Leadership & Ethics for Managers Unit 5 DB Final Week - Essay Example

Response This is a good comparison of the relational and spiritual models of leadership. Ethics is the fundamental element of both leadership models, though the criteria of ethics may differ from one model to another. While the relational model’s ethics are more shaped by the norms and values of the culture in which the organization is operating, the spiritual model’s ethics primarily originate in the views and opinions of the leader, and are accordingly determined by the spiritual associations of the leader with a particular religion.

In the contemporary business environment in which the culture is dynamic and is rapidly changing because of a host of internal and external factors, followers may feel more comfortable under the relational leadership style of the leader than spiritual leadership style. Response 2 Both relational and transactional leadership styles are directed at the empowerment of the employees to optimize their tendency to achieve the organizational goals. The fundamental difference between these two leadership styles is the focus of the leader.

In the relational leadership style, the leader tends to empower all followers equally with a view to developing collaboration among them whereas in the transformational leadership style, the leader may give different levels of attention to different followers depending upon how much attention a certain follower requires in order to be able to play his/her role as desired by the leader. In this sense, transformational leadership can be difficult to adopt as compared to the relational leadership style because identifying the strengths and weaknesses of individual employees is time-consuming.