The Development of Transformational Vision Statement
The Vision Statement
The vision of Mattel is to serve as a global inspirational leader for youths around the world, to create products that will motivate children to develop and learn through play, and to continuously innovate and improve the company’s product line. Our company strives to empower people both inside and outside the organization to build an integrated system of children’s entertainment in order to maintain and reinforce sustainable growth in contemporary circumstances of changing and evolving customers’ preferences and market condition.
Transformational Nature of the Vision Statement
In the previous subsection, the vision statement for Mattel is formulated, as the purpose of this assignment is to assume the role of the company’s new CEO and to develop a vision for the future of Mattel that would spur innovation, motivate product developing teams and the company’s employees in general, implement transformational leadership, and to positively affect the efficiency of Mattel’s growth. Therefore, it is important to explain the role of transformational leadership as the key aspect from which the vision statement is developed.
According to Robbins and Judge, one of the essential characteristics of a transformational leader is that he or she is the one who encourages his or her followers to be creative and to maintain corporate entrepreneurship as a means of working towards a company’s strategic goals (383). It is possible to notice that the vision statement provided in the previous section complies with these requirements. For example, it is worth mentioning that a transformational leader “provides vision and sense of mission” as well as promoting intelligence, rationality, respect, trust, careful problem solving, and corporate values (Robbins and Judge 383). Accordingly, these aspects are reflected in the vision statement as it articulates transformational goals both external and internal to the company.
The Effect of the Vision Statement on the Organization’s Teams
Why is Transformational Leadership Significant?
In the previous section, the vision statement for Mattel is developed, and also an explanation of its transformational nature is provided. As the company goes through series of transitions as a multinational corporation, which has to operate in continuously changing market circumstances of customers’ preferences and industry standards, it is essential to create a precise vision for the company’s future. Accordingly, the purpose of this section is to elaborate diversely on how the provided vision statement will affect Mattel’s product development teams and the company as a whole. In order to complete this task, it is essential to investigate concepts of transformational leadership, team groups management as well as conflict solving and negotiation.
Partially, the significance of transformational leadership was discussed in the previous section. However, it is possible to explain its role more profoundly in this subsection. In general, it is known that companies that experience changing market conditions are in considerable need of innovative approaches because it is the most efficient way of establishing a basis for sustainable growth (Robbins and Judge 382). Therefore, transitional leadership appears to be the most suitable method for such situation as a transformational leader relies significantly on his or her creativity, and he also provides an opportunity for his or her followers to be creative along with taking risks and make decisions more freely (Robbins and Judge 384). Also, numerous studies indicate that the promotion of such organizational values as trust, respect, corporate social responsibility, intelligence, and understanding of the company’s strategic goals and mission is highly important for the efficient development of any corporation (Das 32; DeHart-Davis 76). As it is mentioned by Bachmann, establishing a sense of corporate social responsibility within the organization reinforces the efficiency of employees’ work towards common goals (18). Gordon argues that trusting relationships between the leader and his or her followers contribute significantly to the improvement of the company’s overall performance (32). Therefore, it is possible to state with certainty that transformational leadership is essential for Mattel.
The Vision Statement as a Motivational Guide for Development Teams
As the previous subsection identified the need for the implementation of transformational leadership in Mattel, it is appropriate to discuss how will the transformational vision statement affect the company’s development teams. It is worth mentioning that development teams are among the most important aspects of the organization since they are directly responsible for the corporation’s success in the period of transitions. As Robbins and Judge point out, “transformational leaders are more effective because they are more creative” (383). Concerning that the vision statement paired with transformational leadership provided by new CEO of the company promotes innovation and creativity, it could be suggested that development teams of Mattel will be affected positively as they will be granted with more creative freedom, but at the same time, the higher sense of corporate social responsibility will guide them to use their freedom as a means of fulfilling the company’s strategic goals.
As it is pointed out by Denison, corporate culture reflects the company’s vision and mission, and at the same time, it improves the organization’s performance (67). Accordingly, it is appropriate to observe that in case of Mattel, the developed vision statement could become a basis for the renewed corporate culture within the organization that will promote its basic premises among the company’s employees as well as consumers in different countries. Robbins and Judge describe the overall effect of transformational leadership on corporations in the following way: “companies with transformational leaders have greater decentralization of responsibility, managers have more propensity to take risks, and compensation plans are geared toward long-term results” (383).
In order to perform above excellence, which is a highly important goal for any company that goes through the series of transitions, Mattel’s development teams incorporate the same level of responsibility and the overall understanding of the company’s strategic goals and work toward it. It is also worth mentioning that “transformational leaders are able to increase follower self-efficacy, giving the group a “can do” spirit” (Robbins and Judge 384). Motivation to become a global leader in the toy industry and to positively influence youths across the world, encouraging them to learn and develop their social and cultural skills, should be the primary reason for Mattel’s development team to perform better.
The Effect of the Vision Statement on Other Teams
It is also of high importance to discuss how the vision statement will affect members of other teams within the organization. In general, it is possible to restate the overall positive effect on the performance of the employees, provided by trusting and encouraging relationships with the leader. However, it is essential to discuss particular aspects of the company’s internal teamwork in order to exemplify how transformational leadership will affect people within the organization.
First of all, it is possible to mention team members responsible for commercial and financial aspects of the company’s performance. It would be more simple for them to align to changing market opportunities and a consumers’ preferences when they will be granted more freedom to act creatively (Robbins and Judge 384). Also, the vision statement requires the company’s employees to the omnichannel structure of global economy by developing more efficient and diverse financial networks. Concerning team members of the supply chain management team, it is possible to predict that they also are affected positively by the newly introduced policy.
As the transformational leader “ communicates high expectations, uses symbols to focus efforts, expresses important purposes in simple ways,” it would be a lot easier for supply chain team members to focus on creating a more adaptive and flexible supply chain for the company (Robbins and Judge 384). Finally, it is of high importance to mention the effect of transformational leadership on members of the informational technology team. Concerning the content of the vision statement, it is appropriate to observe that informational technologies play an immensely important role in establishing and maintaining sustainable growth for Mattel in contemporary market condition. As the world becomes more digital and technology-based, it is important to implement a more creative and forward-thinking approach to it. Addressing conflict and negotiation, it could be predicted that transformational leadership, introduced in the new vision statement, will have a significant impact on the improvement of conflict solving and negotiation processes within the company.
Works Cited
Bachmann, Bernhard. Ethical Leadership in Organizations: Concepts and Implementation. Springer, 2017.
Das, T. K., editor. Culture and Behavioral Strategy. Information Age Publishing, 2017.
DeHart-Davis, Leisha. Creating Effective Rules in Public Sector Organizations. Georgetown University Press, 2017.
Denison, Daniel. Leading Culture Change in Global Organizations: Aligning Culture and Strategy. John Wiley & Sons, 2012.
Gordon, Gus. Leadership through Trust: Leveraging Performance and Spanning Cultural Boundaries. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Robbins, Stephen P., and Judge, Timothy A. Essentials of Organizational Behavior. 14th ed., Pearson, 2013.