This report discusses the leadership practices, styles, and challenges in BHP Group Limited. It also analyzes the impact of these practices on the company's performance.
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Table of Contents INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3 Activities of BHP Group Practices..................................................................................................3 Leadership Practice in BHP.............................................................................................................4 Style of leadership practiced at BHP...........................................................................................5 Leadership challenges..................................................................................................................6 Leadership development activities in organisation......................................................................6 Analysis of identified leadership Practices......................................................................................7 Analysis of strength and weaknesses of identified leadership practices.....................................7 Effect that Leadership Practices have had on BHP performance................................................9 Recommendations............................................................................................................................9 CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10 REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12
INTRODUCTION Leadership can be defined as an art of influencing and encouraging group of people to act towards achievement of common goal. Leadership in relation with business activities and organisation leadership involve an act of influencing and encouraging individuals to work and achieve goals and objectives of organisation. Several leadership practices are undertaken by the organisations and they have their individual benefits and drawbacks. Leadership style and practices of leadership gets significantly affected by the style of leadership, style of leadership refers to way in which leaders carry out their leadership, and this gets affected by organisational as well as individual approach of leader towards leadership. This report will discuss about leadership practices within BHP Group Limited. This report will involve discussion about leadership practices, styles of leadership and challenges of leadership in the organisation. Activities of BHP Group Practices BHP group founded in 1885 and headquartered at Melbourne Australia and London, United Kingdom is an Anglo-Australian multinational mining, metal and petroleum company. The Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP) Company was founded in 1885 in mining town of Silverton, South Wales. By 2017 BHP was world’s largest mining company based on market capitalisation. Along with this based on revenue it was also third-largest company of Melbourne (Ridley and Lewis, 2019). Concerned with activities of BHP, company is involved in activities such as mining, metal and petroleum. In relation with its core business activities BHP includes mining of copper, iron ore and coal. Petroleum segment of BHP involves exploration, development and production and marketing of oil and gas, copper segment involves of copper, silver, lead, zinc, molybdenum, uranium and gold. Marketing is another and independent business of BHP, it is the link between BHP’s global operations and global customers. This suggests that core activities of the business and BHP are later followed by supportive and managerial activities. This means supportive activities for ensuring effectiveness of operations of BHP. Activities of BHP are further divided in different parts based on geographical area that are Minerals Australia. Minerals Australia asset group includes operated assets in Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. Assets of Minerals Australia focus on
copper, iron ore, coal, and nickel (Paynter, Halabi and Tuck, 2019). Minerals Americas includes projects, operated and non-operated assets in Canada, Chile, Peru, United States, Colombia and Brazil. Focus of Minerals Americas is on copper, zinc iron ore, coal and potash. Leadership Practice in BHP Leadershipplaysimportantroleinorganisationaloperationsandsuccessofthe organisations. BHP is multinational company and in order to ensure that organisation functions well, it is important to practice effective leadership. Leadership in context of BHP also requires beingcapableofmanaginginternationaloperationsandfunctioningoftheorganisation. Concerned with leadership practice of BHP company practices and considers its graduates as future leaders. Role of graduate in this is on exciting management path and in order to prosper as leader graduates need to combine thorough knowledge of technology in work place along with strong communication, human relations and leadership skills (Fernando, 2016). Leaders in BHP need to ensure that they are able to achieve results as team and through other people rather than focusing in bringing individual results. This requires that leaders have desire for continuous learning and development of new skills. Leadership practices of BHP need to be of highest order and this is why some of the leadership practices that are practiced at BHP include see the big picture. This means that leaders at BHP needs to be and are able to see the big picture. This is very important for leader of the companyoperatinginaround100countriesandthishelpsleadersinidentifyingand understanding requirements of leadership as per global context. Some of the skills that leaders have according to this practice is critical thinking skills to analyse big picture, understanding relationship between events, statements, concepts, and situation. On the basis of this leaders become able to make decisions. Focusing on attainment of global objectives through leadership is another practice that is followed at BHP. In this practice BHP focuses and emphasize on achieving global objectives of with help of leaders in the organisation. Inspiring a shared vision is most important for bringing every member of the organisation on same page (Rosenhead and et.al., 2019). This means that leaders ensure that they inspire
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members of the organisation through organisational vision and make sure that everyone in organisation is able to understand the visions so that they can share organisational vision. Style of leadership practiced at BHP Style in leadership play important role in influence and effect of leaders on the members of the organisation. Leadership practices of BHP involve elements of Participative Leadership Style. Participative Leadership Style Participative leadership style is style of leadership in which all members of organisation participate in decision making of organisation. in this style of leadership, leader ensure that every member of the organisation participate in organisational decisions and this allow organisation to get benefit of talent and knowledge of all its members regardless of their position and job role. Team leaders in participative style of leadership ensure and encourage every member of the team to participate in decision making. Some of the practices followed by leaders in participative style at BHP are- Discussasagroup-Thismeansthatleaderinthispracticefacilitatediscussionand communicate the context and objective behind the discussion (Roe, 2020). This provides thorough understanding of the reason for discussion to members and they become able to participate effectively. Provide information- Effectiveness of decisions is highly based on the element that information required for making the decision is complete. Leaders in this leadership style require to share information with members to make effective decisions. Share ideas- This is another important part of this leadership style, in this leadership style individual and leader both need to share ideas and opinions. Processing ideas- This is the step and practice in which ideas shared by members and leaders are discussed and analysed in order to understand their validity and reliability. Make Decision- this is a step that is followed by processing ideas in this step decision is made on the basis of analysis of ideas.
Implementing the decision- In participative leadership at BHP decisions is later implemented on the basis of suitability of the ideas and opinions shared be leader and members. Leadership challenges Leaders are required to deal with several challenges and some of the challenges that leaders face and experience in BHP are- Over-control This is one of the challenge that leader might face, this is concerned with controlling member and there should be a line between control and over control (Lárusdóttir and O’Connor, 2017). This means that control is acceptable to everyone and does not create any kind of difficult but a moderate pressure to look out to standards of work. But over-control can create difficult for the members and they can find it difficult to perform and maintain standards in their quality of work. In participative leadership over-control can also affect what members share with leader. Inspiring Others This is another challenge of leadership being faced by leaders in BHP. This means that in present situation and dealing with highly qualified and intelligent people it has become very difficult to maintain personality and behaviour through which leaders can inspire others and their team members. This requires leaders to have highly effective personality and behaviour that is completely real that is attractive to team members and they are ready to willingly follow leader. Developing Employees This is another challenge that leaders experience in their leadership. This involves developingemployeesinordertoimproveperformanceoftheorganisation.BHPisa multinational organisation and employees in the organisation required to be highly competent and this is only possible when they are developed. Developing employees to the level of multinational organisation is a challenge for leadership at BHP. Leadership development activities in organisation Effectiveness of leadership is based on what practices have been undertaken to develop leadership(Lumbasi,K’AolandOuma,2016).BHPinvolvesaprogramforleadership
development that is highly interactive, individual centred program of practical activities and self- understanding session for leadership development. This is a hands-on framework to help graduates test their leadership skills. Components of this training involve outdoor activities, action-learning project to complete after the program. This program provides expertise to help members work effectively in teams and recognise their skills, attitude and behaviour of effective leadership. topic and program include following elements- ï‚·Corporate and personal goals of the individual ï‚·Leadership within teams ï‚·Effective team ï‚·Analysis of leadership style ï‚·Situational approach to leadership ï‚·Effective feedback and coaching These are some of the elements that are part of leadership program at BHP. In this leadershipprogramdifferentaspectsofleadershipaswellasthoseoforganisationand organisational requirement of leadership have been involved (Chan, 2019). This contributes in holistic development of individual as leader in organisation. Analysis of identified leadership Practices Analysis of strength and weaknesses of identified leadership practices Leadership practices at BHP involves several elements in which some of the important practices that are carried out in leadership at BHP and their strength and weaknesses are as follows- Focusing on attainment of global objectives This is one of the important leadership practice in which leaders focus on attainment of global objectives. Strengths of this practice is that-
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Employees have clear understanding of what they need to do This also helps in understanding what skills and qualities does employees need to possess Weaknesses of this practice is- Focusing on global objectives and their attainment can affect performance of organisation in small context It create several difficulties in identifying suitable talent and employees for organisation Practices in participative leadership Leadership was discussed above and practices of participative leadership also have several strengths and weaknesses (Bras and DeMillo, 2017). Strengths of participative leadership practices are- Enables leader and organisation to utilise capabilities and creativity of members Also play important role in motivating and encouraging employees of BHP Employees become able to have their say in organisational decisions making Contribute in job satisfaction of employees Weaknesses of practices of participative leadership practices are- Practices of participative decision making requires time for decision making Possibility of conflict in case ideas of one member of given preference over others This leadership practices have had effect on overall organisational practices. The effect of these practices is in form of effective organisational performance in which all the activities of organisation become subject to effective practice (Daniëls, Hondeghem and Dochy, 2019). This is because different people having knowledge of varied subject participate in decision making. Effect that Leadership Practices have had on BHP performance Participative leadership practices made a very positive impact on the organisation. In this, practices of leadership decisions of the organisation enhanced and also leaders are able to inspire
and motivate team members through their ideas and practices. This enabled BHP to employ and retain motivated and efficient workforce capable of carrying out all the activities of the organisation and maintain effectiveness in organisational performance (Covelli and Mason, 2017). This is very important for an organisation like BHP. BHP is a multinational organisation and along with this also possess some other attributes and this is why it is very important for BHP to employ an workforce that is effective in performance and is also enthusiastic and motivated to contribute in organisational success and achievement of organisational objectives. LeadershippracticesatBHPalsohavecontributedinseveralotheractivitiesof organisation and this includes monitoring and management of team and team members. This means that it is not important that only leadership at top of the organisation is required, team leadership and leadership at different levels in organisation play important role in effective overall management of the organisation. Team leadership in BHP contribute in management and monitor team and team performance and also undertake practices such as identifying and evaluating performance and capabilities of the organisation. Other than this leadership practices in BHP also contribute in ensuring that all members of the team are able to carry out and complete their task. This means that they are able to and have complete knowledge that helps them in fulfilling their task and work activities (Caillier, 2020). This is concerned with availing all the required resources and knowledge to team members and this is important part of leadership practices and this ensure that in BHP everyone has all the resources that enable them to perform effectively and does not create any kind of challenge in their performance and subsequently this also ensure that employees and members of BHP are able to attain results effectively. Recommendations The above discussion suggested leadership style being practiced at BHP and this style is participative style. This is a suitable style in case leader does not want to delegate the power of decision and still want contribution of every employee in decision making. There are several ways in which leadership at BHP can improve. Some of the recommendations for that are-
One of the recommendation is that leader should ensure that situation requiring immediate decision making does not involve participative decision making. This is because doing so can delay the decision making and affect effectiveness of the decision. In order to get maximum contribution in situation that require effective decision making adding value by creativity and innovation leaders at BHP should consider reward and recognition for creative and innovative ideas (Daniëls, Hondeghem and Dochy, 2019). This will motivate and encourage members to not just think creatively but share their ideas as well. Effectiveconflictresolutionismustinsituationwhereleaderispracticingparticipative leadership. This is because this leadership[ practice involve several situation that can stimulate conflict in members, leader hence require to know conflict management techniques to avoid negative impact on organisational effectiveness and performance. Trust and delegating is another practice that leaders can use to enhance their leadership. This is because BHP is multinational organisation consisting highly qualified people to execute all activities of organisation in such situation trust and delegating will enhance morale of the members. BHP as an overall organisation will get benefit of this increased morale of employees in the organisation. These are some of the recommendations that leaders at BHP can follow to improve their leadership and this will also contribute in reducing the negative effect of leadership practices on organisation as well as on employees. CONCLUSION On the basis of above discussion it can be concluded that leadership, that is crucial to success of the organisation needs to follow effective practices to make sure effective contribution in organisation success. This report discussed about practices, styles, challenges of leadership along with leadership development practices. This above discussion outlined that organisation should ensure that style of leadership is suitable and capable of bringing effective results that organisation have determined. Style plays important role in success of leadership and also helps in mitigating challenges and difficulties of leadership. Effectiveness of leadership can be
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achieved with help of development of leadership. Strength and weaknesses of leadership practices were also discussed along with what effect they have on organisational performance.
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