Leadership - Personalizing Management Development - Essay Example

Leadership 21st March, Leadership The following are the types of leadership Discussed in the Harvard Business Review Case. The Reluctant Leader The reluctant leaders refer to the category of leaders, who have the capability of making outstanding leaders, but they lack self-confidence; reluctant leaders are the employees who have the raw material, as it were, of becoming competent leaders but they are sabotaged by lack of self-confidence. Reluctant leaders have deeply ingrained insecurities that manifest themselves through: indecisiveness in decision making, risk aversion, and the tendency to avoid conflict. Transforming reluctant leaders into strong competent leaders requires the following three steps. Helping them to change their negative attitude and to develop self-confidence Training them on decision making and conflict management Encouraging them to be firm and decisive in management and affirming their capabilities. Reluctant leaders are normally endowed with leadership skills and with proper training and mentorship, reluctant leaders turn out to be very strong and competent leaders; as the author of this article states, reluctant leaders have skills to be excellent managers but can’t imagine themselves succeeding in a leadership role. The Arrogant Leader Arrogant leaders refer to the category of people who, though they have insecurities just like the reluctant leaders, they however believe that they are strong and competent leaders. The arrogant leaders compensate for their insecurities through convincing themvelves that they are competent leaders; unlike the reluctant leaders who manifest low self-esteem, the arrogant leaders manifest strong self-confidence and self-conviction in their capabilities as leaders. The arrogant leaders are normally ambitious self-marketers; for this reason, arrogant leaders are mainly promoted to positions of leadership by many organisations, unlike the reluctant leaders who do not showcase their leadership skills. Unlike the reluctant leaders, the arrogant leaders lack natural leadership skills and for this reason, arrogant leaders can wreak havoc in the groups or the teams that they are leading. This is because arrogant leaders are not humble and they believe that they know all they need to know in leadership and in relating with the people they lead. For this reason, transforming arrogant leaders into competent leaders is a challenging task that requires the arrogant leaders to be helped to recognize their own weaknesses and limitations, so that they can be humble enough to learn more about leadership so as to be able to relate better with the people they lead. The Unknown Leader Unknown leaders refer to a category of leaders who are quite competent leaders and they are also ambitious, but they have a weakness in forming relationships with other people; unknown leaders are cautious and they form relationships with other people more slowly and tentatively than other categories of leaders. Normally, unknown leaders have the right blend of confidence and leadership skills, but they fail to develop relationships outside of a small circle of friends. Unknown leaders are mainly introverted people and for that reason, their personal network of friends small; also, rarely do unknown leaders initiate conversations with people they are not familiar with. Unknown leaders normally keep low profile, and for this reason people do not look to them for leadership; just like reluctant leaders, unknown leaders do not showcase their leadership qualities. Training unknown leaders to be strong competent leaders involve helping the unknown leaders to be able to interact with people of all works of life, including the strangers, so as to be able to expand their circle of friends; training and mentoring unknown leaders to be competent leaders requires helping the unknown leaders to be sociable and to be able to interact well with all people in the organisation, including their seniors, so as to enhance their chances of promotion in the organisations in which they work. The Workaholic Leaders Workaholic leaders refer to a category of people who are addicted to work and who choose work, over and above family, spiritual growth, sports, hobbies, love, or friendship. Many organisations promote workaholics to positions of leaderships due to their excellent performance and their commitment to work. Workaholism has degrees of severity; there are workaholic swho are addicted to their work and work long hours without suffering the negative effects that are associated with workaholism. On the other hand, there are workaholics who are adversely affected negatively by their addiction and their love for their work. The main limitation of workaholics in regard to leadership is that, although workaholics work harder than their colleagues in an organisation, workaholics, however, lack the perspective and the personality to inspire others. This is because, in most cases, workaholic’s attention is completely focused on work, and not on the need for developing healthy human relationships. Another limitation of workaholism in leadership is that, although workaholics work harder than their colleagues, this does not mean, however, that the workaholics work smarter than their colleagues. For this reason, therefore, although some workaholics may have the skills and the self-confidence needed in leadership, workaholics do not make strong and competent leaders. Training and mentoring workaholics to be competent leaders mainly involve helping the workaholics to get over their addiction to work and to be all-rounded people who are able to balance the demands and the love for work with the other important aspects of life, like the need for healthy human relationships and the need for spiritual growth. Having looked at the four forms of leadership mentioned and discussed in the Harvard case, let us look at the kind of leader that I think I am. A critical review of the four leadership styles discussed in the Harvard case vis-à-vis my personality and my leadership attitude shows that I am unknown leader. The following are the main reasons why I think I am unknown leader. To begin with, I am self-confident and I am quite decisive in decision making; I actually have no problems in making firm decisions if the situation so demands. For this reason, therefore, I am not a reluctant leader. Secondly, I am generally a very humble person and I do not regard myself as being better than other people. Also, I do not regard myself as a competent leader; I have actually never imagined myself as a leader. For this reason, therefore, I am not an arrogant leader since arrogant leaders are proud and thy consider themselves to be naturally strong and competent leaders. Thirdly, I am not a workaholic. This is because although I love my work and I find a lot of fulfilment in working, I am, however, not addicted to work. In my life, I try as much as possible to maintain a healthy balance between my work and my, spiritual, relational, and my recreational aspects of my life. For this reason, I am not a workaholic leader. For this reason, therefore, I don’t fit in the other three categories of leadership, but I fit in the unknown leader category. Although I have self-confidence and I am ambitious, I, however, have weaknesses in initiating conversations with people who I am not familiar with; also, I am normally an introvert. For these two reasons, I consider myself to be unknown leader. The type of leader I aspire to be in the future In future, I aspire to continue being unknown leader and I do not aspire to be any other type of leader. The following are the main reasons why I aspire to continue being unknown leader in the future. To begin with, I aspire to be unknown leader in the future because unknown leaders have both the leadership skills and the confidence needed in leadership. I personally believe that without self-confidence, it is impossible to be a strong and a competent leader. Secondly, I believe that natural leadership skills are quite important; I do believe that, although leadership skills can be learned, having natural qualities or natural skills of leadership is quite important. Thirdly, unknown leaders are not addicted to their work and they are able to maintain a healthy balance between work and other important aspects of life. I would, therefore, like to remain unknown leader because this form of leadership embodies all the values of leadership that I am convinced are pre-requisites for effective leadership. The following the main reasons why I do not want to want to be any other type of leader in the future. Firstly, I do not want to be a reluctant leader because reluctant leaders lack self-confidence. Although many reluctant leaders are endowed with natural leadership skills, reluctant leaders, however, are not competent leaders because they are indecisive and have difficulties in firmly expressing and executing their ideas. Although reluctant leaders can be helped to become competent leaders in life through training aimed at bolstering the self-confidence of reluctant leaders, transforming reluctant leaders into competent leaders is a demanding task and sometimes some reluctant leaders with severe self-esteem problems may never recover and become competent leaders. It is actually, easier to transform unknown leader into a competent leader than it is to transform unknown leader into competent leader; this is because transforming unknown leader into competent leader involve helping unknown leaders into being able to relate and to expand their circle of friends- it is far easier to help one to expand their network of friends than it is to help one to have self-confidence. For this reason, therefore, I would like to remain unknown leader in the future. Secondly, I would not like to be an arrogant leader in the future because arrogant leaders are not humble people. I strongly believe that humbleness is a pre-requisite of good leadership. Unknown leaders, on the other hand, are humble people who have natural qualities for leadership, although, they have relational weaknesses. For this reason, therefore, I would not wish to be an arrogant leader in the future. Thirdly, I would not wish to be a workaholic leader in the future because workaholic leaders live unbalanced lives; workaholic leaders are not able to live holistically because they are addicted to their work and all their attention is focused in their work. Having looked at the kind of leader that I would like to be in the future, let us look the training and the development approaches or methods that I need in order to progress toward my desired leadership style. To progress towards my desired type of leadership, I need the following training. First, I need to go through a training in which I will get 360-degree feedback. Getting comments and feedback from other people about what they think about you in relation to your abilities in leadership is quite important; such comments and feedback helps one to have an objective view of himself/herself about their capabilities in leadership. Through the 360-degree feedback, I would be able to know my weaknesses in leadership so as to make the necessary improvements. Secondly, to progress towards my desired type of leadership, I would go through a form of training that would help me to be able to network with various people, hence, expanding my circle of friends; I would go through a training that would help me to overcome my biases that networking means glad-handing, and that networking is a waste of time. Such training would, ultimately, leave me capable of socialising and befriending many people. Also, in order towards my desired type of leadership, I would go through a form of training that would allow me to work with unfamiliar people so as to be able to interact with them and become friends. Working with unfamiliar people would enable me to improve my skills or my capability in interacting with unfamiliar people, so as to be able to freely interact with other employees in the organisation where I would work later as a leader. I believe that a leadership training programme with the three elements that I have outlined above would undoubtedly help me to become a strong and a competent unknown leader in the future. Such a training programme would fit in the following training methods or training approaches. Firstly, the training method that is compatible with the training programme in which I would get 360-degree feedback, and also be able to overcome my biases about networking is the off-the-job training methods; the off-the-job instructional method appropriate for this kind of programme is the discussion instruction method. Discussion instructional method is appropriate for this training method because of the following features. The discussion instructional method helps the learners to recognize what they do not know but they should know. Discussion instructional method helps the learners to questions that they might have in relation to the topic under discussion. Discussion instructional method allows the learners to get advice the concerns that they might have. Discussion instructional method provides opportunity to learn about one another. The discussion instructional method also can be used to illustrate behaviour. Besides the off-the-job training method, the on-the-job training method would also be applied in the training aimed at making me an effective unknown leader. The on-the-job training method would be quite compatible with the aspect of my training that requires me to work and to interact with unfamiliar people. The actual training approach that would be suitable for a training in which I am allowed to interact with various unfamiliar people is the Job Rotation approach. The job rotation approach is mainly used as an on-going carrier development program. The job rotation approach of training is aimed at helping the learner to have experiences and skills in different department of an organisation, other than the department in which the learner works. This training approach helps the learner to have an improved knowledge and skills. The job rotation approach to training would be quite effective in helping me to work and to interact with various employees whom I am not familiar with. Again, the job rotation approach to training would enable my supervisors to supervise and to gauge my progress in being able to interact with people whom I am not familiar with. Work Cited Griffin, N.S. “Personalize Your Management Development”. Harvard Business Review. USA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Read More