The Traits, Skills and Behaviors Associated with Successful Leaders That Bill Possess - Assignment Example

Running header: case study Student’s name: Instructor’s name: Subject code: Date of submission: 1. The traits, skills and behaviors associated with successful leaders that bill possess; There are many traits, skills as well as behaviors that successful leaders possess which help them in influencing those that they lead. Without these skills and traits, one can not be considered an effective leader and will most likely face resistance from those that he/she leads. Such skills and traits include honesty, being courageous and straight forward, integrity, vision among others. The traits are of great help in helping one become an effective leader. The following are the traits, skills and behaviors of successful leaders that Bill possessed prior to his promotion to a leadership position. a) Competency A successful leader is competent in his area of expertise although he/she does not have to be the foremost expert in the entire organisation. The people being led have to look at the leader and see the reason why he/she is in the leadership position. Demonstration of competency helps in boosting a person’s leadership influence. Before being promoted to become the technical support team leader, bill had demonstrated his level of competency. He had worked in the same department for three years prior to his promotion. He had worked very hard to develop the technical skills for answering calls and the interpersonal skills for communicating technical solutions to customers. He had trained with the manager who was very experienced and competent technical specialist (Richard, 2010). He modelled his own skills on those of his manager and worked diligently to handle most jobs with the fewest mistakes and even fewer complaints. His level of competency is also seen in the fact that the management had the courage of assigning him extremely difficult tasks such as handling customers disconnected for not paying their bills at the right time. b) Honesty The mark of a successful leader is behaving honestly and with integrity. Honesty and sincerity helps others in gaining confidence in the leader. Bill posses the trait of integrity prior to his promotion. The management must have been convinced of his integrity and honesty prior to promoting him. In fact, his promotion was due to his hard work. He was not the kind of a person to wait for supervision so as to work. While most of his core workers handled only forty to fifty technical jobs, bill routinely handled ninety or more jobs. His honesty is also seen in the level of confidence that the management placed on him as to trust him with handling extremely difficult calls. This shows that they had confidence that Bill would be able to hard such difficult tasks without affecting the company’s image. c) Good interpersonal/communication skills A successful leader is a person, who likes dealing with people issues, can initiate and deepen relationship with others. In other words he is a person who can build a team and achieve impressive results (Robert and Christopher, 2009). Being able to establish good relationships with those being led is an essential leadership quality. Bill possessed very good interpersonal as well as communication skills prior to his promotion. Since his joining the company, he had worked vey hard to develop the technical skills for answering calls and the interpersonal skills for communicating technical solutions to customers. He not only cleared his work on time but also assisted other technicians in clearing their backlog. Furthermore he had developed excellent relationships with all the customers. No wonder the company frequently gave him the extremely difficult task of handling customers disconnected for not paying on time. Although the work was extremely fast paced, Bill still found time for joking and having fun with other technicians and he had strong friendship with other workers. d) Dependability and courage Successful leaders are always people who can be relied upon to accomplish tasks without failure. They are also courageous people who are always ready to encounter challenging work without giving up. Prior to his promotion, Bill very well displayed his dependability as well as courage. Bill routinely handled more than ninety jobs per day including some of the most difficult tasks. Furthermore, the company always depended on him when extremely difficult calls from customers disconnected for failing to pay bills on time came. It was Bill who handled them without damaging the relationship between the customer and the company. 2. Why Bill had problems making changes and maintaining discipline when he was first promoted to a position that required leadership; New leaders always suffer from lack of confidence in themselves as previously they used to be led. They also face challenges from those being led especially when those being led used to be in the same rank with the new leader. Some people are always resistant to new leadership with an aim of testing how far the new leader can go. When Bill was first promoted to become the team leader, he assumed that it would be smooth all the way as he had not anticipated the challenges that new leaders face. For instance, he didn’t know how to convince his friends to take him seriously in his new assignment as their boss. Maintaining discipline was also going to be an uphill task because most of those being led were his friends and did not take him seriously. Although it comes as a shock, most people do not want to be led by those they used to be in the same rank. Most of the times, a promotion and a title bestow grudging tolerance and little bit of difference but never credibility or true respect (Peter, 2009). A new leader therefore has to prove his credibility for him to earn the respect of the followers. This can be seen in how Bill’s friends behaved towards his leadership. They never gave him support. Instead, they never paid attention to his suggestions concerning their job performance and ignored his instructions and even treated them as a joke. The new staff even had a worse attitude as to switch shifts, leave early or arrive late and ignored his authority and even the duty rooster. This is probably because most of the team members doubted his authority and therefore their behavior was aimed at testing what he can do. Bill also found leadership challenging because he was unable to change everything overnight. This is because for him to implement his new ideas, he should have first learnt the attitude and the behaviors of the subordinates. Although he had been anxious to assume his new responsibilities and even try some new procedures he had been devising, Understanding the psychology of those being led would have been of great help to him. Furthermore, he did not anticipate any challenges in his new role as a leader. In other words, he expected everything to work out smoothly not knowing that not everybody would be prepared to see him succeed. In fact some of his friends must have been prepared to bring him down. Trying to act in an authoritarian manner and harshly insisting on his new methods didn’t serve him well either. This is because his subordinates viewed this as intimidation from a person they had known all along (Vincent, 2005). Therefore, he was met with hostility while his friends stopped talking to him. This had the effect of lowering his morale and hence made him feel like giving up. The management had also failed Bill by giving him new responsibilities but without authority to accompany the responsibilities. In other words, his hands had been tied. For example, he could not sanction any of his subordinates, he couldn’t dock their pay, make them work overtime or cut back on their hours. In other words, any authority needed for his new responsibilities had to come from the managers. If he gave any instructions to the subordinates and they disobeyed, he had no recourse since complaining to the management would have been viewed as inability to his job. This greatly contributed to the disrespect from the subordinates as they knew that he had no authority and therefore he could do nothing to compel them work hard. As a result, the standards of work started deteriorating with his entry instead of improving further magnifying the challenge. 3. Analysis of Bill’s leadership situation in terms of his sources of power. Bill is in a very tricky leadership situation which is further complicated by his lack of experience since he is a new leader. Bill’s situation is worsened by the fact that his new position lacks the authority that ought to accompany the new responsibilities bestowed upon him. Bill recognizes this fact and knows that something has to be done if he has to effectively perform his job. He has to use his power so as to influence his subordinates to follow him as their leader. It is only through this that he can gain their respect and inspire improved performance, efficiency and restore morale. In his bid to bring change, there are five sources of power that are open to Bill. The sources of power include reward power, coercive power, expert power, referent power and legitimate power. However, there are some sources of power among these that Bill should not use since by using them, he might find himself in a worse situation than he is in. these include; a) Coercive power Bill should not try to use coercion in order to instill discipline, respect or even force action from employees. In fact, when he tried to act in an authoritarian manner, and harshly insisting on new methods, he was met with hostility and his friends even stopped talking to him. Using coercion may not work out for him at this time as employees are likely to resist by using such methods as staging a strike show as to discredit him to the management in their bid to resist authority (William, G2005). b) Reward power This is the ability to control the allocation of rewards and remove negative sanctions. Bill could not use this power since he is a new leader with little experience. Although this is a source of power that Bill could effectively use to influence the employees, he does not seem to have such authority from the management. On the other hand, Bill ought to draw on the following sources of power in tying to regain the respect of the employees and hence improve performance and efficiency. a) Legitimate power This is power derived from his new roles as a team leader. As such, he can request certain behaviors from his subordinates. For example the management expects him to instill discipline among the subordinates and ensure strict adherence to roosters. The subordinates obviously know that there are consequences of disrespecting his authority. Although he does not have any authority to force action, he ought to request it from the management so that he can be able to control the employees. He should make it clear to his boss that it is hard for him to do his job if there is no authority to accompany his responsibilities. b) Expert power Bill can influence his team of technicians through expert power. Bill has worked very hard to become an expert in his area (Donald and Albert, 2008). Even before his promotion, he was an expert and seemed to know more than his counterparts. As such, Bill could use this power to influence them into better performance. By this, he can imply that by following his advice the employees are also going to become experts. He should make it clear to them that by applying his new methods; they are doing themselves a favor y becoming more experienced. c) Referent power Prior to his promotion, it seems that Bill had the ability to cause others to respect him. He has very good interpersonal and communication skills and can be said to be a charismatic leader. He should use this inbuilt power to influence the employees into respecting him and following his advice. By so doing, he will eventually be able to influence them into improved performance and efficiency. The employees’ morale will also be boosted as they will act out of respect and not fear or coercion. 4. How Bill become an effective leader in his new position When first promoted to his new position, he did not foresee any resistance both from the new and old employees. However, with time, Bill has encountered a lot of difficulty and has to come up with tactics that will help him become an effective leader. There is a lot that Bill can do so as to become an effective leader and influence his subordinates to action so that the organisation can perform better. Bill ought to understand that leadership is a combination of knowledge, values, skills and behaviors and that different people have different expectations on the leader. His success as the team leader will therefore depend on how best his leadership style match with the team’s expectations. As such, Bill should know his own abilities, knowledge and values and how the team perceives him. By knowing his strengths and weaknesses, Bill will be able to develop a plan to work on the areas that he may need to improve (Robert, 2009). As a new leader, he should also take time to study the team that he is leading so as to understand their different needs. This is because different people may have different requirements and treating them in the same manner as a leader will result in frustration. As a new leader, Bill should also take time to learn and practice leadership skills. This should include the knowledge and understanding of the tasks bestowed upon him by his position, the skills and ability to communicate as well as listen to his subordinates. It is also important for Bill to understand that he can not achieve success alone. He should be involved and in touch with group members. He should understand that as a leader, his role should be that of providing technical support, emotional support as well as vision to the team. In other words, he should try and build a sense of belonging to the team members so that they can work hard because they will view the team success as theirs and not Bill’s success. In other words, it is important that Bill communicates his vision for the team with the subordinates and allow them to respond and become part of the visioning process. Team is likely to grow and prosper by building commitment to a vision shared by all (Robert and Christopher, 2009). Finally, Bill should avoid being too much rigid. He should understand that his position will expose him to different situations which will call for different approaches. In other words, Bill should endeavor to employ the situational leadership style owing to the fact that no single leadership style will be best for everyone or every situation. Now that the tactics he was trying to use in implementing changes and instilling discipline have failed, he should come up with new strategies and apply new leadership style that best suits the situation at hand. By so doing, Bill is likely to become an effective leader and achieve a lot for the company. References: Donald, C & Albert, A2008, Complexity leadership: Conceptual foundations, Routledge, London. Peter, G2009, Leadership theory and practice, London, Kogan Page limited Richard, L2010, Understanding management Harlow, Prentice Hall. Robert, N2009, Leadership theory, application and skills development, Oxford: oxford university press. Robert, N & Christopher, F2009, Leadership: Theory, application & skill development, London, business press, Thomson learning. Vincent, P2005, Understanding organizational power, Journal of management development, vol.21, No. 28, pp.33-36. William, G2005, Authentic leadership theory and practice, London, Harper Collins Business Read More