Analysis of Socially Responsible Leadership in Modern Organizations

This report delves into the concept of socially responsible leadership, highlighting its significance in contemporary business environments. It begins with an introduction that defines socially responsible leadership and differentiates it from traditional management, emphasizing the leader's role in considering stakeholder interests and contributing to social and environmental challenges. The report then provides a literature review, discussing the importance of socially responsible leadership in achieving organizational goals, sustainable resource use, and fostering stakeholder relationships. It explores the relevance of this leadership style to various industries, examining its role in skill development and achieving sustainable competitive advantage. The report also addresses the challenges faced by socially responsible leaders, such as managing complexities in the external environment, maintaining control, and securing funding for CSR initiatives. It outlines the key characteristics and behaviors of effective socially responsible leaders, including their ability to motivate teams, set goals, and adapt to industry demands. Finally, the report concludes with a personal reflection on the topic and a comprehensive list of references.

Leadership in organization

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................2
Importance..................................................................................................................................2
Relevance to Industry.............................................................................................................3
Challenges to socially responsible leadership........................................................................4
Behaviour and characteristic of the leader.................................................................................4
Socially responsible leader in context of managerial grid......................................................5
Personal reflection......................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
The topic selected is social leadership which has become an important aspect in the modern
day business. The major reason for these kinds of leadership to become more successful is
that it helps an organisation in achieving desired goals without hampering the associated
stakeholders with it. Companies need leadership that are socially responsible and also require
people that support them in fulfilling their responsibilities (Colarelli and Arvey, 2015). The
major responsibility of the firm these days is not just to earn money but also ensure that they
are not falling short in accomplishing their mission and vision. A socially responsible leader
is someone who understands the fact that his or her decisions or actions may have influence
on the different types of stakeholders within the firm. Socially responsible leader is someone
who has his eyes on the organisational purpose and the way in which organisations may
contribute to the social and environmental challenges. It is critical for the leaders to make
sure that they have a plan for sustainable development of the organisation.
Difference between Leadership and Management
Leadership Management
Leadership is skill that helps an individual in
inspiring their team members with their
vision.
Management is skills that help in providing
instruction to their team members on
implementing decisions (Borkowski, 2015).
They have the role of delegating decision
making.
Management allows an individual to take
decisions that helps in achieving goals.
Leadership vision is to generate a successful
future with the assistance of strategic
planning and through creativity (Witt and
Stahl, 2016).
Vision remains to put efforts for managerial
strategies which are based on managing a
relationship between the environment and
abilities of the firm so as to achieve desired
objectives.
It gives a framework for leading and
inspiring teams for transforming it into a
better workforce for each other.
It is the skill that allows a firm to create a
better environment for business (Hopkins,
2012).
Their main focus remains on the results. Their major focus remains on structures and
procedures.

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From the table it analysed that, leadership focuses on providing encouraging their teams to
work on the vision and to accomplish the goals and objectives whereas management provide
the instructions for making the routine as well as major decision about the organization.
Leadership provides the guidance and supports their team members by helping them in the
critical situations whereas management helps in arranging the necessary resources which is
needed for performing the work (Borkowski, 2015). Leadership performs their duties by
keeping the team members on the priority whereas management performs the roles and
responsibilities by focusing on the goals as well as objectives of the organization (Colarelli
and Arvey, 2015).
Literature Review
Importance
Thesis
In the time when the resource scarcity is increasing, it has become critical for the
management to have an understanding about the sustainable use of resources and in this
regards the role of the strategic and socially responsible leaders becomes highly critical.
Wang et al., (2015), has a view point that social responsible leaders focuses on the needs of
stakeholders and also follows the corporate social responsible practices. The study was
conducted on 85 leaders from the listed companies in China to know the socially responsible
leadership traits and the performance of the organization. From the analysis, it is found that
there are positive association between both of them, however leaders follows the aspect of
integrity, morality as well as relationship with the stakeholders which helps in motivating the
team members (Lawton and Páez, 2015). Leaders face challenge while focusing on the needs
of the employees in Chinese firms because of diversity in the attitudes as well as behaviour of
different individuals.
Witt and Stahl, (2016) conducted the study to investigate the corporate social practices in the
several Asian as well as western societies. The objective of the study is to know the socially
responsible leaders duties towards their stakeholders as well as their implications of being a
responsible leader. Socially responsible leadership helps in providing guidance to all the
employees in the organization. It results in increasing the motivation among the employees,
through which employees work efficiently in the organization (Rao and Tilt., 2016).

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Yukl et al. (2019) conducted the study to know the relationship between the behaviours of the
leaders that are task-oriented, relation-oriented as well as relation-oriented with the
satisfaction level of the team members. It is found that task as well as change-oriented
behaviour is important for the effectives of employees but relations-oriented behaviour is
important for the satisfaction of the employees.
Anti-thesis
On the other hand Hopkins, (2012) have a view that it is not the socially responsible
leadership that helps them in dealing with the challenges. It might help them in giving them
support of the people but it is not necessary that it will have impact on the organisation in the
today’s time. It is more important for the leader to remain pure from inside and work more on
the strategic affairs as it will allow the companies to have an understanding about the
challenges they are facing and on the basis of which they can make changes in their strategies
to overcome it. A socially responsible leadership might not be able to improve the
performance of the employees as his prime focus will be on the management of resources and
checking the problems that might be faced by the society and working on it (Witt and Stahl,
2016).
Synthesis
Cameron, (2011) explains the fact that there is an increase in the sustainable concerns related
to environment and society and hence it is critical that an individual focuses on developing
both socially responsible leadership as well as strategic leadership. This is because it will
allow the company to have a better understanding of the internal and external challenges and
on the basis of it they can make strategies that will ensure the growth of the organisation
(Luthans, Luthans and Luthans, 2015).
Relevance to Industry
Thesis
Luthans, Luthans and Luthans, (2015) suggests that socially responsible leadership improves
the way in which an organisation deals and utilises the resources. It will allow the company
and the industry to improve their sustainability in the industry and hence helps them in
gaining the sustainable competitive advantage. Socially responsible leadership allows the
companies to make sure that all their stakeholders remain attached with them as they keep in
mind the interest of all the stakeholders in their strategy making and also in the decision

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making (Voegtlin, 2016). This helps a company to make sure that they are able to add more
stakeholders to the process as well. Socially responsible leadership has a greater role to play
in the skill development as they understand that with the help of skill development, they will
be able to achieve higher benefits in the industry and sustainable growth of both industry and
company can be achieved (Mills and Bruce, 2013).
Anti-thesis
On the other hand Rao and Tilt (2016) claims that socially responsible leadership will not
provide direction to the industry rather it focuses more on the idea of society and its
development. This will hamper the speed of the growth of the industry. There is an argument
that in the industries socially responsible leaders have not been able to provide desired
outcomes. There is also a perspective that if the companies are not able to achieve financial
gains as desired then they will not even be able to invest in the social policies and initiatives.
In the hard times most of the companies have to bear additional expenses on the policy
related to CSR. There is also a counter-argument that in the time when the industry is facing
challenges companies have to restrain themselves from such investments (Hastings, 2016).
Synthesis
However, Lis, Glińska-Neweś and Kalińska (2015) suggests a middle path where he suggests
that socially responsible leadership will allow the industries to ensure that they will help the
challenges confronting their business models but they also industry also need to make sure
that they need to give higher focus to crisis leadership. It is necessary that companies do not
overly focus on the Corporate Social Responsibility rather their major focus should be on
generating higher profits as it will ensure that CSR objectives within the firm will carry on
with same pace. There must be proper balance and long term plan for the investment in the
areas related to CSR (Yukl, Mahsud, Prussia and Hassan, 2019). Taking the support of as
many people as possible in the areas like decision making and strategy development will help
them in making balance between achieving primary objectives and secondary objectives. It is
also critical for the firms to have an understanding that how corporate socially responsible
leaders are implementing the CSR policies as it plays the biggest role in the success of
business (Šarotar Žižek, Mulej and Veingerl Čič, 2017).
Challenges to socially responsible leadership
Thesis

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Taucean, Tamasila and Negru-Strauti (2016) believe that due to increase in the complexity of
the external environment, the challenges related to sustainability have increased. This has
enhanced the complexity of the problems related to environment and society and hence
gaining higher profits while working on the sustainability related challenges in the society is
not easier. Becoming a corporate socially responsible leader is not easy as it does not allow
the companies to make sure that they only focus on primary objectives and due to this the
financial stakeholders in the company is more often not happy with the leaders. Due to
socially responsible leadership there is a higher chance that leaders might lose their control
over the partners. In the time when strategic partnership is source of success this is the
biggest challenge that companies have to face in the market. Socially responsible leaders also
have to face challenges related to managing funds as other stakeholders within the firm does
not allow the leader to make investments in the other areas as well (Swanson, 2014).
Anti-Thesis
On the contrary Witt and Stahl, (2016) has a different view where he suggests that it is not so
much challenges to socially responsible leadership as it can be understood in terms of the fact
that if there is support of the employees at every level of the organisational structure then
leaders will be easily able to make investments in the CSR policies. With the help of skill
development initiatives an individual will be able to deal with the challenges in the socially
responsible leadership. At the same time challenges become lesser if larger numbers of
stakeholders are being engaged in the process of the decision making and strategy
development (Schneider, Zollo and Manocha, 2010). Engagement of more minds will help
the company in reducing the problems in the CSR.
Synthesis
Rao and Tilt., (2016) has an explanation that it is critical that firms look at the larger picture
of their firm’s business operations i.e. to serve for the society however they need to give
special focus on enhancing their profits as well. Even when the challenges related to the
socially responsible leadership are big it is not difficult for the individual to carry on with this
concept. A planned approach and the support of the stakeholders such as employees will help
the organisation in dealing with the challenges related to corporate social leadership
(Kirstein, 2014).

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Behaviour and characteristic of the leader
The characteristics and behaviour of socially responsible leader includes:
 Socially Responsible Leader is considered as the leader which is ready to take the
challenges and to work according to the requirement of the industry (Voegtlin, 2016).
 It is the leader which motivates and guides their team members to work efficiently in
the organization (Rao and Tilt., 2016).
 The socially responsible leader make the targets, develops the goals as well as
objective in the ethical manner, the leader follows the practices of corporate social
responsibility to increase the value among the employees as well as society (Luthans
et al., 2015).
 This type of leader is the task oriented and task is performed by following the rules
and regulation. Socially responsible leader work within the interest of the
shareholders as well as aligns the interest of the organization with the interest of the
stakeholders, so that stakeholders remain motivated and the goals and objectives of
the organization achieved in efficient manner (Maak et al., 2016).
 This type of leader make plans, organize, implement and monitor continuously to
examine whether team members perform task by according to the rules and
regulations (Witt and Stahl, 2016).
 This helps the company to achieve the task in ethical manner by adopting the
practices of corporate social responsibility (Borkowski, 2015).
Socially responsible leader is a pure leader
The researchers also find that socially responsible leaders are considered as pure manager
because it guides their team members; develop the path to achieve the overall objective (del
Mar Miras‐Rodríguez et al., 2015). Lawton and Paez (2015) suggests that to know the
concept of social responsible leaders, their behaviours, responsibilities and their results. The
results find that social responsible leaders are pure leaders and managers which work in the
ethical manner to increase the value among the employees and society. Voegtlin (2016)
suggested that behaviour of responsible leaders; the study was conducted by adopting the
primary approach that is taking the interviews from the government as well as non-
government organization. From the analysis, researcher finds that it is the pure managers,
which make the ethical decisions by following the rules and norms, leaders communicate
efficiently with the team members and engage the interest of the stakeholders.

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Socially responsible leader in context of managerial grid
It is the role of the leaders to check each and every aspect of the organisation and lead the
firm to achieve organisational goals. Managerial grid given by Robert Blake and Jane
Mouton underlines five styles of leadership which is associated with people’s production
concerns. In this grid, there is illustration of production on x-axis while people’s concern on
y-axis where the values range from 1(Low) to 9 (High) depending upon effectiveness of
leadership. In this model evade and elude represents that managers have lower concern for
both production and people which is not good as leader’s primary responsibility is not
avoiding it. Yield and Comply gives a style of high concern for the individuals and lower
concern for production. In the dictatorial leadership style, leaders pressurise employees to
achieve organisational goals by rules and punishments (Colarelli and Arvey, 2015). Sound
style provides role of commitment and contribution while status quo is a balanced style.
Paternalistic style is a guideline style while opportunistic style is considered as exploitation
style. Pure leader falls in the category of the sound style leadership as it enables the firm to
achieve desired benefits. Socially responsible leaders have the duties to introduced ethical
standards as well as follows moral values and at the same time ensuring the fact that profits
remain on the higher side hence both production and concern of the people is being addressed
(Hopkins, 2012).
Personal reflection
From the above analysis about the socially responsible leadership, I have learnt that this
leader helps in achieving the objective of the organization in ethical manner. Leaders follow
the rule of integration between the job satisfaction and corporate social responsibility. These
leaders also provide guidance to their team members, which help in increasing the better
environment in the organization (Lis et al., 2015). It helps me to understand the behaviours of
the socially responsible leaders to understand the aspects of motivation, it also helps me to
know the characteristics through which organization can develop and sustain in competitive
environment.
If I was leader, I could adopt the trait of socially responsible leader because it also helps in
contributing towards the society and leads in creating the better atmosphere in the
organization. Through, this leader operate their tasks in ethical manner, which helps in
increasing the values of the organization, development of the organization and also integrate
the interest of the stakeholders with the interest of the organization (Rao and Tilt., 2016).

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