can political leaders and corporate leaders lead the same way? · sonia mcdonald is the ceo and...

The current presidential election has shown that there is a direct connection between politics and

CEOs, who at least think they are experienced enough to hold the ultimate leadership position.

Political leaders are not any different than organizational busi-nessmen. More and more business men and women are becoming political candidates and people are responding positively. The reason being---the two do go together. At the heart of leadership are a large amount of followers.

There are many more followers than there are leaders and this is more so in the political realm.

The question is: Can political leaders and corporate leaders lead the same way? The answer is a resounding “Yes.” For example, Eisenhower, one of the former presidents of the United States in World War II, effectively led both American government and the Allied Forces in Europe in defeating Adolf Hitler. Hitler was also a great leader but he represents the “Black Hat” of leadership. Barring the Hitler-type charismatic leaders, there is hope for leadership at the political level.

Eisenhower’s leadership provides lessons for top management executives in today’s organizational challenges. Eisenhower argued that leaders must care for their people as individuals, always remain optimistic, place yourself with and for the people, and, most impor-tantly, provide the WHY behind what you ask them to do. Politics and corporate leadership may merge today with the current presidential candidates today. Leadership theoretical models at the Ohio State studies and the University of Michigan studies, stem from research based on military leaders and their followers. Leadership has a critical role in politics because we elect leaders and not politicians.

In describing the importance of leadership in business and poli-tics, investors recognize the importance of business leadership. A good leader can turn a weak business plan into a success, but a poor leader can ruin even the best plan. Take a look at the nation’s largest health insurer, United Health Care, who out their due-diligence to shareholders, had to cut out Obama-care exchanges, in April 2016, because they were expected to lose one-billion in revenue.

Furthermore, pundits decide upon the valuation of publicly traded stocks based on current and future leadership in organizations. One example of this comes from CEO Rich Teerlink, who dramatically changed Harley-Davidson in the 1980s, and fundamentally built a different organization that still prospers today.

The success of leadership at the Harley-Davidson Corporation has stood the test of time. For example, Harley-Davidson’s leader-ship created a more effective organization built upon three primary principles: 1) focusing on people, 2) challenging norms, and 3) continuing to fundamentally change. At Harley, every employee can participate in leadership decision-making which builds on the Eisenhower example noted above. Another example of business leaders in a highly competitive environment is Steve Jobs, former leader of the Apple, who built a highly effective organization through taking a

change-oriented leadership approach, which highly manifested itself in talent, product, organization, and marketing. The evidence from these examples suggests that leadership is highly demanding at both the political and corporate levels.

For government and business organizations to achieve a sustained change and eventually higher degree of efficiency and effectiveness, selecting a great leader is the key to success. In the absence of effec-tive leadership, organizations lose their required direction to achieve a high degree of competitiveness, and cannot implement successful change in order to adapt with today’s business environment. Govern-ments have succeeded and failed based upon the various leaders that make the decisions that impact society. This year, we may find out if a CEO can hold the ultimate leadership position as President of the United States. LE

References:McKay, B., McKay, K. (2012). “Leadership Lessons from Dwight D. Eisenhower #1: How to Buildand Sustain Morale.” Found on The Art of Manliness @ www.artofmanliness.comMills, D Q 2005. Leadership: How to Lead, How to Live. MindEdge Press, Waltham, MA.Teerlink, R & Ozley, L 2000 ‘More Than a Motorcycle: The Leadership Journey at Harley-Davidson’, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.

Integrated Approach To LeadershipCan political leaders and corporate leaders lead the same way?

By Mostafa Sayyadi Ghasabeh, Michael Provitera & Sonia McDonald

Mostafa Sayyadi Ghasabeh, CAHRI, AFAIM, CPMgr is a senior corporate trainer at NIGC. In recognition of his work with Australian Institute of Management and Australian Human Resources Institute, he has been awarded the titles, “Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Manage-ment” (AFAIM), “Certified Professional Manager” (CPMgr) and “Certified Professional in Human Resources” (CAHRI).Connect Mostafa Sayyadi Ghasabeh

Michael Provitera is an international recognized management consultant and is the author of the book titled “Mastering Self-Motivation” published by BusinessExpertPress. He has contributed to several business and career articles.Connect Michael ProviteraFollow @Docprov

Sonia McDonald is the CEO and Founder of LeadershipHQ. Recently named in the Top Influential Women across the Globe by Richtopia and her blog was named in the Top 50 Leadership Blogs Globally. She is a regular contributor to a number of publications and has recently published on Amazon her ebook Neuroscience of Leadership.Connect Sonia McDonaldFollow @LeadershipHQ1

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transformational leaders have been posited to impact an or-ganization’s culture and strategy. These types of leaders manifest themselves as change agents who manipulate organizational factors with the aim of improving organizational outcomes. Organizational culture includes three dimensions: collaboration, trust and learning. Transformational leaders facilitate collaboration by using the ideal-ized influence dimension which develops relationships in organiza-tions. A transformational leader contributes to the cultural aspect of trust, through considering both employee’s individual interests and company’s essential needs. Also, transformational leaders identify individual needs of their employees and develop a learning culture by intellectually stimulating them to generate new knowledge and share it with others. Transformational leaders can highly manipulate a firm’s culture (i.e., collaboration, trust and learning) to conform to the needs and expectations of strategic goals and objectives.

Organizational strategy embraces four aspects: analysis, pro-active-ness, defensiveness and futurity. The first aspect, “analysis,” focuses on identifying the best solutions for the organizational problem. Transfor-mational leaders apply this strategy to enable intellectual stimulations, which creates more innovative solutions for organizational problems. The second aspect “futurity” emphasizes the effectiveness of long-term decisions. Transformational leaders employ this kind of strategy to facilitate the effectiveness of idealized influence by developing a vision of adopting more comprehensive information about the future. The third aspect, “defensiveness” can also be applied by transformational leaders by taking into account the objectives of strategic implication that seeks to decrease organizational costs and redundancies. While transformational leaders focus on implementing changes, a defensive

strategy can be used to modify the current processes to enhance or-ganizational efficiencies. The fourth aspect, “futurity” incorporates a pro-active strategy that identifies the opportunities that are available but not always addressed in the business, the global environment, and the political regulation changes. The aspect can be enhanced by a transformational leader as they adopt a strategic posture that inspires employees to identify better opportunities in both the internal and external environment.

Transformational leaders that employ the four strategic aspects of analysis, defensiveness, futurity, and pro-activeness may enhance goal achievement. For example, an analysis strategy could enhance the knowledge creation process through identifying new opportunities in order to provide better alternatives for managers to make a more effective decision. Scholars have (such as Cohen & Sproull, 1996) indicated that the analysis strategy is highly associated with a company’s capacity to create new knowledge. In many ways, a proactive strategy could enhance knowledge transfer by developing interactions with both departmental units and the business environment. When adopting a more futurity type strategy, transformational leaders can enhance the knowledge utilization process, thereby developing guidelines for future pathways and determine future trends in the external environment and allocate their resources accordingly. Transformational leaders can improve organizational knowledge cycles through embracing the four strategic aspects of analysis, pro-activeness, defensiveness, and futurity.

In an empirical study, 254 respondents, who held various job titles such as CEO, MIS manager and others, answered the questions. The analysis of the data supported this point. In other words, transforma-tional leadership, organizational culture and organizational strategy showed significant relationship between them. Therefore, American transformational business leaders support organizations to achieve business goals and act as change agents that provide a more human-istic and applicable approach to effectively managing organizations. In conclusion, a transformational leader that incorporates the four dimensions of transformation leadership, the cultural and knowledge aspects of prosperity, and the four tenets of strategy, can enhance global prosperity in our hypercompetitive business environment that exists today. LE

references Cohen, M. D. & Sproull, L. S. (1996). Organizational Learning. Thousand Oaks, Cali-fornia, Sage Publications

Leadership And ChangeHow American transformational leaders act as change agents

By Mostafa Sayyadi Ghasabeh

Mostafa sayyadi Ghasabeh, CAHRI, AFAIM, CPMgr is a senior corpo-rate trainer at NIGC. In recognition of his work with Australian Institute of Management and Australian Human Resources Institute, he has been awarded the titles, “Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Manage-ment” (AFAIM), “Certified Professional Manager” (CPMgr) and “Certified Professional in Human Resources” (CAHRI). Connect Mostafa sayyadi Ghasabeh

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Lee and Kim’s (2001) model to managing knowledge reflects a more strategic and practical perspective, as it is process oriented and most applicable in the context of leading organizations. In this model, organizational knowledge, firstly, is accumulated by creating new knowledge from organizational intellectual capital and acquir-ing knowledge from external environments. Secondly, knowledge is integrated internally to enhance the effectiveness and efficiencies in various systems and processes, as well as to be more responsive to market changes. Thirdly, the knowledge within organizations needs to be reconfigured to meet environmental changes and new challenges. In this process, knowledge is globally shared with other organizations in the environment.

In the process of knowledge accumulation, the exchange of knowl-edge with external business partners can develop innovative environ-ments (Chiang & Hung, 2010; Wang & Wang, 2012) that in turn enable transformational leaders in intellectual stimulation aiming at creating a more innovative climate in companies. In addition, the process of knowledge transfer enhances the capabilities of transfor-mational leaders to implement the inspirational motivation aspect which is directed at setting highly desired expectation to recognize possible opportunities in the business environments. The exchange of knowledge also positively contributes to transformational leaders to facilitate idealized influence developing a more effective vision incor-porating more exact and comprehensive information about external

Leadership And KnowledgeConnection between transformational leadership and knowledge cycle

By Mostafa Sayyadi

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sources and environment. A climate inspiring knowledge creation itself can also positively impact on the empowerment of employees (Badah, 2012) that develops the capabilities of transformational leaders in the aspect of individualized consideration empowering human assets. On the other hand, transformational leaders enhance innovation and new idea generation, thereby embracing the aspect of intellectual stimulation. The empirical study by Sosik (1997) affirms this significant contribution, and portrays the critical role that transformational leaders play in developing new idea generation within companies. Further, idealized influence aspect is considered as an essential source in developing relationships. From this state-ment, it can be argued that transformational leadership can enhance knowledge acquisition and transference among business partners. Similarly, several researchers (such as Politis, 2002; Nemanich & Keller, 2007) have reported in the past that transformational leaders have widely facilitated the process of knowledge acquisition from external sources. However, although there are still gaps in terms of providing empirical support for establishing the impacts of knowledge accumulation on transformational leadership, it can be argued that a mutual relationship exists between this knowledge management process and transformational leadership aspects.

In addition it is apparent that both major activities of knowledge integration processes, including the evaluation of organizational knowledge and assessment of required changes can positively impact on the effectiveness of individualized consideration aspect through identifying employees’ learning needs. Additionally, a systematic process of coordinating company-wide experts enables transformational leadership by propelling the dimension of intellectual stimulation aiming at developing a more innovative climate within organizations. Further, it can be seen that some qualities indicating a high-performing expert group (such as trust and reciprocity) are highly overlapped with Webb’s (2007) definition about effective transformational lead-ership describing the capabilities of these leaders in creating trust and reciprocity within companies. Based on this view, it could be argued that an effective coordination of company-wide experts itself can provide a significant contribution to transformational leaders, thereby developing a climate that transformational leaders aim to create it. Conversely, transformational leadership improves knowledge integration through adopting the aspect of intellectual stimulation that facilitates knowledge sharing around the organization. This form of leadership also positively impacts on knowledge integration by applying the aspect of idealized influence, which enhances dynamic relationships among employees and departments within companies. Liu and Phillips (2011) explored this relationship, and argue that having a transformational leadership enhances knowledge sharing within companies. As a result, the synthesis of literature provides evidence regarding a mutual relationship between knowledge integration and transformational leadership.

It is evident that networking with external business partners propels the aspect of idealized influence, thereby providing directions for trans-formational leaders to develop a more effective vision incorporating various concerns and values of external business partners. Moreover, it is believed that networking with other companies contributes to the effectiveness of learning (Purvis, Sambamurthy & Zmud 2000), which in turn enables both transformational leadership aspects of idealized consideration by empowering human resource and intel-lectual stimulation through creating new knowledge and solutions.

Accordingly, the process of knowledge reconfiguration can play a crucial role in enhancing the effectiveness of transformational leader-ship aspects within companies. On the other side, transformational leaders are clearly those who improves networking with external sources by adopting the aspect of idealized influence that largely develops relationships. Further, these leaders can also inspire organizational members to networking with more successful companies by using the aspect of inspirational motivation stetting highly desired expectations for employees. Therefore, this proposes a mutual relationship between knowledge reconfiguration and transformational leadership.

I would suggest to aspiring management and future business leaders that, based on a review of the literature on leadership and knowl-edge management, transformational leadership style and knowledge management cycle are two complementary players, which positively contribute to firm’s performance and competitive advantage. LE

References: Badah, A 2012 ‘Relationship between the knowledge management processes and the admin-istrative empowerment with the employees of the ministry of higher education and scientific research- Jordan’, European Scientific Journal, vol. 8, no. 28, pp. 191-209.Chiang, Y & Hung, K 2010 ‘Exploring open search strategies and perceived innovation performance from the perspective of inter-organizational knowledge flows’, R & D manage-ment, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 292-299.Lee, JH & Kim, YG 2001 ‘A stage model of organizational knowledge management: a latent content analysis’, Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 299-311.Liu, Y & Phillips, JS 2011 ‘Examining the antecedents of knowledge sharing in facilitating team innovativeness from a multilevel perspective’, International Journal of Information Management, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 44-52.Nemanich, LA & Keller, RT 2007. Transformational leadership in an acquisition: A field study of employees. The Leadership Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 49–68.Politis, JD 2002 ‘Transformational and transactional leadership enabling (disabling) knowledge acquisition of self-managed teams: The consequence for performance’, Leadership & Organizational Development Journal, vol. 23, no. 3-4, pp. 186-198.Purvis, RL, Sambamurthy, V, Zmud RW 2000 ‘The development of knowledge embed-dedness in CASE technologies within organizations’, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 245-257.Sosik, JJ 1997 ‘Effects of transformational leadership and anonymity on idea generation in computer-mediated groups’, Group & Organizational Management, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 460-488.Wang, Z & Wang, N 2012 ‘Knowledge sharing, innovation and firm performance’, Expert Systems With Applications, vol. 39, no. 10, pp. 8899-8908.Webb, K 2007 ‘Motivating peak performance: Leadership behaviours that stimulate em-ployee motivation and performance’, Christian Higher Education, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 53-71.

Leadership And Knowledge

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Mostafa Sayyadi Ghasabeh, CAHRI, AFAIM, CPMgr is a senior corporate trainer at NIGC. In recognition of his work with Australian Institute of Man-agement and Australian Human Resources Institute, he has been awarded the titles, “Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management” (AFAIM), “Certified Professional Manager” (CPMgr) and “Certified Professional in Human Resources” (CAHRI).Email [email protected] Mostafa Sayyadi Ghasabeh


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Has leadership returned to its roots?

Leadership Forecast

When companies in general confront challenging situations in which they need to proactively respond to every environmental demand, a comprehensive leadership insight can be a basis for under-standing and perhaps anticipating these emerging issues.

In the first step of leadership thought evolution, leaders have been regarded as great people with a set of specific personality traits who are born, not made. To analyze trait theory, there exist some mismatches between today’s leadership conditions and those traits which have already been determined for leaders. In fact, this paradox reconfirms that traits that were adaptive in ancestral environments might no longer produce adaptive behaviours in modern environments, espe-cially when these environments dramatically differ, as is the case with those of modern humans.

These paradoxes could have been the impetus for a change in the evolution of leadership thought. Servant leadership, as another insight, highlights Jesus as an ultimate example of a servant leader, and suggests applying the leadership insights that Jesus gives us within organisa-tions. This can be clearly seen as rooted in Christ’s leadership when Greenleaf says that the words “service”, “serve” and “servant” occur over 1300 times in the revised version of the Bible.

The evolution of leadership thought at its highest level reaches transformational leadership. Burns was the first to consider this lead-ership insight, and it was subsequently discussed by many scholars and practitioners to date. Transformational leadership is superior for managers because it focuses on basic needs and meets higher desires by inspiring followers. This argument is based on Maslow’s needs hi-erarchy in which the highest need of human beings (self-actualization) can be only satisfied by inspiration. In fact, transformational leaders elevate their followers through increasing awareness of what is right, good, important, and beautiful.

Transformational leadership actually focuses on how top managers can provide a significant contribution to long-term organizational goals through stressing their subordinates’ highest human need. It is quite understandable that leadership evolution thought has come back to its elementary root, which contains great men with a set of specific personality traits who can create fundamental changes at the organizational level.

Global expansion of business is constantly changing as organiza-tions are increasingly participating in international markets. Future globalized nature of competitiveness is placing more pressure on organizations to employ effective leaders who are capable to develop a global vision for organizations. Leaders need to think globally yet act locally because local strategies need to be realigned with the global economic integration and for individual countries.

There is a global need to investigate transformational leadership to accomplish sustainable competitiveness in future global markets. Commitment, flexibility and innovation are necessary attributes to evaluate the success of organizations in global markets. Effective leaders in world-class organizations are highly characterized by enablers of organizational commitment, flexibility, and problem-solving oriented.

The global markets represent cross cultural settings and require top management executives who can adapt to various environments suc-cessfully, empower employees, generate a shared vision and create fundamental changes at the organizational level.

Sustained performance in future global markets will be dependent on continuous learning. Transformational leaders may be able to build a learning climate through identifying intellectual capital and empowering them. These leaders improve knowledge sharing and learning, and are possibly the most qualified leaders that may be able to enhance organization performance in global markets through empowering human resources and enabling change. One way that transformational leadership may be a valuable leadership style in future markets is because transformational leadership sheds light on the critical role of employee’s attitudes and values in implementing change. This leadership style features effective organizational change as a by-product of developing relationships with subordinates.

Transformational leadership is, therefore, one leadership style that should be embraced at the senior level of organizations to enable performance in future globalized markets through implementing organizational change and developing a shared vision for future expansion into global markets. Success in future global business en-vironment can be more effective when transformational leadership is applied to change attitudes and assumptions at the individual level and creating collective-interests for cultural adaptation. When leaders can generate a shared and inspiring vision for the future expansion into global markets, they will secure a foothold in the ever-expansive global marketplace.

Leaders who may not be utilizing the transformational leader-ship which has been posited as a managerial-based competency for organizations operating in future innovative business environment can now explore the virtues of using this leadership style to improve organizational performance. LE

Mostafa sayyadi Ghasabeh, CAHRI, AFAIM, CPMgr is a senior corpo-rate trainer at NIGC. In recognition of his work with Australian Institute of Management and Australian Human Resources Institute, he has been awarded the titles, &Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Manage-ment (AFAIM), Certified Professional Manager (CPMgr) and Certified Professional in Human Resources (CAHRI).Connect Mostafa sayyadi Ghasabeh


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transformational leaders can reshape, and in some cases, ma-nipulate organizational factors to create a more effective workplace to develop learning within departmental and business units of orga-nizations.

Transformational leaders develop relationships in organizations and contribute to trust, through considering both employee’s individual interests and company’s essential needs. A collaborative environment provides a shared understanding about the current issues and problems among employees, which helps to generate new ideas within organiza-tions. Trust towards their leader’s decisions is also a necessary precursor to create new ideas. Transformational leaders identify individual needs of their employees and develop a learning culture by intellectually stimulating them to generate new idea and share it with others. The amount of time spent learning is positively related with the amount of knowledge gained, shared, and implemented.

Firms’ formal structures can be also reshaped by transformational leaders to develop knowledge sharing and inspire employees to create new ideas for a better environment among business-units and depart-ments. Informal structures could facilitate new idea generation to build a more innovative climate within organizations. Transformational leaders are known to implement organizational changes that develop better collaboration among subordinates and managers. Centralized versus decentralized decision making is a topic that transformational leaders must deal with. A more emphasis on formalized and mechanis-tic structures can also negatively impact the transformational leader’s

ability to exert such changes. On the contrary, a more decentralized and organic structure may enable transformational leaders to improve departmental and managerial interactions. The mechanical or central-ization at the commanding level of transformation leadership impairs the opportunity to develop relationships among managers, business units, and departments.

Transformational leaders reshape structure to be more effective when the command centre of organizations can disseminate information in a decentralized and organic way as opposed to the mechanical and centralized command centre. Decentralized structures shift the power of decision-making to the lower levels and subsequently inspire or-ganizational members to create new ideas and even implement them while centralized structures may negatively impact interdepartmental communications and inhibit knowledge exchange. Ergo, transforma-tional leaders positively contribute to learning and human resources development through building more decentralized structures within organizations.

Transformational leaders apply effective strategies to create more innovative solutions for organizational problems. This could enhance the knowledge creation through identifying new opportunities in order to provide better alternatives for managers to make a more effective decision. These leaders also employ business strategy to develop a vision of adopting more comprehensive information about the future. When adopting a more futurity type strategy, transformational leaders can enhance the knowledge utilization, thereby developing guidelines for future pathways and determine future trends in the external en-vironment and allocate their resources accordingly. Transformational leaders also take into account the objectives of strategic implication that seeks to decrease organizational costs and redundancies. While transformational leaders focus on implementing changes, effective strategies can be used to modify the current processes to enhance organizational efficiencies. Transformational leader adopts a strategic posture to inspire employees to identify better opportunities in both the internal and external environment. In many ways, this could enhance knowledge transfer by developing interactions with both departmental units and the business environment.

In conclusion, a business leader who adopts transformation leader-ship, can enhance global prosperity in our hypercompetitive business environment that exists today. LE

Leadership And HR DevelopmentHow transformational leaders create the best workplaces for learning and HR development



Mostafa sayyadi Ghasabeh, CAHRI, AFAIM, CPMgr is a senior corporate trainer at NIGC. In recognition of his work with Australian Institute of Man-agement and Australian Human Resources Institute, he has been awarded the titles, &Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management (AFAIM), Certified Professional Manager (CPMgr) and Certified Professional in Human Resources (CAHRI).Connect Mostafa sayyadi Ghasabeh



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the business environment is constantly changing as organizations are increasingly participating in global markets. Hyper competition has become the norm. Knowledge is also a crucial part of hyper competitive environments. Organizations can design, copy, or update products and services easier with more adaptability then ever today. Organizations compete globally but must think locally if they expect to exceed. These new and improved globalized markets place demands on the roles of leaders in organizations operating in this modern environment. The emergence of global business environments drives companies to become world-class. There are many studies that focus on the organizational and managerial factors that drive organizational competitiveness. Transformational leadership is one such area that plays a critical role and is a strategic prerequisite for business success in today’s knowledge-based economy. Transformational leadership is an ideal leadership form in enabling organizations to build knowledge-based organizations that can create and implement innovations timely as they operate and compete in global markets.

This article raises a vital question as to how HR managers can successfully contribute to top transformational leaders to create an effective learning workplace within organizations. I have highlighted

the potential consequences of applying effective HR policies, and explained how HR managers can act as catalysts to cultivate an effec-tive culture, which contributes to the effectiveness of transformational leadership. It follows that cultivating an effective culture requires applying effective HR policies within organisations.

In light of the increased pressures of the global workplace that inspires leaders to exert effective change at the organisational level, HR professionals point out the vital importance of HR managers in influencing culture to have access to higher degrees of collabora-tion and trust within organisations. In fact, HR managers can assist transformational leaders in top management teams in developing their communications between line managers and employees. Coaching and training from HR department can play a critical role in improving line managers’ and employees’ interpersonal/social skills.

Building on prior research that has indicated organisational culture is a major factor for organisational knowledge, this article also rein-forces these arguments, and supports the positive impact of culture on organisational knowledge. Subsequently I suggest that organisational culture constitutes the basics of a supportive workplace to develop organisational knowledge. I also suggest channelling organizational learning efforts into employing a supportive organisational culture within organisations. In here, HR managers can play a crucial role in developing the culture of trust, which in turn facilitates learning and knowledge transference around the company. HR managers are those managers who can effectively organise seminars and conferences that create a learning workplace to disseminate knowledge within organisations. These managers can also use effective HR policies to develop a collaborative culture that potentially leads to attract and retain talents who provide a significant contribution to new ideas generation and new knowledge acquisition.

Therefore, HR managers can assist top managers in undertaking their roles as transformational leaders, and contribute to develop an effective culture for facilitating organisational learning. In conclusion, I found that there where, some matches between the effectiveness of transformational leadership and those policies which have already been implemented by HR managers. s&P

HR Managers And Top Leaders How HR managers can assist top transformational leaders in developing organizational learning?


Mostafa sayyadi Ghasabeh, CAHRI, AFAIM, CPMgr is a senior corporate trainer at NIGC. In recognition of his work with Australian Institute of Management and Australian Human Resources Institute, he has been awarded the titles, “Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management” (AFAIM), “Certified Profession-al Manager” (CPMgr) and “Certified Professional in Human Resources” (CAHRI). Connect Mostafa sayyadi GhasabehFollow @mo_sayyadi


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Growing attention has been paid to the knowledge economy in today’s business environment, the foundation of the knowledge economy are largely based on creating and trading knowledge.

While knowledge itself is a strategic resource and one in which could be a core competitive advantage for some organizations, it has been posited that the management of knowledge enables companies to enhance their performance.

In this way, the knowledge economy is facilitated by a transforma-tion of top management executives and their approach to managing human assets as possessing knowledge. The question arises whether the internal characteristics of organizations themselves can be a source of effectiveness for knowledge management. It is apparent that a systematic approach toward knowledge management can provide practical guidelines for management executives.

My contribution to the management literature lies in incorporating the organizational factors that may impact KM effectiveness. In doing this, I conduct an exploratory review of the extant literature coupled with the synthesis of knowledge management.

The current literature reflects the decentralized and informal structure which has been posited to facilitate knowledge management processes in organizations. This argument could be reasonably supported by stressing this fact that the locus of decision-making power at the upper levels could create a climate that in turn inhibits interdepartmental communication within organizations. In contrast, decentralization encourages organizational communication, and consequently develops a climate of openness for employees to exchange new ideas.

Subsequently, employees can even implement ideas through delegat-ing the authority of decision-making to their departments. Further-more, an informal structure enhances organizational communication, and the less emphasis on formal language itself could generate more knowledge, because, formal procedures and rules can restrict the generation of new ideas.

Thus, less formalized and less centralized structures positively con-tribute to the knowledge management processes. On the contrary, high formalized and high centralized structures negatively affect knowledge management processes.

Collaborative culture improves knowledge management processes. Collaboration enhances a shared understanding of the problems among employees, which is a necessary precursor to create new ideas and knowledge. Moreover, a leader’s ability to create new knowledge and develop more innovative solutions is considerably dependent on the degree to which employees trust them. Accordingly, organizations that exhibit a sense of a high trust environment could positively impact the tendencies of human capital to share their knowledge with others.

Therefore, both cultural dimensions of collaboration and trust must be incorporated by organizational culture in order to promote the processes of knowledge management within organizations. Another

aspect that we mention in the literature review section above is learning. Learning is an important requisite for knowledge creation. Firms

that stress cultural aspects of learning are stronger in creating new knowledge, and also transferring this knowledge throughout the organization. As a result, the cultural aspects of collaboration, trust, and learning are positively associated with knowledge management processes within companies.

Inter-companies social networks enhance knowledge acquisition, and knowledge transference among companies. Additionally, the process of knowledge storing is highly dependent on the extent to which knowledge is transferred by these inter-companies social net-works. This transference of knowledge itself can improve knowledge utilization and creation within organizations. As a result, networks are positively related to knowledge management processes.

Stakeholder orientation is another important aspect of company per-formance. Stakeholder orientation is directed to enhance the exchange of knowledge with various stakeholders and the application for more effective decisions. The knowledge exchanged is experience-based and highly relevant to both context and location, and can facilitate the generation of new knowledge, which represents those decisions and policies created by interacting with various stakeholders.

Thus, a necessary precursor to the effective management of knowl-edge is to have a stakeholder orientation. As a moderating effect, stakeholder orientation is positively related to knowledge manage-ment processes.

This article clearly uncovers how KM effectiveness can be affected by substantial internal characteristics of organizations such as the organizational structure, culture, networks, and most importantly, the stakeholders. t&d

Knowledge management effectiveness

How Organizational Factors Facilitate Or Inhibit Knowledge Exploitation?


Mostafa sayyadi Ghasabeh, CAHRI, AFAIM, CPMgr is a Senior Corporate Trainer at NIGC. In recognition of his work with Australian Institute of Management and Australian Human Resources Institute, he has been awarded the titles, “Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management” (AFAIM), “Certified Profession-al Manager” (CPMgr) and “Certified Professional in Human Resources” (CAHRI). Connect Mostafa sayyadi Ghasabeh


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today’s global business environments involve a high level of uncertainty and organizations will increasingly need more and better business strategy to guide innovation and fast growth. In this situation, companies attempt to continuously innovate and create new and valu-able services or products through applying new ideas and knowledge.

When companies in general confront challenging situations in which they need to proactively respond to every environmental demand, an effective business strategy can be a basis for responding and perhaps anticipating these emerging issues. Business strategy in fact plays a critical role and is a prerequisite for business success in today’s knowledge-based economy. In the absence of effective busi-ness strategy, companies are not capable of effectively implementing changes at the competitive level.

The evolution of strategy thought highlights the need for new and more commonly used modes of business strategy. Until the 1970s, university professors and business consultants explored the impor-tance of internal resources as strengths or weaknesses of companies, which resulted in four paradigms such as SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). In this decade, a shift occurred in strategic management paradigms, and this resource-oriented ap-proach got replaced by industrial organization economics in which companies were assumed as defenceless entities against threats, and opportunities happened in business environments. This passive ap-proach could not be a sustainable perspective that can be applied to change and to overcome challenges. From the mid- 1980s, many authors supported the idea of how companies’ internal resources could

influence competitive advantage. This developed the fundamentals of a resource-based view by which the critical role of companies’ internal resources such as business strategy was considered to achieve a higher degree of competitive advantage and performance.

Hofer and Schendel define business strategy is a fundamental pattern of present and planned resource deployments and environ-mental interactions that indicates how the organization will achieve its objectives. Business strategy is a pattern of decisions and plans, which are directed at interacting with the corporate environment and efficiently allocating capabilities to meet organizational goals. A firm’s strategy primarily aims to develop goals and plans to restructure unclear and vague situations into a set of organizationally resolvable problems. Business strategies are therefore formed to efficiently deploy capabilities and interact with environments.

Companies as social communities exist to enhance competitive advantage by utilizing and creating new ideas and knowledge. Firms are in fact entities that must apply knowledge to develop learning and enhance competitive advantage. The major function of companies is therefore how to best use the knowledge and information that their employees possess. In using employees’ knowledge, companies actually apply their knowledge to develop objectives, plans and procedures to efficiently interact with other companies. Herein, business strategy can help the structuring of knowledge creation through upgrading capabilities and interacting with the external business environments. This can highlight business strategy as an important enabler for facilitating knowledge exploitations, which develops organizational capacities to enhance learning though more effectively creating and using knowledge around the organization.

In conclusion, managers must effectively use business strategy to increase a knowledge-based workplace based upon developing and managing intellectual capital within organizations. Managers can use business strategy to develop a shared vision and improve relationships with business partners and other companies in industry. s&P

references Hofer, CW & Schendel, D 1978, Strategy Formulation: Analytical Concepts. West Publish-ing Company, Saint Paul

Sustaining High-Performing WorkplacesHow business strategy can facilitate organizational knowledge


Mostafa sayyadi Ghasabeh, CAHRI, AFAIM, CPMgr is a senior corporate trainer at NIGC. In recognition of his work with Australian Institute of Man-agement and Australian Human Resources Institute, he has been awarded the titles, “Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management” (AFAIM), “Certified Professional Manager” (CPMgr) and “Certified Professional in Human Resources” (CAHRI).Connect Mostafa sayyadi GhasabehFollow @mo_sayyadi


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Knowledge management today, where organizations see themselves in the common challenges, staying in the forefront of competition, distinguishing the industry trends to adapt with the changes, enhanc-ing profitability in the existing market, and targeting new markets.

Effective knowledge management creates value for customers by synthesizing and analyzing the current data which facilitate rela-tionship development with customers and providing higher quality services and products for them. In this situation, when knowledge management has been highlighted as a critical factor for improving customer focus, companies need to improve their capabilities in knowledge management to identify and meet customers’ needs in today’s business environment, where competitors have been trying to attract more customers.

Knowledge management in fact improves customer satisfaction through acquiring more knowledge of customers, developing relation-ships with them, and providing higher quality services and products for them.

Knowledge management is a significant driver for developing learning in organizations. Learning has been defined as a process that will lead to acquiring new insights and knowledge, and consequently provide milestones for the correction of actions and behaviors. Learn-ing manifests itself as a dynamic process of strategic renewal occur-ring across three levels of the organization (individual, group, and organization), leading to change in cognitions and behaviors, as well

as involving a tension between assimilating new learning and using what has been learned at the organizational level.

Organizational learning is a set of modifying behaviors resulting in newer insight and knowledge, and can develop a better understanding and to gain newer knowledge. Organizational learning focuses on changing existing behaviors with the aim of generating new ideas and knowledge, and is therefore considered to be a key factor to improve a firm’s competitive advantage.

Organizational learning is highly related to various processes of knowledge management, and the effective implementation of knowl-edge management requires learning and sharing best practices and experiences among employees. Organizational learning has been regarded as the set of actions within the organization that intention-ally and unintentionally influence positive organizational change, or has even been defined as a dynamic process of creation, acquisition and integration of knowledge aimed at the development of resources and capabilities that contribute to better organizational performance.

Organizational learning consists of four central processes including knowledge intuition, knowledge interpretation, knowledge integra-tion and knowledge institutionalization. In this view, organizational learning emanates from the individual, group and organization; and knowledge comes from the explanation of individuals’ ideas and beliefs to be shared, and is codified in formal and systematic language.

It suggests that organizational learning is associated with various processes of knowledge management, and can propel these processes in organizations.

Knowledge management can also enable organizational learning, and consequently develops learning opportunities in organizations. Effective organizational learning requires various processes such as knowledge acquisition, collaboration, dissemination, sharing, gen-eration, and storage to acquire knowledge within an organization.

Knowledge management improves these processes through various KM-related tools including search engines, social software, and tax-onomy tools.

In conclusion, this article strengthens the idea that there exists a mutual interaction between knowledge management and organiza-tional learning. Thus, I suggest that COEs and top managers should employ knowledge management to enhance organizational learning that represents employees’ development. t&d

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Mostafa sayyadi Ghasabeh, CAHRI, AFAIM, CPMgr is a senior corporate trainer at NIGC. In recognition of his work with Australian Institute of Management and Australian Human Resources Institute, he has been awarded the titles, “Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management” (AFAIM), “Certified Professional Manager” (CPMgr) and “Certified Professional in Human Resources” (CAHRI).Connect Mostafa sayyadi Ghasabeh Follow @mo_sayyadi



Building Learning CompaniesHow knowledge management and organizational learning can empower each other?




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today’s global business environments involve a high level of uncertainty and organizations will increasingly need more and better business strategy to guide innovation and fast growth. In this situation, companies attempt to continuously innovate and create new and valu-able services or products through applying new ideas and knowledge.

When companies in general confront challenging situations in which they need to proactively respond to every environmental demand, an effective business strategy can be a basis for responding and perhaps anticipating these emerging issues. Business strategy in fact plays a critical role and is a prerequisite for business success in today’s knowledge-based economy. In the absence of effective busi-ness strategy, companies are not capable of effectively implementing changes at the competitive level.

The evolution of strategy thought highlights the need for new and more commonly used modes of business strategy. Until the 1970s, university professors and business consultants explored the impor-tance of internal resources as strengths or weaknesses of companies, which resulted in four paradigms such as SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). In this decade, a shift occurred in strategic management paradigms, and this resource-oriented ap-proach got replaced by industrial organization economics in which companies were assumed as defenceless entities against threats, and opportunities happened in business environments. This passive ap-proach could not be a sustainable perspective that can be applied to change and to overcome challenges. From the mid- 1980s, many authors supported the idea of how companies’ internal resources could influence competitive advantage. This developed the fundamentals of a resource-based view by which the critical role of companies’ internal resources such as business strategy was considered to achieve a higher degree of competitive advantage and performance.

Hofer and Schendel define business strategy is a fundamental pattern of present and planned resource deployments and environ-mental interactions that indicates how the organization will achieve its objectives. Business strategy is a pattern of decisions and plans, which are directed at interacting with the corporate environment and efficiently allocating capabilities to meet organizational goals. A firm’s strategy primarily aims to develop goals and plans to restructure unclear and vague situations into a set of organizationally resolvable problems. Business strategies are therefore formed to efficiently deploy capabilities and interact with environments.

Companies as social communities exist to enhance competitive advantage by utilizing and creating new ideas and knowledge. Firms are in fact entities that must apply knowledge to develop learning and enhance competitive advantage. The major function of companies is therefore how to best use the knowledge and information that their employees possess. In using employees’ knowledge, companies actually apply their knowledge to develop objectives, plans and procedures to efficiently interact with other companies. Herein, business strategy can help the structuring of knowledge creation through upgrading capabilities and interacting with the external business environments. This can highlight business strategy as an important enabler for facilitating knowledge exploitations, which develops organizational capacities to enhance learning though more effectively creating and using knowledge around the organization.

In conclusion, managers must effectively use business strategy to increase a knowledge-based workplace based upon developing and managing intellectual capital within organizations. Managers can use business strategy to develop a shared vision and improve relationships with business partners and other companies in industry. s&P

references Hofer, CW & Schendel, D 1978, Strategy Formulation: Analytical Concepts. West Publish-ing Company, Saint Paul

Sustaining High-Performing Workplaces How business strategy can facilitate organizational knowledge


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Managers usually apply learning strategies to enhance the organiza-tion’s intellectual capital and ultimate performance.

The question arises whether the management of an organization’s intellectual capital itself can be a source of management effectiveness. This basic question remained unexplored to date.

Based on this gap, I pose that an ineffective vision and strategic plan may expose organizations to missed opportunities and lack of using leadership opportunities to their benefit given the existing op-portunities in international and domestic markets, and how this lack of judgment may concern stakeholders.

I also assume that the lack of a structured vision and strategic plan may lead to human assets to be ineffective. The assumption addressed in this article is that the crucial role of learning, such as coordinating and hosting the continuous sessions of company-wide experts to share their knowledge, may be underestimated and underutilized.

Learning is defined as a facilitator of knowledge exploitation. This approach reflects a strategic and practical perspective in today’s hyper-competitive economic conditions. This approach is process oriented and most applicable in the context of leading organizations.

Organizational knowledge is accumulated by creating new knowledge from organizational intellectual capital and acquiring knowledge from external environments. This process embraces generating knowledge form existing intellectual capital through developing organizational innovation.

It has been posited that this knowledge exchange with external business partners develops innovative environments that enables managers in creating a more innovative climate within companies. This also enhances the capabilities of managers to play an inspirational role, which enables them to directly set highly desired expectations to recognize possible opportunities in the business environment. Build-ing a learning environment can positively contribute to managers to develop a more effective vision, including a more comprehensive array of information and insights about external environments.

Learning process improves the empowerment of employees, and develops the role of mangers in empowering human knowledge holders at all levels in the organization. Ergo, a vital importance of organizational learning can have a significant impact on the effective-ness of managerial practices in accumulating the right knowledge that the company needs to compete in today’s competitive environment.

Effective learning processes also enhance the effectiveness and efficiencies in various systems, as well as to be more responsive to market changes. In general, learning process focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of current knowledge, defining and recognizing core knowledge areas, coordinating experts, sharing organizational knowledge, and scanning the changes of knowledge requirements to keep the quality of their production or services in-line with market demand. In order to promote the effectiveness of learning, the employee diversity of skills and interpersonal relationships that are based upon trust and reciprocity can increasingly empower the performance of these expert groups.

Therefore, learning can help managers assessing the required changes to keep the quality of both products and services at maximum levels. A systematic process of coordinating company-wide experts also enables managers by propelling the role of innovator, which creates a more innovative environment.

In many cases, the knowledge within organizations needs to be reconfigured to meet environmental changes and new challenges today. What worked yesterday or a few years ago is changing rapidly as technology has increased in a prolific way. Knowledge is globally shared with other organizations through domestic and global rewards such as the Malcolm Baldridge Award in the United States and the Deming Award in Japan.

However, many business consultants have posited that companies might lack the required capabilities or decide to decline from interact acting with other companies, or even suffer the distrust to share their knowledge. Therefore, expert groups may not have sufficient diversity in order to comprehend knowledge acquired from external sources.

Based upon these limitations whether natural or caused, conducting effective learning seminars with business partners is a key activity for companies to enhance knowledge exchange and it should not take an award to be the impetus to initiate interaction. Ergo, conducting learning seminars may facilitate the effectiveness of managers, thereby empowering them to better develop strategic insights to develop a more effective vision incorporating various concerns and values of external business partners.

The knowledge transference among companies itself improves the effectiveness of learning, which in turn enables managers by empow-ering human resource and intellectual stimulation through creating new knowledge and solutions.

In conclusion, my contribution to the learning and development process lies in presenting a link between learning and management effectiveness that incorporates the learning activities that may impact the effectiveness of managers to enhance their capabilities to effectively play their roles within companies. t&d




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today‘s globalized nature of competitiveness is placing more pres-sure on organizations to employ effective managers who are capable to design flexible structures, that potentially improves employee engagement and business performance. There are many academic studies that focus on the organizational and managerial factors that drive employee engagement and business performance. Organizational structure is one such area that plays a critical role and is a strategic prerequisite for business success in today’s knowledge-based economy.

Organizational structure can be reshaped by top managers to develop knowledge sharing and inspire employees to create new ideas for a better environment among business-units and departments. In fact, flexible structures could facilitate new idea generation to build a more innovative climate within organizations. Effective managers are known to implement organizational changes that involve employees in organizational decision-making processes.

Top managers should create communities of practice that can provide a better environment for subordinates to explore new ideas and create more knowledge.

They can also concentrate on developing knowledge sharing and inspiring employees to generate new solutions and a better envi-ronment. Less emphasis on formalization could in turn contribute to create new knowledge, and formalization, in terms of typically written procedures and rules, restrict the generation of new ideas. Top manager should inspire their employees to ignore written procedures and rules to reach informal agreements aiming at effectively handling the situations to some extent. In doing this, they need to develop more informal structures to stimulate new solutions in order to solve organizational problems in a more innovative manner.

Top managers should also manifest themselves as inspirers who ag-gregate human capital into social capital to implement the required changes in the current status and create a better situation. Formalized structures are more bureaucratic, and this negatively contributes to the effectiveness of management in changing existing situations and creating a better environment. Accordingly, it is apparent that manag-ers should develop informal structures to improve their effectiveness.

In addition, they can facilitate interactions and relationships within companies and build decentralized structures in order to enhance knowledge sharing and create a more innovative climate. This idea can be also supported by accounting for the crucial role of decentralized structures in facilitating the exchange of ideas and the implementa-tion of more innovative solutions based on stipulating the power of decision-making around the organization that potentially leads to involve employees in organizational decision-making processes.

In an empirical study, Tafvelin (2013) found that top managers can, in fact, achieve a higher degree of effectiveness in a decentral-ized structure.

A less emphasis on centralized structures develops communications within companies. This less emphasis on centralization can also create more appropriate and effective workplaces for developing learning and growth that in turn improves companies’ sustainable competitive advantage as a central product of knowledge creation.

This effective learning environment is a by-product of the delega-tion of authorities that in turn inspires employees to participate in organizational decisions. Decentralization also enables companies to identify changes in external environments and then helps them to actively and effectively response to these rapid changes.

A less emphasis on formalization can also provide a freedom for experts to more innovatively handle their work operations that po-tentially leads to higher job satisfaction within companies. Hesket and his colleagues in their book, The Ownership Quotient: Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work for Unbeatable Competitive Advantage, state that job satisfaction can stimulate the quality of products and services that leads to higher degrees of customer satisfaction and profitability.

Therefore, I suggest HR consultants working in various industries should also consider the importance of organizational structure in improving employee engagement and business performance within companies. r&E

references Hesket, JL, Sasser WE & Wheeler J 2013, The Ownership Quotient: Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work for Unbeatable Competitive Advantage, Harvard Business Press, Boston, MA. Tafvelin, S 2013, The transformational leadership process, viewed 07 May 2014, <http:// umu.diva -portal.org/smash/get/diva2:640843/FULLTEXT01.pdf >.

Improving Employee Engagement And Business PerformanceHow flexible structures can be of great help




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A necessary precursor to effectively managing organizational knowledge is to have an understanding of the concept of knowledge itself. Knowledge has been identified as a multi-faceted concept, which is widely defined and categorized in various ways, and is distinctly different from information and data.

Within companies, knowledge resides in various areas such as management, employees, culture, structure, systems, processes and relationships, and the role is to enhance organizational functions. Organizational knowledge cannot be merely described as the sum of individual knowledge, but as a systematic combination of knowledge based on social interactions and shared among employees. Knowledge exists in the organizations as a whole, and is owned by the organizations.

Organizational knowledge can be categorized as tacit and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge exists in the minds of employees which is gained by their individual experiences, and is difficult to formalize. In contrast, explicit knowledge has been defined as the knowledge that is highly formalized and codified and can be easily recorded and communicated through formal and systematic language and manifested in rules and procedures.

This may mean it can be explained verbally, but it is generally prefer-able to codify it, that is, write it down. Explicit knowledge has taken a more objective approach when compared to tacit knowledge, which is so subjective. Explicit knowledge is, therefore, more formal, has the potential to be shared and is expressible in words and specifications, when compared to tacit knowledge.

Organizational knowledge could be also classified into individual and collective knowledge. Individual knowledge refers to individuals’ skills, knowledge, and proficiencies. Davenport and Prusak (1998) believe that if an organization cannot inspire its members to share their individual knowledge with others, then this individual knowledge is not considered valuable for the organization. Individual knowledge could merely become a valuable resource by developing a climate of openness for members to exchange their ideas and insights together.

Therefore, learning and development managers must create a climate of trust and openness for individuals to share individual knowledge and convert individual knowledge into valuable resources for their companies.

Long and Fahey (2000) takes a more comprehensive approach to categorize organizational knowledge, and portrays knowledge by its three major components, including human knowledge, social knowl-edge and structured knowledge.

Human knowledge focuses on individual knowledge which manifests itself in individuals’ competencies and skills, and includes both tacit and explicit knowledge. Human knowledge comprises the skills gained by individual experiences, learned by rules and instructions. Social knowledge is shared and it becomes collective knowledge. Structured knowledge emerges in formal language that represents official state-ments, and is therefore equivalent to explicit knowledge. Therefore,

knowledge emerges in the three levels of individual (human), group (social) and organizational (structured) within companies.

Knowledge in organizations could also be categorized as private and public knowledge. Private knowledge refers to “a resource that is valuable, rare, and imperfectly imitable to the knowledge”, and therefore has been highlighted as “firm-specific” (Matusik 1998, p.683). Organizational strategies, processes and practices are examples of this type of knowledge.

Public knowledge differs from private knowledge, and is not unique for any organization. Public knowledge is reflected in various con-cepts such as total quality management and just-in-time inventory. The ownership factor can be seen as a significant contributor to this knowledge category. This provides the additional insight that knowl-edge emerges in two forms, including the knowledge owned by one company and the knowledge accessible for all companies.

In this situation, when knowledge has been highlighted as a strategic resource for improving business performance, organizations need to improve their capabilities in knowledge management to identify and meet customers’ emerging needs in today’s business environment, where competitors have been trying to attract more customers. t&d

references Davenport, TH & Prusak, L 1998, Working knowledge, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA. Long, DWD & Fahey, L 2000 ‘Diagnosing cultural barriers to knowledge management’, The Academy of Management Executive, vol. 14, no. 4, p. 113-127. Matusik, SF 1998, ‘The Utilization of Contingent Work, Knowledge Creation, and Com-petitive Advantage’, The Academy of Management Review, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 680-697.



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