Leading a health task force through malaria prevention program - Essay Example

? Personal Analysis of Leadership Lecturer Situation: Leading a health task force through malaria prevention program Introduction Leadership is a process of social influence where a person enlists the support and aid of others in the achievement of a common goal, objective or task. Various schools of thought have come up with different definitions of leadership, styles and characteristics. However this paper seeks to discuss a personal analysis of leadership where an individual leads a group of people or a team in accomplishing a particular task. The situation I have chosen is where a group of health professional is carrying out a malaria prevention program in the community. As the leader of the task force, I am required to exhibit leadership equation, power of vision, significance of ethics, ability to empower people, principles of leadership, human abilities and understanding, high level of effectiveness, ability to develop other people, and performance management. This paper will hence focus on the mentioned leadership components that I will exhibit in leading the task force through a malaria prevention program. Leadership equation During my reign as a leader of the task force, I will prefer a group leadership to an individual leadership. As opposed to individual leadership where one person leads the whole group, group leadership encourages the whole team to act as leaders. This approach will aid in increasing effectiveness, creativity and even reducing costs. This energizes the team and makes them feel an elevated level of empowerment. Leading a team through a prevention program requires much time as it involves straining circumstances. It involves dealing with community at the grass root level where there is a low literacy level. It also requires ample time to empower community members to adopt the measures provided by the team members. The community will have to be taught and trained on how they can prevent malaria from making a better part of them. It will also involve distribution of treated mosquito bed nets. This will mean the community will be trained on how to use these bed nets. It will be the work of the team to ask the community to observe various causes of malaria in order to avoid infections. Above all, the community will be empowered in order to keep observing the measures of malaria prevention. After the program, there will be a monitoring and evaluation session to ensure the program is effective after which the team can pronounce success of the program. The whole of these activities requires much cooperation from the team members. Therefore as a team leader, I will have to exhibit distinct leadership traits, behavior, styles and qualities. The team is also expected to show effective characteristics of a well functioning team in order to provide the right condition of working together and providing leadership. As a leader I will provide awareness of unity to all members of the team. The members will also have the ability to develop interpersonal relationship where every member gets a chance to learn from each other and contribute to work. I will also use my leadership to enhance togetherness towards achieving our common goal. My team will exhibit characteristics of a well functioning team including: Members share a sense of purpose and reason for existence of the team and invest their time in obtaining the goals and mission of the team. Members share priorities with one another; they know what has to be done by whom and by when the goals are to be achieved. Members are definite about their roles. Everyone knows what tasks to do and when to give team experts a chance to do specific task. Members understand the line of decision making and authority. Members deal with conflicts openly and consider them significant to personal growth and decision making. Members appreciate each other’s personal traits and feel their distinct personalities well utilized and appreciated. Members have set group norms that enable them work together and are observed as the group standards for everyone in the group. Members appreciate the effectiveness of team meetings and find them productive and efficient. Members are aware of what constitute success in the team and share it proudly and equally. Members take opportunities for training and feedback as an advantage to develop their skills. In addition, as the leader of the group, I will have to show my leadership skill, traits, behaviors, and styles. The leadership traits I will exhibit will include: listening ability, awarding credit to the team members, honesty, effective communication, ability to stick to strategies and goals, ability to beat anxiety and shape character, service oriented, accountable and responsible, empathy, and keeping cool. As the team leader, I will show various leadership styles to ensure the team achieves its goals. A combination of different styles of leadership works well in any environment especially where the public is involved. Some of the leadership styles I will employ include: authoritarian style of leadership, I will remain strict and offer close regulation and control, policies and procedures given to the team members. In order to attain success, close supervision is necessary; a leadership style of democracy is another one, here as a leader involves team members in decision making through enhancing team members’ interest and practicing social equity and equality. This style will also include debate, discussion and sharing of encouragement and ideas of the team so as the team can feel good about their involvement in the team. Transactional leadership style will allow me motivate my followers through a reward and punishment system. These leadership styles will be combined in order to bring about the success of the team. As part of executing my duties as a leader during the malaria prevention program, I will expect my followers to show commitment to the program. Nevertheless, I will have to exhibit good leadership behaviors in order to motivate my followers and relate with them well. Some of the best leadership behaviors I will show include: remaining a role model for ethics and integrity for followers, demonstrating positive energy and optimism, establishing the team’s mission and vision, learning the task of the team, setting priorities and strategy, creating a community focus culture, establishing a team of great talent, building a team of high performance, empowering team members and delegating, inspiring and motivating the team, listening and communicating to the team, driving the team results, evaluating and managing the performance of the team, coaching team members and developing their talents, managing the ambiguity and complexity of the task of the team, evaluating the risks involved in the team tasks, managing time used by the team, quick resolution to the team conflicts, driving innovation among team members, influencing the team towards a positive direction, demonstrating passion in the task of the team, collaborating across the team members, keeping things in humility and gratitude perspective, and being a champion for the life and work balance among the team members. These behaviors will ensure the goals of the malaria prevention program are achieved in time. In order to accelerate this, as a leader I will have to show my followers that I have the qualities they need to see in their leader. Some of these qualities are trustworthiness, self awareness and insightful, love for growth and learning, high self esteem and self worth, excitement by the tasks of the team, growing team members, remaining open and welcoming, refusal to gossip, finding solutions and fixing problems without fixing blames on team members, and engaging and energizing members of the team. With the above mentioned leadership traits, qualities, behaviors, styles and characteristics of my team members, we as a team will be able to achieve the entire vision, mission, objectives and goals of the team in preventing malaria from the community. Hence achieve the leadership equation in a team’s approach as stated in the class reading. The Power of vision Vision of a team shows the future destination of that particular team. It directs the operations of each person in the team to ensure the team meets its short term objective and long term goals. In this malaria prevention program, the task force aims at effectively eliminating malaria from the community. Therefore our vision as a team is to establish a malaria free community. Some of the things we as a team want to accomplish include: Establishing a malaria free society Empowering the community on malaria control program Inspiring and training the community on the use of treated bed nets Involving the community and encouraging community participation in the program Sensitizing the community against malaria Reducing malaria prevalence and cutting down on the incidence levels Reaching out to every family in the community Making the community their own leaders and training them to take initiative of preventing malaria In order to accomplish the mentioned objectives, the task force will have to work as a team. This is because of the diversity of the community and the possible resistance by some part of the community during the intervention. I would therefore provide leadership in this situation for both achievement and affiliation. It is a personal fulfillment to help others and alleviate suffering from a preventable condition from a community. I will therefore be determined to let the interest of the community prevail in every aspect of the activities and operations of the team my interest in providing leadership is very strong due to the leadership traits, qualities and behavior in me as a leader. I am capable of demonstrating supportive supervision and control to the team using the leadership styles mentioned in the above paragraphs. The Importance of Ethics Every profession has its own standards of operation and executing activities. Similarly, leadership has ethical considerations that must be observed in every step of the way. It is a good leadership behavior to put the interest of the team first. Leading by example encourages the team and make them feel like you are one of them. It is in order to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people as the law of utilitarian asserts it. It is also important to consider the less fortunate who are not able to access help compared to the others. Therefore as a leader, one should observe the interest of the team first and practice servant leadership. This is what I will have in mind with my team during the malaria prevention program. I as a leader will base all my actions and activities of the team on the moral principles of leadership with no regard to personal gain or loss, and social influence. Although leadership is a process of social influence where a person enlists the support and aid of others in the achievement of a common goal, objective or task, I will not regard it where the moral principles are at risk of being compromised. I will observe what is best for the team and the community at large without personal consideration or favor to a particular group. As a leader, conviction and courage is very important. The team members only follow a leader when they are sure they are being led to the right direction. A leader should keep his or her cool even at worst situations and put on a brave face in all circumstances. Human abilities such as interpersonal relationships and influence are also significant in leadership. Therefore, I believe as a leader I possess enough conviction and courage to make my team members follow me with confidence. It is important to show self confidence and high level of self worth and self esteem when dealing with a group. The only sure way to convince such a team is to let them see a confident and decisive person in you as a leader. With these values and the traits and qualities already mentioned, the team members will confidently and gladly follow you as a leader to the destination of your choice regardless of the impediments and obstacles involved in achieving the goals of the program. The empowerment of people As the team leader, I possess multiple authorities in making the malaria prevention program a success. I have the authority to make things happen out of influence for the good of the team and the community. I will do this through the personal powers I possess such as expert power which is based on the skill of a leader and makes the team members dependent on me as a leader owning the knowledge of the team and the program. This comes from the loyalty and friendship to the team. In fact my autocratic behavior will make me more loyal to the members of the team. The other powers I possess as a leader that will help in accomplishing our program objectives include the position power, legitimate use of the rational persuasion, the reward power, and the coercive power. I also look at leadership as a chance and opportunity to offer service to people. Serving the community is the essence of leadership. I will therefore use the opportunity to ensure the community gets what they deserve and have their interest covered by the members of the team. I will empower people through sensitization sessions, trainings, inspiring them as leaders and putting them in control of the program. This will make them feel that they own the program and work towards its success. As the leader of the group, I will employ group leadership just as mentioned in the introductory paragraph so that every member of the team and the community can look at the program as their own initiative. I will also involve the community in the activities carried out by the task force. Community involvement and participation is one sure way of getting them to work for their own good, hence they will feel empowered. I will have to develop a high performance work place and/ or environment. Some of the steps I will use include: involving the team members in making decisions, developing good interpersonal relations, involving the community in the program, defining the goals of the program, drawing the line of authority and assigning duties to avoid confusions of the roles of team members, conducting a supportive supervision to the team, carrying out monitoring and evaluation to make correctional actions, allowing feedbacks from the team members to improve on faulty activities, and resolving conflicts as they arise among the team members without any preference. Leadership principles As a leader, I will practice specific principles of leadership to help my followers be effective. The principles that I will employ include: unity of command; uniform direction; subordination of individual interest to that of the team; respect for all the members; centralization where all the group activities are put in a single place; order will be observed in carrying out activities: among other management principles. I will keep motivating my followers in order to keep their morale high. I will also report on short term successes to enable them see where they have reached and what they have already done. I will encourage openness and feedback channels in order to develop good communication and unity of team work among members. This will also bring about a single attitude for the whole team. Understanding people I perfectly understand the needs and nature of my followers. They are motivated by the unity and short term successes they observe in the operations of the team. My own reasons for leading this team are to see the community gain from this program. Malaria is taking lives of many pregnant women and children; therefore anything that will minimize this statistic is my pleasure. I will inspire people as well as sensitize them against malaria so that they can take action against malaria and support the program. Multiplying effectiveness As a leader, I will also reexamine myself and get a feedback from my team on what they think of my style of leadership. I will monitor and evaluate all the operations in order to increase my leadership effectiveness. This will make my leadership more effective. I will be delegating duties and authority to others to make them feel they own the program as well as ease my work as a leader. I will therefore assign the team members duties and draw a deadline for each activity to ensure time is well managed during the program period. I consider myself effective in achieving results and meeting needs of the people despite their varying personalities because I have good human relations and ability to communicate well with them. Developing others I will motivate my team, train and empower them in order to retain them in the team. Considering the leadership skills, qualities and traits I have mentioned in the above paragraphs, I would say I have the ability to develop and train other people. I can also manage change very well and take my team through a transformation. I can do this through maintain a positive attitude of responsibility, exploration, and commitment. Performance management I set measurable and achievable goals to the team. It is my responsibility as a leader to reinforce good performance through appraisals and correct any performance problem by monitoring and evaluation to implement corrective actions. My strengths are the stated qualities, behavior, and traits of leadership I possess and are already mentioned in the above paragraphs. However, my weakness would be lack of knowledge about the culture difference in the community grass roots and what they exactly need to be done. Nevertheless, I believe in the entrepreneurial and innovative abilities of my followers. Due to the experiences of leadership I have gone through, I am developing paradoxical qualities of personal humility and strong resolve. I predict that the program will be a success and malaria prevalence will be cut down by a wide margin due to the commitment of the team. All the dimensions of leadership are actually present in this situation. This is due to its nature of dealing with a large number of people at community level as well as the group. I will be successful in encouraging people to follow me due to the level of courage and self confidence I exhibit in my decisions as a leader. Therefore my actions and ideas of the program will influence the behavior of the team and the community as a whole because they will observe the high level of confidence and self esteem I have in the program. They will also learn the importance of the situation at hand; hence follow my decision to help the community. References Manning, G. & Curtis, K. (2012). The Art of leadership (4th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Read More