Analysis of Leadership Theories - Assignment Example

Exam Q1-Discuss in detail the three leadership theories and how these apply to you Authentic Leadership There are certain traits that are the hallmarks of an authentic leadership. These can be discussed as follows: An authentic leader has insight, that being different from vision as it not only includes seeing into the future but includes wisdom and a sense of decision as well. Another feature that is primary for authentic leadership is initiative, which means they step into a decision first and don’t want others to suffer for their decisions. Authentic leaders have the force to exert influence on the masses, and that does not happen with the use of force or power; rather their values are influential enough to gather people around them. An authentic leadership is able to impact by bringing a change in a social set up and making sure that the change is real and long lasting, this impact of a leader is another aspect of authentic leadership. Integrity is one of those features which is the built in standards of highest values that are found in a leader, integrity or the lack of it influences the degree of impact a leadership can have. 2. SERVANT LEADERSHIP: Servant leadership is a day by day growing idea that is now widely embraced and adopted by some of the most successful corporate organizations in the world. Based on an essay by Green Leaf, it focuses on building a good work environment by creating harmony and trust among workers and between workers and employers. According to this school of thought, there are some key traits or requirements for a leadership to be called as a Servant Leadership. The first one is the ability to listen, listen to what the subordinates have to complain about or give suggestions thus resulting in a healthy working environment. Secondly, awareness and paying attention to the little details of what is happening among the workers or in the office in general are also very important requirements. Persuasion is another trait that is important doe student leadership. A servant leadership that relies on decentralization of authority gives empowerment and trust to the workers. The workers who are on the front line, that directly deal with the customers are more aware of the needs and wants of customers must be empowered and their consent must be taken before designing any policy that is important to the organization. This decentralization of power also enables companies to be innovative that is an essential quality needed for sustenance, those that do not integrate innovation in their new policies end up in a business lane with closed ends. 3. TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERS In comparison to the other types of leadership styles, transformational leaders are those who take charge of a group of people and motivate them towards the attainment of a single goal by transferring their passion and energy to their followers and stimulating a will to work together until the target is reached. These leaders respond to individual followers and empower each and every one in different ways thus stimulating and encouraging a sense of leadership in all the people in a particular group. The attributes of transformational leaders are: Intellectual stimulation is one trait essential to transformational leadership, wherein they influence the followers by making them use their creativity to bring innovations in carrying out a certain task. All followers are individually considered by transformational leaders and communication is always kept open between the leader and the followers to keep things open and straight Transformational leaders are blessed with the quality of transferring their motivation to their followers as well so that the group or company works towards reaching a target with the same passion as that of the leader. Being ideally influential is one trait that is found in transformational leaders because of their ability to create an impact on the masses by their values and norms. Q2-Discuss at least three of the following and what these mean for you as a leader: 1. DEVELOPING THE INNER LEADER In today’s ever growing competitive business world, much has been worked out in figuring what are the attributes to development of a motivational and successful leadership that leads to a growing and progressing organization. According to Doug Baker, a significant factor in leadership development is development of a leader within, that is the inner development of a leader. Finding out one’s own strengths and weaknesses is critically important in gaining a goal and emerging as a leader that is successful too. There are many online tools available that can help guide a person towards development of great leadership skills. 2. SELF ASSESSMENT: Self -assessment is very important for a leader to know the positive and negative sides of his personality that he must work on to become a better leader. There are many online tools available for people to assess their leadership skills and thus they can judge easily which areas they lack leadership qualities in and if anything can be done to improve or not. There are important self- assessment questions such as analyzing if one likes to work in team or work alone, how does a person respond to a pressure situation, if performing in a group, it is important to judge if the person in question can take along problems of others side by side and resolve them, being encouraging and supportive is also an important trait. 3. INTERNAL MOTIVATORS Internal motivation is one factor that is a secret behind many successful leaders. Internal motivation is no magic that can be cats by a spell rather it is in an individual by one’s beliefs and how strongly one is inspired in achieving a goal. Internal motivators can be goals that have long aspired an individual, one can be motivated internally by the satisfaction that a target achievement might bring or the long lasting causes that one can foresee by his vision are also internal motivators. Without being motivated internally, no source of influence or motivation can provoke a sense of accomplishment in any individual, especially a leader. Q3-Discuss in detail the following information from HDL692(Group and Team Dynamics) and the relevance of these for you as a leader? 1-Stages of group development There are five stages of group development, in the following each of the stages are discussed: 1. FORMING This is the first stage of group development in which individuals within the group have not socialized with each other much and mostly rely on the group leader for guidance, help and supervision that is why this stage is called Forming. People within the group focus on chalking out a plan to address the task assigned to them and discussions are underway, opening ways for communication between members within the group. 2. STORMING This is an important stage and is marked by the inevitable emergence of hostilities and conflicts between individuals. The people having different approaches towards al issues tend to get uncomfortable with the opposite mentalities and approaches. Some might respond with violent attitudes and others might remain silent, while some play the role of neutral party that tries to settle the short term conflicts and focus on the task or goal assigned. 3. NORMING In this stage, the conflicts between groups tend to get resolved as a result of increased level of communication that develops. The group members begin realizing the contributions of their fellow group members and a cohesion starts to develop between them resulting in an increased level of trust and binding between individual members. 4. PERFORMANCE This is an amazing stage in group development and not all groups reach this stage of development, mostly fail to move ahead at the third stage. During this stage, the group has come so far that interdependence becomes the hall mark, people may work in smaller units by dividing tasks into sub tasks, and may change roles of leadership and following from time to time. This leads to more productivity and better understanding within the group. 5. ADJOURNING This is the final stage of group development and includes termination of tasks and disengagement from relations and engagements within the groups. Saying good byes to fellow group members becomes a daunting task but people leave the group at this stage with a sense of having accomplished much. 2-RELEVANT BACKGROUND FACTORS There are some relevant factors that must be considered while team development: 1. The first factor must be analyzing what each team member is capable of doing and achieving so that the team leader knows who is good at what. 2. Each team member must individually be assessed by meeting them and analyzing their emotional intelligence and questioning skills. 3. Another important step towards knowing team members better is to watch them work and how do they handle stress situations and work in the team. Q4-Discuss at least four of the following and the importance of these in teams or groups? 1. PERSONALITY Judging personality traits is very important as groups are being developed so that controversies and clashes are minimized as much as possible. This does not mean that people of the same sort can form a good working group, a good and productive group consists of people with contrasting personality traits that blend in well to support the group. Every group needs one or two people who can lead from the front, some who can be the mediators and others who can tirelessly work. 2. COMMUNICATION Good communication is an essential attribute for all human interactions. It is needed for the good and smooth running of any business and must be carried on in order to avoid wastage of time and resources and the transfer of information and guidance to all audiences without any stopping and hurdles. 3. GROUP SIZE Group size is also a very important factor in development of a team. It is seen that working in larger groups is not easy as coordination and cohesion development between group members becomes difficult. In smaller groups, it is easier for the leader to personally communicate and handle each member and address their problems personally. 4. STATUS/POWER The team leader should not and usually does not show off the grandeur of his power but he still needs to exercise his authority at the right time to let people know that they have to follow a set of rules, even if they are working in an employer/worker friendly team. The authority of the team leader should be clear upon the workers in clear terms so that they may always know what is right and what is wrong while working towards a task. Q5-Discuss in detail five or more of the following and the relevance of each of these for you as a leader: 1. DIVERSITY MODEL (loden) The presentation of Diversity Model presented by Loden and depicts the secondary and primary dimensions of diversity. The inner circle shows primary dimensions of diversity and the outer circle shows secondary dimensions. An individual’s diverse personality is governed by the primary dimensions. An individual’s social identity is governed by the secondary dimensions, when these primary and secondary dimensions are clashed, ignored or taken for granted, conflicts may arise. 2. BARRIERS TO DIVERSITY Although having diverse working groups is a new emerging idea towards building a better, diverse and strong workforce, the barriers it gives in order for a company to work smoothly are many and significantly. The most profound diversity barrier is the fact that problems are faced in communicating with the diverse groups of individuals in a team and bridging the communication gap. The equal availability of opportunities to the minority groups in terms of salary and options to progress are also a question mark in many instances when the work place has a diversity of people working together. The hegemony of the majority group over the minority group becomes unavoidable at times and can also lead to glass ceiling effect. 3. UNIVERSAL LEADERSHIP ATTRIBUTES (GLOBE STUDY) The Global Leadership and Organizational Behavioral Effectiveness were developed as a study by Robert J.House in 1991. This study was based on focus groups, questionnaires, interviews and observations in 25 diverse cultures. According to GLOBE, leadership is contextual and I primarily based on the norms, beliefs and religions of people who are being led by a particular leader. This study was conducted in around 61 countries and interviewed middle managers and managers and even owners of companies. They reached to conclusive traits for a person being most desirable as a leader and the traits which inhibit someone to be a leader. 4. Diversity consciousness Although diversity is a very significant aspect of any organizational structure, there are many drawbacks associated in the bigger picture of things. The leader should be able to deal with the hegemony of one social group over rest of the minorities to maintain work place sanity. Moreover, the glass ceiling effect must also be cared for so that equal opportunities are available to co-workers. 5. Diversity consciousness and teamwork In a world that has become a global village, diversity among cultures must not be a challenge in the way of progress for an organization or a company or even a country. We must open our minds to the diverse cultures and must accept the fact that progress and success are not for one particular nation or set of humans but together if all diversified cultural groups work and cooperate , organizations and companies will prosper steadily and at a good pace. Read More