Leadership Challenges in Organization - Assignment Example

Leadership Challenges in Organization (Western Region Municipality) Introduction A leader is a person who direct and empower his or her followers to pursue the organization goals (Morse et. al., 2007). A leader has to set the organization’s goals, specify the approaches to achieve those goals and mobilize resources appropriate for achieving those goals. In the 21st century, leaders are facing challenges that are unique to the challenges that faced leaders in the previous century. The global competitiveness of products and services require the organization's leaders of the twenty-first century to be focused on all activities of the organization, their employees, and market and realize their personal capacity to influence the organizations’ performance (Palestini, 2009). As leadership challenges become more complex, leaders should also develop approaches to track the market requirements and evaluate the worker's capacity to satisfy the market needs (Gill, 2011). Leaders’ awareness about the market needs and organizations’ capacity is of the essence because it will assist them to influence their teams in order to utilize the organizations’ capacity to satisfy the market requirements. Leaders in the 21st century have to take an active role in the overall organization activities and to act as ceremonial figures they used to be in the early time. Effective leadership is essential in all aspects of the organization and must establish a strong relationship between the workers, the organization and the market (Morse et. al., 2007). The organization leadership in 21st century requires establishment of focused workforce, effective and well coordinated market activities as well as ability to build personal leadership capacity to meet the changing market needs. Challenges In the 21st century, leaders must help and encourage workers and the stakeholders to determine their interests and potential for growth. Leaders cannot force workers or stakeholders to pursue things that are outside their interests (Palestini, 2009). In the present time, workers and stakeholders in the organization have personal interests which they expect to be satisfied as they pursue organizations goals. They want to grow alongside the organization and they will be encouraged to engage in activities that have no likelihood to promote personal growth. Employees and the stakeholders in the present time have personal ambitions if they are not satisfied the success of the organization is put at stake (Gill, 2011). Furthermore, workers and stakeholders determine the success or the failure of the organization hence leaders should give them an opportunity to declare their interests in the organization. The leaders should match stakeholders and employees interests with organization interest in order to ensure the achievement of common interests. 1. Let employees and stakeholders identify their own interests and abilities The leaders have a responsibility to help workers and stakeholders to realize personal goals and build their capacity to achieve those goals (Morse et. al., 2007). There is no employee or stakeholder who is willing to engage in any activity without clear information in regard to what they will actually achieve. The leaders have a duty to help workers and stakeholders identify their interest in the organization and build their capacity to pursue those goals. Leaders have a duty to improve the efficiency of workers and stakeholders towards the attainment of organization goals (Jain, 2005). Identifying personal interests among the workers and stakeholders will contribute to the improvement of organizations’ performance since the achievement of the organizations goals is in line with individual goals. This empowers the employees and the stakeholders to utilize their capacity efficiently as they strive to achieve a personal goal thus resulting to increase in organizations’ performance. It is the leaders’ responsibility to align the organizations’ goals with those of workers and stakeholders to ensure the promotion of leaders’ efficiency in the organization. The challenge facing my organization is the inability of leaders to identify and match workers and stakeholders interests and ability with organizations’ goals (Liff, 2007). The workers and stakeholders pursue personal interests at the expense of the organization thus resulting to reduced efficiency and conflicts of interest between the organization and workers or stakeholders. People's opinions Solutions about delegation challenge: Identifying workers and stakeholders interests and ability assists leaders to develop organization’s goals that can satisfy the expectations of the workers and stakeholders (Gill, 2011). It helps the organization leaders to allocate tasks to the workers effectively by aligning them with personal goals in order to develop a fulfilling work environment (Jain, 2005). The workers and the stakeholders are motivated to identify with the organization because the activities they carry out in the organization not only helps to meet the organization goals, but it also results to personal satisfaction and growth (Gill, 2011). It increases employee productivity and improvement in the overall organization performance because the workers are able to put more effort and innovation in their individual tasks in order to have a more satisfy personal needs alongside those of the organization (Liff, 2007). Challenges Research: Identifying Employees and Stakeholders interest and abilities Identifying the needs of the employees and stakeholders is a strong managerial tool that helps leaders to articulate the interests of the workers with those of the organization (Gill, 2011). Some leaders are insensitive to the needs of the workers and just assume that employees should put their effort towards organizations goals. They perceive workers as though they will drain business resources if they personal interests alongside organization goals. However, effective leadership entails having the ability to motivate workers to develop ambitions and identify their potential to achieve those ambitions (Morse et. al., 2007). Leaders should encourage workers to identify personal interest and ability nurtures creativity in the organization and enables workers to appreciate their effort as well as their roles in the organization. The challenges most leaders are facing is to articulate varying individual goals with the organization goal. Visionary Leaders Theory Visionary leaders develop positive and inspirational ideas for the organization that can attract dedicated workers to the organization (Morse et. al., 2007). In addition, those leaders are able to identify personal interests and the intentions of workers and stakeholders and make them contented with the organizations goals towards fulfilling of personal aspirations. The leaders provide various opportunities through which workers and stakeholders can achieve personal aspirations alongside organizations goals (Morse et. al., 2007). For example, they create room for innovations, learning, building teams among the workers and leading other by example. Visionary leaders assist the workers to build their capacity as future leaders thus offering them an opportunity to exploit their ability for the personal benefit, as well as organization performance. 2. Motivating Employees Many organizations have not developed strategies to motivate their workers. Whereas many organization leaders have spent a lot of time to develop organization goals they expect the workers to pursue those goals and yet they are doing little to encourage the workers pursue them (Morse et. al., 2007). In many cases, the workers lose interest with the organizational goals thus resulting to low productivity. Lack of employee motivation demoralizes the workers and they may view the organization as a vehicle of oppression rather than associating them with personal success. Successful leaders design various strategies to motivate workers and make them feel appreciated at the workplace (Jain, 2005). Leaders have a duty to motivate their workers using various instruments designed to suit the needs of the workers. The leader should appreciate employees for their distinguished performance, provide workers with appropriate work environment, tools, incentives, job security, benefits, and compensations and offer them opportunity for advancing their careers (Jain, 2005). People's opinions Solutions about Motivating challenge: Motivation of employees increases work morale and output because the employees’ efforts is rewarded and appreciated (Jain, 2005). Employees’ motivation results to more self-fulfilling tasks since employees are given opportunity to advance their careers and have sufficient time with their families, as a result, of paid leaves; study leaves sick leaves as well as financial motivation among other benefits (Jain, 2005). Motivation assists employees to identify with the organization and increase organization’s performance due to reduced workers turnover and increased workers output. Challenges research: Motivating Employees Most leaders assume there is no need for motivating workers to do what they are already paid to do. Employee motivation influences individual commitment to the task, their loyalty to the leaders and the overall conducts of the employees in the organization (Palestini, 2009). Leaders use various techniques to motivate their workers depending on the organization’s culture, perception of leaders and the nature of tasks available for the workers. The use of rewards as employee motivation occurs as intrinsic or extrinsic factors. Intrinsic factors are experienced internally by the employees and include feeling of accomplishment or make employees feel they have achieved something worthwhile (Muller, 2011). Extrinsic reward factors are gained by the employees from other people and they include things like bonuses, trophies, money and other tangible rewards. Rewards influence behaviour and commitment of the workers depending on whether they get any reward at all and whether it was intrinsic or extrinsic (Liff, 2007). Higher rewards increase employee’s performance and make employees engage in more demanding activities. The nature of the task assigned to the workers affects their motivation. Leaders are responsible for designing tasks for various employees in the organization. Designing appropriate tasks for the workers can improve the quality and quantity of output, improve worker satisfaction and result to employee motivation (Muller, 2011). Employee motivation can be implemented through employee participation in decision making in the organization. Effective leaders establish teams of workers based on departments or task related groups to discuss and provide solutions various issues affecting the organization (Muller, 2011). Locke's goal theory The employees’ motivation is influenced by the tasks assigned to them. Setting more specific goals to the workers improves their performance while assigning difficult goals will increase employee’s effort (Palestini, 2009). According to Locke’s goal theory, involvement of employees in setting organization’s goals will increase their acceptance of the outcome and improve employee job satisfaction. Recommendation Effective organization leadership of the present time requires a leader who is capable of identifying worker's goals and aligns them with those of the organization (Jain, 2005). The leaders should therefore provide workers with adequate opportunity to build their capacity and engage them in various tasks of the organization in order to learn their interests and ability (Gill, 2011). After the leader has identified the individual interests and ability, they should assign those worker's tasks that will help them to satisfy their interests and improve efficiency for the benefit of the organization. Leaders should involve employees in all aspects of the organization from goal setting to decision making process and prove necessary information for decision making in order to increase employees’ productivity and satisfaction (Muller, 2011). Motivation of workers is essential for improvement f performance as well as increasing employees’ satisfaction. Leaders should share relevant information with the workers to increase productivity and motivation of the employees (Jain, 2005). Having information about the organization is the only way employees can be able to contribute effectively to decision-making in the organization. Effective leadership involves designing tasks that are challenging and interesting to the employees in order to keep them engaged to the work resulting to improved performance. Leaders should develop various motivating strategies and rewards for the workers depending on individual or group achievement (Liff, 2007). Appreciating workers all the time after they have accomplished their goals encourages them to work harder and improve their performance. Conclusion The expansion of organizations to the global market has increased leadership challenges especially in motivating the workers and identifying the workers interests and ability. Most of organization’s leaders do not involve workers in setting goals because of lack of trust or inability to coordinate workers for effective performance. The workers get demoralized if they realize the leaders do not recognize their effort in the organization. Leaders should devise means of appreciating their workers for their outstanding performance and keep them aiming higher. Locke's goal theory suggests that leaders should assign workers challenging and interesting tasks in order to make the contented with their work. Employee participation in decision making improves interpersonal relations between workers and leaders, employee commitment and personal responsibility. In addition, employee involvement increases employees’ knowledge about the organization. The leaders should also devise various strategies to link the needs of the employees with organizational goals. Involving employees will result to setting of higher goals, but they will be able to achieve them due to increased effort. This will help solve the leadership challenges of articulating personal interests with organizational goals. References Gill, R. (2011). Theory and Practice of Leadership (2nd Ed.). India: SAGE. Jain, N.K. (2005). Organizational Behaviour. India: Atlantic Publishers & Dist Liff, S. (2007). Managing Government Employees. United States of America: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. Morse, R., Buss, T. F. & Kinghorn, M. C. (Eds) (2007). Transforming Public Leadership for the 21st Century. United States of America: M.E. Sharpe. Palestini, R. (2009). From Leadership Theory to Practice. United States of America: R&L Education. Muller, C. (2011). Employee Motivation and Incentives at Apple. GRIN Verlag. Read More