Which Skills Styles and Attributes Are Most Effective - Essay Example

Leadership Behavior Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Name Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Course Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Instructor Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date Leadership Behavior In the recent past, there has been a growing demand for studies correlated to behavioral approach to leadership, and how behavior impacts the effectiveness of the organization. A leader’s behavior is a strong display of mannerism that communicates the expectations of an organization that sets the tone for the organizational climate (Anon 2002). Leadership behavior analyses what a leaders do with whatever personal traits, skills or motivational capacities in an organization. In actual facts, leadership behavior reflects the extent to which a leader shows concern for subordinates’ satisfaction and well being. Additionally, behavior also reflects the level which a leader defines the roles of task, assigns subordinates to various task roles, controls their performance and provides feedback to these subordinates. There are two substantial kinds of leadership behaviors: task oriented behaviors and relations oriented behaviors which are common to leaders at any one given time. Task oriented leadership behavior emphasize more about reaching goals (Kaiser & Hogan 2011). They help their employees achieve their goals by clearly defining roles, establishing goals and evaluation methods, give directions, setting timelines and showing how these goals can be achieved. Literature depict that, they use one way communication method to explain what needs to be done, by whom, and how it should be done. Task oriented leadership behavior clarifies roles and objectives, monitoring individual performances and operations, and short term planning (Avolio et al 2003). Finally the relations oriented leadership behavior who is more concerned with developing close interpersonal relationships through communication showing social and emotional support to workers. They demonstrate and understanding of employees problems. This essay addresses leadership behavior and skills, styles and attributes which are the most effective when it comes to leadership behavior. Leadership is an enigma. This means that, there are many aspects which surround a leader that contribute to the effectiveness of leadership. This entails that, for a leader to be effective, then there has to be some leadership behavior and skills, styles and attributes which contribute to the same. Abilities and skills are natural talents for doing something. It is worth noting that ability is natural and therefore stable (Anon 2002). Skills on the other hand are acquired and changed with training and experience. This in simple terms means that, a leader can be trained to get skills and not abilities. Leadership style and behavior are personal choices made by a leader as to which of the style or behavior they are going to exhibit when confronted by a certain situations. Effective leaders know the appropriate leadership style and behavior for every situation and understand the results of their action. Research exonerate that, successful leaders adapt their leadership behavior in response to the situation and to the needs of the people involved. For any leader to be effective, then he/she must have links to the follower’s perceptions of the leader’s motive for action. Leadership is a process where an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. Effective leaders have high degree of emotional intelligence, IQ and technical skills, which when applied; their impact is visible in the organization (Van Rooy & Viswesvaran 2004). Organizations gave resulted to having trained psychologists’ who have a duty to develop competency models which help them identify, train and promote stars in the leadership firmament. However, leadership success in any given organization is dependent on personal capabilities of a leader which falls under three categories namely: technical skills with accounting and business planning as just examples, cognitive abilities for instance analytical reasoning and competencies which are exonerated by emotional intelligence for instance the ability to work with other and effectiveness in leading change. Research depict that, emotional intelligence account for 90% of separates a good leader and just an average leader (Smollan & Parry 2011). This therefore entails that, EI is one of the paramount prerequisite to leadership effectiveness. It has been clear that, personal qualities and characteristics contribute to leadership effectiveness. Evidence suggests that, social effectiveness skills are very important in the performance and effectiveness of a leader (Anon 2002). In this case emotional intelligence has been voted as the most notable social effectiveness constructs of leadership effectiveness. However, this does not mean that all other skills are rules out. In organizational contexts, teams are becoming common. Managing this team well translate to increased production (Kaiser & Hogan 2011). These teams require communicative, cohesive, innovative and strong individual member support. For these teams and groups to be effective, then leaders must be able to communicate effectively and empathize with others, which in the long run allow them to develop cohesive and supportive relationships. A leader with emotional intelligence has the capability of innovative thoughts and creation in an environment supportive of productive activities (Harms & Marcus 2010). To effectively lead a team, the interpersonal skills are necessary. This is due to the fact that leading requires the abilities to influence others, demonstrate and receive respect as well as create a positive climate of trust. This in other words means that, the combination of knowledge, skills, traits and attributes that collectively enable a person perform a given job are inevitable in any given organization’s leadership, if effective leadership has to be realized. Emotional intelligence have for a long time been associated with life success. EI is a social intelligence that revolves around the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s emotions to discriminate among them and then use the achieved information for the guidance to one’s thinking and actions (Abraham 2006). There is a close correlation between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is a motivation of an individual to achieve higher goals. Idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration all define transformational leadership (Barbuto & Burbach 2006). Study state that, appropriate emotional displays and recognition of emotional displays of others are important for the successful functioning and leadership in any give organization. Emotional intelligence competencies such as confidence, self-awareness, transparency and empathy are crucial means of communication which facilitate transformational leadership. Empathy for instance is important for transformational leadership who display individual consideration to followers. Additionally, transformational leadership promotes positive effect and confidence in followers expressing and more importantly generating new ideas. Leaders with emotional intelligence do put the needs of others way ahead of their needs and therefore it is used by transformational leaders for inspirational motivation (Anon 2002). Emotionally intelligent leaders recognize the emotions are strong tools which can substantial influence behavior and cognition of others. Additionally, they also understand regulation of emotions which is very useful to maintain social values. Effective emotional regulations positively affect performance and general interactions. As for the transactional leaders, EI plays a very vital role. These leaders are surrounded by positive and proactive management whereby they are expected to influence employees to improve performance, for the good of the organizational goals and individual personal and professional growth (Mandell & Pherwani 2003). They negotiate to satisfy goals and therefore enable the leader role to become one of the encouraging and guiding the employee towards satisfying the set goals. It requires emotional intelligence for a leader to influence other to improve themselves and the organization, communicating the vision to all stakeholders without compromising the welfare of the employees or that of the organization. For leadership to be effective, then the leadership styles employed by individual’s matters a lot. Democratic leadership style is one of the styles which mind the welfare of the employees and that of the organization they are serving (Komai, Stegeman & Hermalin 2007). A leadership using democratic leadership style is at times referred to as enlightened leadership. A leader employing this style recognizes each person’s self worth and esteem. His/her actions are based on trust, integrity, honesty, equality, openness and mutual respect. The reason why this is one of the best styles is the fact that, leaders show consideration and concern of others by empathetic listening and understanding. In this leadership style, communication is fostered among all employees in all level and this results to high levels of employees satisfaction for grievances are easily aired and dealt with effectively, through communication (Smollan & Parry 2011). Democratic leaders involve all employees in reasons and circumstances connected to decisions that affect employees, departments or even the entire organization. In this style, it is worth noting that, highly positive and motivation oriented environments are fostered and this results to high levels self esteem and self actualization needs. Democratic leadership practices employee involvement in issues and exercises influence in reaching consensual decisions. This attains commitment to and ownership of decisions. In any organization, an increase and effective performance is solely dependent on the commitment of the workforce. This being the case, democratic leadership ensures that employees participate in commons goals for the good of the organization and their own personal growth and development (Güth et al 2007). Democratic leadership emphasizes more on rewards than punishment. In case of discipline or correction, justice is emphasized. This is due to the fact that, they believe that a mistake maybe inevitable and should be a learning opportunity and in this way, everyone benefit and the mistake may not occur again. Democratic leadership is the best when it comes to the current undertakings of any organization. However, there is other two styles which are also common among leaders. Laissez Faire leadership is where leaders allow others to make decisions but they are still responsible of the decisions made. The other one is authoritarian leadership whereby the leader tells their followers what they should do and how tasks should be accomplished, without the input or any advice from the followers (Anon 2002). However, this style is not recommended when it comes to running an organization and therefore it may lead to ineffective leadership. This being the case, Laissez Faire leadership is seen as a better option as compared to authoritarian leadership style. Laissez Faire leadership depicts that, other people are able to analyze the situation and determine the best course of action. A leader suing this style sets priorities and delegates tasks to others. This means that, the leader has full confidence and trust in the people they are working with. In this style, employees are involved in the decision making and left to discharge their skills towards the achievement of goals and objectives of the organization. This is a good style for it can be used with those individuals who know more about the job than the leader. Additionally, there can be times when a leader is at other places, doing other things and this means that, the operations will not stop for all employees have taken ownership of the job. This is a good style for mentoring other leaders. Leadership behavior is very demanding and calls for adaptation to situations. For instance when there are conflicts in the organization, leadership behavior and emotional intelligence are a prerequisite in solving managing the conflict to the common good of the organization and that of individuals (Smollan & Parry 2011). A leader confronted by such a situation mitigates communication between the conflicting parties and this enhances release of emotions. Leadership behavior conforms to the situation through communication, accepting criticism, not taking the conflict personally and being able to listen to those who are expressing their opinions. This is where the a leader’s self awareness is tested, whereby they must be aware of their weakness and comfortable in admitting them, view constructive criticism positively and recognize emotions at hand and the effect they have on the collaborative environment (Anon 2002). Emotional control is paramount in this case and emotions which are in contrast to the organization norms are inhibited. It becomes very hard for an individual without emotional intelligence when it comes to conflicts. This is due to the fact that, they cannot be able to read between the lines and listen to the unspoken. Without this, conflicts can neither be resolved nor can teams collaborate. It is therefore clear that, positive emotional intelligence has the capability of equipping an individual with cognitive abilities in dealing with difficult decision making and conflicts. In the same line, conflicts are beneficial to a leader for to be in a conflict, it is to be emotionally activated Age have been said to have some effects on the emotional intelligence and leadership behavior. Research depicts that, young generations of leaders have long range vision and they recognize and support diverse organizational community (Smollan & Parry 2011). This means that, young leaders are more willing to working in a global and trap opportunities from different cultures unique characteristics. Those above the age of 35, are said to be less prone to multiple orientation as their experience has turned them to be humanistic and ensnare the opportunities in the same culture instead of diversified. Research also depict that, the level of biasness is high among the in leaders less that 25 years. This in this long run concludes that, passive biasness increases with age, which means that as leaders advance in age, they tend to become resistant to change (Matthews, Roberts & Zeidner 2004). The emotional intelligence levels of leaders in relation to their age show that, a person’s emotional intelligence first increases with the age, reaches a pick, and then starts decreasing. For instance, research by Cherniss (2010) clearly states that, leaders aged below 25 years about 50% have average level of emotional interagency, 25-45 record the highest level of emotional intelligence while those with advanced ages past 50 years show an average level of emotional intelligence. This therefore leads to a conclusion that, leaders between 25-45 years of age have witnessed comparatively more emotional stability. Leadership behaviors, differs from culture to culture. However, in order to be an effective leader in the 21st century, then an individual need to understand the regional and ethnic cultural diversity for their working environment and cross cultural community workers. Leadership behavior must be adapted to the cultural variety as defined by the global context. This being the case, leaders are left with no option that to integrate their cognitive capabilities, leadership skills and cultural competences so as to effectively consider each members’ feelings and emotions during interactions (Cherniss 2010). Since emotions are authentic component of everyday work in any working environment, leaders EI competences could be an influential factor for predicting success in a culturally diverse workplace. In the same case, leader improves on their intercultural literacy, where they explore and understand other culture norm in terms of values, behavior and beliefs. Additionally, they deliberately structure relationships and social environments to increase the likelihood of productive and mutually beneficial relationships (Smollan & Parry 2011). In diversified culture, the leadership behavior change to comply with the culture in order to be effective. Emotional intelligence also is applied in this case for it involves the capacity to effectively express, understand and manage the emotions in a professional and effective manner at work. Personality which is a set of psychological traits and mechanisms within an individual organize and influence interaction with the adaptation to environment (Noordin et al 2011). It is a combination of attitude, emotion and behavior of an individual. Research depict that, emotional intelligence is a significant predator of personality trait extraversion, openness, agreeableness and neuroticism. Every leader has very unique personalities which are unseen characteristics and the process that underlie a relatively stable pattern of behavior in response to ideas. When confronted by an issue, different leaders will react differently and this is all correlated to their personalities. This is due to the fact that personalities affect the way one thinks, feel and bring about the same change. A leader’s personality can influence the performance of workers positively as well as negatively (Kaiser & Hogan 2011). The change that may be realized in the emotional intelligence and the leadership behavior of an individual is all determined by the different personality’s individuals have that determine their actions and behavior. Some have strong personalities and therefore can influence others to act and do things while others can even determine the way an organization behaves Conclusively, effective leadership is totally dependent on the leadership behavior, skills, attributes and values associated with the leader. Leadership behavior analyses what a leaders do with whatever personal traits, skills or motivational capacities in an organization. It is clear that leadership behavior reflects the extent to which a leader shows concern for subordinates’ satisfaction and well being. Additionally, behavior also reflects the level which a leader defines the roles of task, assigns subordinates to various task roles, controls their performance and provides feedback to these subordinates. Leadership behavior is divided into task oriented behaviors and relations oriented behaviors. Task oriented leadership behavior emphasize more about reaching goals and they help their employees achieve their goals by clearly defining roles, establishing goals and evaluation methods, give directions, setting timelines and showing how these goals can be achieved. Task oriented leadership behavior clarifies roles and objectives, monitoring individual performances and operations, and short term planning. On the other hand, relations oriented leadership behavior are those leaders who are more concerned with developing close interpersonal relationships through communication showing social and emotional support to workers. They demonstrate and understanding of employees problems. Effective leaders have high degree of emotional intelligence, IQ and technical skills, which when applied, results to leadership effectiveness. Emotional intelligence competencies such as confidence, self-awareness, transparency and empathy are crucial for the realization of effective leadership. Empathy for instance is important for transformational leaders who display individual consideration to followers. Leaders with emotional intelligence do put the needs of others way ahead of their needs and therefore it is used by transformational leaders for inspirational motivation. The leadership style used by an individual also determines their success. A leadership using democratic leadership style is said to have a smooth run in the organization where all are involved. A leader using this style actions are based on trust, integrity, honesty, equality, openness and mutual respect. The reason why this is one of the best styles is the fact that, leaders show consideration and concern of others by empathetic listening and understanding. The other one is Laissez Faire leadership where by a lead sets priorities and delegates tasks to others. When confronted by issues, the emotional intelligence and leadership behavior become dependent on the current situation. Conflicts, culture, age and personalities are prone to changes when the situations surrounding a leader demand so. Bibliography Abraham, A., 2006. The need for the integration of emotional intelligence skills in business education.. Business Renaissance Quarterly , 1 (3), pp. 65-79.. Anon., 2002. “Examining the relationship between leadership and emotional intelligence in senior level managers.”. Leadership Organiz. Devel. J., , , p. 68–79.. Avolio, B. J., Sosik, J. J., Jung, D. I., & Berson, Y., 2003. Leadership Models, Methods, and Applications. In W. C. Borman, D. R. Ilgen, & R. J. Klimoski (Eds.), . In: Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Noboken, NJ: : John Wiley & Sons., pp. 277-307. Barbuto, J. E. & Burbach, M. E., 2006. The emotional intelligence of transformational leaders: A field study of elected officials.. The Journal of Social Psychology 146(1), , p. 51‐64.. Cherniss, C., 2010. Emotional intelligence: toward clarification of a concept. Industrial and. Organizational Psychology ,, pp. 110-126.. Güth, W., Levati, V., Sutter, M. and van der Heijden, E., 2007. “Leading by Example with and without Exclusion Power in Voluntary Contribution Experiments.”. Journal of Public Economics, 91(5-6), pp. 1023-1042.. Komai, M., Stegeman, M. and B. Hermalin, 2007. “Leadership and Information.”. American Economic Review,, 97(3), pp. 944-947. Mandell, B., & Pherwani, S. , 2003. Relationship between emotoinal intelligence a transformational leadership style: A gender comparison.. Journal of Business and Psychology , 17 (3), pp. 387-404. Matthews, G., Roberts, R. D., & Zeidner, M., 2004. Seven myths about emotional intelligence.. Psychological Inquiry , , pp. 179-196.. Noordin Yahaya, Mohammad Aslan B Mohammad Taib, Jasmi Ismail, Zainudin Shariff Azizi Yahaya, Yusof Boon and Sharin Hashim, 2011. Relationship between leadership personality types and source of power and leadership styles among managers. African Journal of Business Management , , , 5(22), pp. 9635-9648 . Peter D. Harms & Marcus Credé, 2010. Emotional Intelligence and Transformational and Transactional Leadership: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies , 17(1), p. 5–17. Robert B. Kaiser & Joyce Hogan, 2011. PERSONALITY, LEADER BEHAVIOR,AND OVERDOING IT. American Psychological Association, 63(4), p. 219–242. Smollan, R., & Parry, K. , 2011. Follower perceptions of the emotional intelligence of change leaders. A qualitative study. Leadership , , 7 (4), pp. 435-462.. Van Rooy, D.L. and C. Viswesvaran, 2004. Emotional intelligence: A meta-analytic investigation of predictive validity and nomological net.. J. Vocat.Behav, Volume 65, pp. 71-95.. Read More