Lack of Strategic Leadership

Lack of Strategic Leadership

A clear strategic leadership is one of the most pivotal instruments that an organization requires in order to ensure sustainability and continue to thrive on its competitive edge.  The organization’s success or failure is always attributed to its leadership standards. From the case study it can be deduced that the leadership of the functional department managers have no concern regarding the project success as it appears that they only concentrate on their own specific deliverables within their business units and to not linked to the entire organization’s success. This was demonstrated by how they responded to the project resource capacity issues and budget spending for resources that were supposed to be dedicated to the project. Magee ed (1998: 17) defines strategic leadership as the process used by a leader to affect the achievement of a desirable and clearly understood vision by influencing the organizational culture, allocating resources, directing through policy and directive, and building consensus within a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous global environment which is marked by opportunities and threats. An inefficient leadership direction has to Reichart facing project issues that he is left to fend for himself without any support structure from anyone in the organization and yet should the project not deliver his the only one who is held accountable. An effective strategic leadership is what is required for the entire organization in order to align the management objectives and performance in line with the goals, vision and mission set by top management.

The organization’s employees have no mutual respect and support for one another and this is experienced at the top management level. Reichart was told not to meddle in the functional managers’ recourse allocation and budgeted expenditure even at the cost of project failure. Top management did nothing about the unethical behavior that the functional managers have demonstrated however the corporate vice president threatened him if the desired results were not produced without distributing the blame to other contributing parties or even providing any level of support. The results thereof could potentially have had a negative impact on Reichart‘s esteem as a project manager and his efficacy to eventually deliver a successful project considering the current issues.  Leadership encompasses inspiring others, motivating them realize greater altitudes, coaching and mentoring of those you hold accountable for the delivery of tasks/projects/programs.

Reichart as the project manager lacks the required leadership and managerial skills to ensure that the project runs smoothly and eventually leads to successful results. The case states that the project had already been over budget and behind schedule right from its inception.  Only after six month when he was requested to provide a progress report to the relevant stakeholders, he then decides that’s an opportunity to fully present the issues and risks that will impede the project success.  The approach he took shows his project management and leadership competencies were rather inefficient.

Recommendation

As Steyn & Schmikl (2016:13) states that superior strategic leadership has become an important competitive tool and is the basis on which successful organisations provide services or goods better than their competition can, resulting in enhanced value add. In order for the organization to effectively deal with change either at the organizational or project level, all key role players need the skills and tools for both strategy formulation and implementation. The most fundamental success factors form both the business units and project are to be linked to the goals and vision of the organization and the key performance measures must be set and agreed as part of the organization’s success and performance measurement. Strategic leaders, project managers and functional managers all have a big role to partake in each of the below figure noted strategic leadership activities. In turn, each of these strategic leadership actions positively contributes to effective strategy implementation (Hitt et al. 2007: 384). Please see figure below depicting the strategic leadership actions.

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Source Adapted from Hitt et all. (2007:385)

Project manager’s leadership competencies - Clements & Gido (2014:304) state that a project manager is a key ingredient in the success of the project. Additional to providing leadership in the project management methodologies, the project manager must also exudes  a set of skills and abilities that will both inspire the project team to succeed and win the confidence of the customer (Clements et al, 2014:304). In Reichart’s situation, when top management first noticed that there might have been incompetency issues, a decision should have been to assign or appoint a qualified and competent second project manager in order to ensure that the project gets back on track, as well as retain the organization’s goodwill whilst keeping Reichart as part thereof as this will provide him with the platform to learn and acquire the necessary skills to better manage future projects within the organization.

Bibliography:

1. Magee, R. R. II (1998) (Ed.). Strategic leadership primer. Carlisle Barracks.
2. Steyn, P. Schmikl, E. & Van Dyk, P. 2014. Module 2 Programme Managing Organizational Performance and Innovative Improvement. Cranefield College. 
3. Hitt, M.A., Ireland, R.D. & Hoskisson, R.E. 2007. Strategic Management: Competitiveness and Globalization, 7th edition. Ohio: Thomson/South Western.
4. Clements, J. & Gido, Jack. 2014. Successful Project Management, 6th edition. Cengage Learning UK

Total Quality management (Makegele)

1. Control and Monitoring

Trophy Project had an issue whereby the functional managers were charging direct labour time to Reinhardt project but working on their individual projects. When Reinhardt complained of this he was told not to meddle in the functional manager’s allocation of resources and budgeted expenditures. And when he was requested to make a progress report directly to corporate and division staff six months later, it was then that Reinhardt got an opportunity to table his challenges.

Steyn and Schmikel (2016:14) states that Globalisation and the information age have impacted heavily on the way that organisations are led and managed. Accelerated information flow inspiring change, requires that management decisions be made more frequently and with quick response.

In the new economy management functions, leading takes up the number one spot,

followed by creating, implementing. Modern leaders regard improving as highly profound since it is the management function that leads to the important total quality management (TQM) component of continuous improvement.

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