The Change Management - Essay Example

Leadership and change management Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Introduction Leadership is the process of influencing other people’s behaviors towards achieving a common goal. A good leader should be able to focus on the goals and objectives of the team and how to achieve them taking into consideration the other team members (Carter, 2007). In the department of the fire service station, there are various leadership styles which can be applied to contain the fire epidemic. The traditional ways of fighting fire has changed over time due to changes in technology and leadership styles which have improved the quality of fire service offered to people (Carter, 2007). There are various sections under municipal fire protection which can protect property and life and these sections include the municipal fire department, the country fire section and the fire bureau. It is argued that there are various leadership styles which can be applied by the municipality to improve the quality of fire services they offer. In this regard, this essay will critically evaluate the various leadership styles and the barriers to achieving the changes the proposed in this article. Leadership styles There are various styles of leadership which can be applied in the fire service to change the way municipal deals with the fire according to development theory. These styles are critically discussed below; Charismatic style of leadership This style of leaders argues that leadership lies in the strength of the leader. The success of this style of leadership greatly depends on the three primary factors which are environment, energizer and enabling. These factors characterize the strength of the leaders and the power they possess. These kinds of leaders have the vision and they exude other people around them to work together towards achieving the goals and objectives of their department (Boddy 2005). These kinds of leaders are wise and they allow their employees to offer their best skills to improve the performance of the organization. In the fire section, this kind of leadership can be established after understanding the nature of the job if its rests within an individual or the task itself (Carter, 2007). This style of leadership can be applied in the fire section when the employees are motivated and competent to offer their best skills to improve the quality of services they offer. The leader should be able to make decisions which are realistic and can be accepted by the people. However, charismatic style of leadership has various limitations which make it a difficult style of leadership to apply in the fire section (Boas 2007). The first limitation is that, the leader might set expectations which are unrealistic, the followers may become reluctant and depend on the leader for decisions and this style of leadership limits the skills of the leader. The criticism against this style of leadership is that it needs a strong leadership and if the organization does not have one then the leadership cannot be successful. It also required leaders with a vision, but most of the leaders deviate from their vision thus charismatic style of leadership is not appropriate when the leaders do not have any vision (Carter, 2007). In addition, this style of leadership is criticized because not many followers can follow the leader due to variation in opinions. In this regard, charismatic style of leadership has been criticized not to be effective in providing fire service (Carter, 2007). Situational leadership Another approach to leadership is the situational approach. The ability to be a leader depends on the ability of the leader to focus on the readiness and the interest of the followers. Situation leadership is when the followers are willing to perform a task without the influence of their larder. Despite the leaders having the ability to manage the followers, the followers are trained and competent and can be able to perform their tasks effectively (Cole 2004). This style of leadership ensures that there is day to day interaction between a leader and the followers. The need for interaction is to ensure that the followers have acquired adequate skills and can act without the leader. Situational leadership happens when the followers act without the influence of the leader, but by the conduct of their behavior, there seems to be a leader (Carter, 2007). They may act to save a fire situation due to the competent skills they possess. However, situational leadership style has been criticized because it has been hard to build a good relationship between the leaders and the followers. In this regard, it has been hard for the leaders to train and equip their followers to acquire leadership skills. The leaders are also reluctant to train their followers since they feel that their jobs will be at a stake. Another critic of this style of leadership is that, it may lead to conflicts between the leader and the followers. This is because there are different roles which are allocated between the leader and the followers so when the followers act as if they are leaders, this will lead to conflicts. This might destroy the relationship between the leader and the followers (Cole 2004). In this effect, the potential barriers to the implementation of the situational leadership style in the fire service include the poor focus of the relationship between the leader and the followers. This leads to poor relationship between the followers and the leaders making it hard to implement this leadership approach (Cole 2004). Contingency leadership In this style of leadership, there is a greater relationship between the task orientation and the relationship orientation. In this approach, the willingness of the follower to perform the task is the major element which is considered. The follower should be willing to act in the best interest of his or her task as a result of good relationship with the leadership (Warren 2003). This theory explains that there is a greater relationship between the leader, the task and the structure of the task. In this regard, the three variables which are important in contingency theory include the leader-member relations, tasks structure and leader position (Carter, 2007). The contingency approach to leadership is specifically important in situations like fire fighting, this is because the situation is not certain, but when it arises the leaders and the followers need to react quickly to save the situation (Warren 2003). The leader should be able to keep good relationship with the followers so that they can be willing to save the situation when fire epidemic arises. The competitive spirit is the key to the success of this strategy, therefore there should be a psychological wellbeing of the followers as one way of increasing their morale. The critique against this leadership approach is that, bad relationship between the followers and the leaders may lead to low performance of the followers (Torrington 2008). This is because they may not be willing to offer their skills to save a situation due to low morale, which is associated with a poor relationship with the leader. In this regard, this theory may not be appropriate in emergency situations like fire break since the followers will be reluctant to act. The main barriers to implementation of this strategy include the poor relationship between the followers and the leader, which lowers the psychological wellbeing of the followers. In addition, poor structure of the task will also hinder the implementation of the contingency leadership theory (Torrington 2008). These factors will therefore act as barriers to effective implementation of the contingency approach to leadership. Citizen leadership This theory of leadership explains that a leader can emerge from the midst of the followers (Dessler 2011). Many leaders who emerge from the followers are reluctant in taking up the responsibility since they understand the burden they have been putting on their leaders yet when they are selected they are reluctant to take the positions of leadership (Carter, 2007). For effective citizenship leadership to be effective, much concentration should be made to the followers. This is because there will be no leadership if there are no followers (Dessler 2011). It is therefore important to support and encourage the followers to exercise their authority and in some situations they will be selected to become leaders. If the selected leader proves to be competent he or she will remain in the position, but if the selected leader becomes incompetent he is removed from that position. This style of leadership is applied in fire organizations. Especially in the voluntary organization, leaders are selected from the followers by being elected by the fellow followers to lead them. The success of the elected leader will enable him or her to remain in the position, but if the leader fails he is removed from the position (Carter, 2007). In addition, the citizen leadership approach is best in fire services since a leader can be selected from among the followers to lead the team (Prudence 2009). For example, if the leader is injured in the process of containing fire, someone can be selected from the group to take the lead. Since fire service is an emergency case, there must be a leader who will lead the followers towards containing the situation and in this regard citizen leadership is most appropriate in the fire service. However, this leadership approach has been criticized. It is argued that citizen leadership may lead to selecting someone who is incompetent but can be selected due to favors. This will be a challenge to the team which fights fire since they will not be led well and provided with relevant directions to contain the fire emergency (Paul & Barry 2007). In this effect, this approach is not appropriate for managing the fire situation. The barriers to citizen leadership include lack of effective flexibility in the workplace which could make it difficult to pass the leadership to another individual. Another barrier is the lack of effective training which could improve the skills of the followers so that when there is an emergency one follower can be selected to lead the group if the leader is not available (Paul & Barry 2007). Lack of effective training leaves the followers with limited skills which make it hard for them to perform the task of a leader if he is injured during emergency or even death of the leader during the operation. Servant leadership With this style of leadership, the leadership is expected to serve the followers. The leader might be experienced through learning, but does not have the wisdom to implement the learnt skills into practice. In this situation, the followers select someone to lead them, but they contribute to the leadership of the group (Paul & Barry 2007). It is expected that the aged people are more competent and have better skills than the learnt skills. In this situation, the leader is just there to lead by coming into consensus with the followers since the followers are experienced better than the leader and this could lead to democratic leadership. The leader is expected to treat the people he or she serves as his or her boss (Carter, 2007). Servant leadership implies that leaders should do what they expect to be done to them. In order to achieve effective servant leadership, the principles to be observed include the authentic principle, be vulnerable, acceptance, be present and being useful (Marcos & Mark 2009). These factors guide the servant leader when performing his or her duties. The criticism against this leadership approach is that the servants may provide directions which are misleading. This is because there are changes in technology and the ways in which the fire emergency is handled (Marcos & Mark 2009). In this regard, the followers might be having experience but which has been outdated and not valid. Therefore, it is important for the leader to focus on the best ways to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization. There are some barriers which make it hard for servant leadership to be effective. The first barrier is lack of vulnerability. Most of the leaders do not consider the interests of other people they lead. This makes it hard for servant leadership to be effective since the followers want their interests and opinions considered (Finigan 1999). In addition, the servant leaders sometimes are not available to attend to the needs of the people they lead. This is in the context that followers need to be attended to frequently so that they can contribute their ideas but in most cases, the leaders do not freely interact with them and this makes it hard for the servant leadership to be implemented successfully. Transformational leadership This is the leadership approach which enables the leaders and the followers to focus on more achievements. This kind of leadership aims for higher and higher achievement. The leaders and the followers help to raise one another to higher levels of achievement (John 2009). This is achieved by motivating the leaders and the followers and this encourages them to even want to achieve higher and better results. This leadership style helps to bind together the interests of the followers and the leader so that they can work together to achieve better results (Carter, 2007). For this kind of leadership to be implemented successfully, the leader should focus on followers development which can be done through training the followers through various programmes as a way of improving their morale and also motivation (John 2009). Through improved skills, the followers can offer their best skills which will in turn improve their productivity in providing fire service. Sharing the same interests helps to improve the relationship between the leader and the followers, which creates a favorable working environment. However, there is a critique concerning the transformational leadership. It is argued that this leadership can be applied up to certain limits. The leadership entirely depends on symbiotic relationship in that, the leader depends on the followers and the followers depend on the leader (Hester 2010). This relationship helps to improve the achievement of the fire service since they all aim to achieve high. The critique is that the followers who perform well are rewarded while those who perform badly are punished. In this regard, this style of leadership is seen to be discriminative thus may lower the morale of some of the followers and thus it may not be applicable in emergency cases like fire service since some of the followers may be reluctant in performing their tasks (Carter, 2007). The factors which affect the implementation of the transformational leadership include lack of leaders to understand the needs of the organization (John 2009). This makes it hard for the leaders to develop strategies which will help to improve the achievement of the interests of the employees and this leads to resistance to change. In addition, lack of focus on the correlation environment in the organization may make it hard to implement the transformational leadership due to poor relationships. Conclusion In conclusion, according to Carter (2007), effective leadership is an important element in the success of any organization. There are various leadership styles which can be used to implement the fire service in an organization. These leadership styles should be evaluated and assessed before selecting the most appropriate leadership to apply in providing fire service. These leadership styles include charismatic leadership, situational leadership, contingency, and citizen leadership. There are also servant and transformational leadership. In providing effective fire service by either voluntary organization or municipal council, there should be effective leadership which will help to improve the provision of services during emergency cases. References Alix, W & Ms Jo M 2011, Leadership and Management in Health and Social Care: Level 5, South-Western Cengage Learning, Mason. Boddy, D 2005, Management an Introduction, 3rd ed. Essex: Pearson Education Limited, London. Boas, S 2007, Strategic Leadership as Management of Meanings, Thomson Learning, London, UK. Carter, H 2007, Approaches to leadership: The application of theory of development of fire Service Specific Leadership Style, Journal of Management and Leadership, Vol.1. No.1, p. 28- 37, Viewed 26th April 2013 from http://fpp.ifsjlm.org/Pasts%20Edition%20PDFS/IFSJLM%20Vol1_Num1.pdf#page=30 Cole, G 2004, Management Theory and Practice. 6th ed. Thomson Learning, London, UK. 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