Leadership Theory Approaches - Essay Example

First Institute Leadership Theory Introduction: On leadership, Warren Bennis had d, “the release and full use of an individual’s potential is the organization’s task” (Shrader, p.199). Leadership in contemporary organizations is more effective when leaders work in partnership with their people. Certainly, leadership has moved from ‘command-and-control’ role of judging and evaluating to a role of ensuring accountability through support, coaching, and cheerleading. All these are accomplished through situational leadership. Situational leadership is endured as an effective approach to managing and motivating people because it fosters a partnership between the leader and the people that the leader supports and depends upon. As Blanchard describes, situational leadership is not something that is done to people, but it is something done with people (p.60). Literature on Biblical context of leadership provides various views on leadership; it also recognizes that no specific leadership trait or style can be termed as best and should vary with the situation and according to the followers. This is explained through various laws of leadership in the Bible and with references to distinct spiritual personalities in Christianity. Upon extensive exploration of biblical context of leadership and after studying different leadership models and theories, it was found that situational leadership is most congruent with biblical context of leadership. The aspect of biblical leadership concept considered in the present discussion includes spiritual gifts possessed by leaders, as outlined by Borek, Lovett & Towns (p.174). This discussion evaluates how leaders tend to use or apply spiritual gifts in various situations. Further, effect of situational leadership has been illustrated through examples explained on the basis of impact of following situational leadership and the possible effects of not following this leadership. Contingency approach to leadership provides the best picture of leadership concept and is also the best way marker to anyone entering the leadership role. Immense debate on leadership traits and behaviors can be, to a large extent, answered by the contingency approaches modeled by various theorists. Daft (p.64) underpins the significance of contingency models by stating, ‘the effectiveness of leader behavior is contingent upon organizational situations.’ These approaches provide different methods of dealing with different situations. They incorporate different leadership styles in different situations. Daft explains, “Contingency means that one thing depends on other things, and for a leader to be effective there must be an appropriate fit between the leader’s behavior and style and the conditions in the situation” (p.64). Overall, contingency approach to leadership considers the leader’s style, traits, behavior and position; consideration of situation including tasks, structure, systems and environment is present; thirdly, this approach covers the needs, maturity, training and cohesion of team members. Of the various contingency approaches, Situational Leadership model is most appropriate and adaptable by any leader as per the situation. Daft states, ‘According to the situational theory, a leader can adopt one of four leadership styles, based on a combination of relationship (concern for people) and task (concern for production) behavior. The appropriate style depends on the readiness level of followers’ (p.71). The present context evaluates situational leadership theory proposed by Hersey and Blanchard, which was further developed to SLII. Application of appropriate leadership qualities based on the situation is something that makes the leadership role justified. Northouse (p.89) explains that situational leadership stresses that leadership is composed of both a directive and a supportive dimension, and that each has to be applied appropriately in a given situation. Situational leadership requires a thorough assessment of the members’ abilities and skills. Hersey and Blanchard’s situational leadership proposes that leaders need to use different leadership styles based on the readiness level of followers. Hersey and Blanchard explain, ‘Situational leadership is a process for developing people by providing effective leadership, over time, so that they can reach their highest level of performance. It is based upon a relationship between an individual’s development level (various combinations of competence and commitment) on a specific goal or task and the leadership style (various combinations of directive and supportive behavior) that the leader provides’ (Hersey & Blanchard, p.3). This model incorporates all four leadership styles, i.e., telling, selling, participating and delegating. Firstly, the leader requires commitment and ability to assess a situation and followers’ competence or readiness level to handle that situation/task. This assessment will provide a fair idea of which leadership style would suit best to handle the task in specific situation. Development/readiness level of individuals depends upon their competence and commitment. Competence comes from individuals’ education/training, experience, and practice with coaching. Commitment is the level of individuals’ motivation and confidence in relation to a specific goal or task, and is evident from behavior. Situational leadership model identifies four development levels namely, low readiness level or R1, where individuals are low on competence and high on commitment and are enthusiastic learners. Second is moderate readiness level or R2 where individuals are low on competence and commitment and are disillusioned learners. Thirdly, high readiness level or R3 where they have moderate to high competence and variable commitment, but are capable and cautious performers. The fourth level is very high readiness level or R4 at which individuals have high competence and high commitment because they are self-reliant on tasks and do not require any guidance or monitoring (Daft, 73). After diagnosis, leader will have to use flexibility in applying appropriate leadership style to suit the situation (development level). Situational leadership advocates application of four leadership styles namely, directing (S1), coaching (S2), supporting (S3) and delegating (S4). In this model, directing style is applied to individuals in the low readiness level (R1); selling or coaching style to individuals at moderate readiness level (R2); participating and supportive style to those at high readiness level (R3); and delegating style to individuals at very high readiness levels (R4). Although very simple, leaders need to be aware of sensitivity of these combinations because if incorrectly applied, then it could lead to disastrous outcomes. Biblical context of leadership: Situational leadership most aptly suits Biblical view of leadership for many reasons. A quote found in the Bible states, “I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things I will do unto them, and not forsake them.” (qtd. in Gill, 9) This quote clearly indicates how the ultimate spiritual leader wishes to lead His people. In many instances, the Bible reinforces the significance of followership than leadership (Gill, 11). In Christianity, spiritual leadership is considered to help people learn how to apply spiritual principles to various situations of life (Borek, Lovett & Towns, p.174). Borek et al. explain this by comparing Ezra’s approach to situational leadership components. In relation to Ezra, Blackaby explains to people stating, God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways (qtd.in Borek et al, p.179). Borek et al. further state, ‘At its highest, leadership consists of getting average people to work for you when they are under no obligation to do so (p.8). Borek et al point to a Chinese proverb: “He who thinks he leads when no one is following is just taking a walk.’ To this they add, ‘leadership is the art of changing a group from what it is to what it ought to be. Leadership is in part a function of group dynamics” (p.8-9). Spiritual leaders exhibit behaviors very similar to the ones explained in situational leadership. In the Biblical context, Borek et al (p.1) explain that leadership cannot be defined with specific behavior; different situations require different leadership and also depend upon the leaders’ personality and strengths as well as followers’ needs, problems, and motivation. Relating to the Biblical context of leadership, Borek et al. have outlined nine task-oriented elements that are used in the Christian ministry. These include, evangelism meaning communicating in the Biblical sense; prophecy, which means creative application of specific biblical truth to a particular problem, situation, or circumstance; teaching referring to coaching and guiding; exhortation referring to influence and align others towards a common vision; shepherding in the form of caring, supporting, and protecting; empathy through development of an understanding and building a connection; serving the individuals by giving all required sources and support; giving the individuals resources required such as financial and material resources; and administration of human, physical, and financial resources through planning, organizing, leading and controlling (p.11-13). Evaluation of situational leadership in biblical context: Situational leadership can be appropriately understood through the nine task-oriented spiritual gifts identified by Borek et al. All the nine spiritual gifts can be put into appropriate use in situational leadership approach. For example, leaders use evangelism to direct followers at the initial two stages, i.e, for enthusiastic beginners and disillusioned learners by persuading followers to follow a specific path for achievement of their goals. At this stage, the leaders also use their gift of teaching and exhortation, which will guide the naïve followers. They will also have to serve and give the followers all required resources and support to begin the tasks. During the first two readiness stages (R1 and R2), followers require more of learning opportunities, direction and feedback. As the followers move to higher readiness level (R3), their capabilities improve but have variable commitment. At this stage, their confidence needs to be improved because these individuals tend to be cautious, doubtful, insecure, and want to be more contributive to the tasks assigned. Here, leaders can use their gift of prophecy by providing more opportunities, tasks and/or situations to which these individuals at R3 can apply the knowledge and expertise gained from previous learning stages. At this stage, leaders also use shepherding abilities and empathy with individuals, which will provide support, guidance, encouragement, and appreciation. With experience and learning, individuals tend to move to the last readiness level (R4). At this stage, leaders can withdraw their guidance, coaching, monitoring aspects. At this stage, the leaders’ administrative abilities need to be put to use. At this level, individuals tend to become self-reliant on the task and would have developed high competence and commitment. Effective leadership at this stage would be to allow the individuals to work/act on their own while empowering them with responsibilities and affirming their abilities. Leaders need to acknowledge and constantly challenge the abilities of these individuals so that their competence and commitment is maintained. Impact of presence and absence of situational leadership in Organizational contexts: A classic example of situational leader is Jack Welch of General Electric. Though, Welch is regarded as a transformational and visionary leader, his leadership can be compared to situational leadership. His leadership traits are described in a variety of ways. Overall, Welch has exhibited situational leadership, which is clear through many of the initiatives, practices, policies that he implemented at General Electric. Instances of Welch’s directive leadership, coaching, supporting and delegating are well known. Welch’s leadership philosophy was based on energizing others and understanding their significance in the business. Welch once stated, ‘The world of the 1990s and beyond will not belong to ‘managers’ or those who can make the numbers dance. The world will belong to passionate, driven leaders-people who not only have enormous amounts of energy, but who can energize those whom they lead’ (qtd. in Shriberg, p.70). It is known that Welch involved his people in various activities and key decision making processes. He also encouraged people to come up with initiatives and appreciated them for their contribution. His four E’s concept i.e., “energy,” “energize,” “edge,” and “execute” was very powerful in exemplifying success traits such as “a good communicator,” “a team builder,” “energizes others,” “has infectious enthusiasm,” and “has fun doing it.” (Krames,p.39). Welch is known to have eliminated many bureaucratic levels at General Electric and ensured roles and responsibilities were clear for everyone. He also appointed few experienced leaders from outside who were able to take on responsibilities at the company without much guidance. He is known for empowering employees by delegating tasks and responsibilities; Welch expressed utmost faith in the abilities of his employees. Empowerment has contributed significantly to General Electric’s success. . GE’s major change came when Welch realized the huge potential tapped within his own organization in the form of his own people. Welch launched certain programs to motivate and encourage employees’ participation in decision-making, innovation, increased contribution to their jobs. Welch’s directive and authoritative management is evident from his decisions at the strategic business levels. Through these decisions, he directed managers towards critical business goals. By empowering them and encouraging innovation and participation, Welch improved their commitment and competence. Welch’s qualities as the leader of a team included openness and honesty; people connect; delegation; recognition and feedback; hang on to great team members (Temperton & Associates Ltd, p.3). Jack Welch also ensured knowledge transfer across various GE businesses through Corporate Executive Council (CEC) forums that were held exclusively for sharing ideas, best practices, and issues. Here, managers were asked to comment on how several company wide initiatives affected their businesses. The idea behind this activity was to provide a learning experience and a meaningful forum in which to exchange ideas (Slater, p.60). Welch provided sufficient opportunity for participation, learning, and motivation for employees at all levels. He introduced performance appraisal systems which proved to be very effective in evaluating people’s performance, analyzing their commitment and competence levels, and helped in providing feedback. The feedback process improved confidence and provided great support for the employees. In short, though Jack Welch’s leadership did not exactly follow the situational leadership model, as designed by Hersey and Blanchard, all the initiatives did play a significant role in improving the commitment and competence of employees. Various practices and concepts such as the 4Es, innovation, empowerment, performance appraisal and feedback did have impact similar to what Hersey and Blanchard described in their situational leadership model. Besides, these practices and initiatives allow leaders/managers to use all of the nine spiritual gifts outlined by Borek et al (179). On the contrary, the case of the failure of investment banking giant of the United States, Lehman Brothers leading to major economic loss, vast loss of jobs and loss of public investments is largely attributed to the leadership failure. Many factors, from a leadership perspective, have been accounted for Lehman brothers’ downfall that burst out by the end of 2008. These include lack of knowledge and information; lack of employee involvement and absence of empowerment; low motivation and commitment of employees; lack of alignment to goals; inappropriate human resource practices; and authoritative leadership (Kelly & Csorba, p.4). Resistance to change and innovation also cost this organization. Avoiding participation and partnering with employees was the culture at Lehman Brothers. Lack of trust in employees’ abilities was evident in top management’s actions of ignoring managers’ inputs, which further lowered commitment. In this organization, employees were managed in authoritative manner though the situation required other styles. Some managers at the top were highly talented and knowledgeable; but, these managers did not have the opportunity to take decisions or make changes in the system. Such an authoritative culture probably did not provide enough support and encouragement for other employees to come up with new ideas or methods of working. Leaders restricted themselves to the conventional methods of management, which resulted in downfall of the organization eventually. My leadership Based on the understanding obtained from situational leadership model and evaluation of its impact with respect to two different organizations, I have learnt about the gaps in my leadership style. This understanding has made it clear that my leadership style is more of delegating (S4) and directing (S1). Very often, I set goals and expect others to achieve them. Although my team receives formal training to accomplish the task, this training is not sufficient to achieve proficiency. I set specific targets for every activity and measure their performance on a monthly basis. I give less emphasis on monitoring and feedback process. This model has made me realize the reasons for two consistent groups of performers in my team, i.e. top performers and non performers. I need to monitor bottom performers more often. Besides communicating the goals and I also need to spend more time to understand the reasons for their non performance; help them with required including training, technical know-how, manuals etc. In comparison with the spiritual gifts, I tend to use evangelism, exhortation and administration aspects, all of which point to managing rather than leading. I should become more participative and encourage others to come up with innovative concepts which would improve performance and relationship within the team. I need to focus on improving competence levels by adopting coaching style and also provide all required sources for the team members to improve. Improved communication will help in improving understanding with the team members, which will also help in surfacing any hidden issues. This will help in partnering with the team and in establishing a mutual understanding with every team member. Besides gaining an understanding on the gaps in my leadership style, I have also understood how it affects the team members with respect to their readiness level. By adopting situational leadership model, I will be able to assess my team members’ readiness level in every task. This model clearly indicates the significance of commitment and skill level. Varying commitment and competence are very dangerous for the team and the organization. As a leader I should constantly strive to achieve consistency in commitment and competence of team members, which again vary with situations. Concluding with Blanchard’s concept of leadership, leaders and organizations need to accept the significance of people in their organization. To achieve and sustain organizational goals, leaders need to lead in the right manner. Right manner is decided by the situation and/or readiness level of the followers to which leaders need to change their style of leading. Biblical concept of leadership advocates for people perspective than leader perspective; to achieve this, leaders are gifted with special qualities that need to be applied as appropriate to the situation. Works cited Blanchard, Ken. Leadership Partnering for Performance. (Ed) Segil, Larraine, Marshall Goldsmith, and James Belasco. In Partnering: The New Face of Leadership. New York: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn, 2002. Becoming a Great Leader. Temperton & Associates Ltd. Issue twenty eight, 2007. Retrieved online from http://www.temperton.co.nz/dynamicdata/accounting_newsletters/Become_a_Great_Leader_28.pdf Daft, Richard. The leadership experience. 4th Ed. OH: Cengage Learning, 2007. Gill, Roger. Theory and practice of leadership. London: SAGE, 2006. Kelly, Kevin and Les T Csorba. Leadership matters. Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc., 2009. Retrieved online from, http://www.heidrick.com/PublicationsReports/PublicationsReports/LeadershipMatters.pdf Hersey, Paul and Blanchard, Ken. The Article, Situational Leadership II. CA, USA: The Ken Blanchard Companies, 2001. Item # 13526. V020101. Retrieved online from, http://wed.siu.edu/faculty/BPutnam/566/Situational_Leadership_Article.pdf Krames, Jeffrey A. What The Best Ceos Know: 7 Exceptional Leaders and their Lessons for Transforming any Business. NY: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2005. Northouse, Peter Guy. Leadership: Theory and Practice. 5th Ed. CA, USA: SAGE, 2009. Shrader, Ralph. Global People Strategy. (Ed) Cohen, Ed and Tom Rath. In Leadership Without Borders: Successful Strategies from World-Class Leaders. Singapore: John Wiley and Sons, 2007. Slater, Robert. Jack Welch on Leadership. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional. Shriberg, Arthur. Practicing Leadership Principles and Application. 4th Ed. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2010. Read More