Leadership Concepts And Theories: Enhance Your Skills And Develop Leadership

Importance of Leadership for Managers

The reflection is based on the term leadership. The reflection begins with the short introduction of this word and its significance in the success of business of an organisation. It is followed up by a brief explanation of my knowledge of this word before the research and the insight attained post research. This reflection finishes with the conclusion of the knowledge attained by different readings on the concept of the leadership (Draft, 2014).

I did not know the term leadership until I searched this term on the internet and found out the accurate meaning of the same. However, subsequently, on researching, I found out that Leadership is capability of the management of corporation to set and attain difficult aims, take rapid and important actions, do better than the competition, and influence others to do well. It is very difficult to make a value on the leadership or other qualitative facets of the corporation, compared to quantitative metrics which are usually tracked and simpler to contrast between the corporations. The leader plays an important role in the success of the company. They make sure that the objects or aims of the company may be attained within the scope and specified period. The leaders are required to be able to affect and encourage the individual nearby them. A corporation will rely on people employed in corporation. These peoples will then have to cooperate with each other to complete the task. Though, there are the requirements for those involved to be guided and encouraged to perform this task. The directing and encouraging of the worker is being done by a person or the leader (Collinson, 2014).

As per the insight gained from the research, I would say that the leadership is very important for an organisation to run the businesses effectively. The leaders play an important part to ensure the success in accomplishing their aims or objects. Nelson and Quick (2006) defines the leadership effectively. According to it the process of controlling and motivating the conduct of individual in the work situation. I also came to know that the leaders may affect other people by their capability to encourageadvice, enthuse and interaction in effective manner. There are various styles and approaches related to leadership, which may be used to complete their aims and objects of corporation. These approaches and styles of leadership may be used on the basis of the situation, circumstance of the corporations.

Leadership Styles and Approaches

As per my learning of the term leadership, a good leader has a style or the combination of various leadership styles. These leadership styles make the leader successful in directing and motivating workers. The good leaders are able of driving inspiration and efficiency, while also improving the bottom line of the commerce. Being the good leaders do not always compare with being a popular people. There are many leaders, who liked by their workers, while other leaders are not highly considered on the personal stage, but stay big at moving the business in the positive direction by different styles of leadership. It is found by me that there are some significant leadership styles. The autocratic leadership is the aggressive style. The autocrat is hardly ever popular and the autocratic leader utilises a militant-like style. The autocrat provides orders and expects prompt execution (Ward, 2014). The leadership style may work in the production-type atmosphere which requires the output in easy manner, and recurring job roles. It hardly permits for the atmosphere, where creativeness will grow. The autocrat pushes workers hard. The laissez faire leadership is the different style of autocratic leadership (Klenke, 2016). The laissez faire leadership style has main advantages in the creative atmosphere. However, it also lacks discipline and framework that is often required in the atmosphere of business. The other drawback of Laissez-Faire style is the unframed strategies to learning. It relies heavily on the skill, presenting experience and creativeness to drive outcomes (Lussier and Achua, 2015) . Alternatively, transformative relationship is collaborative. This style takes view of worker. It puts input in the account during the procedure of decision making. The other style is transactional leadership style. It makes focus on the work, reward and procedures which drive constant outcomes (Antonakis and Day, 2017).

I have also realized that a leadership strategy refers to the map that aligns investments in leadership progress with the strategies, aims, and ambitions of the business. The leadership strategies make clear that how many leaders are required, what type, where they are required, with what talents. It also recognizes the other problems considered by the organization such as whether present talent systems motivate the culture and leadership. The main strategy is that great interdependence among leadership to make more proper teamwork across function in taking new goods to the marketplace (Tourish, 2014). There is requirement to enhance leadership participation across operations. It is also found by me that there is a requirement of cultural modifications to form the spirit of improvement versus culture of risk aversion (Fairhurst and Connaughton, 2014).

Leadership Strategies for Organizations

Having read and analysed the various books and article on term leadership, I now realise that the leadership comes with a exclusive set of more and more difficult problems. There is fixed or restricted period. The resource constraint is original. The gap between public prospects and service abilities is widening. There is politicking. The faith is spare. The technologies are quickly varying the manner we live, effort and play (Bolman and Deal, 2017).

According to me, the leaders must be aware of how their mental model influences their opinion and know that their mind can cause blind spots that restrict knowledge or experience. Becoming aware of assumption is the primary method toward changing mental model and being capable to watch the world in distinct and innovative manners. The major issues are independent thinking, open-mindedness, systems view, and the personal mastery. I have found that as a leader, one should understand the significance of emotional intelligence. The basic elements of emotional intelligence are social awareness, self-awareness, self-management, and the relationship management. Emotionally intelligent leaders may have a good influence on the corporations by helping the workers develop, learn, and grow, making  a sense of object and meaning, instilling unity, team work, and forming relations on faith and respect, that permits workers to take the challenges and completely contribute to the corporation. Most of the task in the corporation is conduct in the team. The Leaders establish the emotional intelligence of the team by making standards that promote a solid group recognition, making faith among the participants, and by instilling a faith among participants which they may be proper and succeed as the team (Renz, 2016).

Another important aspect that I learned which is incidental to leadership is that a leader is also a team leader. As he or she is responsible for the overall performance of the group and the achievement of the desired targets, he must engage in initializing coordination among the team members and representing the group as a whole to the external stakeholders ( Rickards and Moger, 2017). In order to perform according to the allocated roles, interact and act more dynamically, a leader must guide and communicate with the team members. During the course of my learning of the topic, I came to understand that the importance of relationship and team building lies in the fact that it results in understanding, which strengthens relationships and create unity and commitment. I further realised that team building is crucial because of the fact that it also forms the base for the motivation of the team members.

The Challenges of Leadership

On researching I found that team leaders of the organisations have several roles to play at once, namely the plant, team worker, coordinator, implementer, resource provider, specialist, monitor, shaper and finisher. By plant, it is meant that an organisational leader must innovate and provide the team with the new ideas and enthusiasm (Marquardt et. al, 2011). By being a monitor or the evaluator, a team leader evaluates the performance of the performance of the various team members. He or she will analyse each f the member’s performance in the light of the assigned roles and responsibilities. Another role that I came across was that of the specialist. By being a specialist, a team leader must assign the duties and responsibilities to the various individuals according to their skills, cultural and qualification background (Fransen et. al, 2015). The shaper team leader would look at the upcoming challenges and his or her prime focus is on improving. The leader as an implementer has the responsibility of putting the ideas into the practice. According to me, this is crucial because, a practical and systematic implementation of the ideas forms the base of the overall functioning of the teams as a unit. By being a coordinator, a leader must value others and facilitate in achieving their goals (Aga, Noorderhaven and Vallejo, 2016). He or she must delegate authorities along with the responsibilities, and must include the feedback of the tea members into practice, according to its suitability.  As a team worker, according to me, a team leader’s role becomes even more dynamic. This is because; in this case a team leader must act in a diplomatic and flexible way. According to me support to the team members cannot be extended, unless the leader puts himself into the member’s shoes and understand the complexities according to his team member’s point of view. A leader must not be hesitant in handling the non popular ideas, when it comes to enhancing the team abilities. Another significant role, a team leader must encompass while team building is that he must investigate the various resources and techniques to be included in the working of the teams. Lastly, a team leader must act as a finisher by being throughout attentive to the details as observed during conversing with the team members and during evaluating the team operations. Thus, as I described above, a team leader must initiate team building. As stated above there have been prescribed various techniques, which a team leader can inculcate in his working style and thereby enhance the overall communication and coordination of the team members.

The Importance of Relationship and Team Building

Thus, as per the learning as stated above, I can say that tea building is an essential element of successful leadership activities. This is essential for the overall interaction and the coordination among the various team members. Some of the recommended ways, which I realised during the course of learning of the topic, that can enhance relationship building are as follows. The very first key to effective relationship building is the communication among the team members, in both written and spoken ways (Warrick, 2016). By communicating, a leader would be able to guide the team members about the objectives of the group as a whole. In addition, feedback from each of the group members is important. According to me, conducting of regular formal and informal meetings is another key to enhance the interpersonal communication skills by allowing understanding each other, which further improves the team performance. I believe listening and welcoming feedbacks of the team members is also crucial for creative leadership. Some other recommendations that improve the leadership activities are creation of climate of trust, respect towards each other irrespective of the cultural and other differences, and enjoyment at workplace (Sommer, Howell and Hadley, 2016). I believe a leader must respect difference and encourage expression of the same in terms of the opinion and working styles. Further, I believe that a leader himself must be highly adaptable and responsive and must correct mistake of the team members. Thus, at last I can state that a leader has a crucial role to play in the overall team building and the management.

References

Aga, D. A., Noorderhaven, N. and Vallejo, B. (2016) Transformational leadership and project success: The mediating role of team-building. International Journal of Project Management, 34(5), pp. 806-818.

Antonakis, J., and Day, D. V. (2017) The nature of leadership. California: Sage publications.

Bolman, L. G. and Deal, T. E. (2017) framing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Collinson, D. (2014) Dichotomies, dialectics and dilemmas: New directions for critical leadership studies?. Leadership, 10(1), pp. 36-55.

Daft, R.L. (2014) The leadership experience. UK: Cengage Learning.

Fairhurst, G. T., and Connaughton, S. L. (2014) Leadership: A communicative perspective. Leadership, 10(1), pp. 7-35.

Fransen, K., Haslam, S. A., Steffens, N. K., Vanbeselaere, N., De Cuyper, B. and Boen, F. (2015) Believing in “us”: Exploring leaders’ capacity to enhance team confidence and performance by building a sense of shared social identity. Journal of experimental psychology: applied, 21(1), p. 89.

Klenke, K. (2016) Qualitative research in the study of leadership. England:  Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Lussier, R. N., and Achua, C. F. (2015) Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development. Ontario: Nelson Education.

Marquardt, M. J., Banks, S., Cauwelier, P. and Ng, C. S. (2011) Optimizing the power of action learning: Real-time strategies for developing leaders, building teams and transforming organizations. Hachette UK.

Renz, D. O. (2016) The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Rickards, T. and Moger, S. (2017) Handbook for creative team leaders. Oxon: Routledge.

Sommer, S. A., Howell, J. M. and Hadley, C. N. (2016) Keeping positive and building strength: The role of affect and team leadership in developing resilience during an organizational crisis. Group & Organization Management, 41(2), pp. 172-202.

Tourish, D. (2014) Leadership, more or less? A processual, communication perspective on the role of agency in leadership theory. Leadership, 10(1), pp. 79-98.

Ward, J. (2016) Keeping the family business healthy: How to plan for continuing growth, profitability, and family leadership.  United States: Springer.

Warrick, D. D. (2016) What leaders can learn about teamwork and developing high performance teams from organization development practitioners. Performance Improvement, 55(3), pp. 13-21.