Review of the common leadership behaviours in the Ministry of Science

and Technology of Venezuela.

LIST OF CONTENT.

Introduction. 4

1. Definition of Leadership. 5

2. Leadership in the Ministry of Science and Technology of Venezuela. 6

2.1. Contextualisation of the organisation. 6

2.1.1. Internal influences over the organisational leadership. 6

2.1.2. External influences over the organisational leadership. 7

3. Review of the current leadership behaviours in the organisation. 9

3.1. Transformational leadership. 9

3.2. Transactional leadership. 9

3.3. Situational leadership. 10

4. Alternative useful leadership theories in the organisation. 11

4.1. Authentic leadership. 11

4.2. Ethical leadership. 11

Conclusions. 13

List of references. 14

Bibliography. 16

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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES.

Figure 1. Venezuela. 8

Table 1. Values, Principles and expected conduct in the MSTV. 13

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INTRODUCTION.

The present report aims at reviewing the leadership approaches and styles that are common in the Ministry of Science and Technology of Venezuela (MSTV), in order to identify how the organisational culture, its corporate governance and its external environment shape its leadership styles.

Regarding this, the report will also compare alternative leadership theories to evaluate their validity in the leadership practices of the MSTV. Additionally, it will explore the negative and positive side of the highlighted leadership styles in theory and practice, to provide a critical discussion and deepen the understanding of leadership.

Consequently, it will be presented several leadership examples from the MSTV to associate the leadership theories to the practice and recognise the theoretical literature of leadership in the organisational day to day behaviours.

Under this perspective, the report will be structured as follows: the first section will discuss what leadership is, contrasting three concepts to reach a standard understanding. Later, it will be examined the MSTV's background and the national culture of Venezuela in order to delimit the internal and external context of the study case. As a subsequent subdivision, it will be discussed three leadership styles, which, are present in the organisation with practical examples and comparing the negative and positive consequences of these approaches.

The next point to discuss will be alternative leadership theories, which, consider behaviours, knowledge, skills, ethics, values and other characteristics expected of effective leaders in the organisation to complement the previous analysis and further explain the leadership behaviours. Finally, the report's content and final thoughts will be summarised in a brief conclusion at the end of the report.

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1. Definition of Leadership.

As has been mentioned previously, the first section will discuss the concept of leadership, contrasting different definitions to reach a consensus of the appropriate leadership term.

Following this, Northouse (2010: 5) states that leadership is a “process whereby an individual influences a group [...] to achieve a common goal”.

Identically, Cohen (1990: 9) considers leadership as an art, which, focus on “influencing others to their maximum performance to accomplish any task” and Kouzes and Posner (1995: 30) concluded that “leadership is the art of mobilizing others” to achieve the organisational “shared aspirations”.

As noted above, leadership is an accessible concept, characterised by the capacity to influence others to accomplish tasks, but it is just a general characterisation because it is not possible to conceptualised leadership in a definitive way and “none of the studies conducted in the last 50 years has produced a clear profile of the ideal leader” (George et al, 2007).

Therefore, there is no definitive concept of leadership and it seems to be evolving. However, in this report it will be understood as the capacity to influence others to achieve certain goals.

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2. Leadership in the Ministry of Science and Technology of Venezuela.

2.1. Contextualisation of the organisation.

To contextualise the internal and external factors that mould the leadership behaviours of the Ministry of Science and Technology of Venezuela (MSTV), it is necessary first to re-view what is the MSTV and its background.

The MSTV was founded in the year 1999 to be the leading institution in science, technology and innovation of the country, issuing laws and politics in the subject (Urbáez et al, 2014: 111). Now, it is a large organisation, which, is composed of more than 60 smaller institutions specialised in diverse areas of science and technology, to ensure the scientific progress of Venezuela (Rincón, 2009: 64).

Due to these facts, the MSTV is a strategic organisation that creates national policies of science and technology and promotes the different branches of science in the local market, schools and universities.

Regarding this, to be the leading institution in science and technology of Venezuela, it is essential to possess internal values, rules and principles to guide these activities and they are described as follows:

2.1.1. Internal influences over the organisational leadership.

The most important influences over the leaders' behaviours in the MSTV are the internal values, principles and mission. These are the set of rules that shape the organisational culture. That is, the “pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group” to adapt new organisational members to the methods of the organisation (Schein, 2010: 18).

In short and to illustrate this point, the mission of the MSTV states that the organisation aims to promote, monitor and evaluate the public policies, plans, programs and national projects that encourage scientific and technological knowledge (Ministry of Science and Technology, 2014).

Likewise, the espoused values of the organisation consider the following elements: cultural and educational integration, ethics, protection of traditional knowledge, transparency, gender equality, coordination of tasks, among others values (Ministry of Science and Technology, 2014).

Generally speaking, the mission and especially, the organisational values shapes the ac-cepted behaviours of leaders in the MSTV. Indeed, leaders are selected because they show these values at work and if they lack some of the aforementioned values, senior managers will encourage leaders to adapt themselves to these values as they need to know what their core values are in order to affirm the shared values of the organisation (Kouzes and Posner, 2012: 16).

Therefore, most of the leaders attempt to follow the organisational values in their managerial practices. For instance, as transparency and integration are part of the values

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of the organisation, leaders of the whole organisation always try to be able to listen to the population's ideas and science users in general (Ministry of Science and Technology, 2009: 9).

On the other hand, the organisation is not just influenced by the internal values and prin-ciples, it is also influenced by its scientific nature as it is expected a rigorous scientific re-search and behaviour in organisations within a scientific culture (Feuer et al, 2002: 9). For example, it is expected to utilise a scientific language as a researcher and apply scientific methodology when reaching conclusions.

In summary, the values and principles of the MSTV are the basic rules that shape the leaders' behaviours and they are expected to be followed by all leaders within the organ-isation.

Later, it is also crucial to analyse certain external factors that moulds the organisation's leadership behaviours.

2.1.2. External influences over the organisational leadership.

The nature of the MSTV is affected by the national culture of Venezuela. Under these cir -cumstances, it will be analysed the leader's accepted practices utilising Hofstede's national cultures analysis.

Figure 1. Venezuela (Hofstede, N.D.).

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Interpreting Hofstede (N.D.) national culture analysis of Venezuela, it is expected a leadership style that reinforces masculinity and power distance, with a tendency of separating top leaders from bottom leaders, but with a collectivist managerial style as individualism is low.

Now, in practical terms, the MSTV indeed follows these cultural dimensions as the leaders tend to have these traits. For instance, a top manager like the minister is expected to share with the subordinates and communities, showing a team spirit and low individualism. As a matter of fact, regarding the team vision and lack of individualism, leaders in the National System of Science and Technology are required to include all stakeholders to promote a new inclusive scientific culture (Ministry of Science and Technology, 2005: 9)

However, it is also important to take into account that senior managers like the minister are also expected to possess a high amount of power and lead thousand of workers at discretion.

Similarly, the national culture is characterised by high degree of indulgence, according to Hofstede, and it is seen in practice as most leaders tend to be transformational and focus on inspiring emotions and sharing, instead of controlling in autocratic ways. Nevertheless, when there is a contingency, leaders adopt a more autocratic style to guide the organisation in times of uncertainty.

To summarise, the national culture definitely influences the leader's behaviours in the MSTV and the expected practices of the leaders are correspondent to the Hofstede theory of national culture.

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3. Review of the current leadership behaviours in the organisation.

As the espoused values and real values may differ (Lencioni, 2002), the internal analysis of the MSTV is not sufficient to reach conclusions and the external context's analysis is not enough either, because not just the external environment shapes the leaders as “leadership emerges from your life story” (George et al, 2007). Thus, this section of the report is intended to revise the most common leadership styles in the MSTV today.

In this regard, it has been detected at least three principal leadership styles and they are discussed in the following paragraphs.

3.1. Transformational leadership.

Northouse (2013: 185) conceptualise transformational leadership as a process that aims at changing and transforming people through values, emotions, ethics and long-term goals.

In addition, transformational leadership refers to raising subordinates' consciousness about the essential values and methods to reach the organisation’s outcomes (Burns, 1978: 141).

Having considered Northouse and Burns' concepts of transformational leadership, it can be stated that transformational leadership concentrates in transforming people through inspiration, emotions and raising the level of consciousness in order to achieve the organisational goals.

Consequently, transformational leadership is good for motivating, but just relying on emotion and motivation will not solve all problems, and obviously, not all leaders are charismatic enough to motivate the whole organisation's stakeholders. As a result, this leadership style has advantages and disadvantages.

In the specific case of the MSTV, transformational leadership is exemplified in the last minister's speeches, in which, he used to emphasise on motivational factors, encouraging the group to achieve the organisational goals and the importance of teamwork to keep the group allied and accomplish the organisation's objectives. But, on the other hand, it was noticeable that not all workers were motivated only by inspiring speeches and they preferred, for example, a transactional style for motivating themselves.

3.2. Transactional leadership.

Transactional leadership centres its attention in “the exchanges that occur between leaders and their followers” (Northouse, 2013: 186).

Similarly, transactional leadership refers to the style, in which, the leader focuses on the exchanges that occur between followers and leaders in the context of a system of gratification, particularly designed to increase organisational and individual achievements (Bass, 1985, as cited in McCleskey, 2014: 122).

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After considering both concepts, the second definition explains much better what transformational leadership is, a gratification system to maximise organisational productivity. Nevertheless, Burns (1978, as cited in McCleskey, 2014: 122) warns leaders that this style is good for the short-term, but in the long-term the system of gratification tend to “create resentments between the participants” and not to increase productivity.

To explain this theory in the practice, in the MSTV, some workers are rewarded with higher bonuses in the end of the year for supporting political activities and the ones who do not, are penalised with lower bonuses, which, create a system of gratification and penalisation and it produces contradictory results, gratifying some individual and creating resentment in others.

3. 3. Situational leadership.

Contrary to transformational leadership, situational leadership suggest that effectiveness in leadership lies in the understanding of every situation and the appropriate response to that circumstance, “rather than a charismatic leader with a large group of dedicated followers” (Graeff, 1997; Grint, 2011, as cited in McCleskey, 2014: 118).

Furthermore, situational leadership focuses on leading in situations that “demand different kinds of leadership”, adapting the style to the demands of different situations (Northouse, 2013: 99).

In the light of these conceptualisations, it is remarked that the situational leadership is adapting the leadership style to particular events, instead of responding to the situation with a limited style, which, can not be appropriate.

The fact that situational leadership is more adaptable than transformational leadership and it is pretended to fit all kind of situations do not make this leadership style a panacea. In fact, it is complicated to be aware of what leadership style would fit in a particular situation, which, makes it ambiguous (McCleskey, 2014: 118).

Now, to illustrate the situational leadership in the MSTV, when emergencies arise like the sudden increase in the charge of work, some departmental leaders change from transformational leadership to an authoritative leadership style to accomplish deadlines and solve the problems in the context of the emergency. Now, as a critical comment, it is necessary to state that authoritative leadership is not the only choice to lead under pressure as it cannot be a default style and some other leadership styles can be considered to face this kind of situations.

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4. Alternative useful leadership theories in the organisation.

In this final section, it will be critically compared other leadership theories to appraise their utility in the analysis of the leaders’ behaviours in the MSTV, taking into account knowledge, ethics, behaviours, skills, values and other characteristics demanded in effective leadership. To make this critical comparison between theory and practice, it will be discuss two theories, authentic leadership and ethical leadership.

4.1. Authentic leadership.

Authentic leadership is understood as a psychological pattern of leaders to behave with ethics and traits like “self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency” (Walumbwa et al, 2008, as cited in Northouse, 2013: 254).

Besides, authentic leaders “act in accordance with deep personal values and convictions, to build credibility and win the respect and trust of followers’’ (Avolio et al, 2004: 806).

Therefore, authentic leadership theory is based on psychological factors like strong ethics, deep values and respect for others. However, “trust and confidence in the ethics of leaders has declined considerably over recent decades, and may even be at an all-time low” due to the scandals in big corporations (McKiernan, 2012; Mendes and Wilke, 2013, as cited in Sendjaya et al, 2016: 125).

Particularly, in the MSTV, some leaders are a perfect match with the authentic leader theory and some are not as it is more a psychological factor than an organisational one.

For instance, the last vice-minister in charge of my department, used to ask for feedback after every activity in order to establish a relation between leader and followers based on transparency and strong belief that everybody should be listened (Walumbwa et al, 2008, as cited in Northouse, 2013: 254) and these are positive values of authentic leadership to show publicly. At the same time, it has a negative side as some managers tend to behave rigidly and disrespectful with the less productive workers alluding a strong work ethics.

As a consequence, authentic leadership is subjective and it can be positive or negative depending on the situation.

4.2. Ethical leadership.

Ethical leadership is a leadership perspective concerned with the values and morals desirable for individuals and society (Northouse, 2013: 424). Besides, it can also be seen as the “people’s subjective perception of fairness in organizations” (Xu et al, 2016: 494).

Having examined both concepts, it can be said that ethical leadership is considering individual, organisational and societal values and principles in the activities of leaders with justice and fairness. However, it is also noticeable that ethical leadership is in its early stage and unfortunately, it does not have strong theoretical foundations today (Northouse, 2013: 437) and on the other hand, as it was mentioned by Xu et al (2016:494), it is very subjective to apply.

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Due to these facts, it should be applied taking into consideration psychological factor of the leader, trying to translate the personal values to the leadership theory. For instance, having values such as “concern for others”, in leadership theory, could be interpreted as creating a good work environment, where workers are provided job security, respected and allowed to grow as professionals (George et al, 2007).

Simultaneously and deepening in the examples, it is noteworthy that the ethical leadership in the particular case of the MSTV, is normally exerted taking into account the principles and values of the organisation that shapes the leaders' behaviours, so leaders can be the organizations’ ambassadors of shared values (Northouse, 2013: 75).

To further illustrate this point, ethics are summarised in the values, principles and expected conduct in the organisation. As an example, four values and principles are shown as follows:

Values Principles and expected conduct:

Confidentiality Authenticity and availability of information to encourage the use of information technologies to ensure access to public information.

Integrity Principles of ethics for life in scientific and technological activities, regarding the manipulation or direct or indirect involvement of living beings.

Gender equality

Ensure gender equality and equal opportunities for all.

Justice Ensure the full right to permanent, continuous and quality education.

Table 1. Values, principles and expected conduct in the MSTV (Ministry of Science and Technology, 2014).

As has been noted, in the MSTV, the ethical leadership is regulated and the big majority of the leaders choose to follow the organisational regulations as expected, due to the limitations established by the values and principles of the organisation. For example, in the MSTV the gender equality is indeed a value that is obeyed, because there is no major difference in the quantity of male and female workers in the organisation.

On the other side, not all cases are perfect examples of ethical leadership because there have been cases. in which, the financial department that show discrepancies between the spending and the costs.

As a final reflection, ethics is fundamental to leadership theories because the process of influence and the need to engage subordinates in accomplishing organisational goals should be done within the organisation’s values and ethical limits (Northouse, 2013: 428).

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CONCLUSIONS.

The report has discussed the definition of leadership, the relevant leadership approaches and behaviours that are common in the MSTV, analysing the internal and external influences on leadership in the organisation, the most common leadership styles, its examples and the relationship between the ethics and the practices in the MSTV.

Concerning this, it is concluded that the MSTV has various leadership styles that seems to be effective under the national culture it is in. Besides, the most common leadership styles are normally ethical and the theory relates perfectly with the practices of the aforementioned organisation.

As a final point and to make recommendations, it would be pertinent, inside the organisation, to promote the assessment of leaders and their leadership styles to conclude what is the kind of leadership that is more effective and appreciated by workers. On the other side, it is suggested to further investigate the leadership styles in the MSTV because it is a large organisation and it is a generalisation to determine just with observation what are the most typical leadership styles in the MSTV.

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