Leadership Issue of SNC-Lavalin

The SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. (SNC-Lavalin) is a Canada-based company which is engaged in providing engineering, construction, operations and maintenance (Canadian Business, 2013).The segments of the Company include infrastructure and environment, power, chemicals and petroleum (ibid). However, under the leadership of Ben Aïssa and Pierre Duhaime, the company has hit the media headlines because of various scandals about the company (Castelado, 2012).

The company is in the Media Headlines for example, are corruption through unethical practices for handling contracts as they participated in illegal party financing in Quebec and bribing Libya's Ghadafi regime in order to receive contracts (Marowits, 2013). The management also makes empty promises to clients, which they do not fulfill (Castelado, 2012). Employees are also complaining of poor management, lack of respect by the management (Nicole, Noël, & Seglins, 2013). 

Ben Aïssa is skilful, demanding, and fiercely competitive. He obtained power through his achievements of success, for example, when he secured projects worth billions of dollars over the years much of his success came from Lybia (Canadian Business, 2013).  However, he was allegedly arrested for requesting $56 million in untraced payments to commercial agents, and he was also involved in hiring Cynthia Vanier, who is now in jail in Mexico (McAthur & Pareaux, 2013). On the other hand, Pierre Duhaime has shown a shrewd strategic sense of what opportunities to pursue and where to focus SNC's efforts for future growth (Huffington Post, 2013).  He is also very sociable as people get very much at ease with him very quickly (McArthur & Pareaux 2013). He and another former SNC executive Ben Aissa, are suspected of using a counterfeit document to cheat the MUHC (Cassin, 2013).   

The current problems facing SNC-Lavalin have everything to do with corporate governance and nothing to do with accounting (Rosen & Rosen, 2013). However, in order to avoid such a scenario happening again in the future, the company ought to embrace proper skills of management at their strategic management level. According to The American Manager Association (2013), among the skills the new manager should embrace are good financial skills in order to ensure proper management of financial activities, good conceptual skills to enable them solve problems effectively and good human resource skills in order to enable the management handle their employees effectively.

Recommendations

In order to make new changes and restore the tainted image of the company, it is necessary that the company should do the following: Firstly, they should change its strategic management body. These are the individuals who will abide to and respect the company’s codes and ethics (Waldie, 2013). In case of a new CEO, he should be a transformational leader that will provide its followers with a new vision and instill true commitment. Secondly, the financial department of the company should ensure transparency in all activities involving money transaction in order to avoid any more accusation of corruption. Thirdly, the management should respect and motivate their employees for more productivity as well as avoid giving empty promises to its clients. All these will improve the quality of governance in the company.

Conclusion

Effective leadership influences, motivates and enables others in a way that achieves organizational goals. Motivation of employees includes, promotion, salary increase and employee rewarding. Leaders can change a company’s culture by introducing and implementing new laws and policies, application of Management skills, for example, problem solving skill. This is what Mr. Duhaime is doing to reform the company. He has put plans in place for this purpose, for example, a shift toward cleaner energy, better treatment of employees and better services to customers. In order for employees to follow the organization’s culture change, the leader of the organization must “walk the talk.” and lead by example. Currently, the company has hired a high-profile American compliance adviser Michael Hershman to conduct an independent review of its internal practices which is also a good step towards restoring the company’s lost glory.