The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the idea about the challenges in the authentic leadership. The authentic leadership is all about guiding the people towards the success of the organization. Some of the important issues that will be discussed in this scenario are that of the practicing of the authentic leadership, the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), the Psychological Capital of the employees (Rego et al. 2012). In this essay, the topic of the discussion would be to throw the light on the impact of the authentic leadership and the uncertainties in the oeganization. The different types of psychological capital of the employees will be discussed here. The performance of the employees depends largely on the emotional intelligence of the leaders. The leaders and managers should always try to motivate the employees in the positive ways so as they can perform better all the time. The blue collar employees and the white collar employees will also be dealt in the positive ways as well. The different ethnicities of the employees also have significance in the performance of the employees in some organizations as well (Rego et al. 2012).
The aspect of authentic leadership has been thought and discussed about several times in several areas. This has been the main talking point for the experts when it comes to lead the organizations effectively (Wong and Laschinger 2013). The leaders should always talk and address the issues in such ways that the followers will have the trust in them. The authentic leaders might make a mistake but he should always take the ownership in rectifying the mistakes. There are high expectations from the followers on the organizational leaders (Leroy et al. 2012). According to the experts, the leaders should always be the guides by example to the employees of the organization. The authentic leaders should shrug off their ego and direct the most fitting ways to lead their teams (Wong and Laschinger 2013). The leaders should be able to take such actions by which they could get better outcomes for the organization indeed.
It is expected that the authentic leaders should always provide the best guidance and the opinions to the subordinate employees. In the difficult situations, the employees face many challenges and uncertainties that they have to combat. The leaders have to manifest their leadership skills in managing the difficult situations indeed (Wang and Hsieh 2013). They should analyze the depth of uncertainties and the different challenges. It is up to the how they should design the blue print to get over the tough situations (Wang et al. 2014). However, the leadership skills of the authentic leaders are tested on a regular basis indeed. The leaders should go on to discuss these situations with the employees and take their opinions about how to solve the different issues. The in depth analysis and the insight should be the best skills for the authentic leaders of the organizations. Thus the authentic leaders can make the things easier (Wang and Hsieh 2013)
One of the biggest tasks of the authentic leaders is to inspire and motivate the employees. The leaders should bear the positive image in this section and they should act as the pillars for the organizational success. The effective communication should always be practiced for the betterment of the organization (Leroy et al. 2012). On the contrary, the organizations rely on the interpersonal skills of the authentic leaders and the ways they deal with the issues in the organizations. In this aspect it can be said that the organizations must be laid by the positive attitude of the leaders towards the success. The authentic leaders must communicate with the leaders properly and this should lead them to gain the trust and faith of the employees. The motivated employees will always feel the gratitude towards the organizational leaders. The values and principles of the leaders should be spread among the employees as well.
The theory of the Leader-Member deals with the several aspects of the relationship between the leaders and the team members. It can be said that some of the team members are trusted by the leaders and some are don’t. It might be because of their capabilities of providing the best outcomes for the growth of team. As per the experts in the field, the relationship between the leaders and the members of the team can be evaluated by three stages. These stages are Role taking, Role Making and Routinization. The faith, loyalty and trustworthiness should be there among the team members and it should be exhibited among the daily works that they engage in. The trust of the managers will take them up in the ladder and it should be their road to the success. If the employees fail to earn the trust of the managers they will lag behind in the line.
There are generally three stages in the LMX theory in the context of the proper leadership. The managers must have the faith of the leaders on which they would build their trust. The different stages have been mentioned in the earlier section. It can be said that all these stages are deeply connected with one another (Leroy, Palanski and Simons 2012). As discussed, the managers give the roles to the team members by trusting in them as they know that the people they trust will effectively be able to provide the best outcomes for the organization. The team members who are unable to prove their worth and show their dedication will not be able to gain the best position or the growth in their professional careers (Lazaroiu 2015). The trust of the managers is a very interesting aspect in this matter.
It is a very complicated work to make all the employees work to achieve the objectives of the organization. It is very evident the psychology of all the employees is not equal but the task of the leader is to manage all types of employees and motivate them as much as they can to work harder (Dobre 2013). The leaders must be able to understand the psychology of the employees. The psychological capital refers to the various positive psychological resources like the optimism, self-efficacy, hope, being resilient in pressure situations and others. The leaders must be able to handle all these kinds of these pressure situations and motivate the employees thoroughly (Kuvaas et al. 2012). The engagement of the employees with the organization depends on how much they are engaged with the leaders and the core of the organization. Howeever, the employees should possess the proper capacity to understand and fit into the competitive environment in the difficult situations.
It is evident from the above context that the individual employees must have the positive attitude towards the work and they must possess the self-efficacy for developing their capabilities for the benefits of the organization (Luthans, Youssef and Avolio 2015) The employee engagement has become a huge issue in the recent years and it is a very relevant for the organizational growth. This is why the leaders have to sit down with the different employees and know about their psychology and their approach towards engaging with the work. On the contrary, the work roles will have to be explained to the employees and they must see how the employees react to the pressure. This will fix the matter on how the leaders will deal with those employees making sure no harm is done to them or the organization (Luthans, Youssef and Avolio 2015).
The psychological capital between the professionals and the administrative employees is somewhat different. The mindset is very much different indeed. This is why the organizations and its leaders have to employ some new strategies to handle them both. The professionals have a better overview or experience of the things that are processed by the organization. The administrative employees only look after those issues properly (Newman et al. 2014). The leaders must make sure on how the discipline is maintained by the organization. They have to measure the workload of both the employees and distribute the works as per their credibility. The administrative employees only govern the work procedures but the professionals will be more engaged with the work as they have to execute the work (Anitha 2014). Thus they will share the better psychological capital in this context.
It is a very important matter to discuss how the psychological capital of the professional and administrative employees is measured. The psychological capital of the employees will surely help them to achieve the best indeed (Guy, Newman and Mastracci 2014). The self-efficacy and the resilience power of the employees will be tested by the organizational leaders by giving the tough assignments to solve. As per the experts, if the professionals pass these tough tests it will create their good impression on the leaders. This will take them far in their professional fields as well. The administrative employees will have to show their psychological capital through the risks they take in bringing the positive changes within the organizations (Nielsen and Abildgaard 2012). The authentic leadership skills will have to be portrayed by the administrative leaders by managing the challenges that occur within the organization very frequently.
The organizations will have to understand that the employees have their own feelings and emotions as well. This is why they must work according by maintaining the different scenarios properly (Guy, Newman and Mastracci 2014). Emotional labor is believed to be the kind of work that the employees or service workers do to satisfy their customers by going excess the mental and physical responsibilities. The service workers will have to get connected with the needs of the customers. If the workers get to face angry or unpleasant clients, the various challenging issues will have to be solved by the authentic leadership styles (Singh and Tiwari 2012). The employees must have to agree by the things that the clients have pointed out to them even if they are wrong. This is very challenging for the leaders to mitigate. The leaders have to support and manage the various critical issues that arise within the workplace (Ozcelik 2015).
The difference between the blue collar employees and white collar employees is very significant to differentiate between the two. The organizations must provide the proper benefits and facilities to both these kinds of employees (Newman et al. 2014). The authentic leaders must measure their emotional intelligence and psychological capital. As suggested by the experts, the facilities for both of them are different to some extent but they face many problems in their work settings. The blue collar workers are less educated than the white collar workers and the conflict rises from this section. The psychological setting is completely different and the blue collar workers often go for strikes if the organizations do not meet their demands. From this perspective it can be said the authentic leaders must make a balance between the attitudes of the blue collar and white collar employees and motivate them to meet the organizational objectives (Luthans, Youssef and Avolio 2015).
The authentic leaders have to tackle the different generational cohorts in the workplace. Some of the different generations in the workplace are the Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y and Gen Z. The Baby Boomers and Generation X is generally the traditional people who follow the stereotypical rules of the work indeed. The Gen Z is much advanced in using the technology and they want to be entrepreneurs. The experts like Newman et al., (2014) suggest that the Generation Y tends to be group oriented and like to be self-expressive (Guy, Newman and Mastracci 2014). The authentic leaders will face serious challenges in bringing them under the same roof in the same way. The authentic leaders have some serious problems when handling the Gen Z people as they are sometimes very arrogant by nature indeed. The Generation X is also easy to manage since they are skeptical enough (Newman et al. 2014).
The performance of the employees is a very integral part of the sustainability of the organization and their success (Newman et al. 2014). It is a very important issue that the psychological happiness of the employees has a great attribute in the good performance of the employees. On the contrary, their sadness will have a negative impact on the overall performance of the employees as well. As suggested by Guy, Newman and Mastraci (2014), if the employees are not properly engaged to their works it will harm the organization in a bad way. This is why an authentic leader should go to the non-performers and sit with them individually. He or she must ask the real reason behind the disengagement of the employees and help them to find the probable solutions from the emotional mess. If those employees get some support, they will surely perform much better in the future (Guy, Newman and Mastracci 2014).
The performance of the employees can be improved in numerous ways. The leaders and the managers have a huge role in providing the motivation to the employees. It has been seen the negative impact of the organizations can be reflected because of several reasons. The emotional reasons are one of them as well (Patrick and Kumar 2012). This is why the organizations will have to educate their authentic leaders in a way that they can ensure the best performance from the employees. The authentic leaders can opt to take sessions of the selected few employees, hang out with them in few occasions, be friendly with them and ask about the reasons for their poor performance. The thing that the leaders are with them in their bad times will automatically motivate them and urge them on to perform even better indeed (Newman et al. 2014).
It is a very critical aspect to manage the employees who have different set of ethnicities who work in the same workplace (Patrick and Kumar 2012). The diversity management is very important for the organizational leaders. The authentic leaders must tend to make them understand that this is not a barrier at all. The cultural and ethnic differences will help them to know each other, their likes and dislikes and many more. Thus the organizations will go on to make the profits by utilizing the talents of these diverse ethnic people. The language communication might be a bar but the leaders can use the technology like Google Translate to get over these (Luthans, Youssef and Avolio 2015). The trust between the employees should always be there indeed. The employees with the diverse talents will have to socialize themselves regularly so they can acquaint with each other and develop an understanding. Thus the authentic leaders will be successful in uniting the ethnically diverse people together.
As per the above discussion the conclusion can be drawn in the pattern that the authentic leadership practice is a very significant part for all the organizations. It is the responsibility of the leaders to manage all the conflicts and challenging situations and bring out the best conclusions for the benefit of the organizations. The different perspectives of the authentic leadership and the psychological capital among the employees have been discussed thoroughly in this essay. It has been found that the authentic leaders must work according to the situations that arise within the organizational context and the approach of the employees. This approach of the employees will have to be controlled by the authentic leaders.
References
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