Leadership Of Nokia Group, Jorma Ollila.
INTRODUCTION
"Managers do things right. Leaders do the right things."
Warren Bennis & Burt Nanus 1
Andrew defined 'leadership is an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect this shared purposes'. 2 In recent years, leadership as an essential discipline, which has powerful influence in organizations and societies. In order to make the better understanding on this subject, this article used several leadership models analyzed two different style leaders.
The first one is a worldwide well-known leader Jorma Ollila, who is a very successful leader in the information and communication industry; another one is a successful leader Reymin Yang who has high reputation in China. Both of them are excellent contemporary leaders, but they have very different leadership style.
The article will start from the story of Jorma, a successful leader not only have the ability of leadership, but also has his own charisma and featured characteristics. The story has stated Jorma's great success, and also focus on his leadership. The second story of Reymin Yang was mainly focus on his leadership; both of their leadership has been analyze by several different leadership models.
LEADERSHIP OF JORMA OLLILA
As the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Nokia Group, Jorma Ollila has very high educational background, he earned a master's degree in political science from the University of Helsinki, a master's degree in economics from the London School of Economics and a master's degree in science from the Helsinki University of Technology. In 1995, he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in political science from the University of Helsinki, and in 1998, an honorary doctorate degree in technology from the Helsinki University of Technology.3
As a worldwide successful leader, he is an expert in the information and communications technology industry, he has plenty experience in this area. He do not only serves for Nokia, he also serves on the boards of Ford Motor Company, Otava Books and Magazines Group Ltd and UPM-Kymmene Corporation. Besides these, he is also a member of several professional organizations in the information and communications technology industry.4
Jorma has earned the worldwide respect. He is an Honorary Citizen of Beijing, China, and holds the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany; the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic; and the Officer's Cross, Order of White Star, Estonia. He is Commander of the Order of Orange-Nassau and Commander, 1st Class, of the Order of the White Rose of Finland.5
Jorma has led Nokia's reinvent as a company that sets the benchmark for mobile communications. As CEO he presented an ambitious strategy that successfully ...
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Jorma has earned the worldwide respect. He is an Honorary Citizen of Beijing, China, and holds the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany; the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic; and the Officer's Cross, Order of White Star, Estonia. He is Commander of the Order of Orange-Nassau and Commander, 1st Class, of the Order of the White Rose of Finland.5
Jorma has led Nokia's reinvent as a company that sets the benchmark for mobile communications. As CEO he presented an ambitious strategy that successfully restructured the former industrial conglomerate and accelerated its growth into one of the most successful companies in both the mobile phone and telecommunications infrastructure markets. Under his leadership, Nokia has achieved global market leadership and is listed on six major exchanges.6
Jorma has his distinctive leadership; he concerns both employees and employees' tasks. He provides equal opportunities and openness towards people and peoples' new ideas are also key elements he wants to nourish. Employees are encouraged to be responsible for their own development and to take advantage of the various development opportunities available He encourages his employees to open discussion and debate, "We listen to the views of our employees and act on them when designing our people policies and practices" Jorma said.7 He also set up the investing-in-people program (IIP), which is a coaching and training program for the employees; such programs are very much focus on develop the managers. He provides the flexibal working time to the employees; depending on the local market conditions, employees may take advantage of flexi time including flexible working hours and part-time working. Furthermore, Nokia has very good welfare service for the employees, and very good working environment.8
Moreover, he also concern about employees' tasks. The concept of Nokia value is a guideline for the employees, wherever they are in the world. In order to encourage employees to working hard on the tasks, Nokia has Bonus system, which based on the employees' working result.
By applying the 360-Degree Feedback analysis, we can see that Jorma is a successful charming leader, who has achieved a high level of self-knowledge. He has the ability to movitate his employees, and very persistence on his career. He owns plenty leaderships, he know is business very well, and set clear performance to the employees. Besides, he is respected in the worldwide.
APPLYING OF PATH-GOAL THORY
The Path-Goal Theory has a contingency perspective. But it is different from Fiedler's Contingent Theory in its focus. The Path-Goal Theory focuses on the situation and leader behavior rather than leader personality traits. The Path-Goal Theory believes that a leader can change a subordinate's expectancy by clarifying the paths between the subordinate's action and the outcome, which is the goal the employee wants to achieve. Whether leader behavior can do so effectively also depends on situational factors. It classified the leader behaviors into four types, they are:9
* Directive Leadership: The leader gives specific guidance of performance to subordinates.
* Supportive Leadership: The leader is friendly and shows concern for the subordinates.
* Participative Leadership: The leader consults with subordinates and considers their suggestions.
* Achievement-oriented Leadership: The leader sets high goals and expects subordinates to have high-level performance.
Out of all the leadership theories presented thus far, Path Goal Theory explains Jorma's behaviors best. He was directive, supportive and a participatory leader. He tells employees exactly what they are supposed to do; he set up performance goals and standard behavior which can be reflected by 'Nokia Value'. He quite concern for the employees' personal needs. He provides the great chance to the subordinates to develop their self, flexible working time, good working condition, and welfare services. Furthermore, he did very well on listening from the employees; he encourages his employees to show off their opinions and ideas.
Besides the theory of Path-goal theory, the Situational Theory is also can be applied in this case. To adopt this theory, Jorma can be seen as a selling, participating, and Delegating leader.
LEADERSHIP OF REYMIN ZHANG
Haier is one of the biggest electrical appliance companY in China, Reymin Zhang is the chairman and CEO of Haier. As a successful leader, his leadership is quite different from Jorma Ollila's leadership; his leadership is more task-orientated. From the day he works at this position, he set up a very clear and straightforward goal for his employees, and renew the company's regulations. In order to achieve company's goal to build up the international brand, he divided the tasks to each department in a very specific way. He attachs importance to the employees' recruitment, he recruits thousand of new blood every year, additionally, he have very close contact with the well known universities, 15% of his employees were signed contract with Hair when in the last year in the university.10
APPLICATION OF LEADERSHIP THOERIES
The leadership Grid
Black and Mouton developed leadership grid, which consist of two behavioral dimensions:
* Concern for product
* Concern for people
They characterized five different leadership styles according to the emphasizing on different dimensions, they are (see appendix): 11
* Team management (9,9);
* Countryclub management (1,9);
* Authority-compliance managemeng (9,1);
* Impoverished management (1,1); and
* Middle-of-the-road management (5,5).
Reymin Yang takes the position between Authority-compliance and Team management quadrants. He has high respect in the employees' mind, he works together with his employees to accomplish the tasks; but he keep the distance with his subordinates; additionally, he was concern more on the producing activities, he plays the role as a strict leader in the company.
Contingency Theories
Fred Fiedler proposed that performance is contingent upon both leadership style and how the leader controls and influences the situation. There are three steps to the Fiedler Contingency Model identified the leadership style through the least preferred co-worker questionnaire (LPC), the situation, and match the leader to the situation.12
By analysis his behaviors, Reymin Yang is a task-oriented leader. In the step of defining the situation, Reymin ranked as leader-member relations-- good, task structure- very high, and position power- strong. Based on the findings of the Fiedler Model, Reymin's leadership performance is favorable. He would perform best in high control situations.
Since I assumed the LPC score and I knew that contingent situations are difficult to assess, the reliability of this analysis is low. Nevertheless, it provides another viewpoint into Reymin Yang's leadership ability.
Moreover, the path-goal theory also can be applied on Reymin's leadership analysis. Reymin is an Achievement-oriented leader. He set clear and challenging goals for employees, he is confident to perform high-quality performance and improvement over the current performance.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, The process of accessing a person's leadership ability is a complex and often a difficult task; different leaders has different leadership style, there are many factors influence them on their leadership, such as the personal characteristics, the situation they have involved, and also the people need to manage, etc. Jorma have a very people-oriented style of leadership, he concern about his subordinate; conversely, Reymin is a more product-oriented leader, he paid big attention on the employees' task more them employee themselves. There many leadership models can be adopted to analyze those two leader, but there are three most suitable models have been adopted, whatever the models have been used, it is all exactly reflect Jorma and Reymin's personal leadership style.
