There are many pitfalls that a leader can fall into at any given time. A good leader will avoid pitfalls because they will want to make sure that everyone on the team is performing at the highest level possible. “Effective leadership of others is vital to high performance” (Clemmer, 1995). In the article The Value of Valuing Employees the author describes six pitfalls that “curb invention and drive” (Comaford, 2013). I will go over the six pitfalls of leadership as described by Comaford, the impact of the pitfall on the organization and team and what the leader could have done differently in order to correct their behavior.
Pitfalls of Leadership The article The Value of Valuing employees discusses six pitfalls that leaders should avoid. The first pitfall as described in the article is “Failing to answer employee emails” (Comaford, 2013). An example of this pitfall that I came across in my career was when I was assigned to complete a project and was having an issue with a particular part of the assignment and wanted to get clarification from my manager, I sent him an email and did not get a response from him. The lack of the response to my email made me feel as though I was being set up to fail because he may have had an issue with me or did not like me. “When employees send email and fail to get a reply they think ‘She doesn’t care for my idea. She doesn’t like me. I feel disdained. I don’t matter” (Comaford, 2013). What the manager could have done in this
Leadership is, and always has been, a vital aspect of social and economic constructs. It is essential to the survival of societies, industries, organizations, and virtually any group of individuals that come together for a common purpose. However, leadership is difficult to define in a single, definitive sense. As such, theories of leadership, what constitutes a great leader, and how leaders are made have evolved constantly throughout history, and still continue to change today in hopes of improving upon our understanding of leadership, its importance, and how it can be most effective in modern organizational cultures.
For centuries leaders have been analyzed in order to determine what the traits and characteristics of a successful leader are. Leadership, as defined by Koontz and Weihrich (2008) is “the art or a process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievement of group goals” (p. 311). Leadership plays an important role in employee’s participation, creativity, recruitment to an organization, their commitment to the organization, and productivity levels. Over the years, there have been a number of theories surrounding leadership such as the “Great Man” theory, which, according to Riaz and Haider (2010), “assumes that leaders are born and have innate qualities, therefore, leaders
Three weaknesses of authentic leadership are: lack of trust demonstrated from top to bottom and vice versa, a lack of development due to the infancy of this theory and the pursuit with passion can lead to a blind pursuit. Trust must be given in order to receive it, if managers are not being fully authentic with their employees, the trust and level of commitment expected will never be reciprocated. Although John usually displays this trust to his team, he is only human and at times, as with any other manager or person, people are not trustworthy. For example for years, Big Hospital has preached that everyone is a family, yet, due to certain circumstances, there had to be a lot of layoffs, and whether granted or not, this is looked as being deceitful or not being honest with your employees. The second weakness of authentic leadership can be related to its infancy and its lack of leadership development. Fusco, T. (2016, p.119) argues that the next challenging frontier is to establish genuine leadership development. Often times, leadership seems to simply fit someone’s personality, however, leaders must continue to read and develop oneself to become a better leader, either through experiences or personal training. Big Hospital provides continued training for all its employees, and although some may take it more than others, employees are often encouraged to take training classes. Lastly, the third weakness of this theory is that of a “blind pursuit” or following an idea with
Inadequate or inefficient leadership can act as a catalyst for implementation failure in majority of proposed changed in the healthcare industry. Additionally, leader team that is not a representation of the organization or its diversity can also jeopardize the integrity of the project, and will eventually lead to an epic failure.
Leadership. We all know great leaders when we see them. They are the one who inspire us, they are committed and honest. Winston Churchill, General Patton both exemplify the qualities of a great leader. But how often do we think about the qualities that make a leader substandard. We all know from the leaders who did bad things. Adolph Hitler always comes to mind but was he a bad leader or just a bad man. In this week’s class paper, we read about the pitfalls of a bad leader. In her article” The Value of Valuing Employees Six ways leaders inadvertently curb innovation, motivation” author Christine Comaford explores the six factors that are detrimental to a leader and their leadership abilities. In my following paper, I am taking a look at those six pitfalls and the different strategies an organization can initiate to correct those drawbacks.
From a business perspective, the ramifications of leadership failure differ in size depending on the severity of the situation. If market conditions are fixed and the competitive atmosphere is not extraordinarily punishing, leadership failures may not be that bad for the business. If, however, the market is going through dramatic change, which demands equally dramatic change in the organization, failure to
A leader must have a high commitment level to the organization, the ability to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the personnel they work with to develop effective teams, and the ability to communicate effectively to avoid misconceptions. A leader must care about and support their members in ways that help both the member and the organization as a whole. As Lt. Col. Matt Joganichs’ uncle stated to him prior to administering the commissioned officer’s oath, “make sure you take care of your people. If you do that, they’ll take care of you.”1 To me, taking care of and supporting your member’s means to ensure people have a positive work environment, they have access to the training the need to perform their jobs, are able to provide input to policies that effect the organization, and that there are procedures in-place to ensure people are being treated fairly. My leadership philosophy was developed to encompass these leadership traits to provide a solid foundation for the organization to succeed. Whenever a leadership philosophy is developed it is always good to perform continual analysis of it for improvements. One of the best ways to improve upon your leadership philosophy is to discuss leadership challenges with those that are more experienced than you in
Before you can lead others, you must first be a leader in your own life. With leadership comes responsibility as people look to leaders for guidance. Most of the corruption and disruption within an organization or community is the result of leaders’ failure to lead themselves. We have witnessed instances of corruption and disruption numerous times over the last decade as leaders have fallen from grace due to their poor decision making. These poor decisions were not always directly related to their professional lives, instead they were related to their
The topic of leadership is historically one of the most widely researched when it comes to explorations of organizational behavior. The success of any institution or organization is pegged on the quality of its leadership because it is the determining factor on the pattern and speed at which it achieves its growth goals. Leaders are responsible for steering an organization toward its goal by mobilizing resources (both human and material) and maximizing their efficiency. The key deliverables for many leaders include employee well-being, teamwork, adherence to organizational processes and procedures, innovation, crisis
In my reflections as I prepared to write this paper, I came to the realization that leadership is much more complex especially since the paper requires that I focus on a few traits. In an effort to make it simple, I wrote down the traits that came to mind and in process had over 10 important traits but an even bigger challenge was on how to narrow them down to 3 or 4 and this is the place that required a good deal of reflection. Eventually, however, I had to prioritize them since in any case; it is not possible to get a leader that has all the traits. As I thought of the various leaders who have inspired me, I noticed that while they strived to provide the best leadership by focusing on their strong points, they still had their weaknesses. To me this provided a justification for at least identifying key desirable traits and thereafter working to improve them. I did manage to settle on four traits, which for me are indispensible if a leader or a leadership is to become effective.
The purpose of this paper is to reflect and make an analysis of the general strengths and weaknesses of a leader, provide recommendations, thoughts of overall performance to improve on this person’s leadership style in which practices and theories were utilized most effectively. Upon such, draw conclusions and provide an integration of this leadership practice into my own leadership practice. The accomplishment of this will be achieved by identifying several key practices from published documents surrounding and encompassing the leader, and comparing them to known relative concepts for a holistic view of the approach.
There are many examples of poor leadership behavior in today’s workplace. Inadequate leadership can be detrimental not only to a team within an organization, but also to the entire organization itself. I believe it is vital for upper management to ensure that their leaders are properly trained and aware of how to handle certain situations and employees. When a leader’s weaknesses are overlooked, large problems occur.
Effective leaders clarify the path to help their followers achieve their goals and make the journey easier by reducing roadblocks and pitfalls. Research demonstrates that employee performance and satisfaction are positively influenced when the leader compensates for the shortcomings in either the employee or the work setting.
Research on management and leadership in organizations over the past century shows there are still no clear definitions or answers about what counts as effective and successful leadership; the field remains varied and argued. Actual studies of leadership began in the early twentieth century. The research and studies on leadership have resulted in defining what characters, traits and attitudes are considered to be significant for leaders to possess. The early studies of leadership theories focused on the person and their behaviors, currently known as leadership trait theories and behavioral theories. It is important for organizational leaders and managers to understand what characteristics, traits and actions of an individual mark a great leader when forming a strong diverse workforce.
There are different forms of leadership that can successfully operate a workplace. However, if the different types of leadership are applied incorrectly it can cause employees to become dissatisfied or have a poor attitude. Dr. Enter