Solution
Over the years, the increased complexity in the hotel industry where the Group operates has contributed to an increased interest in leadership and not limited to formally appointed leaders or top leaders. In the Garvey Group, their achievements and plans of actions is sufficient evidence of existence of leadership and not only in roles identified as a leader. The top leaders could not be having sufficient and relevant information for making highly effective decisions in a fast-changing and complex business environment (Walumbwa et al., 2008). The issues of leadership that must be addressed at the development level include collaboration rather than competition among the senior business unit managers, changes involving multiple teams or units rather than falling within a single manager’s remit, breaking down silo thinking and adopting to cross-organisation processes.
First, to harness a successful leadership development, there must be an elaborate distinction of the new leadership theories from the traditional individualist theories of leadership (Joyce & Slocum, 2012; Jogulu, 2010). This means that instead of focusing on a specific set of individual characteristics and attributes, in the new leadership development, people initially identified as leaders, heads of departments, directors and team leaders are acknowledged to be advanced support by people engaged in leadership practices. This should be the case in Garvey Group where potential leaders would be involved in social networks, teamwork, shared accountability all positively contributing to leadership. Also, the Group must encourage an effective spontaneous, collaborations and support people who work together in introducing new initiatives.
Second, research evidence that heroic model has not at any point accurately represented leadership realities, even historically (Storey & Holti, 2013; Cope et al., 2011; Arnulf et al., 2012). The authors of this model had focused on the exploration of the Wilberforce’s leadership and the abolition of the slave trade. Despite the identification of Wilberforce as a leader linked with abolition, there is an argument that their role is one among many people not identified as leaders. This is despite the individuals taking critical leadership roles in momentous change process, conversational processes and power relations between distinct interest groups and an interplay of the Clapham group with broader social movements all challenged accepted values and beliefs successfully abolished. Hence, adopting this theory in leadership development, it would be essential to appreciate leadership as relational as highlighted in the relational leadership theory (Uhl-Bien, 2011) and contextual (Vohra, 2014) despite of being insufficiently explained by the view of leaders and followers with an insufficient explanation of the notion of leaders and followers.
As shown in figure 1, there are three contentions responding to re-thinking of the individualistic idea of leadership explored in this report each with distinct impact on leadership development practice;
Figure 1: Individualistic Idea of Leadership Models and Leadership Development Practice in the Garvey Group Context
Source: Summarised by the Author
James (2011) study equally questioned the traditional assumptions that underpin a significant part of the leadership theory. As opposed to the popular assumption that leadership cannot be possibly be pinned down, the field has been in the past unified and framed by an underlying assumption virtually past question until recently. The contested view is the assumption that in its simplest form, leadership is a tripod with a leader or leaders, followers with a common goal intended to be achieved (Crevani et al., 2010). James (2011) suggests that
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