Leadership Goals And Strengths And Weaknesses

Collective leadership is a recent concept of leadership where individuals are given authority in their own work areas of an organisation which empowers them. Collective leadership is opposite to the well-known system in which members of an organisation or society are ranked according to relative status or authority: As effective

Hiller, N. J., Day, D. V., & Vance, R. J. (2006). Collective enactment of leadership roles and team effectiveness: A field study. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(4), 387-397. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2006.04.004

The authors also found that from their study, improved communication processes increased; being respected and understood increased and supporting/sharing leadership increased; which in turn created a more collaborative and successful

Vishwas Chavan once said, ““I have always believed in the power of collaboration... I realized that you can't develop all the competencies you need fast enough on your own. Furthermore, if you don't collaborate, your ideas will be limited to your own abilities. As a result, you will not be able to serve your clientele and thus can't achieve the anticipated impact.” This means that working and learning together helps create more ideas, and therefore, more problems can be solved. One can actually limit one’s ability to lead by insisting that one rule alone. Throughout history, collaborative leadership has yielded more positive results than authoritarian leadership. Authoritative leadership is less effective than collaborative leadership

Leadership can take many different forms, depending on the person and the situation in which it is needed. Collaborative leadership is a leadership style in which a leader brings together a large group of people, with a variety of backgrounds, to make a productive decision and act upon it. According to Chrislip and Larson (1994):

Leadership has evolved drastically over the past few centuries. Historically, many leaders use the vertical leadership approach when managing a large group of individuals. However, as organizations continue to grow and expand it becomes even more difficult for one person to be considered an expert in multiple areas of the organization. I believe this is why we have seen a shift from vertical leadership two more of a shared leadership style. Shared leadership has enabled leaders to create smaller groups of experts to tackle one portion of the project while also communicating with the other project groups. I think a great example of this is in the hospital where physicians perform multidisciplinary rounds on their patients in the ICU. A patient may come in with chest pain and being admitted to the cardiac ICU, however, several teams of physicians will have to work together to ensure the patient receives the best care

This collectivistic phenomenon of leadership, as some are calling it, involves multiple individuals divesting in leadership roles over time both formal and informal relationships, thus creating a paradigm shift (Cullen-Lester & Yammarino, 2016). With this change, theories emerge recognizing collectives as complex relational systems. Theories of shared leadership, collective decision making, complexity theory, flock leadership, the social construction of leadership, sensemaking, and social exchange and entrainment are examples of the diverse collective leadership concepts emerging for success. Cullen-Lester and Yammarino (2016) state that collective leadership is a required capability in facing increasing complex workplaces, business challenges, and social problems; for which, collective and networking leadership are changing academia and practice.

There are different leadership theories developed throughout the history. Most popular ones are trait theories, behavioral theories, contingency theories, and leader-member exchange (LMX) theory. The author of the post will briefly discuss two theories, Fiedler contingency theory and Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), and compare and contrast their strengths and weakness.

There is no consensus that has been reached regarding this controversy, but many theories are centered on it. Chronologically, popular leadership theories include the great man theory, trait theory, behavioral theories, role theory, participative leadership, situational leadership, contingency theories, transactional leadership, and transformational leadership. Each of these theories presents a unique perspective of what comprises leadership. The main focus of this research paper is, however, the trait theory (Bass & Stogdill, 1990).

In such leadership models, leaders work with other people (always their subjects or inferiors) to achieve a common good. Often, the common good might be a competitive advantage in business, brand identity, community support or expansion and growth of the business (Crossman, 2010). Additionally, to these collaborative approaches leaders seek to ensure that their employees are involved in decision making to make a contribution and bring impact in their specific departments (Burns & Peltason, 1966).

Traditionally, leadership had been thought of as a single person that leads or directs a groups or many groups as described in Peter Gronn 's article "Distributed Leadership as a unit of analysis.” However, according to Gronn, this conventional form of thinking, where one person or unit rules all (“leadership is basically doing what the leader wants done”) is faulty and ultimately leads to a counterproductive performance from the group as a whole, since everything falls upon one level of responsibility. In addition, he identifies three major chinks in the solo-style leadership model’s armor: the almost-too simplistic dualism of the “leader-follower” set-up; the exact qualifications of what constitutes a leader and said leaders and

Over the years, a great deal of time, and research has been dedicate to the study of leadership. Even with extensive data on the topic, many still disagree on what leadership really means. Hence, leadership is a word that has many different meanings and different researched theories associated with it. On a basic level, leadership involves having and establishing a clear vision, sharing that vision with followers, respecting followers, and leading an organization with excellence while ensuring that everyone is part of the team. Leadership is also a method by which a leader uses his or her influence towards getting a group of followers to take ownership or buy into a vision.

According to Day, Gronn, Salas, (2006) p. g. Leadership is a “context” of how the “social context” will “broader” the organization in shaping the company in an environment that is “intense, dynamic, multifaceted, ambiguous, information – rich, and communication – dependent” p. g. 213 - 214. Additionally, according to Day, Gronn, Salas, (2006) there is a “team leader capacity.” The “accommodation” and the “focus” is so that “management” can “better manage work teams”. Team leadership is for the purpose for managing to accumulate “tips, guidelines” in making up the “work team.” Management has to use “tips “and “Guidelines” that will make an opportunity” in the company, “to impact, influence, and demonstrate that our science matters in practice” p.g. 214.

Leadership theories are attempts to answer some of the question people have about leadership. These theories range from simple “armchair philosophies” about the personal characteristics and effect relationship between leaders and followers and situations.

Despite the advantages associated with a shared leadership approach, some disadvantages also exist. One disadvantage originates from individual interpretations of teamwork (Baghai & Quigley, 2012). In other words, not all people in a work environment view working together the same, posing a leadership challenge to clearly delineate the organization’s concept of team. Other disadvantages arise when workers chose to bypass or overlook some team members, or when an individual lacks the confidence to exhibit leadership skills resulting in organizational loss of leadership potential (Pearce, Wassenaar, & Manz, 2014).