Leadership That Gets Results
What Do Effective Leaders Do?
“What do effective leaders do to remain effective?” was a question that I proposed to my Leadership Application Program Speakers Round Table Class. In response I received a number of answers from personality traits to emotional intelligence. Leadership is a word that can be defined in many different ways. In the article “Leadership That Gets Results” they take the time and breakdown the six different steps of leadership, the six styles are coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting and coaching. The late David McClelland, a noted Harvard University psychologist, found that leaders with strengths in a critical mass of six or more emotional intelligence
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The authoritative style, powerful though it may be, will not work in every situation. The approach fails, for instance, when a leader is working with a team of experts or peers who are more experienced than he is; they may see the leader as pompous or out-of-touch. Another limitation: if a manager trying to be authoritative becomes overbearing, he can undermine the egalitarian spirit of an effective team. Yet even with such caveats, leaders would be wise to grab for the authoritative "club" more often than not. It may not guarantee a hole in one, but it certainly helps with the long drive.
The Affiliative Style. “If the coercive leader demands, "Do what I say," and the authoritative urges, "Come with me," the affiliative leader says, "People come first." This leadership style revolves around people-its proponent’s value individuals and their emotions more than tasks and goals. The affiliative leader strives to keep employees happy and to create harmony among them. He manages by building strong emotional bonds and then reaping the benefits of such an approach, namely fierce loyalty. The style also has a markedly positive effect on communication. People who like one another a lot talk a lot. They share ideas; they share inspiration. And the style drives up flexibility; friends trust one another, allowing habitual innovation and risk taking. Flexibility also rises because the
Woody’s Veneer Factory is experiencing decreased productivity, an increase in garbage removal costs, and a loss of revenue. The floor workers are grinding up good veneer, an activity that increases garbage fees and decreases productivity and money. There is loss of production because the workers are more concerned with their revenge on management than on being productive workers. They work together using hand signals and text messages to warn others that management is watching so that no one gets caught destroying good product. This paper will analyze different group and team concepts and provide examples of leadership theories that management can implement at Woody’s Veneer Factory.
Ronald A. Heifetz is well versed in leadership issues. Once a psychiatrist, he is now the director of the Leadership Education Project at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He founded the Center for Public Leadership where he is the “King Hussein bin Talal Senior Lecturer” (“Harvard Kennedy School”, n.d.). Much of the leadership experience poured into Leadership Without Easy Answers is primarily derived from Heifetz’ work in Washington, D.C. observing the political leadership structures of the entire nation. This gives him a unique perspective of leadership insight into higher-ranking structures of the leader-follower relationship and the extent of the effects of leader’s actions and decisions. Heifetz uses this
In today’s competitive world, leadership skills are crucial for both personal and professional development. Leadership is an important function of management which helps an individual or a business to maximize efficiency and to achieve goals. Leadership has different meanings to various authors.Most commonly, leadership is defined as influence, that is, the art of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievement of group goals. (Koontz). Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of either formal or informal group in the task of goal setting and goal achievement. A leader is one whose magnetic personality innervates people for some cause. Not by words, but by their actions is
The Leadership Potential assessment (Lussier & Achua, 2010, p. 3) yielded a score of 31 where the range was from 0 to 35; 0 representing low leadership potential and 35 representing the highest leadership potential. In this assessment the higher the score, from a generic standpoint, the more potential for leadership exists. However, it does not assess your willingness to do what it takes to lead or desire to lead.
A leader is more than just running a group; it is some one who impacts at least one other person’s life in a positive way. A leader is someone who can guide others into accomplishing some success and goals. Furthermore, empower others is essential in the ability to maintain positive leadership. A leader is caring, must be willing to adapt and share the values of others, while still preserving their own personal values and beliefs. One aspect of being a good leader is having strong self-awareness- described as knowing your own strengths and weaknesses. Emotional intelligence, another aspect of being a respectable leader, is knowing your inner emotional state and remaining in control of it. Emotional
Not all leaders are famous like Martin Luther King, most leaders are ordinary people; you can walk down the street and run into someone and not know that they are a very powerful leader. I personally know of a good leader that is an ordinary person; my father. Although some people believe that leaders are born and not made, I believe that anyone can become a leader if they have enough courage and are thick skinned. There are many words that people come up with when they are asked to describe what makes a good leader. The most popular characteristics used to describe a good leader would be a good listener, responsible, and decisive. When you think of what makes a good leader you should also ask what kind of education they have and what
The autocratic style is where the leader makes all the decisions without involving the group (Steinburg, 2008). The leader will not actively participate with the group, and will just give clear directions to group members. This type of leader will sort out the tasks for the team and will not notify members of any future plans. Solely having the knowledge is what gives the leader the confidence to make decisions. The leader when evaluating team members gives praise and criticism freely, but it is given based on their own personal standards rather than based on an objective/unbiased standard (Combe, 2014).
Throughout the last few weeks, we’ve discussed numerous ideas and concepts depicting various leadership qualities, and how they apply to a work center or organization. A good leader will be able to effectively use interchangeable combinations of these concepts. As NCOs we strive to be good leaders; authentic and honest leadership is hard to come by. We need to look at ourselves, put ego aside, and take the time to actively work on improving weaknesses. My vision statement is, “To create and promote good, sustainable leadership for our future, and strive to grow airman with the same integrity and followership traits emitted by those before them.” In order to do this, you must truly know yourself. It’s imperative that you are aware of your values, understand your tendencies and favorable leadership styles. I’ve learned that I favor MBE-A, prefer the creator role, and that I fit in the mildly adaptive category. Taking tests such as the ones we did in class will help identify strengths and weaknesses. No test will ever truly pinpoint the person you are, they are tools to point you in the right direction; although some are remarkably accurate. Understanding these roles will allow me to adapt to situations and alter my approach when necessary. Knowing yourself is the baseline to being an effective leader. It will open your eyes and allow you to take charge of your physical, emotional, spiritual and social health. You must start with yourself if you want to positively
Leadership is a term on which no one can develop a mutual consensus as it carries a different meaning for ach individual. Some people may consider a person as their leader who is capable of taking them away from hardships, some people may consider the one as their leader who is quite charismatic and can show them dreams of a bright future or some people may consider that man as a leader who can make them progress by devising wise strategies for them etc. There is, somehow, something very common in all the perspectives that are the philosophy behind the definition, which is related to choosing a best of the best person as their leader. Nobody wants to have a person as his leader who doesn’t have knowledge of the needs and aspirations of his
Leadership theories have been extensively studied, developed, and applied to understand the impact they bestow on organizations. This assignment evaluates and reflects on the leadership style of my former graduate advisor, mentor, and friend through a critical analysis examining organizational power, contingency factors, influence tactics, ethical issues, and decision-making style. This paper describes my advisor’s transformational leadership style, and how this behavior affected my task performance, job performance, and organizational commitment. This analysis concludes with a review of my leadership skills and abilities and an evaluation of the utility of this course and
After conducting some research on leadership, many questions have been brought to my attention. Some questions include the following: What is a leader? Are leaders made or born? What is the difference between leadership and management? What are the theories concerning leadership? Answers to these questions, and many others, should become clear enough at the end of this research.
“Leadership is a strategic, focused on vision, and involves a strong element of building trust and emotional engagement with ‘followers’” (Jan Carmichael, 2011). Similarly (B.M.Bass) Bass (1990) who found that a leader should engage followers by showing enthusiasm, inspiring loyalty and gains respect
The Authoritative Style: The authoritative leader organizes and encourages people to act in a concerted way in order to achieve a particular vision or objective. This style also requires coherently expressing the level of quality expected in the accomplishment of the objectives, while allowing the team to come up with the means to carry out the objectives. The emotional intelligence competencies exhibited by an authoritative leader are self-confidence, empathy and change catalyst.
On the contrary, affiliative leaders are those who always go with their people, focus on the emotion of employees more than achieving the goals or targets, put the emotional feelings of the followers in the middle of their concern, try to create comfortable working environment and build a harmony in the team. However, they often evade dealing with dispute, thus poor performance of workers may go unchecked. These leaders are well known with the phrase, “people come first”.
As we've learned in class there is an array of different leadership styles, some of the most common include authoritarian (autocratic), democratic and laissez fair. A leadership style can be defined as a leader's ability to direct, manage, and guide a group of people. A clear and concise image is illustrated by an autocratic leader, expectations of what, how and when something should be accomplished are very coherent. This type of leadership focus' on the decisions and commands of the leader, it requires the people in charge to make decisions independently and with little to no help from followers. The most effective leaders are recognized to be democratic, these types of leaders are known to be cooperative with the people they are leading. It encourages participation from