Challenges of Being a Leader - Essay Example

Being a Leader Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Task One 3 The Role of the Leader 3 2) Leadership Styles 6 3) Culture and Motivation 10 References 14 Task One 1) The Role of the Leader In the present competitive business scenario, owing to different factors that commonly include globalisation, advent technologies and migration, leaders are required to play an effective role in managing and conducting business operations for better business sustainability. A leader has the ability to inspire followers or group of employees by motivating them in order to attain desired organisational objectives efficiently creating a vision and strategy. A leader exercises powers as well as responsibilities at different levels of authority, which ranges from the top-level management to the lower-level management. A leader in an organisation undertakes the function of instituting visions and accordingly, formulates strategies based on which, employees are required to perform operations with the aim of achieving the determined goals successfully. Leadership process involves the responsibility of designing an appropriate structure within organisation to meet the long-term objectives as well as suffice the short-term needs. Inspiring the group of employees through motivation as well as direction is also an important function of a leader, which is strategically performed through internal and external communication. Developing an appropriate organisational culture is one of the prime responsibilities of a leader, which assists in developing competency level of employees. Overall, it is considered that a leader has to balance responsibility and authority in an effective way in order to achieve the desired business outcomes (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2009). A leader should possess the required expertise and knowledge in order to understand leadership process within an organisation. A leader must also have certain technical skills that will determine his/her proficiency level in relation to knowledge and experience in a particular working environment. Human skills are also required for a leader to coordinate with subordinates and superiors in an organisation, so that an effective, supportive and cooperative working environment is developed for better business performances as well as growth. Similarly, a leader requires conceptual skills to make rational decisions in order to manage business operations in accordance with business objectives aligned with customers’ preferences. Decision-making abilities will facilitate in creating better business prospects for organisations in future. Respectively, skills and knowledge are essential in the leadership process, as it helps in communicating organisational vision to subordinates. Additionally, a leader, with the assistance of skills and knowledge is able to maintain integrity, equality and uniformity amid subordinates, which further aids in designing suitable action plans and making effective decisions within the internal dynamics of any organisation (Conway, 2000). Nonetheless, the role of a manger is completely different as compared to the role of a leader. This is because mangers play a different role in achieving the organisational goals wherein their attitude tends to be passive in comparison to the active attitude of a leader. Arguably, managers play a different role within an organisation wherein they tend to avoid risks while leaders play a role of seeking risks to obtain better business opportunities (Zaleznik, 1992). Leaders, on the other hand, ensure team understanding of shared purposes and organisational directions by forming a distinct, well-crafted and captivating vision of an organisation. Leader develops vision and strategy based on organisational objectives as well as requirements for sustainable business growth in worldwide market segments. Accordingly, the operations of employees are required to be coordinated and segregated by leaders for effective accomplishment of business objectives. Effective leaders attempt to accomplish these goals through communicating the progress to employees, emphasising the accomplishment of organisational objectives. Leaders provide an apparent understanding to workers regarding what is actually anticipated of them in order to derive a feedback of their performance based on which, they are offered with training services for enhancement of their competency level. This in turn positively motivates the workers to perform their operations with increased commitments. Enunciation and implementation of shared morals and philosophies can further help a leader in communicating shared purposes and organisational directions. Therefore, it is considered that a leader alleviates the performance of workers by communicating the purpose and the strategic direction within the workforce. Leaders usually communicate shared organisational purposes and directions in order to ensure that customers are offered with products and/or services on the basis of their requirements and demands. Moreover, a leader is also required to ensure that the needs of shareholders are met successfully offering a wider dimension of growth to the business (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2009). To be precise, in an organisation, management is mainly focused towards doing things correctly while leadership is concerned about doing the correct things. Thus, it can be asserted that there is a huge dissimilarity amid leadership and management, as they play a distinct role within an organisation. The management process involves planning and budgeting wherein a manager develops certain procedures and timelines to meet the organisational objectives while the leadership process involves directing and creating organisational vision through certain strategic plans that further helps in accomplishing the determined organisational visions and objectives. The management process controls various procedures in an organisation that further helps in resolving business problems often witnessed to disrupt organisational efficiencies; whereas, the leadership process motivates the workforce to overcome the identified business problems for better organisational performances. The management process aids in avoiding any kind of risk in its business process while the leadership process is inclined towards undertaking huge risks to create business opportunities. Therefore, both the managers and the leaders play different roles within an organisation, due to which, there is a huge difference observed in the leadership and management processes within a particular organisation (Bhamani, 2012). 2) Leadership Styles According to Lewin’s leadership theory, there are three leadership styles, which include ‘autocratic leadership’, ‘democratic leadership’ and ‘laissez faire leadership’. Autocratic leadership involves the process in which, a leader makes decisions without the involvement of employees. While at the broader context, democratic leadership is regarded as a process, in which, a leader involves its employees in the process of decision making along with the independence of determining their work procedure. This style motivates the employees to enhance their performance with minimum or without any supervision by their leaders. Contextually, Laissez Faire leadership is a style in which a leader delegates the authority of decision making to its subordinates in relation to the tasks assigned. This style helps the subordinates to manage the amount of work in an effective manner that increases their managing and decision-making skills further (Clark, 2013). Notably, situational leadership builds on Lewin’s Laissez Faire style, as in situational leadership, a leader provides authority to its subordinates to act independently and make individual decisions in accordance with assigned tasks. Situational leadership is based upon different situational factors persisting in an organisation and accordingly, employees might be provided with the independence of managing the assigned tasks, which suffices the assumption of Laissez Faire style. Similarly, it can be recognised that transformational leadership builds on democratic style owing to the fact that according to this leadership style, subordinates are involved in the decision making process that inspires them to enhance their performances on a continuous basis (IAAP, 2009). Tannenbaum and Schmidt introduced the continuum theory, according to which, it is considered that leadership style is a continuum process, which is based on situations, the characteristics of the subordinates and their leader’s characteristics as well. There is a variety of styles used by a leader under this theory, which might range from autocratic leadership style to democratic leadership style. On one hand, the continuum presents a dictatorial style in which a leader takes decisions and implements them among the subordinates. On the other hand, the continuum theory presents an autocratic style in which a leader suggests effective ideologies and derives feedback from their subordinates to amend the ideas appropriately. Democratic style is the next step in the continuum theory wherein the leader involves its subordinates in the decision making process to solve certain problems. To sum up, continuum theory ends up with the leadership style of laissez-faire in which a leader delegates its authority to the subordinates, which makes them act independently and complete the assigned tasks within the given time limit (Ball, 2005). The common leadership styles include participative leadership, transactional leadership, situational leadership and transformational leadership. Participative leadership is a leadership process, which encourages employees to get involved in the process of decision-making, facilitating employee engagement. Similarly, transactional leadership is further regarded as a process in which, a leader creates clear structures for employees in relation to their work requirements. In addition, transactional leaders make require arrangement of rewards and penalties on the basis of the performances of employees. Contextually, situational leadership is regarded as a procedure in which, a leader makes certain decisions based upon the situational aspects resulting from the market conditions and business environmental factors. Situational leadership emphasizes three factors, which include the situation, capability of the employees and ability of the leader. Transformational leadership is further considered as a process through which, a leader boosts the morale of employees, so that employees are able to conduct their operations with adequate enthusiasm. Additionally, transformational leadership assists the employees to perform business objectives as team members (IAAP, 2009). A leader might require changing the leadership style due to certain situations within an organisation. For instance, a leader who might be following an autocratic leadership style within a medium sized organisation might have to change his/her leadership to a democratic style, at the time of recruiting new employees in an organisation. This is because the leadership style followed previously might not help in effectively training the new recruits who have inadequate knowledge in relation to business operations and objectives. Therefore, in this case, a leader will have to use a democratic style with the aim of ensuring that new recruits are involved in making decisions, so that they are able to have better understanding working procedure and business requirements (Savva, n.d.). Similarly, a leader, due to the problems of employee crisis in an organisation, might have to change his/her leadership style from democratic leadership to Laissez Faire leadership. This is particularly because, in order to retain the existing employees with appropriate delegation of authority as well as responsibility. In this respect, a leader is able to encourage the existing employees to work in an organisation with utmost respect and in an ethically sound manner. Moreover, a leader will also create a platform for newly recruited employees to enhance their management skills making use of their authority of decision-making. Respectively, a leader will ultimately assist in resolving the issue of employee crisis within an organisation by adopting new and a more enhanced leadership style (Savva, n.d.). Illustratively, to be mentioned in this context, John Adairs action-centred leadership model is based upon the assumption that leaders must have the capability to create a balance in three fundamental areas, which include attaining the assigned tasks, managing the group of employees and managing employees individually. It is accordingly conceived that if a leader is able to create a balance amid these areas effectively, there is a huge possibility that employee’s morale will enhance, the overall quality of products and/or services offered by an organisation will improve and collaborative work among employees will be induced in every paradigm. According to the model, the responsibility of a leader is to formulate appropriate plans for better achievement of the assigned tasks. Additionally, a leader is able to set certain standards for the given tasks, control the activities of workforces, monitor the performances of the workforce and accordingly, set the targets as per the required performances. Similarly, the responsibility of a leader for managing the group of employees include communicating performance criteria, establishing disciplines, solving disputes, induce team performances and give feedbacks to the team accordingly. Subsequently, leadership responsibilities for individuals includes understanding personal characteristics of each individual within a team, supporting individuals for the challenges they face, providing recognition to individuals based upon their performances, utilising the strengths of each member and training them as per the organisational requirements (Savva, n.d.). 3) Culture and Motivation Organisational structure determines the way in which, business activities are carried out in various departments of an organisation. Small and medium sized companies mostly use a flat organisational structure wherein the levels of management are negligible. Conversely, large organisations mostly use a tall organisational structure due to the different hierarchical levels of management and huge number of employees. Tall organisational structures, accordingly, represent numerous levels of management amid executives and workers in an organisation, wherein the chain of command flows from the top-level management to the low-level management. Flat organisational structures are those structures in which, the levels of management are relatively fewer as compared to tall structures. It is also referred as organic organisation structure in which, the hierarchical level is simpler with a large number of workers. Likewise, matrix organisational structure is an arrangement of different structures in an organisation, which integrates the function of employees and managers representing different departments in order to achieve the desired business objectives (Joanne & et. al., 2012). It is in this context that tall organisational structure faces certain issues, among which, the most prominent is related with its relationship management efficiency, as the flow of information is quite complex in nature amid different levels of management, decreasing the span of control and the communication process. On the other hand, flat organisational structure possesses management issues, as an individual manager has to be reported by numerous employees, due to which the span of control and communication process becomes wider in nature. Similarly, a major issue in the matrix style organisational structure is that the management process is quite complex, as more than two departments are integrated together for attaining organisational goals. This in turn makes the communication process and the span of control quite complex to manage in a matrix style organisation (Blacksacademy, 2005). Maintaining a sound organisational culture is one of the vital aspects in present day business environment. Organisational culture represents the values and the beliefs of employees within an organisation that further determine their behaviour and perception. Handy’s cultural typology involves four types of cultures in an organisation, which includes ‘power’, ‘role’, ‘task’ and ‘culture’ (Connor & et. al., 2012). According to Scheins Iceberg Model, organisational culture is based on three factors that include artefacts, intangible activities and underlying values (Hesketh, 2010). Correspondingly, McKinsey’s 7-S framework helps in maintaining a sound organisational culture, which comprises the Hard S’s and the Soft S’s. The Hard S’s include ‘strategy’, ‘structure’ and ‘system’. The Soft S’s include ‘skills’, ‘shared values’, ‘staff’ and ‘style’. It is identified that both the Hard S’s and the Soft S’s require to be aligned with the intention of ensuring that the culture of mutual trust and respect is established within the group of employees in an organisation. It can be mentioned accordingly that a leader must possesses a set of certain rules, procedures and standards in an organisation, centred on the moral practice of equality and justice, so that all the members in an organisation are positively influenced in relation to organisational objectives and personal objectives along with the overall team achievement (Peters, 2011). A diverse team within an organisation herewith assists in retaining and recruiting competent employees for performing business operations efficiently enough. An organisation, with the assistance of diverse workforce, may be able to build a better competitive position in the worldwide market segments. It is thus recognised that diverse team aids in enhancing the internal operations of an organisation, which increases the productivity level of the employees substantially. It also creates organizational synergy that results in increased teamwork and cooperation among employees. Hence, it is considered that a leader must develop a strategic approach for managing team diversity in the workplace by appraising the team performance, measuring team performances and socially integrating the outcomes of team members. To be summarised, these are the techniques to be undertaken by a leader in order to motivate and inspire the improvement of team members (Horwitz & Horwitz, 2007). Locke and Latham developed the motivational theory of goal setting, which is based upon five principles, including ‘clarity’, ‘challenge’, ‘commitment’, ‘feedback’ and ‘task complexity’. However, Mahen Tampoe developed the motivational theory of knowledge workers wherein it is assumed that the performance of workers are highly dependent on four factors, which include task competence, support provided by peers and management, clarity of tasks and corporate awareness (Lunenburg, 2011; Mullins, n.d.). It can be accordingly determined that there are certain similarities in both the theories of Locke and Latham and Mahen Tampoe, focusing on goal setting and knowledge workers theory respectively emphasises clarity of assigned tasks to motivate the employees. It can be further mentioned that the motivational theory of Locke and Latham and Mahen Tampoe draw upon other motivational theories, as the goal setting theory and knowledge workers theory are concerned towards motivating the workforce in an organisation (Lunenburg, 2011; Mullins, n.d.). Apparently, the motivational theory has a direct link with the shared purpose and organisational direction, as it focuses on clarity of objectives by sharing the actual purpose of the tasks assigned. This in turn provides a direction to the employees for completing the task through sheer commitment. Similarly, goal-setting theory focuses on rewarding the employees based upon their performance, which ultimately creates a line of sight amid the personal goals of the employees with the organisational goals (Atkinson & Shaw, 2006). References Atkinson, C. & Shaw, S., 2006. Managing Performance. Human Resource Management in an International Context, pp. 173-198. Ball, J. 2005. Theories of Leadership Style. Chinaacc. [Online] Available at: http://www.chinaacc.com/upload/html/2013/06/26/lixingcunfcf1f827d831461c81ea24bc40e2dade.pdf [Accessed June 01, 2014]. Bhamani, M., 2012. The Difference Between Leadership and Management Schools of Thought. 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