The Manager as a Leader - Essay Example

?The Manager as a Leader Leadership is very important to any organisation and many people believe that a leader can be created. There are also different ways to define leadership. Clark (2010) defines leadership as “a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organisation in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent” (p. 1). Another more simple definition by Northhouse (2007) states that leadership is “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (Northhouse, 2007, p. 3 cited in Clark, 2010, p. 1). These definitions provide a foundation for this report. In this researcher’s understanding, leadership can also be defined as the ability of one person to help another person achieve their full potential. 1 Personal Traits Associated with Leadership According to Clark (2010) a leader must understand who they are, what they know and what they can do. In order to understand these three issues a leader must have confidence in themselves and they must be able to inspire others. The ability to actively listen and to communicate is also traits that leaders must have in order to get along well with their employees. A good leader is also able to inspire others to work towards their potential. Leaders begin by setting the example of what they want their employees to do and show what is expected of them. Hyatt, Hyatt, and Hyatt (2011) suggest that leaders must have emotional maturity in order to lead effectively. They define this concept as the ability of the leader to implement basic leadership principles in their organisation. They suggest that emotional maturity comes through knowledge of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence in their definition is “the ability to perceive emotions” (Hyatt, Hyatt, and Hyatt, 2001, p. 2). Some of the qualities that an individual has who is expressing emotional intelligence include “self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills” (Hyatt, Hyatt, and Hyatt, 2001, p. 2). Emotional maturity grows out of having emotional intelligence because emotional maturity is the ability to identify and accept all the feelings and emotions that an individual has and to be able to give a response in any situation. Also, the individual is aware of their emotions and they know that the emotions are complete. But, the individual is also able to recognise and accept the differences they see in others as “assets to be valued” (Hyatt, Hyatt, and Hyatt, 2001, p. 2). Emotional maturity also has to do with behavioural responses to situations. Behaviour is tied into a person’s feelings, their actions, and their thoughts. 1.1 Motivation and Drive Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has been used in business to talk about motivation. The way that these needs are shown suggest that lower level needs must be met before someone can move to higher level needs. For management, this means that the basic needs of proper wages, adequate breaks, a safe working environment, retirement benefits and job security must be met before higher level needs like recognition, a sense of community on the job and the ability to reach their full potential can be realized (Internet Centre for Management and Business Administration, 2010). Leaders also have strong problem solving skills that include the ability to critically think in all situations and decide what needs to be done. 2 Theory X versus Theory Y Theory X and Y are theories created by McGregor. This theory suggests that there are two basic ways to manage people and both theories emphasize a different way of dealing with people. Based on the idea that most people dislike working and would avoid it if possible, the X theory uses a more authoritarian management style (Chapman, 2010). In this theory people have to be forced to work by threatening them with punishment. According to this theory, punishment is the only way to get people to work towards the organisation’s goals. Therefore, the manager who subscribes to this theory would tell employees exactly what to do and would expect them to do what was required without question (Chapman, 2010). The X manager would be more driven by deadlines and results. They would lead without interaction from their employees and they can be seen as intolerant. They tend to issue ultimatums when their commands are not met. They may be short-tempered, elitist, poor listeners and use only a one way communication style (Chapman, 2010). In contrast, the Y theory presents a more participative management style. This manager believes that work is a natural part of life and should be fun. Managers who believe in this also believe that employees are generally self-directed and have self-control when they work for an organisation. This means that they will work without threat of punishment which is the opposite of the X theory. A Y manager sees employees as wanting more responsibility and they can show a higher level of imagination and creativity when they are encouraged. The Y manager also understands that the intellectual potential of the individual is not utilised as much as it could be in the organisation (Chapman, 2010). 3 Differences in Leadership Styles: Authoritarian, Paternalistic, Participative and Laissez-Faire Styles The authoritarian leadership style expects employees to comply with whatever the leader tells them. The leader who uses this style values control over their employees and they seek power. They do not share power and they do not value the opinions of others. They direct their communication downward and they do not ask for opinions or feedback from their employees. They gain their authority from a position of power (Bowles, n.d.). The paternalistic leadership style is similar to the authoritarian style in that it reinforces the authority figure. This leader shows control over their employees and they make their decisions from a position of control. They control their feedback and their communication to employees is that they will be taken care of as long as they listen and do what they are told. This leadership style rewards loyalty when the employees follow hierarchal goals and they have tangible sanctions on them, although their actual rewards are intangible (Bowles, n.d.). The participative style is also called a democratic style because the leader encourages their employees to be involved in decision making. In this model, the direction of the company and the control are shared; power and responsibility are also shared. The power and responsibility in the company are also shared and the leader maintains a two way communication style between leader and employees. The laissez-faire style is also called the free reign style because it a very loose way of leadership. Generally, the leader does not become involved with the day to day operations of the company unless there is something the leader must do that employees cannot do. This manager has a high level of communication with their employees. They have a more natural way of managing than the other types of styles (Bowles, n.d.). 4 Dimensions of Leadership These two dimensions are based on the Blake Mouton Managerial Grid. The first dimension is concern for people. It deals with how the leader feels about the needs of the employees on the team. The leader who cares about the employees will also care about the employee’s personal development and their interests. The second dimension shows the leader who is more involved with production than they are with people. In this situation, the goals and objectives become more important and the leader is more concerned that employees are producing well. The efficiency and the productivity of the organisation are more important than anything else and the decisions are made by the manager and in conjunction with the needs for production (Gupta, 2009). 5 Differences between Contingency Leadership Approach’s: Fiedler Contingency Model, The Managerial Grid and Transformational Leadership 5. 1.1 Fiedler Contingency Model Fiedler’s model begins with the Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) Scale that is designed to help the manager decide the type of customer that they enjoy working with. A leader who scores high on the LPC scale will prefer to work with people rather than with data. A low score on the instrument means the leader is more task oriented. The LPC assumes that the more task oriented leader will perceive their least desirable co-worker more negatively than those who are more people oriented (Gupta,2009). To work with this model, Fiedler believed that there were basically three situations that would be attributed to a managerial task. The three situations were: 1. The leader’s relationship with their employees and how they interacted with them. 2. The structure of the task and its level of structure that was needed. 3. The leader’s position of power and the amount of authority that they manager needed (Bolden, Gosling, Marturano and Dennison, 2003). These three situations cause the individual to think about what they are doing and make decisions based on the current situation. As an example, some environments are highly structured and the day to day operations are repetitive. In this type of environment, the leader may use a more direct approach. Where the environment is more open and flexible the leader may want to choose a more participative style. Understanding leadership styles and being able to decide what style to use in each situation creates a stronger leader. In Fiedler’s view, managers are rated on whether they are more task oriented or more people oriented. The managers who are more task oriented have a stronger leader task relationship. They also have more structured tasks and a weak or strong position of power. They do the best when the task is unstructured and the position of power is strong. These leaders also do well when the leader and employee relationships are “moderate to poor” and the tasks are unstructured (Bolden, Gosling, Maturano and Dennison, 2003, p. 2). Those managers who tested as more relationship oriented, did best in all situations. These managers could reshape their environment in some way in order to match their own style. 5.1.2 The Managerial Grid The managerial grid is a model of leadership developed by Blake Mouton. The leader who used this grid sees that people needs and production needs are equally important. The model suggests like Fiedler’s model that an individual manager must understand their own style in order to work best with employees (Manktelow, 2011). This model uses an actual grid in which the manager looks at their leadership in several ways. In the first step, the leader looks at the leadership style based on their specific understanding of how they naturally lead others. The second phase asks the leader to identify how they can improve and develop their leadership skills. In the third phase, the leader looks at the grid in terms of team leadership and makes sure they recognize that different situations call for different leadership styles (Manktelow, 2011). This leadership style gave way to the X-Y theory as well because it assumes four different leadership styles: The Country Club Leader (that can be compared to the laissez faire style) sees the success of the team as more important than production. They believe that as long as the team is kept happy, they will continue to have high productivity. The Produce or Perish style of leadership (can be compared to the Authoritarian style) assumes that people are there because they have to be and that their main issue is to produce work. This leader does not see the needs of the people as important unless production has been met (Manktelow, 2011). This leader will have strict rules that must be followed and when employees do not tow the line, they will be punished in some way. The Impoverished leader is one who does not work well and where their organisation will suffer. This individual is unable to set systems or rules to get production done and they usually have a very chaotic department. Usually, their employees will be the most dissatisfied and their department will be the most disorganized. The final leadership style in this model is the Team Leadership style which is what many managers strive for. This leader takes into consideration the needs of the employees as well as the needs for production and they try to make both of these areas important. This leadership styles shows the leader or manager as one who is capable and competent and knows that their employees are both capable and competent. They also know that as employees understand the mission and vision of the business, and they have a stake in the outcome, they will be more productive. 5.1.3 Transformational Leadership Transformational Leadership is vastly different from the other two models in that this leader works towards empowering their workers. The transformational leader genuinely cares about creating successful workers. These leaders start by identifying a vision for themselves and/or their organisation and then communicating this vision to their employees. If they work for a company that is not their own, they will spend time understanding the vision and mission of the company and then they will transfer this knowledge to their employees or members of their team. Many people see the transformational leader as charismatic because they have an ability to develop people’s potential. They are able to build trust quickly and they show a strong degree of personal integrity that the employees will strive to emulate. The transformational leader is able to easily get a buy in for their projects from the employees because they are always visible to their employees and they enjoy doing all the work. By staying visible, they are able to keep the organisation running well and they have an opportunity to continually understand what is going on with their employees (Clark, 2010). References Bolden, R., Gosling, J., Marturano, A. and Dennison, P. (2003). A review of leadership theory and competency frameworks. Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter. Available from centres.exeter.ac.uk/cls/documents/mgmt_standards.pdf [Accessed 15 July 2011]. Bowles, M. (n.d.). Classical styles of leading and communicating with others. The Institute of Working Futures. Available from http://www.marcbowles.com/courses/adv_dip/module1/chapter2/amc1_ch2_overview.htm [Accessed 16 July 2011]. Chapman, A. (2010). Douglas McGregor Theory X-Y. Business Balls. Available from http://www.businessballs.com/mcgregor.htm [Accessed 16 July 2011]. Clark, D. (2010). Concepts of leadership. Big Dog and Little Dog’s Performance Juxtaposition. Available from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadcon.html [Accessed 17 July 2011]. Gupta, A. (25 April 2009). Contingent leadership. Practical Management. Available from http://www.practical-management.com/Leadership-Development/Contingent-Leadership.html [Accessed 17 July 2011]. Hyatt, L., Hyatt, B., and Hyatt, J.C. (2011). Effective leadership through emotional maturity. Academic The Online Journal. Available from http://www.academicleadership.org/article/Effective_Leadership_Through_Emotional_Maturity [Accessed 16 July 2011]. Internet Centre for Management and Business Administration. (2010). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. NetMBA. Available from http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/maslow/ [Accessed 17 July 2011]. Manktelow, J. (2011). Blake Mouton managerial grid. Mind Tools. Available from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_73.htm [Accessed 16 July 2011]. Read More