Organizational and Leadership Challenges

Introduction 

Organizations face many organizational and leadership challenges. The organization experiences the challenges because the environment of operation is always dynamic. The dynamism in the environment of business operation is caused by globalization, technological advancement, and stiff competition. Some of the organizational challenges include employee issues, team problems, organization-wide challenges, communication, career development, and awareness. The major leadership challenges that the organizations experience include pressure from stakeholders for profit generation, the complexity of the organization, the aligning the implementation of change with business performance, limited resources, communication challenges, management of change, isolation, lack of skills, irrational decision making and lack of inclusivity. 

Organizational challenges 

The employee issues include the conflict between organizational goals and the personal goals, personal conflicts, personal trauma and company issues. When management fails to keep track of the welfare of the employees, the employees are likely to suffer in silence. Some of the issues are personal hence the need for management to establish employee discomfort because employee de-motivation leads to low productivity. According to Bird & Westley (2015), the clash between personal career goals and organizational goals can cause organizational issues because of the disunity and lack of objectivity among the employees. The lack of efficient communication within the organization cane exacerbates the situation because the employees are likely to make the wrong deduction on the management concern of their plight. For instance, an employee working in a subsidiary may have the challenge of having to answer to multiple seniors. There is a need for efficient communication to make clarities on various issues. Team-work challenges also negatively affected an organization. According to Cannon & Griffith (2015), the unity of purpose is indispensable in the achievement of organizational goals the unity of the employees especially in team-work enhances the objectivity of all employees in service delivery. Consequently, the value of division of labor within an organization can easily be realized. The loss of team spirit in an organization may result from a break-down in communication challenges. The lack of feedback from the senior management may encourage the committing of errors, which culminates in feuds. The organization-wide challenges can also cause problems for the organization. For instance, a sudden change in the employment terms and conditions can cause conflict within the organization. In such instances, the relevant parties must be sanctioned to be accountable to their duties. The organization-wide challenge has the potential of changing the corporate culture of an organization. According to Kouzes (2017), the lack of collaboration causes confusion within an organization and the employee are not able to perform their roles as expected. The senior management is usually responsible for collaborating the line management and the employees. Consequently, there is mistrust between the management and the subjects. In the long-run, the rate of omission of errors at the workplace increases. The overall performance of the subjects reduces due to the reduction in psyche and morale. When the firm expectations and priorities are not communicated the subjects get confused hence organization objectives cannot be achieved ( Kouzes & Posner, 2016) . Also, the approach to change within an organization poses a challenge for many organizations. When change is not properly managed, it may leads to organizational problem ranging from employees turn-over to a collapse in the organizational structure. Interpersonal issues of the employees must be resolved by the management because the issues may degenerate to conflicts within the entire organization. Lack of conflict resolution teams allows conflicts to manifest in various forums within the a firm. The conflict resolution teams help in the establishment of the proximate cause of problems, which enhances the maintenance of order and cordial relationships among employee for posterity. The other cause of the a firm problems is the lack of alignment of a firm objectives and activities with the available resources. The lack of career development within a firm causes employee turn-over because employees do not feel that their employees are concerned about their career development. The strategic objectives must be linked to the organizational structure. However, this is not the case for most companies. According to Nelson & Quick (2015), the lack of training and coaching results in poor service delivery, and low customer approval ratings, for a firm. The lack of identification of the risks that the organization is exposed to causes panic when the organization experiences stalls in its operations. The design of performance management and incentive compensation training is a difficult task for most leaders. For this reason, employees are plagued with compensation inequalities, which considerably reduce their morale to offer quality service delivery. The failure of leadership to align the culture of a firm with the mission and vision of a firm is a big challenge. The challenge makes the organization to haphazardly carry out its operations causing confusion among employees. According to Nelson & Quick (2015), the development of cost effective compensations schemes is difficult because of the need for the leadership to entice the employees with high salaries. The leaders face the challenge of aligning staffing strategies with business goals. The task of motivating the employees is difficult without financial rewards. 

Leadership challenges 

The challenges associated with leadership within an organization include the pressure from stakeholders on the generation of profits. This pressure is based on the core goals of a profit-making organization, the creation of wealth and generation of profits. The complexity of an organization is a leadership challenge that tests the leadership efficiency of the person in charge at any given time. According to Bird & Westley (2015), the need for a certain technological change within an organization can be challenging especially when the leaders are not proficient in the field. The supremacy wars within an organization are a leadership challenge that can negatively impact on the productivity of a firm. For instance, when the chief executive officer and the managing director have a feud, the disagreement degenerates to a full-blown conflict within the leadership ranks of a firm. When the implementation of change is not in tandem with the objectives of the organization, the leadership suffers. In addition, an organization leadership faces the challenge of limited resources, For instance, a leader needs to expend resources in a bid to win the cooperation and collaboration of his subjects. According to Cannon & Griffith (2015) , when the resources are limited, leadership is likely to be compromised. For instance, the need to participate in the corporate social responsibility requires adequate resources. The other challenge that a firm leadership cane experience is the lack of efficient communication. When there is lack of horizontal communication within an organization, the employee grievances are not likely to be resolved. The maintenance of a vertical communication only fosters authoritarianism within an organization. The limitation of skills within the leadership is a threat to the success of the organization. The leader requires working with a team to be able to harness the skills and talents of the team in enhancing his leadership. However, when there are rifts within the leadership circle a leader is likely to face difficult time in the course of leadership. Kouzes (2017) asserts that isolation is a challenge in leadership because of the seniority syndrome. A senior position has been associated with the ultimate achievement within an organization. However, there is no leader who is a monopoly of knowledge. For this reason, the leader must liaise with his leadership team to realize the organizational goals. However, the executive positions are tricky because the leaders are required to provide direction at all time. For this reason, the leader will be considered weak, in case, they seek information for their junior cadre officers. The minimal involvement of managers during the implementation of executive decisions is a threat to the leadership because of the possible revolt by the managers. Bird & Westley (2015) asserts that when there is lack of honesty in the feedback received from the subjects, there is likely to be mistrust. The management of change is one of the leadership challenges. The introduction of change in an organization always faces resistance based on genuine and nonsense allusions. The lack of emotional intelligence compromises leadership. Emotional intelligence helps a leader to understand the expectation of his subjects. When leadership is based on a rewards system, it is difficult to craft strategic plans for an organization. For this reason, it is difficult to balance between rewards and focus on the vision of an organization. Leadership requires influence rather than authority hence when a leader lacks the emotional and social intelligence to objectively engage his subjects; leadership becomes difficult ( Nelson & Quick, 2015) . The other challenge for organization leadership is lack of inclusion of all stakeholders in the decision-making process. The exclusion of all stakeholders enhances quick decision making, but it results in resistance and lack of implementation of the decisions. Supervisory challenge compromises leadership. First, the leaders have difficulty on the level of supervision to maintain. For instance, subjects who are always supervised fail o develop self-drive, which is crucial for the employees. When the employees are over-supervised hence they are likely to be compliant rather than being innovative and creative. In the same, breath the subjects are likely to deviate from organization norms and standards. Such deviation compromises the corporate culture of the firm. For this reason, there is need to have the leadership objectively influence their subjects. According to Cannon & Griffith (2015), the practice of benchmarking is sometimes misused by leadership because the leadership fails to undertake innovation and taking risks. The other challenge for organizational leadership is subtlety. The need for the leaders to always be right prevents them from being creative and innovative. In this regard, the leaders are accustomed to complying with the status quo. 

Conclusion 

Organization and leadership challenges within organizations include communication break-down, lack of change management, lack of effective conflict resolution, isolation and limitation o resources, technology, lack of development and lack of inclusion in decision making. The organizational challenges compromise the efficient delivery of services. The lack of alignment of the resources available and organization goals negatively affects the objectivity of the organization operations. The pressure from stakeholders on the leadership to effect profit generation compromises the leaders’ performance because of the need to adhere to the rules and guidelines of business. The organization’s failure to manage change compromises a firm’s commitment to competitiveness and sustenance of a firm’s operations. 

References 

Bird, F. B., & Westley, F. (2015).  Voices from the voluntary sector: Perspectives on leadership challenges . Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 

Cannon, M. D., & Griffith, B. A. (2015).  Effective groups: Concepts and skills to meet leadership challenges . Boston (Mass.: Pearson. 

Kouzes, J. M. P. B. Z. (2017).  The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations . Jossey-Bass Inc Pub. 

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2016).  The Leadership Challenge . Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. 

Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2015).  Organizational behavior: Foundations, realities, & challenges . Australia: Thomson South-Western.