Leadership Can u describe your ownmodel of leadership using a few models. Applying principles and practice of dialogue, sense making and sewn giving theory and the power of knowledge in leading change. A personal experience of leadsnip will follow - Essay Example

Leadership Models Integrated in Leadership Styles to Instigate Change Introduction Leadership can be defined as the ability to guide a given group of people. Thus, for a leader to be able to lead people he/she must possess a number of traits that are associated with leadership. From these traits, different styles of leadership can be drawn. Leadership has evolved to include some models of leadership. Currently, being able to lead people and making hard decisions does not quite cut the requirements for being an effective leader.

A leader must also be able to make sense. This entails the capability of finding a coherent structure to an undefined environment. Sense making in leadership is important as it enables the leader to be relevant to the situation at hand. The second model of leadership is giving sense. Sense giving as I have discovered throughout my career is not as easy as sense making. Sense giving as defined by Bartunek (1999) is the process of making the target group change their views to whatever you are proposing.

This is usually hard, especially in some leadership styles such as collaborative leadership style. This is due to the fact that every member of the team is entitled to their views. Sense giving may be enforced on the team, but this does not change their views and thus, they may not give a full output to fuel your view as the leader. Another model that is integrated in leadership is the coaching model. This simply implies the necessity to train your team to give maximum output. The model uses the acronym GROW (Goal, Reality, Options, and Will) (Mind Tools, 2014).

This is aimed at helping the leader initiate progress of the team and maintains the progress. The final model is the practice of dialogue. Effective communication is crucial in building the leader-team relationship. One of the reasons as to why my team is effective is due to the fact that everyone is allowed to contribute and air their views. The above leadership models have played a major role in effecting my collaboration leadership style among my team members. Dialogue practice The effectiveness of any leadership style is the ability to effect good dialogue practice.

Communication in team makes a difference in their performance (Raelin, 2012). I encourage open dialogue among my team members and each contribution is weighed carefully. I rely heavily on collaboration in order to make my team effective. This is why I left the conversation open to the discussion of either maintaining the old routine of visiting patients at home or the new method of the patients coming to the clinic. The team members were wary of changing their routine. I decided to lead through example and start implementing changes that would improve the output of the team.

I guided the team progressively to make a sound decision using an experimental method which turned out positively. Sense Making I was charged with the duty of overseeing the activities of clinicians in the Borough. They had already established a system where they made home visits to the patients instead of patients coming to the clinic. As a result, the process was time wasting and there were a lot of patients on the waiting record at the end of the day. Medical care is a crucial requirement and delays in delivery can lead to undesirable results.

The situation was dire and I decided in order to be effective, we must increase the output. The first thing I noticed was that the health workers wasted a lot of time moving from home to home. Also, it was not possible for the clinicians carry all the medical facilities required to make a complete and effective diagnosis at the home of the patient. I concluded that providing effective medical care, easing the workload of the health workers was a priority. This gave me the opinion that the patients coming to the clinics would serve my two goals.

I presented the idea to my team. I encouraged the team members to give me views on the idea as I believe that collaboration is important in team building which then translates to an effective team (Turning Point Ltd, 2001). They were reluctant to buy the idea as they had tried my method earlier in my absence and it had failed. They felt that their method was better at delivering health care to the residence. This made me understand that diverse people have different ways of conducting things and accommodating each other in this scenario would be best at resolving this standoff.

Coaching I pride myself in the reality that I am not a dictator and I allow for accommodations to be made. The team did not welcome my change, but they were willing to give it a try and see whether they can be effective. I decided to coach my team so that they can be the best performers. The first agenda was making our goals. They all unanimously agreed on the fact that despite their method being long term, their waiting list kept on piling each day. Thus, the goal was to provide the same quality care at an enhanced speed than before.

The current reality was that the number of patients being seen in one day was very low (Raguenaud, 2009). The options we had were to increase the number of home visits, but this would include longer working hours for the staff. However, if the patients were to come to the hospital a lot of time would be saved which would have been used moving from one home to the other. Also, it is not possible to carry machines around as some are not portable and are limited in number. After presenting all the details to them, the team agreed to make a change by adopting my proposal.

Sense Giving I gave the team an idea of the patients coming to the clinic instead of them making rounds at the patients’ home. However, they did not buy the idea immediately. I was determined to show them the practicality of my idea. They agreed to my idea, but reluctantly. I decided to be a leader by example and show the hospital staff that the clinics would be more effective than making rounds at home (Ancona, n.d). The first practicality of my idea is that it is not possible for the hospital staff to carry around medical equipments as they are making home rounds.

They were also inconvenienced while making a diagnosis as some required laboratory tests that could not be carried out at the home of the patients. At the end of it all, one health worker would have seen approximately five patients in a week. I decided to make assessment forms for both the patients and the staff to give recommendations and the amendments they would like to see (Smerek, 2009). I went through all the changes proposed. At the same time, the hospital was undergoing transformations and some health workers were being laid off and some made redundant in an attempt to cut in budget costs.

Cutting on transportation costs and increasing the number of patients would prove that my team was capable and thus, they would not be affected by the transformations. After implementing all the changes, the number of patients seen by one health worker in a span of one week was all seen within a day. The team and the hospital staff were pleased with the results as the waiting list dropped to zero within six months. Reflection In the above process, I found myself coming out as an assertive leader rather than a democratic one.

The hospital staff had informed me that the idea I was proposing did not work out for the long term. However, I was certain that my method would clear the wait list and I got the desired results. In this light, I can say that I was rigid on the idea that my method would work and this would have affected the performance of my team if they had failed to accept my proposal (Gordon, 2008). I intend to change the fact that at times I think that my methods are the most effective without giving consideration to why the team is reluctant.

Conclusion Team building is a crucial step in realizing effectiveness. The collaborative type of leadership is crucial in team building as it engages the whole team in contributing to the team growth. Integration of the four leadership models helped me instigate change which gave positive results. ReferencesTop of Form Top of Form Top of Form Ancona, D. (n.d). Sense Making: Framing and Acting in the Unknown. MIT-Sloan School of Management. http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/42924_1.pdf Bartunek, M.J., Krim, M.R., Necochea, R.

, and Humphries, M. (1999). Sense Making, Sense Giving, and Leadership in Strategic Organizational Development. Gordon, S. P. (2008). Collaborative action research: developing professional learning communities. New York, Teachers College Press. Bottom of Form Mind Tools Ltd. (2014). The Grow Model: A Simple Process for Coaching and Mentoring. http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_89.htm Raelin, A.J. (2012). Dialogue and Deliberation as Expressions of Democratic Leadership in Participatory Organizational Change.

Emerald Group Publishing, Ltd. http://www.taosinstitute.net/Websites/taos/images/ResourcesManuscripts/Raelin_JOCM.pdf Raguenaud, V. (2009). Bilingual by choice raising kids in two (or more!) languages. Boston, Nicholas Brealey Pub. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=477028 Smerek, E. R. (2009). Sense Making and Sense Giving: Leadership Processes of New College Presidents. New York, ProQuest. Turning point Group. (2001).Collaborative Leadership and Health: A Review of the Literature.

http://www.turningpointprogram.org/Pages/pdfs/lead_dev/devlead_lit_review.pdf Zenger, J. H., & Stinnett, K. (2010). The extraordinary coach how the best leaders help others grow. New York, McGraw-Hill. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=333255.