The Three Leadership Styles
The results of MLQ help leaders know their own assessment and identification of the category they fall in among transformational, transactional and passive leaders. The assessment gives results in scores reflective in two aspect, actual and expected. There is one universal norm associated with every parameter and the comparative analysis of the scores in terms of their convergence and divergence from universal norm gives an clear idea about how efficient the leaders are.
The results obtained from Global Mindset Inventory gives the assessment as well as makes predictions about global leadership performances (Steven Terrell and Rosenbusch 2013). The psychometric tool aims to provide feedback upon the leadership based on the inventories existing prior to any participation made. in the programs of Global Leadership. The GMI is consisted of social, intellectual and psychological capital and the end result gives displays individual, group and grand mean which are compared among them.
The Birkman assessment produces grid report depicting leadership styles and the counteracting goals, approaches, motivation of the leaders in order redefine one’s own leadership skills as well as make comparative study of the result with that of others.
The first impression of the Birkman test was quite impressive due to its end display in colored grid format each segment indicating different aspects of leadership quality one has like organizing, planning, influencing and monitoring & measuring.
I found the MLQ most approachable as it provides score that helps make the comparative assessment easy. Based on the universal norm one can find the deviation and gap of the scores of different parameters of leadership qualities. This makes the identification of strength and weakness of the qualities that leaders should have and what measures to be taken to meet that.
The GMI focuses on the combined importance of intercultural empathy, interpersonal impact, diplomacy grouped under social capital, passion for diversity, quest for adventure, self assurance grouped as psychological capital , cognitive complexity, cosmopolitan outlook Global business Savvy grouped as intellectual capital (Javidan and Bowen 2013). These ranges of qualities hold the grounding base of mindset of the leaders globally.
1. a) Prior to the course of master degree in leadership I completed under graduation in tourism falling in completely other domain. I barely had any idea about the role leaders in any project play. Moreover the theories regarding the broader range of responsibilities in leadership were out of the domain of my knowledge. To assess the performance that leaders exert and their deviation from the basic standards are theorized in different assessment or tests regarding the leadership like Birkman test, Global Mindset Inventory and MLQ which I had no idea about. Even though I leaded one of the project in my undergraduate program I never had distinct idea about what actually a leader should do and how and whether I am capable of achieving that. I had no self-assessment about my leadership quality prior to the course I am doing in masters.
b) After joining the leadership program, I have been able to gain much idea about the specific roles and responsibilities of the leaders. Moreover, I have learned to assess the performance level of them through different tests. The results correctly try to reflect the competencies the leaders have or need to have focusing on the requirements they need to follow in order to meet the deficiencies as leader. Previously I was more unaware of my ability as leader due to having no sense of these parameters. Now after going through the assessments I can call myself a good leader who has immense potential to grow through rectifying and keeping up the learning process.
Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ)
Based on the results of MLQ test I can say that I am more powerful in decision making that depicts the growing confidence level I have. I have grown optimism regarding future events that makes me encourage others. I look for and appreciate too the opinions coming from different people while solving any problem. The collective sense of building a mission and then work to achieve it is something I have learned. I have noticed that I have the quality of considering a problem from difference in perspectives and articulate vision for future while maintaining the differences in need and abilities that the people in my team have. The decisions that are taken by me are not based on my own discretion but following the general need of the hour and considering the opinion of every individual in my team. I have learned to absorb the consequences of the decisions both on moral and ethical grounds. This has helped me evolve enormously as a leader (Northouse 2015).
c) MLQ: The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire is a tool to measure different types of leadership ranging from passive to active and direct leaders. A leader is who constantly helps in transforming his team members into becoming leader themselves by providing reward in contingencies. The role of MLQ is to assess the extent and quality of leadership mostly into three broad categories :
How the leadership inspires extra effort of the members
How the leadership impacts effectiveness ratings of individual and organizational unit
How the leadership evokes satisfaction
The three leadership styles are :
Transformational Leadership: The major attributes owned by leaders are building trust and influencing ideology of the members through behavior and attributes. Creating a motivational atmosphere encouraging the members to think innovative and act with integrity is also another feature of the leaders (Antonakis and House 2013)
Transactional Leadership: leaders monitor the deviations and mistakes made by the members and recognizing the rewarding contribution of them.
Passive Leadership: here leaders do not make any direct statement or declare expectation rather wait for the problem to appear and then take decision indicating no prior involvement (Alsayed, Motaghi and Osman 2012).
The report prepared following MLQ assessment provides feedback on the style of leadership one has. Each style of leadership has optimal researched benchmark frequency, which is profiled against which the feedback is profiled. This comparison is further explained making provision of the universal norms. Based on the MLQ scores one can assess the improvement or deficiencies leaders have and what characteristics needed to redefined in order to make the leadership strong. The components of different leaderships like building trust, encouraging others to work with integrated manner and think innovative display the optimism, power of self confidence of the leaders. Moreover the ability of leader to articulate the vision for future and boost the member achieve that goal keeping in mind the differences each has in terms of need, ability, quality and aspirations is something the leader is worth accountable to that MLQ rightly helps to identify.
Global Mindset Inventory (GMI)
GMI: The Global Mindset Inventory is a tool that makes psychometric assessment of the leadership while making predictions of the global impact and conditions of them. The measure of the assessment focuses on the ability to celebrate the difference leaders have while influencing others’ uniqueness and differences. The inventory is combined of capital subject to social, psychological and intellectual segments (Nielsen 2014). The intellectual capital consists of business savvy, cognitive complexities and cosmopolitan outlook. The psychological capital refers to the passion leaders have to make diversion, quest and zeal for making the process adventurous and ability to consolidate self-assurance. The social capital contributing to determine the general quality of leaders globally are the intercultural empathy, impacts interpersonally the leaders and the members have and the diplomatic mind. These composition of capitals effectively determine the performance the global leadership entities exert through proper measurements and predictions.
Citizens of the world are habituated with adjusting into situations or people within their own culture rather than multi-cultural context. But the modern and globally connected world today has also brought these business bodies into string connection that requires more communication and exchange of ideas. In pursuit of global customers, credit, partners, manufacturing and larger supply chains the businesses have become more integrated. These further brings forth the global workforce consisting or various strata of people coming from different cultural and cognitive background. These require efficient communication to deal with multiplicity of organizations and people to make deals successful and achieve organizational goals. It is the role of global mindset inventory to influence these underlying differences and bring them close to enhance businesses through efficient execution of leadership of the management bodies. The inventory is considered prior to the global leadership participation and devised to assess the dispositions of the individual or group of leaders in terms of the three capitals mentioned above.
Birkman Test: The importance of Birkman test in identifying and enhancing the leadership goals on professional and practical grounds are immense. The test brings out a general result in grid format consisting of four quadrants showing different aspects and their intensities. The results are outlined in terms of leadership goals, styles and need. The general interpretation of the result says that if the point lies toward the top of the grid then it implies direct involvement of the leader with the task or the people. The points lying in the left prone of the grid makes emphasis on task rather than the people who complete that. The rightward alignment of points indicates more emphasis on the people who get the work done than the task itself. Finally the points toward bottom implies indirect involvement in terms of people or task. The upper left quadrant in red implies goals that makes an emphasis on organizing the entire set up for achieving goal through making involvement, focusing on practical issues and completing project. The leadership style here is more of logical, decisive, energetic while being frank and friendly. The upper right quadrant in green indicates the influencing capability of the leader in order to make people convinced. More involvement is one of the targets, which is accomplished through motivating and highlighting the benefits members receive. The leadership style in this segment is more prone toward being flexible, assertive, competitive and enthusiastic about new ideas.
Birkman Assessment
The lower left quadrant in yellow denotes the implementation, measurement and monitoring aspects of the leadership qualities. Implementation is not an end in itself and requires progress monitoring, measure the achieved targets and assess the results. This deal with the entire functioning an execution of the system as whole. The leadership qualities required to achieve these is needed to be more orderly, insistent, cautious and concentrative. The lower right quadrant in blue indicates the planning of the entire system making innovations work and encourages new approaches. This section deals more with the ideas to enhance the bigger picture of the system. This evokes the importance of being optimistic, insightful, sociable, thoughtful, and reflective from the part of the leaders. The test result gives an easy outlook of the present leadership situation to the layman and hence very important assessment tool in leadership management.
The nine competencies of the Leadership Integrated Project framework refers to the ethics and values of the leadership required to transform its quality. The first component deals with adaptability and change. A good leadership starts with flexibility to adapt to new ideas and any situation and change subsequently if required (Caligiuri and Tarique 2012). Visioning and strategic thinking comes as the next characteristics that a good leader should posses. It leads him towards proper planning and organizing different programs. The next big factor is to build relationship and make collaboration with people. This evokes much importance as a closely related team members can produce better output under collaboration that helps the task be well outlined an divided among the people. Service and quality orientation is the next important component that defines and adds to the values of transformational leadership. Every task comes with different requirement that needed to be taken cared of with specific skill set and quality of the skills should orient in that way. Innovation in thinking planning and execution plays important role to consolidate the ground of the leadership Overtime development of the people in the group plays another important role as the better outcome of the leadership lies totally on the result they bring out in their team performance that is further driven by the individual contribution they make. Team leadership is the ultimate component that binds all of these competencies with one string and set as standardized transformational leadership. These competencies relate very well with MLQ assessment requirements and also the GMI as both of these explains the components that well define the leadership roles. The Birkman test results help an individual to locate the position a leader has in terms of the goals and targets a he has to perform. The results of the leadership assessments like MLQ, GMI and Birkman assessment are based upon the leadership roles and goals that are well outlined by nine competencies and hence their interconnectivity is undeniable.
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