Leadership Style - Assignment Example

Leadership [The of the will appear here] [The of the will appear here What does the self-assessment of your leadership style suggest about your “concern for people” versus your “concern for results”? Identify some examples from your personal experiences that led you to assess yourself in this way. Where would you place yourself on the Leadership Grid (e.g., what term would you use to describe your leadership style at this point?)? Provide a copy of a labeled Leadership Grid that indicates your leadership style. I scored 29 in Task and 39 in Relationship. This shows that I am more focused towards developing relationships are compared to tasks. I lead my ensuring that the people in my team are driven, motivated and satisfied. This would then help ensure that the task is completed on time. Considering the Leadership Grid by Blake and Mouton, I would say that my leadership styles is similar to that of a team manager. I scored 58% in task and 78% in people, this places me in the position highlighted below: My main concern always has been to ensure that the people in my group are happy and motivated. I collaborate with my friends and classmates when in a team. My first aim is to create cohesiveness in the group and then I move forward to define an action plan. Whenever I am made the leader of a group, I do not move towards the task at hand. I make sure the team members know each other and then we decide together the roles of each team member based on their area of expertise. I ensure that my team is satisfied with the task they are given so that they are comfortable and motivated towards the task. 2. What are some of the advantages of your style? In other words, why or when might your style be particularly effective from a leadership standpoint? I believe that the team management style offers the most advantages. This is because it focuses more on the people. It is these people who are given the task of making the team successful. This style ensures motivated people who take ownership of the task given to them. The motivated people in the people enjoy working together and for the team. This then results in improved results and highly decreases the chances of team failure. Team members take responsibility of the team in their own ways. In this style, the conflicts are resolved in the open. It is inevitable that conflict will arise in a team but the team management style works on getting the conflict resolved through the participation of the team members. The people within the team feel valued and therefore are willing to resolve conflict together. Since the leader in team management style is open and collaborative, the team members have more respect for their leader. If they are faced with a challenge, they come to the leader for resolution. This management style is particularly effective when the members in the group are skilled but need motivation. The team management style would be really suited for teams where there is low cohesiveness among the team members. 3. What are some of the challenges that your leadership style may cause? In other words, why or when might your style result in disadvantages from a leadership standpoint? Are there ways you could change your style to help deal with these disadvantages? While team management may offer many advantages, there are still some challenges that such a leader may face. The biggest challenge is perhaps the fact that sometimes the task gets effected with the focus on people. There is a possibility that deadlines may not be considered strict as the focus in on the task and the people. Another challenge in this leadership style is that the leader may lose authority. The team members are given equal power which may override the power that the leader enjoys. This then results in situations which may become difficult to monitor and control. The leader may even lose credibility. Decision-making is sometimes often difficult in a team management style. This happens with team members have conflicting opinions and are not willing to come to terms with each other. In order to deal with such situations, the leader should be very strong. He should have a clear vision of the team and should be able to convince the team members towards achieving that vision. The leader should have strong respect from his team members so that they are willing to accept any decision that their leader takes. The leader should allow team members to participate in the decision making process but he should make it clear that the final decision would be taken by the leader himself. 4. What specific contexts or settings (e.g., types of organizations, groups, teams, etc.) do you think your style would be particularly well-suited for? Identify at least two examples and describe why you selected them. One of the best organizations that team management leader is suited to is a multinational organization. In such an organization, diversity is very common and leaders need to be open towards accepting the different kinds of people within the organization. Such organization have people from different races, religions and ethnicities working together. Sometimes, it becomes difficult to manage these people since they have problems in working together as a whole. The team management leader would be suited because he can bring the team to collaborate together. He would motivate them to achieve the task together. I selected this organization because often it is seen that cultures within multinational organization lead to either to amazing success or failure just based on their leadership and culture. Another team that would be best suited to a team management leader is where people with high skills have come together to form a temporary group. This occurs in emergency control team where experts have to collaborate in order to develop the best evacuation strategy. However, these people are not willing to work alongside each other because of their egos. The team management leader, with his focus on both the people and the task, can improve the outcome considerably. I selected this group for the simple reason that this is a big issue with temporary committees nowadays. 5. Why might you be concerned with this self-assessment regarding your leadership style? What information could other sources (e.g., coworker, supervisor, subordinate) provide and why would this be helpful to better understanding your leadership style? The biggest issue that arises from self-assessment is that we are biased in our views about ourselves. While I might assume that I am a relationship person, there are others who might think the opposite. Self-assessment offers a narrow perspective of the situation. As a leader, it is not just our perspective that matters but also that of our team. Therefore, it is important that the people around us should be able to help assess our leadership style. I think the best person for this would be my coworker or class fellow. These people know more about us as compared to our supervisors or subordinates. They work with us on an equal level and are more comfortable in offering their unbiased and true assessment about our leadership style. Our subordinates can help because for them we are leaders. They have directly experienced our leadership style. If they are comfortable with assessing us, they could truly help by guiding us in understanding our leadership style. The supervisor would help in his position as someone above us who has gone through the entire assessment process. He has experience in his role as a leader and therefore can provide insight and help. Read More