Evaluation of Personality Traits and Leadership - Assignment Example

Assignment Chapter 2 – Self Evaluation SA1 Evaluation of Personality Traits & Leadership intends to suggest what is best type of Leadership, several leadership styles are debated like people orientated, system oriented, democratic , benevolent, autocratic etc. In the final analysis the best leader seems to be one who is liked by majority of subordinates and colleagues . In order that others like you as leader be pleasant, get interested in others, be kind, smile, have sense of humour, keep excellent inter personal relation, be dependable with high integrity, adopt equanimity approach –take success , failure as it comes and remain unperturbed. Also to be successful avoid getting angry, getting upset on trivial, criticism, gossip, extreme and hard views. SA2 As far as leader motive profile theory-the author says leader’s success depends on achievement, power, affiliation. Here it needs to be noted that power is generally not given, it has to be acquired by being pro-active. Generally no one tells you what to do, you are given a position and you are expected to take initiative. Several jobs might not come strictly within the ambit of your duties . For example as Accountant if you get a call for sales order, instead of saying it is not your job take the contact and pass it on to the concerned. In the long run the one who takes initiative will succeed. SA3 Value based leadership gives greater emphasis on ethics and spiritual approach of leadership. Though value based performance is certainly quite crucial in the present context , wherein the cut thought competition and unfair dealings are rampant in business situations. It is not always that one will be in a dominant position. When the situation reverse the opponents will equally and sharply react posing catastrophic , disastrous consequences for the leader. Spirituals quotient which is value based is therefore considered very important for a good leader in the long run . However it is unfortunate that not much academic research is done on adding value to the skills developed while pursuing education. SA4 Leaders connection with vision and mission is quite intimate. Vision is what the entrepreneur looks forward in long run, mission is the core purpose of the organization. Therefore leader without clear vision and mission would be beating around the bush and is likely to be plunging into micro level of organization and would fail to reach macro level. Leader should not only pursue vision and mission ,he should significantly contribute in furtherance of vision and mission of the organization. SA5 Theory’ X’ and Theory ‘Y ‘are basically theories explaining the both extremes-the former portraying Staff as disinterested and need for coercion to motivate while the latter assuming staff to be extremely interested in the given tasks and the employer’s responsibility is only to provide proper job atmosphere, motivation to open the floodgate of creativity of employees . Pygmalion effect highlights the performance dependence on leaders attitude and prejudices. The performance indeed depends on leaders attitude to subordinate. If leader considers subordinate as worthless, he tends to be so. Leader should not have prejudices and needs to understand every one is unique and each has his own strength and weaknesses. Leader should exploit the strength of subordinate in order ensure productive performance from his team. As per Peter Drucker the job of leader is make common man to do uncommon things and lift his performance beyond the normal level. Chapter-3 SA1 University of Michigan & Ohio state University made study on leaders style . Basically there was an exercise given to make self assessment as what one would do as a leader for optimum performance. Based on my experiences a good leader should not mind-staff coming occasionally late. He needs to give permission for attending personal jobs. Should encourage subordinates improve their career by pursuing professional studies. Leader should give autonomy and should not make premature evaluation. On the whole the leader should not get involved on trivial issues and his focus should be whether the subordinate is effective or not. As long as he is a performer, late coming and other issues mentioned above should not bother him. SA2 Autocratic style of leadership is ineffective and outdated. What autocratic leader accomplishes is subordinate’s compliance with what he says and can never get best from the subordinates. He is noisy, disturbs self and all around him and is a liability for the organization . The true leadership is one where the subordinate performs irrespective as to whether leader is present or not. True successful leader should be invisible like a thread in a garland coordinating subordinates effectively unseen emitting fragrance for fruitful performance. SA3 Leader should be in a position to evaluate his calibre and capabilities and assure management what he can do and never over estimate his capabilities. Frequent failure to meet commitments would result in management taking a view about the leader as unreliable. We generally see the tendency of sales executives promising accomplishing unrealistic target and getting accolades initially and fail at the end in accomplishment , only to get reprimanded. However this opinion contradicts GE’s Jack Welch’s “stretch goal” philosophy which highlights the need to go beyond your capacity and excel or else you would be mediocre by default. While over-estimation is undesirable , underestimation leads to below par performance and stagnation. The summary and conclusion therefore is leader should be likable to be effective, should gain his power by taking responsibility and initiative, value based, should have clear vision and mission, should be devoid of prejudices, should not mind minor lapses from subordinates, invisible, unassuming and yet effective, realistic in accomplishing tasks while sustaining excellence in every endeavour embarked by him. Bibliography “Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development”, Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2010). (4th ed.). Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning ,ISBN: 0-324-596553 Read More