My leadership capability - Essay Example

Of Ethical Standard: Leaders and Members of the Organization The signifier “leader” is generally ambivalent. Its definition or meaning largely relies on the interpreter. A leader is contextualized with respect to the interpreter. The interpreter uses, of course, a specific paradigm or system of analysis. In this paper, the interpreter is its author. For the sake of objectivity, the theories of several interpreters (i.e., researchers in the field of leadership in the organization) are explored. To my mind, a leader is someone who possesses a well-defined ethical standard. Such leader has a clear set of ethical principles mainly perceived or seen by his or her subordinates or members of the organization. For a leader to have a clear ethical standard, the members of the organization have to see or perceive it through his or her concrete and consistent actions. This implies that the perception of a good leader heavily relies on the people being led, not by the person who leads. The ethical principles of a leader greatly include the catering or supplying the needs of his or her subordinates. These needs constitute three general elements: first, permitting and pursuing the personal growth of the organization members; second, ensuring that the members are enjoying, or finding satisfaction in, their specified work; and third, providing greater independence or freedom in performing their assigned work activity. On the one hand, Schein’s paradigm of leadership is quite remarkable. He defines a good leader as the person who “create[s] a sense of direction, then nurture[s] and support[s] others who can make the new organization a success” (cited in Ledlow and Coppola, 2001). Besides providing a direction, a leader has to facilitate and support the activities and initiatives pursued by his or her organization members. No doubt, a leader has to define certain goal or objective for the organization; nonetheless, a good leader has to ascertain that the needs of the members of the organization are fully satisfied: nurture and support. On the other hand, Yukl’s definition of leadership is somewhat broad. He defines a leader as an individual who intentionally influences other people in structuring activities and relationships (Yukl, 2010). It is noteworthy that Yukl’s paradigm of leadership emphasizes on the power (i.e., influence) of the leader rather than the trait of nurturing and supporting the abilities, skills, and inventiveness of his or her subordinates. Basically, the process of arriving at the leadership criteria or paradigm is done through the results, and eventually their analyses, in answering the Finding Potential Engage Questionnaire. Such questionnaire consists of five general categories and fourteen core areas of engagement and commitment. Of the elements that constitute the five broad categories are the job, the people, the transaction, the organization, and the environment. And of few examples for the core areas of engagement are ethical standards and job satisfaction. After filling up the said questionnaire, the outcomes are thoroughly analyzed in defining the term "leadership." Moreover, the analyses focus more on two relevant types of scale marked in the Engage Questionnaire: very important and important. The underlying reason why these two types of scale are chosen in determining the paradigm of leadership is that they signify on what is more important to the individual who is interpreting such term (i.e., leader); what is moderately or marginally important is not equally important or very important in defining a particular signifier. Yukl rightly contends that there are numerous definitions for the term "leadership" (as cited in Ledlow & Coppola, 2001). Amidst the many paradigms of the signifier "leader," one has to decide on what specific definition he or she wants to assign to such signifier. Of course, choosing among the many and varied definitions essentially requires a theoretical framework. In this case, Schein's paradigm is heavily employed in determining what a leader is. Between the two types of scale -- of what is important and of what is very important -- it is empirical that what is very important significantly determines the concept of leadership. From that conception of a good leader, one proceeds to delineate on what constitutes such concept. For instance, the core area called the ethical standards is highly considered as the very important element or factor in the definition of leadership. And from that information, one further categorizes what this ethical set of principles is. The mere description of ethical standards as the promotion of diversity is lacking. Here, additional core areas (e.g., personal growth and independence) facilitate the description of the signifier “leader.” Evidently, my strengths greatly depend on valuing ethical principles as a prerequisite to a good leader. In general, the meaning of the term "ethical standard" signifies the person's broad mind; a leader with noble principles highly considers the diversity and multiplicity of the skills, characters, and temperaments of his or her members within the organization. Mullins (2010) views the organization as a complicated body that composes diverse individuals. The complexity of these individuals -- their distinct responses and reactions to the certain event involving work -- who are members of the organization makes the task of the leader very challenging. In order to resolve this difficulty, perhaps the leader has to possess a kind of temperament or character that esteems individual differences. Nohria, Groysberg, and Lee (2008) state that an effective leader is a person who recognizes and fulfills the drives of his or her subordinates in order to attain the objective designed by the organization. One of these drives is the drive to bond, which refers to the organization’s promotion of a culture of collaboration and openness between leaders and subordinates. For one thing, openness is a characteristic that takes into account the uniqueness or diversity of the people involved in the activity. In addition, my strengths rely on the emphasis given to the members of the organization -- that is, the subordinates. In the normative paradigm, the role of the leader in a particular organization is to structure the activities and relationships (as cited in Ledlow & Coppola, 2001). As opposed to the power-centered leadership, my conception of a leader depends on the ability or skill to fulfill the needs or drives of his or her subordinates. This implies that to achieve the leader’s defined goal, he or she has to first meet the drives of the organization members; the objective of the organization is equatable to the objective (i.e., needs) of the people who comprise the organization. On the other hand, my weaknesses largely lie in the absence of transparency between leaders and subordinates. In communications as a core area of engagement, I deem it as marginally important. This implies that members of the organization are willing to compromise transparency or clarity of a sense of direction; trusting too much to the leader in particular and the organization in general, subordinates do not seek an understanding of the reasons for pursuing specific decision made by the organization or leader. In essence, it follows the paradigm of Rauch and Behling pertaining to the notion and praxis of leadership. They define a leader as an individual who influences the group's activities in achieving the certain goal (as cited in Ledlow & Coppola, 2001). Apparently, Rauch and Behling subscribe to the idea of leadership with reference to power or control over his or her subordinates. Here, the members of the organization merely follow the will or decision of the leader; clearly, there is an absence of communication between leaders and subordinates. Loyalty and/or trust as the core area of engagement fail to consider the importance of transparency and communication between two distinct parties. This is true not only to the interests of the organization members but also the leader him- or herself. With respect to the leader, trust to his or her subordinates could be dangerous to the organization that he or she represents. For example, to allow greater freedom to the members of the organization implies that the leader ought to trust the processes or ways that his or her members arbitrarily choose to pursue. As a consequence, the leader’s capacity to influence in structuring activities and relationships is enormously diminished. By and large, the subordinate becomes a leader to him- or herself. Generally speaking, it is very important that a leader should possess a set of ethical principles. This ethical standard, among other examples, constitutes the leader's ability or skill to accept and value the diversity of the organization members. Moreover, the ethical standard should be perceived by the leader's subordinates. In the process, the emphasis is obviously on the members of the organization. The process of formulating the said definition of a leader involves the analyses of the results from answering the Engagement Questionnaire. What is very important suggests the fundamental elements of a good leader: ethical standard. And what are important strongly suggest the factors that compose the ethical standard. Nevertheless, there are strengths and weaknesses in the given definition to the concept of leadership. Yukl is correct when he states that the paradigms of a leader are complex and numerous (Yukl, 2010). References Ledlow, G. R., & Coppola, M. N. (2001). Leadership for health professionals: Theory, skills, and applications. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Mullins, L. J. (2010). Management and organizational behavior (9th ed.). Essex, England: Pearson Education Limited. Nohria, N., Groysberg, B., & Lee, L. (2008). Employee motivation. Harvard Business Review, 86 (7/8), 78-84. Yukl, G. (2010). Leadership in organizations: Global edition (7th ed.). Essex, England: Pearson Education Limited. Read More