Leadership

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Developing Effective Leadership

What is the common theme of situational and contingency leadership theories? Explain and contrast Fiedler’s and Hersey and Blanchard’s theories

The common theme of the situational and contingency leadership is that there is no perfect leader. Each leadership approach is right on its own. The common point of agreement is that each situation requires a certain type of leadership style.

It means that each situation is appropriate for a specific type of leadership style. Both theories view the directive leadership approach as appropriate for a given situation depending on the prevailing situation. Both theories believe that leadership can only be used to influence others based on the behavioural requirements of a certain situation.

Each situation requires the leader to influence the people by building a certain type of relationship between the people and the leader. According to the theories, effective leadership depends on the relationship-building capabilities of the leaders.

In each case, a leader can be task motivated or behaviour motivated. It is important to note that success in leadership, in this case, depends on the people or employees perceptions in an organization, and the prevailing situations at the workplace.

According to the Fiedler’s theory, leaders can be relationship or task motivated. Situations depend on structure, position power, and the leader-member relationships. Hersey and Blanchard’s theories focus on work situations that are related with followers’ willingness and ability to fit into and to perform work tasks.

Different levels of willingness demand different leadership style. Fiedler’s theory differs from Hersey and Blanchard’s theories on levels of motivation and the appropriate situation requiring the application of the theory. In contrast, the leadership assessment, according to Fiedler’s leadership theory, shows task motivated leaders to be the best performers and relationship-based leaders as moderate performers.

Compare transformational and transactional leadership theories, providing an example of a leader who illustrates each approach. When would each be useful?

Transformational leadership focuses on motivation and morality. In each case, the leader motivates and inspires followers to achieve higher goals in their lives through shared values. Transformation is based on ethical inspirations and higher levels of human conduct.

Typical examples include parents and teachers in the community. Teachers and parents serve as role models who transform the people and the prevailing environment towards a certain goal.

The leader provides an appropriate model, fosters common understanding in pursuing to achieve group goals, and articulates vision for the people. A transformational leader inspires followers by idealizing the influence required to build trust in followers. That creates in the leader the ethical sense of trust, respect, and pride the followers strongly regard in the leader.

People should follow appropriate, well laid down rules and directions under the transactional leadership style. The transactional leadership style focuses on the contributions made in the form of value addition to an organization.

Each follower is made loyal to the organization through the value they gain from the organization, including wages, leave, and praise. The transactional leadership style is a task-focused leadership approach having the leaders and the followers on opposite sides.

The performance of the followers determines the rewards offered. When the performance is good, the leader offers rewards to the followers, but when the performance is poor, the leader exercises coercion thought the legitimate power of the leader.

Transactional leadership is based on reward and punishment, give and take approaches. Typical examples of such leaders include political and business leaders. Transactional leaders rely on power. Transactional leadership is best suited for low-level situational needs in day to day lives.

How important is emotional intelligence in a leader? Illustrate you answer with an example of a leader who displays emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is important in a leader because, it enables the leader to understand the emotional relationship between the leader and the followers and the role emotion plays in influencing followers emotionally. A leader is made self-aware because by understanding the role of emotions in making difficult decisions.

Emotional intelligence provides leaders with the ability to control their emotions under difficult situations, by being self-ware. In addition, a leader with appropriate emotional intelligence is able to create good social relationships with followers.

The relationship between the leader and the follower are critical in providing effective leadership. A leader with good emotional intelligence skills is emphatic, and is able to factor the feelings of the followers when making decisions and is able to understand what motivates the followers to achieve certain goals.

A leader who uses emotional intelligence correctly is able to influence followers positively, is able to build good and positive relationship with the followers, is able to influence followers by encouraging active participation, and is able to develop followers through support and empathy.

Typically, the leader who displays emotional intelligence is always able to amicably solve workplace conflicts amicably. It is possible for the leader to solve conflicts between employees or conflicts that arise in the workplace and avoid negative consequences because of the conflicts.

The role of emotional intelligence in a leader can be summarized into the positive effects of being self-aware, communicating effectively, managing emotions, and being socially aware of others’ feelings. An example of such a leader is Merkel, the Germany chancellor. She displays a great deal of emotional intelligence when being questioned on different national and global issues.

What is the “dark side” of leadership? Give an example of such a leader. What can organisations do to avoid such leaders?

The dark side of leadership consists of distorted leaders who use personal leadership abilities to make individual gains. Such leaders mask their real characters from even close associates, making it difficult for the associates to discern their true characters. Examples of such leaders include Hitler, Mussolini, and Castro.

It is established that some leaders take leadership positions to build their emotional immaturity. If an organization is led by an emotionally immature person, the chance of the organization becoming dysfunctional exists. That is because the leader is unbalanced, detached, compulsive, suspicious, and dramatic. It is possible for a leader to act on destructive impulses because of being psychopathic.

The false characteristics or images some leaders portray lead people to ultimate destruction because the leaders appear to be good. The images such leaders project about themselves include charming, achieving, heroic, glorious, and world-beating.

Depending on the leadership style, when leadership goes wrong, the chances of bribery and other corruption-related problems arise in an organization. The leader becomes self-centered and unhelpful. In addition, the leader is more likely to cheat and become less emphatic.

The leader continues to be in the leadership position by lying to the people that their feelings and needs will be attended to. The leader falsely portrays a positive image. It is important to note that the qualities of a good leader sometimes when used wrongly can transform a leader from being good to being the worst.

Examples include leaders like Fidel Castro. While he appeared to the Cuban people as a good leader, he has caused the country greater isolation. Organizations need to create a standard for the leader to be assessed.

What is servant leadership and why is it a very popular theory of leadership? When would it work, in your opinion, and when is it not suited to an organisation?

Servant leadership is where the leader is the first to be servant. The leader starts by identifying the need to serve others based on the people’s needs first. To be a servant leader, one must be an active listener and a good communicator.

The leader should be emphatic when dealing with the followers. In this case, the leader has respectful understanding of the needs of the people and regards the people as human beings with their own feelings. A servant leader assists people to develop and endeavours to solve their problems and conflicts, and makes them heal.

To be a servant leader, one has to view situations from a holistic and integrated perspective of human values. The servant-leader makes a commitment to serve and grow others professionally, spiritually, personally, professionally, and emotionally.

Servant leadership is critical in relationship building because people desire a leader who relates well with them. Good relationship motivates people to achieve organizational goals without being compelled or told what to do. In addition, people desire to work in an organization with a good vision.

A servant leader provides people with the ability to develop future-oriented actions based on the persuasion, foresight, and conceptualization of the leader. Stewardship is critical for the greater good of others. Stewardship enables a leader to serve and help others. Examples include Albert Schweitzer, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela.

Servant leadership is suitable in situations of healing. Examples include when people in war-torn areas come together to reconcile and begin life afresh. Servant leadership is not suitable in times of war. A typical example is when compelling a leader to dismantle his chemical weapons.

Give an example of an organisation that practices democratic leadership. What are the advantages and limitations of it?

Democratic leadership is widely practised in W L Gore in the US, South-western Airlines, and SAS in Sweden. Another example where democratic leadership is applied in schools. Democratic practises mentioned in the above institutions are evident from the leadership characteristics which promote openness, freedom, and independence between organizational members.

Leaders influence followers through inclusive decision-making processes and equal participation. Democratic leadership employee involvement in decision making based on the idea of distributed responsibility. The organizations consider the quality of the people involved in decision making and the focus is on the decision making process.

Observations show that people working in the democratic organizations mentioned above are interdependent, work towards achieving better organizational efficiency, seek a common good, value honesty, integrity, democratic processes, and participate in the democratic leadership process.

Each level of participation has unique features. The first level informs members what to do without sharing, consultations play a significant role in decision making, and author can be delegated to make final decisions.

The main advantages of the democratic leadership style include the ability to hire and develop staff with the right skills for quality work, employees participate in decision making and such decisions are widely accepted by employees.

The democratic leadership style makes employees to feel valued, heard and respected, leading to job satisfaction. Members have the space to develop personal skills by collaborating with others and through job rotation and taking on new responsibilities.

However, limitations of the democratic leadership style include groupthink which slows the decision making process. In addition, groupthink causes lack of leadership, in fighting, poor decision making, and mediocrity. Members sometimes get actively involved in politics loosing directions.

Why personal authenticity is considered important in leadership? How can a leader develop his or her authenticity?

Personal authenticity is considered important in leadership because it enables a leader to bring out and exercise the unique inner ability to engage others at deep emotional levels and create the trust required for others to act. Authentic leaders have personal have positive core values which are crucial in influencing others to work towards a certain goal.

Personal authenticity is important because it enables leaders to develop clear, stable, strong, and consistent self-concept. A leader who has developed authentic values is able to create good relationships with the followers based on accountability, optimism, mutual trust, honesty, altruism, and kindness.

An authentic leader does what is right and communicates openly with followers. An authentic leader takes ultimate care for the followers and is always concerned with the welfare of the followers.

Maslow investigated and found authentic leaders to be democratic, moral, creative in searching for a solution to current problems, realistic, and problem-focused. An authentic leader is more focused, makes better decisions, has a better relationship with others, and has strong cognitive and emotional capabilities.

It has been shown that authentic leaders lead based on realistic perceptions of the environment and themselves, belief in themselves, develop trust and transparency in their relationship with others, and operate at the best they can without any external influence.

For one to be an authentic leader, the person has to be able to balance work and family, be consistent and give attention to one’s emotions and feelings, be able to live in the present, be able to accept and lead others based on one’s feelings and values, and be able to establish authentic relationship with the people one is leading.

What have you learned about your own leadership skills? What skills do you aim to develop in the future, and what general strategies could you use to develop them?

My leadership skills are a combination of situational, transformational, and trait leadership characteristics. The leadership skills based on the situational theory of leadership is based on the argument that sometimes, I am confronted with situations that require a situation based solution. In addition, my leadership skills are based on the traits approach.

That is because the pattern of my behaviour is characterised by leadership traits deeply rooted in emotions and thoughts. Some of the leadership skills I have developed are based on leading as a role model to influence behaviour of others. I have learnt to be caring, listening, empathic, and to be a steward of others, which qualifies my leadership skills to be based on servant leadership traits.

I aim to develop the servant leadership skills in future. That is because it is the most popular leadership skills with the people. In addition, the servant leadership traits I desire to develop include active listening skills, persuasion skills, healing skills, and stewardship skills. I hope that by cultivating the ability to conceptualize, build communities, and emphatic, I hope to be true to the people I lead.

To achieve the leadership goal, I intend to put the skills into practise based on “hands-on” process of developing leaders based on special assignments, practising through internship programs, and being mentored. In addition to that, I intend to practise self-awareness by assessing my strengths, understanding my personality, ability to solve conflicts, and being mindful of others.

One of the critical elements to integrate in my strategy is the Johari window. According to the Johari window, I intend to study the best method to understand other people’s perceptions about me.

What sort of leader do you think you will aim to become? Using the theories and skills of this unit, explain your personal concept of leadership and how you would go about developing it

I aim to become a servant leader. My personal concept of a leadership includes the ability to make others follow your directions by creating in the followers the motivation to act to achieve a specified goal. A leader should embrace the concept of treating others as rational beings worth of dignity.

To be the leader I want, I will study and apply leadership theories and skills to develop and lead myself before leading others. I intend to develop the leadership traits and skills required for an effective leader.

According to my knowledge, effective leadership is based on the impact produced by the message communicated by a leader. It is important to note that leadership is based on the influence a person has on others. A positive influence produces positive results based on the application of appropriate leadership skills.

Leadership is built on an environment with leaders and followers who are willing to follow the leader. In addition, communication is a crucial element in leadership because when used effectively, people can react positively.

The strategy I hope to use to develop my leadership concept is to assess my leadership abilities first. The assessment will enable me to identify areas of weakness which need improvement and seek for appropriate techniques of making improvements.

Areas of assessment include my listening skills, empathy, communication skills, and self-awareness. The next step will consist of developing confidence in the people I lead, establishing firm identify with the people, developing trust and integrity in myself and the people, and creativity.

I also intend to attend leadership workshops for more knowledge on developing a leader, and interact with successful leaders for sharing purposes.

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