Culture and Leadership: a Lewinian Perspective of Organizational Problem Solving

Leadership is inherently social. Being grounded in the Lewinian framework of field theory, I am instancing the diverse understanding of social leadership: Uncertainty reduction, making choices, assuming responsibility, and contributing to an orchestral interplay between followers are important functions of social leadership. But this is not sufficient. Organizations are built by concrete agents with concrete needs and overreaching goals. These needs and goals structure the environment (personal culture) of various employees including the leader. Drawing on an empirical case from a bakery as well as on Lewinian cases from the past, I am showing how group atmosphere alone is not able to cover the full range of the follower’s reactions: Here, we need to rely on basic concepts of culture: Employees live and work in their related life spaces. Complexity arises in organizations if the goal pursuit between followers themselves is contradictory, thus if their life spaces are a barrier for each other. The leader needs to realize here that this is not a disadvantage; his role is neither to solve these contradictions nor to present a potential solution. The leader needs to emphasize the interdependence of his followers; s/he can do so by letting them experience the issues and difficulties of the social other encountered in their respective life spaces. Here, followers are getting a glimpse into the life space (personal culture) of a colleague. Such border experiences play a key role for the following democratic exchange of how two previously contradictory life spaces are turned into conciliatory ones.

Challenges of Moksh Organization: an epitome of humanity

Theoretical basis This case uses concepts from Korten’s strategies of development-oriented four generations of non-government organizations (NGOs) and social psychology such as stereotypes, prejudices and actions to explain the social phenomenon. In furtherance, the case presents Aristotle’s approach to creating a message for masses that include use of ethos, pathos and logos. Stood’s (2017) narrative, engagement and technology (NET) model of social leadership was used to analyse the characteristics of social leaders. Research methodology Prima facie the case was developed from primary sources i.e. interviewing with Ashish Thakur. Literature from secondary sources was obtained to make teaching notes. List of references is presented towards the end that depicts the use of textbooks, research papers, websites and blogs. This case was tested in the classroom with MBA students learning business communication. Case overview/synopsis The case dealt with the challenges of an NGO that included conducting respectful last rites of unclaimed dead bodies. As the NGO grew, Ashish Thakur, the initiator of Moksh started facing resource management challenges, namely, volunteer induction, fundraising and managing non-human resources. These issues are deeply embedded in several social stereotypes about dead bodies. Learning covers strategies of four generations of NGO development, a NET model of social leadership, breaking social stereotypes related to dead bodies and last rites (necrophobia), designing social communication and opportunity to assess faulty rationalizations and do critical thinking around the socio-religious practices. Complexity academic level This case is intended to be used for the students of the social leadership or social entrepreneurship, social psychology, business communication or communication skills, organizational behaviour, advertising and social media.

DEDIKASI ULAMA KALIMANTAN DALAM MENGATASI POLEMIK PANDEMI COVID-19

Ulama are community leaders who have the highest religious competence in society and lead Ulama to become religious leaders. In addition to religious leadership, ulama also have social leadership that is able to control many individuals or groups. This study aims to reveal the form of clerical leadership in South Kalimantan during the Covid-19 condition. This study uses a qualitative approach with descriptive analysis. The research data is taken from some information posted on trusted websites. The results of the study show that ulama in South Kalimantan practice religious transformational leadership in society.

Double-Sided Perspective of Business Resilience: Leading SME Rationally and Irrationally During COVID-19

Objective - This study aims to elaborate business resilience of small medium enterprises and to test the impact of rational and irrational antecedents of business resilience during COVID-19 crisis. Methodology/Technique - It is cross-sectional and causal study for testing five hypothesizes. Convenience approach was used as non-probabilistic sampling method. It involved 506 small medium enterprises in Jawa and Sumatera, the biggest islands in Indonesia. Collected data were structured with PLS based Structural Equation Modelling. Findings – The result explained that business resilience is influenced positively, directly, and significantly by business flexibility and workplace spirituality. Business flexibility is influenced by workplace spirituality, pro-social leadership, and alliance capability. Pro-social leadership of owners and/or managers influences implementation of health protocol and alliance capability. Novelty - This study has proved that business resilience has both sides of antecedents - in rational and irrational perspectives. Type of Paper: Empirical. JEL Classification: L26, L29. Keywords: Business Resilience, Small Medium Enterprise Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Saputra, N; Herlina, M.G. (2021). Double-Sided Perspective of Business Resilience: Leading SME Rationally and Irrationally During COVID-19, Journal of Management and Marketing Review, 6(2) 125 – 136. https://doi.org/10.35609/jmmr.2021.6.2(4)

Social leadership and authority in the field of national and military security: problems of formation in the digital world

The article reveals the author’s approach to the content of social leadership in the context of the development of a digital society at various levels – societal, institutional and concrete social. The author analyses the correlation between the concepts of “social leadership” and authority in the sphere of national and military security. Based on the author’s sociological research, the paper analyses the self-assessment of young people of their leadership qualities, authority and social influence on other people in accord- ance with their status in social networks. The study describes the social types based on the model of leadership and integration into the Russian civilizational space, the values of the Russian society. The paper substantiates the proposals to take into account the leadership qualities of social network administrators, moderators of information flows in the formation of the human potential of specialists in the development of digital platforms and global Internet content in the Russian segment of the virtual space, as well as the establishment of partnerships between national and military security actors and business structures of the digital economy, software developers, producers of Internet content. Separately, the author highlights the conditions for the formation of leadership positions of subjects of information and analytical work based on digital technologies to ensure national and military security. The study presents the author`s justification of the levels and content of digital information and analytical competencies of personnel in the system of ensuring national and military security, which will allow Russia to ensure technological social leadership in this area. The article reveals practical methods of organizing the educational process for training specialists in the field of digital information and analytical technologies, the possibility of using virtual educational means of training and control, Internet resources, and improving the security of the educational process in military educational organizations from negative hostile influences.

Educational environment of the «School of Social Leadership - Student» as a factor in the formation of social leadership in future social workers

The article defines the algorithm for building the educational environment of the «Social Leadership School – Student» as a factor in the formation of social leadership in the professional training of future social workers, which has a clear logic: presentation of the mission and visit, which provides for informing about the School, its activities, current information for students – future social workers; announcements of news and events, which include coverage of events regarding social leadership, characterization of directions and organizational forms of social leadership, a photo and audio report, an archive of events that took place at the School on these topics. Six consecutive stages of the algorithm for building the educational environment are defined in accordance with the tasks and characterized: the first stage is the definition of the goal of the activity of the Social Leadership School – Student in the context of strategic priorities for taking into account objective world trends in the development of education for social work; the second stage – highlighting the leading idea of the development of the school; the third stage – the definition of values, key directions and scientific approaches to the organization of the School's activities; The fourth stage is the development of directions for achieving the goal and strategic directions for the development of the School; The fifth step is to determine the scale of the transformation; the sixth stage – formation of readiness of all participants in the educational process of the School to form social leadership; the sixth stage – achievement and evaluation of the result – qualitative changes in the system of formation of social leadership of students in the educational process of the «School of Social Leadership – Student». The model of the educational environment of the School of Social Leadership – Student and the structure of its activities are determined in accordance with the normative support for the functioning of the School, which will allow planning the organization and conduct of training programs and activities of the School, in particular in the areas of formation of social leadership; activities on acquisition of leadership skills, development of partnerships. Through the development of the content of selective educational disciplines «Fundamentals of Leadership», «Social Leadership» in the process of training social workers, the formation of the readiness of future social workers for proactive functioning in the informal environment of the «School of Social Leadership – Student» is ensured.

Brand Activism, the Relation and Impact on Consumer Perception: A Case Study on Nike Advertising

Recently various brands have been promoting their products through social issues that consumers are engaging with, by moving from social corporate responsibility to leadership and harnessing the brands' power to inspire social and environmental problems and change. Whether brands are creating social leadership campaigns to raise profit margins, or because they simply care about the issues they discuss, several brands have been playing this role through their campaigns, as seen for example with brands like Nike, Under Armor, Gillette, and Uber. This paper follows the qualitative methodology by proposing an analytical study of the advertising messages and concepts through a case study of Nike advertising promoting their products through social leadership campaigns, and an analysis which aims to measure the impact of these campaigns on brand image, profit margins, and the means the social causes are being perceived by the consumers.