Approach to Leadership in an Organization - Term Paper Example

 Approach to Leadership in an Organization Introduction Leadership plays a crucial role in the development and establishment of an organization. There are many kinds of leadership styles that are opted by leaders in order to take work from their group members. Leaders can be autocratic as well as democratic; they can be servant-leaders as well as authoritative and they can be task-oriented as well as people-oriented (Lynham and Chermack 2006). Therefore, it is quite clear that leadership exists in many forms. Leaders should be in strong communication links with their group members so that the performance of workers can be effective and appreciative. I believe that a leader should have strong communication links with other workers. My approach for leadership is communicative. Communication is very crucial for an organizational setup and for leaders communication plays an effective role. It is only because of communication that leaders can motivate their workers to act according to the leaders’ views. With the help of communication, the leaders can get the ideas of the workers and can also win their trust by encouraging them for their good performances (Heifetz 1994). There are many advantages as well as disadvantages of communication for leadership. Evaluation of Approach to Leadership Leaders are not necessarily separated from managers. In some organizations, managers also act as leaders (Alvesson and Sveningsson 2003). With the help of communication, managers are able to keep their authority. It is because of effective communication that customers are made to buy different products. As far as leadership is concerned, for leadership communication is a tool that can be employed for continuing to be a leader. An active leader is one who knows how to handle the tool of communication to manage and lead the members of an organization under his/her control (Burns 1978). Communication plays an effective part in terms of correspondence between people and also people are able to deliver their ideas and views to other people with the help of communication (Elliner and Gerard 1998). Communication is multifaceted, it is not just talking. Sharing, exchanging, transferring, passing on or conveying messages, ideas, opinions, news or information from one person or thing to another or between organizations is called communication (Harbridge 1998). The message may not be intended for anybody in particular and may be simply for enjoyment of the creator; so, there may be no intended receiver. For a better communication, a sender receiver, medium and message, all are very essential (Randy 2008). The message must be structured in the mind of the sender and he must choose a medium before sending it. Leaders are highly influential persons in an organization and they have a strong impact on the organization and its employees (Ellinger, et. al 1999). No one can deny the influence of the leaders, as they are the one who have to lead a certain group in order to facilitate the organization in terms of making revenue or gaining success (Argyris 1976). The employees working under the leaders are more devoted to their leaders as compared to the organization because of the persuasive style of leadership of the leaders (Fiedler 1967). Leaders are optimistic, self-motivated, persuasive, convincing and goal oriented personnel (Kelsey and Plumb 1997). They are needed in all workplaces because of their ability to lead and to motivate the employees in different times. They help the management in bringing about a change. They facilitate the employees to move in a direction which is considered important by them (James and Burgoyne 2001). The leadership that is considered attractive and effective is that kind of leadership that keeps the capacity of persuasion. Effective leaders are always able to motivate people in their set direction (Perren and Burgoyne 2001). For organizational working, communication as well as leadership, both are important. Different writers have given different models for leadership and communication in terms of generating a supportive theory for leaders and managers to help them out in the process of communication (DuBrin, et. al 2006). Leadership is strongly related to communication because leaders can have the capability to become effective and efficient because of their interactive communication (Chen and Silverthorne 2005). Communication is very rewarding and effective if done with expertise. Leaders should be efficient listeners. Listening is the most significant part of communication. For an effective management, the management should spend a fair proportion of their time in listening but this practice is not done by most of the managers and leaders (Drucker 1977). Being a good listener brings many benefits, over and above the obvious ones of receiving more accurate information (Covey, 1989). Good listening helps to build relationships; it is a vital part of appraisal and training and is also one of the key learning channels open to the managers (Covey, 1989). Communication involves four basic components; speaking, writing, reading and listening. If the managers are able to listen effectively, they can also do the other component tasks easily (Covey, 1989). Schein links leadership with knowledge management due to which, leadership is directly linked to communication (1992). The leaders get access to knowledge on the basis of communication process and this communication process is there because the attainment of knowledge and information from the employees can only be there with the help of the employees (Schein, 1992). According to Schein, in the development of organizational culture in an organization, the leaders play an effective role because they have a deep rooted influence on an organization (1992). With the communication policies adopted by the leaders of an organization, the organizational culture will set a well structured and well established communicative process (Hooper and Potter 1997). Leaders are required to learn effective communication so that they are able to manage the employees (Holton and Lynham 2000). Many times, the managers are the leaders so that they are required to manage the process of communication by making it a well-developed process. According to Caputo, Palosaari and Pickering, leadership is incomplete without effective communication (2003). Littlejohn informs that the process of communication can be informative, instructive and motivating (2002). Leadership should be involved in a communication process that is informative, instructive and motivating. The leaders should develop an encouraging communicative relationship (Littlejohn, 2002). Covey gives seven principles that involve leadership as well as communication which are: “Be proactive, Begin with the end in mind, Put first things first, Think Win/Win, Seek first to understand and then to be understood, synergize and sharpen the saw” (1989). The leaders should be proactive and should always involve the effective communication process to encourage and motivate the employees (Renesch 1994). Visual, tactile, vocal and image form are kinds of non-verbal communication on all levels of group formation (Harter, et. al 2006). As far as leadership is concerned, non-verbal communication is very crucial and significant. According to Caputo, Palosaari and Pickering, listening is the most crucial part of communication because it is due to listening that we are able to know the ideas and feelings of other members of a group (2003). For leadership and management, listening plays the most important role and it is informed that leaders are able to lead and make people follow them on the basis of their enhanced and improved listening skills (Caputo, et. al, 2003). The leaders should allow the employees to speak and should be active listeners because due to listening, the process of communication will be easier (Grint 2000). Due to being active listeners, they will understand the message being delivered to them and after understanding the delivered message; they can make the employees to listen to them and attempt to understand them (Covey, 1989). According to Covey’s eighth principle, there should be encouragement to others to search for their voices and a leader should be capable enough to recognize his/her own voice (2004). According to Cohen and Bradford, the communicative and collaborative process should be in a way that is able to convert enemies into allies (2005). Communication is very important in leaders’ correspondence with the led. Leaders should be able to convert the employees and coworkers into allies of the organization (Cohen and Bradford, 2005). Schein informs that in organizational culture, the leaders of the organization can develop an organizational culture where, there is intercommunication between the leaders and the employees so that the suggestions and ideas of the leadership and employees get exchanged and there is a prosperous communication procedure between the organizational members (1992). Cohen and Bradford state that leaders can make use of communication for creating their influence at the workplace. Influence is not necessarily created by means of authority but it will be more appropriate to say that authority should be used in a manner that is supportive and encouraging (Cohen and Bradford, 2005). Leaders should develop a culture in their organizations due to which, interaction with one another is easy and accessible. A leader is able to set his/her influence without authority on the basis of his communication skills (Cohen and Bradford, 2005). According to Patterson, Grenny, MacMillan and Al Switzler, leaders should be able to master crucial conversations and should follow the seven steps to develop an effective communication process with the other employees of the organization (2002). There should be one objective or many behind a communicative process; there should be multiple ways of a problem that should be well thought of; the employees should be informed about the facts as well as the constructed ideas in order to facilitate them with your learning and there should be apologetic attitude of the leader in case there is some misunderstanding or problem in communication (Patterson, et. al, 2002). Leadership can be defined as an essential aspect of an organization. Leaders play an effective role in persuading employees and workers under them towards a centralized mission of the organization (Argyris 1976). Leaders keep the power of affecting the organization as a whole because of their leading power that they exercise on employees. Leaders are of many kinds and all kinds have their own merits and demerits. Effective and persuasive leaders are those who have the power to convince and persuade their subordinates towards doing a task (House 2004). Different writers have different opinions about the role of leadership in an organization. Some leaders facilitate their employees in terms of obtainment of their ideas while other leaders impose their decisions on the employees (Stogdill 1974). Some leaders take work from employees as an authority while others form a friendly relationship with their employees. Management can also act as the leadership of an organization (Gronn 1996). It is always not necessary that leaders are separate than managers. Parry and Hansen, in their article, “The Organizational Story as Leadership”, 2007, explain that leadership and management is given importance and prominence because of the fixed visions and objectives which are set by them so that their subordinates including them can act upon these set objectives and can also try their utmost to gain these objectives (Parry and Hansen 2007). Leaders and managers also inform the lower staff some promotional stories and incidents that encourage them to move forward and advance for a common perspective and mission, which is the betterment of their organization, company or society. The article by Parry and Hansen discusses leaders not as a combined word of leadership but leaders as individuals. This article also highlights that for different visions connected to leadership and management, a particular language is employed (Parry and Hansen 2007). The stories and incidents told by leaders to make their subordinates work are considered as working just like the leaders (Glaser 2006). They are considered just like the leaders because they have the same impact on the subordinates as the leaders have. The stories also encourage the staff members to do a task same as the leaders encourage people to move forward by doing a particular task (Parry and Hansen 2007). According to Parry and Hansen, the stories told by the leaders also do the leadership job and that is of encouragement and compelling the co-workers to do a particular set of activities. Parry and Hansen assign the role of leadership to the stories that are told by the leaders to motivate their staff members (Parry and Hansen 2007). This article highlights the importance of discourse for the structuring of ideas related to leadership. Wilson, Boudreaux and Edwards wrote an article, “High-Performance Leadership at the Individual Level”, 2000, which was related to the performance of the leader as a single person’s responsibility. According to the writers, the employees play a crucial role for development and establishment of an organization. They are the pillars of an organization or company (Wilson, Boudreaux and Edwards 2000). As the employees play a crucial role for the organizations, so the leaders should realize this factor and should keep into consideration how they can lead the employees to show their utmost skill for the improvement and betterment of business or any other work. The article describes that the leader should be capable to identify and locate employee’s performance and his/her potentiality for the working environment (Wilson, Boudreaux and Edwards 2000). The writers have identified certain aspects that the leaders should employ to get the maximum output from their subordinates. As far as I am concerned, while working in a group, my leadership style is communicative. I try to get all the information that all other members have and also I provide my group members with chances to communicate and deliver the ideas and messages. I feel that communication should be given utmost importance by the leaders. My personal approach for effective leadership communication will be as following: First of all the leader should set a goal for himself/herself before starting a communication procedure with the group or team members (Stogdill 1974). He/she should be aware of the situation and problem that needs resolution. After setting a goal and having full awareness of the problem or situation, the leader should set his message in an understandable manner that is easy to understand but before that he/she should allow the group or team members to express their own views related to the situation and for that purpose, he/she should listen attentively to the expressed views of other group members (House 2004). There should be group meetings for discussion of procedures and the leader should listen to group and team members and should decide after obtainment of all views from the group members. The last decision is of the leader so, he/she should be fully aware of the multiple paths that can be there for the resolution of a problem (Jeff and Hale 2007). The attitude of the leader should be encouraging and motivating so that the workers can work actively and effectively. The communication procedure should be continuous and growing, so that the whole process of effective leadership is quite clear (Zilber, et. al 1994). A leader can only be effective when he/she is aware of the effective verbal and nonverbal communication skills. Conclusion From the above discussion, it is quite evident that leadership is very important for organizational working and communication is a tool of leadership. Leaders make use of communication techniques to influence and motivate the workers. Leaders not only deliver their ideas through effective communication but also listen to whatever the workers have to share. Listening is also very significant. Leaders should be active listeners. In my point of view, communication is a skill that leaders should have essentially. There is no substitute for effective communication. Through communication, not only the workers are made to work according to the needs of the leader but they also form a trustworthy relationship with their leader. Therefore, a leader should communicate with his/her workers to come up with good and convincing results of any work. References Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S 2003, Managers Doing Leadership: The Extra-Ordinarization of the Mundane. Human Relations, December 1, 56 (12), 1435 - 1459. Argyris, C 1976, Increasing Leadership Effectiveness, Wiley, New York. Berry, A.J. and Cartwright, S. 2000, Leadership: a critical construction, Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 21 (7), 342-349. Burns, J. M 1978, Leadership, Harper & Row, New York. Caputo, J. S., Palosaari, J. and Pickering, K 2003, Effective Communication, Dramatic Lines, UK. Chen, J. C. and Silverthorne, C 2005, “Leadership Effectiveness, Leadership Style and Employee Readiness”, Leadership & Organization Development Journal 26 (¾), 280-289. Clifton, J 2006, A Conversation Analytical Approach to Business Communication: The Case of Leadership, Journal of Business Communication 43 (3), 202 – 219. Cohen, Allan and Bradford, David 2005, Influence without Authority, 2nd Ed., John Willey, New York. Covey, S 1992, Principle-Centered Leadership, Simon and Schuster, London. Covey, Stephen R 1989, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Free Press, Birmingham. Covey, Stephen R 2004, The Eighth Habit from Effectiveness to Greatness, Routledge, California. Drucker, P 1977, People and Performance, Harper’s College Press, New York, 89-96. DuBrin, A, Dalglish, C. and Miller, P 2006, Leadership, 2nd Asia-Pacific edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York. Ellinger, A. D., Watkins, K. E., and Barnas, C. M 1999, Responding to New Roles: A Qualitative Study of Managers as Instructors, Management Learning, December 1, 1999, 30(4), 387 - 412. Ellinor, Linda and Gerard, Glenna 1998, Dialogue: Rediscovering the Transformation Power of Conversation, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 31-35. Fiedler 1967, A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness, McGraw-Hill, New York. Glaser, J.E 2006, Power and Influence, Leadership Excellence 23 (3), 158-165. Grint, K 2000, Literature Review on Leadership, Performance and Innovation Unit, Cabinet Office. Gronn, P 1996, From Transactions to Transformations: A New World Order in the Study of Leadership, Educational Management Administration Leadership, January 1, 24 (1), 7 - 30. Harbridge, E 1998, Breaking through the communication barrier, Community Living, 12 (1), 6-7. Harter, Nathan, Ziolkowski, Fred J. and Wyatt, Stephanie 2006, Leadership and Inequality, Aug 01, 2, 275-293. Heifetz 1994, Leadership Without Easy Answers, Belknap Press, Cambridge. Holton, E. F. and Lynham, S. A 2000, Performance-Driven Leadership Development, Advances in Developing Human Resources, May 1, 2 (2), 1 - 17. Hooper, A. and Potter, J 1997, The Business of Leadership, Ashgate Publishing Company, Aldershot. House, R. J 2004, Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The Globe Study of 62 Societies, SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks. James, K. and Burgoyne, J 2001, Leadership Development: Best practice guide for organisations, Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership, London. Jeff, R. and Hale, Dail L 2007, Fields, Exploring Servant Leadership across Cultures: A Study of Followers in Ghana and the USA, Nov 01, 3, 397-417. Kelsey, Dee and Plumb, Pam 1997, Great Meetings! How to Facilitate like a Pro, Hanson Park Press, Portland, ME, 25-32. Littlejohn, S. W 2002, Theories of human communication, 7th edition, Belmont, Wadsworth, CA. Lynham, S. A. and Chermack, T. J 2006, Responsible Leadership for Performance: A Theoretical Model and Hypotheses, Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies 12 (4), 73 – 88. McGovern, George S., Donald C. Simmons, Jr. and Gaken, Daniel 2008, Leadership and Service: An Introduction, Kendall/Hunt Publishing, New York. Parry, K. W. and Hansen, H 2007, The Organizational Story as Leadership, Leadership August 1, 3(3), 281 - 300. Patterson, K., Grenny, J., MacMillan, R. and Al Switzler 2002, Crucial Conversations, McGraw-Hill, Miami. Perren, L. and Burgoyne, J 2001, Management and Leadership Abilities: An analysis of texts, testimony and practice, Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership, London. Randy. R 2008, Building an effective communication strategy, Modern Distribution Management, The Newsletter for the Wholesale Distribution Channel. Renesch, John 1994, Leadership in a New Era: Visionary Approaches to the Biggest Crisis of Our Time, New Leaders Press, San Francisco. Schein, E. H 1992, Organizational Culture and Leadership, Second Ed. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. Stogdill, R 1974, Handbook of Leadership, (1st Ed.), Free Press, New York. Wilson, L. S., Boudreaux, M. A., and Edwards, M 2000, High-Performance Leadership at the Individual Level, Advances in Developing Human Resources May 1, 2(2), 73 – 103. Zilber, D., Rawlings, M. and Shaddock T 1994, Choice: some ways to overcome pitfalls in ensuring choice-making, Interaction 7(5), 15-21. Read More