Leadership vs Management, Value, and Importance of Listening, Formal vs Informal Communications - Essay Example

Leadership Table of contents Introduction 2 Leadership 2 Difference between leadership and management 2 Communication 3 Communication process 4 Value and importance of listening 4 Formal vs. informal communications 5 Motivation techniques 5 Introduction Good leadership ensures success in any organization. In order for an institution to meet is objective and goals, it should implement good strategic leadership. The old fashion of leadership notes that leaders are identified as having good leadership skills from their early lives and thus if one is not born with such skills, there is little he can do to enable him become a leader. However, people view leadership currently in a different perspective. The modern view purports that a good leader is one who has significant leadership skills. One major leadership trait is possessing quality communication skills. A. Leadership Leadership is a very vital role, which is the key to success in any organization. Leadership involves defining team direction and communicating this direction to people, inspiring, motivating, and empowering them in order to achieve the organizational success. A good leader should be strategically focused and be able to apply behavioral techniques to enable him or her build commitment and achieve the best contribution from his or her people. The effective leadership’s ingredients are highly complex and mainly depend on the leadership situation such as difficulty of the tasks, leader’s authority degree, and capabilities and maturity of the subordinatesi. Leaders often take a span of time to learn leadership skills, because they are behavioral, context, and multi-faceted depended. Being an effective leader is very challenging to most new managers, although it offers rewards offruitfully orienting subordinates work as the most excellence and affective in a team. Understanding principles of direction setting, strategic thinking, motivation, communication gives one springboard of developing effective management style and skills to suit his or her personality and leadership conditions. The following hierarchy shows the levels of becoming an effecting leader. B. Difference between leadership and management Leadership and management always go hand in hand. Arguably, leadership and management are not similar and therefore, a leader and a manager have different responsibilities. However, they necessarily link and complement one another. An effort to differentiate these two likely causes more inconveniences than solving the problem. Still, most authors have spent much ink trying to delineate the difference between leadership and management. A leader motivates and encourages employees while a manager makes plans, organizes, and coordinates his subordinatesii. (Bennis 132) composed a list explaining the difference between leadership and management. The leader innovates; the manager administers. The leader is original; the manager is only a copy. The leader develops; the manger maintains. The leader mainly focuses on subordinates; the manager mainly focuses on structure and systems. The leader tries to inspire on trust; the manager depends on control. The leader originates; the manager imitates. The leader challenges status quo; the manager accepts it. The leader carries out the right things; the manager performs things right. The leader asks why and what; the manager asks when and how. The leader focuses on long-term perspectives; the manager focuses on short-term views. C. Communication Communication refers to the exchange of ideas and information from one person (sender) to another (receiver). Communication involves the sender transmitting information, feelings, or ideas to a receiver. Effective communication means that a receiver must understand the exact ideas or information transmitted by the sender. Many communication problems that take places in an organization include confusing communication processes that cause failure of good plans, and results of employees failing to communicate. Studying the process of communication is essential to leaders because they coach, counsel, coordinate, supervise, and evaluate throughout the communication process. Communication process is the understanding chain that integrates all members in an organization in a top-bottom, bottom-top, and side-to-side approachiii. D. The communication process There are three primary steps involved while communicating with others. Thought-Firstly, information must exist in the sender’s mind. This can be an idea, concept, feelings, or information. Encoding-Next, the sender sends a message to a receiver in either words or other communication symbols. Decoding-Lastly, after the receiver receives the words or symbols, he or she translates them into information or a concept that is understandable. During the process of transmitting the message, there are two elements received, which include content and context. To begin with, content refers to the actual symbols or words of the transmitted message also known as language. Language is the written or the spoken words combined to form a phrase that makes semantic and grammatical sense. On the other hand, context refers to the way of transmitting the message also known as paralanguage. These are the nonverbal aspects of a speech such as body language, state of emotions, and hand gestures, that the receiver can detectiv. E. Value and importance of listening Listening refers to a selective activity in communication, which involves receiving and interpreting the aural stimuli. Listening involves decoding the received sound into meaning. Individuals speaks at 100-175 words in a minute (WPM), although they can listen at 600-800 WPM intelligently. Since a portion of the mind is listening, one can easily start thinking of different things instead of paying attention. Solution to this problem is active listening, which means listening with a certain purpose. Active listening is importance because it enables the listener to obtain directions, gain information, understand others well, share interests, and show support. It also enables the listener to attend to the sender’s feelings and words hence understanding him. Lastly, listening enables the receiver to hear the sender’s message, understand its meaning, and verify this meaning by sending a feedbackv. F. Formal vs. informal communications The first difference of formal and informal occurs in terms of communication objectives. Formal communication aims at achieving organizational objectives, but informal communication aims at achieving individual objectives. Subordinate to superior or superior to subordinate is a good form of formal communication hence ensuring achievement of organizational goals. Informal communication expresses the interests and desires of an individual. Structural difference brings the second difference between informal and formal communications. Formal communications involve a well defined and a formal structure while informal communications do not have any structurevi. There are set authorizes followed to receive or report information in any formal communication, which ensures smooth flow of instructions and organizational efficiency. Informal communication involves no structures since people interact freely under no authority and not considering the level of job, which an employee works. This means a lower level worker can friendly communicate with his high-level workers or supervisors. The relationship and form of communication brings the third difference of formal and informal communications. Formal communication involves only correct and official information whereas informal takes both official and rumors. In formal communications, information takes official form and relationship while informal involves informal talks among the employees. Lastly, formal communications are inflexible while informal communications are flexiblevii. G. Motivation techniques Leadership motivation is the combination of energy and desire directed to achieve a goal. Motivation means influencing someone to do what they must do. An effective leader must posses the motivation power to influence his subordinatesviii. The following techniques form a basic motivation view: Allow the requirements of your group to correspond with those of your organization- All employees are influenced by several needs such as promotion, job security, and raises as well as internal forces like value ethnics and morals. A leader should ensure that his team is encouraged, trained, and has advancement opportunities. Reward good behavior- Although thanking, letter, or certificate may seem insignificant and small, they are good and powerful motivators. Rewards should be prompt and specific, and not general such as “doing a good work”. Set the example- A motivator should serve as a role model with character traits that he or she wants others to develop. Esprit de corps and develop morale-Morale is emotional, mental, and the state of spirit of an individual. A leader should always understand that his decisions and actions might affect the morale of the subordinates. Esprit de corps is the spirit of the collective body or organization. The organizational consciousness allows the employees to feel part of it. One should ensure that his workplace is somewhere where the employees feel like spending their lives. Lastly, a leader should allow his team to involve in planning and solving problems. He should also show concern to the subordinates. Conclusion Strategic leadership is the key to organizational success. Good leadership ensures good and friendly relation between the leaders and subordinate staff. In order for a leader to be termed as an effective leader, he or she should have effective leadership skills such as communication and motivation techniques. Communication in an organization is very vital since it ensures good flow of information hence solving the problem of misunderstanding. Leaders should also develop effective motivation techniques. This is essential since it influences workers to do what they must do. Developing good leadership traits will ensure that the organization achieves its set goals and objectives. Work cited Read More