Leadership is one of the most valuable tools for an organization to posses. According to the current trends in business, poor leadership tools can run a business down, while excellent leadership tools can lead to tremendous profits. For this reason, organizations need to strategize about their leadership skills in order to have a competitive advantage over the other companies. As the organization grows to become a multinational corporation, it becomes more complex, requiring better tools of leadership. In this case, two main methods of integration of leadership tools are applicable. These methods are horizontal and vertical integration leadership tools (Barney & Hesterly, 2008). Therefore, the aim of the paper is to analyze the two methods of integration and the ways of their implementation in a multinational corporation to produce perfect strategies.
Vertical integration as a leadership tool can be described as the process where one leader tends to manage all the operations of an organization (Barney & Hesterly, 2008). In this leadership tool, there is no delegation of duties from the higher management to the middle level management. In the situation of multinational corporations, the mother company manages all the operations of the other branch companies across the world (Barney & Hesterly, 2008). In this case, all other branch companies depend on the headquarter company to make all the key decisions.
In order to achieve excellent leadership skills from this leadership tool, multinational corporations have to make several implementations. In this case, multinational corporations have to centralize their information system (Barney & Hesterly, 2008). This is to ensure that information revolves in one area despite the location of the company. Secondly, the corporation structure must run from one the senior management of the headquarter company to the senior management of the branch companies (Barney & Hesterly, 2008). These two implementations will ensure that application of vertical integration in the multination corporations improves leadership skills. It should be noted that vertical integration encourages similarity in all the branch companies.
Horizontal integration is the second leadership tool. This is where the management of the company does not have to take leadership of all the activities of an organization (Rodney, 2007). In this case, the senior management of the company delegates leadership to the middle level managers. In a multinational corporation, the headquarter company tends to delegate leadership to the other branch companies (Rodney, 2007). In this scenario, the branch companies do not have to depend on the headquarter company to make the vital decision. In horizontal integration, it should be noted that it encourages independence among the branch companies and the head companies.
In order, for multinational corporations to use the horizontal integration effectively, they have to make implementations. First, they have to decentralize their operations. In this case, they have to decentralize their communication system together with the information technology system (Rodney, 2007). In this case, management of the branch companies will be able to manage the companies by themselves. Secondly, the implementation of the organization structure should be made to accommodate horizontal integration. In this situation, the leaders of all branch companies should have equal position in the structure (Rodney, 2007). However, the mother company should remain at the top of the structure.
Conclusion
Leadership is one of the key areas in multinational corporations. In this environment, corporations need to have a quality leadership skill that will take them high up in the competition level. In this case, the use of either the horizontal or the vertical integration as a method of leadership is among the strategic decision multinational corporations could ever make. In the case of vertical integration, all the information system must be centralized for a multinational corporation to work effectively. In the case of horizontal integration, all information and business trends must be decentralized to work effectively.
