Theories and Practice of Leadership - Term Paper Example

Theories and practice of leadership Place Introduction Due to the increasing interest to the leaders of certain organizations that emerged in the past decades, there is also a sense to understand where leadership comes from and what exactly is to be a good leader. Individuals continue to ask themselves what makes good leaders to be effective. While many people tend to think that leadership is a commodity that helps to improve personal, social and professional lives, corporations believe that good leader will bring special assets to the organization and then improve each level of business (Northouse, 2010). Despite all considerations, leaders are also believed to be people with special innate characteristics that actually make them leaders, those who obtain certain personal qualities such as extraversion, intelligence, ability to interact with one’s followers. Moreover, leaders are good in sharing responsibility with others in order to enable each team member contribution to the construction of common goal by means of understanding the relationships. Therefore, leadership becomes the task that involves relation and interaction between the people involved into common business and which realize the companys objectives and the way how to reach them. In such relational role, leader is no more a single executor, but one becomes a co-creator of what the team, department or community wants to create. Besides, modern leader is not just a person who controls the performance of certain processes, however, one possesses a role of mentor and coach with the ability and skills to involve employees in the development of something, thus provides them advice, opens new developmental opportunities and possibilities for discussing and search of possible consensus. With the task role of cultivator, leaders work to ensure good business environment where people would be able to create and diversify ideas and decisions. It means that if a team has such a helper or facilitator of the process, the members would impose upon leader’s decisions and would try to participate in the dialogue providing partnership, giving creativity and discovering innovation (Pless & Maak, 2004). The following paper will investigate some of the leadership principles that can assist in the future performances; the relationship between the guiding principles of leadership will also be discovered. Leadership principles that guide leader behavior in the future The role of leaders in not exaggerated in the modern business environment due to the multifacing that one should be. The ability to persuade others, make proper decisions in a tough conditions, knowing how to resolve conflict situations and effectively manage people are among the most necessary skills of the leader. Besides, with the presence of such leaders’ principles as knowing of oneself and seeking for self- improvement, seeking and taking responsibility for one’s actions, praying what one’s preaches, it will be possible to possess oneself as enabler of the processes and activities within certain organization with all the power and performance to bear people’s trust and confidence in the right decision making processes (Sharma & Jain, 2013). Moreover, leader’s traits such as honesty, ability to delegate and effective communication will create the strongest relationship between the leader and people (staff, team members) and ensure these people with the clear route to the performance (Lawson and Cox, 2010) (see Appendix A). 1. Responsible leader With the common perception that a leader is able to influence others in order to reach the targets, the essential question usually arises about the people who usually follow the leader. These are the employees, Figure1. Roles of responsible leaders (Source: Laasch & Conaway, 2014) subordinates or those who have similar interests in following one concrete person- a leader. Therefore, such leadership trait as responsibility should be paid much attention. Thus, for the responsible manager, the followers can be the consumers who are led to more responsible consumption of products or services that they are offered. Politicians are also the followers of the effective leader, as they are lobbied to create public policies for sustainability and responsibilities (Laasch & Conaway, 2014). Responsible leaders are required to have social skills and certain mental flexibility to hold multiple processes within certain area. These are various roles of effective leader (see Figure1). 2. Effective decision making One of the most important trait or capability that each employee or follower expects from a leader is making the right decision. Inadequate thought bears mistakes and wrong decisions and therefore, an effective leader should be a quick learner in terms of making decisions. Whether each situation requires almost unique decision and solution, it is suggested that leaders should apply different approach in decision-making process and be able to adapt to potential changes sooner as employees (Burian et al., 2014). Leadership is also defined by the results and not attributes. That means that an effective trait of leader should focus on the whole scope of information and thus impact the decisions at best. Using rationality and consistence in collecting useful information, it is the best way for leader to consider all factors that may influence making the decision (See Appendix B). The chart represented illustrated that through understanding the real situation and the possible opportunities that it gives, along with the objectives of the leader, it is possible to move to the next stage of the decision-making process. The framing enables the leader to understand the boundaries of the situation and open decisions. Then the stage of evaluation will give possibility to think about the possible risk and effect of the certain decision, while the last stage of agreement will enable a leader to adjust one’s decision with all ideas of the subordinates (Brown III, 2013). It is also important that each leader when making a decision could realize the impact, effect and resources from the ethical perspective. The question of how ethical and legal aspects should live side by side has been given more attention in the recent years. 3. Ethical leadership While leadership is a combination of strategy and character, there is a great sense in considering belief in the leader’s decision making to be ethical and worthy of trust. Besides, a decision is made upon the collaborative work and participation of each member of group or team. Therefore, leadership should ensure such principles as respect, service, justice, honesty and community to be provided for high productivity of people who follow the leader and thus bring more effective and useful decisions (Ethical leadership, n.d.). Ethical leaders respect ideas and propositions of others and recognize that followers are targeting the same goals with their own ambitions. Therefore, leaders should show empathy, be active listeners and be tolerant toward any viewpoints without skepticism and personal prejudice. For the purpose to follow one common goal, all members or group, team or community should serve each other and leaders are not an exception. The followers here should be put as the prime doers of all the activities for the sake of one goal. Leaders here serve followers by means of building teams, coaching, mentoring and empowering others to make necessary things and decisions. It is also up to ethical behavior of leader to ensure that justice and fairness are the major parts of the decision making process and. all the subordinates are in the equal position and have clear and transparent access to all the information, resources and leader’s advice whenever they need that. In the modern world, it is important to run honest and ethical business in order to attract more consumers, markets and build a good reputation of a trusted company. However, honesty starts with the honest attitude toward all key players, including followers. Dishonesty destroys trust of employees in their leaders and builds false leader-follower relationship. On the contrary, honesty means that leader is open with others, however has a balance of openness with disclosing of what is appropriate for a certain group of people. Trust, respect and justice enable leaders to build community of like-minded people that are able to influence greater goal and develop organizational objectives. 4. Leadership perception Once a leader acts in the dishonest way, it is difficult to create another perception. Here the 360-degree feedback allows the employees as well a leader to compare the self-ratings and ratings of subordinates, colleagues and other managers. The effective and the most accurate feedback is available if all the sources are captured and all parties are assessed (Bradley, Allen, Hamilton & Filgo, 2006). A 360-degree feedback is a popular development tool that enables organizational leaders rate their own and staff performance. Once the leader understands the perspective of the rater, it will become possible to improve the interpretation of 360- degree feedback and find new solutions of performance gaps within a workgroup. Such activity will enable leaders to conduct more significant interventions. The important fact in creating perception about the followers and leaders is to understand oneself possibilities and the limitations, strengths and weaknesses. The ability for self- evaluation leads to the perception of others as those who can also have strong capabilities and sides for improvement. Therefore, criticism and underestimation would be drawn to minimum. There is also a need to take care of people since they are the important asset and they are the first followers that deeply understand the vision and interest of a leader. They all follow the common objectives and respect leadership, therefore should be treated accordingly with respect. In practice leaders can conduct coaching, micro-managing, challenge staff for making different decisions that enable all to find the most appropriate solutions, recognize the most valuable contributions. Not the last place in leader’s perception of its followers is the outcome which teams and groups provide at the end of certain work or project. Thus, numbers of revenues and earnings constitute a considerable advantage for the leader to be perceived as the one who leads to the highest results. However, the only numbers do not display the entire achievement of the employees’ work and therefore attention should be given to end product or service and the level of productivity of the team or group. 5. Leader who creates a workplace culture With the ability to sell one’s skills for certain company, each employee expects to see that one is welcome in the friendly business environment with good established working relationship and engagement, which is more useful than logo T-shirts and other attributes of the company. Such workplace with its environment and culture depends on the desire of each leader of every particular organization. In almost every case, that culture is defined and shaped by the leader, which is a difficult task, since many of the valuable features a leader are never taught but can be learned through life experience, emotional maturity, authenticity and a leader’s character. Only these traits help the leader to create a culture-driven company. It is necessary to mention that here a leader is considered as a person that is devoted to a running a business and is not perceived as its manager. That is why one displays and spreads the values of the organization the way one sees them and the way one wants then to be inside the company. Moreover, personal commitment is more likely to be verbalized. It is also up to the culture-driven leader to demonstrate energy and engagement to the work in tight collaboration with other group members. In such a culture-driven company, the leadership style competes with itself at all levels of the organization despite the fact that there is only one leader (Kuhlmann, 2010). This concept is explained by different tasks and decisions that a leader should make. First, it is the search and picking of the team members, which is the fundamental responsibility for a leader, because all the further success will depend on the engagement and contribution of each team member. However, the selection and recruitment processes are not simple and require accurate attitude, beside those activities into which a leader is engaged. In big companies there are the entire human resources departments that represent the company’s values and culture in their aim to find the right candidate. The leader performs as the manager and controls only certain processes of the recruitment (picking people for managers’ position). Creating unique workplace culture requires a leader to have a strong character and high motivation to be able to encourage others for adhering company’s norms and culture in general. Besides encouragement, it is sometimes useful to remind employees about the risk in case of failure. Such activity will keep the team in the energetic and startup frame, because people will simply be afraid to experience failure in the eyes of their colleagues. The relationships between guiding principles In order to understand the relationship between such principles of leadership as responsibility, decision making, ethical attitude toward leader’s performance, the perception of the working mass and creating of the perfect working place with its culture, it is essential to imagine the workplace where a leader does not have any of the stated characteristics, traits and behaviors. In such a changeable time, with the emerging and fast growing markets, each organization, whether it is a startup company with a few people of staff or multinational corporation with thousands of people, strives to earn its place in the sun. Each creates, designs, develops more and more new products and services in order to attract new customers and retain them for as long as it is possible. Staff today is selected with high attention to their skills and capabilities, they are motivated by numerous compensation benefits and are taught and developed to stay and work for the good of the business with the aim to create the most valuable atmosphere for customers. However, at the top of all needs of business there should be a person whose poignant wit and long head along with the clear vision of the strategy would be able to put all the parts of business together and make the machine of company work. Responsibility is the first trait of such person, a leader, that is critical in building a reputable and trusted company with highly motivated and skilled employees, whose activities would be coordinated and adjusted to potential changes. Without responsible attitude toward one’s own performance and accurate execution of employees’ duties, business will fail to meet customers’ needs and thus bring less revenue and profit for the organization. Use of great power should be counterbalanced with the responsibility in order to make proper decisions. The effective leader should make these decisions taking into account all ideas and possible solutions of the staff. The organization risks less if all the conditions and information received from all the sources of the company is assessed. There is nothing wrong if the process of decision making will be prolonged and can take some time. In order to avoid potential failure or risk, a leader provides a responsible person more time for making the right decision. Despite the fact that the solution of certain problem cannot be effective and thus bring inconveniences and failure to the whole organization, what a leader should think over is how to overcome the possible problem in the future. Effective analyzing of the situation and circumstances with the involvement of people who were responsible for preparation of work or decision making will help all the team or group members to realize the gaps, mistakes and weaknesses of the situation. Feedback here is essential as from the leader as from the employee’ sides. A proper perception of leader’s actions as to the complications and one’s logical and sound comments will enable the followers to trust the leader and be able to address any issues that can appear in the future. The problematic situations and conflicts, despite their consequences, help the team and leader to analyze, understand and learn the mistakes. The feeling that each employee is valuable despite the weaknesses, failures and gaps assist in creating good workplace culture where employees are appreciated for the good performance of their duties, they are developed and taught how to handle different situations. The leader is the coach and mentor with the ability to take responsibility for the actions of the entire team, one makes good decisions with regard to the member’s opinion and taking into account each idea. However, there are also companies whose leaders are irresponsible toward not only employees, well-being of company, but toward the society in general. In pursuit of achieving popularity and making more money Thus, the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) forced evictions of thousands of people in Brazil in 2014. The aim was construct the necessary facilities for the World Cup in Brazil (Somin, 2014). When two hundred and fifty people were evicted from their homes, the World Cup became the worst social and public policy disaster for Brazil. Due to the fact that most of the people that suffered the eviction were poor and their rights for property were not recognized by the official legal system, it is the most unethical decision of FIFA to build the roads and infrastructure for the cost of the part of the society. Another example of the unethical decisions that were known to the world is the Enron case (Li, 2010). The absence of effective system of management and control inside the company and also the conflict of interests between the managers of different rates within Enron caused the company its profitability and led to the bankruptcy with legal charges to the top management. Experts consider that such reasons as lack of truthfulness by management about the financial state of the company, the accounting fraud or mark to market were the main that caused crash of the corporation. Besides, in order to develop an image of profiting situation in the company, Enron traders were pressured to forecast potential cash flows to the investors along with the low discount rate. The top management was morally and physically responsible for the collapse of the company. Personal experience Ethical integrity is as important aspect of leadership as ability to listen to subordinates and make decisions. Effective leaders are always perceived by the followers if they display the high level of integrity and meet the expectations of people. Unethical decisions are made usually by the leaders who have low self-efficacy and destructive behavior (Craig & Gustafson, 1998). However, integrity is not the only feature of the leader that should be taken into account. Effective leader should be promise-keeping in order to be trusted and not to interpret any justifications for escaping of possible issues or conflicts. Respect others is among the main traits of wise leader. The business will not succeed if employees are not respected and their privacy, human dignity, rights and interests are not treated well (Josephson, 2013). In the recent years there appeared a lot of companies, whose activities are the example to follow and their leaders display the unique skills and capabilities of how to manage business, gather people around the common goal and achieve the best results. Thus, Reid Hoffman, the cofounder and executive chairman of LinkedIn considers that it is worth recognizing not the weaknesses of employees, because all people have flaws, but better appreciate strong sides of personality (Feloni, 2015). There is also a benefit for a leader to move fast due to the rapid changes in the world technologies, create and keep things simple and understandable for people and be able to trust employees. References Bradley, T., Allen, J., Hamilton, S. & Filgo, S., 2006. 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Perceived leader integrity scale: an instrument for assessing employee perceptions of leader integrity, JAI Press Ethical leadership, n.d., Chapter 16, SAGE Feloni, R., 2015. 7 Valuable Leadership Lessons From LinkedIns Billionaire Founder, The Business Insider, [online] Available at: http://uk.businessinsider.com/linkedin-reid-hoffman-leadership-lessons-2015-1 [Assessed on 3d of February, 2015] Josephson, M. 2013, 12 Ethical Principles for Business Executives by Michael Josephson, Business Ethics and Leadership, [online] Available at: http://josephsoninstitute.org/business/blog/2010/12/12-ethical-principles-for-business-executives/ [Assessed on 3d of February, 2015]. Kuhlmann, A. 2010, Culture-driven leadership, The Ivey Business Journal, [online] Available at: http://iveybusinessjournal.com/topics/leadership/culture-driven-leadership#.VNDOV9KsU0o [Assessed on 3d of February, 2015]. Laasch, O. & Conaway, R. 2014, Principles of Responsible Management: Glocal Sustainability, Responsibility, and Ethics, Cengage Learning Lawson, I. and Cox, B., 2010. Exceeding Expectation: The principles of outstanding leadership, The International Journal of Leadership in Public Services, Volume 6, Issue 1 [pdf] Available at: [Assessed on 3d of February, 2015]. Li, Y., 2010. The Case Analysis of the Scandal of Enron, International Journal of Business and Management Vol. 5, No. 10 Northouse, P., 2010. Leadership: Theory and Practice, SAGE Pless, N. & Maak, T., 2004. Building an Inclusive Diversity Culture: Principles, Processes and Practice, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 54, No. 2 Sharma, M. & Jain, S., 2013. Leadership Management: Principles, Models and Theories, Global Journal of Management and Business Studies, Volume 3, Number 3 Somin, I. 2014, Brazil forcibly displaced thousands of people to make way for the World Cup, The Washington Post, [online] Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/06/18/brazil-forcibly-displaced-thousands-of-people-to-make-way-for-the-world-cup/ [Assessed on 3d of February, 2015]. Appendix A (Source: Lawson and Cox, 2010, p.5) Appendix B (Source: Brown III, 2013) Read More