Leadership Style of Ivan Seidenberg Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Leadership Style of Ivan Seidenberg - Essay Example Mr Seidenberg is regarded as one of the key element responsible for several successful mergers and acquisitions including NYNEX Corporation, Bell Corporation, MCI Inc and GTE Corporation in the years 1997, 2000 and 2006 respectively. He has also served as a director BlackRock International and Honeywell International Inc since 2011 (Forbes, 2013). Although Mr Seidenberg has given his resignation from his CEO post from Verizon communication Inc (Verizon), he will remain chairman of the board (Wall Street Journal, 2013). It is observed that Mr. Seidenberg had exhibited transformational leadership style at multiple stages and various situations. Transformational leadership skills include dealing with the complexity of the management problems effectively and with ease. Transformational theory was defined by theorist James McGregnor in the year 1978 (Sadler, 2003). Transformational leadership skills lead to excellent performance of the employees which are usually beyond the expectation of the organizations. Mr Seidenberg has always been promoting a congenial work environment which helped in achievement of targets and improved the organizational culture. The leadership style exhibited by Mr Seidenberg helped in promoting active participation in decision making, moral and social support, cooperation, etc. (Noguchi, 2005). Organizational Structure & Verizon Communications Under the control of Mr Seidenberg, Verizon Communications had developed a mechanistic and bureaucratic structure which is appropriate for the mass production and makes the employees task oriented. The structure of the organization determines the culture and the performance of the employees. It is believed that organizations are rational entities and the employees are considered as economic components (Martnez-Leon and Martnez-Garca, 2011). The attributes which are found in bureaucratic and mechanistic organizational structure are as follows: Different hierarchy levels where the authority emanates fro m the top level managers to the middle level managers and lower level managers (Martnez-Leon and Martnez-Garca, 2011). Intense work division which helps in generating work specialization A high degree of horizontal differentiation where certain employees are given specialized roles and responsibilities. High formalization which is derived from strict compliance to the formal rules and regulations (Martnez-Leon and Martnez-Garca, 2011). High relational complexity and centralization deriving from the managers need to coordinate the organizational activities which would help in developing effective control over employees and problem resolution. The organizational structure at Verizon had a strong hierarchical control, and the top level managers, especially the CEO, were responsible for decision making. The CEO was responsible for the creation of formalized groups, rules, protocols and procedures. The decision and information disseminated from the top level to the low level managers. Th e job duties, responsibilities and procedure are clearly defined. Although high centralization helps in improving the existing process, it can reduce the innovation procedure (Dastmalchian and Blyton, 1992).