Leadership Practice, Awareness and Assessment - Assignment Example

Part V Leadership Practice and Reflection Scenario Meeting in New Office- One-on-one with Oli This is the situation where I got a chance to experience authority for the first time as a new manager to a call center. The virtual scenario shows Corey (represented by my character) as a manager to a call center where the atmosphere is tense and very demotivated. As a manager addressing a subordinate, I took the following steps to resolve this scenario: I made use of my formal power as manager to get Oli’s attention but I fully understand that it matters a great deal to him that his ideas are heard and acknowledged. In order to delegate some work to him, it was impotant that I partner with Oli’s competence and confer credibility to him. Tension exists because it is my first day at work as a manager in a new company, and Oli would be having his own apprehensions with the change. However, I have been assigned a specific task by my superiors that require cooperation and delegation to Oli, for this reason it is very important that we try to reduce tension. Oli has the type of personality that would be comfortable to accept challenges and share ideas best when he doesn’t feel tense. In this scenario, I tried to support Oli in an attempt to reduce tension and encourage Oli to share his ideas with me. The third step I took was to guide the ideas in the right direction through prioritizing, since Oli had several ideas it was important to sort them out in order of importance and urgency. I encouraged this through showing assertion and focusing on ideas that he passed through quickly like Computer Set-up and Getting Nortic cards. In conclusion I summarized all this work priorities in order of importance for him such as Coffee break , Nortic cards, computer set-up, and looking for an apartment. The key learning points for me from this scenario were that in order to get work done from my subordinates it is important that I empathize with them. I can accomplish this through reducing tension, delegating power through showing trust, encouraging communications and sharing ideas. There is a strong impact of personal life on work life, in this case instability in personal life of the subordinate was affecting his ability to stay focused on the job, so the importance of personal issues cannot be undermined. I also realized that compared to my business score, my leadership scores matters more to me because when my subordinates see me as a leader working towards their benefits good business results would automatically follow. The leadership insights of democratic leadership supports my decisions, a democratic leader is one that delegates authority and encourages participation and gets work done though employees by trusting employees for completion of tasks (Daft, p 44). Research conducted by Tannenbaum and Schmidt indicated that leaders use democratic or autocratic leadership styles depending on circumstances of the organization. In general an autocratic style would be more suitable when the subordinates are facing a deadline, are slow-learners or have a very low skill set (Daft, ). This is not the case with Oli, who is capable of taking decisions and exercising his judgment if he is guided in the right direction. Scenario 2- Staff Meeting in the Break room- Building Relationships Scenario two depicts a situation where I am holding my first staff meeting with subordinates Oli and Rosa. The morale in the call center is pretty low and there is a contradiction between the information provided by the senior management and that deduced from the direct reports. My boss has clearly identified that we need to increase the customer retention in the Call Center by 65% and we need to make use of the automated system in order to accomplish that. As the meeting progresses I am faced with conflict between the subordinates and I am faced with a personal conflict because I need to keep morale high while not picking sides: In this situation too, I have formal authority provided to me with my designation of Manager, however the formal authority cannot be extremely effective because I am new to the job and my subordinates are not familiar with me. Tension needs to be dissolved I this case, the techniques I used were taking less extreme positions and agree with favourable ideas. Since Rosa and Oli are in conflict with each other, taking sides could be very tricky because the less favoured side would feel distant and that can be detrimental to the overall goals of the meeting. . In the communication framework, my role would be that of a moderator by striving for having a neutral opinion in the discussion The key learning points from this scenario were that in case of conflict that can negatively impact work; the Power Strategy would be to unite the team members towards a common objective and shelf ideas that may result in further conflict. The work Strategy would be to clearly identify activities that would help accomplish company objectives of customer service, financial performance and employee morale. For instance, in this discussion I steered clear of disputable topics like Coffee Shop and Stop complaining and instead focused more on crisis looming and increasing customer retention through automation. I used a directive style in this situation. The key concept introduced in this scenario is individualized leadership. According to Daft (2006, p57) individualized leadership refers to the idea that the leader forms a unique relationships with each of their subordinates. This concept promotes the idea that leadership is actually a serious of two-person interactions that determine how the leader behaves towards that subordinate and vice versa. In this case, I as a leader strive for balance and avoid favoritism to a great extent. So instead of treating employees as in-groups r out-group, I strive to create partnerships with each employee. An example of the Cheese Cake Factory California elaborate that the director of Operations Heather Coin has managed to keep turnover low and high performance through encouraging managers to form individual partnerships with their subordinates. Scenario 3- Meeting in Conference Room, Challenging Status Quo This scenario is slightly different from the previous ones because here I need to manage people over whom I don’t have formal authority. Will is a Sales Director and Herman is the Audit director, both of whom are my seniors. Will has although advised me to increase the performance of the call center has asked me to avoid any discussion on it during the conference. Will has his own agenda about a Sales Retreat that he wants to push which would adversely affect the Call Center funding and in the long-run the company. Here are some steps I took to manage this scenario. I strived to increase tension; firstly I bring up a provocative idea that would be to cut expenses. Although Will wants to avoid it, both he and Herman are well-aware that it is a critical issue. Herman being the Audit Director is more likely to support an idea that would save company resources, so I partner with authority. And encourage my subordinates Rosa and Oli to side with me, this way I pull through the idea without alienating Will. In terms of work strategy, I focus on filtering ideas that could be detrimental to the situation such as discussing Will’s sales retreat. I try to keep the focus on the cutting expenses, the call center and promoting Rosa for Sales. The key learning points for this scenario are the fact that power and politics play a very important role in decision-making in an organization. The leadership style applied here is that of a transactional and transformational leader. As a transformational leader, I tried to introduce change by keeping in minds Rosa and Oli’s needs. But the role was jointly shared with that of a transactional leader. A transactional leader has the ability to satisfy the needs of subordinates and increase productivity (Daft, 2006). Since this situation is focused more on plans and budgets, the role of transactional leader is more effective. In terms of followership, Rosa has a pragmatic followership style and Oli has a conformist style in this situation. Scenario 4- Meeting at Retreat/ Merger of Cultures My company is undergoing a merger and the company s holding a meeting in this regard at a local retreat. In this scenario I not have any formal authority; all others do and are high-powered and opinionated. Will and Herman are there and Alan the VP is a conservative character from my previous employer, here too picking sides can be very tricky so I would strive to pick constructive ideas. Just like scenario two, two ideas have been identified that could unify my group and lead to s steady stream of ideas: increasing client contact and integrating IT. Here is a series to steps I took to manage this scenario: I don’t have any formal authority in this scene, thus my power strategy depends greatly on building alliances in order to pass critical ideas. In this case the alliance could be with Alan, but in order to gain his acceptance I need to accept some of his ideas that I may not agree with and that which would be least detrimental to my objectives, such as the downsized. The tension level in the room is very high as Herman and Will team up together to push their agendas and Alan starts to guard his position using formal authority. I would like to moderate tension by being less extreme in positions and picking up an idea that would be easily acceptable. In terms of work strategy I need to focus on critical tasks and get them accepted and streamlined first. I chose to start the conversation on a positive note by trying to focus on non-controversial hot-points like increasing customer contact, consolidating IT, Retaining HR policies and Keeping vendors. Since this is a merger situation, chances are that they would reduce overheads by downsizing; this idea would be less supported by older employees Will and Herman but would have a positive impact on finances, so inevitably I would have to support it with Alan. Lastly I would ensure that ideas like senior meeting and firing vendors do not pass through because of their negative impact on customer satisfaction and employee morale. The key learning points in this scenario pertain to change management, and I can create a positive momentum in the meeting by managing tension levels and timing ideas to get maximum support. This scenario focuses are great deal on my followership style, and the role that I can play as a follower to help a leader make better decisions. The academic insight that followership is critical to a leader supports my position in this scenario. Robert Kelly (Daft, 2006, p. 425) measures leadership along two dimensions: the first dimension is that of a critical thinker and uncritical thinker and the second dimension is that of a passive or active follower. According to Daft in light of the characteristics identified along these dimensions, I play the role of a critical thinker as well as an active follower because I exhibit a sense of ownership , offer constructive criticism and problem solving. Scenario 5: Meeting in Board Room, Crisis and Opportunity This scenario introduces a crisis situation where the future of the company is at stake because of a fire. In this case the tension levels are extremely high and thus there is very high likelihood that bad decisions could be made or people might not make any decisions for the fear of the outcome. Here are the steps that I took to manage this situation: At the start of the scenario, I do not have any authority at all either formal or informal. By effectively managing the flow of communication and rational decision making in a crisis situation, I can harness the informal authority. For the idea strategy, at this stage I would encourage free flow of communication so maximum ideas can be brought forward. Through informal authority, I would encourage the group to agree on Will talks to the press by making it seem like a routine task and quickly get it over with. Will has been with the company longer so employees would relate more to him which is very important to improve employee morale so that they are more willing to accept change. I would start by managing and reducing tension in the room, this is accomplished through taking less extreme positions and supporting an idea that the whole group agrees on. I would encourage the group to do nothing only to avoid extensive discussion on the forthcoming changes instead I would gradually introduce the idea of “low-cost provider” due to its positive impact on financial performance, employee morale and customer satisfaction. The key learning objective for this scenario for me was the role of effective communication in managing crisis. Daft (2006, p 502) identifies some key concepts in communication the first of which is to stay calm or reduce tension, enhance visibility by seeking informal authority, tell the truth because lying can lead to a further crises and most important communicate a vision for the future. I made use of power and influence in this scenario. Daft (2006) identifies that power and influence are very important concepts to leadership because it is through them that the leader gets things done. Power is not tangible but it can be experienced when an individual has the ability to influence other people to accomplish goals. Daft further identifies that leaders that have the ability to manage uncertainty have high power. Hence I gain more informal power in this crisis scenario by exhibiting rational thinking. In this situation have Referent Power because of my personal characteristics and charisma. Awareness and Assessments- My Leadership Insights According to Northouse (2006, p 69) the leadership style comprises of two main types of behaviours: Task Behaviors: Those help group members in accomplishing their goals. Relationship behaviors: Those focus on building relationships between group members so they feel comfortable with themselves and the work environment. The main goal of a leader is to combine both these types of behaviours to influence employees so they all work towards achieving a common goal. This implies that the style approach is not a theory that highlights specific measures for effective leadership but in fact forms a framework for evaluating leadership in a task-relationship dimension. The main purpose of a self-insight on leadership is that it provides for a leader a clear understanding of their strengths, weaknesses and how they are perceived by their followers (Davis). Furthermore a leader would use this information to their advantage by applying it objectively with personal bias. The style approach of leadership focuses a great deal on the behavior of the leader and not on traits and skills. I fully understood this concept when it was applied practically applied to work situation, my colleague lacked this insight which caused him a lot of difficulty as his career progressed. He was brilliant at finances which mostly involved playng with numbers and little human interaction. This situation changed drastically after he was promoted to managerial position, his job requirements changed drastically as now he was required to build relationships, motivate subordinates, delegate tasks and reach company objectives through teamwork. I was previously under the impression that leadership usually involves managing people below me in the hierarchy and I would get to manage senior employees as a gain more experience. Such is not the case, in the volatile business environment today the demands of leadership have changed too. Through this virtual leadership simulation I was able to understand the role of effective communication and relationship building. Leadership is not essentially a formal authority; it can involve managing situations with people who have more experience or a higher job title too. I have learnt that my leadership style is more that of a democratic leader than an autocratic one. I trust my employees and expect them to perform well even in my absence. Through simulations that involved crises or conflicts I solved problems through focusing on ideas that were directly related to performance objective while avoiding topics that would lead o further debate and disagreement. I believe my leadership style is democratic because I considered the input of both my managers and subordinates in deciding on a course of action. In the second scenario, the vertical dyad linkage model was also something I could relate with because it involved forming partnerships with followers on an individual basis. As an effective leader it is important that I understand that each individual has their own share of strengths and weaknesses and favouritism of any sort can cause extensive damage o employee morale. Thus by forming individual relationships and evaluating employees in their own capacity is key to have motivated followers. The virtual simulation required for me to play the role of a transactional leader, the situation demanded that I play the role of a transactional leader in scenario 3 and a transformational leader in scenario 5. The transactional leader gets the followers to accomplish goals when they act according to the leader’s suggestions, the transformational leader on the other hand encourages subordinates to do more than what is expected of them (Hartog et al, 2011). In light of the scenarios, the third scenario involved transactional leadership because the expectations were firmly laid out and in the fifth scenario transformational leadership was involved because it was a crisis management situation. The scenarios also helped me understand that conflict can play a very important role in the work environment. I do have reservations though, conflict does not essentially need to be harmful unless it is properly managed to accomplish organizational objectives. The success of a leader is not accomplishing personal objective but to accomplish objectives using the organization’s human resources. And in order to promote creativity a certain level of volatility and conflicting ideas are essential to reach a better decision and to not take “yes” for every answer (Deal, 2007). Integration and Extension- Personalized Leadership Plan My definition of Leadership I have always believed that leadership is both art and science. Management itself can be viewed as a science because it has rules and principles that govern it which are somewhat consistent in most situations. Leadership on the other hand leans more towards an art because of its complexity, it does not have principles are require a great deal of creativity in most situations. Asbjörnson (2007) has identified some key characteristics of leaders that are similar to those of artists as: they reach out and influence, listening with intention rather than filtering, facilitate discussion by asking the right questions instead of providing answers, recognize talent, and like a musician if the leader does not practice or rehearse they would lose their audience (followers). My personal leadership plan is based on the principle that leadership is combination of art and science, it is not something that cannot be learnt but it is something that can be forgotten if nto practiced. Areas of Development The virtual leadership simulation helped me identify areas of intellectual and personal development. The key comcept that I need to focus n is that leadership is a function of followership. In other words, there would not be a leader without followers thus most important element of leadership is relationship management. Personal Discipline and Managing Tension Various studies that support the idea of locus of control have identified that having an internal locus of control as well as high self-efficacy has a better chance of controlling the environment around them (Raile, 2012). Thus as a leader I should have high self-efficacy and internal locus of control, which implies that with the right strategies I am fully capable of influencing the environment around me. The environment not only includes my subordinates but also my managers and some elements of stress management and motivation in the work place. This is specifically applicable to lower-level employees that believe that they have relatively lesser control of the situation around them, I can ease the process for them through effective communication. Values and Ethical Boundaries The role of ethics is very important in leadership, a leader is considered effective if he is able to meet organizational goals or performance and profitability. Thus organizations place people who can accomplish these goals in leadership positions. This is where the role of ethics and personal values comes in, ethics can be challenged if a leader is required to make decisions that can be ethically questionable to make profits for the company or on the flip-side make decisions that are individualistic and can cause harm to the company in the long-run. Furthermore the curriculum in business schools that previously emphasized significantly on personal development to become more efficient leaders is now laying a great deal of emphasis on ethical, moral and socially responsible role of business leaders (Akella, 2012). Thus in my leadership style I would like to be an ethical leader that would focus on character building. Individuals holding leadership positions tend of influence the ethical climate immensely; this is because the serve as a “role model” for behaviour and their self-assessed superior ethics would resonate with the rest of the organizations as well (Raile, 2012). As a leader, it is imperative that I would function as a representative of my organization. So if I engage in ethical practices, it would be reflected not only on my image but also on the image of my organization. Persuasion Through Relationship Building Many leaders are under the misconception that persuasion and motivation are an inborn attribute, like if a person does not have it nothing can be done about it. Here I would like to add the role of individualized relationship building can play, I believe that people have different motivations and thus one-size may not fit all. By understanding their individual needs and motivations, I can motivate them to work towards a common objective. Leadership cannot be complete without the ability to persuade the followers to take actions and bring about the desired outcomes. According to Beers (2012) an effective method of persuasion is to determine first the response you would like to generate instead of focusing on what you would like to say. This encompasses two main concepts of empathy and effective communication. In order to empathize with the followers, my strategy is to look at things from their perspective and then design my communications strategy. According to Folkman and Zeneger one effective technique for motivating employees is for a leader to share his passion about the job that they are doing. Persuasive communication involves a lot of emotional play and these emotions can be very contagious, thus a leader with a positive outlook would motivate the subordinates significantly. References Daft, RL. 2008. Leadership Experience. Dryden Press Series in Management. Carnage Learning. 4th Edition. Daft, R and Lane, P. 2009. Management. Carnage Learning. 9th Edition. Asbjörnson, K. 2007. Issues & observations—Making the connection between art and leadership LEADERSHIP IN ACTION. Volume 27, Issue 4, September/October 2007, Pages: 22–24 Davis, RA. 2010. The Intangibles of Leadership: The 10 Qualities of Superior Executive Performance. John Wiley and Sons. Hartig, DN, Muijen, JJV and Koopman, PL. 1997. Transactional versus transformational leadership: An analysis of the MLQ. Journal of Occupations and Organizational Psychology. Volume 70, Issue 1, March 1997, Pages: 19–34 Deal, D. 2007. Why Great Leaders Dont Take Yes for an Answer: Managing for Conflict and Consensus.Duane Deal.Air & Space Power Journal. 21.1 (Spring 2007) p109.  Devi Akella (2012): Ethical Leadership, Organization Management Journal, 9:3, 201-201 Raile, E 2013, Building Ethical Capital: Perceptions of Ethical Climate in the Public Sector, Public Administration Review, 73, 2, pp. 253-262 Beers, C 2012, Leading by Persuasion. (cover story), Leadership Excellence, 29, 12, pp. 9-10 Read More