Leadership Style Theories and the Change Theory - Coursework Example

Personal Reflection Name Institution Instructor Course Date of Submission Executive Summary Success of any group or employees in an organization depends on how the managers of activities and leaders direct their efforts to address issues under concern (Sydanmaanlakha 2003). Looking at how group members clearly reveal what happens in organizations when there is an issue to be discussed or when productivity of an organization fails to generate good results. Management of people’s views and actions is a difficult activity because each member thinks individually and have different views on every topic or agenda being discussed (Weinberg 1996, p 118). Whether clear or not, these members will always look at how to question eligibility and validity of answers given. Shareholders who are group members are always keen to understand variations that become evident when there are divergences among members on agreeing on some specific question. One’s characters can best be understood when their one is given responsibilities to manage and when the person is assigned timeframes to meet specific datelines. While this happens, there is need for almost leaders to inspire and give long term visions to members they lead. This encourages more people to aspire to lead other members towards achieving good and sustainable results for the progress and betterment of the organization. Introduction From the first meeting we held, there were so many correlations that existed among members and most notably from the group leader (Sydanmaanlakha 2003). It was clear that during the first meeting, I learned that being a leader is so demanding and that it can lead to wrong assumptions making. Traits are very important and I also noted that fro a leader to survive, he or she must have good characters that can be understood by the audience. I learned from the second meeting that emotional intelligence is indeed an asset that forms the core of a discussion platform. I also learned that with such an asset, one can make great achievements without failing. I was lucky that from the last meeting, I was able to understand the problems that can be caused by poor leaders on the performance of an organization or firm. It was clear that poor leadership styles can render an activity useless or can lower performance of an organization. For example, class work notes outlined that a leader should be fully supported by three main aspects that include commitment, character, and competence. The first topic was to look at how leadership and cultural differences can affect performance of an organization (Bass 1985). It is true from the first meeting held that people have different characters and traits when given responsibilities or agenda to fulfill. For example, some of the leaders are fond of revealing what they think they know most without thinking about what members (Bass 1985). At some point, our members got frustrated during the first meeting because the leader had developed a tendency of forcing members to accept their answers and verdict. All leaders should become accountable of everything they do and the idea of resisting questions and clarifications from members can only result into chaos and clashes either between members or between members and leaders (Sydanmaanlakha 2003). It is so devastating that effective leadership skills are required to keep the management wheels rolling. It was also noted that people have different views, conclusions, and can generate a series of answers without making consultation and the obvious result is that they can lead to conflicts. It is difficult for a large group or a small member group to make concrete conclusions without the guidance of a serious and talented group leader (Bass 1985). Due to this, we were sometimes forced to hold a consensus or vote to make definitive conclusions. At this point, reasonable assumptions are made to see that fairness has been done and that there are no extra evaluations that have been done. Formulations of questions and inquisitive statements are obvious when conducting meetings and forums. Serious arguments are prone to bring chaos but sometimes they help leaders or members to understand each other in the best way possible. Inborn traits are critical and effective in indicating behavior of an individual or sometimes can lead to serious implications when members are closed minded. I will always propose for every group leader in all future meetings that we will hold whether academic or professional. There is always need for members to pay attention to their leader and listen carefully to all that should be said. A clear outline should always be used to guide efforts of people so that procedural considerations are enhanced without being bias on any member (Burns 1978). Leadership Style Theories From the meetings that we held, I realized that a leader should always go an extra mile to become neutral in all his or her arguments to encourage his members or followers to make considerable conclusions. Failure to do that ignites members to become more stubborn and reluctant to make fruitful arguments. We wasted a lot of time during the initial phase of discussion because we lacked direction, until it reached a point where our arguments were recorded more than the agenda under consideration. This forced us to demand for a leader to guide and directs our arguments (Burns 1978). This was helpful because it helped us to save time and focus on main agenda that were to be discussed. At some other time, I failed to write the minutes of the discussion because there were high tone arguments that were so destructive to hear from a close distance. Class work outlines that there are many theories that have researched upon and ascertained to be leadership definitive (Sydanmaanlakha 2003). Great man theory is one of them because it reveals that a leader is born and not made. According to this theory and what I saw in our first meeting without a leader and in the third meeting with a leader, I realized that a leader can sometimes be born with all inner characteristics like intelligence, charisma, confidence, and social understanding of his or her position in the community in which he serves (Sydanmaanlakha 2003). With relevance to the third meeting, it was clear that some of the group members believed that such leaders are mythic or heroic in nature and that their current positions are deemed to change when they are given chances to rise. John had totally different traits because he had an inner courage to direct his efforts and in addition, he had behavioral characteristics that were driven from his heart. It was important because I noted that he had a greater portion of self-confidence and extra courage that helped him to develop a happier leadership role (Bass 1985). However, I noted that there was a divergence of leadership skills especially when the environment or question under discussion was changed (Rost & Baker 2000, p 3). As a result, I came to understand that in many situations, there are possibilities that a specific leadership is required to achieve different results and the choice or orientation of leadership styles depends upon quality of esteemed followers or characteristics of the situation at hand. A leader is therefore required to adjust his leadership position to align with the objectives or goals being targeted at any time. During chaos, leaders were forced to adjust themselves accordingly to suit the situation and they could realign after chaos or clashes had been settled. It was also empirical to note that a leader who understands a certain topic very well had an authoritative position of conducting a clear position (Mechanic 1962, p 350). However, the leader became democratic on matters he did not understand better. Characteristics of an individual can also be best understood during presentations. Some are harsh, critical, and charismatic while some are loyal, evaluative, responsible and concerned about welfare of other people (Burns 1978). Members can present a hot platform during arguments but it is the mandate of a good leader to understand how people relate to each other and how they can be used to reunite after diverging on arguments. According to class definitions, organizations have failed to achieve all or some of their objectives because of failure to identify what their employees want or have to give to the company (Fairholm 2004, p 593). This gap that exists between leadership in organizations serves as an end point to some firms towards becoming innovative (Mechanic 1962, p 350). Corporate leadership is significantly aligned and associated with peace deals but the most important thing was described in class as being inner leadership traits or characters. Very often, members of our groups could not challenge the leader with questions that he could not understand nor had little know how. As such, there was great need to become critical to support the leader instead of criticizing the leader (Fairholm 2004, p 590). Traits Successful leaders have unique characters from bad leaders whose relevance may be questioned by members or employees of an organization (Marguardt & Berger 2000). A leader should be ready to inspire people and make considerate movements at any time when demanded to do so. Listening from leaders was considered by members to be among the best aspect because it served as a pathway that encouraged people to clearly present their views. I also noted that, a good leader should always focus on members under his guidance to identify strengths and weaknesses. This was a good idea because it opens up a pathway to listen carefully and identify flaws that required more clarifications (Sydanmaanlakha 2003). Weaknesses can be covered by leaders if the leaders open up and assure members that the answer given is right and that the only thing lacking is clarifications and more updates. Emotional intelligence Being a group member in a group of four members enabled me to understand how leaders can serve as success drives of an organization (Plank 2014). Catalyzing and initiation of discussions was an indicator to show how people can achieve empirical results under the guidance of a good leader. Significantly, our leader showed an effective character during presentations. This is supported by the little time we took to finish the third meeting as compared to the first meeting whereby we had no leader. Looking at class work explanations reveals that inspiration is one of the characters that help people to manage their skills very well. Character of our first leader was a source of inspiration such that, I will use all mechanisms to see that we always choose a leader during our presentations or meetings (Plank 2014). Mentoring, counseling, empowering, and choosing effective leaders enables employees to make sustainable conclusions or resolutions. Freedom was also noted to be one motivational source. This is because, it gives people a wider spectrum to think on possible solutions, designs, and answers to the alleged or outlined questions. Giving authority to employees to make changes is one of the emotional intelligence that I will always capitalize on to see that my members perform better in the future (Plank 2014). Having an a clear description of agenda enabled members to understand and make arguments better in a systematic way than before when there was no leadership mounted on emotional intelligence (Simic 1998, p 50). Corporate Governance In meeting three and till present, nobody understands even in our group discussions and meetings on how poor leadership has affected production aspects in some organizations. Still, our group meetings revealed that employees can be inspired or discouraged by the bad role played by their managers or for simplicity, leaders (Fairholm 2009, p 12). This was clearly in out meetings and it is uncertain that being closed minded and a dictator at the same time can cause tremendous problems to members. Performances of firms and organizations have been crippled by the fact that employees are never listened to, by their employees. As such, many of the employees decide to shun off and remain calm with innovative ideas. At the end of it all, the company starts to suffer from chaos and disturbance which are caused by skills gaps (Gabriel 1998, p 258). The trend continues like that until it reaches a point whereby the company suffocates under the pressure of lack of enough skills or innovative ways to defend their succumbing production channels (Simic 1998, p 50). So far, our meetings have been beneficial to both our understanding of class work and in industrial understanding on how production can be affected by poor leadership (Fairholm 2009, p 12). Empirical, bad leaders can lead to unnecessary delays in accomplishing what was deemed important and sometimes, it can lead to devastating chaotic arguments (Peter & John 2004, p 322). As a result, there are many avenues that members created during the third meeting to ensure that their views should be heard by their leaders (Sydanmaanlakha 2003). One of them was to make murmurs loud enough to be noted by the group leader but little enough to cause misunderstandings (Hisrich & Peters 1992). Through this, the leader was forced to hear and pay attention to what the members were saying. However, sometimes the leader became so frustrated because the he could not go on without listening to a greater number of members of who each had his own different viewpoint in the topics that were being discussed (Peter & John 2004, p 322). Through this, I learned that patience was one of the characters that any leader should have if his or her intention is to achieve good results (Fairholm 2009, p 13). So far, the meetings revealed that some of the leaders do not provide room for any discussions and accordingly, it was considered to be a weakness and costly entity. This is because, important views from contributing members could be left out at the expense of the organization (Schmid 2006, p 180). Conclusion There are divergent understandings on what actually happens in organizations under the leadership of different individuals. Many organizations have suffered from producing quality services and products as defined in their portfolio and their main cause has been lack of relating leadership and production. The meetings we held are so far more beneficial and the overall understanding is that, leadership can cause harm or can lead to good prospects within an organizations or during meeting discussions or workshops. Bibliography Bass, B 1985, Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press. Burns, J 1978, Leadership. New York: Harper & Row. Fairholm, M. R. 2004 “Different perspectives on the practice of leadership”. Public Administration Review. vol 64 no. 5, p 577-590. Fairholm, M.R 2009, “Leadership and organizational strategy”, The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal. Vol 14 no 1 p 11-16. < http://www.innovation.cc/scholarly-style/fairholm3.pdf> Gabriel, Y. 1998. “The hubris of management”. Administrative Theory and Praxis, vol 20 no. 3 p 257-271 Hisrich, R., & Peters, M 1992, Entrepreneurship: Starting, developing and managing a new enterprise. Hollywood, IL: Irwin Mechanic, D 1962, “Sources of power in lower participants n complex organizations”. Administrative Science Quarterly. vol 7 p 349-364. Marguardt, M.J. & Berger, N.O 2000, Global leaders for the Twenty-first century. State University of New York Press. Albany. Peter L, & John. C 2004, "The effect of organizational culture and leadership style on job satisfaction and organizational commitment: A cross-national comparison", Journal of Management Development Vol. 23 no. 4, p 321 – 338 Plank, J 2014, Emotional intelligence and career success. Viewed 10 January, 2014. < http://www.careercenter.az.gov/userfiles/file/Website_Classroom%20Emotional%20Intelligenc e%20and%20Career%20Success%20PP.pdf> Schmid, H. 2006, “Leadership styles and leadership change in human and community service organizations. Non Profit Management & Leadership”. vol 17. No. 2 p 179-195. < http://moodle.unitec.ac.nz/pluginfile.php/81568/mod_resource/content/0/Readings_day_four/ schmid.pdf> Simic, I 1998, Transformational leadership-The key to successful management of transformational organizational changes. The Scientific Journal FACTA UNIVERSITATIS series: Economics and Organization, vol 1, no 6 p 49-55. Sydanmaanlakha, P 2003, intelligent leadership: A leadership framework for the 21st century. Viewed 10 January 2014. < http://www.pertec.fi/@Bin/116582/intelligent_leadership_21st.pdf> Rost, J. C.; Baker, R. A 2000, "Leadership education in colleges: Toward a 21st century paradigm". The Journal of Leadership Studies vol 7.  no 1 p 3–12. Weinberg, L. 1996, “Seeing through organization: Exploring the constitutive quality of social relations”. Administration & Society, vol. 28 no. 2 p 117 -124 Read More