Leadership and Organizational behavior

I am looking for an expert to review my paper to make sure that it meets all the requirements to be published in the journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies. The expert must read, edit, correct, and make changes if needed or required.

Title of research paper:                Effective Leadership Impact on The Reduction of Food Shortage in Ivory Coast or Cote d’Ivoire

Student Name:                                                 Kassi Tchankpa

Student email:                                  ktchankpa@yahoo.com

INTRODUCTION

According to  data published by www.CEICdata.com, the food production shortage as well as the  expenditures associated to food import in the West African country of Cote d’Ivoire or Ivory Coast were negligible in 1984. From that date, the country has experienced a continued increase in food import costing the government about 281 454 300 CFA in local currency in the 2009-2010 season, an equivalent of about 563,000.00 US dollars, which constitute a lot of money per the standard of living of the population. Food is an essential commodity for the human population and as such a country must not rely exclusively on food import to feed its population as natural disasters such as drought, flood, diseases of any kind under the form of epidemic or pandemic can strike countries that export food, thereby drastically decreasing food export and increasing food shortage in importing countries resulting in food inflation as well as food crises and conflicts.

As a result, a group of professionals including myself, came to the determination that something needed to done to alleviate the situation. We decided to be part of the solution. We met and developed a business plan, created a company focused on creating a pilot project to study and research the root cause of the food shortage in the country, and assist some rural communities in increasing the food production for their well-being and the well-being of others.  The organization was called “National Union for Development”, “NUD” in short. It was a non-governmental Organization, that is, an organization that  operates independently from the government and also a non-profit organization, that is, an organization that is created for purposes other than profit  and in which the income is not distributed to its owners but used to provide services and goods to the population.  The project is about the reduction of food shortage in rural Cote d’Ivoire or Ivory Coast. An initiative designed to improve the availability and quality of food production and consumption in rural Cote d’Ivoire or Ivory Coast and the country as a whole . In this paper, I focus on the role that our team, including myself, played in providing an effective leadership in designing and implementing  change for the benefit of the communities involved.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The problem is the shortage of food on the public markets in Cote d’ivoire or  Ivory Coast. This issue has been going on for decades. It is important to note that many  international organizations including The World Bank and The United Nations, made several attempts to design and implement projects aimed at reducing food shortages and increasing food production in the country but failed, and there were no national organizations in the country that were undertaking such initiatives as everything was left to the government agencies. The country was relying on food import from other countries to cover its food needs. To be part of the solution, we decided to be part of the change. Our preliminary survey shows that people are eager to farm in villages across the country, so what was missing and why? In this   project paper on leadership and organizational behavior, I will will focus on the following topic: “Effective Leadership Impact” as we decided to be part of the change.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The purpose of this literature review is to address scholarly resources used in this paper. The general topic is about leadership and organizational behaviors. The paper is about “effective leadership impact” on a community of farmers in Ivory Coast. More scholars are studying and researching how people, individually or as a group, can improve their leadership skills and their behaviors in their  organizations. As we live in a dynamic, unpredictable, and complex world, made of people different from one another, organizational behaviors are gaining more interests from researchers and scholars, focusing on providing solutions and understanding of human behaviors. The review is to support the analysis of my research and study about a food production program to reduce food shortage in communities in Ivory Coast. In this review, we will focus on literature dealing with leadership and organizational behaviors, and specifically on “effective leadership impact”. As a result, I will not include any literature that does not outline how “effective leadership” can improve an organization goals and objectives using qualitative and quantitative approaches.

References:

a)

“on What Leaders Really Do”, by John P. Kotter. In this book, the author publishes

the ten observations that he made as a result of intensive research and study on

leadership. The observations made him draw the following conclusion in his book

in the following way: “people say “leadership”, but describe “management””. This

book is a mass of all books, and articles published by the author as he said in his

own words. This book help clear the confusion between leadership and

management in organizations. His fourth observation states: “The issue of

leadership is centrally important here because leadership is different from

management, and the primary force behind successful change is the former, not

the latter. Without sufficient leadership, the probability of mistakes increases

greatly and the probability of success decreases accordingly. What I found most

relevant are the following chapters: “Chapter 2” in the book about “Leadership

and Change” and the strategies for change. “Chapter 3” about “What Leaders

Really Do”, in which he describe the function of leadership and “Chapter 4”, about

“Leading the Change”, in which he outlines the reasons behind transformation

efforts change failure.

b)

“Founding Fathers on Leadership”, by Donald T. Phillips. In this book, the author

discuss the leadership styles used by the founding fathers to liberate America and

lead the country to independence. What I found relevant and helpful for my

research and study is about “Chapter 2”, about “Create a Vision, Set  Goals, and

Involve Everyone”; “Chapter 4”, about “Inspire the Masses”; “Chapter 5”, about

“First Listen, Then communicate”.

c)

“The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader”, by John C. Maxwell. In this, the

author, discussed the qualities that a leader should posses to be an effective

leader. What I found relevant and helpful for my research and study, is about

“Chapter 11”, “Listening: To connect with their hearts, Use Your Ears”; “Chapter

15”, “Relationships: If You Can Get Along, They Will Go Along”; “Chapter 20”,

“Teachability: To Keep Leading, Keep Learning” and “Chapter 21”, “Vision: You

Can Seize Only What You Can See”.

d)

“The Leadership Mystique”, by Manfred Kets De vries. In this book, the author

discussed the importance of leadership. What I found relevant and helpful for my

research and my study is in the following chapters: “Chapter 1”, “Leadership in a

Dissonant Voice”. “Chapter 8”, Achieving Personal and Organizational Change”

, discussed the effectiveness of leadership. “Chapter 9”, “Characteristics of

Effective Leadership”, he discussed that leadership is a property and a process.

e)

“Conflict and Resolution”, by Barbara A. Nagle Lechman. In her book, the author

discussed the different sources of conflict and the resolution or management

strategies.  What I found relevant and helpful for my research and study is in the

following chapters: “Chapter 2”, “Conflict” is about understanding conflicts.

“Chapter 3”, “Negociation”, how to make it successful.

f)

“Organizational Behavior, 12^th Edition” by Schermerhorn, Osborn, Hunt and Uhl-

Bien. In this book, the authors provide many practical aspects of effective

leadership. What I found relevant and useful for my research and study is the

great material (case studies, examples, discussions) provided by the book in

“Chapter 10”, “Chapter 11”,  “Chapter 13”, and “Chapter 14”. “Leaders make

things happen”, through directive, supportive, achievement-oriented and

participative approaches. In addition, the book provides strategies how to deal

with effective leadership through moral, and shared approaches. Several

questions and answers are also discussed to identify conflicts and how to manage

them.

g)

“The resolution of African conflicts: the management of conflict resolution &

post–conflict reconstruction” , by Alfred Nhema, Alfred Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe . In

their book, the authors discussed approaches to resolve conflict in Africa through

negotiation and mediation between tribes, and between tribes and governments.

These approaches are valuable in our research and study in this paper since the

study took place in a country in Africa.

Opinions and Contrasts:

Although the focus of our research and study is not about a business, but about

communities in Ivory Coast (Africa), with different culture and values from

American businesses, I believe that there are several strategies in leadership and

organizational behaviors supported by the scholars mentioned in the references

above that are beneficial to the topic of our research and study which is about

“Effective leadership impact”.  But communities of people are not businesses, and

that contrast needs to be managed carefully when applying the strategies of

organizational behaviors, because of the great deal of sensitivity: for example, it

will not be a good idea to force anything on communities because there are

independent and self-governed. So, anything one brings to the communities

should be based on consensus, mutual interests, negotiation, collaboration,

cooperation, understanding and participation.

ANALYSIS

The food shortage issue is a result of failed government policies that started  after 1984 in Cote d’Ivoire or Ivory Coast. The country was self-sufficient in food production until  1984 and beyond. During that period, the late President Houphouet Boigny engaged the country in massive food production projects across the different regions. His statement was:”a hungry man is not a free man”. After his death in 1993, his predecessors moved away from self-sufficiency to dependency. They started importing food at a larger scale, undercutting the local farmers and throwing them out of business. As a result, the farmers turned to industrial crops such as rubber, cocoa, timber, palm tree, coconut tree, and more. Gradually and steadily, the acreage used for food production fell, paving the way to export crops. The people in the big cities started feeling the pinch of high food prices. Small groups of protesters got larger and larger and the crackdown by the government security forces was alarming. International organizations such as The World Bank and The United Nations started funding projects aimed at growing more food but failed. While on my way to my village, I saw heavy farming equipments broken  and abandoned on several farmlands. There were no traces of crops around.  Our first step was to gather enough information to get a complete picture of the situation, in order to find the root cause. This decision supports what John C. Maxwell stated in his book titled: “The 21 indispensable qualities of a leader”, in which he states: “Discernment is an indispensable quality of a leader who desires to maximize effectiveness… Discernment enables a leader to see a partial picture, fill in the missing pieces intuitively, and find the real heart of a matter”. To

accomplish it, we started by conducting a survey through questionnaires in the

three counties selected: a Northern county, a Southern county, and an Eastern

county. The people living in these separate counties have different cultures. We

made sure that the three counties selected for the study have already been

exposed to some kind of food growing programs and the questionnaires were

sent randomly to the respondents. When they were asked “how much of their

land is used to grow food compare with growing something else?”, the

percentage was (15-20%) per county for land used to grow food and (80-85%) per

county for land used to grow something else. When they were asked “why that is

the case?”, the answers were overwhelming in the tree counties: “no money, no

rewards, and no support.” When they were asked “did you have any leadership

issues?”, the answers, again, was overwhelming in the three counties: “ the

leadership abandoned us, they all lived in the capital city, and we rarely saw them

in our county”. When they were asked “are you still interested in growing food?”,

the answer were once again overwhelming: “yes, if the previous mistakes could

be corrected.”

After a complete analysis of the questionnaires’ results, we met to develop an

action plan. It starts by creating a vision and priorities, communicate clearly the

vision, set goals and involve everyone to achieve success. This strategy is

supported by Donald T. Phillips in his book titled, “Founding Fathers on

Leadership”,  in which he states: “effective visions provide context, give purpose,

and establish meaning. They inspire people to mobilize and move in the same

general direction. And once an accepted vision in implemented, a consensus

builds that often results in enhanced understanding of the organization’s overall

mission”. In his book titled, “principle-Centered Leadership”, the author Stephen

1. Covey, wrote that successful leadership “begin with the end in mind”. Our

vision was to create a positive impact on the farmers who enrolled in the food

growing program and at the same time make a positive impact on their

communities and the country as a whole. In their book titled “Organizational

Behavior, 12^th Edition” by Schermerhorn, Osborn, Hunt and Uhl-Bien, they define

leadership as: “the process of influencing others and the process of facilitation

individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives”. It is in that

sense that we decided to use our leadership with the farming communities to

make a difference in their lives. The analysis of the survey revealed to us the

communities’ resistance and the luck of trust that has emerged as a result of

negative antecedents. So, we have to be able to convince them that what we

were going to do is different from what they were exposed before. In his book,

titled, “The Leadership Mystique”, by Manfred Kets De Vries, the author wrote:

“the challenge of effective leadership is to break out of the box”. So, by not

repeating the same mistakes as before, we will be on a positive path to success. In

his book titled, “on what leaders really do” by John P. Kotter, the author wrote: “It

must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more

doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order

of things”. We wanted to bring about change in the communities, and the people

concerned have gone through some bad experience and we should be warned

about it and be careful the way we conduct things. Now, we should communicate

clearly our vision and priorities to the different communities involved, and we did

so by travelling to the different communities, meeting with the members, share

with them what we plan to do and how we plan to do it, what we are expecting

from each of them, and what they should expect from us, ask them for their

feedback. We made sure that our message was simple and clear and

communicated in the local languages so everyone understands. This strategy is

also supported by Donald T. Phillips, in his book titled, “Founding Fathers on

Leadership” in which he states: “communication is not just what you say. It is also

how you say it…The key to effective communication is simplicity”. One month

after the first round of meetings with the three communities, we received a

considerable feedback with questions, opinions, suggestions, recommendations,

and more importantly an invitation by the three communities for a second visit. That shows a

great deal of interests in the project from the point of the communities and also our strategies

to lead a positive change. At the second meetings with the members of the three communities,

the crowds were bigger and more enthusiastic. As we did before during the first round of

meetings, we detailed to the members our commitment to a positive change for their well-

being and the well-being of others. We provided alternative ways for all to reach our common

desire goal and encouragement through the ability to bounce back from failure and keep

forging ahead. As we clearly stated to them, our primary purpose was to serve the community

because we were part of the community, and that a transformation approach is the best way to

achieve our shared goals and objectives. In their book, titled, “Organizational Behavior, 12^th

Edition” by Schermerhorn, Osborn, Hunt and Uhl-Bien, the authors wrote: “Leaders make

things happen”, through directive, supportive, achievement-oriented and participative

approaches to leadership. These approaches were overwhelmingly welcomed and encouraged

at the meetings, as positive aspects of the transformation. The transformation involves tasks

that needed to be worked on, funding and resources allocated to each task and projects,

achievement of goals for production targets, and a bi-directional communication between

management and subordinates. We wanted to make sure that the people in the communities

were happy so that morale remains high and achievement sustained for a long term.  After

carefully diagnosing the resistance through the survey of questionnaires and direct contacts,

our action plan directed us to offer ways to deal with it. In his book titled, “on What Leaders

Really Do”, by John P. Kotter, the author stressed the four reasons that make people to resist

change and how to deal with it. We offered to educate the members of the communities, make

them participate and involve in the change process, facilitate and support them, and make

room for negotiation and agreement to avoid the mistakes of the past. Resistance leads to

conflicts, so it was important to us to make sure that the members of the communities be

educated about how to prevent them from happening. In the book, titled, “Conflict and

resolution”, by Barbara A. Nagle Lechman, the author wrote: “with proper conflict management

skills, potential conflicts can be averted or defused — and even turned into a positive source for

improved inter-personal relationships and personal growth.  The key is not to avoid conflict,…,

but to recognize it and manage it skillfully to produce the best outcome”. We adopted a

strategy based on educating the members of the communities on the sources of conflict, such

as miscommunication, differences, anger, mistrust, fear, responsibility, expectations, roles,

resources, and difficult people. And then, educate the members of the communities on conflict

management.

In our class discussion on conflict management, Professor Patrick Kinane wrote: “There are five

direct and five indirect conflict management strategies.  The five direct strategies meet conflict

head on and are:  (1) Avoidance – downplaying disagreement, failing to participate in the

situation, staying neutral at all costs; (2) Smoothing or accommodation – letting the other’s

wishes rule, smoothing over differences to maintain a superficial harmony; (3) Competition and

authoritative command – working against the wishes of the other party, fighting to dominate in

a win-lose competition, and/or exercising formal authority to come to the desired conclusion;

(4) Compromise – working toward partial satisfaction of everyone’s concerns, seeking

“acceptable” rather than “optimal” solutions so that no one really wins or loses outright; (5)

Collaboration and problem solving – seeking true satisfaction of everyone’s concerns by working

through differences, finding and solving problems so that everyone gains.  The five indirect

strategies, which share the common ground of avoiding direct dealings with personalities, are:

(1) Reduced interdependence – taking action to eliminate or reduce the required contact

between conflicting parties (examples could include decoupling, buffering, linking-pin roles, or

personal example;

(2) Appeals to common goals – focuses the attention of potentially conflicting individuals and

teams on one mutually desirable goal; (3) Hierarchical referral – using the chain of command

for a decision;

(4) Altering scripts and myths – breaking established behavior patterns that

downplay conflict resolution. Functional conflict is constructive and beneficial bringing to light

information that aids in steering toward a just and positive solution and creative and innovative

improvement.  A dysfunctional conflict is disruptive and suppressed information hindering the

path to an equitable solution suppressing creativity and innovation.”

These communities have long been subject to several types of conflicts, conflicts about

farmlands, conflicts about leaderships, conflicts about natives and migrants, and conflicts with

government officials. Conflict management is badly needed in all these communities and the

resolution provided by Professor Patrick Kinane was of great use and success in our conquest

for a more peaceful and stable communities.

In their book, “The resolution of African conflicts: the management of conflict resolution &

post–conflict reconstruction” , by Alfred Nhema, Alfred Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe , the authors

wrote: “… distinguish the individual and collective actors involved in conflicts. This idea is based

on the premise that conflicts are the result of differences in the interests of actors and that the

management or resolution of conflicts consists in reconciling the different interests by creating

win-win situations for all relevant stakeholders”. As part of our strategies, we pushed

reconciliation and negotiation to resolve conflicts in the communities broken by conflicts.

 

SOLUTIONS

Based on the complexity of the food shortage crisis, and also the fact that we were dealing with

communities of people and not businesses, we made sure that our workable solutions were in

tandem with the culture and values of the people.

In this first workable solution, that we selected, we focused on building a strong and positive

relationship with the communities involved. In his book titled, “the 21 indispensable qualities of

a leader”, by John C. Maxwell, the author wrote: “Relationships: If You Get Along, They’ll Go

Along”. To do it, we started by creating contacts with the leaders of the different communities

by following their cultures and their way of lives. For example, we first met with the Kings and/or the

Chiefs, and their elders, and explained them what we wanted to do in their communities and asked for

their supports as their culture, traditions, customs, and way of life demands.

In his book, titled “The Leadership Mystique”, by Manfred Kets De Vries, the author

wrote: “Leaders are, in effect, the high priests of their organizational culture”. Since we have no

information on the credibility of the people living in the communities, we asked the Kings or the

Chiefs and their leadership team to provide us credible people so we can work with them. In

Ivory Coast, as in Africa in general, people listen and trust more their Kings or Chiefs than any

government official. The persons selected by the Kings or the Chiesf and their leadership teams,

held meetings and invited us to be part of any topic discussions pertaining to the different

phases of the projects, and the importance of building an effective team based on efficiency,

goal-directed, adequate resources, competency and motivation, supportive, productive and

commitment to continuous improvement and adaptation. We did not hold the leadership

involved in the projects to ourselves, but we transferred the leadership to the people in the

communities. In his book titled, “the 21 indispensable qualities of a leader”, by John C. Maxwell,

the author wrote: “Servanthood: To get ahead, Put Others First”. The leadership transfer was

done through a transition that involved all required training to create an effective and team-

based community. In addition, as part of our engagement with the communities, we scheduled

monthly visits to follow up and assessed the progress made and helped resolve any potential

obstacles. At the communities’ request, we kept some of our management team onsite in the

communities as long as needed to support them. We also made funds available to the

communities to allow for travel expenses to our office in the capital city.  The advantage of this

approach is that it produced the results we wanted, because we were able to convince and

motivate the communities to double their current food production level. The disadvantage was

the pressure on prices due the government increase food import program. So the farmers were

forced to set a limit on the acreage of land used for food production.

In this second workable solution, that we did not select, we could have gone in as a well funded

and powerful business, with an establish business plan, and a goal to generate revenue for our

organization. Using this approach, we could have acquired or bought land to grow food. Then

we could have hired workers from the communities or other communities as temporary and/or

permanent, depending on the business plan and the funds allocated to the project. If required,

we could have trained the workers to do the work. In that situation, we could apply an

organizational type of leadership instead of a community based type of leadership. Since the

organization was profit-oriented, if the business was not financially sound, we could have fired

the workers. In addition, we could have grown food that the communities were used to eating.

For example, we could not have grown potatoes if the people did not eat potatoes, because we

could not been able to sell the food to the communities, although it was not required. As a

private business, we did not have any obligations to comply with the communities’ culture and

other values, because our goal was profit-oriented. After we grew the food, we could have sold

for profit. In this situation, we could apply profit-oriented business effectiveness leadership

strategies as described by James G. Clawson of Darden School of Business. They are: (1)

clarifying who you are (personal values and mission), (2) clarifying what you want (strategic

vision), (3) clarifying what others can contribute (participative leadership), (4) supporting others

so they can contribute (organizational redesign), (5) relentlessness, and (6) monitoring and

celebrating progress. The advantage is that this approach is purely business oriented with focus

on profit. As a result, the communities are not secure as the business has no obligations to

assist in social and economic development activities. The disadvantage is that the communities

are not empowered to be team-based communities and workers may leave if they were not

satisfied.

A third workable solution, that we did not select, could be a combination of the two

approaches, discussed above, that is, a hybrid approach. The hybrid approach could combine

the better of the two previous approaches. For example, empower the communities to be

team-based organizations as we discussed in the first approach, and give them the possibility to

combine efforts to be powerful community business organizations as discussed in the second

approach. The advantage of this approach is that it provides flexibility, motivation, and success

at the communities’ level and at the individual level. The communities could compete on the

food market. The disadvantage is that the hybrid structure is more complex and requires a

more tedious design, implementation, leadership and management approach.

REFLECTION

This paper allows everyone to understand how valuable leadership and

organizational behaviors is. Many of us engaged in many activities in our lives based on what we

learned in schools, how we were brought up,  and our relationships with others without been aware of

the mistakes we made and continue to make could be corrected to make us better persons.  Understand

a lot more about our own behaviors and human behaviors create a positive impact on us and make us

better people by improving our relationships with others in our private lives as well as public lives.

REFERENCES

John P. Kotter (1996). on What Leaders Really Do. Boston, Mass., Harvard Business School Press, c1996.

Donald T. Phillips (1997). The founding fathers on leadership: classic teamwork in changing time. New York, NY: Warner book, c1997.

John C. Maxwell (1999). The 21 indispensable qualities of a leader: becoming the person that people will want to follow. Nashville, TN : T. Nelson, c1999.

Alfred Nhema, Paul Tiyambe Zeleza (2008). The resolution of African conflicts: the management of conflict resolution & post-conflict reconstruction. Addis Ababa : Ossrea ; Oxford : James Currey ; Athens, OH : Ohio University Press ; Pretoria : Unisa Press, 2008.

Barbara A. Nage-Lechman (1997). conflict and resolution : New York : Aspen Law & Business, c1997.

Kets De Vries, Manfred F. R. (2001). The leadership Mystique: an owner’s manual. London: Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2001.

John R. Schermerhorn, Jr., James G. Hunt, Richard N. Osborn, Mary Uhl-Bien (2008). Organizational Behavior. Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, c2008.