Leadership Homework - Coursework Example

Management: leadership Homework questions Question Transformational leadership can be described as a type of leadership technique that makes individuals as well as social systems to change. Transformational leadership in its idyllic form, creates positive and valuable change in the followers; having the final objective of mentoring followers into future leaders. Transformational leadership in its genuine form improves the performance, morale and motivation of followers via a wide range of systems. These comprise of linking the follower’s sense of personality as well as self to the mission in addition to the shared identity of the given company; being a leadership model for followers that motivates them; challenging admirers to assume greater ownership of their work, as well as understanding the weaknesses and strengths of followers, so as to enable the leader to support followers with roles that maximize their performance (Dubrin, 2013). Charismatic leadership on the other hand provides guidance to an organization by one or more persons viewed as inspiring or heroic and who have thus been given the power in the organization to implement drastic changes in addition to extracting exceptional performance levels from the organization’s staff. For instance, a business manager filled with charismatic traits could be enlisted to launch a new product or engineer a turnaround. Most of history’s most successful leaders have been described as charismatic. Charismatic leaders fundamentally are extremely skilled communicators-persons who are not only verbally eloquent, but also capable of communicating to admirers on an emotional, deep level. These leaders by virtue of their charisma are capable of articulating a captivating or compelling vision, in addition to being able to arouse strong passions in their followers (Dubrin, 2013). Question 2 Emotional intelligence (EI) may be defined as the capability to perceive, control as well as evaluate emotions. There are some researchers who, however, believe that EI can be learned as well as strengthened, whereas others are of the opinion that it is an innate trait. John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey since 1990 have been the key researchers on EI. These two researchers proposed a model that recognized 4 different factors of EI; emotion perception, reasoning with emotions, understanding emotions and managing emotions. Perceiving emotions accurately is the first stage in understanding of emotions. It comprises of understanding non-verbal gestures like facial generations and body language. Reasoning with emotions is the next step and comprises of using emotions in promoting thinking together with cognitive activity. Thus, emotions assist us in prioritizing what we give attention to as well as respond to. This is to say that we react emotionally to things that attract our attention. The third step is, understanding emotions which basically are interpreting the various expressions that a particular observer is seeing and trying to understand the cause of that specific emotion being exhibited. Lastly managing emotions is the capacity to manage emotions efficiently and is a main aspect of EI. Consequently, regulating emotions, reacting suitably together with responding to the emotions of other people are all crucial aspects of managing emotions (Dubrin, 2013). On the other hand, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment, basically, is a psychometric questionnaire that is programmed to determine psychological preferences in how individuals perceive the world and arrive at conclusions. Isabel Briggs Myers and Katherine Cook Briggs extrapolated these preferences from Carl Gustav Jung’s proposed typological theories, first published in 1921in his book Psychological Types. Thus, Jung proposed that there are 4 key psychological functions through which we view the world; thinking, feeling, intuition and sensation and one of these 4 functions is always dominant most of the time. Personality inventory was originally developed by Katherine Cook Briggs together with Isabel Briggs Myers who apparently was her daughter. The MBTI is normally modeled for normal populations with emphasize on the importance of naturally occurring variations. Thus the key underlying postulation of the MBTI is that all human beings have particular preferences in the manner that we interpret our experiences. It these experiences that motivate our values, interests, needs as well as motivation. Jung theorized the existence of 2 pairs of cognitive roles; the rational functions such as feeling and thinking, and the irrational functions such as intuition and sensation. Thus Jung theorized that for every individual, each of the functions are primarily expressed in either extraverted or introverted form (Dubrin, 2013). My feeling is that individuals who have task-oriented personality traits seem to have significant focus as far as details are concerned. They may be not at ease commencing an action-plan till they are contented that they have all the required facts. Consequently individuals with relations-oriented personality traits seem to have significant focus on the outcome and are contented commencing an action-plan when they have just the necessary facts. It is therefore very crucial for any leader to fully understand personality and correctly alter leadership style to the given management situation. Thus it may in fact make a difference and a big impact in establishing personality type so as to ascertain the right kind of job match for a leader in a given organization (Dubrin, 2013). Question 3 Ethical leadership is usually leading by knowledge and through doing what is right. Nevertheless, the key problem with that is it is hard to describe what “right” is. Fundamentally, ethical leadership can be divided into 2 parts. Thus, the leader in this case ought to act in addition to making decisions in an ethical manner and secondly, the leader must also ethically lead in their interactions and attitudes (Dubrin, 2013). An individual’s basic philosophy of human nature affects their approach to leadership in that an individual as a leader will be required to interact with his/her peers, followers, admirers, and seniors. The individual requires the support of these people so as to achieve his/her objectives. Thus for someone to be able to understand as well as motivate his/her followers s/he must understand human nature and come up with a particular philosophy suitable for such a scenario. Human nature basically is the common features of all people and individuals will act according to particular principles of human nature. Thus as a leader, one must understand these requirements since they can be strong motivators (Dubrin, 2013). Question 4 The following are elements of a situation that most impact a leader’s behavior; leader’s characteristics, leader’s power and influence, the competence of the leader, the emotional intelligence of the leader and the leader’s style. The leader’s strong leadership aspects comprise of such things as initiative, insight, self confidence and intelligence amongst others. The power and influence of the leader is another element and this really influence the behaviour of the leader depending on what power sources the subjects perceive the leader to have. The competence of the leader is usually seen through what the leader does and is a very crucial element in the behaviour of the leader. Emotional intelligence of the leader is another key element influencing the behaviour of a leader and is measured through the number of EI competencies that the leader is perceived to have. Finally the leadership style of the leader is very important and the number of different styles that the leader exercises is able to determine what the behaviour of the leader is like (Dubrin, 2013). Question 5 Task focused leadership is a behavioral technique whereby the key focus of the leader is on the tasks to be executed so as to fulfill specific objectives or accomplish given performance standard. On the other hand, relationship-oriented leadership is a behavioral technique in whereby the leader centers on the motivation, satisfaction in addition to the general well-being of the other team members. Basically, a leadership technique that integrates components from both relationship and task behaviours can assist leaders in leading efficient and productive teams. Through setting of such tasks for themselves together with their employees, many leaders can make sure the organization’s project stays on schedule and every employee is aware of their task. Leaders can therefore motivate their employees and build a work environment whereby everyone feels encouraged to make a contribution (Dubrin, 2013). Question 6 One of the leadership theories introduced is trait theory which claims that efficient leaders share a number of familiar personality traits. This theory enables us to recognize qualities and traits such as empathy, integrity, assertiveness, likability and excellent decision making skills, particularly when leading others. I do believe and agree with the tenets of this theory because traits are mainly external behaviours that are exhibited from the ideas going on in our minds-indeed it is these internal thought processes and beliefs that are significant for efficient leadership (Dubrin, 2013). References Andrew, D. (2013). Leadership:Research Findings,Practice,and Skills. New York,NY: CengageBrain. Read More