Group Leadership Project Reflection - Essay Example

Table of Contents Group Leadership Project Reflection----------------------------------------------------------------3 Women and business leadership-----------------------------------------------------------------------4 Leadership, new challenge and failure----------------------------------------------------------------6 Leadership, trust and ethics-----------------------------------------------------------------------------7 Leading high technology organizations---------------------------------------------------------------8 Global leadership and influence-----------------------------------------------------------------------10 Conclusion-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------15 Bibliography---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------16 Prior to the start of this assignment, it is essential to define leadership. Leadership put in simple terms, according to Susan Ward (Concepts of leadership, 2011) “is a process by which a person influences the behavior of his subordinates for succeeding towards a goal or objective and directs the team in a manner that makes it more consistent and logical”. But it can be said without creating a trace of doubt in anybody’s mind that Leadership is that quality summed up in a person who has the power to make or remake the workings, and the ideals of any group of people, be it large or small, political or business. This gives rise to many questions and this research paper will employ precisely these points in answering those questions: Leader and Follower roles What worked well? Leader’s effectiveness / efficiency Follower’s effectiveness / efficiency How and what were the roles developed. How dynamic / static the group were Power culture and structure Leadership style How conflicts were handled and decisions made The questions answered by this paper are: 1. women and business leadership 2. leadership, new challenge and failure 3. leadership, trust and ethics 4. leading high technology organizations 5. global leadership and influence Women and Business Leadership Leader and follower roles: history is evident of the face that women have more often than not suffered from the very well-established male-dominate societies and businesses. In short, the male-superiority power. Even now in so many countries of the world, especially the third-world countries, women are beaten and thrown in dark rooms. This has given men the nerve to regard women as the followers and not as the leaders. Nevertheless, the women of today have fought tooth and nail to change that ideal and establish themselves also as the leaders. They have same or even better qualifications as men. They have equally better opportunities as men to come forward, and so now they are almost seen as the leaders of the new-world. Today women acquire all leaders’ positions as lawyers, professors, ministers, though not without difficulty. What worked well: Researches, who wanted to work for women and in their favor, and wanted to escalate their position to leaders, have struggled to define leadership qualities that were needed in general, and were possessed by women in particular. Importance of leadership is evident from how well the organization handled by that leader is managed, employee performance and success of the organization. There is also a form of leadership termed as emotional leadership. The women have been found to be better at this leadership as they are more emotionally able to penetrate their colleagues. The women are more attached to their families and so they are opted more and more for these positions. As women are just as competent as men in all fields of work so they are taking part in all possible fields too, like technical, educational and political. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 established a concept of glass-ceiling. According to this, women are able quire good to and safe positions in any business organization but are not able to rise to the surface; this declaration has helped in distinguishing reasons for women’s inability to not be able to rise to power. A work, published by center for leadership, outlined the problems, faced by women when it comes to breaking this glass-ceiling. And it also gave formulas for success early in their careers. This work also pointed out the so many different and variant expectations that are often set for women as compared to those from men. Leader’s effectiveness/efficiency: A renowned personality, grace hopper, who worked in the US naval reserve, is known all around for the development of programming languages. She foresaw the development of artificial intelligence. Sandra Kurtzig was the world’s first women and the world’ first leader to form a high-tech company. Helen Magill was the first women and the first person to earn a PHD degree. Virginia Military was made coeducational in 1996, so that women could be enrolled in it. Women have also taken up their rightful and well-deserved place in the technology realm. They have mixed up their ability to incorporate adaptive skills, higher flexibility, and stronger commitment to form better leaders in that domain too. How and what were the roles developed: In order to understand women’s role in leadership positions and also to accept it, one has to understand deeply the gender-relations of business and private life of both genders as a whole. We also need to understand the very long process of development and civilization between men and women. The fact that such shifts in power also effects women’s household should be taken into account. \ How dynamic/static the groups are: Oblerlin college was one of the first universities for women. Seneca falls declaration was a very important document for education of women in 1848. Power and culture: Women are more given with the responsibility of taking care of households and children, so they are not allowed to come to the front as leaders. This also causes girls to lose their confidence from a very small age. They are criticized for their emotional nature. This has acted as a hurdle in their path to leadership. How conflicts were handled: Several researches that are carried out showed that women are able to think effectively and achieve the qualities of leaders. They can form better decisions and organize more maturely. Even the chief Executive of CHPD said that if one knew what is it was that was needed to be successful in a fast-moving and competitive environment, they’d find women are more capable than men. Leadership new challenges and failures Leader and follower roles: It is very well known that being a leader does not only mean the person is able to control command flow in a project or business dealing, but also is able to motivate his staff members, teaches and equally well learns all the time. This is both an exhilarating and worrisome position for the leaders. What worked well: A good employee considers his workers as friends and equal colleagues. Development of trust on the workers and group-members part has been known to work wonders in the forth-bringing of the companies’ success. Emotions have also seemed to work. Starting a day with a good heart and head is a sure sign of good performance. A single good performance from an employee is surely going to work in the favor of the company. Past experiences of any employee in particular become the present data of the company in general. This in turn helps variant people to decide between right and wrong. So this type of behavior with a positive approach is also encouraged, to work in favor of the companies. The company, its people, its leaders and its employees need to be fully submerged in the thought that that specific mission incorporates in their minds. Constantly bringing up the fact that everyone needs to succeed, can also bring forth a change in attitudes and quality of work. Leader’s effectiveness/efficiency: The first and foremost element in a leader’s role is to organize his/her team and make sure unity is maintained. Incorporate the right skills in the right place at the right time. Wrongly skilled people in the wrong places can cause problems. So as leaders, that strategy should be avoided. A leader also avoids errors and bad situations by motivating rightly, and embracing his/ her job in the full form. He/she makes his/her team act on a mission. The employees/followers learn to live the dream and the objective. He/she also tells them their acts are unique and one of a kind. He/she encourages them that they are the makers of money building capital. They also form the opinion in every professional’s head that they are doing what has never been done before. A leader is always willing to learn all the time so much that they sit and observe their group work, so that they themselves learn. They might be skilled and talented but they are willing to expand their vision and caliber. They are able to take care of details, short-time-notices, and tasks below their pay grade for the sake of the betterment of the company. They are also not scared of competition, have a handful of good imagination, and are free of selfishness. Follower’s effectiveness/efficiency: Follower’s are required to be completely loyal to the project as that project is not only the company’s, but also their own, their reputation also depend on it as much as the companies. Also they need to understand that the leader may not always be at fault whenever something wrong happens and they have to take responsibility for their works. Leadership style: A great leader should be capable and in-possession of factors such as the power to identify mission statements. He/she is a positive influence on their circle, and is good in achieving set goals. They are high believers of team-work and faith. They easily give help to any employee who might be in need of it. They are able to mold themselves as the need of the hour and their tasks. How conflicts are handles and decisions made: Conflicts would include delays, shortages, exits, domination, isolation, detachment, side conversations, lack of concentration, left-out goals. They are handles each one by one. But most of them have the same solution which includes, planning before-hand and precise calculations of resources. Leadership trust and ethics Leaders and followers roles: Trust is an important pillar upon which a business depends. For any organization to be sustainable it must have trust between the four or five different groups of people – employees, customers, suppliers, funding providers, the local community. Business ethics are more about the moral un-defined and un-written rules and regulations that govern the business globe. In other terms, these are the values that steer the business decision making mechanism of an organization. Some business ethics are defined by regulatory means. However, some decisions that fall beyond the scope of these guidelines, and for those, moral judgments must be made. The areas where the law fails to protect the rights of the people involved in the business, business ethics have to be applied there. Trust and ethics are enforcers of each other. When companies try to gain trust, they imply ethics, which, in turn, builds trust. What worked well: When comparing business ethics and trust factors, we can start by analyzing the methods through which both are applied. The ethics officers first analyze, identify and then assure the presence of a problem, and then take some action against it. This is effective, but not for every problem as the strategy takes time. It does, however, prevent big scale problems. Whereas, trust involves the use of proactive strategies, like creating new business practices to take care of the problems. However, a trustful organization may actually increase rather than minimize its risk, depending upon which causes or values it elects to support. Leader’s effectiveness/efficiency: Businesses often have crude effect on the community. So demands are being placed on business to have a positive effect in these areas. The general expectations of the community from these corporations have risen. Now the companies don’t just have to abide by the law, but also have to do business in such a way that the trust of the people involved is not harmed. The Trust initiative typically defines stakeholders more broadly and is more concerned with the effect that the corporate actions have on the community. Such an approach creates a trustworthy bond between business and society. And in return, the society provides essential resources to businesses in exchange for social benefits. Follower’s effectiveness/efficiency: Business ethics provide the companies a structure through which the company integrity is ensured by managing risk by developing early warning mechanisms to identify and address potential problems. How dynamic/static the groups were: Most of the ethical strategies involve tackling problems like abuse by managers, sexual harassment and discrimination. But very few companies define ethics that are concerned with the well being of the employees, like reviewing family benefits or addressing unfair pay scales. To judge that which approach is better we can simply study the high expectations of business’ obligations and responsibilities to society. The societies start expecting more from the organizations; they will be forced to apply both the ethics and trust strategies. Leading high technology organizations Leader and follower roles: Whether one owns a certain business or not, they have to have amazing leadership skills in order to run that business. Leadership and a business go hand in hand. But leadership does not stop there. Even employees in that business are required to have a certain set of leadership skills. Good leadership skills can take any business to any heights of success. Is this essence, leaders are required to have skills which include, the ability to observe people in your business, so that right action at the right time can be taken to solve any problems. Also, that the leader should be good with communication skills and is effectively able to transfer his thoughts through to people. He/she should also be able to motivate people with just plain words. It is all about connecting effectively with people. This gives rise to trust and that alone is the pioneer to success in any business. Besides this, leaders should also have self-awareness, have good judgmental skill i.e. they understand people’s problem just by looking at them and then are able to solve them too, decisiveness, flexibility, purposefulness. Also they should be highly well-informed about not only their employees but also their business and the purpose of the project. What worked well: Purposefulness and planning have gone a long way to fulfill this question. The ways in which these goals have these achieved are that these companies have applied or tried their best to apply these new high-tech products to their own systems. This is only fair as these companies, who are the pioneers for all good technology in the world should themselves have it in their corporate systems and be able to work with it. Leader’s effectiveness/efficiency: In this the points included are adaptability, and acceptability. The skill to change according to situations and be able to blend in effectively is adaptability on the part of the leader. They should be able to work in the harshest and the ugliest of conditions. They are also able to accept their faults and work to improve them effectively. They keep an open-mind and are willing to learn-constantly. Follower’s effectiveness/ efficiency: Worker’s with a strong sense of self, their work and their loyalties are a company’s biggest asset. Their effectiveness in work is shown clearly by the fact that they get inspired to work quiet easily. Collaborative technology is also the new in the mainstream these days and its use opens up new gateways of success. So a team of employees who are efficiently able to run and cope with such technology are very important for a company. Internet can never be forgotten when talking of new technology and better skills. This has also helped all kinds of employees to work for better success of the company. How and what were the roles developed: It was seen that, a business would prefer to have its own storage department instead of benefitting from the large number of storage businesses surrounding it. In short it would waste its own resources on something that was already developed and thus, available. Therefore it was established that different businesses would make collaborations with other businesses to acquire the things that those businesses had in return for something that the other business needed and did not have. Power culture and structure: The culture prevailing in most businesses is that they might the inventors of the world’s current leading high-technology but their own systems would still run on ERP legacies, out-dated processors and lagging IT structures. They themselves have systems that are at least two to five years behind time than the technologies they were creating. Leadership style: Most leaders adopt the way of telling people that the projects they are responsible for are very meritorious and highly unique. This is only so people would be drawn-in from more spheres of life thus creating a more competitive environment. How conflicts were handled: Projects are planned years and months ahead. Because all costs and expenses have to be calculated. This is a very clear way of avoiding losses and in any conflicts. Companies deliver operational excellence to the best of their abilities. This best is the only measure of how good the company is so each business works hard to acquire it. Operational excellence is tied to innovation, customer experience, and employee satisfaction but not to cost-savings. It is made great only by staying competitive and innovative. Global leadership and influence Leader and follower roles: As this is the highest and the most-important forms of leadership, so it needs a higher-level of communication skills than most others. The leaders are also required to have the ability to motivate both long-term and short-term ideas in their followers. This is especially important as the followers are from all cultures and countries of the world. What worked well: Globalization is the best-known answer. Besides this other options are also presently but are lesser in magnitude of importance to globalization. Through these elements of culture, leader-employee relations are created. This also creates a new set of values that have to be followed in most organizations to manage a healthy and competitive environment. Allowing more employee empowerment and autonomy in their jobs. This gives rise to decentralization and according to this process the employees are not only free to express their views without any fears but are also highly encouraged to do so. This type of culture provides more stability on the working environment. Annual performance appraisals are also given away as a way to encourage the leaders and followers to come forward and participate more effectively. This is done without any discrimination in the basis of class, state, race, nationality or color. Leader’s effectiveness/efficiency: Leaders are effective only if they recognize the social and cultural norms of the very core of the organization as this is the only way to motivate the workers to work well enough. Follower’s effectiveness/ efficiency: Followers are found to be able to speak for their rights and voice their opinions in effective and non-aggressive manners. In Arabic nations, employees define themselves based on cultural symbols that drive their heritage, such as rituals and heroes that make-up their historical belief systems. How and what were the roles developed: A global leadership regime recognises the importance of development of an organisational structure to fit variant attitudes of the followers and build human resources-backed policies to assist in promoting or accepting these varying values. Power culture and structure: These are quiet difficult to define as the environment now has all kinds of employees from different cultures and parts of the world. But the trend that is set that a better set of skills and a more competitive environment development in the organization. Also, a form of an internal culture is developed which is a blend of all the cultures and societies present in the organization. This is not in conflict with any culture at all and so is a great way to keep peace and everyone happy. Leadership style: the leader carries out ways to give all followers from all societies to express their own unique innovations. And also allows the followers to achieve motivational outcomes and loyalty to the business’ goals. They are also transformational, non-rigid and do their best to avoid conflicts. They look for the best in their followers and promote harmony and ethics. He/she is also easily approachable and is ready to step down into the crowds to be able to solve their problems more effectively. How conflicts were handled and decisions made: a model of culture known as “uncertainty avoidance” which is cited under Hofstede is described as the level to which an individual or group is willing to accept cultures and are more tolerant of conflicting opinions and try and have fewer rules. Therefore such thinking is more promoted to avoid conflicts effectively. Conclusion In a nutshell it is said by Concepts of Leadership (2011, Lamb, McKee, 2004): Employee satisfaction is a very important forth-bringer of harmony and success rate in any organization. This is achieved by trust and confidence in the foremost. No matter what organization, effective communication is the key to avoid conflicts and promote good-will between leaders and followers in all organizations. Any organization should help employees in understanding the company's overall business strategy. This will in-turn helps any organization achieve key business objectives and success. 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