Managing Organizations & Leading People
Introduction
In the current business environment, leadership is considered to go beyond the “manager” title. Leadership is seen to be about whom the employees ate following. Today’s leaders highly influence the behavior of others hence the leaders must be able to show a good example and must have the ability of effectively motivation others to follow them and work harder for the fulfillment of organizational goals (Warner, 2012). This is because human resource is considered as the most vital asset currently and their management is what determines the success of a firm. Effective management of human resource requires effective leaders and managers who use the appropriate leadership styles in their organizations (Aloquili, 2014).
Evaluation of leadership styles to determine to their strengths and weaknesses is thus required for developing appropriate leadership styles. This essay presents a seven habits profile analysis of my personal traits reflecting in my leadership style and an evaluation of my leadership style including its strengths and weaknesses. Additionally the paper describes theory-based changes that I can use to maximize my success in leadership and the SMAT goals that I can use to improve my leadership practice as well as specific actions that will be undertaken to achieve the SMART goals.
Seven Habits Profile
Being proactive
This habit involves taking control of one’s own life by not allowing other determining factors to chapter our lives, making one’s own decisions, not viewing one’s self as passive victims in different situations, selecting one’s own response in different circumstance and accepting responsibility for one’s own actions and also for whatever happens to us.
I can say I am proactive because I usually practice all the identified actions of being proactive.
Beginning with the end in mind
This goal involves setting clear goal that are based upon principle and what we aspire to be/ it is suggested that one is supposed to clarify issues using two methods. The first method is taking into consideration what we would desire other people to say at our funeral while the second is creating a personal mission statement that elucidates what we desire our lives to be about.
I have set clear personal goals to achieve in my personal life as well as in my career based on what I want to be in future. However, I have not used the methods suggested by Covey (2012) to arrive at these goals. In order to improve my personal goals, I will apply the two suggested methods.
Put first things first
The third habit involves setting clear priorities and spending our resources and time in way that aligns with our priorities.
I usually devote my energy and time to important things contributing to the achievement of my personal goals hence I can say that I possess this habit.
Think win/win
This habit involves cooperation with others instead of competing with them. Even though there is completion between teams it is imperative that competition within teams or between workers in the same team who are working together to achieve common objectives is counterproductive.
I cooperate with my colleagues at work because we are all working towards achieving the goals and objectives of the organization hence I have accomplished this habit.
Seeking first to understand, then to be understood
The fifth habit involves the quality of the communication processes that occur between two parties. It encourages active listening, which requires one to search for appropriate meaning, gather, and clarify information to develop an understanding form another person’s perspective. This listening is allows to communicate our ideas and thinking in a manner that can easily accepted by others.
I practice this habit by listening to what my colleagues at work have to say before giving my opinion and ideas of the topic of discussion.
Synergize
Synergize is the habit of building on and valuing differences between yourself and others for the definitive benefit of all. According to (Covey, 2012 ) synergy simply means that the whole is greater than each is its parts.
I practice this habit by respecting the differences that are there between me and my other colleagues.
Sharpen the saw
This habit encompasses taking time to attend to one’s self. One should not be so much engrossed in day-to-day events to the extent that they forget about replenishing their personal resources. This habit concerns itself not just with the physical resources of human beings but also their whole well-being. It encourages us to avoid pushing ourselves too hard until we comprise our ability to live in the future.
I take some time off to rejuvenate and assess how far I have come in my work hence I practice the seventh habit (Covey, 2012).
The results of the seven habits profile indicate that my leadership is effective, participatory, and charismatic where I encourage feedback and involvement from other employees through these habits to help in making my decisions and respect as well as understand the difference between our opinions.
Leadership Practice
Leadership approaches can be explained in different ways. In the theory of management, three ways can be adopted in defining effective leadership and explaining the influence of leaders on their subordinates. One of the ways is based on outlining the personal characteristics and qualities, which in turn leads to the respective character theories. The second way is to outline how leaders use their influence on their subordinates, which focuses on the approach the leaders choose. The third way is to outline how leaders carry out their duties and based on the situation in which the leader operates. There are many classical styles of leadership that have been developed based on the use of competence. These styles include autocratic/authoritative, dictatorial, consultative and participative/democratic (Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, 2013).
The leadership style that I find is most suitable for which comfortably term, as my leadership approach is consultative leadership and me. This is a task-oriented style of leadership. It emphasizes that as a leader I should consider the experiences, skills, and ideas of the people I work with (Ismail, Zainuddin & Ibrahim, 2010). However, I still retain the power to make the final decision. I will not be able to make this final decision without first listening to opinions of those the decision would most likely affect. My leadership traits include: always involving others in solving problems, making the final decisions, providing proper recognition, delegating duties while still keeping “veto power,” and weighing of all alternatives before making the final decision. My leadership style is midway between authoritarian and democratic leadership approaches.
Strengths of My Leadership Style
Many advantages come with this style of leadership. First, through consultations I will be able to come up with better solutions to the problems I would encounter. I may be in a position where I do not know the whole situation about a problem but by getting the opinions and views of the people on the ground, I would be able to make informed choices (Randeree & Ghaffar, 2012). This result in making of quality decisions, which would not have been the case, had I made the decisions solely relying on my opinion. When a person is a sole decision maker, they tend to do this guided by their own thoughts leaving more room for error. I would feel more comfortable and less likely to commit a mistake if I factor in the contrasting opinions and different options I would get from consulting my team.
Another advantage of the consultative leadership style is that it boosts the employee’s morale. When employees are allowed to speak up and voice their views, they participate in solving the problem. This makes them feel like part of the process and they would own the final decision I make and treat it as if it is their own.
This would ensure that the employees would be committed to doing the necessary tasks required for solving the problem as is stipulated by the decision. Employees would be willing to work under minimal supervision or compulsion. This would also develop my admirable traits as a leader and employees would feel comfortable in approaching me to discuss any issues affecting production or operations. All this serve to get the best out of the workforce and improve the business I would be in charge of. This would definitely result in enhanced productivity from the workforce, which is the third advantage of my leadership style.
Weaknesses of My Leadership Practice
Involving workers in making decisions also results to some drawbacks in consultative leadership approach. The most common problem that arises is confusion and indecisiveness (Huey & Zaman, 2009). If I would not be decisive in a particular situation, it would mean that I would not have faith in any particular option. This would undermine the process of consultation. In the worst-case scenario, it would result in chaos from the employees due to confusion and indecisiveness from their leader. Another major drawback in this style of leadership is that it makes the decision-making process to take a longer time.
In situations where there is need for urgent decisions to beat a deadline or seize an opportunity, then consultative leadership becomes an undoing. It takes a great deal of time to explore the multiple perspectives and opinions brought up by employees during the consultation process. The third weakness that I would cite is the potential for conflict that comes with consultative leadership. This will be a big issue if I would have highly opinionated workers. This may lead to rifts among the workers and hence lead to a poor working environment, which would in turn mean less productivity.
Theory Based Changes Needed To Maximize My Success in Managing Organizations and Leading People
Theory based leadership practices can be used to enhance specific leadership approaches. I may adopt some of these theory-based practices to improve my consultative leadership approach. The three common theory based practices include contingency theory, authentic leadership theory and transformational leadership theory (Avolio, Walumbwa & Weber, 2009). Contingency theory focuses on establishing the degree of influence a leader would have over a particular situation, which means it is a situation model. Authentic leadership theory seeks to assimilate effective leadership approaches with ethical leadership practices. The transformational leadership theory emphasizes on the need for leaders to be compelling and inspiring and should always strive to transform employees into better leaders. By incorporating these theory-based practices into my leadership style, I would be able to maximize my success as a leader.
Transformational leadership theory is a straightforward match with my leadership style. It emphasizes on the need to have morally uplifting leader who would inspire workers. I believe I would be able to adopt this practice as consultative leadership involves interacting and discussing issues with employees. In these sessions, I would be able to motivate them and let them learn from me hence developing their leadership skills. Allowing them to contribute to decisions also develops their leadership abilities. When using contingency theory, I would employ the use of analyzing the situation and deciding the best way forward. Consultative leadership states that the leader is the final decision maker. I would allow my employees to contribute to the decision-making process but the ultimate decision would be mine.
I would analyze situations and decide if I should allow consultative process to be followed or if I should just make the decision. This would be determined by factors such as urgency and possibility of conflicts arising in the consultation sessions. Basing on the authentic leadership theory, I would strive to be more consistent with my decisions. This would make the employees to have faith in me and hence back up the choices I make and work hard to achieve the targets that the decision sets. Adopting these practices from the three theory based approaches would ensure that I improve my consultative leadership style and I would achieve better results in managing and leading people.
Short-term SMART Goals for Improvement of Leadership Practice
Hard work alone will not guarantee success or improvement in my leadership practice. There is a need for one to sit down and set formal goals that would focus on making them better. A goal setting process would enable me to really think about what I want for my ideal future and would motivate me to strive to attain it. By knowing precisely what I want to achieve I would know the specific places of my leadership strategy that I would concentrate my efforts to improve myself. I would only set two goals in this case to avoid overload and to easily cope in attaining them (Ordonez et al., 2009). The first goal that I would set is to free up at least 2 hours in a day to work on my personal development within a month. The other goal I would set is to enhance my skills as a leader by December 2016 by doing a short-term leadership-training course on developing team creativity and initiative.
Specific Actions to be undertaken to reach the SMART goals
In order to achieve my first goal I would delegate work and tasks to my employees in a more efficient manner. I would also eliminate unnecessary tasks for instance cancelling some unimportant meetings. I would also wake up earlier in the morning and cut back on some of the rest periods such as tea and lunch breaks. The time created from my first goal would be used to advance my second goal, which is enrolling for a leadership-training course. I would register for online classes and would spend my free time in listening to lectures. Other times would also be spent in attending available seminars on the training.
Conclusion
Evaluation of leadership styles is essential in determining the strengths and weaknesses of a particular leadership style and finding ways through which the weakness can be eliminated in order to improve the leadership style and ensure leader’s success in managing firms and leading people. My seven habits profile showed results, which indicated that my leadership style is more charismatic and participatory since it, encourage employee involvement. The strengths of my leadership style include boosting morale of employees, improves decision-making and enhanced employee productivity. Its weaknesses are that it leads to indecisiveness and confusion, slows down the decision-making process, and leads to conflict with employees. I may adopt transformational, authentic, and contingency leadership approaches to improve my leadership styles.
References
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