Which One of the Contingency Models Would Be the Most Useful to You as a Leader - Assignment Example

SА 616 TЕST#1 Name Institution 1- Which one of the contingency models described in Chapter 3 would be the most useful to you as a leader? Describe the model and state – Why? Hersey and Blanchard’s situational leadership theory This theory suggests that leaders should adapt and develop management styles as per their follower’s eagerness and readiness to perform certain duties or tasks which may be directive or supportive. Four leadership styles match development levels for followers including selling, telling, participating and delegating. These styles recommend the need to focus on follower’s task at hand according their development level. Moreover, the paper gives brief discussions of the leadership styles as well as their application according to personal development of an individual. Telling This style explains characteristics followers as being unwilling, insecure and unable with low supportiveness and high defectiveness. However, the leader highly focuses on task but has low focus on relationship. The leader compels a follower to new or impossible tasks irrespective of the existing relationship. Furthermore, the leader also gives a work structure of the task showing directives of controlling the worker. Conversely, the theory helps in determining how followers loose motivations and ability limitations since these two factors integrate. The leader needs to keep a clear stand to ensure clarity of the actions. Selling This style brands the follower as motivated, unwilling though unable with high value in supportiveness and directive-ability. It requires the leader to be of high relationship as well as high task focus with least directions on what to do since it may conflict abilities with confidence of the followers. In addition, must explain and clarify decisions. The leader also needs to ensure listening, advising and sharing of ideas to aid in skill acquisition since he or she is selling skills to followers. Participating The follower is insecure, able but unwilling, low in directive-ability and high in supportiveness. The leader has a high relationship focus but a low task focus. Though the follower is able but unwilling to do the job due to lack of commitment, the leader must never compel him or her to task but should find out why the person is not cooperative. It is clear that the employee has a problem with their work ethics, a factor that has much to do with motivation. The leader must therefore, make the follower feel good about themselves and the job whenever there is commitment by listening and appreciation. Delegating It brands the follower as able with motivation as well as willingness but supportiveness and directive-ability are low. The leader must emphasize on low task and relationship focus. The leader can leave followers to task due to ability and willingness though a clear supervision is necessary. The level requires least follower support though recognition is a recommendable way of motivation. This situational leadership theory is vital in studying big organizations. The styles above recommend leaders to work with their followers at different levels. There should be maintenance of the thin and complex relationship existing between leaders and followers through a clear process of managing relationships. Besides, the theory suggests the needed adjustments depending on willingness and ability of a follower relative to the given task. The management must take measures that take into account the needs of each and every individual. Therefore, the theory can serve to improve the trust between leaders and their followers by taking oriented-relationships to the highest possible level. 2. Describe/explain in details the supportive Leadership Behavior Style and a Leadership Situation in which you would find it useful? Supportive leadership builds a strong social relationship between the leader and the follower. Considerate and friendly leadership qualities win friendship and confidence of the followers unlike leaders without such qualities. To achieve cooperation and support between these parties, there is the need to know people’s perception towards a particular leader. Followers get a feeling of a good working environment when support, friendship, cooperation prevails as opposed uncooperative, unwilling and uncooperative behaviors. Supportive leadership leads to job satisfaction thus increase organization performance. A recent research weakly rates pay and job performance. Although there is no clear established relationship between supportive leadership and employee performance, there exist suggestive results showing supportive how leadership enhances staff performance Proper balance between environment, behavior and person makes supportive leadership character or behavior more effective. Thus the leader needs to note these details relative to jobs and lives of his or her followers. Value, trust, and respect to the followers as well us helping them improving work performance achieves this balance. Behaviors that lead to achieving positive results include: 1. Considerate and understanding 2. Sympathy 3. Helping followers in ability development and career growth 4. Respect, trust and show of concern to the followers Supportive leadership behavior becomes ineffective under undesired reaction. The management must ensure sharing and discussion with followers about relevant plans. Thus, having the wisdom of understanding and applying the behavior of supportive leadership is vital for the leaders. Seeking external support becomes handy if situations go beyond personal abilities. Two-way communication effectively achieves high supportiveness; it can either be supportive or in some cases non-supportive. Supportive communication involves problem-oriented communication and action words. However, non-verbal communication can be person-oriented or evaluative. Leaders may use both verbal and the non-verbal communications appreciating and valuing followers. There is the need of sharpening interpersonal skills so as to gain much confidence from followers which helps the leader in handling job upsets and pressures from the workers. Skills like communication, interpersonal skills reward and expert power boosts success achievement. Facilitating and limiting supportive leadership impacts the whole organization and affected areas include 1) Preference to leadership style 2) Organization culture and mission Culture or mission of the organization 3) Preference of followers to supportive behaviors Some situations can enhance, or neutralized an organization’s supportive leadership. Firstly, characters such as self-esteem, insecurity, growth and self-confidence influence the enhancement of supportive leadership behaviors. Secondly, external conflicts and new groups are influential including task traits like dissatisfaction, highly and stressfully structured tasks. Neutral situational factors include large groups, dogmatic followers, tasks with broad scopes and high-leveled jobs. Substitutive factors include intrinsic rewards, task feedbacks, task satisfaction and importance of the organization. In summary, it is important for leaders to understand all situational factors and their requirements since it leads to goal achievement and aspirations. 3. Describe/explain in details the Directive Leadership Behavior Style and a Leadership Situation in which you would find it useful. Directive leadership entails guidance and structuring actions of a group. Leaders thus assess follower’s informational and guidance needs for task performance after which then gives necessary help. This places importance on effectiveness and timing of the directive leadership traits or behaviors. However, other tasks require clarification and performance feedback at execution time. This is also same to followers who may require directions or others who only need guidance on relating their work to other employees. Directive leadership requires communication and technical as the most desirable skills Therefore, Communication Skills: Defines and clarifies roles Gives feedback on performance Specify to workers on how to accomplish tasks. Explain rules and procedures Offer incentives to performance and states desirable behaviors. Expert Knowledge: Vital in task accomplishment Vital in planning, scheduling, and assigning responsibilities. Personal Traits: Assertiveness vital in handling problems Experience in the provision of necessary skills and knowledge for structuring and guiding tasks. Self-confidence ( high decisiveness, self-belief and self-esteem) Power Sources: Legitimate power – assumes that followers leaders give directions that compel followers to tasks. Expert power – high levels in skills, ability and knowledge are vital for task performance. They help in solving problems, effective planning and developing strategies for objective achievement. Seeking guidance and advice from the leader enhances effectiveness of his or her behavior. Resource power – provides data and information about support to followers for justification of a leader’s direction. A past clear and justified direction builds follower’s faith on their leader. Role clarity – it is an important aspect of psychological effects. Information on follower work expectation helps a worker in knowing what is expected of him or her thus relieving stress and uncertainties. The leader gives a structure on job expectations. Satisfaction – good structure relieves uncertainty thus achieves high satisfaction. Punitive, autocratic and authoritarian studies have noted satisfaction decrease in followers. Stress & Burnout – directive leadership that has expertise guidance, provides information and integrates to supportiveness reduces stress and burn out in followers Group cohesion – directive leaders without authoritarian, punitive and autocratic behaviors have greater cohesive groups leading to higher performance. Results – non-directive leaders within large organizations rate low compared to directive leaders. This is true in time-constrain situations like manufacturing but not in human service sectors with high performing and productive followers. Task Characteristics: High structures improve follower performance under directive leadership by giving the guideline steps. Direct follower-customer contact and task interdependence favors direct leadership by attaching task importance to workers and resulting to high response to leader’s directives. Stressed followers do value direction as an element of supportive behavior. Environments of high stress require high experience as opposed to high intelligence. Group Characteristics: Directive leaders must control large groups that have less cohesiveness by explaining norms of performance and developing shared commitments Leaders at lower levels must be directive since followers expect clarity in case of a bureaucratic situation where leaders at higher level make decisions to ensure high satisfaction. Autonomous groups with frequent interaction require guidance from coworkers. It is necessary to create autonomous teams with competence experience as well as performance among all members. Direct feedback on tasks and authority helps in making and implementing task-related decisions resulting in increased psychological output and performance giving leaders opportunity of making strategic initiatives Highly structured tasks enhance directive leadership’s effectiveness since the environment negatively affects followers’ satisfaction though most studies show productivity improvement. A pictorial representation of the behaviors of directive leadership starts at the top where the leader influences psychological reactions of the followers thus affecting behavioral outcomes. Besides, it shows situational factors that increases or decreases directive leadership’s effectiveness. This impact is portrayed after supportive behavior interactions. Arrows originate from supportiveness box of the indicated leader into situational factor boxes and indicate the leader’s capacity of manipulating certain situations for indirectly improving followers’ reactions thus substituting the need of providing directive behaviors. The model above shows how the previous model is put into use by describing three vial tasks of effective leader. Firstly, a leader diagnoses a situation through response to follower and task related questions. If at least one question receives positive response, then it is necessary to apply directive leadership Once the leader practices necessary behaviors, it is vital to look into both follower and situational characteristics to show if any of these factors decreases effectiveness and directive ability of the leader. Elimination of these factors improves the leader’s influence on followers. In summary, the discussion presents various methods that managers use and their effectiveness on the Directive Leadership. Some techniques may be suitable in certain situations relative to others hence a leader must be dynamic in applying management styles. It is not easy for leaders to have the ability of adapting to complex environments, meet employee needs while beating work deadlines thus directive leadership requires experienced, decisive, self-confident and effective leader for keeping an organization on track. 4. Describe/explain in details the participative Leadership Behavior Style and a Leadership Situation in which you would find it useful. Participative leadership style entails behaviors that help supporters in their decision making. It involves individual consultations and meetings with supporters in discussing and gathering decision inputs. It also entails information collection from supporters as well as asking opinions on decisions. Besides, it conveys a certain problem related to tasks to a group or individual. Participative leadership suits organization since it enhances supporter accessibility as well as information seeking for decision making. Supporters possess work related information compared to leaders thus their opinions are critical in making proper decisions. Leaders to should ensure follower satisfaction, motivation and loyalty or trust to a company’s decision making process. Leaders exhibit participative leadership to different levels according to various decision making situations. Firstly, despotic decision involves limited follower participation. Secondly, review approach entails discussion of decision problems with workers. Finally, delegation approach represents participation levels where followers have a chance to decide and share problem experience Effective application of participative behavior requires leaders to ensure knowledge expansion on skills, traits and power sources. Reliability builds honesty with followers thus they trust information from the leader. Besides, leaders must have socialized quest for power which helps in training and developing followers in building and improving work environments and task controls. Participative leadership also entails development of listing skills, conflict management skills, self-monitoring and assertiveness. Besides, it involves development of three kinds of powers including legitimate, connection or resource and expert. Legitimate power gains follower confidence in a participative process while connection or resource power minimizes interactions and conflicts but expert power provides information in support of decision-making participation. Most situational characteristics present usefulness of the participative leadership. Firstly, are task characteristics that show situations when tasks are vital for a company by assuring followers in decision making. Secondly, group characteristics involve trust situations when followers agree with leader decisions. Thirdly, follower characteristics involve high capability, knowledge and proficiency in decision making task where followers need independence and participation. Finally, some situational characteristics have neutral effect on effectiveness of a participative leadership. Firstly, highly structured task quantity neutralizes participative leadership since it makes information sharing and decision manipulation difficult. Eventually, it decreases performance and satisfaction from the participative leadership. Participative behaviors become less effective with authoritarian, inactive followers who show little interest and recognize repressive decisions. Read More