My vision is for a transformational organisation. Transformational leadership creating transformed employees. A holistic approach where people matter. Old norms of control, power, manipulation are traded for egalitarianism, service and trust. To provide the context for this I propose an organisational structure within current NZ legislation that provides the framework for shared management at Board level. It is a demonstration of the sharing of power, strategic influence, direction and control and allowing others to share in the rewards of that specific organisational community.
I consult to a range of small to medium size businesses in New Zealand and Australia. Observations that I have noted:-
- Disjoint between ‘workers’ and management / owners.
- Very little succession planning.
- A lot of goodwill and vision shown by some employees with little or no long term compensation.
- Some employees refrain from initiating anything because they won’t participate in the financial reward.
- Owners often working by the ‘seat of their pants’.
- A lack of trust by employees
- Tightly controlled organisation. You can feel the employee's scared to breath.
I have approached this hack on two levels. Firstly, by espousing a transformed organisation which is great for employees. Secondly, by outlining a company structure, Boards of Directors and classes of shares and shareholding to share leadership and financially reward employees through dividend streams.
Themes of the God image reflected (see documents) and an honouring of the very essence of a persons spirit and being provide the catalyst for organisational transformation, An organisational aim should be to improve the human quality, establish liberty, pursue sound judgment, and ensure justice for every human being regardless of creed, gender, and race. Gill (2006) points out that the best companies to work for have cultures with clear, shared values such as mutual respect and trust, work-life balance, opportunity to advance in the job and learn new skills, and pride in the companies role in the community or the way it serves its customers. “Trust and trustworthiness are perhaps generally the most important values. Trust is the basis for credibility, cooperation and collaboration.” (p131).
Transformational Leaders
- identify, display and reinforce values that support the vision and mission and that followers share. They align the objectives and goals of the individual followers, the leader, the group, and the larger organization.
- stimulate and inspire followers to both achieve extraordinary outcomes, and in the process, develop there own leadership capacity.
- promote concern for others and for society
- encourage independent, critical thinking
- enhance followers’ sense of self-efficacy and self-worth.
- show behavioural integrity. The leaders actions and decisions reflect both the organization’s guiding principles or corporate values and their own personal values. A mismatch displays hypocrisy
Organisational Structure
The trading company should be set up with different classes of shares, tradable (T) and non-tradable (NT), both are participatory as regards voting and dividend distribution but the NT’s have a nominal capital value only. The NT shares are not used for capital raising and no distribution on wind up. (Ideally these shares should be tradable so that employees can share in capital movements. The limitation has been specified to allow thought to be given to capital raising as the employees consideration for shares will be nominal only.)
Blueprint.
- ‘Owners’ have 50% of the total shares. These shares are tradable (T). 3 Board members.
- 50% are non-tradable (NT) shares.
- 10% are owned by Company ‘A’ (1 Board members) and
- 40% are owned by Company ’B’ (2 Board members).
Companies ‘A’ & ‘B’ are precluded from owning ‘T’ shares. Employees in there own right could become ‘owners’.
- Senior Managers are shareholders in Company ‘A’ and all other workers are shareholders in Company ‘B’.
- Every employee has the right to 1 share in their representative company.
- When you leave the organisation you forfeit your share.
- After 3 months with the organisation you receive 1 share in your representative company.
- The company constitution maintains this weighted capital structure. (Depending on the size of the company it would be possible to utilise a third company being the voting and dividend distribution vehicle for middle management.)
- Board members can be appointed from amongst the shareholders or contracted as an independent director.
- Employee’s are employed in the normal way with market or slightly under market wages/salaries.
- Every employee benefits through dividend distribution.
Benefits
- Better citizens - organisationally and societal.
- Sharing power and control at the Board level is a statement of trust
- Peer pressure performance
- Initiatives increase value –(especially where it was possible to make the shares capital distribution shares)
- The driver for productivity is financial.
- Everybody benefits from innovation
- Non managerial employees share leadership through their Board representative.
- A new employee means a diluting of the shareholding. Decisions about staffing levels will be monitored more carefully by employees.
- Will encourage longevity of employment.
- Strategically focus the organisation on transforming qualities.
- Ensure leadership behaviours are reflective of the espoused vision and values.
- Choose your leaders wisely. When highlighting transformational leadership we have words like mentoring, life skills, job experience, transforming, morals, values. These words represent pictures of experience and character built on that experience. As Bass & Riggio (2006) point out transformational leaders in adult life do not just emerge accidentally. They are shaped to some degree by the high moral standards set by their parents and parental interest shown in their early performance, particularly in school. (p146). Because the key to transforming the organisation is through leadership you need to develop a leadership selection process that uncovers the applicants degree of ‘God’ image reflection.
- Increase personal awareness of individual leadership styles. “The leader must be committed to developing his or her own leadership capacity. This takes dedication and commitment. It must be internalized.” (Bass & Riggio, 2006, p151).
- Articulate your philosophy on leadership. Make your leadership style and values obvious otherwise they may not get noticed.
- Create an organisational structure that shares leadership and outcomes. Transformational leadership has to be demonstrable.
Adjibolosoo, Senyo, (2005). The Human Factor in Leadership Effectiveness. Mustang: Tate Publishing.
Bass, Bernard M., & Riggio, Ronald E., (2006). Transformational Leadership (2nd ed). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2001). Leading with soul. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
De Wit, B & Meyer, R. (2004). Strategy: process, content, context an international perspective (3rd ed.). London: Cengage Learning EMEA.
Frey, B. People and Leadership – Day 3. Massey Class notes, 2011. Praxis Group Ltd
Garvin. David A. & Roberto. Michael A., (2001). What You Don’t Know About Making Decisions. Harvard Business Review. Sept 2001,108-116
Gill, Roger, (2006). Theory and Practice of Leadership. London: Sage Publications.
McCarthy, S. (2003). Leading High Performance Cultures – Do Our Leaders Have What It Takes? Human Synergistics International.
Meredith, J. R. & Shafer, S. M., (2007). Operations management for MBAs. (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Whyte, D. (1994). The heart aroused: poetry and the preservation of the soul in corporate America. New York: Doubleday.
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