What Makes a Good Leader - Assignment Example

? of paper and number submitted Introduction “What makes a good leader?” might sound a bit rhetoric however this question persists and continues to intrigue people even after lot of research and studies conducted so far in this discipline (Northouse, 2013, 1 ) and moreover so in practice. In the present paper I am presenting my personal best leadership experience where I had performed at the peak as leader in a designing and constructing a house and learned from my personal experience the qualities and characteristics of good and effective leader and how he can achieve excellence himself and for his team members. In doing so, analyses of the elements of leadership approach, leadership type I applied to manage the situation is also conducted and how I led the team towards successfully achieving the goal is laid down. Brief Overview of the Situation or the project at hand For most of my life I served in the Air Force and come from Fort Worth Texas. However I also designed houses for 15 years and during one of those assignments I came across a project that was challenging, tested my capabilities and arouse my creativity. The house was for an elderly couple who had certain specific needs to be catered, was budget conscious and with a tight schedule yet I was fascinated in designing that particular house because it was the first time I was designing a house that would be physically suitable for elderly couple. The house was to be built on a rocky land measuring 3000 Sq ft. in Fort Worth and I started designing the house in 2011 to be delivered by the end of 2012. I was the chief designer for the project responsible for making the house plan, getting approval from local agencies and heading a team consisting of building contractor who would be building the house and a team of supervisors and subcontractors for various works such as plumbing, electricians etc., I was in charge of designing the house plan according to the clients requirements and getting his approval and delivering to the building contractor for actually building the house according to the plan and monitoring whether the house is coming according to the plan and tackling any challenges or problems arising. It was my responsibility ultimately to see to it that the house is made perfectly according to the plans, under the budget and delivered on time. Leadership approach applied to the situation I applied the Fiedler’s contingency leadership approach for accomplishing this project. It is a leader-match theory that matches leaders with situations appropriate to them (Fielder, 1967; Fielder & Chemers, 1974). Contingency here suggests that effectiveness of a leader is dependent on the fitting of leadership style to the given situation. The three situational or contingency dimensions identified by Fielder are “Leader-member relationships, Task Structure and position power” (Robbins, 2012, p. 368). When the leader has more control the situation is deemed to be favourable and when he has little control then it is an unfavorable situation and leadership style needs to be applied accordingly. Control on the team is more when leader- member relations are better, jobs are highly structured, and position power is strong (Robbins, 2012). Contingency theory framework is mainly concerned with matching leadership styles with situations and two types of leadership styles emerge within the framework that are task oriented style and relationship motivated style (Northouse, 2013). In this project being the chief designer I faced both favorable and unfavorable situations. As leader member relations with some team members were good and with others it was poor. Some tasks were highly structured as there was only one way of doing things, others were unstructured as many alternatives available for doing the task, as we were developing innovative design, team members were not familiar with it and there was no single best way of doing it. I enjoyed strong position power being the Chief designer of the project and ultimately everybody reported to me directly or indirectly. Good relations were built on trust, respect and amiability of the team members. Therefore I adapted my leadership style according to the situation, leader-member relations, task structure and position power and that is illustrated in the below figure (1). This theory was relevant to my project because it takes into account that leaders are not effective in all situations, and it focuses on the leader’s style relations with the various situations demands. It also helped me in predicting which style would be useful in a particular situation (Northouse, 2013). Figure 1 : Contingency Model (Fielder 1987) Leadership type and style used in designing and building an elderly friendly house As discussed above my leadership approach was contingency model and I identified my leadership style as task oriented leadership style (Robbins, 2012) after assessing myself with a Least preferred Co-worker (LPC) questionnaire responded by all of my team members. A task-oriented leader focuses on the tasks aspect of the job and its accomplishment rather than focusing on employee relationship (Robbins, 2012; Northouse, 2013) and my focus was accomplishing the building of the designed project in stipulated time and under budget. Task-oriented leaders perform better in situations 1,2,3, 7 and 8 from the above figure and our situation can be defined by 1, 3, 5 and 7 (Northouse, 2013 and Robbins, 2012) depending upon the leader-member relations, task and position power for different tasks and different members. Situation 1 was the most favorable as the leader-member relations were good, tasks were defined and leader position power was strong. However situation 7 was unfavorable because leader-member relations were poor, with undefined tasks but strong position power and required more relationship oriented leadership style. The situations in between these two are moderately favorable (Northouse, 2012). Thus I was changing my behavior or leadership style according to the given situation and its three dimensions to accomplish the task satisfactorily (Gill, 2012). However I also experienced that I need not have to change my behavior or leadership styles according to the situation all the time, through my previous experiences, social networking, use of information and strategic decision making, tactics and changing the degree of task structure, position power and improving relations I was able to change the situations in my favor without changing my leadership style (Gill, 2012; Robbins, 2012). Motivational factors that made me accept this project and factors that challenge me and others The four aspects of motivation namely willingness, dominance, social good and personality came into play in accepting and motivated me to engage in this challenging project. In the earlier paragraphs I indicated that this particular project is challenging for me because it requirements were very specific and it is the first time I was doing such kind of project. Apart from that the project I was designing was not for some big corporate or big client it is for an elderly couple who wanted a house that caters to their ageing specific needs, in their budget and stipulated time that appealed to me very much. Along with this, being in Air Force I was trained to lead and take charge of difficult situations, accept challenges and fight to win, all these factors made me accept this project. I challenged myself arguing that designing houses is not just my career choice and I have not chosen this career to just earn more money or gain fame by working only for affluent clients and continue to do mundane projects. I design houses because it’s my passion, brings out my creativity, challenges my competencies and test my potential and this project provided such an opportunity of effective problem solving and high performance through good leadership (Northouse, 2013). However I was doubtful of the motivational factors or aspects of others in my team and was aware that same motivational factors might not drive them. To my great relief I found that even though their main driving force was monetary compensation yet accomplishing a difficult task with autonomy and providing ideas for this challenging project was also a significant motivating factor to them. To accomplish the extraordinary task ahead I tried to “inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act and encourage their heart” (Northouse, 2012, p. 184). By setting example from my own behavior, affirming the values and compelling vision guided the behavior of other team members. By challenging the usual processes applied for doing the tasks through innovative ideas and to make things better my willingness to take risks and experimenting with new things I challenged others also to follow the same. Also by building trust and promoting collaboration within the team, I provided an environment that enabled them to perform better and feel good about their tasks. Accomplishments were duly rewarded with praise and appreciations along with monetary benefits thus encouraged their hearts (Kouzes and Posner, 1987 and 2002). Goal aspiration and the way I build enthusiasm and excitement I aspired to achieve building an elder friendly house that is specifically designed and built to cater to the safety and comfort needs of the elderly people without compromising on style and beauty at affordable price and built within reasonable time period. Many senior citizens feel their homes are not supportive of their increasing physical challenges that restrict their desire to live independently with comfort and convenience. I endeavored to apply universal design concept that is human centered allowing various abilities people to use spaces, furniture, and gadgets with ease without any special modifications. I have seen such concepts being designed in other places in US and wanted to do the same in Fort Worth Texas (Friendly house, 2012). “Leadership is using our personal power to win the hearts and minds of people to achieve as common purpose; the minds….by giving people a clear understanding of what they have to do, why and how it might be done; the hearts….by generating feelings of challenge, involvement , ownership, commitment and excitement”(Gill, 2012, p.7). In the similar fashion I used leadership to build enthusiasm and excitement along with following the below given concepts. I built their enthusiasm by getting them involved in envisioning the friendly home concept with the universal design concept and how we are going to achieve it. Expectations were clearly communicated so that team members voluntarily meet them, demonstrated my commitment to goals and by showing confidence in their capabilities that they can achieve the goals. Also my enthusiasm and optimism got passed to my team members, if I lacked conviction in my ideas then I would not have been able to raise optimism and enthusiasm in team workers as they look upon me for guidance and direction (Gill, 2012). Engaging the staff through employing the 10 C’s of employee engagement, that are “connect, career, clarity, convey, control, congratulate, contribute, collaborate, credibility and confidence” as prescribed by Crim and Seijts (2006), excitement is built among the team. It is very easy to build enthusiasm and excitement prior to actual implementation and starting of the project because excitement before doing a task is but natural however it does not last long due to lack of foundation and withers away (Kennedy, 2011) therefore it is important for the leader to maintain excitement throughout the work process and that was achieved by employee engagement through the ten C’s. Involving others, fostering collaboration, building trust and respect and the capacity to excel I involved my team members in decision making, asked for their ideas, suggestions and considered and respected their different views without negating straightforward, encouraged them to speak freely and made them set their own goals, thus they felt more valuable and involved and did the task more enthusiastically (Crim and Seijts, 2006). I also involved them in expanding their role responsibilities and took their feedback on the same (Northouse, 2013). I did not consider my team members or subordinates as followers or workers but collaborators in a joint effort towards achieving the goal. I sought common good for all and making the subordinates to want to follow rather than have to follow, in such a way collaboration is fostered between me and my team members. I treated all my team members with dignity and respected all the ideas shared by them , allowed them to make decisions, supported their good decisions and highly valued their cooperation and teamwork thus trust was built, collaboration was promoted and conducive environment was fostered (Northouse, 2013). “Trust is the primary attribute associated with leadership” and breaking trust has serious negative consequences on the performance of the group and “trust is a positive expectation that another will not act opportunistically” (Robbins, 2012, p.381). Team members before following a leader foremost assure themselves of the trustworthiness of their leader. Trust is earned and cannot be forced out, and it takes time to develop, three characteristics of leader make him trustworthy that are integrity, ability and benevolence and also depends upon the characteristics of followers such as level of confidence and agreeableness. In my case I demonstrated all the three qualities and my competence and knowledge gained the teamwork’s trust and respect. Trust and respect helped in encouraging risk taking, information sharing was facilitated, teams were more productive and effective (Robbins, 2012). I gained respect from my team members over time by first respecting and treating them with dignity, being sensitive to their needs, interests and conscientious and built mutual trust and respect and reciprocal influence (Northouse, 2013). I also realized during the project that good leadership is not enough, excellence is required to achieve what we aspired. Therefore being a leader first I demonstrated excellence in my work so that it I became a role model for others to follow and was aware that only outstanding teams can achieve the goals we had set for ourselves. However I also realized the excellence is not easy to achieve (McKinsey, 2011), but through motivation, employee engagement, by building trust and respect, teams were able deliver high performance. I constantly inspired their curiosity, ask them to challenge conventional perspectives, gave freedom to innovate and drive discipline among them thus built their capacity to excel (Sinar, Wellins and Pacione, 2013) Values and principles that provided guidance and setting as an example. Progressing from one milestone to another I tried to follow the authentic leader concept that refers to being real and genuine and who has conviction in his beliefs and values and tried to follow them openly without deviations and hypocrisy. I was aware that team members show respect towards and follow a trustworthy and ethical leader and who does what he says (Northouse, 2012). All my decisions were taken after ethical considerations and resourced were procured ethically. I showed total dedication and commitment towards my work and never compromised on quality of work or materials. And motivated others also to follow the same by setting high standards and through my own behavior demonstrated the same and provided them support and advice during ethical dilemmas, integrity was encouraged and rewarded and never abused the power vested to me (Robbins, 2012). We set ethical and achievable goals along with ensuring that the means to achieve these goals were also ethical (Robbins, 2012). The approach I used for being an authentic leader was action-oriented and adhering to what is morally right and avoiding ethnocentrism (Northouse, 2013) thus setting an example to my team members. In designing and construction of a house there are many milestones to be achieved sometimes one after the other and more often simultaneously. For our entire project we have set targets, milestones, deadlines and budgets and periodically used to measure the achieved results against the set targets. If the progress was according to the set targets, deadlines and budgets then we moved to the next process. However if the progress was not according to plan or any setbacks received then the process was reviewed and through team’s participation in problem solving activities, and by encouraging , supporting and motivating them, setbacks were overcome to achieve excellence (Northouse ,2012). Recognition of Individuals efforts and celebration of success Every major milestone achieved that was according to plan, on time and within budget was celebrated with a party for all the team members and workers at the site. High performance was recognized and given a bonus to keep up the work and appreciated in front of all the team members. Thus we were able to build the house on time, according to our set objectives and client requirements and within the approved budget. And after the completion of the house we celebrated with a big party because our design was appreciated by one and all and demand for more such projects increased with increase in our reputation as innovative designers. Leadership Lessons I learnt from this experience Even though I have designed lot many houses during my tenure as a designer in the last15 years, yet the designing and building of the elderly friendly house remains special to me not only because of the specialty of the project but also because it made me reflect upon my inner self, personality as well as my leadership qualities. I learned that though there might be some truth in the fact that leaders are born not made, yet through knowledge, wisdom and application a born leader can be made more effective and also that an effective leader can be made and achieve better results. I also learnt that leadership is important in all walks of life and not restricted to big or small projects or matters of regional or national importance alone. Although I do not vouch that a leader is always effective and success can be achieved by an effective leader alone, yet I can say from my experience that leadership attributes, approach, and style are key in making an effective leader ultimately making him a critical factor in achieving success and excellence. Conclusion From the above analysis and from my personal experience I conclude that leadership is essential in “effective accomplishment of goals” (Northouse, 2013, p. 12). An effective leader is characterized by trustworthiness, openness, respect for others, competence and knowledgeable enough to understand in what situations which leadership style is applicable, relates with people, has ability to motivate them, ability to create enthusiasm and excitement and facilitates capacity to excel and foremost is a role model and sets an example by his actions (Northouse, 2012). References Crim, D. and Seijts, G. (2006). What engages employees the most or the ten C’s of employee engagement. The Workplace. Ivey Business Journal. Retrieved 10 Mar, 2013 from http://www.iveybusinessjournal.com/topics/the-workplace/what-engages-employees-the-most-or-the-ten-cs-of-employee-engagement#.UT9f7NYyan8. Fielder, F. E (1967). A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness. New York : McGraw Hill. Fielder, F.E. and Chemers, M.M. (1974). Improving Leadership Effectiveness: The Leader Match Concept. New York: Wiley. Friendly House. (2013). The New Era of Intelligent Home Design. A Friendly House.com. Retrieved 13 Mar, 2013 from http://www.afriendlyhouse.com/. Gill, R. (2012). Theory and Practice of Leadership. 2nd Ed. SAGE Publications Inc. Kennedy,J. (2011). New Standards for Professional Learning help leaders create excitement, take risks. Advancing the Standards. The Leading Teacher. Learning Forward Org. Retrieved 11 Mar, 2013 from http://www.learningforward.org/docs/leading-teacher/sept11_kennedy.pdf?sfvrsn=2. Kouzes J.M. and Posner, B.Z (1987, 2002). The Leadership Challenge. 2nd Ed. & 3 Ed. San Francisco : Jossey-Bass McKinsey. (2011). Return on Leadership – Competencies that Generate Growth. Egon Zehnder International. McKinsey & Company Qauterly. Retrieved 11 Mar, 2013 from http://www.mckinsey.de/downloads/kompetenz/organization/Return%20on%20Leadership.pdf Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership : Theory and Practice. 6th Ed. Sage Publications Inc. Sinar, E.F. Wellins, R.S. and Pacione, C. (2013). Creating the Conditions for sustainable Innovation – The leadership imperative. Trend Research. DDI world. Retrieved 9 Mar, 2013 from http://www.ddiworld.com/DDIWorld/media/trend-research/creatingtheconditionsforsustainableinnovation_tr_ddi.pdf Read More