Defining Effective Leadership
Question:
Discuss about the Encyclopedia of Strategic Leadership and Management.
Effective leadership can be defined as the particular art by which particular individuals called leaders can motivate a group of people so that they can act towards achievement of a common goal bringing huge success to organizations. Leaders can be defined as the models who help employees to learn proper ways of working and thereby guide them in their pathways to success helping them to develop the ability to work beyond their expectations and achieve organizational success (Green, 2017). Leaders are the persons whom the employees look up to in various types of critical situations an crisis and thereby follow their advised pathways to thrive and overcome the barriers effectively. Researchers have found out that every leaders need to have proper leadership traits which include proper decision making trait, risk taking attribute, high level of awareness, proper focus and accountability. Moreover, leaders also need to have high level of empathy, optimism, confidence, inspiration as well as honesty (Jaques, 2017). All these traits help leaders to effectively manage and lead team effectively. The following assignment would be a reflective paper though which I will be reflective my leadership skills and analyzing my weakness and strengths. Accordingly, I will work on my weak attributes and develop them into my strengths so that I can become an expert leader in my future career.
On closely analyzing the trends of leadership in the 20th century, I have come across many leaders who were mainly autocratic in nature. Autocratic leadership was mainly the born that were followed by most of the organization in that century where the leaders believed in taking very little input from the employees on the floor. Moreover, autocratic leaders are also seen to make decisions on their own views and never consider the views and experiences of the employees. Such leaders like to practice complete control over the group of the employees and never take feedback or provide feedback to the employees for their betterment (Truitt et al., 2017). However, researches have stated that such leadership results in increased employee turnover and poor employee morale. All these result in poor productivity of the team and results in delaying of meeting the organizational goals and values. Therefore, I believe that I should never adopt the skills that were followed by autocratic leaders. In place, I would mainly like to develop the attributes that are shown by transformational leaders. Transformational leaders are seen to provide inspirational motivations which involve providing a vision of the future to the employees and thereby motivating them to perform beyond expectations (Antonakis & Day, 2017). Such leaders are seen to provide intellectual stimulation that mainly helps in replacing old assumptions, traditional approaches and traditions with novel thoughts. The leaders are also seen to provide individualized consideration in order to handle about the needs as well as skills of his or her followers and thereby help them not only by counseling and encouraging them but by also trying to solve their issues. Such leaders no longer put themselves at the first place but rather they provide more importance to knowing what is best for the organization. Such leaders are seen to provide a clear vision to the employees about the future that helps in motivating people to exceed beyond their capabilities (Dubois et al., 2015). I have noticed that this type of transformational leadership skills have mainly helped in developing proper skills among the employees and helped in resulting in lower employee and customer turnover costs. Therefore, I would mainly try to develop the attributes of transformational leadership skills so that I can effectively lead teams that are only emotionally bonded. I would also enable employees to be enthusiastic to work beyond their capabilities.
Traits of Effective Leaders
I believe that I have to develop proper communication skills so that I can build effective teams. With proper communication, I can make the employees feel empowered so that they can work beyond their capabilities and achieve the goals easily. Proper communication with the employees would help me to make them understand the real vision and mission of the organization. At the same time, they would be able to understand the goals and objective of the team that will help them to devise a procedure to meet the goals (Sethuram & Suresh, 2014). In many organizations, employees are often seen to be confused or have no idea about what they are trying to achieve which in turn affects the productivity of the organization. By proper communication, I can also help in drawing a proper picture by which my team members will be able to know where they are present in the position in conducting the task. When leaders and teams are communicating with each other at a constant level, they are often not surprised by the weekly project updates and even by annual reviews. Effective communication also helps in developing employee morale. Researchers suggest that when employees see that leaders are not communicating effectively, they feel that secrets are kept. Many employees feel that they are left out or are not respected and wanted by the organization or that their suggestions and feedbacks are not effective (Sultan, Khan & Kanwal, 2017). These make them feel disappointed or unhappy. Many members also feel angry or disappointed that creates a negative workplace that affects morale and productivity. When team leaders communicate effectively, team members feel that they are getting the whole picture that makes them feel informed and respected. Therefore, I believe that I should provide constructive feedbacks and at the same time accept their suggestions and feedbacks so that effective communication can be ensured.
In the 21st century, there are large numbers of organizations who are expanding at a large rate to many other countries of the world. Therefore, the leaders have the responsibility to develop knowledge about the different cultures of the nations with which the organizations are engaging into business and thereby learn how to get with the employees effectively and lead good teams with different cultural backgrounds (McCleskey, 2014). Globalization, constantly changing demographics as well as increased technologies have become the new challenges for leaders and therefore leaders need to overcome to manage teams effectively. Leaders need to consider about the economic, environmental and political environments as well as also they need to consider the cultural differences between the countries but also between the country and that of the international country. Therefore, in order to develop proper attributes of cross-cultural leadership five important attributes are important. The first one is that I should learn about the Hofstede’s procedures of cultural analysis. This a framework by which I will be able to develop ideas about the cultural variations of the organizations in different nations. This will help me to plan interventions accordingly depending on their cultural traditions of doing business and maintaining workplace etiquettes (Lussier & Achua, 2015). I need to develop ideas about the cultural beliefs, perceptions as well as behavior of the employees of the organizations. I have to develop idea about my own cultural biasness that I need to overcome. This will help me not to judge other’s cultural traditions, inhibitions and preferences and accordingly I would handle my team effectively. This would help me to be culturally aware and culturally competent by which I will be able to lead cross-cultural teams effectively thereby increasing their productivity (Aktas, Gelfand & Hanges, 2016). Therefore, by analysisng the local, organizational as well as the international cultres, I wold be able to be aware of the leadership traits required for managing nd laeding the employees in tat particular orgniasational cultre. Therefore my leadership style wold not only be transformational btw old be also cross cultural.
Autocratic vs. Transformational Leadership
Emotional intelligence is considered to be one of the components of effective leadership. Emotional intelligence is the ability by which leaders can be in tune with their inner self and even with their emotions. I believe that if I am able to develop the five important attributes of emotional intelligence I can properly develop the act of knowing, understanding and thereby responding to the different emotions. These will help me in overcoming my stress in the particular moment and at the same time be aware of the words and actions that affect others (Romager.Hughes & Trimble, 2017). Mainly five important attributes are to be developed by me so that I can develop high quality leadership. These are self-awareness, empathy, relationship management, self-management and development of social skills. I should conduct proper self-assessments like the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), emotional intelligence qestionaiire tools an many others. I will be able to recognize the emotions, weaknesses, strengths, values as well as drivers and how such of my attributes affect others. I can develop proper self-awareness by reflecting on ourselves and on our activities at a regular level. With proper reflection, I can be well aware of the decisions I make, the activities I am good at, the shortcomings we have and many others (Hu & Judge, 2017). I believe that in order to reach the maximum potential, one must be confident and have proper knowledge of the differences between the good and the bad. I believe that if I have proper understanding of who I am and what I want, I can improve myself at a regular basis. Another important attribute is called the self-regulation. I believe that with proper self-regulation activities, I can control and redirect my disruptive emotions that would thereby help me to adapt to different circumstantial change as suggested by Spisak et al. in 2014. When I have proper self-regulation attributes, I will no longer feel stressed in the crisis. I will be able to manage them effectively and helping the team to overcome the crisis.
I also believe that empathy and compassion are some of the other attributes that I believe are extremely important for effective leadership. By developing empathy, I will be able to put myself successfully in other’s shoes and thereby understand how they may feel or react in a particular situation. It would also help me to emotionally attach myself with others and thereby feel the suffering of my teammates and accordingly help them to overcome the barrier. Proper social skills are seen to include a number of skills that include persuasion as well as influencing skills as well as communication skills (Amanchukwu et al., 2015).
Conflict management skills and skills for building rapport are also some social skills that are needed by individuals to be effective leaders. I also believe that effective collaboration as well as cooperative skills ensures individuals to lead teams that have higher productivity. When leaders are seen to influence a collaborative working culture among the employees, organizational objective would be met much faster and the job satisfaction among the employees would be high (Lord et al., 2017).
Importance of Proper Communication in Leadership
The employees will feel less pressure while working as their pressure and work burden will equally be distributed. This would ensure smooth workflow of the teams and will help in achieving high productivity (Ghasabeh et al., 2015).
Conclusion:
Therefore, from the above discussion, it becomes quite clear that in order to become effective leader, it is very important for the individual to develop proper leadership traits. The most important attribute for effective leadership is communication skills. The better the communication skills among the leaders, better will be their ability to interact with the team members and exchange constructive feedbacks, suggestions and many others. The next important attribute which is very important if I want to be a 21st century leader is effective cross-cultural management. To lead cross cultural teams, I need to develop high cultural competency so that I have proper cultural knowledge about the working styles of the organizations of the oversea companies and accordingly behave and treat them. Cultural sensitivity and cultural awareness would help me to know the nation’s references and inhibitions and this will ensure smooth workflow in the overseas branches. I would make emotional intelligence one of my core strength of leadership where I will not only be aware of my own emotional strengths and weakness but I will also be able to control my emotion successfully so that the employees do not feel hurt or dejected under my leadership. I will make sure that I use proper skills for inspiring and motivating my employees beyond their capabilities by providing effective feedback. I will also possess proper social skills by which I can engage in successful exchange of suggestions which will help in developing innovative and creative ways of working and achieving goals. In order to be a 21st century leader, I will practice my transformational leadership skills over autocratic relationships as studies have noted positive outcomes in workplace. This would help me to make my organization reach the zenith of success.
References:
Aktas, M., Gelfand, M. J., & Hanges, P. J. (2016). Cultural tightness–looseness and perceptions of effective leadership. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 47(2), 294-309.
Amanchukwu, R. N., Stanley, G. J., & Ololube, N. P. (2015). A review of leadership theories, principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management, 5(1), 6-14.
Antonakis, J., & Day, D. V. (Eds.). (2017). The nature of leadership. Sage publications.
DuBois, M., Hanlon, J., Koch, J., Nyatuga, B., & Kerr, N. (2015). Leadership styles of effective project managers: Techniques and traits to lead high performance teams. Journal of Economic Development, Management, IT, Finance, and Marketing, 7(1), 30.
Ghasabeh, M. S., Soosay, C., & Reaiche, C. (2015). The emerging role of transformational leadership. The Journal of Developing Areas, 49(6), 459-467.
Green, R. L. (2017). The four dimensions of principal leadership: A framework for leading 21st century schools. Pearson.
Hu, J., & Judge, T. A. (2017). Leader–team complementarity: Exploring the interactive effects of leader personality traits and team power distance values on team processes and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(6), 935.
Jaques, E. (2017). Requisite organization: A total system for effective managerial organization and managerial leadership for the 21st century. Routledge.
Lord, R. G., Day, D. V., Zaccaro, S. J., Avolio, B. J., & Eagly, A. H. (2017). Leadership in applied psychology: Three waves of theory and research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 434.
Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2015). Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development. Nelson Education.
McCleskey, J. A. (2014). Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 117.
Romager, J. A., Hughes, K., & Trimble, J. E. (2017). Personality traits as predictors of leadership style preferences: Investi-gating the relationship between social dominance orientation and attitudes towards authentic leaders. Soc Be-hav Res Pract Open J, 2(2), 33-42.
Sethuraman, K., & Suresh, J. (2014). Effective leadership styles. International Business Research, 7(9), 165.
Spisak, B. R., Blaker, N. M., Lefevre, C. E., Moore, F. R., & Krebbers, K. F. (2014). A face for all seasons: Searching for context-specific leadership traits and discovering a general preference for perceived health. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 8, 792.
Sultan, S., Khan, M. A., & Kanwal, F. (2017). Spiritual intelligence linking to leadership effectiveness: interceding role of personality traits. PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences, 3(2).
Truitt, J. H., Plante, J. D., Cox, T. D., & Robinson, S. L. (2017). Strategic Leadership: Developing 21st Century Citizens Who Invest Their Time, Talent, and Treasure in the Service of Others. In Encyclopedia of Strategic Leadership and Management (pp. 1637-1654). IGI Global.
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