Leadership is one of the most important factors being considered in the current business situations. This is due to the reason that in the current competitive business scenario, effectiveness of the leadership determines the organizational productivity and efficiency. Moreover, in the case of organizational challenges, it is the leadership that will drive the internal stakeholders through success (Keskes 2014). The level of motivation and engagement of the employees are also being determined by how effective leadership approach is being maintained. However, it should also be noted that if the leadership approach is not being followed in accordance to the business situation, then it may cause issues in organizational management.
In this report, an experience faced by me in my last workplace under a certain leadership approach will also discussed in this report. As an employee, there are number of issues being faced by me under that particular leadership (Pierro et al. 2013). These issues will be discussed in this report that will help to identify the importance of having effective leadership in place. Normative leadership theory, X and Y theory of leadership and fielder’s contingency leadership theory will be discussed in this report. In addition, the impact of these leadership approaches will also be discussed along with a recommended plan.
In my last workplace, I was assigned the job of sales executive for our consumer products. I was included in a team comprising of another eleven sales executives along with one team leader. However, the major challenge in our team was that all the executives are from different cultural backgrounds and unfortunately I and my team leader were from different cultural and social background. Thus, the major issue faced by me at the very first stage of starting my work in difference in approach. In this organization, more result oriented approach is being followed with major concentration was given on the outcome rather concentrating on the employee welfare (Amanchukwu, Stanley and Ololube 2015). The major characteristic that was identified from the leadership approach is that my team leader was having number of favorable behavioral traits but he followed more authoritative style of leadership. One of the major behavioral traits of him is fluency of speech. He was much good at communicating with his subordinates and can properly share his vision to the employees. However, due to his authoritative style of leadership, the communication was mostly having top down approach rather than bottom up approach. Hence, the effectiveness that he showed in communicating his views was not in the case of gathering the same from his subordinates (Saleem 2015).
Another major characteristic of my leader was his self confidence. He was confident enough to get the best result from the team members by any means. Though this trait is positive in nature and it helped him in getting out the best from us but it also lowered our morale. This is due to the reason that the self confidence shown by the leader was entirely based on own perception (Yahaya and Ebrahim 2016). His leadership style was not participative in nature and thus he was having no idea about the extent to which the team members are confident enough against meeting a certain target and initiating strategies to motivate them. In this case, it can be said that he lacked adaptability due to the reason that he was not ready to change his style of leadership according to the situation. According to his leadership style, he directed us about our duties and responsibilities without assisting us about how to achieve the target outcome. In this case, he also lacked emotional intelligence and it also increased the gap between the understanding of the employees and the leader.
However, according to the authoritative style of leadership, emotional intelligence is given lower preferences due to the fact that determination of the feedback of the employees is not important in this case. The approach of the authoritative style of leadership is mainly centered on the vision of the leader and it is managed from the perspective of the leaders with having no or minimal involvement of the employees. This particular style of leadership caused in reduction of the productivity of our team in the long run (Al-Asfour and Lattau 2014). This is due to the reason that team members were facing a number of challenges in their daily operation, which are not being managed or mitigated. This caused decrease in the level of motivation and lack of determination of the feedback from the employees also created a gap between the vision of the leaders and practical situation. This states that how much leadership style is important to follow in maintaining the organizational effectiveness and productivity (Buble, Juras and Matic 2014).
There are number of leadership principles being followed in the current business scenario. In this report, the major there consisting of X and Y leadership theory, Fiedler’s contingency leadership theory and Normative leadership theory will be critically analyzed along with identifying their impacts.
According to the X and Y theory of leadership by McGregor, there are mainly two sets of team members can be found in the organization. One group will have less motivation in working and they are just working for money and another group is having motivation to work and they take pride in their job (Yao et al. 2014). According to this theory, leadership styles should be different in both cases. For instance, team members from the X group are having negative perception to their work and they avoid to take added responsibility by own. In this case, the leadership style should be more authoritative in nature. This is due to the reason that authoritative style of leadership will enable the leaders to direct their employees about their jobs. They can be controlled and supervised (Jackson, Meyer and Wang 2013). Moreover, as in the case of the authoritative style of leadership, participation of the employee is less, thus de-motivated employees can be controlled effectively. Employees with having negative perception to work should be controlled by force over providing incentives.
On the other hand, employees from the Y group are the ones who are motivated in their workplace and who can take added responsibility in their workplace. In addition, they are also willing to take ownership of their jobs. In this case, it is stated by McGregor that participative style of leadership should be followed (Mohamed and Nor 2013). This is due to the reason that Y set of team members are responsible by own and their level of organizational commitment is also more. Thus, initiation of the participative style of leadership will help in consulting with the employees in decision making and will lead to have more alternative solutions.
Normative style of leadership is coined by Victor Vroom. This theory states that there are mainly five types of decision making processes that can help the leaders in coping up in different situations. The first type is deciding trait. This states that leaders should solve and decide about by own and should not involve other stakeholders in the process (Nichols and Erakovich 2013). This is mostly applicable when employees are less motivated and swift decision making is required. The next trait is consulting that states the process of consulting with the group members in individual basis and gathers all their information. At the end, the leader will accumulate all the information and take decision by own. The next decision making type is consulting in group basis. In this case, all the stakeholders are asked to come up with their suggestions in collective manner and the leader take the decision by own (Ertureten, Cemalcilar and Aycan 2013).
The next type of decision making process is facilitating. This states that all the stakeholders are asked to have their opinion and suggestion and decision is being taken on the basis of the group consensus rather than on the basis of personal approach of the leaders. The last type is delegate. In this case, the leaders does not actively participate in the decision making process, rather they only provide the assistances and resources required. The major advantage of the normative style of leadership is the availability of diverse decision making approaches that can be effective in different situations.
According to Fiedler’s contingency model of leadership, there are no best ways of leadership style rather it is the effectiveness and personal trait of the leaders that should be adjusted with the situation. This theory also states that as the leadership style is fixed, thus it is important to determine the extent to which the particular leadership style is matching with the situation (McLaurin 2013). In this case, this theory stated least preferred co-worker scale that helps in understanding the effectiveness of a particular leadership style against a particular situation. According to that, leadership style should be initiated.
As stated in the above example regarding the past organization, effective application of the above discussed leadership theories will help in enhancing the effectiveness of the employee management. As per the X and Y theories of motivation, we should be positioned as the X category of the employees. This is due to the reason that all the team members were motivated enough with their job profiles (Tyssen, Wald and Spieth 2013). Thus, if the leader can initiated the participative style of leadership as stated in the theory, then the leader should have the knowledge about the challenges being faced by the team members and the ground level situation. This would have helped the team members in getting motivated if their issues are being mitigated and leaders would also have the chance to initiate strategies accordingly.
On the other hand, according to the Normative style of leadership, facilitating approach of decision making process by the leader would have helped in determining the opinion of the employees and decision to taken on consensus basis. This also can help the leaders in having more options for initiating strategies (Waters 2013). On the other hand, the team members will also get motivated if their views are being considered in the decision making process. According to Fiedler’s contingency model of leadership, if the leader adjusted his authoritative style of leadership with the practical situation then the issue of de-motivation among the employees would not happen. This is due to the reason that personal traits of the leader including the fluency of speech and self confidence would have helped if these traits can get adjusted with the practical situation in the workplace (McCleskey 2014). This would have also ensured that the gap between the visions of the leader with practical situation was not there.
Conclusion
Thus it is concluded that leadership is having huge impacts on the organizational effectiveness. In this report, the stated experience concluded that leadership can enhance the level of motivation and productivity of the employees as well as can also affect them. In addition, it is also concluded that leadership approaches will be more effective only if they are well aligned to the situation. This will help the leaders to have the fair understanding about the root level challenges for the employees and initiate leadership strategies accordingly. On the other hand, it will also help the employees to have effective mechanism of mitigating their issues in the workplace.
Reference
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Amanchukwu, R.N., Stanley, G.J. and Ololube, N.P., 2015. A review of leadership theories, principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management, 5(1), pp.6-14.
Buble, M., Juras, A. and Mati?, I., 2014. The relationship between managers’ leadership styles and motivation. Management: journal of contemporary management issues, 19(1), pp.161-193.
Waters, R., 2013. The role of stewardship in leadership: Applying the contingency theory of leadership to relationship cultivation practices of public relations practitioners. Journal of Communication Management, 17(4), pp.324-340.
Ertureten, A., Cemalcilar, Z. and Aycan, Z., 2013. The relationship of downward mobbing with leadership style and organizational attitudes. Journal of Business Ethics, 116(1), pp.205-216.
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Keskes, I., 2014. Relationship between leadership styles and dimensions of employee organizational commitment: A critical review and discussion of future directions. Intangible Capital, 10(1).
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McLaurin, J.R., 2013. The role of situation in the leadership process: A review and application. Electronic Business, 12(2).
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Nichols, T.W. and Erakovich, R., 2013. Authentic leadership and implicit theory: a normative form of leadership?. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 34(2), pp.182-195.
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