An organization's vision is not about what the company is today. It is about what the company desires and plans to be in the future. The vision statement is intended mainly for the employees and customers. Its purpose is to provide direction and help set goals which properly motivate employees to act in a positive manner. In order for the goals to be effective, the employees must believe that the vision statement is obtainable. It should be challenging, but at the same time be achievable (Robbins, 2007). Gene One's end vision will be "to create better and innovative products in the market for better customer satisfaction and growth globally (Gene One Scenario, 2010)." The end vision defines what the organization wishes to achieve in the future. This end vision focuses on providing employees the tools to develop new and better products, improving customer satisfaction, and the need to expand and grow.
Gene One started in 1996 as a bio-tech company. Within eight years, the company's gross sales were estimated at $400 million. As part of Gene One’s vision, the company's goals are to increase the profitability by 40% and develop two new technologies over the next three years. Achieving this goal will take the company from a small private business to a publicly traded entity on Wall Street. Capital will be raised by releasing an initial public offer (IPO) (Gene One Scenario, 2010).
Strategies One Participative Leadership Approach
There are several different strategies that Gene One can implement to assist in the transition from a private company to a public company. In order to successfully transition, a leadership style must be defined. According to Gary Yukl, leadership is defined as “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives (Yukl, 2011, p. 8)”. Using the participative leadership style, Gene One can have a successful implementation. The participative leader seeks to involve other people in the process, possibly including subordinates, peers, superiors, and other stakeholders. This approach is also known as consultation, empowerment, joint decision-making, democratic leadership, management by objective, and power-sharing. One of the most important aspects to making the participative leadership effective is to keep an open line of communication. Effective communication and consulting while change is occurring will assist in getting people interested and prepared for the upcoming developments. Employees will feel like they have some ownership in the endeavor and its eventual success.
Developing effective communication within the participative leadership strategy will be one of the keys to the success of the Gene One implementation. A communication team composed of senior leadership, middle management, and front line workers will help to ensure that the day-to-day communication of the organizational changes are being relayed to all employees. The added bonus of ultimately creating a complete communication department is that it is necessary to help with investor relations and is a requirement for the IPO. This group will provide a personal face for change. Employees will know who to go to and where to direct questions/issues that comes up. The by-product is that this group should be able to ease any tension or apprehension that naturally comes with these types of transitions (Robbins and Judge, 2010, p.358).
The major priority for the group will be to create a communication platform and guidelines to effectively control the information given to external audiences. A secondary priority is the engagement level and alignment of the