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Drawing on key leadership theories, compare and discuss two or more instances of leadership and/or followership that you have personally experienced. Your answer should apply key course theories and concepts to develop a critical analysis of the selected leadership and/or followership processes.
Follower-Centered Theory and Leader-Centered Theory are two different theories that originate from two different eras. Both theories have various unique features along with their exclusive pros and cons.
The Leader-Centered Theory originated from the first industrial revolution. Due to the increasing number of the industries and the sustainable economic growth, the requirement of a certain approach is inevitable for the management of workforce clusters within the industries and to make them follow the instructions and maintain discipline. It requires the leader to possess certain powerful skills and abilities for the standardization of the workers’ behavior. However, Leader-centered Theory is considered a kind of coercion policy that also exposes some of its flaws when implemented within a certain industry.
Kelley’s (1988, 1992) work offered one of the first explicit theories of followership. Kelley introduced the Follower-Centered Theory and asserted that both leaders and followers are important within the organization. Both parties serve a common purpose from complementary roles (Chaleff 2008). It is very important to let the employees feel involved within the workplace. As a consequence, followers can demonstrate more active engagement with the decision making and construct their roles as co-leaders accordingly.
Therefore, the Follower-Centered Theory and Leader-Center Theory pose conflicts with each other. Each theory has a unique character suitable for particular type of organization and department. The following passage is going to discuss each of the theory’s character and the reasons both are more acceptable in certain organizations.
Choosing an appropriate leadership style within the organization is the key element for any company to achieve success or face failure in the future. Leaders can either have a positive or negative impact on the development of their organization. Thus, the leadership style is also a part of the organizational culture. It has an invisible cohesion power as it creates a positive working atmosphere for every worker. Consequently, the attributes of a leader can facilitate the exaltation of a healthy competition leading to sustainable development in the future. The leader-centered approach allows leaders to contribute as the core element within the organization. The scholars have labeled such leader-centered approach as “Traditional”, “Heroic”, “Top-Down” and “Hierarchical” (Eduardo et al. 2003). Such labels symbolize the key characters within the leader-centered organization. The leader controls his employees through the exhibition of power from the top. The employees are monitored during the working-hour. The reason employees follow instructions and maintain discipline is that the leader provides the basic need for the employee’s life i.e. the salary, promotions, additional benefits as well as bonus.
As far as my personal experience is concerned, I had the opportunity of working in a traditional factory during my 2015 summer vacation time. Though this experience spanned a short time, I learnt valuable lessons regarding the different leadership styles. For two weeks, I worked in the workshop assembling line. For another two weeks, I rendered services as the team member of the Management department. My experiences made me realize and understand the different feelings employees have while working under supervision. I must state that this sense of feeling is an extremely important factor in determining how far the company can go until it reaches its limit.
Based on my professional experience and personal observation from the factory, the lessons learnt are absolutely valuable. The workshop assembling line was divided into 20 teams. Each team had five members and one leader. The team leader (“Great Man”) within the team was the most experienced and efficient worker among all possessing the strong physical and mental character to lead the team for goal achievement. All the employees working in the workshop assembling line had a very basic salary whereby the extra bonus could be earned considering the product unit finished within a month by each team. At the beginning, it was rather difficult for me to fit into the team as I was not successful in achieving the desired target in a specified time. For the same reason, the leader started to push me even harder instead of providing me any advice/suggestion for motivating or helping me. I can honestly state that this experience within the workshop assembling line was just like a nightmare to me. Although the process of competition seems to motivate the employee for more production within a specified period, the same process also has no flexibility for the employees.
Thus, I consider this kind of Leader-centered approach as a destructive and discouraging leadership style as it is more focused on short-term goals and the power is highly centralized. However, dark side destructive leadership style is usually associated with positive effects (at least in the short term) (Hogan & Hogan 2001: Hogan & Kaiser 2005). However, this approach proves destructive as it could result in a demoralized work force and negative outcomes. The destructive leadership is totally focused on the leader’s own ideology, goal and ego rather than involving the follower. Also, it does not provide followers a flat structure within the work place. Destructive leadership approach does not engage followers. Hence, the discouraging behavior makes employees negative and may also create some conflict between the followers and leader in the long term. Also, the overconfidence of the leader about his management skills and problem-solving skills does not let him see the unique skills of team members. He is not concerned about the emotions and wellbeing of his employees as he is more focused towards the goal achievement. Similarly, the communication gap between the leader and followers let the issues pile up. Thus, a leader-centered approach within an organization is seldom successful as it marginalizes the followers. As a consequence, workplace politics prevails easily in such scenarios and an atmosphere of noncooperation emerges. Therefore, it is really important for a leader to align the team members as it one of the most important factors for team cohesion. Leaders need to realize that all employees have different learning styles and attitude. Thus, if the leader fails to balance the ideologies, goals, and needs of everyone, it may create serious issues at the workplace in the long term.
On the other hand, the same approach also has some advantages. First, it is one of the most efficient approaches for the formation of a mature and productive team enabling it to achieve a certain goal in short term. The team leader in the assembling line could not meet his needs due to the immature and unpractical behavior of the team. However, the leader’s persuasion and consistent attitude allowed them to earn bonus.
However, leaders of the twenty-first century can no longer rely on short term planning as such planning methods will become absolutely destructive in the 21st century (Meredith & Stephen 2012). The leader needs to think ahead and consider his followers equally important within the organization. This is the reason followership theory is more accepted and widely used in contemporary organizations as compared to the previous times.
Hollander (1995) has pointed out “followership” as a periodically important rediscovery for leadership. According to this perspective, a leader cannot achieve his goals within the organization without followers. For the same reason, it is very important to motivate both the followers and leaders for serving a common purpose or goal within the organization. This can be done by providing more opportunities to the employees such as giving them responsibility on solving the emergency cases. The employees may develop certain skills and ability to work alone and understand the procedure to work rather than relying on the leader’s direction and supervision. As a matter of fact, the Follower-centered Theory grants a greater amount of freedom to the employees.
I would also like to discuss my professional experience when I got the opportunity of working with the Quality Supervision Department. One of the biggest differences between the workshop assembling line and the management team was the difference in the leadership styles of the leaders. Although the leader of QSD was more experienced and qualified, I was pleasantly surprised when I observed his attitude towards work and his followers. I particularly noticed that he used to listen to his followers whenever they shared their ideas and opinions. In fact, the role of the leader seemed less important within the group. As a result, the culture within the department was friendlier and more positive. Also, the relation between the leader and team members within the group felt more like a flat structure instead of the subordinate links. Even though the leader knew that I was not working in the department for a long period of time, he made sure to provide me with the broad range of background knowledge and advice so that I could assimilate into the new environment and feel equally important within the team. Also, the team members facilitated me in adapting within the new environment. This was absolutely a huge difference between the workshop assembling line and management team.
There is also a key difference to become a “Great Leader” or a “Great Team”. A great leader seems very busy during daily operation, he can never get his “hands off” the employees as the employees do not have the autonomous rights or skills to finish the certain job by their own. However, a “Great Team” is different. It does not promote individualistic heroism. Instead, the leader is more willing to accept or listen from the team member. Also, he is willing to pass on his experience and knowledge to the team members and grants them the power to decide for the problem resolutions. During my 2015 Summer Internship, I got to hear the most inspiring words: “A successful leader doesn’t mean he has to know everything and perfect in every aspect; it also doesn’t mean he has the power to control others behavior. As a matter of fact, successful leaders should have a more open mind to accept people with different opinion, it doesn’t require a lot of knowledge, but it does require experience and emotion control”. Collinson (2005) also pointed out that “omnipotent leader” does not exist. People always paint leaders as “hero” to be elevated or blamed for organization successes and failure. However, this is not the true definition or explanation for leadership. In fact, it only represents a part of the leadership. Follower and leader are equally important within the organization. Both of them are like the two sides of the coin and cannot survive if one side tries to fight against another side.
This kind of Follower-centered approach is also related to Servant Leadership. One of the important features of servant leadership approach is that the leader always treats servant-first instead of the leader. Servant leadership is more focused on the growth and the well-being of the employee. Robert (1970) also mentions that the core of the servant leadership is to serve the employee so that they may become healthier, wiser, freer, and more autonomous. Servant leadership is different from the traditional leadership approach. Under the traditional leader-centered approach, leaders exercise power from the top of the pyramid and use the legitimate power or expert power to manage the employees. They tend to take the right and freedom to choose away from the employees. On the other hand, the servant-leadership decentralizes the power and allows the employees to share their knowledge and utilize their skills to improve their performance.
In conclusion, it seems awkward that the two departments within a company use two different leadership theories to manage employees. However, it is also understandable that both theories seem suitable and acceptable within the particular position. It may be due to the different employees and their different needs. Some of them are more focused on living the basic living life instead of yearning for responsibility or power. It could be the reason the leader-centered approach is more suitable in the workshop assembling line. In contrast, the employees in the management team were suitable to be led by the follower-centered approach as they were motivated by the responsibility, self-esteem and self-value. Such characteristics are beyond the basic needs of human life. Therefore, the leader in the QSD allowed more freedom and gave more credit to the employees. It was done by giving them a proper position within the department instead of applying or arranging all the agenda for the employee.
Leadership style may change over time but there is no perfect theory that may be perfectly suitable to all organizations given the fact that there are so many uncertain variables in every organization. Thus, the most important characteristic that a successful leader must possess is open-mindedness as well as humanized management in the long term.
References
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Collison, D.L (2005). Questions of distance. Leadership 1 (2), P235
Eduardo Salas, Gerald F. Goodwin, C. Shawn Burke (2003). Principle Centered Leadership. New York: Free Press. P102.
Hogan, R., & Kaiser, R. (2005). What we know about leadership. Review of General Psychology, 9, P169
Hollander, E.P (1995). Ethical Challenges in the leader- follower relationship. Business Ethic Quarterly. P56.
Kelly, R.E. (1988). In praise of followers. Harvard Business Review, 66(6), P141-148
Meredith D. Ashby, Stephen A. Miles (2002). Leaders Talk Leadership : Top Executives Speak Their Minds. New York: Oxford University Press. P180.
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Wang, Victor C.X (2012). Technology and Its Impact on Educational Leadership. USA: IGI Global. P3.
Weick,K.E(2007). Romancing, following and sensemaking: Jim Meindl;s legacy. In B. Shamir, R. Oillai, M.C.Bligh & M. Uhl-Bien (eds). Follower-centered perspectives on leadership: a tribute to the memory of James R. Meindl. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, P279-291
