Clearing a Path to Effective Leadership Essay examples

There have been numerous theories surrounding leadership, which attempt to explain which form is most effective in the workplace. A universalistic approach was once used to rationalize leadership and it was believed that successful leaders possessed certain common abilities and traits. However, today due to external factors such as globalization and advanced technologies, there has been an evolution towards a new paradigm of leadership. Subordinates want to feel empowered and engaged at the workplace and often the behaviors and relationships between leaders and their subordinates become important to understand in order to fully understand effective leadership. Contingency theories have been developed in which people began to look at the behavior of leaders in specific situations. Two such contingency theories are: Path-Goal and Hershey and Blanchard’s Situational Theory.

Leadership is one of the most sought after skills in the professional world and a fantastic skill to possess outside the workplace. However, while many people can give the dictionary definition of leadership not many understand what it truly means to be a leader. As Teddy Roosevelt said, “People ask the difference between a leader and a boss…The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.” This quote captures the essence of what leadership truly is; leading a group to their common goal together rather than as a unit of people led by one individual who only has their own interests in mind. Anyone can be a boss and tell people what they need to do to help the boss reach his goal but a leader will

Situational leadership has very little in common with the other models mentioned herein. This model revolves around the leader changing leadership behaviors to meet the needs in relationship to the follower (Kouzes, 2003, p. 111). The difference between situational leadership and charismatic, servant, and transformational leadership is the lack of an organizational vision and the empowerment of the followers. Situational leadership uses followers based on their readiness level that relate to their ability and willingness to complete the task (Wren, 1995, p. 208). This aspect coupled with the leader’s task and relationship behavior is used in relation to the

This essay aims to examine leadership in the healthcare setting. According to Weihrich and Koontz (2005), Sullivan and Garland (2010) leadership entails guiding others to realize, a particular goal using interpersonal skills. Therefore leadership is the art of influencing others to readily and actively endeavour towards meeting goals set by the team. As noted by Spector (2006), there is a shared theme that leadership entails influencing others individual belief systems, behaviours and feelings. For things to run properly in any organization effective leadership is paramount. In healthcare setting, a mention on clinical leadership ought to be made too. Clinical leadership includes all nurses irrespective of grade linking it to shared

A manager is a person who supervises the work of others so that the assigned goals and targets are achieved in the most effective, efficient, and well-organized fashion (Daft 2011). A manager makes decisions for his organization, organizes, motivates, and leads its human resource, and controls its business affairs so as to achieve efficiency and superior operational performance. All the functions and responsibilities of a manager overlap each other at all the managerial levels within an organization (Basefsky, Maxwell, Post, & Turner 2004). Leadership is one of the core functions of a manager. This leadership function essentially requires the leader to be specialized in all other management functions in order to lead his followers effectively and efficiently (Leatherman 2008). Therefore, it is strongly believed that a person must have to be a good manager in order to become an effective leader. This paper critically examines this statement in the light of relevant literature; including books, research papers, and journal articles.

     The situational leadership model is based on certain assumptions. One of these assumptions is that there are different levels (or situations) in which a leadership style is played out. In the same way that there are four different levels of readiness on the part of staff or “followers”, there are also four leadership styles. On the whole it is the level that the followers are to be found that is most important element in the equation when a leadership style is seen to be to be the appropriate style and is chosen from among four possible styles. According to this idea leaders can choose to lead in

Situational leadership theory and path-goal theory both recognize the importance of factors beyond the individual leader that must be considered when developing an effective leadership plan. For a team that has a high ability and considerable experience where they are both willing and able (R4), directive leadership is likely to be perceived as redundant. Therefore, being a supportive leader and using a delegating style will be more effective for a team who does not need a leader to tell them what to do. For a team that has

The purpose of this theory is to enhance the followers' performance and satisfaction by focusing on the follower’s motivation. The theory encourages leaders to focus on motivating followers and providing a clear path to their goals, making it an easy journey and helping to remove any roadblocks that may stand in the way of the team. When the work is more personally satisfying, followers are more likely to succeed and put forth the most effort to achieve their goal. There are four basic objectives while putting the Path-Goal Theory to use as a leader: define the goals, clarify the path, remove obstacles, and provide support. If this approach had been taken, the leader of our group would have primarily focused on these four objectives throughout the

I am lucky enough to say that I have had a variety of leadership opportunities and experiences in my life that have led me to be the person I am today. Many of these experiences came from involvement in wrestling, Boy Scouts of America, volunteering, friendships, and different jobs over the years. I sometimes underestimate the degree of impact these experiences have had on my life. Some have been positive, others negative. But all have played their part in molding and shaping my personality and values.

Situational leadership theories state that a leader emerges to fit the situation, (SOURCE). Different people will take the lead in various circumstances that will subsequently require different skills. (SOURCE) argues that the ever changing elements present within the healthcare settings would benefit from leaders such as managers encouraging subordinate leaders to develop diverse leadership styles to deal with different conditions.

Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory (SLT) asserts that a leader’s effectiveness is dependent upon the readiness, or ability and willingness, of the leader’s followers to complete a task. This leadership style is an amalgamation of task-oriented and relationship-oriented characteristics that are employed depending upon the situation and the followers involved. According to the SLT, as followers increase in readiness the leader’s style is to adapt accordingly (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2009).

Situational leadership does not adopt the “one size fits all” approach to leadership; instead it depends on the situation and states that varying levels of leadership and management are necessary (Blanchard, 1996). There are three different things we must identify when using this leadership style; we must identify the most important task or priority, consider the readiness level of followers by analyzing their willingness and ability, and finally decide the matching leadership style. The leadership styles are as follows, Directing, Coaching, Supporting, and Delegating (Blanchard, 1996).

The situational leadership model views leaders as varying their emphasis on task and relationship behaviors to best deal with different levels of follower maturity. First we have the directing/telling style (S1). This style gives specific task directions and closely supervising work; this is a high-task, low-relationship style. The leader defines the roles and tasks of the “follower”, and supervises them closely. Decisions are made by the leader and announced, so communication is largely one-way.

Leadership has been studied from a wide range of perspectives and thus it means different things to different people. Some people view leadership as the focus of group processes, some others view it from a personality or skills perspective, to some others leadership is an act or behavior, some school of thought describe leadership in terms of power relationship while some view leadership as a transformational process (Northouse, 2012). Looking at the various definitions of leadership, there are various terms that are important; including the fact that leadership is a process that involves influence and the attainment of a common goal, and usually occurs in the context of a group (Northouse, 2012). The path-goal theory is one of the

Path Goal Theory is a theory proposed by Martin Evans and Robert House, which is then developed by Robert House himself which suggests how leaders of any organization can be effective towards their subordinates in order to achieve organizational goals. This theory was first introduced in 1971 which was created based on Victor Vroom’s ‘Expectancy Theory of Motivation’. The name ‘Path-Goal’ itself shows that the leader should clarify their follower’s performance and remove any obstacle which comes between them and their goals. It is best when the leader focuses on each of the