Wicked Problems and Leadership: A Case Study on Discrimination

This report delves into the identification and analysis of wicked problems within organizations, with a specific focus on workplace discrimination. It examines the characteristics of wicked problems, illustrating how workplace discrimination aligns with these characteristics, such as its lack of a clear definition and its tendency to lead to further issues. The report then applies the competing values framework to the problem, exploring the interplay of different values and leadership styles necessary to address the issue. Furthermore, it discusses the implications of these competing values and proposes transformational leadership as a potential leadership style to combat workplace discrimination, emphasizing the leader's role in changing organizational culture and promoting equality. The report concludes by highlighting the importance of leadership in creating a discrimination-free workplace and achieving organizational goals.

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Author Note

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Executive summary
The aim of the study is to focus on identification of the major wicked problems existing in
any organization. There are many organizational wicked problems - like problem of not being
able to manage cash properly, discrimination and many more. The most difficult
organizational wicked problem is that of workplace discrimination. Workplace discrimination
has all the characteristics of a wicked problem such as it cannot be defined properly, it further
leads to another problem in the organization and many more characteristics. The competing
values framework is also used to define the organizational leadership required to overcome
the wicked problem. Transformational leadership is one such style of leadership that can help
to overcome organizational wicked problems.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion of wicked problem characteristics as applying to ‘social or business issue’
problem......................................................................................................................................4
Discussion and justification that ‘social or business issue’ problem is a wicked problem........5
Discussion of application of competing values framework to wicked problem........................6
Discussion of implication and interplay of identified competing values in the wicked problem
....................................................................................................................................................8
Discuss potential leadership implications..................................................................................9
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
There are many problems within and outside the organizations such as cultural
differences, social problems, political problems and many more that need to be overcome for
the 1organization to be successful. Competing values represent the conflicting values that
exist in an organization and across various levels (Ikramullah et al., 2016). This happens
because of the contrasting values mentioned in the four quadrants -flexibility, adaptability,
stability and control. The contrasting views of the members is there because of their
differences in culture and value system. Such views can be overcome through different
leadership styles. Wicked problems are those which cannot be solved easily and are difficult
to define. These problems plague the society or organization and lead to further problems
(Head & Alford, 2015). These are basically related to social, political and a few other issues.
However, these problems can be solved through proper empathetic techniques and reasoning.
The main aim of this paper is to highlight the main wicked problems of the real world and
application of a leadership style that will help to remove these problems.
Description of identified ‘social or business issue’ problem
Workplace Discrimination is a major business problem these days in all organizations
because of cross-cultural workforce (Brouwers et al., 2016). It includes racial discrimination,
gender discrimination, discrimination on the basis of religion, age or even discrimination
based on disability of the persons. There are a few laws that have been formulated to look
after organizational discrimination but it is not followed because these laws lack any severe
punishment for the defaulters. An employee is said to be discriminated when the management
puts them in a disadvantageous positions as compared to other employees. When any type of
unfair practice is carried out against the employees of the organizations it is called workplace
discrimination. Workplace discrimination affects the morale of employees and it also results

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in attrition. Discrimination can happen due to employer, due to peers or any other person in
the organization. Harassment of employees by either employer or peers are all subjected to
discrimination. This discrimination also takes place due to the stereotype thinking on part of
the employers such as- women are not suitable for higher positions due to their feminine
characteristics, most of the times employers have an assumption that people with disability
cannot perform like abled people similarly many such assumptions lay down the basis of
discrimination. There are many cases of discrimination of women at workplace (Behal,
2018). Discrimination at workplace is becoming a major problem for all organizations these
days.
Discussion of wicked problem characteristics as applying to ‘social or
business issue’ problem
Wicked problems are the one which lacks any proper definition because it means
different things to different people such as discrimination- the word discrimination has can
include a lot of things so it does not have any proper definition (Peters, 2017). It is difficult to
find a solution for difficult problems because they lead to another problem. Moreover, the
solution to these problems are not permanent, the impacts of the problems may be reduced for
some time but it occurs again since no proper solution can be found for these problems. There
is no permanent way of dealing with these problems, people apply different techniques to
deal with these problems. Every wicked problems results in another problem. Even when we
prepare solutions for dealing with these problems, it cannot be carried out on a trial and error
basis in fact the solution so designed has to be carried out (Burge & McCall, 2015). There
can be more than one specific reason for the wicked problems and different people may view
these problems differently. These characteristics are present in the business problem of
workplace discrimination.

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Discussion and justification that ‘social or business issue’ problem is a
wicked problem
A wicked problem is one that lacks any proper definition. Workplace discrimination
is a wicked problem because it lacks a proper definition. A person may feel that he is being
discriminated but maybe they are not being. Workplace discrimination has a much broader
scope and under the Equality Act 2010, also a proper definition is not given as to what is
discrimination at workplace. A wicked problem lacks any definite solution. A definite
solution to these problems have still not been identified irrespective of the laws that have
been formulated. The solutions to these problems can either be good or bad because either
they will be enforced or not, this decision varies from organization to organization (Norris et
al., 2016). If the laws for prohibiting discrimination has been enforced in the organization it
will result in a positive solution otherwise not. This problem of workforce discrimination has
been in existence since a long time but recently it has got highlighted. Hence, these problems
lack any sort of immediate solutions. The solution to these problems need to be designed over
a period. Whatever solution has been designed for solving the problem of workforce
discrimination, these have been directly enforced and there was no trial and error method for
solving (Crowley & Head, 2017). This is so because any laws that have been formed by the
government cannot be applied to only few organizations for testing. These have to be applied
globally for becoming enforceable. Workforce discrimination is a wicked problem because it
leads to further problems within the organization such as lack of trust, conflict,
misunderstandings and many more. A wicked problem is one that further leads to another
problem.

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Discussion of application of competing values framework to wicked
problem
Figure 1: framework of competing values
Source: Stewart, (2018)
According to the competing values framework there are different views of employees
in an organization because they have different cultures and values (Stewart, 2018). This
model gets its name from the four competing value quadrants that are opposed to each other.
These four quadrants are the human relation model, open system model, internal process
model and rational goal model. The question in this framework is what competing values are
being used in the organization and the relevant leadership style for that. The conflict is
between change and stability and also between the internal and external environment. The
first quadrant focus on developing the human resources through participation, openness,

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commitment of employees and this quadrant is focuses on the internal environment of the
organization. The team leader for developing human resources of the organization needs to be
a team builder and should know how to take all his employees together. The organizations
that are facing this problem of discrimination can add new policies to the HR policies and
take strict action against discrimination. The management can conduct regular feedback
sessions with the employees to know if the employers or peers have subjected them to any
form of harassment. These methods will help in improving the commitment of the employees
towards the organization and openness can be achieved. This will also make the employees
feel that the organization is concerned about them. The second quadrant focuses on the open
system model, which includes innovation, expansion, adaptation and thus is focused towards
transformation and expansion (Belasen & Belasen, 2018). For achieving this, the organization
acquire necessary resources from outside. To overcome the problem of discrimination of
workforce the organization needs a visionary leader who helps in transformation of the
organizational culture and creating a culture that lays more emphasis on the providing
equality to all the employees. The third quadrant is rational goal model, where output
maximization is the main goal which can be achieved by clarifying the goals, direction,
decisiveness and improving productivity (Dastaviz, 2017). The organization having
competing values of rational goal model requires a leader who is competitive. The
organization in this case is focused on achieving the goals and creating a positive impact on
the organization. For this, the company will create such policies for removing workplace
discrimination that the organization is able to create its goodwill. The fourth quadrant is
focused on achieving equilibrium for the organization by achieving stability, continuity
(Adams, Dawson & Foureur, 2017). The leader for this quadrant has to be coordinator,
organizer or monitor and they try to achieve efficiency and consistency in the organization.

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These leaders should create a proper ethical code of conduct for ensuring that discrimination
of any form can be penalized.
However, all the quadrants mentioned above are opposing in nature that means the
organizational framework will decide which leadership style will be beneficial. Either the
organization can select the internally driven model of human resource model or they will
adopt an externally driven model that is the rational goal model. An organization cannot
select two models from the quadrants at a time.
Discussion of implication and interplay of identified competing values in
the wicked problem
The competing values identified with the wicked problem or workforce discrimination
is that of the human resource model (Tong & Arvey, 2015). If the organization values human
resources then the leader needs to be team builder such that he can improve the employee
commitment and free communication between the employers and the employees. If the leader
is a team builder than this problem of workforce discrimination can be overcome. The leader
should be able to create such an environment where no discrimination will be there.
However, the main problem of the human resource model is that if the organization
gives too much importance to its human resource than they may not be able to meet their
goals on time. For achieving the goals the leader needs to have competitiveness and then he
cannot give too much importance to the employees of the organization. Such a leadership
style is needed which not only helps in creating organizational commitment but also helps to
motivate their employees in such a way such that organizational goals are achieved.

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Discuss potential leadership implications
Potential leadership style for addressing the workforce discrimination is
transformational leadership. A transformational leader is one who knows how to change the
cultural of the organization, he is a visionary and he shares his vision with others (Ghasabeh,
Soosay & Reaiche, 2015). These leaders get their work done by their followers by
influencing them. He influence his followers through his charismatic power, legitimate power
and reward power. This type of leader will help to create a culture where no discrimination is
there and he can share this vision of achieving a discrimination free workplace by sharing it
with all the employees. Transformational leaders are people of high integrity that they follow
what they say and their integrity makes everyone trust them (Mencl, Wefald & van Ittersum,
2016). These leaders know how to create a balance between maintaining relationship with
employees and also know how to achieve their targets. They are emotionally intelligent
people and they connect with their employees through their intellectual skills (Hawkins,
2017). They motivate employees to carry out a particular action by positively reinforcing
them and showing them the broader perspective of things. In this case of work force
discrimination also the leader can ensure that any form of discrimination is avoided by
explaining his employees about the advantage of workforce diversity and how the workforce
diversity can ultimately lead their organization to success. If the leader himself treats
everyone fairly he will not only get the respect of all is followers but everyone will follow his
footsteps because a transformational leader is idolized by all.
Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that there are many business problem
that an organization has to face but the most wicked problem is workforce discrimination. It
is called wicked because it has all the characteristics of a wicked problem- such as it cannot

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be defined properly , there is no proper solution for this problem till now, this problem further
leads to many other problems within the organization and many more. The organization’s
competing value framework has also been discussed. It comprises of four quadrants and a
model for each quadrants. These quadrants are of an opposing nature. However, to overcome
the wicked problem the organization needs transformational leaders. These leaders can help
in creating such an environment where all employees are treated equally.

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