The Two Faces of Leadership - Assignment Example

Now days the leadership becomes more and more important because every manager works with people and effectiveness of their activities depends on certain skills among which the communicating skill is one of the most important. For example the authors of the article Entrepreneurs as authentic leaders Susan M. Jensen and F Luthans1 defined leaders as a crucial factor of the business success because creating a new enterprise requires different resources as well as people responsible for allocating them more effectively. The authors also linked the terms entrepreneur and leader. They believe that every founder of a new venture when he develops the ideas and allocates different resources can be considered a leader. According to different researchers the role of organizational leaders is pivotal in the study of entrepreneurship, since business founders are in charge of the creation of goods and services and the leveraging of opportunities (Chandler and Hanks, 1994). In addition , it must be said that now scientific concepts of leadership have focused on the impact of leaders behavior on the company’s performance .. Some people can argue that the main priority has been given to the leadership , and the study of entrepreneurship has grown in recent years, the study of entrepreneurs as leaders is a gap in both bodies of knowledge. As it is sited in the Miller and Friesen`s work. “the call for expanding the study of leadership within the context of newer, smaller, organizations has existed for a number of years’, to date little research has emerged. The purpose of this study is to begin to fill this gap by examining the impact that the emerging process of authentic leadership (may have on the employees of founders of newer, small businesses. After a brief review of the meaning of authentic leadership and its application within the context of relatively new, small businesses, the methods, results and implications of our study of the impact that employees’ perceptions of the founder as an authentic leader has on their job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and happiness at work is presented. What is an authentic leader? In recent years, positive psychology (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Sheldon and King, 2001; Snyder and Lopez, 2002) has emerged to counter the prevailing negativity in the field by looking at what is right (rather than dysfunctional) with people, and emphasizing and building strengths rather than trying to fix weaknesses. Luthans (2002a, b, 2003) has proposed 2that this approach be taken to the field of organizational behavior and with Avolio and colleagues (e.g. Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Avolio et al., 2004; Avolio and Luthans, 2006; Luthans and Avolio, 2003) to leadership, specifically what they call authentic leadership. According to the specialists authentic leadership can be defined as: A process combining both positive psychological capacities and a highly developed organizational context Such conditions result in both greater self-awareness and self-regulated positive behavior on the part of leaders and employees, fostering positive self-development. The authentic leader should have the following traits of character he or she must be confident, hopeful, optimistic, resilient, transparent, moral/ethical, future-oriented, and gives priority to developing employees to be leaders (Luthans and Avolio, 2003, p. 243). Nowadays in period of intense global competition a skilled and motivated workforce becomes an essential component for survival and growth (Hamel, 2000; O’Reilly and Pfeffer, 2000) and provides credence to the assertion that the critical factor in gaining competitive advantage is likely to come from the human side of organizations (Argyris, 1993; Hitt and Ireland, 2002; Pfeffer, 1998). So human resources management is very important and may be the main task for each leader. In generally human resources management can be defined a series of planning activities including acquisition, maintenance and development of the an organization’s human resources. Acquisition includes planning that leads to hiring new personnel. To select the appropriate candidate for an important position each manager should have intuition because knowledge of the main principles of selecting candidates can’t help when it`s necessary to evaluate the candidate’s future potential.3(Buisness management 2006) Greater focus on the human resources and capacities within new ventures may in fact be an incentive to predict and support entrepreneurial success, as suggested by Cooper (1993) in his call for additional research on the behavioral characteristics of entrepreneurs. In addition , the work environment in which today’s entrepreneurs operate, characterized by economic malaise and a growing concern for business ethics, is changing very rapidly that`s why authentic leadership becomes even more critical. As it is sited in the article Tom Peters believes that the late 1990s may have reflected a “promise them everything pitch”, but the current decade is deemed to be the “age of no-bull performance”. Leaders are considered as one of the most important elements of any business During these challenging times, when the rules of business seem to be constantly changing, people increasingly look to their leaders for authentic direction and guidance. Such opinions are especially widespread in new smaller businesses. The entrepreneur plays a critical role,. But the emploees are responsible for realizing leaders` views on the organization. In other words, this is where entrepreneurs become leaders of their employees. Avolio and Luthans have provided a frame work for studing tenterpreneurs as leaders Figure 1 shows this authentic leadership theoretical model adapted for this study. Applying this authentic leadership process within the context of newer, small firms may enhance our understanding of the dynamics of new venture performance and address the broad research question of how the leadership behaviors of business founders/entrepreneurs impact the attitudes and happiness of their employees. Figure 1. Authentic leadership conceptual model of Avolio and Luthans (2006) adapted for the study Title: Value-based human resource strategy Abstract: If you are running a large international hotel operation than you want your head of human resources to read this book. It contains excellent check lists and diagrams to help bring home the concepts raised within the text. It illustrates ideas with case histories to make them come to life in the readers mind. Author(s): From Value-based human resource strategy, 2003, pp. Abstract ID: 37580 Journal code: Media type: Book Subjects: Personnel Management (General). In our days there are two general perceptions of the leadership. The most common one is that that leadership is a very positive thing. According to (Burns, J.M. (1978), Leadership, Harper & Row, New York, leadership is an action joining leaders and in order to achieve the primary organizational goals. Bennis and Nanus belived leaders to be The people “who do the right thing” Two themes emerge from this body of theory. The over-riding theme is that leadership necessarily involves moral purpose ± the positive face of leadership. Proof of the power of this imagery was provided by Palmer(1994, p. 25) who commented: Many books on leadership seem to be about the power of positive thinking.. The followers experience a sense of motivation and commitment to the leader’s ideas. It is generally believed that the employees play a rather passive role. In addition when talking about th positive face of the leadership it’s necessary to analyze MC Leland’s theory of social power. As it is cited in the Christine Clements` article4 Individuals high in social power are institution oriented, aspire to office, want to serve others and foster an effective work climate. However there is a widespread belief that the employees are considered by some leaders as persons incapable of independent thought. Managers should have some pedagogic skills because very often they can arouse social-power responses in their followers who see themselves as elveted and empowered. It`s evident that examination of the leadership require regarding a dark side of the leadership because failure to acknowledge all the aspects of leadership may result in a blind eye approach to examining the management results. A dark side analyst is especially important when talking about leaders` learning and training. Many scientist have closely examinated the reasons that can lead to the failure in management. The personality of the perspective leader plays a crucial role in the management’s efficiency. The first problem is incapability to look inside. Palmer , for example, supposed that in our days there s a dangereous tendency among managers to ignore their external world. Most of the today’s training programs for mangers teach primarily how to influence the external environment in stead of giving the priority to the inner world. Kate d vires identified two more problems. The first one is mirroring. That means the tendency to see themselves as being perceived by the other people. Mirroring is a part of our understanding of the world but than the crisise arise it may result in the false and even dangerous actions. Narcissism is the most serious problem concerning the leadership. It`s evident that the managers incapable to react to criticism in a propriate way might be a real ddesaster to the organization. The may be surrounded by the sycophants who will approve any decision and that will lead to the extreme levers of narcissism. Before continuing to analyze the dark side of the leader ship it`s nesecery to evaluate some types of leader`s behavior There are some general model of te leader’s behavior that can be also defined as styles Of effective leadership.. First of all outstanding managers describe the better future for the employees. Secondly, leaders have to make self sacrifice in the interest of their vision or mission. To complete it it`s evident that the manager should be strongly convinced in the moral correctness of their vision. Each successful manager should be aware of their followers perceiving them as credible competent and trust worthy. In addition managers must communicate expectation of higher performance to their subordinates and show strong confidence in their abilities to meet such expectations. Motivation is a very important manager`s function. the most talented managers use selective motivation. That means that he managers should implement the incentives which are the most effective for particular employee. The third problem regarded by the specialists as a dark side of management is the lack of emotional literacy. This problem can be defined is an inability to differentiate and verbalize emotion This problem is also known as emotional illiteracy. Individuals suffering from it do not respond to their emotions, and are easy distorted by others others. This tendancy is linked whiththe theory of mirroring but according to the author of the book “In the case of these individuals, the general human tendency toward mirroring ... seems to have been carried ad absurdum” (Kets de Vries, 1993, p. 68). Some times emotional illiteracies may be regarded as ideal managers. They are disciplined self controlled accurate. They contribute to mediocrity which, in turn, drives out excellence. But as for me they are perfect candidates for positions of financial manager may be the operations manager but as for working with the staff such people will be at best downright useless at worst even dangerous. The main purpose of the human resources manager is to motivate people, to develop their qualities and to communicate goals and objectives to them. And it`s evident that the manager needs to emphasis to be creative etc. And the last in this list but not in its importance problem is that some people thought they know They don`t correspond to their positions demands cannot let go. If they are mangers it may cue damage to themselves, their organization as a whole and to their staff. This problem is strictly linked with the fear of nothingness many managers are full of fear to lose their power and that’s why they try to hold the power as long as possible. According to Magaret Coles5 every manager who rise to senior lever need to hone their emotional resilience skills to be able to take difficult decisions toand to feel comfortable in any situation. As it is cited in this article Harriet Karsh developed a special Heat of leadership program. This program aimed to teach people ho to understand their values and to compare it with the business approach. Each manager must reach an integrity between what they believe in and what they do. Because if the leader lack integration between his or her thought and actions lose they confidence of his follows and might lose his position. Those who ignore the importance of emotional resilience skill may get ill or even have a nervous breakdown. In this case the main purpose of the psychologist is to to help them to check choices and to see the consequences for the business and for themselves. Also this program helps managers to improve their culture of work. And to enable people to improve the way they do things. As it have been discussed below sometimes people suffering from narcissism lack the adequate perception of themselves in this case it`s also necessary to follow such program. So after analyzing two sides of leadership there are a number of recommendations that must be observed when talking about the leaders` learning programs. Leadership must be regarded authentically in this positive and negative sides. Follower ship must be defined in both positive and negative aspects and it`s also very important to link followership and leadership. E very professor should teach the students to develop a true image of themselves. as part of an ongoing, life-long process. Help students develop an understanding of the sources of feedback, the implications of feedback and an openness to information in order to protect themselves from distortion and bias. Help students develop sensitivity to observing and analyzing the behaviors of followers. Provide students with methods for understanding the processes happening inside them and those of others. There is no one way to do this. Students need to be acquainted with a broad spectrum of concepts of personality and techniques of analysis. Help students learn to recognize and develop the leadership and followership potential of others. Provide students with broad exposure to concepts and techniques of leadership, motivation and communication. Inculcate in students an ability to deal with mistakes and dysfunction openly and honestly, cope with failure, not confuse action with analysis and exercise patience. References 1. Christine Clements: ‘the two faces of leadership’ 2. Burns, J.M. (1978), Leadership, Harper & Row, New York 3. Margaret Coles` Have a heart boses` Journal of business management 2006 4. Rygkov V. D. Business management(2006) 5. Value-based human resource strategy Avolio Luthans 6. http://xtra.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/menuNavigation.do?hdAction=menu_ca_myprofile&hdBrowserId=null . Read More