Disasters That Have Occurred Around the World in the Past Decade

There is a huge number of disasters that have occurred around the world in the past decade. These tragedies come with a lot of implications and require a combined effort to mitigate the losses and resume normalcy. Governments around the world can manage to triumph against any catastrophe with collaborations with different organizations. Non-profit organizations manage to marshal funding from different people around the world and channel funds received to the most affected nations. Americares has been actively involved in major disasters around the world, by actively supplying medical supplies to the vulnerable. Americares which was founded in 1979 has consistently been at the front line of fighting that has ravaged America in the past four decades. These are disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and disease outbreaks among others. The company has experienced tremendous growth and expansion over the years, Americares operates in more than 90 countries globally. Their main focus is the enhancement of health for those affected by tragedies while using the health model to tackle crisis; readiness, response, and recovery. The company not only tackle tragedies but reach out to people in poor countries by providing sustainable clinical services. It is the company’s philosophy that the health of the people should come first in any given circumstance. This paper seeks to deconstruct the organization’s strategy, mission, measurement of performance metrics, structure, size of the employees, and their traits. Effective leadership compliments organizational strategy and this has been the case for Americares. It is essential to analyze the company’s leadership style in the process. Non-profit organizations desire resource collaborations to achieve their mission. This paper will also evaluate American partnerships, challenges faced by the organization, and opportunities for future growth. The presence of an organizational structure is essential in establishing a chain of command. It is a guideline to the human resource strategy and also helps employees understand whom they ought to report to. The effective structure should consistently create ease of work and enable the achievement of the overall organizational strategy (Mahmoudsalehi et al., 2012). However, the structure of any organization is inspired by the size, strategy, culture, environment, and people. Due to Americares presence in 90 countries, the company adopted a tall organizational structure (Mahmoudsalehi et al., 2012). The company’s tall structure contains; the board, leadership, leadership council, and global medical advisors. Under the leadership category, there are several departments that all report to the Chief Executive Officer (C.E.O). However, over the years company has lessened its centralization approach and focused on empowering leadership of all Americares branches around the world. This was meant to foster the rate of readiness, response, and recovery for people affected by a crisis. A tall structure results in a long chain of command, which prolongs the rate of response to any given agenda. The slow response is a weakness in the field of disaster management. The four leadership categories as listed earlier are focused on assessing the achievement of the overall strategy, pursuing more partnerships and funding. This specialized leadership approach, allows employees to respond and initiate recovery missions in any given crisis around the world. Organizational strategy is essential in helping any company to set its priorities, resources, and establish a means to achieve such priorities. The strategy sets the company on a specific path, it is a clear lens of seeing the success of the company from a distance (Steensen, 2014). The company’s vision is to prevent diseases and promote good health in needy communities. This vision shaped Americares strategy, which involves the provision of medicine and mobile clinics to achieve the vision stated above. The company positioned itself well as a non-profit entity, targeting a specific need that was given less attention in the past. During a disaster, people focus on food and maybe shelter and pays less attention to health. For instance, the past hurricanes or wildfires experienced in the United States have at some point, led to diabetes patients missing their insulin medication. Americares steps in to meet such needs and enhance the health of those affected. 

The company’s focus on health issues in any given catastrophes established a clear and specific strategy to achieve. This is the sole reason for the tremendous growth of the organization. Currently, Americares enhances the health of victims of tragedies in more than 90 countries around the world. The presence of global medical advisors in the company’s leadership has been a boost to the strategy, in the identification of the right supplies, the most needed medicine, and the operations of the company’s mobile clinics. Organizational culture inspires the nature of employees an organization goes for the leadership and the strategy of the organization. Culture entails the values and beliefs of the company. Americares values compassion, love, and support to those affected by disasters. This approach to its operations inspired the company to establish a clan culture. There is less competition within the organization because the focus is on helping communities in the most need, to help them get back after a crisis, especially on matters to do with their health (Gimenez-Espin et al., 2013). Collaboration is a much-needed virtue in the clan culture, because planning and implementing a response plan to any given disasters cannot be done by the leader alone but with the input of every employee (Shoaib et al., 2013). This culture has fostered loyalty and commitment of all employees, contributing to the effectiveness of the company in meeting its strategy and realizing its vision subsequently. The leadership of every company is significantly crucial, the leadership style should inspire appropriate culture or align with the present beliefs. Effective leadership style contributes to the growth of the organization in the long-term. Americares recently promoted Christine Squires to the position of Americares President and C.E.O, this was after serving in other capacities within the company since 2016. Before being named C.E.O she was executive vice president and chief development officer. During her time as the executive vice president and chief development officer, she influenced the growth of funding received by Americares, enabling the company to gain enough resources, to double its annual budget to $60 million. Christine has always been a strategic leader, evident from her past role as the chief operating officer of Physicians at Human Rights. Where she also tremendously contributed to fundraising efforts to the Human Rights watch. The leadership style used by Christine is a strategic system, where she communicates and shares the main focus of the organization to everyone across the organization. The responsibilities of a strategic leader are not only to make everyone acknowledge the vision but to inspire them to achieve and support the company’s strategy (Carter & Greer, 2013). Based on Christine’s efforts to fundraise for the organization in 2016, it showed her immense strategical mindset that has been propelling her since being named the president of the company. A strategic leader recognizes the importance of collaboration and distribution of responsibility in the realization of the overall company’s strategy. The leadership style matches the company culture and compliments Americares’ efforts to attract employees who are passionate about humanitarian work. Funding is crucial in a non-profit organization, the presence of Christine at the helm was established by the company as strategic. Christine’s leadership was so ideal because she has rich experience in fundraising in the past and with such skills, the company is well-positioned to achieve its vision. The leadership in place right from the board, global health advisors, leadership council, and all employees in more than 90 countries contributes to the strength of the organization. The ability to fundraise for various projects has enabled Americares to respond timely to any disasters. Their resourcefulness and efficiency have contributed to honesty, even with the grant money received from different donors. However, despite the company exhibiting enormous strength, its tall organizational structure threatens its strategy. The company’s structure slows down the process of decision making and a company like Americares, demands a swift and precise decision-making process to respond faster to disasters. Despite having a notable number of corporate and emergency response partners. The company still has a lot of opportunities to exploit, by seeking more partnerships. Corporate partnerships can be pursued in the United States and even outside, this approach presents a win-win situation for both Americares and corporates involved. The corporates will be able to achieve their social responsibility strategies while Americares will gain resources to foster their response capacity to disasters around the world. There is no denying the power of social media in reaching the masses. This is a great opportunity for the company, social media can be leveraged to enhance fundraising activities. The issue of climate change is now a reality, witnessed by rampant floods and wildfires experienced across the U.S. Climate challenges are likely to be a great threat for Americares because the increasing number of disasters means that the company’s emergency response services, mobile clinics, and medical supplies will not satisfy the demand. Americares should establish new ways to attract more funding to position itself well, for any future disasters. Americares has witnessed incredible growth since its inception in 1979 to date. The expansion of the company’s medical supply and mobile clinics to more than 90 countries, shows its commitment to enhancing the health of those affected by disasters and poverty. Maintenance of the current leadership and attraction of more funding will enable the organization to expand further to more vulnerable countries, especially in Africa. There is a greater demand for medical supplies and medical services in the world, and this calls for more funding to enable the extension of American services to countries yet to be reached. 

References 

Carter, S. M., & Greer, C. R. (2013). Strategic Leadership: Values, Styles, and Organizational Performance.  Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies,  20 (4), 375–393. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051812471724  

Gimenez-Espin, J. A., Jimenez, D. J., & Costa, M. M. (2013). Organizational culture for total quality management.  Total Quality Management & Business Excellence ,  24 (5-6), 678–692. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2012.707409  

Mahmoudsalehi, M., Safari, K., & Moradkhannejad, R. (2012). How knowledge management is affected by organizational structure.  The Learning Organization,  19 (6), 518–528. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1108/09696471211266974  

Shoaib, A., Zainab, N., Maqsood, H., & Sana, R. (2013). Impact of Organizational Culture on Organizational Commitment: A Comparative Study of Public and Private Organizations.  Research Journal of Recent Sciences,  2 (5), 1–8.  

Steensen, E. F. (2014). Five types of organizational strategy.  Scandinavian Journal of Management, 266–281. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2013.10.003