Leadership and Change Management - Report Example

Leadership and Change Management Name Course Name and Code Institution Name Date Introduction Fire service is an important department in ensuring socioeconomic factors are protected against adverse damages. Fire service brings together different persons from different backgrounds and it is crucial to have a leadership that understands these different backgrounds and graft a strategy, which ensures the fire service department operates seamlessly. Leadership skills are important and leaders including managers should possess these skills to ensure they fulfil effectively their roles and responsibilities. The aim of this paper is to analyse and evaluate Carter’s arguments relative to other views and identification of barriers that inhibits implementation of Carter’s suggestions. Analyses of Carter’s Arguments Fire services in terms of protection and suppression are delivered by different entities that include the fire protection district, the country fire department, the fire bureau and the municipal public fire department (Amir et al., 2008). According to Carter (2007), since different stakeholders and departments are involved in fire services, it is important to have effective leadership that enables integration and complementation of these different sectors to achieve the actual requirements of fire fighting. Poor leadership contributes to increase in risks to the public; therefore, effective leadership reduces dangers to the public (Diane et al., 2007). Some tasks that can be accomplished by effective leadership is guiding the fire service to control fire, conserve property, stop loss, incident stabilisation, life protection and rescue of endangered life (Weick 2007). In fulfilling these requirements, numerous activities and tasks are accomplished such as pulling hose, salvage operations and other operations that are important to fulfil the requirements of fire services. Carter (2007) asserts that fire service is a specialised field and leadership is critical to fulfilling this requirement. This indicates that leadership is integral to fire services (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). Leadership comes in different forms because according to Carter (2007), it brings together behaviour. Numerous functions of leadership exist and they categorically aimed at fulfilling two objectives, which are socio-emotional, and task-oriented (Hui and Aichia, 2007). Task oriented objectives are premised on knowledge and experience, which leads to organisation success, training is appropriate on leadership (Diane et al., 2007). In addition, socio-economic objectives are also premised on understanding the society and community and the significance of fire services in the daily life of the stakeholders (Amir et al., 2008). Therefore, different objectives drive leaders towards fulfilling specified objectives (Weick 2007). Numerous leadership styles exist. Some of the leadership styles include transformational, servant, citizen, contingency, situational and charismatic (Diane et al., 2007). It is also important to understand that the group members and firefighters play an important role in achieving the requirements of fire service. The firefighters and other personnel should be highly motivated and well trained (Amir et al., 2008). According to Carter (2007), leaders should appreciate the contribution of their firefighters and other team members because, human resource e.g. firefighters are the important asset to fire service. Without firefighters, it is unlikely to accomplish the functions and requirements of fire service (Weick 2007). The following section discusses the identified leadership styles relative to fire service and other views from authors (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). According to Carter (2007), charismatic leader utilise their own criteria such as energising, envisioning and enabling, which drives the firefighters to success. Charismatic leaders have vision, enthusiasm and wise, credentials that are utilised in allowing their personnel to accomplish different tasks and jobs (Amir et al., 2008). However, some shortcomings associated with the style include the approach is limited to the capability of the leader, persons cannot oppose the leader, people are dependent to the leader and sometime the leader may set objectives that are unrealistic. These are the major shortcomings of charismatic leaders (Diane et al., 2007). The leaders employ their personal strengths in leading the fire service and it is prone to numerous challenges especially in those situations whereby the leader is no longer present (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). This means that charismatic leadership lacks continuity and absence of the leader translates in failure of the fire service (Amir et al., 2008). Therefore, charismatic leadership is not applicable to fire service because the persons working under the leader should be motivated to accomplish assigned tasks (Weick 2007). Another important type of leadership is situational. It brings into consideration the leader’s behaviour relative to readiness of followers to follow (Weick 2007). This means the success is premised on leaders understanding their followers and employing strategies that rhyme with the followers (Diane et al., 2007). Leaders employing situational leadership style require well-trained and willing followers and also require frequent interaction between the leaders and the followers (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). Situational leadership should be involved in fire service training and especially in those situations whereby situational aspects are required (Hui and Aichia, 2007). This is premised on the requirements of leaders to understand and focus on aspects of the organisation, task and individual. According to Carter (2007), success of situational leadership should create an environment of blending between the leader and the followers, role of the leader and follower, and relationship between the followers and leaders. Therefore, situational leadership training within the fire service is crucial since it informs each of the stakeholders on their roles, how they can adapt to situations and circumstances (Amir et al., 2008). Contingency leadership theory can be compared to situational leadership (Carter 2007). Contingency leadership brings into consideration relationship-orientation, task-orientation, and how the two orientations relate with each other (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). Same as situational leadership, the willingness and aspirations of the follower to follow the directives of the leader is important. The difference is that the task orientation is directly related with the relationship of the leader (Amir et al., 2008). Some situations whereby such leadership style can be effective include leader position power, task structure and leader-member relations (Diane et al., 2007). The leaders should cultivate an environment in which the followers derive satisfaction from their works (Weick 2007). Leaders should understand the importance of this leadership style since it drives fire services to become successful (Hui and Aichia, 2007). Citizen leadership introduces the aspects of freedom and authority. Citizen leadership aims to evolve from social settings and states that there is a direct relation between democracy and leadership. Citizen leadership is aimed at providing support, encourage and respect to followers (Diane et al., 2007). Citizen leadership evolves from a group, entity and it is common within the fire service especially in cases of volunteer fire departments/services whereby leaders are elected or chosen to guide the team (Weick 2007). From this perspective, it is important for each and every firefighter and person working in the fire service to receive leadership training (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). Fire service is a teamwork obligation and each person is supposed to make decisions sometimes without the directives of a leader (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). Therefore, training ensures the individual makes appropriate decisions because most of the decisions are made during instances of emergency (Hui and Aichia, 2007). Training on citizen leadership and other types of leadership styles are important because it prepares the individuals for future leadership positions. Carter (2007) discusses servant leadership whereby it is premised on people should appreciate others and expect the same treatment as accorded to other persons. Servant leadership does not bring into consideration learned behaviours and skills but also dependent on other factors associated to treating people (Diane et al., 2007). Some of the factors associated with servant leadership include being useful, present, accepting, vulnerable and authentic. These are some of the factors that illustrate the personal expectations of servant leadership (Amir et al., 2008). Lastly, transformational leadership provides a platform in which leaders and followers complement each other resulting in raising of higher levels of morality and motivation (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). A binding link is usually created between the leader and the follower aimed at fulfilling the assigned task (Amir et al., 2008). The commonly discussed factors in transformational leadership include follower performance and follower development (Kapucu and Wart, 2008). A group that is routinely trained on leadership becomes better on group performance, which is an important aspect of transformational leadership (Diane et al., 2007). Conversely, a different type of leadership, which is transactional is premised on punishment and reward. Power is an important aspect of transactional leaders since they use power to guide and assign orders (Hui and Aichia, 2007). If the followers follow the orders effectively, they are rewarded while failure to follow the orders results in punishment (Weick 2007). The significance of transactional leadership is loyalty, commitment and involvement; however, the follower may retaliate due to punishment and may affect accomplishment of tasks (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). Leadership in the Fire Service Context Effective leadership is the first step to a successful fire and rescue department (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). It is crucial to understand that other factors determine the success of an organisation that may include goals, objectives, plans, resources and actualisation of the strategies (Amir et al., 2008). For example, without resources, a leader may not fulfil their expectations (Kapucu and Wart, 2008). For leadership to succeed in fire service Carter (2007) states that behaviour, process and structure should be integral to any strategy. Therefore, there are important factors that should be factor into consideration to determine the success of an organisation and how the fire service can operate effectively (Weick 2007). In addition to resources, Carter (2007) asserts that there is no single leadership style that is effective. This means that different leadership styles should be incorporated and integrated to ensure a more effective model is developed that brings together strengths of each of the styles (Diane et al., 2007). For example, charismatic leaders dependent on their internal strength to guide a team while situational leader bases guidance strategies on views of the followers and other leaders (Hui and Aichia, 2007). It means leaders should be able to understand tasks and situations to ensure the appropriate strategy is employed that ensure an organisation becomes effective (Amir et al., 2008). Moreover, the leadership training within fire service department should not be a prerogative of the leaders rather employees should be trained on leadership (Hui and Aichia, 2007). Firefighters operate in an environment that is technical and requires specialisation (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). Sometimes a firefighter may decide to make decisions immediately without requesting authorisation from their superiors because of emergency circumstances (Diane et al., 2007). Therefore, employees should be trained to make effective decisions and each of the employees should assist each other in addressing the emergency (Kapucu and Wart, 2008). This means that firefighters should understand their work is premised on teamwork (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). Barriers to Effective Leadership Styles Becoming a leader is a challenge in itself. The challenges towards leadership styles and instituting changes to leadership may be categorised into three major groups: external, internal and leadership role: External challenges – any leader should withstand and cope with challenges that come from external (Kapucu and Wart, 2008). These challenges come in different forms, which include interpersonal problems, community forces, lack of appropriate resources (Amir et al., 2008). Other barriers towards embracing change and appreciating leadership styles emanates from political, economic and social forces that are inherent in any leadership situation (Hui and Aichia, 2007). The success of a leader is determined on mitigating minor annoyances and addressing succession of crises that may influence negatively or even threat the group mission (Diane et al., 2007). If a leader can solve such issues, the leader is in a better position to institute leadership changes. Leadership style change is aimed at achieving the mission and vision of an organisation and employing strategies to counter challenges is the first step to the right direction and may contribute to acknowledging changes (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). Leaders should appreciate external forces and should introduce measures because when followers and other people know the weaknesses and shortcomings of a leader, it is hard for the leader to lead the organisation effectively (Weick 2007). Therefore, external forces are a major problem to leadership change and those institutions that acknowledge this problem and introduce measures to counter these threats are better placed to become more successful (Hui and Aichia, 2007). Internal challenges – leadership is an appropriate opportunity to express individual capacity to lead change and demonstrate ideas (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). However, leadership is a platform that provides a framework whereby our limitations are exposed (Hui and Aichia, 2007). Good leaders are exposed to numerous issues that may inhibit their leadership skills and requirements; for example, intolerance, impatience, insecurity, lack of confidence and fear (Amir et al., 2008). These are example of personal factors that inhibits leadership style and barriers to change the direction of an organisation. In addition, internal organisational factors may become an obstacle to change. For example, culture and lack of goodwill from other followers may become a barrier (Diane et al., 2007). A successful organisation should champion a culture that acknowledges and appreciates change (Kapucu and Wart, 2008). Moreover, other structures within the organisation should understand the importance of change; for example, management and leadership are two different things and the management should understand and champion factors associated with leadership style (Weick 2007). Therefore, internal factors are barriers that inhibit change within an organisation. Leadership challenges – a leader is supposed to be responsible to a group or organisation (Kapucu and Wart, 2008). The leader should upload the standard, mission and vision of an organisation (Hui and Aichia, 2007). These numerous issues are rarely shared and it is usually the responsibility of a single leader (Amir et al., 2008). In addition, leaders are responsible for motivating employees and ensuring they are commitment to organisational requirements (Diane et al., 2007). However, some leaders lack the internal capacity and capability to lead change (Weick 2007). For example, charismatic leaders utilise their own strengths to lead a team and those organisations that have charismatic leads may lack different ideas that may institute change (Benjamin and Cliff, 2010). Therefore, some of the leadership styles may inhibit change and becomes a major barrier to the way an organisation operates (Hui and Aichia, 2007). Conclusion Leadership and change management is important in sustaining the requirements of a fire service department. Numerous types of leadership styles exist, which include situational, contingency, citizen, and transformative/transactional. These different leadership styles have its strengths and weaknesses. However, no single leadership style can operate without borrowing from other leadership styles. Therefore, an appropriate model is integrating the different leadership styles. In addition, some barriers to institute change include internal, external and nature of the leadership strategy. Nevertheless, leadership is integral in ensuring a fire service operates effectively. References Amir, E., Vilmos, M., Diane, J., Marcie, A, and Kent, H 2008, Stirring the Hearts of Followers: Charismatic Leadership as the Transferral of Affect, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 93, no. 3, pp. 602-616 Benjamin, B and Cliff, S 2010, Organizing Ambiguity: A Grounded theory of Leadership and Sense-making within Dangerous Contexts, Military Psychology, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. S42-S69 Carter, H 2007, Approaches to Leadership: The Application of Theory to the Development of a Fire Service Specific Leadership Style. 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