Possibility of Developing Ambidextrous Leadership in K-Electric

Possibility of Developing Ambidextrous Leadership in KE
Research Project
By
Sehrish Iqbal (1825116)
Nasra Maknoon (1825113)
Rida Syed (1825114)
To
Faculty of Business Administration
In partial fulfilment of the requirement for the Degree of

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
In
Human Resource
____________________________
[Sir Aamir Firoz Shamsi] Advisor
____________________________________________________
Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology
SZABIST, Karachi.
Dated: December 2019

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STUDENT NAME: NASRA MAKNOON, RIDA SYED, SEHRISH IQBAL

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TITLE OF PROJECT REPORT/THESIS: Possibility of Developing Ambidextrous Leadership in
K-Electric
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Appendix A3 - SUPERVISOR-STUDENT MEETING RECORD FORM
Supervisor-Student Meeting Record Form
Semester: Spring 2019 Program: M B A

Student Name: Nasra Maknoon, Sehrish Iqbal, Rida Syed. Student ID: 1825113, 1825116,
1825114
Thesis Title: Possibility of Developing Ambidextrous Leadership in K-Electric.
Supervisor Name: Sir Amir Firoz Shamsi
Meeting 1
03-Sep-2019 * Medium of
Date and time 9:15 am Communication Email, Face to face
Summary of Discussion
We group members took appointment from sir through e-mail at first. When appointment date
was fixed we suggested several topics to do research on them. After having a long discussion with
our supervisor, we decided to do research on “Possibility of developing Ambidextrous Leadership
in K-Electric”.
Student Signature Supervisor Signature
iv
Meeting 2
Date and time 9:45 am Communication Face to face
After having a long discussion with our supervisor, we decided to do research on “Possibility of
developing Ambidextrous Leadership in K-Electric”. This topic was finally selected after we
searched articles related to this topic.
Meeting 3
Went to meet our supervisor so, that he can approve the work done on research proposal.
Discussed research proposal related things in the meeting.

v
Meeting 4
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Mr. Malik Adeel.
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01-Oct-2019 * Medium of
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Discussed things related to start working on Chapter 1- Introduction. Headings to be done in

Chapter 1 were discussed in depth with sir.
vi
Meeting 6
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vii
Meeting 8
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ix
Abstract
Purpose: The Empirical Evidence helped us to investigate the potential and possibility of
the development of Ambidextrous Leadership style in K-Electric- a local owned firm. The
purpose was Ambidextrous Leadership is not yet brought into practice in Pakistani context
so we decided to take K-Electric as a starting point. This company is chosen for the research
because it has been working on adopting and developing leadership styles to make it one
of the best firms to work in.
Design/Methodology: The design of the research is qualitative, interview based in which
the employees of K-Electric from the top and middle management position were chosen as
interviewees. The sample size was taken till we reached a saturation point which exhausted
at 7 respondents. The methodology consisted of Thematic Analysis with coding, sorting
and then sifting the data which helped us reach our themes.
Findings: The managers are not aware of the philosophy of “ambidextrous leadership.”
Moreover, they claim they have adopted “Korn Ferry Leadership” model but its application
is not yet observed. This concludes this enterprise is still in the development mode of
leadership style. Moreover, the empirical evidence suggests they are more inclined towards
situational leadership style.
Practical Implication: It is important to realize that they have the potential to develop
ambidextrous leadership within their organization once its essence is grasped which will
help them achieve fast and continuous growth.
Keywords: Ambidextrous leadership, Transactional leadership, Transformational
leadership, Employee development, Situational Leadership
x
Acknowledgment
It was a great opportunity for me to do research on this topic. I highly
appreciate & thank my as those who were the recipients for this topic. The whole
research provided great experience and knowledge.
xi
Table of Contents
Appendix A3 - SUPERVISOR-STUDENT MEETING RECORD FORM iv

Appendix A4 - PLAGIARISM VERIFICATION (by: PSO only) ix
Abstract x
Acknowledgment xi
Table of Contents xii
List of Tables xiv
1. INTRODUCTION 15
1.1 Background 15
1.2 Research problem 19
1.3 Research Questions 20
1.4 Research objective 20
1.5 Scope of Study 20
1.6 Significance of the study 21
1.7 Definition of Terms 21
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 23
2.1 Transformational Leadership and Transactional Leadership 23
2.2 Leadership and Ambidexterity 25
2.3 Link of Ambidextrous Leadership with Innovation 26
2.4 Organization with Ambidextrous Leadership 27
2.5 Dynamic Capabilities with the Ambidexterity of the Organizations 31
2.6 Empowering Leadership 32
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 34
3.1 Introduction 34
3.2 Research Design 34
3.3 Data Collection and Analysis 35
3.4 Time Scale 35
3.5 Ethical Consideration 36
3.6 Plan of Analysis 36
4. RESULTS AND FINDINGS 37
4.1 Thematic Analysis 37
4.2 Discussion 44
5. CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATION & PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS 46
xii
5.1 Conclusion 46
5.2 Recommendation 46
5.3 Practical Implications 47
References 49
1825113, 1825116, 1825114 57
Appendix 62
xiii
List of Tables
Table 1 Sorting, Coding and Sifting 37

Table 2 Themes 42
Table 3 Table of Respondents 42
xiv
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
Leadership plays a vital role in the success of any enterprise. (Duncan, 1976)
introduced the concept of ambidexterity forty years ago. This topic came into the light of
interest for researchers in the end of the 20th century (Shon, 2019). Looking out for an
opportunity and new valuable adaptation, it is called being explorative. On the other hand,
availing advantage is called being exploitative, fostering these two functions combined
develops Ambidexterity (Fang, Lee, & Schilling, 2010; Jansen, Mihalache, Van Den
Bosch, & Volberda, 2014).
Most of the times, the concept of innovation is considered closely related to
creativity but it is perceived as different from creativity (Hong, Hou, Marinova, & Zhu,
2018). It has been discovered that the most important factor in an entrepreneurial firm to
encourage creativity and innovation is leadership (Ren & Zhou, 2011). In the recent era
where the world is dynamic, creativity and innovation in leadership style is gaining a lot
of importance and different leadership styles are able to give an organization a competitive
edge over others such as ambidextrous leadership style (Anderson, Bledow, Erez, Farr, &
Fres, 2009). In such a situation, consequently, workers / employees performance is
hindered and they become unable to show their creative side (Ren & Zhou, 2011). In such
situations (Ren & Zhou, 2011) suggested that leaders can play a critical role in it and try to
15
implement transformational and ambidextrous leadership in their organizations to ensure
innovation and creativity in a business.
The need for a better understanding of new leadership style is increasing day by
day which is going to make an organization creative and innovative. Ambidextrous
leadership is the key way that a firm can use to maintain their sustainability by innovating
itself on a continuous basis, for example, a firm which has a long term and wider vision
and mission like Google, has the ability to evolve itself from time to time to cater various
requirements of its consumers (Buhrmester, Gosling, & Kwang, 2011; McGrath, 2013).
Balance of the attitudes of being exploratory and exploitative to achieve success in an
enterprise is not a piece of cake (March, 1991; Baden-Fuller & McNamara, 1999; McGrath,
2001).
On the other hand, the researcher claimed that the secret behind successful
entrepreneurial firms is ambidextrous leadership. Implementing this leadership style in a
business can promise to boost up the morale of the employees, eventually maximizing a
company’s profit (Birkinshaw & Raisch, 2008; O’Reilly & Tushman, 1996). This
leadership style in focus has the capability to work in different horizons which can be either
diversifying or in opposition which can also refer to switching between several behaviors
(Tung, 2016).
In the past, the researchers tried to put more focus on organizational ambidexterity
and focused relatively less on ambidexterity on managerial level (McGrath, 2013).
Innovation and organizational development are two important factors that are dependent
16
on the leadership style of the managerial employees (Enkhtuvshin & Purvee, 2015). It has
been proved in various researches that organizations that practice ambidexterity in their
organizations have a very high level of employee innovative behavior which ultimately
ended as a firm’s success (Bausch, Frese, & Rosing, 2011).
Past researchers found that in order to apply innovation in any organization,
transactional leadership, transformational leadership and ambidextrous leadership play a
significant part in the process (Crossan, Jansen, & Vera, 2009; Chen, Lin, Lin, &
McDonough, 2012; Rosing & Zacher, 2015). However, it has also been investigated that
the managers who aim to be ambidextrous leaders has their own explanation about how
they perceive innovation (Bledow, Frese, & Mueller, 2011). It has been researched that
there is a significant relationship between transformational leadership and innovation
(Chen, Lin, Lin, & McDonough, 2012). Furthermore, there is a significant relationship
between innovation of exploration and transformational leadership while transactional
leadership shares an opposite relationship with exploratory innovation (Crossan, Jansen, &
Vera, 2009). In addition to this, there has been a conclusion that there is a positive
association of innovation with ambidextrous leadership (Rosing & Zacher, 2015). The
survival and the competition of any enterprise depends on innovation at a rapid pace (Tung,
2016) . It was also investigated that the more the leader is inclined towards ambidextrous
or transformational leadership, the higher will be his capability to advance the process of
improving creativity of his employees, thus, innovation is immensely necessary (Tung,
2016).
17
Nevertheless, for ambidextrous leadership, it is important for an entrepreneurial
entity that every business unit should have a shared vision of ambidextrous leadership
(O’Reilly & Tushman, 2008). Only one manager planning to use transformational /
ambidextrous leadership in the organization will not be able to implement it all alone but
when ambidextrous is a shared vision among all managerial employees (George, Jansen,
Van Den Bosch, & Volberda, 2008). Various researchers have concluded that the element
of ambidexterity in an organization does not only make an organization innovative, but it
also encourages teams and individual employees to keep a balance between exploration
and exploitation attitudes in order to be innovative (Anderson, Bledow, Erez, Farr, & Fres,
2009; Hunter, Thoroughgood, Myer, & Ligon, 2011; Robinson, Rosing, & Zacher, 2016).
(Shon, 2019) claimed there are various implications when ambidexterity is studied
at an individual level. It was claimed that the enterprise has to set an opportunity cost and
then set a balance of both the desirable behaviors (March, 1991). Values, vision and culture
are the primary responsibilities of the firm’s leaders which provide significant identity to
determine the explorative and exploitative behavior (O'Reilly & Tushman, 2016; Shon,
2019). But ultimately, individual leaders are the one who can maintain a balance between
the two priorities (Shon, 2019). The firm needs to adopt ambidexterity at strategic level in
a manner that would cater explore-exploit units (Celly & Han, 2008).
By comparing ambidextrous leadership with transformational leadership, it can be
deduced that when organizational ambidextrous leadership was applied into manager’s
ambidexterity, mostly the effects of transformational and ambidextrous leadership attitudes
were investigated in some past research (Simsek, 2009). By looking at the outcomes of
18
some previous researches, it can be concluded that mostly transformational and
ambidextrous leadership were the main focus for some researchers (O’Reilly & Tushman,
2008). The concept of Ambidexterity is still not sufficiently researched where it can be
claimed that this can be applied at leadership level (Gupta, Shalley, & Smith, 2006; Bausch,
Frese, & Rosing, 2011; Maylor, Swart, & Turner, 2013). Some previous studies proved
that ambidextrous / transformational leadership can be implemented in the same business
unit, but proper sequence / process will have to be followed (Simsek, 2009). In 2011, the
author and the team concluded, with the help of observation which included leadership for
innovation, that a further defined model was required (Rosing & Zacher, 2015). (Simsek,
2009) concluded in the past research that it will be difficult to transfer current leadership
style to ambidextrous leadership style all of a sudden; this change should be brought
gradually in an organization Therefore, the task of this exploratory study to investigate the
possibility of the application of ambidextrous leadership, in Pakistani context.
1.2 Research problem
The very recent theory of a newly introduced leadership style called ambidextrous
leadership; which is a combined consequence of transactional and transformational
leadership styles (Rosing & Zacher, 2015). Having a combined effect of transactional and
transformational styles of leadership, there is need of some special understanding among
the line employees to learn, develop and exercise it. Such new phenomenon can be
developed in any Pakistani organization but it needs to explore the possibility of developing
ambidextrous leadership, and this gap exists, with reference to Pakistan, in existing body
of knowledge.
19
In order to enhance an organization’s performance there is a need to understand if
it allows flexibility in its hierarchy. This can be ensured through understanding the need of
Ambidextrous Leadership. First of all, the need of awareness amongst line employees
needs to be analyzed in any Pakistani organization, like KE.
1.3 Research Questions
The Research question arises is there a possibility of developing Ambidextrous
Leadership in K-Electric Limited? Can Pakistan develop such a leadership style in
Pakistani companies?
1.4 Research objective
The primary objective of the research is to understand the possibility of the firm to
develop Ambidextrous Leadership in order to divert from the conventional leadership style
to ensure profitability and motivated employees.
1.5 Scope of Study
This exploratory study is bounded due to few inevitable factors. First of all, it is
confined to one company, the result may vary if more companies were included.
Additionally, the research is conducted as a Case Study. Since it is a Qualitative study, the
interviews are based on the saturation point which subsequently, determines the basis of
the outcome of our investigation. Secondly, it ignores various other factors like the
20
corporate culture of the organization, company’s available resources, work ethics and
employee roles, etc.
1.6 Significance of the study
This research tends to investigate the chances of developing an emerging form of
leadership style which caters and balances both Transactional type of Leadership as well
Transformational Leadership. Consequently, this change would benefit the company itself
in terms of better performance as a result of motivated employees.
As an outcome, this exploratory study will help to investigate the possibility of the
development of Ambidextrous Leadership and lead to the understanding if such an
organization has the ability to change itself. Subsequently, a process will be developed for
the change.
1.7 Definition of Terms
Transactional Leadership: A type of leadership where the leader's compliance
followed by people of the organization by rewards and punishments both and it points on
the supervision, performance and organization.
Transformational Leadership: A type of leadership where leaders believe in
teamwork and identify the change that’s needed in the organization, plus they create the
21
vision and guide the change to the employees by inspiring them and execute the change
with the committee members.
Ambidextrous Leadership: This type of leadership style focuses on both
explorative as well as exploitative behaviors in the people who follow, by changing the
variance in both types of behaviors and flexibly switching between both.
22
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Transformational Leadership and Transactional Leadership
Leaders under this leadership style believes that organisational goals can be
achieved by mainly focusing on the awareness of interest of the enterprise as a whole which
make a path for the staff to achieve these goals (García-Morales, Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, &
Jiménez-Barrionuevo, 2012). Such leaders motivate their employees through the respect
they gain and these employees trust their bosses when they are encouraged to be efficient
in achieving the objectives of their leaders (Judge, Robbins, & Sanghi, 2009). The
transformational leaders help their employees in adopting the firm’s ultimate objectives
and vision (Cremer & Tyler, 2005; Frost & Hoffman, 2006; Felfe & Herrmann, 2013) by
dedicating them to focus and achieve the ultimate goals of the organisation (García-
Morales, Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, & Jiménez-Barrionuevo, 2012). It is also the leaders’
charisma because these leaders have the capability to justify and satisfy a vision (Tung,
2016) as these leaders dedicate themselves to the ultimate goals of the enterprise (García-
Morales, Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, & Jiménez-Barrionuevo, 2012). (Tung, 2016) claimed that
transformational leadership assures organisational performance at its best as this leadership
itself is an innovative culture development.
According to (Tung, 2016), the leaders and their employees tend to have mutual
interests under transactional leadership. (Mangin, Molero, Moriano, & Topa, 2014)
interpreted the relationship of the leader and his employees as transactional when the
transactional leader tend to reward his subordinate only when he receives the desired
results. (Kara, Lee, Sirgy, & Uysal, 2013) claimed the goals are already established through
which the subordinates are provided with the tools and material by their bosses to score the
23
set objectives. The employees are handled through reward and penalty system by their
leaders who are being transactional (Bass, 1999). (Bass, 1990) pointed out different facets
of transactional leadership. Firstly, the reward would be a positive reinforcement in return
of the effort and desired performance- the leader guarantees a benefit in exchange of the
desired outcomes and promises recognition to the employee against the accomplishment.
Secondly, the active style of the business management system, named as “management by
exception”- in order to take corrective actions, transactional leaders look for ways to go
beyond the boundaries of the norms and regulations. Thirdly, (Bass, 1990) pointed out to
the passive style of the same management system as well- there should be interference only
when the leader is unable to reach the desired standard and lastly, the decisions are avoided
to be made and disown oneself from all the responsibilities.
Transactional leadership is basically a positive kind of a leadership, where you
control the organization and employees with the right use of authority and using the
pragmatic approach of reinforcement and making them do the daily tasks with the proper
motivation and exciting them with the rewards that they deserve, it has an innovation
hidden inside this leadership style because you are not only following the old styles neither
of the reward system or reinforcement techniques, it leads to the high performance and
high quality of employees who want to stay committed to the organization even on the
rough days when the organization is all dependent on the employees and their work (Burns,
1978; Jung & Sosik, 2002). It has been very well defined that transformational and
transactional leadership styles are both very much inter related to each other one way or
another, they are not entirely different from each other and they can never be, because if
you try to implement one leadership style, you’ll be doing the other as well whether it’s in
24
the knowledge of the manager or not because when things are opposite of each other, they
work side by side rather than the opposite phenomenon is fully ignored, so transformational
and transactional leaderships are complementary styles and they are not exclusive of each
other (Kassotaki, 2016; Xenikou, 2017).
2.2 Leadership and Ambidexterity
The word ambidexterity was founded more than 40 years ago by a person named
(Duncan, 1976). A research conducted in 2001 concluded that the term ambidexterity
contains two theories of exploration as well as exploitation; ambidexterity suggests that
organization should keep a balance in between exploration and exploitation in order to
succeed (O’Reilly & Tushman, 1996; Benner & Tushman, 2003; Birkinshaw & Gibson,
2004; He & Wong, 2004). A number of researches are conducted that concludes,
organizations should have a balanced attitude between exploratory and exploitation
behavior (Ling, Lubatkin, Simsek, & Veiga, 2006; Berthon & Morgan, 2008; Celly & Han,
2008; Huang, Kristal, & Roth, 2010). However there is a very little literature and researches
available on how organizations can implement Ambidexterity leadership in their
organizations on managerial level (Gupta, Shalley, & Smith, 2006; Bausch, Frese, &
Rosing, 2011; Maylor, Swart, & Turner, 2013). Ambidextrous leadership consists of three
things; firstly the leader should use exploration behavior, secondly the leader should use
exploitation behavior and thirdly a leader should be able to keep a balance and switch
between these two attitudes/ behaviors according to the situation (Bausch, Frese, & Rosing,
2011).
Leaders who use ambidextrous leadership style know very well when to balance
between exploration exploitation, among their subordinates (García-Morales, Gutiérrez-
25
Gutiérrez, & Jiménez-Barrionuevo, 2012). Previous researches have proved that, “How to
use ambidexterity at different managerial levels?’ its strategy is still not yet made, due to
very scanty literature available specifically on this topic (Maylor, Swart, & Turner, 2013).
It is important to understand that ambidexterity is used as an interaction between opening
and closing behaviors. There is a debate going around that these both constructs are
independent in nature (He & Wong, 2004). (March, 1991), a researcher first introduced the
concept of duality / balance between exploitation and exploration behaviors. Furthermore,
he argued on the fact that an organization needs to prioritize the task of keeping a balance
between exploitation and exploration of attitudes (He & Wong, 2004). If an organization
needs to succeed it is desired to keep a balance between these two attitudes (He & Wong,
2004). However some researches contradicts and suggests that an organization can be high
on both of the attitudes at the same time; hence exploitation and exploration can be
characterized by two independent activities which are practiced in some organizations
(Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004; Gupta, Shalley, & Smith, 2006; Ling, Lubatkin, Simsek, &
Veiga, 2006). When a company is successful in keeping a balance between exploration and
exploitation attitudes, only then an organization can enjoy complimentary benefits of both
of these (Lavie & Stettner, 2014). Thus it can be concluded that ambidextrous attitude will
eventually lead to better outcomes.
2.3 Link of Ambidextrous Leadership with Innovation
Previous researches have confirmed that organizations need innovation in their old
styles of leadership (Anderson, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2004). Past researches clearly
identified that leadership is very important for an organization to succeed and be innovative
(Bausch, Frese, & Rosing, 2011). Transformational, ambidextrous leadership style has
26
proved to have a positive relationship with innovation in an organization (Anderson,
Huelsheger, & Salgado, 2009). When managerial levels of employees use ambidextrous
leadership style then new ideas are generated by the employees, making an organization
creative and innovative (Anderson, Huelsheger, & Salgado, 2009). One of the researcher
proved that there is a positive relationship between ambidexterity and innovation (Bausch,
Frese, & Rosing, 2011).
The concept of the innovative performance comes with the changing in the
behaviors of the managers, if their behaviors are opening and closing then its reflecting to
the employees exploring or exploiting behaviors and the innovation comes with the
ambidexterity of the behaviors, so basically the innovative performance from the
employees should be expected if the managers do not keep switching their behaviors from
closing to opening and vice versa because it has a direct proportion to the behaviors of
employee as well, whether it takes you to the exploring behavior or the exploiting behavior,
when its balanced then comes the innovative performance of the employees for the
organization which is an ideal situation, so keeping up with the leadership is solved by the
term of ambidexterity or ambidextrous leadership that has a link to the innovation which
is a main factor needed for the organization to prosper and succeed in the coming future
(Alghamdi, 2018). According to a research 70 Canadian international organizations have
used the concept of ambidexterity leadership and are becoming innovative companies of
recent times (Anderson, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2004).
2.4 Organization with Ambidextrous Leadership
By studying various recent literatures it can be said that organizations are going
towards implementing ambidextrous leadership (Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004). Recent
27
literature is able to differentiate between structural and contextual ambidextrous leadership
(Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004). Contextual ambidextrous leadership relates to behavioral
dimension to signify presence of alignment and adaptability in the whole business unit of
an organization (Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004). Structural ambidexterity relates to the
dissemination of structural alignment and adapting features among employees / workers
sub-groups within an organization (Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004).
To establish the subject of ambidexterity in organizations, this topic has been very
much able to attract attentions from various organizational researchers and theorists
(Birkinshaw & Raisch, 2008). Ambidextrous leadership can be considered as an agreement
between exploration of new opportunities within a company and exploitation of existing
business resources and competencies (Birkinshaw & Raisch, 2008). This type of leadership
will help a company to be competitive in the world market (Birkinshaw & Raisch, 2008).
Ambidextrous leadership is a subject that contains two concepts of exploration and
exploitation. However some according to some researchers these two concepts of
exploration and exploitation should be viewed as a single topic / continuum and therefore
should not be discussed separately (Birkinshaw & Raisch, 2008).
In order to remain innovative and have a competitive advantage over competitors,
researchers have declared ambidexterity as a fundamental part of leadership (O’Reilly &
Tushman, 1996). When managers try to follow ambidextrous leadership the work does not
ends here, they also continuously have to think of some ways on how they can bring more
improvement in their leadership styles (Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004).
Ambidextrous leadership brings some structural alignment in a company (O’Reilly
& Tushman, 1996). When organizations successfully implement ambidextrous leadership
28
style in their organizations such organizations are more able to handle environmental
conditions / changes that may have an impact on them (O’Reilly & Tushman, 1996).
According to some recent studies Transformational and Ambidextrous leadership is the
most researched topic in recent times (Baškarada, Cromarty, & Watson, 2016). Researchers
also emphasized that employees / worker’s inspiration to follow their managers’ increase
and also their motivation levels boost up when ambidextrous leadership style is followed
in an organization (Krogh, Nonaka, & Rechsteiner, 2012).
Most of the researches have concluded that companies who have a well mechanistic
management system (organization with a fixed hierarchy, chain of command and well
defined managerial roles) are believed to be more efficient and effective in stable
environment, while on the other hand companies who follow organic management systems
(systems having a benefit of flexibility of responsibilities and roles) are tend to be more
effective in dynamic business environments (Anderson, Huelsheger, & Salgado, 2009). Its
main reason could be that mechanistic management systems are assumed to allow
exploitation which is mostly awarded in stable environments and organic systems are
assumed to allow exploration which in most cases is awarded in dynamic environments
(Anderson, Huelsheger, & Salgado, 2009). Usually employees / followers of an
organization prefer to work in a company in which opening leadership attitude is followed;
they believe that opening leadership attitude is going encourage the employees to work /
function differently (Bausch, Frese, & Rosing, 2011). Basically employees have a belief
that they will be able to do different experiments, be innovative, think out of the box,
challenge the status quo and will have the authority to have an independent thinking
29
(Bausch, Frese, & Rosing, 2011). The theory of ambidextrous leadership suggests that it
leads to exploration of new opportunities (Bausch, Frese, & Rosing, 2011).
Closing leadership attitude reduces discrepancies in the employees / followers
behavior by using a set of defined guidelines, corrective measures and by making sure that
to what extent the company has been able to achieve their organizational goals (Bausch,
Frese, & Rosing, 2011). The theory of ambidextrous leadership suggests that it leads to an
increased use of exploitation activities (Bausch, Frese, & Rosing, 2011). Various
researches have figured out that leaders / managers who use opening and closing attitudes
become very successful when it comes to the innovative work of the team of employees /
workers (Bausch, Frese, & Rosing, 2011). Theory of ambidextrous leadership suggests that
opening and closing behaviors in ambidextrous leadership is assumed to bring
complimentary innovation in an organization with it (Bausch, Frese, & Rosing, 2011).
Ambidextrous organizations are all about managing tensions between opening and
closing behaviors (Jansen, Van Den Bosch, & Volberda, 2006). With the usage of opening
and closing attitudes (ambidextrous leadership), comes long-term survival chances for an
organization (Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004). Using ambidextrous leadership can prove to
be helpful for an organization in so many ways; for example it gives an organization the
ability to compete successfully among competitors, by using finite / limited number of a
company’s resources (Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004). Ambidextrous style of leadership is
preferred because in this kind of leadership style leaders / managers can create an
environment where employees can trust / be confident of them, also employees will be
more able to perform really well in their teams (Jansen, Van Den Bosch, & Volberda,
2006). Some researchers have been successful in proving that transformational leadership
30
can somehow promote ambidextrous style of leadership in an organization (Li, Lin, & Tien,
2015). There has been no researches done on finding out the relationship between
transformational and ambidextrous leadership so, more researches should be conducted in
this regard too (Li, Lin, & Tien, 2015).
Some researches has put so much emphasize on the fact that organization with
ambidextrous leadership sounds like an ideal organization, but it becomes difficult while
it comes to managing between opening and closing behaviors (Jansen, Van Den Bosch, &
Volberda, 2006). Therefore there is an absolute need of in-depth / holistic research
specifically on this subject (Jansen, Van Den Bosch, & Volberda, 2006).
2.5 Dynamic Capabilities with the Ambidexterity of the Organizations
If organizations opt for a change in their surroundings regarding to the leadership,
how they do that and is it an easy survival or does it get rugged for them to adapt to the
change in a modified form; there are only two possibilities of this scenario, one situation
is they are going to fail as an organization to bring out the change and implement it for the
success, whereas the second possibility is that they are going to adjust to the innovation
and accept it like any other flexible and prosperous organization that knows they will have
to interchange the ways of working one day or another because you can’t always work with
the obsolete styles and especially when it comes to leadership, it gets difficult to tackle the
circumstances based on the personality of the leader as well, all of this sums up with the
character and nature of a leader with the team working under him and including the
working conditions, so based on the recent and modern research, first strategy is to
reposition the assets of the company with the capabilities that already exist in the
organization gives the long term effect and it also benefits the organization by giving out
31
the competitive advantage to the company that company needs the most for a healthy
survival; second strategy argues that the balance between to explore and exploit gives the
edge of adapting to the change as much as its possible, which is ambidexterity and works
as a dynamic capability (O’Reilly & Tushman, 2008).
In order to explore and exploit simultaneously in the organization, the upper
management or senior managers who are engaged in the leadership should provide a proper
vision or goal to the team of adapting to this leadership style which is ambidextrous
leadership, so that it gives grounds to the strategy that they have chosen to follow
(Rotemberg & Saloner, 2000).
2.6 Empowering Leadership
When organizations try to pick both of the strategies and try to maintain a balance
between exploration and exploitation leaderships to create an ideal environment for the
employees to work in, the get stuck between both of them which leads to a total failure and
they adopt none of them at its fullest. Managers become confused, so do the employees
and it leads to a messed up organization with unorganized strategies (Porter, 1980; Costa
& Ghemawat, 1993). Perceived organizational support (POS) indicates that employees of
any organization believe that their company has concern for their growth and welfare, and
that their efforts are never gone into the trash, in fact their struggle is always valued by
their respective companies where they are working, so no matter what kind of leadership
or strategy is being followed in that organization, employees are at their high self-esteem
(Eisenberger & Rhoades, 2002). The contextual ambidextrous means that its employees
job to do the ambidextrous tasks and work for the good of organization rather than going
all the way to the change which is to adapt to a new leadership style and keep on adapting
32
to the change, neither going with the flow and not doing anything for the innovation and
change in the organization and just focusing on the alignment; doing things like they have
always been done by previous employees for years, so it’s a responsibility of the employees
to focus on their tasks (Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004). There’s always a need of empowering
leaders of the organizations and it reflects the less job related stressor in the employees
because there’s a less demand from the work environment and the surrounding of their
work domain where they do the interactions (Lai & Weng, 2016).
There are several effects of highlighting the leadership empowerment in the
organizations on the ambidexterity of the contextual basis, where authors suggest that
perceived organizational support (POS) plays a vital role in the determination of the
employees and the ambiguity or the doubtful roles are very crucial and need to be examined
before implying any strategy in the organizations because the perceived image and the
expected image as a major gap between them and still there are a few roles that need to be
clarified rather than keeping them vague and not defined, which creates the confusion
amongst employees as well as the managers and that results in poor outcomes of the work
(Gkorezis & Siachou, 2018).
33
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
The idea of conducting this research is to dig out the possibilities of developing
Ambidextrous leadership style in a Pakistani Organization and the chosen company is K-
Electric (KE) where researchers are going to take interviews from people who are engaged
in any sort of leadership style and they have a whole team working under them. It will help
the researchers to fill out the gap between what’s happening currently and what changes
can be done to make it happen in a better and effective way. Once the results are interpreted,
either there was a possibility to apply this leadership style or there was not, researchers are
going to decipher the interview discussions with the proper reasoning to deliver the results.
3.2 Research Design
The design of this study is qualitative research approach, where researchers take
the one on one interviews from the targeted people of a particular sector (an organization,
KE for this study) about the specific topic. Qualitative research helps the researcher to get
to the core of the topic and find out the possibilities to fill out the research gap that they
analyzed in the problem statement. This research design assists them to explore the
unexplored area where further research can be conducted in the future by using the previous
studies as a support and it may open up new directions to investigate the new domains of
a same or different sectors. Qualitative is an inductive research where researchers induce
the new idea with a wholly new or not so examined phenomenon so it’s an exploratory
study and is totally based on the interpretations of the interviews that have been conducted.
34
3.3 Data Collection and Analysis
There are numerous ways of collecting data which include conducting interviews,
using questionnaires, focus groups and many more. As qualitative research style was
adopted, therefore, the researchers will be collecting data through conducting open ended
interviews with the managers who are engaged in any type of leadership style and are in
daily practice to implement it on their team. Interview is basically a real time discussion
through any medium, it could be in person or even on a telephonic conversation where you
gather data and information through communication. The sampling technique for this case
study is going to be the mixture of purposive and snowball methods, because purposive
sampling is a non-probability sample and it focuses on the objective of the study and also
the attributes of the population from whom researchers will be collecting the data.
Purposive is selective and judgmental sample, just according to the purpose to achieve it.
Researchers are going to apply snowball sampling technique as well because it’s through
a reference from the advisor who provided the contact to the researchers to conduct a study
on that specific zone.
3.4 Time Scale
Time period for this research to be completed is within the time span of four
months, from September to December; researchers are going to submit their research
proposal in September and then start collecting data from the month of October to
November. In December, the researchers are going to assemble the results and reasons of
the selected topic and contribute to make the research constructive for the future use.
35
3.5 Ethical Consideration
The motivation of this research is to break down the opinion of the manager on
person-to-person basis to achieve our research objective by observing the perception of the
interviewees regarding the possibility of developing Ambidextrous Leadership in K-
Electric. Furthermore, the interviews were conducted with the consent of the interviewees
with the assistance of interview sessions by interviewers. The answers have been voice
recorded with the permission of all the respondents by bearing in mind the respect for their
privacy. Moreover, the data has been gathered to satisfy the exploration objective of the
research as a part of completion of MBA Thesis. Therefore, the data collected will stay
private.
3.6 Plan of Analysis
The method of Thematic Analysis, which is commonly used in Qualitative Research, is
being used in the analysis of the raw data gathered by the respondents. Thematic Analysis
helped us in transcription, sorting, coding, and sifting (broad themes) the information to
extract relevant information from the raw data and lead us to the development of themes to
summarize our data and help us reach the conclusion.
36
4. RESULTS AND FINDINGS
4.1 Thematic Analysis
Table 1 Sorting, Coding and Sifting
Questions Sorting Coding Sifting

#
1.  Traditional leadership  Traditional leadership Moving away from
 State organization  Korn Ferry Model traditional leadership style,
 Private organization  Changing following Korn Ferry and
 Korn Ferry leadership model environment situational leadership style
 Productivity  Democratic because of the rapid change
 Situational leadership leadership in environment.
 New trends  Participative
 Changing Environment  Autocratic
 Big organization  Team collaboration
 Democratic leadership style
 Emergencies
 Aggressive leadership style
 Engagement sessions
 Autocratic
 Participative
 Assertive approach
 Team collaboration
2.  Tricky work environment  Laisez-faire Both autocratic and
 Semi-government  Feedback participative approaches are
 Good leader  Trust element used. But mostly the focus is
37
 Laisez-faire  Responsibility on participative leadership
 Support  Understanding leader style. This means taking
 Team’s consent feedback from employees in
 Feedback encouraged.
 Best option
 Discuss opinions
 Decision making
 Confidential
 Empowered
 Independent
 Trust element
 Management
 Facilitator
 Guidance
 Direction
 Strong bond
 Responsibility
 Realistic
 Understanding leader
3.  Dominance  Development stage Organization focuses more
 Strict leader  Different on following the
 Three generations personalities participative style of
 Regime change  State of mind leadership more. Because
 Development stage  Empathetic sometimes a leader has to
 Participation  Switching leadership switch between being an
 autocratic leader to being an
 Strategy Maximum output
empathetic leader,
 Orthodox  Talent of employee
depending on the situation.
 Motivate people
 Internal customers
 Priority
 Not consistent
38
 Different personalities
 Fast learners
 Slow learners
 Empathetic
 State of mind
 Bossy attitude
 Different manner
 Senior position
 Switching leadership style
 Downsizing
 Talent
 Opportunities
 Encouraging
 Respectful
 Maximum output
4.  Transformational leadership  Transformational Confusion between
 Transactional leadership leadership following transformational
 Ambidextrous leadership  Transactional and transactional leadership
 Two extremes leadership styles. No awareness about
 Balance  Ambidextrous the term “ambidextrous”.
 Satisfaction leadership
 Literacy jargon  Two extremes
 Terminology
 Deadline
5.  Cant constantly follow  Operational needs A leader has to arrange
 Mixture of all the spice  Performance training sessions and should
 Operational need  Training sessions negotiate with his employees
 Dual personality  Managerial skills before implementing a
 Resistance  Negotiations change. This will reduce
 Team on board  Adopt to change resistance to a greater extent.
 Disturbed performance
39
 Training sessions
 Bonuses
 Element of Trust
 Inspiration
 Company has a legacy
 Privatization
 Managerial skills
 Working place
 Transformation
 Negotiations
 Educate them
 Experience
 Knowledge
 Comfort zone
 Ability
 Adopt to change
 Survival
6.  Communication skills  Communication skills Having no idea about what
 Strengths’  Exploitation ambidextrous is, still
 Skills used optimally  Exploration managers agreed that K-
 Exploitation  Strategic skills Electric has a potential to use
 Utilization ambidextrous leadership
 Retaliated style. Which means they can
exploit and explore
 Reward
employees simultaneously.
 Strategic skills
 Exploration
 Potential
 Similar approach
7.  Leadership comes naturally  Leadership comes Leadership style should be
 Betterment of the organization naturally flexible. Leadership
 Adopting the Korn Ferry model  Flexibility flexibility depends on the
culture of the organization.
40
 Creates flexibility  Culture of
 Equally proportionate organization
 Healthy team
 Well-being of employees
 Culture of organization
 Complaints
8.  More inclination  Variation of situation Leadership depends mainly
 Ideal leader  Size of organization on the situation. It has to be
 Situations vary flexible.
 Size of organization
9.  Moved away from traditional style  Potential Organization has a great
 Settled up  Formal environment potential to move away from
 Great potential formal and traditional
 Formal environment working environment. This
 Benefit will be beneficial for K-
Electric.
10.  Multiple ideas  Team work Team work is encouraged in
 Challenging task  Individual work the organization. More ideas
 Quality of task  Quality of task can be gathered to complete
 Individually a task. Quality of the work
 Team work will be improved.
11.  Lacking areas  Recognized Grooming of employees in
 Feel valued  Training sessions K-Electric is done through
 Recognized  Counselling sessions various methods such as;
 Highlighting employees  Growth recognition, training and
 Satisfaction  Satisfaction counselling of employees.
 Feel motivated This ensures growth and
satisfaction among
 Hard work
employees.
 Training sessions
 Counselling sessions
 Growth
 Workshops
41
Table 2 Themes
Themes
1. Leadership in K-E- Present vs Future
2. Manager and his leadership
3. Awareness and Potential of Ambidextrous
Leadership
4. Employee Grooming
Table of Responses
Questions R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7
Accepted
Leadership Korn Ferry Situational Situational Situational Situational Situational Situational
model in K-E
Autocratic or
Participative? Both Participative Both Participative Participative Participative Participative
(Manager)
Autocratic or
Participative? Both Participative Both Participative Participative Both Participative
(organisation)
Awareness of
No No No No No No No
Ambidextrous?
Leadership
style while
change Participative Both Participative Participative Participative Both Participative
implementatio
n
42
Questions R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7
Potential of
Ambidextrous
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Leadership in
K-E
Change in
Leadership Yes No Yes No No No No
style recently?
Was it
welcomed?
Variation in
Leadership It varies It varies It varies It varies It varies It varies It varies
style?
Potential of
moving away
from
traditional
regulations and
formal
environment?
Preference -
Team or Team Team Depends Team Team Individual Team
Individual?
Employee's
Employee Value Value Value Conventional Conventional Conventional
Instrinsic
Grooming? recognition recognition recognition method method method
Motivation
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4.2 Discussion
In this research data was gathered from 7 respondents through interviews. Majority
of the researchers confirmed that situational leadership is used in the organization, but one
of the respondents told that company follows the Korn ferry model for leadership. Korn
ferry is the accepted model in K-Electric. Respondents perceived that their leadership style
is more accurate and caters to more dimensions than ambidextrous leadership. This model
of leadership has four elements: People, Self, Change and Results. None of the respondents
were aware of the term ambidextrous or of their accepted leadership style which is Korn
ferry. As most of the respondents are situational leaders they concluded that their
leadership style changes according to the situation.
Most of the respondents concluded that they use participative approach when
introducing a new change in K-Electric. Like they take their team on board and ask their
valuable feedback from them so, that resistance can be minimized to a greater extent.
Variation in leadership is another part of K-Electric’s leadership. For example at times
managers in K-Electric need to use autocratic leadership mostly during the rain
emergencies when it is very important to supply electricity to customers and resolve their
complaints. At the same time managers need to be empathetic, friendly too when there are
no deadlines to meet. Most of the respondents agreed to the fact that they usually give tasks
and assignments to their employees in teams.
The respondents had no idea about what ambidextrous actually is. But when the
term ambidextrous was explained to them, majority of the managers agreed that there is a
potential to use ambidextrous leadership in K-Electric. Also they thought that it is going to
be beneficial for the organization.
44
When the question of how employee grooming is done in K-Electric was asked to
the managers, mostly answered that they typically use the conventional ways like making
employees attend the workshops and training sessions. Other respondents said that they
appreciate and recognize their employees which help them to boost up their motivation
level and grow in future.
According to the literature, ambidextrous is when explorative and exploitative
behaviors are developed and executed simultaneously. Ambidexterity ensures fast and
continuous growth in an organization. But through our research findings we got to know
that the leadership style that K-Electric is using, is not able to successfully develop
explorative and exploitative behavior simultaneously. Some respondents said that they use
situational leadership and some said that they use the Korn Ferry model of leadership.
Basically the respondents were confused and were not on the same page, as they did not
know what leadership style they are following. Ambidextrous word was something new
for them. It means that they are not using ambidextrous. Since K-Electric is trying to
develop their leadership style, so there is a “potential” for using the concept of
ambidexterity in the organization, when they want to develop among their decision makers
in future.
45
5. CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATION & PRACTICAL
IMPLICATIONS
5.1 Conclusion
As per the findings of the interviews from the respondents, it has been concluded
that there is a possibility of developing Ambidextrous Leadership in K-Electric since they
have entered the development phase of leadership in their organization. They are not using
transformational and transactional leadership simultaneously. They are using both the
leadership styles on one-at-a-time basis, depending on the demand of the situation in hand,
leading towards Situational Leadership. Hence, it is proved that they are not using
Ambidextrous Leadership currently in their organization.
The managers have the potential of using both the leadership styles but there’s an
absence of awareness of this term Ambidextrous, so in their opinion they are using it but
being an unbiased researcher, it’s observed that they are not following the combination of
both the leadership styles at a time, which is essence of ambidexterity. The leadership
model that they are following has four elements and all of them are applied solely on
situational basis, so it can't be said that in their model there’s a presence of Ambidexterity.
5.2 Recommendation
The result of this study cannot be generalized for all the organisations in Pakistani
context as it was based on only one local company. Furthermore, taking interviews from
few managers cannot make the results general as the sample size was small, as the results
were saturated. Therefore, for future research purpose more employees or companies can
be added to the research, thus, making a larger sample size and the researchers can further
46
investigate the possibility of developing Ambidextrous Ledaership, not only in K-Electric
but in local organization by widening the scope of the study. Furthermore, employees on
lower levels can also be interviewed to research how they want to be led.
5.3 Practical Implications

This data collection consisted of a bunch of different factors on which the research
could be expanded like the responses could depend and vary on the basis of gender
differences. The responses can further be more divided on the basis of their managerial
status in the organization. Conclusion can be made on the basis of employee pay grade and
concluded if the employee is not productive because of their pay scales or there's lacking
in the leadership skills of his team lead. In demographics, salary ranges and qualification
and personality styles of the leaders could have added to make the research more authentic
and accurate in regard to the profile of the respondent which could vary due to their mental
acceptance and the area from where they belong.
47
48
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1825113, 1825116, 1825114
by Nasrah Maknoon
Submission date: 07-Dec-2019 02:33PM (UTC+0500)

Submission ID: 1229275512
File name: Plag..docx (60.03K)
Word count: 8261
Character count: 47364
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Appendix
Appendix A1 -ORIGINAL LITERACY WORK DECLARATION FORM ii
Appendix A2 – CHECKLIST FOR FORMAT OF THESIS iii
Appendix A3 - SUPERVISOR-STUDENT MEETING RECORD FORM iv
Appendix A4 - PLAGIARISM VERIFICATION (by: PSO only) ix
Appendix A5- Interview Protocol 52
Appendix A6- Transcriptions of Qualitative Data 53
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Appendix A5- Interview Protocol
Q1. What is the leadership styles accepted in your organization?
Q2. What’s your leadership style being a manager (autocratic or participative) why?
Q3. What’s happening in K.E? Autocratic is observed or participative style?
Q4. Are people aware of ambidextrous leadership style?
Q5. In the situation when you had to implement any change, what leadership style did you
follow?
Q6. Can you use ambidextrous leadership in your organization? Will it be successful?
Q7. Did you change your leadership style attitude in the recent years? Was the behavior
welcomed by your team of employees?
Q8. Is your leadership style constant? Or does it vary?
Q9. Do you think your firm has the potential to move away from traditional and formal
environment?
Q10. What is your method to assign tasks to your employees? Individual or as a team?
Q11. How do you groom your employees?
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Appendix A6- Transcriptions of Qualitative Data
Transcription of Pilot Interview
Respondent 1
Name: Tariq Punjwani
Designation: General Manager - Human Resource
Date and day of interview: 13/10/2019
Place: K-Electric office.
Start time: 3:30pm
Duration: 20mins
End time: 3:40pm
Q1. What is the leadership style accepted in your organization?
The organization is almost 113 years old and we’ve been following traditional leadership
style for ages, but for the last 3 and half years we have introduced a new model in the
organization; since we have gone from state to private organization, we had to change the
infrastructure of the organization as well and then we implemented this ‘Harvard leadership
model’ called as Korn Ferry’s leadership model and since then this model is accepted in
the organization because we have realized that only focusing on the productivity of the
organization leads to nowhere, there are other factors too that should be attentively
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concentrated and because of this model we were able to highlight the elements that were
long forgotten and never came into the consideration.
Q2. What’s your leadership style being a manager (Autocratic or Participative) and
why?
My leadership style has changed 360, because I used to be a pure Autocrat leader before
this model came into being, things were working smooth because K-Electric was a pure
government organization and dealing with the employees at that time was quite difficult
and tricky so the Autocratic style worked perfectly but now things have changed and we
have switched to semi-government organization, so I can't be purely Autocratic neither
Participative, situations change and nothing can be followed on constant basis. So now we
need to use both, make them do work as well as listen to them too, because your employees
bring change to the organization and it’s necessary for a good leader to gather what his or
team has to say.
Q3. What’s happening in K.E? Autocratic works or participative?
In K-Electric, as I have said before that both of them worked, but before switching to semi-
government, Autocratic used to work better but now you can’t be dominant on your team,
neither there’s a need to be a strict leader anymore. It totally depends on the kind of product
or service your organization is offering and then you become a kind of leader best suited
for your organization. Both of the leadership styles are being followed currently and we do
transform as well as transact the employees depending on the circumstances.
Q4. Are people aware of Ambidextrous?
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People are not aware of this term but they are following Transformational and
Transactional leadership styles with balance and as per our model, this is already applied
in the Korn Ferry, so K-Electric leaders are already supporting Ambidextrous because it
has created a balance between two extremes. People are quite satisfied and the
leaders/managers are also satisfied to work using this model which already has the factor
of Ambidextrous.
Q5. In the situation when you had to implement any change, what leadership style did
you follow?
In every situation I always thought being Autocratic was the best solution and it used to be
too but now things have changed and you cant constantly follow one style, it has to be
mixture of all the spices to understand the team effectively and lead the way it’s necessary.
Q6. Can you use Ambidextrous leadership in our organization? Will it be successful?
We already follow it now and we have been following it for the last 3 and half years, and
yes, it’s very successful till date and it will be for the future as well.
Q7. Did you change your leadership attitude in the recent years? Was the behavior
Yes, I changed my leadership style, I used to be a pure Autocrat and it suited my personality
as well as the organization at that time. Your leadership style always comes naturally until
you feel the need to change it for the betterment of the organization and your team so when
K-Electric switched to semi-government organization, there was a need of changing the
leadership style as well and for the past 3 and half years we follow both of the leadership
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styles including other elements of Korn Ferry’s model. Obviously, it was warmly
welcomed by the team and the management because adopting this model created flexibility
in work environment and people appreciated that.
My style used to be constant, it can always be defined in a percent like how much percent
I was participative and autocratic, before the change in the organization I was more inclined
to Autocratic and now I maintain a balance between both to become an ideal leader for my
team. It does vary as the situation vary but there has to be a role of both the styles to make
one perfect style.
Q9. Do you think your firm has the potential to move away from traditional
regulation and formal environment?
They had the potential that’s why they have already moved away from traditional styles,
now the organization welcomes change and flexibility and its settled up really well.
Q10. What is your method to assign tasks to your employees – individual? Or in a
team?
Team work is always better because there should be multiple ideas to form a one good idea
when dealing with a challenging task so I personally believe in team work and that’s how
I assign tasks.
Every manager has his own way of grooming employees because they have been working
with them so they know how to work on their lacking areas, I groom my employees by
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making them feel valued, highlighting them so they feel recognized and then they work
even better by just being satisfied with me.
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Respondent 2
Name: Sharmin-Deputy Manager People Services
Designation: Deputy Manager People Services
Start time: 3:45pm
Duration: 6mins
End time: 3:51pm
I believe, in K.E it’s situational leadership style that’s being followed where you go
according to the situation and can’t plan it beforehand. Personally I follow this too and I
guess all the other leaders are doing the same thing or otherwise you can’t keep up with
the new trends and changing environment.
why?
It depends on the nature of work you have been given. If you are going to take a strategic
move which could be development in your processes, or implementation of something new
software or new project, etc, being a leader I believe in the democratic style because as
much as you brainstorm, new ideas come in. If you restrict the young blood or youth
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working under you to think orthodox and be with you so you won’t be getting great ideas,
people will be afraid of you, people will not share. But for strategic moves, yes. But for
operational work, you have to headstrong at times because too many cooks spoil the food.
For operations go for orthodox. For strategic move, welcome the democratic style so you
get better results, better options. My practice is totally democratic whether it’s operational
or strategic. I believe in open door policy.
Open door policy means democratic or laissez-faire?
Laisez-faire. That is if you have problems, I am there to resolve it but come up with an
option. It won’t work if you spoon feed the child. You have to push the child to work on
its own, I will be there for the support.
We have got three generations working with us. This organization is 110 years old. Since
2016, the regime changed and we had a new management with a new vision and I was one
of them so I am the generation 2016 onwards. Every management have got 3 years strategy
and when we joined, we started in 2016 and in 2019 we are now in development stage. We
came here with a notion of participation. We believed in joining hands together. We
changed the whole thinking of orthodox in K-Electric. We converted the employees to
family members. We are practicing totally family style working. We don’t have
departments, we have got families. At K-E, we always welcome the new hire as a new
family member and existing people they treat them as their own family member. There is
no orthodox or Autocracies. We motivate people if you need excellence. Prioritize your
internal customers.
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We have democratic way of leading people because right now we are working on strategy.
If I am not nobody is because it’s a literacy jargon. May be we practicing but we are not
able to resonate this word.
you follow?
I have been switched to a new role 3 months back. If you ask me being a person, I am not
autocratic at all. I cannot push somebody against the wish but now according to my role,
it’s an operational need, I practice it. Till date, I have been dual personality. At time when
I have use autocracy, I do, elsewise I practise the democratic approach.
To turn it into percentage, 70% is democratic, 30% is autocracy depending upon the needs.
If we see technically, I give you an example of Customer Service Department, we have
masters working as customer service agents. Just because of their communication skills
which are their strengths, we are undermining them and somehow they get retaliated that
although their skills are being used optimally, but for them their careers stuck somewhere,
they are not getting the growth. That is something we can call exploitation- utilization of
your strength for the benefit of the company but you are not rewarded accordingly. You
deserve to be at Am or manager but we are using you for a junior position. But I do have
examples where we have taken office level person to AM level because of the leadership
skills, managerial skills, because of their strategic skills.
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We believe in exploration. There is a balance. For a safe side I can say if there are things,
10%, which are happening and not being reported. But 90% I can say ambidextrous
leadership isn’t practiced but we explore and if there is potential, we utilize it and reward
it accordingly. There is no exploitation.
We develop leaders- we assess the potential. If potential is good we escalate it
So it’s transformational leadership?
Exactly.
I haven’t changed my leadership style. It’s just 30% of mine is depending upon the
situation. It’s driven and equally proportionate to what kind of situation coming up. My
team is very healthy, they are welcoming, they know my style so they work accordingly.
If we need to develop something in our department for the betterment we join heads
together and discuss it. If there is any operational problem and I feel like there they are
wrong, I keep my head strong but I give them the resolutions. I have 2 people direct
reportees.
Ans. It varies according to what actually the situation is.
Q9. Do you think your firm has the potential to move away from traditional and
formal environment?
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Ans. Yes, I think K- Electric has the potential to do it, as it is a huge organization.
Ans. I prefer to give tasks in teams, as I believe that quality of the tasks is improved when
performed in teams.
Ans. It’s easy! Employees need recognition in order to feel motivated. And their high
motivation levels helps in the grooming of the employees.
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Respondent 3
Name: Mr. Naeem Baloch
Designation: Manager Employee Relations
Start time: 2:00 pm
Duration: 15mins
End time: 2:15 pm
Ans. K-Electric is a big organization, having 10,000+ employees working in it. So,
obviously it becomes difficult to follow just one style of leadership and we cannot do that.
We have to shift our gears (leadership styles). Sometimes when we follow democratic
leadership style we discuss things with our employees and only then the decision is made.
So, consent of our employees is required to do a project. But sometimes we have to
complete the task which manager has asked us to do on time; we have to complete the task
by hook or by crook. At that point of time we cannot follow democratic leadership style.
We are not working in a multi-national company like Unilever / Procter and Gamble whose
management follows democratic style of leadership. When we have rain emergency and
transformers trips due to rain and you people complain about why is not K-Electric
supplying electricity. At that time we have a different leadership style going in the
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organization, we become very aggressive during rain emergencies. Because within no time
we have to provide electricity to you people and we cannot use democratic style at that
time.
We do engagement session with our employees; there we have a totally different leadership
style. In these session employees are asked about their problems and we discuss them.
Ans. I take decisions with the consent of my employees. I follow democratic style of
leadership and I take decisions with my team’s consent, I always take feedback from my
team. This benefits me as all four employees give options and then I can pick the best
possible option. And when best possible option is chosen which was already decided with
the consent of your team, the work is done smoothly with no difficulty. Even our religion
Islam encourages us to discuss opinions with everyone and then take a decision. Employees
should be involved in the decision making until and unless it’s a confidential thing which
should not be disclosed. The employees working under us want to feel empowered. By
empowering our employees they become independent in decision making, they don’t
hesitate to share things because they know that they are supported by their managers.
Second benefit of empowering employees is that, it creates trust element between the
management and the employee. The trust element helps employees to grow further.
Ans. A lot of things! As I told you earlier that leadership style cannot be consistent. At the
end of the day we have to deal with people. And every person has a different personality.
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Some people are fast learners and some are slow learners. Therefore every individual
should be treated accordingly.
If I am talking to my customer who is a defaulter and lives in a big house I will have to talk
to him differently. When I am talking to my employee my way of talking will be obviously
different. My line man working in 40 degree Celsius heat will be offended if I talk to him
harshly. I will have to speak to him softly if I want to ask him why he didn’t wear his safety
harness. For talking to him I will have to be empathetic towards him as he worked really
hard in a hot day. I will have to see his state of mind while talking to him. I cannot show
bossy attitude towards him. Because he will be hurt that end the end of the day I
successfully repaired electricity wiring on a hot day and my manager is being rude to me.
Similarly if I am talking to a person holding a senior position in the organization, I will
have to deal him in a different manner. A person cannot be successful if he does not switch
his leadership styles according to the situations.
Even Hitler used to call his soldiers by their names because he had a very good memory
and his talking style used to depend on which person is he talking to. This made him
famous. Leadership is all about how you react according to the situations. If you are
consistently following the same leadership style every time that means you are not a good
leader. I have also learned this from my senior managers and elders that your leadership
style varies according to situation to situation.
A few years back when we were downsizing our employees we had to become aggressive
in nature. Because it was a requirement at that time as we had to deal with media and stuff.
But now as things are under control, we can follow a democratic leadership style.
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Ans. If I put this terminology aside then yes. People may not be familiar with this
terminology but managers keep a balance between two extreme behaviors i.e. midline
between democratic and autocratic approach.
I personally use this style of leadership too. For example if I have to complete an assigned
task by 31st Dec and I know that very less time is left so, definitely I will have to use
autocratic style to complete the work before deadline. In that case I will have to approach
the head of the team and inform him that your workers are being lazy and you have t be
strict with them.
Q5. In situation when you had to implement any change, which leadership style did u
follow?
Ans. Change always faces resistance. The best way to deal with change is that whenever
new project of something new is about to happen you just take your team on board. Tell
your team that management needs their feedback on how to improve the things.
If all of a sudden you just tell your employees that new portal is made where you will have
to submit your leave application now. It is going to face resistance as employees will say
that they have a habit of submitting their leave application manually, and will not feel
comfortable. Then you should tell the benefit of submitting application online like tell them
that it will make your life easier etc. and only then we can decrease the resistance.
If we implement a change without taking the team on board and without their consent,
which means the change is going to fail miserably. In India there was an organization who
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felt that their employees are not motivated towards their work and hence their performance
is disturbed. The management of the company hired a counselor to check why the
employees are not motivated. Company got to know that employees need a training session
to make them feel motivated. However the employees felt that something wrong is
happening, they thought the company is trying to check their skill sets through conducting
the training sessions and they all protested against the company, refused to attend the
training. The management had to hire another counselor to solve the issue. Counselor told
the management that you did not take your worker on board, did not tell them the benefits
of attending the training sessions. Then the management had to inform their workers that
the productivity was low and management was concerned about it as if there will be no
productivity then there will be no bonuses given to you. Told them that this training is for
improving the productivity and told them some benefits of attending the training. After
listening to the benefits the employees did not resist to the training session and attended it
happily as it was beneficial for their job. Eventually the productivity improved and
employees got their bonuses. Employees became motivated.
Ans. Yes company keeps a balance between explorative and exploitative approach. As we
switch our leadership styles with situation to situation.
Q7. Did you change your leadership style attitude in the recent years? Was the
behavior welcomed by your team of employees?
Ans. When I first joined K-Electric the organization was in a transformation stage. It was
first KESC then it became privatized and a lot of changes were going on in that phase. I
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was lucky enough to be a part of the team at that time. Now when I re-joined the organized
last year the issues have been resolved now. At this point of time management has a focus
on its employee’s well-being. We are developing the culture of this organization so, that
our employees take pride in us.
We are trying to make work fun for our employees so, that they enjoying coming to work.
Employees consider this company as their second home. Job is not only about waking up
early in the morning, going to work for like 9:00 am - 5:00 pm and getting paid for it. Job
should be a passion for a person. Employees should own the company. A good leader
motivates his employees so, that they perform better.
We have now created drop boxes so, that workers can put their complaints in it. We are
constantly doing efforts to engage our team.
Ans. Yes it varies and depends on the situation.
formal environment?
Ans. - Ans. Yes, I told you before that K-Electric is not a small sized organization. So, I
think K-Electric can easily move away from the traditional and formal environment.
Ans. I strongly believe in working as a team and discussing things/ taking feedback from
them before taking a decision.
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Ans. By making my teams feel that organization recognizes their hard work. We as an
organization give value and recognition to the employees. And also their hard work is
always appreciated.
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Respondent 4
Name: Atika Imtiaz
Designation: Deputy General Manager
Start time: 4:00 pm
Duration: 6mins
End time: 4:06 pm
Ans. It mainly depends on the situation. There are some situations where it is required for
a leader to become autocratic and give commands to their employees. And sometimes we
have to use the participative approach. In general assertive + participative styles are
accepted.
Ans. I am a situational leader and a facilitator. My leadership style depends on the situation.
When a person is new to the organization I give them directions. I support them by
providing them guidance. So, I have a more supporting role toward my team.
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Ans. In general assertive + participative styles are accepted. I believe we should take out
talent from the person, and give them opportunities. Company should not leave everything
on the employees.
Ans. No, I don’t think so.
follow?
Ans. I mostly use the participative approach. My team is not scared of me; they can discuss
and tell me everything they want to. When employees are scared of their leaders then they
are not able to tell the truth. There should be an element of TRUST between the leader and
the team. This element is very important.
Ans. Maybe we use it but I don’t think people are aware of this jargon.
Ans. I have not worked in the organization from a long time. So, my leadership didn’t
change much. I am always in favor of participative style.
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Ans. I think a good leader should know how to change hats according to the situations.
Sometimes a leader has to wear a hat of a guide, coach and a boss. Again it all depends
what kind of situation the company is facing.
formal environment?
Ans. Change is not welcomed always. It will depend if employees would get benefit by
moving away from formal / traditional environment.
Ans. I believe in team work, also in team work participative approach can be used.
Ans. By giving employees training and counseling sessions.
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Respondent 5
Name: Atika Tariq
Designation: Manager Learning
Start time: 4:10 pm
Duration: 7mins
End time: 4:17 pm
(She is leading a team of 5-6 people)
Ans. K-Electric believes in using a team collaboration style, where leader and employees
are not hesitant to share their problems.
Ans. I believe in team work. When employees work as a team they build strong bonding
in between them. Hence, their productivity is greatly improved too.
Ans. It depends on situation to situation. But generally participative style is always
encouraged to use in the organization.
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Ans. Well I don’t think employees will be familiar with this term.
follow?
Ans. I think a leader should take his team on board with him when implementing a change.
Leader should have a personality that his employees become inspired and be ever ready to
follow him.
Ans. I think we are already following the similar approach.
Ans. My style of leadership did not change much.
Ans. Well it varies. It depends on the kind of work, case to case. I also depends on the
organization, whether is it small or big.
formal environment?
Ans. Maybe.
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Ans. I usually assign them the work in teams.
Ans. By giving our employees opportunities to grow and to prove themselves by making
them attend different workshops and training sessions.
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Respondent 6
Name: Younus
Designation: Team Lead HR services
Start time: 4:10 pm
Duration: 7mins
End time: 4:17 pm
There are total 10 members reporting to me, there are different verticles where exactly they
are posted. They have different sort of responsibilities that they carry along with us
Q1. What are the leadership style accepted in your organization?
There can be many styles of a leader
why?
I see the traits in a person that the responsibility I am delegating to him shouldn’t be over
burden, should be realistic. Being a manger I visualize myself in his shoe
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There are things which we have to get done out of the box but then you have to be respectful
within your team, you have to be careful with your team. If you don’t do so, they won’t
work with interest. There are two major things- respect and attitude. How you show to your
team so they will give you maximum output
No, I am not.
you follow?
This company has a legacy, many things has changed with the passage of time. At first
there was government rule then privatization, the things changed with bits and pieces. They
are working towards the best working place to work with.
When implementing change comes in your managerial skills, where do you stand as a team
manager. If there is change, there is resistance. Resistance is a part of transformation and
this is a worst factor. Either you push them against their wish or you stand with them, go
into operational things, get things done and then you keep a bird eye on them
Not everything can be done by the leader
88
It depends on the situation. Sometimes you have to be friendly, sometimes you have to be
bossy. But then you have to pat on your back, on others’ back as well because you can’t
push someone against the wish. Sometimes you have to be strict and sometimes linient.
Sometime you have to ignore other’s mistake. Sometimes you have to catch mistake just
to give a message to others but within the limits of being respectful.
If you have to quantify in percentage, how much would you say you are
transformational or transactional?
I would quantify according to the situation but it has to be 50-50 all the time
It varies according to the situation
Q9. Do you think your firm has the potential to move away from traditional
regulation and formal environment?
Ans. Yes, our organization definitely has the potential.
Q10. What is your method to assign tasks to your employees – individual? Or in a
team?
First priority is to assign task individually but then if he gets busted I give it to somebody
else
89
By coaching sessions, counselling sessions. You have to make them realize they have to
grow in future and work somewhere else. Spark is within the person. Then there is
motivation which would make him realize his responsibility, managers just trigger it.
If I quote an example, once upon a time 3 people worked under me and the most junior one
got promotion first because he portrayed his potential. You have to show your potential,
nobody will ask you. Grooming requires your managerial skills.
90
Respondent 7
Name: Aamir
Designation: General Manager-Litigation
Start time: 4:20 pm
Duration: 13mins
End time: 4:33 pm
Your tenure in K-Electric?
Slightly more than 4.5 years. Before that I was in PTCL
Q1. What are the leadership style accepted in your organization?
Depends on the manager. Every departmental manger carries his own style, not every
manager will have a similar style, nobody can work like that. I carry out tasks with mutual
discussion- I let my team know, discuss with them before implementing.
Any practical experience, any challenges? How did you sort it out?
With respect to my department, we face challenges on daily basis.
91
Any memorable example, when something tricky happens and which makes it
difficult to lead the team, how did you cope up?
There comes many issues when team is under too much pressure. The thing usually
happens with us when the company takes such actions on employees’ cases which leads
them to court and they come back with a stay order, so we have to ask court to revert the
stay order. We also have pressure. There are multiple employees in a company who have
different behaviours which may also go against the discipline. So the company has to take
disciplinary action. At this point, we have to advise the company how to deal with it. These
are the issues faced in court.
why?
I am not strict, I am an understanding leader.
you follow?
Through negotiations only. We have to educate them about the benefits of the upcoming
change and how will that benefit them in their future with respect to their jobs, experience
and knowledge. We elaborate that for their understanding to help them in adopting the
change. If you don’t do so, he would resist change. He would find it difficult to come out
of his comfort zone. He won’t be able to survive in the upcoming IT Era if he doesn’t have
the ability to adopt change
How do you measure satisfaction level of your team?
92
Team is happy when you create such a relationship where there are no hierarchical
boundaries. If you remain a “boss” they will remain tense. I have this system that if any of
them have issues we work on them by discussing and resolving by understanding
Every day we are facing such situations where the transformation process is taking place
where I pass on my experience to my team related to similar situations I have been in and
transfer the knowledge, take them on board and telling them how much aggressive we have
to be or how slow we have to take it to cool down the current situation.
For example, if any of my employees has experienced something for the first time so we
guide him how to tackle it along with continuous supervision
To what extent to you follow your own company’s accepted model?
It’s not possible to follow it 100% but we do it to the max.
The change in your leadership style depends upon the situation which molds your role and
how to lead your team according to the situation. You can’t be always aggressive.
Somewhere you have to work with mutual collaboration and negotiation.
So you have never change your style, did that succeed?
93
Yes, I have been working as a team, I have never been on dominating side. An actual
leader is the one who could be an influencer and support of his team. He can only influence
when he will support. He discuss to develop understanding.
Haven’t you feel the need to be strict?
You have to be strict according to the situation, for example, deadlines are not met so we
grant them time but we have to pressurize them too.
How many members does your team have?
7 people
Have you faced any difference in team management here as compared to PTCL?
As being a lawyer, I have always been leading lawyers. Every individual has different traits
but the nature of our work has been the same so there hasn’t been any such resistance. In
organizational context, K-electric is much better in terms of management style.
If you get to define your leadership style in percentage?
50-50, depending on the situation
In future what would you to change with respect to the potential of your team?
There is always a room for development and change, you need education and training
accordingly. As discussed the effect of technological development is causing the change
so you have to change accordingly.
Q6. How do you groom your employees? How do make them feel valued?
94
Education, exposure and experience are the factors which groom your employees. The best
way to groom is further education, trainings, seminars, workshops. Other that that there are
certain diplomas, certificate courses to teach them the upcoming development, there are
exposures how to work on certain tasks to give them experience. We obviously appreciate
if an employee works well and meet his targets according to the given deadlines. There is
a grading system in our company at the year end, there is assessment of his performance,
on this basis his salary increases, his designation also depends on it. Then there are bonuses.
Like this he feels he is being recognized, so he would feel valued.
If there is an employee lacking and not meeting the deadlines, how to deal with him?
Obviously we can’t fire him, this is not how we work here. We discuss with him if he is
facing any confusion, ask him the reason for not doing the task. Then we see if he needs
any training or exposure, for example, one of our employees is AM and his work is
basically to update MIS, update files and new cases so now we are taking him to court for
learning purpose to see the proceedings and note them with our other lawyers, he notes if
we get any dates or if any instructions need to be passed on, so if he is lacking or confused
anywhere so we give them relatable exposure. That’s how he gets rejuvenate, his energy
level increases because he understands the work now. If we separate him the things won’t
work out because that’s what leaders’ do- take everyone on board.
To what extent to you follow your own company’s accepted model?
Ans. It’s not possible to follow it 100% but we do it to the max.
95
Ans. The change in your leadership style depends upon the situation which molds your role
and how to lead your team according to the situation. You can’t be always aggressive.
Somewhere you have to work with mutual collaboration and negotiation.
So you have never change your style, did that succeed?
Ans. Yes, I have been working as a team, I have never been on dominating side. An actual
leader is the one who could be an influencer and support of his team. He can only influence
when he will support. He discuss to develop understanding.
Haven’t you feel the need to be strict?
Ans. You have to be strict according to the situation, for example, deadlines are not met so
we grant them time but we have to pressurize them too.
How many members does your team have?
Ans. 7 people
Have you faced any difference in team management here as compared to PTCL?
Ans. As being a lawyer, I have always been leading lawyers. Every individual has different
traits but the nature of our work has been the same so there hasn’t been any such resistance.
In organizational context, K-electric is much better in terms of management style.
If you get to define your leadership style in percentage?
Ans. 50-50, depending on the situation
In future what would you to change with respect to the potential of your team?
96
There is always a room for development and change, you need education and training
accordingly. As discussed the effect of technological development is causing the change
so you have to change accordingly.
Ans. No! It cannot be kept constant always. My leadership style always varies according
to the situation.
formal environment?
Ans. Yes definitely! Firm follows a participative approach so it will easier to move from
traditional and formal environment.
Ans. I always assign the work in teams.
Q11. How do you groom your employees? How do make them feel valued?
Ans. Education, exposure and experience are the factors which groom your employees.
The best way to groom is further education, trainings, seminars, workshops. Other that that
there are certain diplomas, certificate courses to teach them the upcoming development,
there are exposures how to work on certain tasks to give them experience. We obviously
appreciate if an employee works well and meet his targets according to the given deadlines.
There is a grading system in our company at the year end, there is assessment of his
performance, on this basis his salary increases, his designation also depends on it. Then
there are bonuses. Like this he feels he is being recognized, so he would feel valued.
97
If there is an employee lacking and not meeting the deadlines, how to deal with him?
Obviously we can’t fire him, this is not how we work here. We discuss with him if he is
facing any confusion, ask him the reason for not doing the task. Then we see if he needs
any training or exposure, for example, one of our employees is AM and his work is
basically to update MIS, update files and new cases so now we are taking him to court for
learning purpose to see the proceedings and note them with our other lawyers, he notes if
we get any dates or if any instructions need to be passed on, so if he is lacking or confused
anywhere so we give them relatable exposure. That’s how he gets rejuvenate, his energy
level increases because he understands the work now. If we separate him the things won’t
work out because that’s what leaders’ do- take everyone on board.
98

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Possibility of Developing Ambidextrous Leadership in KE

Faculty of Business Administration

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Dated: December 2019

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of the best firms to work in.

Design/Methodology: The design of the research is qualitative, interview based in which

at 7 respondents. The methodology consisted of Thematic Analysis with coding, sorting

situational leadership style.

help them achieve fast and continuous growth.

Keywords: Ambidextrous leadership, Transactional leadership, Transformational

leadership, Employee development, Situational Leadership

It was a great opportunity for me to do research on this topic. I highly

research provided great experience and knowledge.

Appendix A3 - SUPERVISOR-STUDENT MEETING RECORD FORM iv

Table 1 Sorting, Coding and Sifting 37

Bosch, & Volberda, 2014).

Most of the times, the concept of innovation is considered closely related to

Fres, 2009). In such a situation, consequently, workers / employees performance is

innovation and creativity in a business.

day which is going to make an organization creative and innovative. Ambidextrous

Balance of the attitudes of being exploratory and exploitative to achieve success in an

entrepreneurial firms is ambidextrous leadership. Implementing this leadership style in a

and focused relatively less on ambidexterity on managerial level (McGrath, 2013).

ended as a firm’s success (Bausch, Frese, & Rosing, 2011).

Past researchers found that in order to apply innovation in any organization,

transactional leadership, transformational leadership and ambidextrous leadership play a

there is a significant relationship between transformational leadership and innovation

between innovation of exploration and transformational leadership while transactional

improving creativity of his employees, thus, innovation is immensely necessary (Tung,

of ambidexterity in an organization does not only make an organization innovative, but it

By comparing ambidextrous leadership with transformational leadership, it can be

ambidexterity, mostly the effects of transformational and ambidextrous leadership attitudes