Leadership in Contemporary Organisations - Assignment Example

Name: Subject & Code: Tutor: Date: Leadership in Contemporary Organisations Part 1 Question 1: Fiedler’s theory hypothesises that people tend to be effective depending on their existing situations. According to the theory, a leader’s situational control is guided by three elements: positioning power, leader/follower relations, and work structure. When leaders place the right employees in the right kind of work or favourable situations, the employees perform work optimally. Leaders with low LPC scores (or who are task-oriented), tend to be effective, in spite of whether the factors are favourable or not. Also, they tend to act more assertively. On the other hand, leaders with high LPC scores (or who are relations-oriented) tend to be effective when the three elements exist: positioning power, leader/follower relations, and work structure. Leaders should create a good relationship with workers, and structure the work at hand to make the situation favourable. Leaders should avoid having low-quality relations with employees. For instance, if a company’s CEO can control the tasks to be undertaken, as well as leader-led situations, and has power, he or she can create a favourable leadership environment. Question 2: Leaders can change their leadership styles depending on the skills of the followers, as well as their abilities, motivations and needs. The Hershey-Blanchard model suggests that there is no single effective leadership style, and that since leaders handle subordinates with different levels of maturity, effective leaders should flexibly adjust their leadership styles depending on the maturity of the followers. This happens once the confidence and the ability of subordinates are determined. This may be determined by evaluation of the employee’s work, assessment of his level of experience through an interview, as well as his educational and professional qualifications. For instance, when an employee has a low level of competency or skills needed for a given assignment, the leader may have to coach the employee or provide additional training to improve the employee’s abilities and work performance. In case the employee is self-centred, the leader may have to provide additional monetary rewards to motivate the employee. Question 6: A charismatic leader is a leader who builds a magnetic self-image so influential that followers become naturally drawn to the leader. Accordingly, a leader exhibits extraordinarily desirable traits and significant expertise. Charismatic leadership is good since a charismatic leader sells the vision and mobilizes followers towards the organisational objectives. He also enables the followers to realise their potential. A charismatic leader is inspiring, as his positive nature and character draw people to him. For instance, when followers admire the traits of a charismatic leader, they become motivated to practice the same traits. A charismatic leader also drives results. For instance, they can drive people to willingly go the extra mile, or even make extraordinary services to attain some objective. An example is Hitler’s influence on the Nazis to compromise their morals by killing the Jews. However, charismatic leadership is bad, as it causes the followers to stifle their values and beliefs. The followers also tend to lose their identity. Question 8: Servant-leadership is a leadership model where the leader applies a service-oriented and supportive approach to influence followers. It places emphasis on increasing service to followers, assuming a holistic approach to work, encouraging a sense of community and facilitating power-sharing during decision-making. The key features of servant-leadership entail active listening to followers, creating awareness, empathy, foresight, and persuasion. It is an appropriate approach in leading followers, specifically when there is a need to build the competency of skills of the followers to ensure successful project outcomes. It is also crucial when there is a need to mobilise a project team by enhancing their human resource skills. For instance, when project managers need to increase the skills and competencies of the project team, he will need to set examples where he works alongside the team, practices active listening to the team’s concerns, understands their situations, empathises with them and builds a sense of community. Question 10: The Vroom-Jago contingency model provides a framework for the analysis of the degree to which participation of subordinates in making decisions influences the quality and accountability of the decisions. It is concerned with deciding, consulting individually, consulting group, facilitating decision, and delegating. Several situational factors influence the degree of dependability of the outcome of autocratic or participative approach in decision-making. When the decision needs an optimal employee commitment to implement it, then a high level of participation by the employees is necessary. In such circumstances, a greater degree of participation by the subordinates will increase the accountability and quality of the decision. The level of accountability and quality of the decision also depends on time constraints. Here, a leader weighs between the relative significance of time or participation, in selecting whether to involve other participants in the decision-making. For instance, when fast and high-quality decision is needed, which would lead to waste of time by involving subordinates, higher level of participation would reduce the quality of the decision, despite increasing the level of accountability. Part 2 Question 2: Leader as Social Architect The 21st Century has proved to be unpredictable era and organisational leaders who must effectively lead have to be the social architects of their organisations, as well as design systems for unfailing high performance. Despite the existing volatility of the modern-day organisational environment, it could be argued that leaders in contemporary organizations can still be social architects when they apply Fiedler’s theory, Path Theory and Hershey-Blanchard model. Leaders who are social architects are capable of anticipating and envisioning the future, maintaining flexibility, thinking strategically and working with other individuals to set off organisational changes that facilitates realisation of competitive advantage. Fiedler’s theory postulates that employees tend to be effective depending on their existing situations. According to the theory, a leader’s situational control is guided by three elements: positioning power, leader/member relations, and task structure. This implies that it is possible for modern-day leaders to be social architects when they place the right employees in the right kind of work or favourable situations, as this would increase their effectiveness. According to the Hershey-Blanchard model, leaders should apply their leadership styles depending on the skills of the followers, as well as their abilities, motivations and needs. The theory specifies that there is no single effective leadership style. The theory can be complemented by the Path Theory, which suggests that leaders choose a style that takes into perspective the features of the subordinates as well as the demands of the work. Both the Path Theory and the Hershey-Blanchard model lay grounds for modern day leaders as they provide leadership styles that align with the subordinates’ levels of maturity, skills and competencies, as well as the demands of the tasks. Therefore, based on the Hershey-Blanchard model, modern-day leaders can assign tasks based on the skills of the employees, hence enabling the workers to attain their responsibilities. Indeed, it is among the concerns of the social architecture to direct people towards attaining the objectives. As a social architect, a modern day CEO creates a culture where organizational objectives surpass results. Consequently, the workers assumed a shortcut mindset where they suppose that a new line of business or product will provide a means to an end. A leader can be a social architect once they have a full understanding of the organization and get to influences the way it operates. Accordingly, the leader delineates the organisational cultures and influences the manner in which employees think and act. Basically, since the cultures form the lenses through which meaning is derived, it also forms the medium through which leaders express their vision. Indeed, as a social architect, a fundamental task of a leader would be to influence people’s actions towards the vision for the organisation’s future. Social Architects influence the manner in which followers act, although not in a domineering manner. To become social architects, modern-day CEOs should use the democratic leadership model, which enables them to have a high respect for human capital. In this way, they become eager to listen and motivate the employees to grow. They should also avoid authoritarian leadership, which characterized the 20th century. Ultimately, they build a healthy relationship for human development, as well as the profit-motive. Social architects develop an organization that facilitates change. Modern-day CEOs can achieve this by understanding the kinds of employees they have, as well as how they can respond effectively. Social Architects should also have sufficient understanding of how the organization operates as well as actions that take place within the organisation. In this respect, the modern-day leaders should create the understanding and implementation of change, they should create commitment to values that favour change, serve as change agents, as well as reward and reinforce desirable behaviours Still, it is possible to have a leader who is a dysfunctional social architect, and who distracts everyone from his or her most important tasks and core business. As social architects, 21st-century leaders also align systems intended for accomplishing primary objectives. All the leadership models they employ are intended to align people, either directly or indirectly. Still, ineffective CEOs who are incapable of being social architects depend on psychological textbooks to decide how they should control their followers. A case in point is Theory X and Theory Y, which generalizes how to motivate employees. According to Theory X, most employees are lazy and would find work objectionable and would always want to avoid work whenever possible. Therefore, these kinds of people need to be controlled or provided with direction. Conversely, Theory Y postulates that controlling or threatening workers is not necessary since people are not naturally lazy and are willing to work. Relying on Theory X and Theory Y to generalize how to motivate the workforce would make the contemporary organizational leaders less of social architects. Indeed, theories generalizing across all demographics are intrinsically defective. It is possible for the leaders of contemporary organizations to be social architects when they avoid such theories, as there is no single person globally for which Theory X and Theory Y can be applied to all the time. Additionally, the two theories cannot be applied universally. Therefore, contemporary leaders who need to be social architects should avoid generalizing a negative external experience inside the organization, as this may lead to a culture that fails to adapt effectively to change. To conclude, the 21st Century has become increasingly volatile. Leaders in contemporary organizations can still be social architects when they apply Fiedler’s theory and Hershey-Blanchard model. This enables them to be flexible enough to develop systems that assist the employees to manage change in the contemporary society. Read More