Secret of Timely and Transforming Leadership - Essay Example

?Running head: LEADERSHIP ASSESSMENT 6th November Introduction Local and international organizations must be under good leadership in order for them to remain competitive in the current business atmosphere that is characterized by cut-throat competition. Leadership entails organizing a group of individuals in order to achieve predetermined goals. Based on the various challenges that managers face either within or outside the organizations, leaders are at liberty to use a leadership style that will make their companies achieve their targets. However, a leader must emulate a style that is focused at creating conducive working environment that is essential for improving the employee’s productivity. This paper seeks to assess leadership strategies that the director of Peytons Limited Company, an organization I used to work for. One of the strategies that our director applied which had a positive impact on me was the engaging style of leadership. Managers and employees should fully understand the conditions that exist in their organizations. In this way, it is easy for them to emulate effective strategies as a team to address the conditions (Torbert, 2004). It is through identifying the importance of employees in our organization that the director adopted the engaging style. This entailed meting regularly with the employees especially during the period of low sales or reduced profits in order to understand their concern. In this way, the employee’s problems were easily addressed leading to a significant level of employee’s motivation. The director also applied the democratic style of leadership. This entailed making the employees participate in the decision making process by ensuring that each of the worker had an equal chance of giving a feedback regarding the policies that the director emulated. In this regard, the interests of teams were promoted thus making the employees have a strong positive perception on the company. An organizational structure leads to a culture that is vital for the achievement of short-term and long-term objectives. The director of Peytons applied the matrix structure in his leadership strategies. This entailed grouping the company workers by our products and functions. Based on the fact that our organization was not engaged in production of large number of products types, the director introduced a sales department, a customer service department as well as an accounting department for each of the products. Each of department involved a strong team of skilled individuals and by allocating various duties to the teams, the director created a sustainable culture of team work leading to the success of the organization. The decentralization of the company activities is another positive implication of the matrix structure that the director adopted. It is vital to note that by ensuring that the employees have the skills and experience to handle various activities, managers are greatly assisted in their duties thus resulting to a strong team work within an organization (Yukl, 2006). As a sales representative in Peytons Company, I participated in making decision on the matters relating to marketing of our products. Through the various meeting we held with other members of the sales teams, my relationship skills in the work place were greatly improved. Despite the wide range of activities that our organization was engaged in, the director used various channels of communication to ensure that each of the employees was aware of the company policies. Additionally, the director was aimed at creating high ethical standards that are in line with the government policies in terms of gender balance during employment as well as creating a strong team that was engaged in conflict resolution. The table below indicates the evaluation of the Peytons Director. Aspect of evaluation Poor Good Average Excellent Remarks Maintaining high level of discipline among employees Motivated employees Gender balance during hiring Motivated employees Solving employees problems Motivated employees Rate of meeting with the employees Motivated employees Accepting employees feedback Motivated employees As the result of the strong relationship with the employees and the ability to maintain ethics in his organization, I was greatly motivated an aspect that made me to improve my performance. At a personal level, the director acted as my model, and as a result my focus was to create a strong team work with my employees once I attain a senior management position in my feature assignments. Organizational leaders can use various motivating factors to ensure that their employee’s productivity is greatly enhanced. One of the key motivating practices is training of the employees. Based on the need to reduce the cost of hiring new workers who may demand high salaries, leaders should embark on training their employees in order for them to acquire adequate skills to handle complex duties. Another benefit of employees training is that it makes the employees acquire better skills thus making them to produce products that are of high value. In this way, the company incurs high sales and profits thus resulting to the expansion of the company operations. The second practice that leaders can use to motivate their employees is promotion. This entails allocating more duties to the employees as well as increasing their salaries to match the increased responsibilities (Zaccaro, 2001). It is the duty of the leaders to ensure that their employees are appropriately evaluated before promoting them. In this way, workers who have attained their goals are recognized by promoting them while the employees who have not achieved their targets are provided with further training. One of the notable benefits is that employees feel appreciated thus making them work hard with determination to make their organization successful. The third practice that leaders can use is offering health insurance cover. This would also involve covering the immediate family members of the employees including spouses and children. In this regard, leaders will be seen as being involved in social issues of their employees (Zaccaro and Klimoski, 2001). In turn, the employees will be motivated thus enhancing their productivity. A notable benefit of health cover is that it ensures health workers thus lowering the rate of employee’s absenteeism due to illnesses. Based on the fact that most organizations are operating at the international level, diversity has become an issue that cannot be overlooked. One of the challenges that leaders encounter when managing diversity is discrimination. In the day to day intermingling of the employees, racial, sexual, gender and cultural discrimination is likely to emerge thus resulting to lack of positive relationship among the employees. Stereotype is another challenge that makes some employees have a negative perception of their colleagues (Stacey, 1974). As employees undertake their duties, the challenge of harassment among the workers is an issue that has resulted to high rate of turn over thus resulting to reduced production by organizations. Exclusion is also a diversity challenge that leaders encounter during their activities (Butler, 1986). This entails excluding other people from undertaking duties within an organization based on the reasons that are not related to their jobs. Diversity greatly assists organizations to attain a competitive edge in global market. Essentially, diversity ensures that company brands and marketing strategies are undertaken in various regions without resistance from the local residents. Additionally, organization can hire employees as expatriates from various regions of the world. In this way, organizations can effectively distribute their products in the international market. To overcome the challenges of diversity leaders should advocate for awareness and acceptance in their organization. This entails emulating a strategy of diversity training possibly twice per year. The diversity training should first be held for the top level managers and then to other employees. During such training, leaders should educate all the stakeholders on the importance of positive working relationship, significance of cultural diversity and solving conflicts among other issues. Conclusion Based on the above discussion, it is clear that for leaders to be successful engagement with their employees is paramount. Through the use of leadership styles such as democratic and engaging style, our director created a positive impact on my performance as well as those of my co-workers. While an organizational structure leads to a culture, good leaders should ensure that the structure that they adopt leads to strong and motivated teams. As a result, the firms will achieve their goals. The aspect of diversity is another aspect that leaders should not overlook. Notable challenges that arise from diversity include discrimination, harassment, exclusion and stereotypes among others. As indicated in the paper leaders can deal with these challenges by upholding diversity training thus achieving awareness and acceptance within their organizations. References Butler, K. (1986). A global view of informal organization. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 3, 39-43. Stacey, M. (1974). The Sociology of Community: A Selection of Readings. London: Frank Cass. Torbert, W. (2004) Action Inquiry: the Secret of Timely and Transforming Leadership. CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Yukl, A. (2006). Leadership in Organizations. NJ: Prentice-Hall. Zaccaro, J. (2001). The nature of executive leadership: A conceptual and empirical analysis of success. Washington DC: American Psychological Association. Zaccaro, J and Klimoski, J. (2001). The nature of organizational leadership: An introduction. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Read More