Analyse the organisational behaviour issues that contributed to the Assignment

Analyse the organisational behaviour issues that contributed to the leadership challenges at HP - Assignment Example HP began humbly at the back of its entrepreneur’s garage. Engineers David Packard and Bill Hewlett established an unconventional company in the 1950s. They wanted to build a business environment in which members were free to express their ideas and make contributions; they thus created a flat structure. Many individuals in Silicon Valley praised the organisation for its revolutionary ways. During the mid 1990s, employees had a profound respect for the institution. They carried on with their jobs despite the tumultuous environment that pervaded the IT industry. Several individuals felt loyal to the organisation even though the company had to subject them to pay cuts. Members trusted the company’s leaders as strong levels of communication existed in the organisation. These trends altered dramatically when the company decided to hire an external executive for the first time in the late 1990s. The move was initiated by the departing CEO who felt that HP had become complacen t. Some of its competitors in Silicon Valley were exemplars of innovation and growth. It was assumed that an external leader would inject the much-needed fresh insight into the company. However, such a move proved to be ill-conceived because it was the beginning of several tumultuous events in the organisation. At the beginning, CEO Fiorina seemed like a forward-thinker. She initiated various restructures within HP and even lobbied for the acquisition of a competitor - Compaq. The latter move would prove to be her downfall as it failed to yield the expected outcomes. Shortly after a period of disappointing results, Fiorina resigned and made room for Mark Hurd. He was a transformative leader who engaged with his employees. He also supervised a massive layoff and delayered the firm structures. However, he was involved in a personal scandal that led to his elimination. His replacement, Leo Apotheker, was a pale comparison to Hurd. He failed to improve stock performance and even discont inued winning strategies. The final straw fell when he bought a business analytics company called Autonomy. Stock prices decreased tumultuously thereby signalling his elimination. These leadership challenges were also amalgamated by disputes in the board. The paper will examine organisational behaviour issues that led to the firm’s woes. Analysis of the situation Leadership The situational leadership theory assumes that different situations require different leadership traits. Therefore advocates of the school of thought believe that no profile of leadership is perfect for all situations (Hope and Hendry, 1995). Instead, utmost attention should be given to the variables within a certain situation and the right approach selected for them. These variables include the nature of work tasks, peer expectations, other leaders’ expectations, the culture and climate of the organisation, and followers’ responses. In some instances, a leader may need to be a risk taker whi le in some scenarios; the person may have to exhibit nurturing traits (Buchanan and Boddy, 1992). Sometimes it may be preferable to be charismatic while in some situations it would be best to focus on results. Hewlett Packard may have benefited from applications of situational approaches to leadership during the three tenures under analysis. CEO Carl Fiorina appeared to apply the same leadership traits in divergent situations and this could have explained her dissatisfactory performance. She was highly transformative; as soon as she