Sample Case Study On  the Prime Minister's Powerful Better Half

Answer 1

Being the wife of prime minister and ruling the organization at the leading position of CEO with recognizable prior position by many is the set of influential positional powers that Ho Ching holds. Further, her engineering educational background, civil service scholarship and vast experience attributed her with personal powers of influencing change. Furnham, (2005) defined the power as the personal and positional attribute in term of the potential of influencing others by making effect on their behavioral and attitudinal measures.  
Porter, Angle, and Allen, (2003) discussed the French and Raven’s five basis of powers. They suggested that not all attempts of people of making influence are successful. Instead, it is the power base(s) implementation ability of one that makes one’s attempt successfully. As evident by critics, Rogers, (2007) suggested that a strict professional approach of Ho Ching for developing performance guidelines and raising the level of precision made her influential leader for change in a passively operated organization.
Zichy, (2000) defines the leadership as the process of making influence on the thoughts, actions and behaviors of a huge individual base. Zichy, (2000) further said that leadership includes the elements including personal power due to the authority of commanding human and financial resources, ability to present compelling idea and authenticated level of achievements. This explanation is also in compliance with above-discussed definitions of power and influence.
In alignment with the Zichy, (2000) views, the case is transparently evidencing Ho’s authority of position and commanding resources as being CEO of Temasek Holdings. He was successful in managing a 50billion worth portfolio, legitimacy by her thought and actions of contributing positively to the country and ability to deliver compelling ideas on the grounds of multiple power bases.
Moreover, the evidences of the influential leadership capability of the HO is not only associated with her powers, but also with her capabilities of producing excellent outcomes via operational excellence and bold decision-making. Hersey and Blanchard, (1982) explained the attribute of effective leadership in terms of acting in a manner that influentially shapes teams and/or individual actions towards achieving the defined goals in a particular scenario.
Considering the case information, Ho’s made bold decisions in terms of reviving corporate philosophy of keeping performance hidden. The other bold decision was of investing in many of renown firms in the interest of growth for the organization. Further, her decision of investing in India via utilizing rationales of potential and utilizing the power of relationship with Asian country justifies her actions via command.
The achieved outcomes are the greatest witnessing evidences of effectiveness of Ho’s decisions as well as her influential leadership over subordinates. For instance, performance achievement can be judged by the fact Ho joined the firm in 2002 and managed a portfolio of S$ 50bilion worth. As reported on the company’s official website, the business portfolio is reached a value of S$223billion (Temasek International, 2014). The point becomes transparent as Ho’s leadership skills and power description made it possible for the company to achieve around four times of growth in that era. Ho’s influential leadership in corporate actions and decision-making process were the major reasons for such achievement.
Based on Her speech in favor India, the tactics she utilizes in decision-making are depicted. With the rationale base approach, she employed her tactics of influence in terms of persuasion, integration, and collectiveness. Utilizing the mastery of persuasiveness, Ho evaluated with facts that the potential of the country, unifying goals of well-being for the region and value of collective efforts. Ho’s approach in the speech thus described her powers of legitimacy, expertise, and referent as well as vision of the reward for the region (Porter, Angle, and Allen, 2003).

Answer 2

Referring to the case, the Ho Ching possesses several physical powers that can be tangibly recognized by one. Those powers include the status of wife of prime minister of an important Asian country, a powerful prior job position in the defense ministry, current position of CEO and obviously a strong skilled educational and experiential background. All those elements collectively make her a powerful, influential leader in terms of associated authority and sense of obligation of her orders. However, it is not necessary that every leader with such authoritative status perform at excellence level.
There are some other powers that make leaders influential via gaining respect from their ordinates and stakeholders of surroundings. Weller and Weller, (2000) discussing the leader's charisma of influencing people pointed you-oriented approach of the leaders a source of power. With the excerpt of Ho about the well-being of Singapore and afterward about Asia are defining her power of you-orientation, visionary forecasting ability, and long-term goal specification. One of the majors sources attributed to her powerful behavior is the ability to take and own bold decisions. It is concisely explained as the philosophy changer attribute that is proven in the case as Ho positively acted as a change indicator for the organization in many regards.
French and Raven defined five powers as sources are directly depicted in her transparent solid attitude towards growth and change for the country as well as for the region. She possessed three of these five powers that are:

The power of legitimacy- as people looked up to her due her status and performance track,

Referent- her ability to advocate the interest at large scale and
Expertise- ability to demonstrate factual evidence with an amalgam of rational and visionary outcomes in the form of cause-and-effect relationships.
Some other sources attributed to her excellence level are the power of showing connectedness and power of utilizing relationships. Moreover, the power of confidence in the form of preaching the standards of excellence by attitude, conduct and authority have also been important. All these powers have been highly valued by Llopis, (2013).
Evaluating the capabilities of Ho as influential leader in terms of change indicator, the transparent and authentic linkage of her measures in relation to strategic, managerial practice and behavioral influence can be sensed easily. The moves she demonstrated after acquiring the position of CEO directly related to the growth strategy of the business in the global scenario. Her powerful leadership with the aid of her inherited powers made the growth strategy to be effective via influential actions of the organization.
The most important effects of Ho’s leadership are depicted in terms of the agreement with the organization to disclose its performance reports, acquiring stakes via investments and global expansion via entering into India. All the three are huge decisions and can highly affect organizations positively as well as negatively but eventually Ho was able to make it possibly positive for the organization due her professional conduct (Rogers, 2007). The linkage of effective, influential leadership with the strategic and behavioral, managerial ability of Ho is clearly depicted in her strategic moves. She had cautious leadership tactics of influencing via utilizing right tangible and intangible combination of associated powers. All these abilities and decisions made her successful.

References

Bacon, T. R. (2011). The elements of power: Lessons on leadership and influence. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
Furnham, A. (2005). The psychology of behaviour at work: The individual in the organization. Psychology Press.
Hersey, P., & Blanchard, K. (1982). The management of organizational behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Llopis, G. (2013). 5 Ways Leaders Earn Respect From Their Employees. Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2013/07/22/5-ways-leaders-earn-respect-from-their-employees/
Porter, L. W., Angle, H. L., & Allen, R. W. (Eds.). (2003). Organizational influence processes. ME Sharpe.
Rogers, C. (2007). Ho Ching. Time, Available from http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/time100/article/0,28804,1595326_1615737_1615992,00.html [Accessed 21st February, 2015]
Temasek International. (2014). From Our Chairman. Available from http://www.temasekreview.com.sg/en/overview/from-our-chairman.html [Accessed 21st February, 2015]
Weller Jr, D. L., & Weller, S. (2000). Quality human resources leadership: a principal's handbook. R&L Education.
Zichy, S. (2000). Women and the Leadership Q: Revealing the Four Paths to Influence and Power. McGraw-Hill Companies.