Leadership and a Charismatic Leader - Assignment Example

Leadership Essay Questions Leadership is the ability of management to induce subordinates to work towards group goals with confidence and keenness. Leadership also implies that the leader accepts responsibility for the achievement of the group objective and it is therefore essential for trust and co-operation from both sides to be in evidence all the time. 1. A Charismatic leader gets others to do things by giving them little scope to influence decisions. He uses his personality and personal traits to get his way. In contrast to transformational leadership, a charismatic leader inspires employees and motivates them through string of personal qualities. Charismatic leadership delegates authority and can exert great influence on the attitude and performance of the team through their personality and charm. They use body language and facial expressions in order to appeal to emotions of employees and persuade them in high commitment to work (Yukl, 2001). In contrast, transformational leadership is based on specific view of the future based on passion and energy. These leaders seek to persuade and consider the feelings of persons and encourage their participation in decision making. Great enthusiasm and energy of transformational leaders inspire employees to implement new changes and new goals into practice. The ability to motivate and inspire employees is a core for the transformational leader. In order to achieve optimal goals he/she takes into account: motivation, reward and commitment. In contrast to charismatic leaders "transformational leaders stimulate their followers' efforts "to be innovative and creative by questioning assumptions, reframing problems, and approaching old situations in new ways" (Stone, et al, 2004). 2. Fiedler's Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) Theory defines three basis of leadership: relationships, power and task. The core of this approach is to think of employees a leader works and than to score this employees on a range of scales including positive factors and negative factors. Fiedler distinguishes two types of LPC leaders: high and low leaders. It means that high LPC leaders score their employees positively while low LPC leaders see their subordinates more negatively. On these assumptions, Fiedler concludes that it is common for high LPC leaders to have positive relationships with employees and support them in achieving corporate goals while low LPC leaders do not support their subordinates putting takes and demanding the work will be done properly without personal participation. If leaders do not have good relations with employees, they can change the nature of communication with subordinates. In order to improve organizational performance, it is better to change the structure of tasks from unstructured to documented and controlled tasks if a leader is strong. Where relations between members and leader are good and the task basically unstructured and the power of the leader weak, his style should be more democratic and considerate. If the converse is the case, then a more authoritarian style would appear to be appropriate. (Fiedler's Least Preferred Co-worker, 2006). 3. In situational leadership sources of power are based on the subordinate's perception of the influence of the leader, whether it is real or not. For example, if a leader has the ability to control rewards and punishments but subordinates do not believe this, then in effect the leader has no reward or coercive power. It means that a person is able to adopt different leadership styles according to the situation faced by organizations. Transformational leader's power is based on the subordinate's perception of the leader as some one who is competent and who has some special knowledge or expertise in a given area. These qualities are extremely important if employees are not highly skilled and motivated. Leader's power is based on credibility and clear evidence of knowledge or expertise; for example, the knowledge of 'functional' specialists such as the personnel manager, management accountant or systems analyst. People are motivated when they expect that a course of action is likely to lead to the attainment of a goal and a valued reward - one that satisfies their needs. If employees are skilled and motivated, transformational leadership can use more informal style. It is reasonable to believe that strong commitment to work is likely to result in conscientious and self-directed application to do the job, regular attendance, nominal supervision and a high level of effort. If people show high commitment to work and motivation, a leader can follow democratic style (Yukl, 2001). 4. Change is necessary if an organization looses its competitive position on the market. This situation shows that previously adopted techniques and methods do not reflect changing environment and change process becomes inevitable. An organization can only perform effectively through interactions with the broader external environment of which it is part. The structure and functioning of the organization must reflect, therefore, the nature of the environment in which it is operating. Factors such as uncertain economic conditions, fierce world competition, the level of government intervention, scarcity of natural resources and rapid developments in new technology create an increasingly volatile environment. In order to help ensure its survival and future success the organization must be readily adaptable to the external demands placed upon it to compete on the market. The emphasis is on creating a more flexible open-minded organization, which is more receptive to change and where people can recognize the need for change and implement action themselves. The organization must be properly prepared to face the demands of a changing environment. A major source of resistance to change arises from the need of organizations to adapt to new technological developments (Senior, 2001). Change is difficult for employees and leadership because people are used to resist changes in their life because of selective perception of employees, possible loss of freedom, fear of unknown, feeling security in the past. Leadership has to foresee and determine causes of resistance to change and find solutions to overcome these negative attitudes towards innovations. To ensure operational effectiveness, organizations often set up defenses against change and prefer to concentrate on the routine things they perform well. The efforts made by management to maintain the balance of the socio-technical system will influence people's attitudes, the behavior of individuals and groups, and thereby the level of organizational performance and effectiveness. References 1. Fiedler's Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) Theory. (2006). Retrieved from http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/theories/fiedler_lpc.htm 2. Senior, B. (2001). Organizational Change. Capstone Publishing. 3. Stone, G.A., Russel, R.F., Patterson, K. (2004). Transformational versus servant leadership: a difference in leader focus. The Leadership & Organization Development Journal Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 349-361. 4. Yukl, G.A. (2001). Leadership in Organizations. Prentice Hall; 5 edn. Read More