Contemporary Leadership Theories - Assignment Example

               Transformational leaders give attention to the concerns and development needs of individual followers.  A good situation when a contemporary leadership strategy was used is a company that trained staff in reading and understanding its financial statements and how they directly relate to their work. Employees from all sectors were encouraged to study the company books and financial statements. This policy extension was to go hand in hand with all employees in groups and discuss what the future meant, in particular, how they related to the work that they were doing and eventually to the big picture of the profitability of the organization.

              In this situation, leaders used several development levels and styles. First, leaders were passionate and energetic in all they did. They showed lots of care to employees and urge them to see them succeed. This is evident as they take the employees in group discussions to make them understand how their work relates to the company's profitability. The leaders put passion and energy into everything as they care about the employees and what their goals are. In this, the development levels and styles demonstrated include; developing a vision, selling a vision, finding the way out, and leading the charge. For instance, in this case, transformational leadership starts with developing the vision which was to educate the employees on how their work relates to the company's profitability.

            Developing a vision is followed by selling it. The leaders took their time, and energy and committed themselves to ensuring the vision is embraced and accepted by the employees. They also distributed copies of the financial statements to employees to ensure the vision was understood. In hand with selling activity and vision, is seeking the way forward. Most of the transformational leaders know the way and their goal is usually to urge others to follow them.  The route forward is not obvious and may not be plotted in detail. Therefore, transformational leaders need to have a clear vision, thereafter, the direction will define itself. The final development level is leading the charge. The leaders are always visible and would stand up to be considered rather than behind their group. They demonstrated by their actions and attitudes how everyone else should behave. Further, they make continued attempts to motivate and bring together their followers, constantly doing the round, soothing, listening, and enthusing.

            The actions taken by leaders to ensure employees understand their work relation with company profitability were very effective. The contemporary leadership approach used showed progressive ideals of collaboration and equality in the actions. The leaders are usually urged to co-exist and cooperate with subordinates instead of dictating over them. In this case, leaders are encouraged to possess and utilize emotion and intelligence. The employees get more interested in the books and financial reports because they see how their leaders were well acquainted with them. Moreover, contemporary leadership is mainly concerned with effective leaders exhibiting emotional and social intelligence (Winkler, 2009). This ensures leaders think, focus on goals, understand employees’ emotions, and can demonstrate common ground before rushing to act. The actions taken, that is, developing vision, selling a vision, finding the way out, and leading the charge were very effective and appropriate.

             According to Blancard and Hersey (1993), the situational leadership approach is based on the interaction between a level of leader task behavior, a leader's socio-emotional behavior, and a follower's willingness and readiness to perform a function. Situational leadership has four styles; telling, selling, participating, and delegating. The first and second styles mainly focus on accomplishing tasks while the third and fourth mainly focus on the personal development of the team. In this company situation, situational leadership approach could be useful. The leaders could start by telling their people what to do exactly and how to do it. Then sell their ideas by providing information and direction to the employees. This will then lead to the third style which is participation. Leaders would focus more on relationships and less on direction. Lastly, the leaders would pass most of the responsibility onto the employees (Thompson, et al 2009).

              In conclusion, contemporary leadership plays a crucial role in today’s rapidly changing quality of the organizational environment. Contemporary leadership puts into consideration the rapid evolution of situations. It ensures that leaders are self-aware and highly effective in the entire working environment. It also brings a working environment that is conducive as leaders use an interactive method rather than a prescribed one. Thus, this leadership approach is effective in running organizational matters. Situational leadership is very helpful as it analysis situation and comes up with the most appropriate style to handle the situation.