I would like to become a leader with a high concern for production and concern for people because I want to guide the behavior of other employees towards an organization's goals.
In this context, guiding means that I will be causing individuals to follow a given pattern of instructions thus behaving in a certain manner. The pattern of instructions will comply with the organization’s job specifications, culture and goals (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy, 2002). My main objective will be to get the job done perfectly by meeting the demands of the employees. I will use my effective communication skills to accomplish this to a greater degree. The success of any business substantially depends on the leadership style. For any leader to be successful, an understanding of what leadership entails is a prerequisite. In today’s business environment, it is more pertinent to have a concern for people and high concern for production too. A leader is appraised based on the attributes of concern for people and concern for production. A leader can aid the organization to achieve its objectives through concern for people and concern for production:
i. Concern for People – This comprises of the attitudes and behaviors of the leader towards the subordinates and superiors. It also consists of working conditions, job security and job satisfaction. This involves the leader taking in to consideration the requirements and needs of others when making decisions of how to accomplish a task (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy, 2002).
ii. Concern for Production - This refers to the amount of commitment and importance put in achieving the productivity and objectives of the organization while selecting the best means to reach a task. It also involves the production or outcome expected that employees must produce (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy, 2002).
An outstanding leader is the one who is sensitive to peoples’ needs. Integrating the concept of high concern for production and people enables leaders to apply analytical skills and logic to business activities while working. They should also be sensitive to other people as individuals with desires and needs related to their work (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy, 2002). For an organization to enhance the performance of systems, leaders must be concerned with responsiveness and openness of their business as well as the external environment in which the organization operates. This environment consists of the inputs, outputs and feedback. In most organizations, inputs include the human labor and outputs consists of profits/losses, employee satisfaction, supplier and customer relationships. In the process of guiding the organization, leaders must consider these organizational features of their systems as they interact and respond to their suppliers, competitors and customers (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy, 2002).
Good leaders inspire the success of an organization by dramatically having an impact on the attitudes of other people regarding the way an organization should be and their values including fairness, reliability and trust. A leader who has concern for people will motivate workers to develop a sense of ownership of the organization. This is by encouraging them to develop new problem solving techniques. A leader who has high concern for production will be task oriented. Such a leader will always want to get work done. At the same time, being concerned with people will make employees happy. A combination of both will enable a leader to make the best decisions of how a task should be accomplished. If a task is well accomplished, this implies that the organization’s productivity will be high (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy, 2002).
Conclusion
Leaders who emphasize on getting tasks to be done in time use better methods to achieve the organization’s goals. Those who emphasize on employee orientation are concerned with getting tasks done by meeting the needs of the subordinates.
Reference
Hughes, R., Ginnett, R. & Curphy, G. (2002). Leadership. New York: McGraw-Hill.
