Leadership Assessment Issues - Essay Example

? Leadership Assessment of the Management of the Concerned May 11, Leadership Assessment Introduction There is no denying the fact that the terms leadership and management are mostly confused for each other. The thing that needs to be kept in mind is that leadership stands to be an integral part of the discipline called management. As leadership stands to be a crucial aspect of management, the primary thrust of the leadership in institutions and organizations is often to facilitate an environment that yields to each and every employee a chance to develop, grow and succeed. The main crux of leadership as a component of the management discipline is the ability to direct and drive the overall efforts in a group scenario towards the achievement of the desired goals. Hence it is pivotal for a manager to have the leadership ability and to possess the salient attributes of leadership. For in the current global environment, leadership is of immense importance in the sense that it is eventually the leadership skills inherent in the organizations that imbue them with a competitive advantage. So as to assure an optimal organizational efficiency, it is a must for the managers deployed at varied levels in an organization to possess leadership abilities (Storey, 2007, p. 73). Q1: Analyze the leadership style(s) of a senior executive (CEO, CFO, COO, Director, etc.) in your current or previous organization who made a positive or negative impact on you. It is a known fact that organizations simply cannot succeed unless they are endowed with teams that are skilled, motivated and competent. In that context, as group effort and team work are imperative for organizational success, thereby the role of leadership becomes of prime relevance in organizations. Through good leadership, managers can motivate the employees to give way to a wholesome and supportive work environment that stimulates most of the employees to work to the best of their ability. The Chief Executive Officer is the organization I work is predominantly affiliated to a participative or democratic leadership style. Though it is he who takes the final decisions pertaining to the important issues impacting the organization, he does make it a point to invite the staff members associated with specific projects to extend their inputs and ideas (Keohane, 2010, p. 233). This approach not only extends to the staff a sense of participation, but also encourages them to perform to the best of their ability (Keohane, 2010). Besides, the participation of the concerned employees in the overall decision making process brought in a spirit of creativity and ingenuity in the overall decision making process Our CEO makes it a point to aptly reward the employees with economic and non-economic benefits. Not only has he played a guiding role for his subordinates, but going by his participative style, he makes it a point to extend to his subordinates the opportunities for skill acquisition and growth. This not only makes the employees feel cherished and wanted, but also imparts to them a sense of control over their future. No wonder, this motivates the employees to work hard and to contribute to the best of their ability. Though, owing to the democratic leadership of our CEO, things sometimes tend to move at a slow pace, but overall it leads to better results and outcomes. Q2: Analyze the organizational structure and culture of the company for which you work (or would like to work) to determine its approach to team development, and whether that approach helped to enhance your relationship skills in the workplace. In a simplistic sense, an organization tends to be a shared platform over which individuals and employees from diverse backgrounds tend to work in cohesion to achieve the aspired for organizational goals. Hence, each and every organization tends to have some peculiar values, rules, guidelines and policies that not only collectively constitute the organizational culture, but also determine to a large extent the eventual success and efficiency within an organization. In the company I worked, the organizational policies happened to be employee friendly and all the employees were expected to respect and follow the salient organizational policies. In that sense the organizational culture in this company happened to be quiet strong. Thereby, it required the employees to adjust to the organizational culture and to obey organizational policies. On the one side this made the work environment quiet predictable and stable, but, on the other side it discouraged out of box thinking and new ideas and approaches towards doing things. Hence, though the organizational culture in this company happened to be employee friendly and stable, yet, some employees who preferred innovation and creativity felt stifled and suffocated. Some of the employees even left to join companies that paid less, but allowed for greater creativity and flexibility The organizational structure in this company happened to be functional in the sense that the varied departments within the company were grouped as per their functions (Fulmer & Bleak, 2008). Though this structure worked well for the company during the initial stage, it began to evince many problems as its business expanded. This functional structure obstructed the cooperation, coordination and communication within varied departments separated by functional parameters and boundaries. Hence, it needs to be mentioned that the organizational structure that served most of the organizational objectives till now, was coming apart as the company faced new challenges and opportunities. A functional structure in a fast growing organization was turning out to be a great impediment in the face of the incumbent opportunities. Q3: Evaluate the performance of your selected leader based on his or her ethical conduct and effective communication to determine if this leader was successful in motivating and empowering you to improve on your work performance. Explain your answer. Though good management plays a pivotal role in assuring organizational success, yet, it is good leadership based on good communication and allegiance to ethics that acts as the primary driving force influencing the organizational success. As the CEO in our company pursued a democratic approach towards leadership thereby enabling employees to participate in the overall decision making process, the employees really felt motivated and needed. This enabled the employees to be able to solve complex problems through participative teamwork. However, sometimes the consultation approach pursued by the CEO turned out to be time consuming and partially de-motivated the lower managers. This also made some employees feel that perhaps the CEO was indecisive. The overall conduct of our CEO was ethical in the sense that he respected his colleagues and subordinates. His approach towards HR issues mostly happened to be just and balanced. Moreover, the general employee perception was that he was loyal and committed to the organization. This ethical leadership on the part of the CEO to a large extent made the organizational environment conducive and stable and enabled the employees to work in a stress free environment. No doubt, most of the employees respected the CEO and believed in his organizational philosophy. Besides, our CEO made it a point to settle the contentious or friction causing issues by facilitating the vertical and horizontal channels of communication within the organization, thereby avoiding misconceptions and confusion. Q4: Determine three (3) best practices organizational leaders can use to motivate employees and discuss their potential benefits. Employee motivation is a concept that is of pivotal relevance and importance within organizations. It is only the motivated employees that consider them to be cherished and valued by the organization in which they work and thereby do their best to achieve organizational goals (Herr, 2009, p. 19). Organizational leaders can do much to motivate employees. One simple approach that can add much to employee motivation is to take out time to extend the praise and recognition to such employees who really deserve it. However, while extending praise the managers must make it a point to be sincere and honest in their approach, otherwise such recognition will be totally meaningless. Besides the expressions of recognition need to be backed by a realistic feedback that could help the employees identify the factors that led to such recognition, thereby encouraging them to do better in the future. Care needs to be taken to tag organizational goals to the opportunities for growth and development for the employees. Once the employees comprehend that pursuing the organizational policies and goals will result in personal opportunities for growth, they will make it a point to give their best. The job exceptions from each and every employee ought to be well defined in terms of the goals and objectives they are expected to achieve. This saves much duplication of effort on the part of employees and makes them act with confidence and honesty. Q5: Discuss some of the challenges leaders encounter when managing diversity and how diversity helps business organizations better compete in global markets. More and more organizations are coming to terms with the fact that in order to become competitive and profitable, they need to welcome diversity in the employees they recruit and the customers they serve (Thomas, 2008). Many a times diversity results in the acquisition of employee talent that is variegated and diverse, thereby bringing in new approaches towards problem solving. This enhances the creativity and ingenuity within the organizations. Diversity within organizations also polishes the communication skills of the respective employees and enables them to work in team scenarios. Diversity enables the organizations to attract and retain talent from around the world. However, diversity is not only a source of competitive advantage; it could also give way to many issues within organizations. The biggest hurdle that diversity managers could face while managing a diverse workforce is communication problems. A lack of communication or miss-communication could give way to misunderstandings and confusion. Besides, many a times the attempts to opt for a diverse workforce may face opposition from both within and outside organizations. Hence, the diversity managers need to clearly define the benefits to be accrued from diversity to allay fears and apprehensions amongst the concerned stakeholders. On paper diversity may sound good; however, while actually managing diversity, the leaders may face many challenges while implementing their agenda. Besides, soliciting a diverse workforce and clientele also requires the leaders to make the concomitant changes in the organizational culture and policies. Q6: Develop an effective business strategy to address the challenges and issues you have identified above Diversity brings in a range of employees from different backgrounds within an organization to achieve specific purposes. There is no denying the fact that much opposition to diversity may ensue from within and outside the organization. To ameliorate this opposition the diversity managers need to come out with guidelines for staff conduct and to make sure that each and every member of the staff well understands the expectations enshrined in these guidelines. The diversity managers also need to clearly delineate the benefits and advantages that an organization expects to accrue from a diverse work force. Once the salient stakeholders begin to understand the advantages that a diverse workforce could yield, it could mitigate much opposition to diversity. Besides, to better manage a diverse workforce, the organizations need to come out with refresher courses for employees aimed at helping them understand the salient cultural dimensions of the colleagues working with them. This could help avoid much confusion and misunderstanding. Reference List Fulmer, R.M., & Bleak. (2008). The Leadership Advantage. New York: AMACOM. Herr. P. (2009). Primal Management. New York: American Management Association. Keohane, N.O. (2010). Thinking about Leadership. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Storey, J. (2007). Leadership in Organizations. London: Routledge. Thomas, R.R. (2008). Building on the Promise of Diversity. New York: AMACOM. Read More