Leadership Values, Attitudes and Behaviours - Essay Example

? Critical evaluation of leadership values, attitudes and behaviours and their impact on others and the organisation BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE HERE Critical evaluation of leadership attitudes, values and behaviours and their impact on others and the organisation Introduction Today’s organisation requires development of competent leaders in order to gain commitment and dedication from internal staff members, which is a significant break from traditional management models in which employees are viewed as merely resources that can be aligned with strategic objectives as a means to maximise efficiency and productivity in the operational model. Leadership, unlike management, is about identifying with the intangibles of human behaviour and attitude and attempting to apply empathetic and considerate policies and procedures to improve interpersonal relationship development and to facilitate individual development, thus improving human capital advantages within the organisation, through such practices as coaching and mentoring. Having provided an understanding of leadership and its primary definition, it should be reinforced that only a reflective leader is one that will consistently improve and be able to identify with the diverse psychological, sociological, and tangible needs of employees as it pertains to their role within the organisation. One methodology of ensuring reflection as ongoing, cyclical practice is the 360 degree feedback system, a process of engaging multiple stakeholders to provide meaningful feedback about attitude, behaviour and performance of a peer or subordinate to give a broader and more accurate view of where an individual requires development or improvement. It is through the 360 degree feedback system that a person who legitimately desires to be an effective and respected leader gains the most valuable knowledge about where their individual strengths and weaknesses lie. This project examines the relevancy of the 360 degree feedback mechanism and its practical application to reflective practice as a competent leader within the organisation. Through consultation with appropriate research literature and established models of reflection, I am able to establish a framework for effective and productive leadership by identifying my own strengths and weaknesses in leadership. This project attempts, based on research findings and personal reflection, to establish a best practice model of leadership through engagement with multi-rater feedback processes that can provide benefit to the organisation and its staff population. Nature of current leadership agenda The NHS has established a quality agenda that underpins success for health care professionals. According to the NHS, this includes “lifelong learning for health professionals and modern systems of professional self-regulation” (NHS 2012, p.2). Quality, as it pertains to leadership development, therefore involves being able to continuously improve and engage in reflective practice to improve health care delivery and reduce variations that impact quality of care. The NHS recognises that effective and competent leadership is a fundamental aspect of building efficiencies and productivity in health care delivery and building capacity for quality outputs. Before establishing a competency framework for effectual leadership practices, it is necessary to define leadership at its foundation. “A leader is one who selects, equips, trains, and influences one or more follower(s) who have diverse gifts, abilities, and skills and focuses the follower(s) to the organization’s mission and objectives causing the follower(s) to willingly and enthusiastically expend spiritual, emotional, and physical energy in a concerted coordinated effort to achieve the organizational mission and objectives” (Winston and Patterson 2006, p.7). By this definition, a competency framework for leadership development is achievable, through first understanding that leadership is about maintaining influence to engage stakeholder behavioural changes or improvements, utilising a diverse basket of strategies to gain commitment and motivation to achieve positive outcomes within the organisation. In order to gain such commitment and influence enthusiastic responses, establishment of a cohesive culture dedicated to achieving the aforementioned mission and vision goals becomes an imperative. According to Fairholm (2009) leaders must be visionary, informing, and establish regular communication systems that can not only coach employees, but also establish reciprocal relationships that ultimately build trust in the leader and the organisation. It should be recognised that organisations such as the NHS have stringent quality standards that absolutely require competency in leadership to attain NHS mission goals. The NHS is an organisation that operates within an ever-changing dynamic, stemming from both internal stakeholders and the external environment. Thus, an effectual competency framework of leadership for the NHS involves being able to reduce change resistance, build eagerness about the change policy or practice, and promote individualised creativity as part of a shared decision-making experience that maintains the potential to provide a type of emotional nourishment to the organisational staff members by allowing them to engage in continuous improvement efforts in the organisational model. An effective measurement tool of the validity and relevancy of competency in leadership is best provided by the 360 degree feedback system. By engaging multiple stakeholders to critically evaluate the performance, attitudes, and volition of leaders, it forces the individual being evaluated to analytically pause for self-reflection to identify key areas that require development or improvement. “Employees view performance information from multiple sources as being fair, accurate, credible and motivating and they are more likely to be motivated to change their habits” (Edwards and Ewen 1996, p.27). This is because, as supported by many models of psychology, receipt of esteem from others assists in building confidence and establishes the type of social belonging necessary for positive cultural development within the organisational context. The NHS is an organisation where total commitment by the entire organisational culture is necessary to achieve the type of quality best practice outcomes demanded by this rigorous organisational model inundated with continuous change needs and practices. This commitment is often bolstered through the utilisation of the 360 degree feedback system. The 360 degree feedback method As an appropriate appraisal mechanism, the 360 degree feedback system is able to provide more meaningful and relevant feedback about leadership (or other stakeholder) performance and quality. Using traditional appraisal systems is often inefficient as feedback stems from only a single source, thereby introducing opportunities for bias. At the same time, single source appraisals often lack the depth and breadth of evaluation criteria that is more properly established when multiple sources examine the leader’s strengths and weaknesses. According to Luthans and Peterson (2003), the 360 degree method completely enhances self-awareness in the individual being rated and provides a more encouraging template of this self-evaluation by opening a unique type of dialogue to understand what behaviours are actually triggering either negative or positive feedback. Strengths of the 360 degree feedback process include sociological outcomes, such as building a more cohesive organisational culture since the 360 degree feedback system forces development of social capital throughout the entire organisation. Perceived accuracy of the rating as opposed to traditional appraisal systems also better engages the individual being evaluated to find justice in their evaluation process which can ultimately lead to minimised change resistance. Weaknesses of this method include the over-abundance of feedback-related information provided when utilising multiple stakeholders in the process (DeNisi and Griffin 2001). Oftentimes, it also becomes complicated to segregate or reconcile self-ratings from those provided by many stakeholders which sometimes requires implementation of a feedback coach to help the individual being evaluated to cope with ratings when they return significantly inferior to self-ratings (DeNisi and Griffin). Organisations such as the NHS, which maintains many employees, may not be able to cost-effectively assign a feedback coach for this purpose, therefore the quality of communications about how to improve may be conflicted by budget restraints. Outside of budget-related issues, if the individual being rated simply does not agree with the quality of feedback provided when it conflicts with their own self-evaluations, there may be no way to rectify the potential psychological damage created by negative assessments indicating a legitimate need for leader improvement. It cannot be understated the importance of reflection when utilising the 360 degree feedback system, as the individual must have some form of intrinsic motivation to accept that they need development or improvement. An effective and quality leader, according to Kouzes and Posner (1995) must challenge the status quo. Individuals that maintain very high and unrealistic self-evaluations that conflict with actual feedback provided by multiple stakeholders may have emotionally-based problems in challenging their own complacency or unrealistic, sometimes egotistical view of the self. This is why models of reflection are important in facilitating growth in emotional maturity to genuinely examine what attitudes or behaviours might be impractical in order to become a more effective and productive leader. Without adopting some type of reflective model, it is likely the leader will not want to face the harsh reality that they require improvement in more than one area. Therefore, outside of many other important benefits of reflection, one of the most important is that it builds a form of emotional intelligence within the individual being rated that is a critical foundation for effective leadership prowess. Getting to the truth of deficiencies requires inherent desire that can be facilitated using a quality feedback model such as the 360 degree system. Reflection Having attempted to establish the competency frameworks for leadership, the NHS organisation, and the role of the 360 degree feedback system in facilitating continuous improvement, it is possible to determine the role of reflection in providing guidance for effective leadership. Figure 1 illustrates an appropriate reflection model to assist in cyclical improvement processes for leaders. Figure 1 – Atkins and Murphy (1994) Model of Reflection Source: Atkins, S. and Murphy, K. (1994). Reflective practice, Nursing Standard, 8(39), pp.49-56. This model provides opportunities for improving leaders’ emotional intelligence, as it tends to force the reflecting party to examine their emotional state, coming to grips with difficult sensations or experiences that might otherwise be overlooked or negated. This model actually applauds challenging of the status quo, one of the aforementioned imperatives of quality leadership, by seeking and evaluating the opinion and emotional states of others throughout the organisation. Once the individual is able to be honest about their own feelings, they can come up with creative solutions and contingencies as part of their development process. Why, however, is this particular model of reflection provided by Atkins and Murphy (1994) so critical to understanding how to become a better leader with the emotional intelligence needed to produce effective leadership outcomes? It is because in order to fulfil the NHS agenda for strict compliance to quality guidelines, leaders must be able to motivate adopting and assistance when change occurs in this dynamic environment. Bridges (1991) describes change as a transition, one in which complicated psychological influences and processes are at play in the minds of many different organisational stakeholders. An effective leader attempting to promote change within the organisation will not, based on theoretical knowledge, be able to gain commitment and support without appealing to the emotional states of stakeholders. Grieves (2010) supports that change must always be negotiated in the organisation in order to gain commitment and loyalty. Negotiation typically involves some sort of psychological exchange between organisational stakeholders founded on interpersonal relationship development. Many in the organisation will resist change if they find discomfort with the process or it does not satisfy their esteem needs or belonging needs. Therefore, there absolutely must be an emotional exchange (to some degree) between leader and stakeholder to influence dedication. Reflection provides the foundation for this type of development whereby the leader and the other stakeholder get in touch with their psychological needs and desires by getting to the root of what is making them feel uncomfortable or unrealistically over-confident about their own competencies. Utilising findings uncovered in the Clinical Leadership Competency project, my strong propensity to speak openly and candidly when perceived ethical violations have occurred tends to underpin my ability to effectively engage others and help them to reflect on their own deficiencies in this area. I have a great deal of respect for the culture and beliefs of others and this often translates into how I choose to approach these incidents. For example, there is a theory known as ethical relativism, a belief that there is no concrete definition of what actually constitutes wrong versus right behaviour and that we, as society or the organisation, should be tolerant of differing ethical and moral positions even if they conflict with our own (Blackford 2010; Swoyer 2003). At the same time, Grieves (2010) reminds us that in order to build creativity in others and reduce resistance to change, conflict rather than consensus should be the goal of an effective leader in the organisation. It would not make logical sense to attempt to impose my own set of ethical and moral values on other stakeholders, as their own conceptions on these attitudes and behaviours might be radically different from those I attempt to impress. This can create the aforementioned uncomfortable feelings that are often difficult to resolve, especially when utilising a 360 degree feedback system and results are significantly inferior to their own self-evaluations on ethical and moral behaviours. I choose, instead, to not directly address the specific stakeholder of these ethical violations having an understanding of the complex psychological or sociological problems that can occur when attempting to impose relative ethical or moral guidelines on others. It was only through reflection provided in the model by Atkins and Murphy (1994) that I was able to come to the emotionally-intelligent conclusion that there are alternative methods of addressing perceived ethical violations to establish a better negotiation process rather than demanding ethical compliance to my own value systems. Since the goal of effective leadership is to establish a cohesive organisational culture dedicated to meeting mission and vision goals, as well as strategic operational goals, I must remember the concept of ethical relativism and how this can deeply impact the psychological state of others. It was, again, only through reflection that I realised I had a tendency to inflate my own self-ratings as part of satisfying my own ego-centric values of competency. When I received the feedback from the assigned stakeholders in the Competency project, it illustrated to me that I might be a bit proud and unrealistic about my own talents and their lack of developmental improvement needs. As is illustrated by the model by Atkins and Murphy (1994), in order to improve, one must understand what creates negative emotions and really describe the key events that led to these complicated feelings. Those who rated me lower as it pertains to my own, intrinsic desire to seek out feedback led to many difficult emotional responses that, without reflection, would have gone unresolved and unrecognised. This is why the 360 degree feedback system and reflective practices coincide with one another to fully grasp one’s own developmental needs and take ownership of their categorisation and change. Thus, it should definitely be said that my own values and principles differ from many other stakeholders and this is knowledge I held before understanding the relevancy and reliability of the reflective process. However, the reflective model that represents cyclical, ongoing change and self-improvement showed me areas I had not previously considered as being influential or important that mould and guide much of my behaviours as a leader. By having a fair and balanced system of appraisal like the 360 degree mechanism, it showed me that my emotional intelligence was not as well-developed as I originally thought and, since the evaluations occurred, I am more aware of my intrinsic motivations and emotional challenges that have now created a better system of self-evaluation necessary to achieve positive gains in interpersonal relationship development and organisational culture development. Critical analysis Clearly, my strengths, after assessing all learning that has occurred today and during the Clinical Leadership Competency project, include having a better understanding of how my emotional state impacts my decision-making. Previously, I was unaware that I was driven by motives associated with the need for esteem from colleagues and also had an unrealistic self-view of my overall abilities as a competent leader. Den Hartog et al. (1999) reminds the organisational environment that cultural groups radically differ in their interpretation of effective leadership. Some cultures believe that a decisive leader with aggressive tendencies should be respected and revered, whilst other cultures strongly reject non-consensual organisational environments (Den Hartog et al. 1999). It is necessary, I have learned, for a quality-minded leader to examine what type of culture exists within the organisational model to determine the most effective strategies to gain commitment and reduce risks of change resistance. The NHS, as a relevant example, is a highly bureaucratic organisation, however at the same time it is one that promotes change and engagement with multiple internal stakeholders. This makes this organisation a significantly difficult one in which to thrive when there is radical diversity of opinion and value systems stemming from multiple stakeholders. I have learned that one must legitimately “make sense of the big picture” and “give serious consideration to opinions that differ from my own”, two significantly-important factors for effective leadership (Perrin et al 2010, p.6). Being a pragmatist as a leader, taking into consideration the need for multiple, simultaneous evaluations, is a major strength that has only been learned through this module describing many inter-linkages between reflective practice, peer evaluation processes, and examining salient features of the environment to determine best leadership strategy. A significant weakness uncovered through all previous learning provided in the course is my tendency to become complacent, my comfort zone, that makes me somewhat predictable to others. Being predictable might seem to be a quality ingredient as a leader, however all of the supporting literature on quality leadership seems to point to a need for diverse thinking, utmost flexibility especially in organisations such as the NHS, and allowing for different perspectives on moral and ethical scenarios. Individuals are going to respect and trust managers that make allowances for this divergent type of thinking occurring within the stakeholder population in the organisational model, and complacency and predictability could conflict long-term gains in this area. I have decided that in order to better develop, I need to challenge myself and my own somewhat-distorted conclusions about the sanctity of my existing leadership talents and try to translate this into better flexibility needed to truly establish a better organisational culture and gain commitment. Even though I am recognised as an “active and enthusiastic promoter”, it was only after I was able to fully understand what drives my less-apparent, but highly-relevant emotional needs that I could actually apply these effectively to a real-life organisation. Action Plan Now that I have a concrete understanding of what is necessary for effective leadership, cultural development, realistic self-ratings processes, and the value of the 360 degree feedback mechanism for improving dedication and trust, I realise where my shortcomings as a leader still lie. In the next several months, I will be consulting with different journals and other secondary research sources on the concept of psychological adjustment within the organisation and sociological considerations to better equip me with supplementary knowledge on how to make valuable appeals to the psyche of stakeholders. So much of leadership and its need for influence rests on the emotional needs of employees and the dynamics of the social environment in order to create a cohesive culture. I will also examine primary research studies conducted in real-life organisations to measure reactions to change and to leadership models to determine which are the most effective (probable) within different organisational dynamics. This will provide the diversity of thought needed to establish a more effective leadership direction and also help me gain the non-complacent, more flexible attitude and behavioural model needed in order to be considered an effective leader. I will supplement these upcoming understandings with a dedicated effort to improve my multiplicity needed in dynamic and ever-changing environments such as the NHS. It was only by actually applying theoretical reflective models to actual practice that I was able to realise there was a significant need for me to maintain an assorted style of leadership that makes room for change; not only within the organisational context, but within myself. Conclusion It was established that quality-focused leadership requires cultural development, making allowances for differing opinion, coming to understand one’s emotional intelligence and the influence of needs on behavioural outcomes, and being intrinsically motivated to follow models of reflection to fully develop one’s capabilities and competencies. I have come to completely understand my own strengths and weaknesses in leadership, provided by the benefits of the 360 degree feedback system and its real-life application in my own environment. The benefits of understanding oneself and seeking improvement strategies seem to be the foundation of quality leadership and the learning I gain in the action plan will only further translate best practice from that of just theoretical knowledge and understanding on leadership and the organisation. References Atkins, S. and Murphy, K. (1994). Reflective practice, Nursing Standard, 8(39), pp.49-56. Blackford, R. (2010). Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape, Journal of Evolution and Technology, 21(2), pp.53-61. Bridges, W. (1991). Managing Transitions: Making the most of change. William Bridges and Associates, Inc. Den Hartog, D., House, R., Hanges, P. et al. (1999). Culture specific and cross-culturally generalisable implicit leadership theories: Are attributes of charismatic/transformational leadership universally endorsed?, Leadership Quarterly, 10(2), pp.219-256. DeNisi, A. and Griffin, R. (2001). Human Resource Management. London: Houghton Mifflin. Edwards, M.R. and Ewen, A.J. (1996). 360 Degree Feedback: The powerful new model for assessment and performance improvement. New York: AMACOM. Fairholm, M. (2009). Leadership and organizational strategy, The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 14(1), pp.26-27. Grieves, J. (2010). Organizational Change: Themes and Issues. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (1995). The leadership challenge: How to keep getting extraordinary things done in organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Luthans, F. and Peterson, S. (2003). 360 Degree Feedback with systematic coaching: Empirical analysis suggests a winning combination, Human Resource Management, 42(3). NHS. (2012). NHS quality agenda. [online] Available at: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/www.dh.gov.uk/en/publicationsandstatistics/publications/annualreports/browsable/dh_4916992 (accessed 12 January 2013). Perrin, C., Blauth, C., Apthorp, E., Daniels, S. et al. (2010). Developing the 21st Century Leader: A multi-level analysis of global trends in leadership challenges and practices. [online] Available at:http://www.achieveglobal.com/resources/files/AG_21Century_Leader%20Research%20Report.pdf (accessed 13 January 2013). Swoyer, C. (2003). Ethical relativism, Stanford University. [online] Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/#1.2 (accessed 14 January 2013). Winston, B.E. and Patterson, K. (2006). An integrative definition of leadership, International Journal of Leadership Studies, 1(2), pp.6-66. Read More