Analysis Of António Horta Osório As A Leader In Lloyds Bank

António Horta Osório, economist, professor, and banker was born on January 28, in 1964, in Lisbon. He graduated in Business Administration and Management from Universidade Católica Portuguesa. At the end of the last year of his degree, he joined Citibank in Portugal where he was responsible for the capital markets. He later worked in New York and London in activities of finance. Invited by Emilio Botín to join Group Santander, he created from scratch Banco Santander de Negócios Portugal (BSNP), becoming the Executive President. He completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School and the following year was invited to Abbey National Non-Executive Director. He was nominated as Non-Executive Director of the Bank of England Court, and in that year he was also nominated President of the Lloyds Banking Group, which is responsible for issuing banknotes to Scotland, which are signed by Horta Osório. Lloyds Bank was founded in 1765 in Birmingham by Taylors and Lloyds, during the Industrial Revolution it expanded to London. The acquisition of another bank brought the black horse symbol to the group. Further acquisitions and expansions occurred from France to South America, drawing the attention of the United Kingdom which prevented the purchase of Abbey National. It waited until the acquisition of Halifax Bank of Scotland, forming the Lloyds Banking Group, being Lloyds the main subsidiary.

Description of the Situation Horta Osorio, the CEO of Lloyds Bank, was able to recover the bank from a major financial crisis and put him as the leader of the British banks, ending the British government's presence in the capital of Lloyds Banking Group and selling the worst loans acquired by part of the Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) acquisition, as well as short-term problem borrowing. The global financial crisis in the Lloyds Banking Group after the acquisition of HBOS in 2006, which appeared to be growing, the British government bailed out Lloyds Bank with £ 20. 3bn in 2008 and 2009. Meanwhile, the British government has been to reclaim this money through a 43% stake in Lloyds Banking Group. Horta Osório joined Lloyds Bank in 2009 and only in 2011 was he considered the bank's CEO. That year, Horta Osório realized the difficult situation that the bank was really going through. Horta Osório began implementing its strategy to reduce £200bn loans inherited from HBOS as well as short-term problem borrowing, to focus on the bank's activity in the UK. For this started by selling the worst loans and getting the bank from the riskier financing. This strategy was only planned for a few weeks.

Due to the excessive dependence of the bank, a health problem was diagnosed related to the excess of work stress, induced insomnia, leading to the removal of Horta Osório from the position of CEO for two months. This departure led to investors' shake-up and shareholder concern, where Lloyds was forced to announce that the CEO's workload would be reduced and distributed to other senior executives. Upon his return, with the goal to repair the bank, he focused on selling risky loans to other banks and investors and collecting customer deposits, along with his team. Prior to the appointment of Horta Osório, Lloyds misleadingly sold PPI creating a serious problem. Horta Osório with the desire to solve this problem as quickly as possible ensured that he would pay a reward early in 2011, leading the bank to losses in the first quarter. There were other difficult decisions that Horta Osório had to take, such as job losses and agency closures, which helped repair Lloyds finances. Since Horta Osório was nominated to the bank's CEO, Lloyds began to spend less on income compared to the major UK banks. The Leadership of Horta Osório Horta Osório considers that a good leader is something natural but at least something experimental, that is, something that can develop with time and experience. According to him, a leader has to be an example to his colleagues and have a capacity for work and dedication to the projects.

A leader must know how to interact with his team, knowing very well the team's psychology and knowing how to communicate constantly. It is also important to know how to decide, execute and monitor in order to encourage and ensure that none of your teams fail, even if the big and difficult decisions are made on their own. Horta Osório adds that when a plan is defined, should not go back and should move quickly, giving greater responsibilities and authority on the basis of merit, because for him today it is possible to do "fast and well. "However Horta Osório doesn't have a very close relationship with his colleagues but when he has to work together with his team, he struggles to interact and communicate with them. He always worries about motivating his colleagues to ensure the correct execution of the tasks and the absence of doubts about his leadership. This form of Horta Osório defines what a good leader is and for the courage he had in continuing to solve Lloyds problems even with his health problem, leads me to believe that he has his own style to lead, depending on the situations in which it is. It is a leader who takes responsibility for dividing the tasks of the projects and plans by the members of his teams, constantly checking that the same tasks are carried out correctly.

Contingency Model

The relationship between Horta Osório and the members of his teams is only professional, as he is accepted and respected by them but only interact and communicate in the joint resolution of problems. In relation to the structuring of tasks, these are well structured because Horta Osório devotes much of his time to the problems of the bank and their resolution, having these favorable results. His position as leader is high because, after the final decision of planning solutions to some problems, Horta Osório doesn't look back and moves quickly, giving him responsibilities and authority.

Behavior Theory

Horta Osório uses three skills that help him in leadership, which are: to be technical, that is to have knowledge about the problems and possible solutions for them. Horta Osório has a lot of knowledge about the financial situation of the bank as well as of the financial world because he graduated in Business Administration and Management and work in other positions related to the financial world; to be human, that is able to interact and communicate with people. Although he isn't very communicative and doesn't have very close relations with his colleagues when he needs to work collectively, he strives to interact and communicate constantly with the team; to be conceptual, that is to have ideas that make possible the creation of models and plans for the resolution of problems. Horta Osório after the ascension to the position of CEO managed to quickly create plans for resolving the British government's presence in the bank's capital, even if they were short-term measures. In addition, it also managed to sell the worst loans associated with the acquisition of HBOS.

Dealing More Effectively Prior to the election of Horta Osório to the position of CEO of Lloyds Bank, the bank had a large percentage of the British government's share, making it difficult for Lloyds to make a decision, and enough loans to undermine his finances. In solving these problems, Horta Osório planned, alone and with maximum dedication, solutions for some weeks. As a result of the excessive effort and dedication for the bank made to these plans, the illness arose that took him away from the position for two months. The leadership of Horta Osório is more linked to the execution of tasks than to the human-oriented democratic.

As a consequence of this attitude, it was announced the excessive dismissal of personnel, with the justification of minimizing the costs of the bank. In addition, there is also a solitary planning of measures to remove the British government's participation in Lloyds Banking Group and the sale of bad loans inherited from HBOS and short-term borrowing. To avoid this excessive effort and dedication for the bank that caused his personal problem, Horta Osório should have planned these solutions together with his teams. In this way, not only was the time spent in planning the solutions divided by all, but also the possibility of planning long-term solutions. It would also avoid the CEO's retirement and thus the unnecessary concern both on the part of investors and shareholders. Good leadership must be concerned with both the execution of tasks and the human-oriented democratic. In this way, Horta Osório should be more concerned with his staff, thus avoiding excessive dismissal. Although the bank would have more costs, but with the sale of the loans and with the removal of the British government, the bank would not have similarly so many costs, considering the main problems of the bank before the selection of Horta Osório were these last two nominees. In order to avoid these events, Lloyds must implement the distribution of the CEO workload by the team. It should also implement actions that help improve communication and interaction between all employees and the CEO. In this way, the style of leadership is as much linked to the execution of tasks as to the human-oriented democratic. Recommendations and potential barriers, obstacles, challenges Regarding the distribution of the CEO's workload, it should be distributed to the best team with the best qualifications, as this team must be able to perform the tasks that are proposed to it.

In addition, it must be a trusted CEO team, giving the CEO more capacity to perform other tasks. The formation of a trustworthy team of the CEO and with the best qualifications would have some obstacles like to find in fact trusted people, where the CEO would trust total execution of tasks, but also would be some challenges like the selection of the best ones because they would not be given the same opportunities for people with good skills and not so good ones. In relation to the improvement of communication and interaction between the workers and the CEO, there should be the possibility of practicing sports during some breaks, as it not only frees the person mentally from excessive and stressful work but also gives the possibility of naturally occurring communication and interaction. In this way, the ease and willingness to communicate new ideas from all parts of the team was strengthened.

The strengthening of communication and interaction could bring some obstacles as in the final decision of solutions, where everyone wants their idea to be realized. Another obstacle that could occur would be an abuse of confidence part of the excessive pause time.

The positive attitude is one of my strengths as I approach situations in a realistic way, making the necessary changes in problem-solving. For example, when in a subject the reality is difficult to be said or to be seen, I can say it without fear or see it. Emotional intelligence, one of my best skills, is the ability to perceive the feelings of both, others and mine, and to control these emotions in a way that strengthens relationships. For example, when someone has a personal problem that is affecting the professional performance, I leave my tasks on standby and try to understand and help the situation of the person. Motivating others to present their vision is another of my skills because as I don't feel confident in showing my vision, I always try to encourage others to show theirs. This is due not only to a lack of confidence but also to the fact that knowing that having self-confidence strengthens leadership. Self-confidence is one of my weaknesses because I don't have total confidence in my actions. One of the ways to improve my confidence is to become aware of all the things that I have already achieved, think about my strengths, and think about what is really important to me.

For example, at times of decisions, I always have doubts if my thoughts and ideas are really the right ones. In these situations, I think it is better to accept the opinions of others and not to give my own. Providing a convincing vision of the future is another of my weaknesses, as most of the time, there is a lack of knowledge of the area, giving me the inability to argue my point of view. One way to strengthen this weakness is to be able to create interesting stories when arguing and create interest in the subjects. Motivating people at work is other weakness that I have because I cannot propose challenges or interesting works that don't discourage workers. One way to improve this weakness would be to encourage me to propose my ideas. For example, in group work, I limit myself to just doing the tasks that are proposed to me and not defining tasks or challenges.