What Kind Of Leader Am I?

I always derive my definition of leadership from the information presented in the study conducted by Male and Palaiologou (2015, p.215) which indicated that leadership is the ability of a person or particular group of individuals to effectively influence and guide followers or other members of an organisation in order to realise their professional goals. For that matter, I believe that leadership is a collective role in that both the leaders and those who are being lead must make sure that they develop the right skills and techniques that will enable them to fulfill their roles effectively.

Based on the experiences that I have gained as a leader both in the family level and professional wise, I can justifiably note that leadership is not an easy task for those who are not ready to be leaders. This is with reference to the information from the research study conducted by Rosenbloom, Malone and Valdez (2016, p.159) which highlighted that leaders are always expected to make sound and sometimes difficult decisions in order to help in the creation and articulation of clear vision, establishment of realisable goals as well as adequately providing the followers with the right knowledge and tools which play an important role during the realisation of the set goals. Furthermore, I am a strong believer that leadership has got nothing to do with seniority or a position that is held by an individual in a company. This is based on the fact that a junior employee can demonstrate high quality of leadership skills than his or her counterpart in the senior position. That does not disqualify him or her from being a leader.

In another definition of leadership, O’Connell (2014, p.192) indicated that it is the ability of being able to effectively capture the essentials of inspiring other people as well as being inspired to do so. For that matter, I can justifiably note that effective leadership is based on the ideas that can help in enabling people to realise their goals. My personal goal is to learn about leadership as well as to implement simple and powerful behavioural changes for the purpose of becoming a genuine leader myself. As a strong leader, I am of the opinion that leaders have the role of carrying out the process of influencing others to accomplish their professional objectives through effective application of leadership attributes such as values, beliefs, ethics, knowledge, skills and character. Fernandez, Noble, Jensen and Steffen (2015, p.347) noted that there are different types of theories which can be used for the explanation of leadership efficiency.

Nevertheless, I can categorically state that leadership should be viewed as a behaviour. Furthermore, there are different forms of emerging approaches, for example spiritual leadership, servant leadership as well as authentic leadership, which have shown new ways of effectively understanding the leadership process and the required skills. Despite the available theories on leadership, I have been able to adequately understand that leadership is the process that is able to effectively influence realisation of organisational visions and missions. There has been a heated debate on whether leaders are made or born. According to my personal point of view, I am of the opinion that good leaders are made and not born. This is with reference to the information from the research study conducted by Aarons, Ehrhart, Farahnak and Hurlburt (2015, p.16) which stated that if an individual has the right aspiration and determination, he or she will have the capabilities of becoming an effective leader.

Furthermore, I am of the opinion that good leaders are produced through a never-ending process of education, experience, self-study as well as training. Furthermore, I do understand that it is important to adequately channel the energy of the followers in a way that the shared goals and objectives can be easily fulfilled in order to enable that leaders to be successful in their daily operations. According to the information from the study performed by Dinh, Lord, Gardner, Meuser, Liden and Hu (2014, p.39), leadership is a multifaceted discipline. For that matter, I am of the opinion that it is a topic that should be explained through the application of different types of lenses such as economics, psychology, history as well as sociology. Furthermore, I can justifiably note that being in a leadership position is not about power or directing people to perform certain roles rather it is about committing selfless acts that are focused on helping followers and the employees to become successful in their operations despite the situation at hand.

Organisation Background of British Petroleum

British Petroleum Company is a multinational oil and gas corporation that has got its headquarters in London, England. Based on its recent performance in the oil and gas industry, it is considered to be one of the leading companies in this sector around the world. According to the information from the research study conducted by Chaplinsky, Lynch and Doherty (2017, p.11), high performance exhibited by British Petroleum Company in 2014 made it to be the world’s sixth largest oil and gas company, company with the 12th largest revenue in the world as well as sixth largest energy company based on the market capitalisation. One of the key factor that has made this company to be outstanding in the oil and gas industry for very long time is its ability to effectively diversify its operations.

Chaplinsky, Lynch and Doherty (2017, p.8) noted that British Petroleum Company has diversified its operations into exploration and production, distribution and marketing, refining, generation of power, production of petrochemicals as well as trading its products. In another research study conducted by Wickman (2014, p.10), it was determined that British Petroleum Company also has interests in the production of renewable energy such as biofuels and wind power. With reference to the information from the report by Chaplinsky, Lynch and Doherty (2017, p.22), British Petroleum Company was able to operate in not less than seventy countries around the globe. Furthermore, it was able to produce 3.6 million barrels per day of oil equivalent as well as total proved reserves of 18.44 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Based on the information from the research study conducted by Wickman (2014, p.14), the company a total of 18300 service stations around the globe, with its largest division known as British Petroleum America that is located in the United States of America.

Leadership Challenges at British Petroleum

Despite the fact that British Petroleum has been able to become one of the most important companies in the oil and gas industry, it is important to note that there are specific areas that can be used to show that there are still a lot of changes that need to be introduced into the system of this organisation. One of them is the leadership strategies that are employed during the crisis management in the organisation. According to the information from the research study conducted by Heller (2013, p.24), it was noted that even though the British Petroleum is currently trying to put different strategies into practice, it is very much obvious that the company has never been prepared for the organisational crisis management. This is with reference to the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon oil rig rupture that took place in the Gul of Mexico with an explosion that was able to take at least eleven lives of rig workers as well as leading to the development of one of the world’s largest environmental disaster in North America and around the globe.

Regarding the details presented in the research study conducted by Valvi and Fragkos (2013, p.387), British Petroleum is currently in a very difficult position within the chronic crisis stage as a result of the failure of its management to adequately facilitate a timely response even after being notified of the malfunctions of its vehicles.  Heller (2013, p.24) categorically noted that as a result of poor leadership, more so within the crisis management department, the company has been in the recent years faced with a lot of problems running from the financial perspectives to the social point of view. It is a general belief that the formulation and implementation of effective leadership strategies that can help in the proper management of the occurring and reoccurring organisational crises is one of the most important role of the company leadership. Nevertheless, Sommer, Howell and Hadley (2016, p.175) indicated that this is not the case in British Petroleum based on the fact that its leadership has been responding slowing to the crisis management issues both in the past and in the present years. Valvi and Fragkos (2013, p.384) stated that the preliminary crisis stage always acts like a warning and may be very short or even immediate.

Therefore, it is important to note that the leadership of British Petroleum could have been able to appropriately apply the corrective steps prior to the spring of 2010. This is an important evidence of the leadership failure at this important and great oil and gas company. It is important to note that skillful leaders of a business organisations are often employing the chronic crisis state wisely as the best time for effecting the most appropriate organisation crisis management planning. This is based on the fact that they will accurately analyse some of most important factors that went wrong or right as well as the reasons behind the occurrence of the presence crisis. Sommer, Howell and Hadley (2016, p.187) noted that these are other important areas that the leadership of British Petroleum has adversely failed in hence preventing the leaders not to manage the organisational crises effectively.

How I May Lead British Petroleum and Face Some of the Challenges

During the process of achieving greatness and becoming one of the most important oil and gas companies around the globe, there are higher chances that the leaders at British Petroleum might have lost their sense of operational balance and hence became the victims to the arrogance of their success and power (Owens and Hekman 2016, p.1089). For that matter, in order to make sure that I successfully lead British Petroleum, I will have to apply the corporate humility skills which have been determined to play an important role in the learning and improvement process in an organisation. Within an organisation, Chiu, Balkundi and Weinberg (2017, p.337) established that the managers should always be at the forefront during the process of handling urgencies as well as acting in response to a crisis situation.

As a strong leader, I know that when I fail to meet such standards I might demotivate my colleagues in the workplace hence making the process of realizing the organisational goals more difficult. In a research study performed by Amernic and Craig (2017, p.72), it was determined that some of the most important leadership failures that should be addressed in the case of British Petroleum include the ineffective leadership skills during the critical times, failure of the management to provide timely procedures as well as poor training and supervision of the employees. For that matter, I will make sure that I apply the most effective strategies that will help in addressing these leadership failures. With reference to the information from the research study conducted by Owens and Hekman (2016, p.1097), one of the main leadership related problems that affect British Petroleum is the improper preparation to deal with the organisational crises.

For that matter, I believe that through the application of three-stage framework in the crisis management, I will be able to realise the most effective and productive results. Within this framework, Chiu, Balkundi and Weinberg (2017, p.342) noted that there are three different stages that must be applied and they include Pre-Crisis, Crisis and Post Crisis stages. Incorporating this framework with inclusive leadership that provides every member of the workforce with the opportunity to give out their views on the issues at hand is another important strategy that I have realised that can help in making sure that British Petroleum overcomes it current and future leadership and managerial challenges, more so when it comes to the effective crisis management.

References

Aarons, G.A., Ehrhart, M.G., Farahnak, L.R. and Hurlburt, M.S., 2015. Leadership and organizational change for implementation (LOCI): a randomized mixed method pilot study of a leadership and organization development intervention for evidence-based practice implementation. Implementation Science, 10(1), pp.11-19.

Amernic, J. and Craig, R., 2017. CEO speeches and safety culture: British Petroleum before the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Critical perspectives on accounting, 47, pp.61-80.

Chaplinsky, S., Lynch, L.J. and Doherty, P., 2017. British Petroleum, Ltd. Darden Business Publishing Cases, pp.1-28.

Chiu, C.Y.C., Balkundi, P. and Weinberg, F.J., 2017. When managers become leaders: The role of manager network centralities, social power, and followers’ perception of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(2), pp.334-348.

Dinh, J.E., Lord, R.G., Gardner, W.L., Meuser, J.D., Liden, R.C. and Hu, J., 2014. Leadership theory and research in the new millennium: Current theoretical trends and changing perspectives. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), pp.36-62.

Fernandez, C.S., Noble, C.C., Jensen, E. and Steffen, D., 2015. Moving the needle: A retrospective pre-and post-analysis of improving perceived abilities across 20 leadership skills. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 19(2), pp.343-352.

Heller, N.A., 2013. Leadership in crisis: An exploration of the British Petroleum Case. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3(18), pp. 21-32.

Male, T. and Palaiologou, I., 2015. Pedagogical leadership in the 21st century: Evidence from the field. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 43(2), pp.214-231.

O’Connell, P.K., 2014. A simplified framework for 21st century leader development. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(2), pp.183-203.

Owens, B.P. and Hekman, D.R., 2016. How does leader humility influence team performance? Exploring the mechanisms of contagion and collective promotion focus. Academy of Management Journal, 59(3), pp.1088-1111.

Rosenbloom, D.H., Malone, P.S. and Valdez, B., 2016. Administering and Leading in the Federal Government: The Need for an Adaptive Leadership Approach for 21st-Century Leaders. In The Handbook of Federal Government Leadership and Administration (pp. 148-164). Routledge.

Sommer, S.A., Howell, J.M. and Hadley, C.N., 2016. Keeping positive and building strength: The role of affect and team leadership in developing resilience during an organizational crisis. Group & Organization Management, 41(2), pp.172-202.

Valvi, A. and Fragkos, K., 2013. Crisis communication strategies: A case of British Petroleum. Industrial and Commercial Training, 45(7), pp.383-391.

Wickman, C., 2014. Rhetorical framing in corporate press releases: the case of British petroleum and the gulf oil spill. Environmental Communication, 8(1), pp.3-20.