Leadership Development For Managing People And Relationships

Leading and Managing People and Relationships for Performance

Discuss about the Leadership Development for Managing People and Relationships.

The second week’s prime objective on leadership development is their traits, motives and characteristics through which the leaders accomplish their business goals. I have learned that effective cognitive factors and emotional intelligence Cummings and Worley (2014) also depicts that the traits and characteristics of a leader can be identified from the approach of their interaction, the process through which they gather information regarding their subordinate’s problem and their approach for making decision for the betterment of the organization. Burke and Noumair (2015) furthermore stated that the personality of a leader can be identified by the approach how they handle their self-confidence and locus of control. The difficulty that I faced is to find a balance between these two factors. The major reason for the difficulty is that for business being a task-oriented leader is crucial but on the other hand valuing every subordinate for their effort and maintaining trustworthiness with them also ensures the success of the organization. Clarke (2013) highlights that leadership motive comprise of four aspects- power motive, drive and achievement motive, tenacity and string working ethics. I have learned from this week that positive implications of control resources, determination to exert the power and maintaining the personalised power motive along with the socialised power motive makes a person an efficient leader and this motive of attaining this achievement can be defines by McClelland’s Three Needs Theory. Burke and Noumair (2015) defines that in former case a leader only emphasizes on status, power and money while in the latter  case the leader values to support their working personnel and help them to overcome their adversities.

The major focus of this week is on leadership behaviour of the leader and their style through which they are attaining destined business objectives. I have learned that in different era different leadership theory are being followed by the leaders and in recent times also leaders of an organization intends to follow an effective leadership styles. Great Man theory is believed as the most effective leadership traits and people believed that leaders are born but contingency theory has replaced this belief in current times (Northouse 2012). According to this theory, there is not a particular method for leadership and is dependent on factors like business environment and follower’s need (Chemers 2014). I have also learned about other leadership styles that is participative, autocratic and entrepreneurial leadership style. Cummings and Worley (2014) stated that in participative leadership traits, the leader must participate with their subordinates and asked for their feedback on every decision making but Allio (2012) argues by depicting that developing an autocratic leadership trait is also important during the crucial time as it helps the subordinates to follow a direction. However, in recent times, leaders are less likely to adopt tried-and-tested way for doing business and emphasize ore on entrepreneurial leadership styles. In this scenario, the leaders also value the feedback that they received from their subordinates so that improvements can be made on their business approach. Leaders used a 360-degree feedback chart for such response and assess whether their leadership traits are effective enough to satisfy the business and customer’s needs (Tee and Ahmed 2014).

Leadership Behaviours, Attitudes and Styles

Concept of the transformational leadership is the main topic of week-4. Braun et al. (2013) stated that in transformational leadership, the leaders and their followers motivate each other to raise their levels of morality. Avolio and Yammarino (2013) moreover depicts that a person can become a transformational leader by establishing an inspiring vision of the future, accomplishing those vision and formulating a trust-based relationships with the subordinates. García-Morales et al. (2012) moreover highlights that charismatic leadership can be incorporated with the transformation leadership styles but Allio (2012) argues by stating that a strict charismatic leader often lack the other characteristics of leadership. I have learned the difference between these two leadership style that a charismatic leaders inspire people while a transformation leader always remain optimist and believes in changing organizational approaches by admiring every one’s effort. Tourish (2013) defines that both of these leader believes in sharing their visions, goals, and directives and communicate frequently with group members. Moreover, during this week I have faced difficulty in attaining concept of two-way communication. However, the theory defined by Avolio and Yammarino (2013) that resembles that communication in which both parties involve in transmitting information effectively is two-way communication. Thus, according to me, enhancement in two-way communication also ensures in effective interpersonal relationships between the follower and the leader. Lastly, in this session I have learned about breakthrough leadership trait. In this leadership trait, midlevel managers can transform into more effective leaders Braun et al. (2013) by respecting others, ability to listen and act accordingly along with the regular enhancement of the competencies.

In context of leadership development, week 5 emphasize on the contingency and situational leadership. Gregoire and Arendt (2014) highlights that a person cannot be a leader by birth; however, they have to learn success factors that can improve their business performance. During this session, I have learned about contingency model developed by Fred E. Fiedler that classifies the leadership style into two parts- task-motivated and relationship-motivated leadership styles (Chemers 2014). This business expert also believes that one individual is capable of more than one leadership style and hence following only one leadership style is difficult to maintain. (McCleskey 2014) depicts that adjusting leadership style according to the situation is followed by leaders in contemporary organization. Week 4’s session also highlighted the concept of path-goal theory. According to this theory, leader clears away the obstacles and improves performance, offer appropriate rewards and highlights some other leadership styles- supportive leadership, participative leadership, directive leadership and achievement-oriented leadership style (Gregoire and Arendt 2014). I have also learned about decision-making styles of the Vroom-Yetton-Jago model (See Appendix, Figure 1). Conferring to this model, Allio (2012) depicts that in most of the cases the first two styles are resembles as autocratic leadership while the last three are consultative. However, Bedford and Gehlert (2013) argues that the first two styles and the second two styles represents the autocratic and consultative leadership styles respectively while the fifth style is resembled as group-directed leadership style. Moreover, I have also learned about the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model which is easy to apply and it represents a consensus of thinking about leadership behaviour. This model represents four factors- participative style for high task and low relationship, selling style for high task and high relationship, delegating style of low task and low relationships and telling style for high task and low relationship (Gregoire and Arendt 2014).

Charismatic and Transformational Leadership

Image 1: Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership model

(Source: Gregoire and Arendt 2014)

Learning about the concept of Cognitive Resource Theory and perception of Henry Mintzberg are the major components of week 6’s session. Braun et al. (2013) states that Henry Mintzberg’s theory can be categorised into three aspects- interpersonal, information process and decision making ability of the leaders. Bratton and Gold (2012) moreover states that interpersonal aspects highlight three roles- figurehead, leader and liaison, the information processing highlights areas of monitor, disseminator and spokesperson while the decisional process emphasizes on roles for entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator. I have also learned about the cognitive resource theory that focuses on intelligence, experience and the approach to motivate the subordinates. In terms of cognitive resource theory, Haycock (2012) portrays on some assumptions of this theory. The first assumption is for low-stress situations and is suitable for the leaders, who desire to utilize their cognitive power to achieve the business goals (Hatch and Cunliffe 2013). Chemers (2014) states that the second assumption highlights the high-stress situations for the leaders experienced enough to produce more quality results that others while the next assumption considered that directive leaders have better performance when they utilize their intelligence in low stress situation. However, Tourish (2013) highlights that cognitive model is essential as it represents how intelligence, experience, and stress can influence the leader’s performance on attaining business objectives. 

The prime concern of week seventh topic is on power, politics and leadership. I have learned that a person attain four power- legitimate power, reward power, coercive power and information power that can be attained by their experience in workplace. The legitimate power represents the lawful right to make a decision while the reward power resembles the authority to give employees rewards (Burnes and By 2012). Northouse (2012) depict that leader possess coercive power are able to punish their subordinates on their poor performance and information power provides the leader a formal control over the information people. However Caldwell (2012) depicts that referent power, expert power and prestige power are already possessed in the person. Moreover, according to me the leaders must have a blend of all these powers so that more productivity can be attained. I believe that subordinates should provide with motivation factors like financial and non-financial benefits like incentive on their extraordinary performances and allowance on relocations. Clarke (2013) suggests that leader should analyse the gaps in their subordinate’s performance and take appropriate steps for enhancing their adversities rather than make them punishable. Motivation can also be ensured by allowing all the working personnel in the decision making process so that they can feel like an important asset to the organization. I have also learned that effective politics in organization can be ensured by assessing whether every personnel is allowed to present their own agendas and managers are proper interacts with the subordinates. Employees have to understand the psyche of the colleagues and manager, polite to everyone and honest towards the organization in order to survive the office politics (Miner 2015).

Contingency and Situational Leadership

The leadership quality of the leaders is not only important in organising a business but the approach through which they influence their followers also matters in achieving the organizational goals (Giltinane 2013). Thus, from the session of week 8, I have learned about the relationship between the power and influence. Miner (2015) states that power is coercive while influence is non-coercive in nature as power serve physical sanctions; while Influence is psychological, persuasive and voluntary. I also believed that ‘Power’ is based on fear of pain or deprivation and it shows that dissimilarities in personnel’s perception; while on the other hand, influencing other represents similarities of values or ideological commonness. In this session also it is shown that a leader, who desires to enhance their influential tactics, emphasis on the enhancement of their rational persuasion, personal magnetism with others, formulation of coalitions, working for team strengths and others. I have faced difficulty in maintaining an inspiring personality with charm and charismatic together but I have also learned that this problem can be overcome by discussing with the business adversities with the subordinates politely and in a friendly manner. Selecting appropriate alliances to form coalitions for attaining business goals is also important for establishing an extraordinary leadership style (Braun et al. 2013). According to me, this trait is difficult to achieve but can be overcome with experience.

Qian et al. (2012) stated that how an organization performs relies on the working ability of all the working personnel and thus there performance has to be evaluated and monitored regularly. Caldwell (2012) suggests that some uses the concept of taking face to face feedback from the employees regarding their problems. However, Gregoire and Arendt (2014) argues that conducting survey are the most effective way to take feedback as most of the employee do not reveal their actual in front of anyone.  I also believe that this feedback session also ensures the team development and in our session 9, we have learned about the Tuckman’s model. This model comprises of four stages- forming, storming, norming and performing. In the stage of forming, Cummings and Worley (2014) highlight that the team learns about the opportunities and challenges to tackle the tasks. Moreover, the stage two and three represents the sharing of perception on a particular decision in order to avoid internal conflicts and the resolution of disagreements if conflicts occur for effective business culture respectively (Northouse 2012). I have also learned that in the fourth stage of ‘performing’, group members focus on achieving common goals and in this way synergy can be attained. (Giltinane 2013) portrays that in this way members’ job satisfaction is enhanced though this procedure is time consuming and job pressure on working personnel is there as they have to main the emotional and professional excellence in the workplace.

Cognitive Resource Theory

Reference List

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