Analyzer and Director Types of Leaders - Essay Example

Running head: Leadership Styles Student’s name Institution Course Professor Date Leadership Leadership can be defined from different viewpoints. It can simply be defined as the ability by a leader to use clout, power, influence and genuine authority to enable them to successfully change establishments through harnessing its human potential for the accomplishments of objectives. Dubrin (2008:334) defines leadership as the process of guiding and motivating others toward the achievement of organizational goals or the ability to inspire both support and confidence within a group of persons needed to achieve goals of an organization. It is a fundamental aspect of management alongside planning, organizing and controlling. Leadership is also defined as impacting cooperation with an objective of achieving desired set of goals in an environment where leaders influence followers in such a way that they voluntarily achieve business goals. (Taleghani, Salmani & Taatian, 2010:108). Kano (2012:2) suggests leadership as the means of stimulating the actions of others so as to accomplish objectives in any situation. Leadership can also imply the means of societal stimulus whereby an individual calls on other’s hand and aid for the purposes of achieving common goal. The concept of leadership can be examined through the mirror of its styles, especially as regards business and more so, entrepreneurs. According to Darling & Leffel (2010), scholars broadly agree on two shared aspects in individual behavior. These are responsiveness and assertiveness which focus on how a person reacts to situations. Individual interactive differences have interested humans over time and scientists have examined different personal styles and modeled interactive differences with a numerous mix of personalities. Human observation and feedback enables identification of shared leadership styles in individuals (Gabrielson, Darling & Seristo, 2008:238-239). The model that has been predominantly utilized over time concentrates its efforts in four different styles namely: “Analyzer, Director, Creator, and Connector”. An individual’s shared style is inherent, unique and influenced by various factors. Analyzers are individuals who are logical; Directors are pragmatic and focused but stubborn; Creators are innovative, like to take risks and opportunities while Connectors are motivating and cooperative individuals. Considering the above statement, it is confident to say that diverse combination of factors is bound to make a leader either effective or ineffective and that difference lies in the ability of a business leader or entrepreneur to precisely and expertly create a balance of their leadership styles. This entails thinking, interacting, communicating and adjusting to their teams and being able to grow mutually supportive and beneficial sharing that promotes team effort (Darling & Leffel, 2010:358-359). When teamwork is incorporated into leadership, multiple roles are played by various team members at different times with a lot of individual effort contribution. (Harris, P. & Harris, K., 1996:27).Therefore, individual flexibility makes all the difference between success and failure for the team leader. Nonetheless, it is only prudent to carefully examine different characteristics of leadership styles considering none of them exhibit exclusive characteristics but a hybrid before doing any comparisons or drawing contrasts. The basis for leadership styles depends on groupings of diverse actions that individuals portray in interactive environments. Assertiveness and responsiveness are the benchmarks for determining if a leader is an Analyzer, Creator, Connector or Director. Therefore, persons who are less assertive and less responsive are considered to be an Analyzer leader. These are leaders who prefer deliberately systematic and precise methods to their responsibilities. They are therefore more likely to collect and carefully study data before taking action. They are also objective, industrious and organized. Such leaders end up in careers that value these traits and these include accounting, law and engineering and finance (Darling & Leffel, 2010: 359).Helmut Panke, of the BMW brand is an example of such a leader. Panke as head of control and planning, turned around company fortunes in the nineties as he insisted on perfecting the car brand and eventually BMW overtook Mercedes as a luxury brand (Karlgaard, 2013). Leaders who are assertively strong while being responsively weak emotionally are considered to be Director Leaders. They are clear in their expressions, work and results oriented, practical and objective. They are firm, confident decisive and take risks. Such individuals easily fit into authoritative roles within establishments. However, they are also impatient which predisposes them to conflicts. Military leaders fit this bill as their role demands of their direction. Military structures propagate this kind of leadership and most successful leaders in military have employed this style of leadership. Cuba’s Fidel Castro is a good example considering his success in spite of tough sanctions that would have crippled Cuban economy (Kolditz, 2009). On the other hand, Creator leaders regularly adopt new and original methods in handling issues to do with leadership. They are also more likely to take risks so as to exploit emerging opportunities. At the same time, Creator leaders are persuasive, outgoing, optimistic, charming, inspiring and motivating. These traits attract them to careers in art and design, sales and advertising and entertainment. Sir Richard Branson best exemplifies this style. Through high-risk ventures like Virgin Galactic and employee freedom within the Virgin brand, he has styled himself as predominantly creative in his style of leadership (Gallo, 2012). Similarly, leaders classified as Connector types are empathic team members with a knack for stability as opposed to risk-taking. These individuals more often end up in teaching, nursing, counseling and human management roles. They dislike change and will often avoid direct confrontations (Darling & Leffel, 2010: 361-362). Nurses and nurse managers by nature of their work requires them to actively develop these style of leadership. One must be empathic and cannot afford to take risks with patients and only leaders who can effectively harness these traits are able to be effective (Lanette, 2012). These diverse leadership styles can be utilized in synergy to efficiently manage organizations especially in present day business environments. Change is certain in life and adapting to change determines survival or death. While leadership styles have their advantage and disadvantages, utilizing them in a synergetic manner can allow businesses to effectively adjust to change. Effective leaders and subsequently companies portray versatility and flexibility which allow for adaptation of behavior to the shifting demands put on them (Cass et al., 2008:55). It is prudent to consider use of leadership styles as a combination of the four leadership styles mentioned. However, it is also not practical for an individual to perfectly create a balance of the four leadership styles for various reasons. It is therefore prudent to incorporate as much as a leader can practically do in carving their niche in business. Weighing on the characteristics of Analyzer and Director Types of leaders, one can compare the two styles of leadership and establish a working relationship. Considering both Analyzer and Director Leaders are bound to be objective, they can therefore easily complement each other. These two styles of leadership exhibit opposite degrees of assertiveness and should be able to complement each other on that level. Typically, they will find comfort in similar paces of executing duties while being objective. However, Director Leaders are bossy and therefore serve to guide the Analyzer leaders and give direction to business processes. Analyzers, on the other hand, are careful to study situations before taking action. These may provide a source of conflict with Director Leaders as they are highly responsive and therefore impatient. Effective management of arising conflict is a balance that these two leadership styles can strike and be able to produce excellent results through making adjustments to accommodate opposites to their traits. They are also able to complement each other through their divergent strengths and weaknesses such that one is the check and balance for the other. Through emerging conflicts in merging these two different styles, change is initiated through meaningful clash of ideas and viewpoints, which in turn leads to business success. Diligent management of arising conflicts in different leadership styles ensures better results for business. Chen (2011:72) argues that people have diverse backgrounds and consequently diverse thoughts, value systems and behaviors. When the same individuals work together in same environments, they sometimes act based on their inherent qualities, subsequently leading to conflict. Creator leaders and connector leaders offer an example of contrasting types of leadership based on that argument. Considering Creator leaders are highly assertive and love risk-taking while Connector leaders are cautious and prefer stable environments, these divergent traits set the stage for conflict. This is likely to negatively impact businesses as it slows down achievement of set targets or goals. Connector leaders dislike change while Creator leaders prefer to chart new paths. A combination of the two therefore leads to loss of opportunities for business. Connectors are emphatic and seldom at their best in confrontational situations while Creator leaders are outgoing and persuasive. These opposing traits do not present an ideal situation for sharing of ideas and therefore little can be gained from their interaction, thus limiting opportunities for business growth. These two leadership styles are therefore conflicting in traits constituting them and are a recipe for conflict in business environments. However, effective relationships can be struck if both types of leaders choose to flex their styles by simply adjusting their assertive and responsive levels. This entails being sensitive to another individual’s ways of communicating and associating, adapting personal behavior, monitoring the interactions and giving feedback to each other. These should be executed on the basis of honesty and respect while managing conflicts (Darling & Walker, 2001). Analyzer style of leadership can be said to be least effective of the four methods mentioned by Darling & Leffel (2010). This style of leadership is least assertive and responsive and therefore not suitable for business leadership. Analyzer types of leaders believe strongly in themselves at the expense of accommodating other styles of leadership. They are therefore least capable of merging leadership styles or even make adjustments to their positions so as to accommodate others which make them ineffective. Klepper (2010:41) point out that when Director Leaders are unable to handle change strategies, businesses fail and this call for input from Analyzer leaders, who emphasize structured change. They therefore render themselves ineffective as are rigid and fail to act on emerging opportunities. They are sticklers for quality which sometimes becomes a burden for companies when they devoted extra time and effort to low- priority tasks at the expense of more important things. Thus to improve their efficiency, they should not let careful study and analysis of facts to hinder them but act fast on decisions (Darling & Walker, 2001). All in all, the four leadership styles as mentioned by Darling & Leffel (2010) are diverse in their characteristics and each is bound to either constructively engage or conflict with the other depending on the compromises made to establish a balance. Leadership styles must therefore make adjustments that constructively promote synergy in any organization. Leaders make use of different styles in different situations so as to get the best out of businesses and the people they work with such that Director Style of leadership is vital and expected in emergency situations but might not be appropriate in other situations. Klepper (2010:33-43) suggest that business ought to examine their stages and cycles and appropriately engage different leaders’ capabilities for various stages involved. Businesses keep evolving and business leaders must adjust their styles to meet company demands. According to Sheard & Kakabadse (2007:529) dependency within groups of leaders is a product of their individual independence. Therefore, leaders have to be self- independent regardless of their leadership styles for them to effectively contribute in a collaborative effort and achieve desired objectives in any given organization. Businesses ought to be involved in creating synergies between different leadership styles to ensure growth and progress. Focus should be on creating interactive communications through complimenting of leadership styles whereby individual strengths compensate weaknesses of another. Styles of leadership ought to familiarize with shifting dynamics of a constantly evolving business atmosphere that is characterized by technological innovations, demographic diversities and the ever-shifting global economy. References Cass, A., Shaw, B. F. & LeBlanc S. (2008). 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