in order to grow. Hence this style helps in managing global and diverse cultural teams better.

Question 2: Ethics & Social Responsibility

A leader is important for not just managing the team and leading them towards the organizational goals but also setting benchmarks and standards of performance and ethical qualities for others to see and follow. With the growing commercialization of organizations ethical leadership has grown in importance as it will determine the direction the organization will take for their future business strategy. business ethics is concerned with managing the team and business in a manner which is morally right and adopts a code of conduct which is right from all perspectives. Organizations these days adopt a very strict view of adopting ethical standards of working and building a credible name for the organization.

In order to build and maintain an ethical company which should also be focussed towards corporate social responsibility the leader should take the lead and determine the company policies and future course of action. The vision and mission of the organization which is the result of commitment of the senior management should clearly communicate the level of ethical company which they want to built. An ethical and socially responsible company cannot be built without the motivation of the leader which is in turn based upon the moral values and ethics of the leader as a person. In case of any crisis also which can be both deliberate or uncontrolled, ethical cushioning of a leader can help the company manage the crisis situation.

This kind of examples can be seen in many countries and the organizations from those countries. In New Zealand also as they have an egalitarian culture, focus on morally right ways of working is implied within organizations having leaders from New Zealand. The importance of ethical leader can be seen from many cases which come out in the open all over the world. One of the very critically acclaimed case is of Volkswagen where they were questioned and criticized for their emissions problems. As it happened in the case of Volkswagen where emission issues were coming to front in the cars being sold by the company, concerns were raised over the ethical conduct of the company.

They were criticized for forging their actual emission norms through cheat tests while the cars were polluting more than what they were shown to cause. The CEO at that time Mr. Martin Winterkorn resigned after this scandal became public. He did not show the qualities of an ethical leader as this unethical practice was happening under his noose and also when he quit a high pay package was given to him. But the CEO who later joined the company had to handled the crisis very well by being the spokesperson and proving that it was just an accident and due diligence would be carried out to solve the matter. He also needs to show strength and many laws cases have been filed against the company in US and Australia.

As per the theories of ethics, the company was adopting a utility theory as they were making cars which would provide utility to the consumers more than the cost they were incurring to the environment. This is generally undertaken by all profit making organizations where they produce some products which they claim would provide more good and would cover up for the harm.

As per another Rights view of ethics Volkswagen has not adopted this and openly flaunted it by not respecting the rights of the various stakeholders like consumers, society in general and have polluted the environment more than what they were claiming. Another concept of ethics which is the justice view states that they have not been justified in their approach in producing cars which high emissions but selling them through portraying cheat tests about the emissions norms of the cars. Hence they have not adopted and followed a justice view also and now they face many trials and law suits in both USA and Australia for such unethical work

The last concept under ethics would be the integrative social contracts theory where the company should collaborate moralistic view and normative view of integrating social, economic and political perspective in order to prove their ethical conduct to the society to which it belongs. Volkswagen has undertaken a wrong direction to this concept also by not integrating the rights of all the members of the society and doing harm to them by adopting wrong practices.

Overall the leader or the CEO at Volkswagen has not adopted an ethical approach towards working and producing the cars which were launched in the markets with wrong emissions standards and duping the customers and society by producing and selling wrong technology to consumers. His exit after the allegations and cases filed against the company proves the unethical practices that happened under his leadership. The company’s future depends upon how ethically they can conduct themselves now after the scandal.

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