HSBC Versus Virgin Group

Question: Discuss about the HSBC Versus Virgin Group. Answer: Authentic Leadership Authentic leadership is normally a specific approach that is employed in leadership which puts in more emphasis on building legitimacy and honest relationships in leadership. The companies that we have put under scrutiny, in this case, are HSBC and the Virgin group. The two companies are great companies that have made so much approach towards making sure that there is enough hat is done to achieve authentic and serious leadership. The both of them have set codes of conducts on leaders in the organization such that the leadership standards that are supposed to be maintained are as high as possible (Weschler Massarik, 2013). HSBC being a financial corporation has set high accounting standards that ensure that all the senior managers and the directors in the organization are in a position to account for whatever takes place in the organization (Stokes Blackburn, 2001). The essence of this is to make sure that the employees do work in harmony and that the spirit is embraced right from the top management all the way to the regular employees in the organization. Through a defined code of conduct that expects that the leaders in the organization should remain as open as possible about any new situations in the organization and report the same to the board at all time (Weschler Massarik, 2013). Such an idea has sparked greater development in the organization to the extent that it has been able to build trust in the organization and that at the same time the senior managers can know any new situation and try to solve them. In this case, authentic leadership in HSBC helps the organization and the employees kee p being informed about the status of their organization and the possible moves that they can be able to take. Virgin Group is a set of companies that take part in the different production of good and service offering as well. What they look at is a system where they can be able to take over the global market and be able to control business. The leadership in the organization is based on honesty and openness. The group of companies have a regular general meeting where the directors are supposed to report on the real situation of the business; this is already an aspect of authentic leadership where they are expected to report nothing more but the mere truth in this case. The board headed by the Chairman has also been tasked with the duty to make sure that the employee relations in the individual companies are intact and that the employees remain informed about the intentions and targets of the group as well. This can promote teamwork and new inspirations to the employees in the company as well. Having come from such a set of companies, one expects that the leaders are all engraved into the fac t that the employees are part of the group and that is even the more reason as to why the company has set up such programs in place. Out of the two companies here, Virgin group presents a better scheme for authentic leadership because they have set it practical and even work more towards achieving the same (Gitsham, 2012). This is because decision making in the HSBC is fully centralized. The company CEO has control over staffing and administration. Therefore, Stuart Gulliver applies autocratic leadership. On the other hand, has focused more on ensuring that their employees are fully aware of the position in the market and also the new decisions that the company intends. The Virgin Group uses democratic leadership style. Problem Solving and Decision making in the Organization Organizations fall into very different situations from time to time. It is very important to take into account that for a company like Virgin Group and HSBC, decision making and problem solving is very important. Therefore, the same way individuals make decisions at a personal level, likewise, the organization arrive at their decisions. Organizations operate in a competitive and problematic environment. Therefore, in their continuance of their operations, they come across problems that demand problem-solving and decision-making skills. In the following discussion, this report compares the problem solving and decision making between HSBC CEO, Stuart Gulliver and Virgin Group, CEO Josh Bayliss. In relation to appropriate decision making, the Josh Bayliss is the CEO who serves as the adopter of the good leadership style. The Virgin Group CEO has established centralized problem solving and decision-making protocol for the key issues affecting the organization. For example where the company suffers problems resulting from the external forces, Josh Bayliss calls out the board to sit down and deliberate on the issues (Grant, 2005). Josh Bayliss has adopted problem solving mechanism for both the internal and external issues. In internal issues, they are solved by regional managers and supervisors while the external issues are present to the board of directors for solutions. For the Stuart Gulliver, it is the duty of the board to make sure that they get to look at the problem presented and come up with an amicable solution within a short period. A good example, in this case, was the problem solving of the HSBC's mortgage lending issue where they were facing a problem coming from their system and not the failure of the company in totality. It is clear that the problem and decision making only involves the company top management. This approach locks out the opinions and suggestions of the lower level employees. Therefore, it indisputable that problem-solving and decision-making technique by Josh Bayliss outperforms that of Stuart Gulliver. At some point in the company, the Virgin group was facing a dilemma as to poor sales. Several directives had been offered from the office of the operations managers but then they were not successful to change that position. At the end of it all, the board had to convene to deliberate over the problem at hand. It was until then that the majority members agreed that more international branches be opened so that the company can have more options in terms of the market to be used. Problem-solving and decision making in Virgin Group is more comprehensive than in HSBC. Josh Bayliss has established processes, guidelines and policies to yield best decisions for the business, employees, management, shareholders and clients. Therefore, the decisions of the company are largely based on the key stakeholders. The philosophies of the Virgin Group founder, Richard Branson, aids in the effective decision-making of the company. This because the companys organization culture is highly influenced the founder. The decision-making process is also faster at Virgin Group with some of the operational and knowledge management decisions being purely left in the hands of the various middle-level managers. However, this is not the case in HSBC whereby only minor decisions are left for the middle-level managers. Bestowing operational managers with authority to make some key decisions under their departments, speeds up solving of petty issues. This saves time and cost because a manager makes a spontaneous judgment instantly to solve the different issues that may occur (Gitsham, 2012). Alternatively, Virgin Group addresses extreme issues about external issues affecting the company and need faster decisions by calling up the board to convene and explore the problem to arrive at a crucial decision. A good example in decision making from virgin group is the number of staff members to be employed. It is the duty of the regional managers to see that the various regional branches have enough staff. Once they make recommendations to that effect, the decision is final not unless that decision has been made out of graft References Stokes, D., Blackburn, R. (2001). Opening up business closures: a study of businesses that close and owners' exit routes: a research report for HSBC. Kingston Business School, Kingston University. Gitsham, M. (2012). Experiential learning for leadership and sustainability at IBM and HSBC. Journal of Management Development, 31(3), 298-307. Grant, R. M. (2005). Richard Branson and the Virgin Group of companies in 2004. In Cases in. Tannenbaum, R., Weschler, I., Massarik, F. (2013). Leadership and organization. Routledge.