Leadership Theories And Their Applicability In Different Business Situations

Trait Theory: Identifying Key Traits of Leaders

This theory is based on particular traits of a leader and he can be either successful or unsuccessful. The theory utilises the information in order to evaluate the position in the organisation and to assess how well leader understands their identity and how they affect the organisation. There are some core traits identified in this theory such as achievement drive, honesty and integrity, self-confidence and emotional maturity (Spears, 2018). Among all the three important traits, my personality has honesty, integrity, and achievement drive. For example- at my workplace, I do my work with whole honesty without cheating the subordinates and the client and I delegate the service to the client for which they have paid. Whereas, I lack self-confidence for instance- when I was in college, while presenting PPT in front of my batch, I could not perform as per my expectation due to lack of self-confidence.        

While identifying all the traits in the trait theory, it is seen that this theory lacks the skill of negotiation in its characteristics. This trait is important in leadership as negotiation plays an important in building relationships. Negotiation is important in daily interactions such as negotiating for sales, lease, legal contracts, and service delivery. When leaders are good negotiators then they contribute crucially to the business success. For example- negotiation can be very helpful in resolving the conflicts, as the main purpose of negotiation is to result in mutual benefits (Spears, 2018).   

I think I cannot be a good leader as my personality has honesty and achievement drive but at the same time, I do not have self-confidence. Self-confidence is important in a leader as if I am not able to do the things confidently how would I encourage my team members.     

Under the situational leadership, there are four important traits of leadership named as directing, supporting, coaching, and delegating. Due to increase in dynamic business situations, a situational leader emerged who can adjust in order to fit the subordinates in their developing level whom they are trying to influence. Applying this approach was found suitable when business situation fluctuates a lot (Anthony, 2018).  

Transformational leadership is composed of four main elements such as inspirational motivation, idealised influence, individualism consideration, and the intellectual stimulation. This approach has been identified to result in change that are related to social systems and individuals (Hoch, Bommer, Dulebohn, & Wu, 2018). The aim of adopting this leadership is to change the followers in a positive and valuable way so that follower can be transformed into leaders in future. A transformational leader enhances the performance, morale, motivation of employees, and inspire the changes so that a strong purpose can be accomplished. Moreover, a sense of trust and culture of innovation can be cultivated in the organisation (Donohoe, & Kelloway, 2016).      

Situational Leadership: Adapting to Changing Business Contexts

Servant leadership has a set of practises, which enhance the lives of subordinates. This leadership will lead to better organisations that care for employee`s growth. It clearly states that a person who is a leader today was a servant yesterday. It means that everyone needs to develop and grow (Leadership mindset, 2018).   

Among all the above leadership style discussed, according to me servant leadership is best to adopt to drive the actions to achieve the objectives. As its characteristics, include active listening, healer, persuasion, stewardship, community building, and commitment to growth purpose. Manager who have the ability to deal with wide range of subordinates and get their work done by creating the environment of the organisation that can be more employee centric and innovative. 

Some leaders who have spoiled and drowned their organisation due to insider trading or self-benefits. For instance- Sepp Blatter (president of FIFA) engaged bribery and money laundering for his self-interest that have spoiled the organisational culture. This unethical issue ruined the code of conduct of the organisation (Oksman, 2017). On the other hand, a good leader who is well-known for the success of the organisation such as Steve Jobs. He is known to be one of influencing and innovating leader. I think in some or the other way, he followed servant leadership by few traits such as mean-spirited and dictatorial. While discussing the exercising of power, it can be said that Steve jobs was a dominating leader but he always listened to employees too (Sivasubramaniam, 2017).

Illustrations related to each of the leadership are given below-

Examples of servant leadership where I as a leader emphasizes on the culture of services for both customers as well as the organisations. My spirit will serves MNCs to reach the heights.

Situational leadership is most relevant when I adopt war strategy and other tactics to guide my organisation. The philosophy of winning the threat of competition in the business is analysed. Moreover, I believe I need to bring out a new course of action (Northouse, 2013). 

Transformational leadership is most relevant when a transformation is needed. As a leader, I inspire and motivate to grow and move ahead in right direction. In my organisation, two employees had a conflict but stimulated them to deal with the conflict and develop the intellect.

1. According to Hersey-Blanchard Model, amount of direction and socio-emotional support where a leader is given a situation and maturity level of followers. In the given situation, situational leadership will be most suitable because group interrelations are defined to be good which indicates the amount of direction. Moreover, another condition that says that people are competent, and motivation is high is a part of socio-emotional support (Stouten, & Liden, 2018).
2. Path-goal theory undertakes four behaviours such as directive, supportive, participative, and achievement. A supportive leadership will be most appropriate for this condition, as the new employee do not have experience and is not following the instruction of assigned tasks. A supportive leader will make the work more pleasant by showing a concern by becoming approachable and friendly (Big Dog, 2015).      
3. In this situation, according to trait theory of leadership, a leader should have achievement drive to cope up with lower sales. As staff morale is low and employee retention has become a problem, a leader should have emotional maturity and leadership motivation in order to encourage the employees to work.
4. Under the path goal theory, it is seen that both achievement and directive behaviour in a leader is most appropriate as employees are under performing and lacks self-confidence. A leader should delegate what is expected from them such as explaining them what to do and coordinating the work. Achievement behaviour of a leader will lead to setting of challenging goals for the subordinates and expect them to execute for the higher level.
5. Directive leadership in the path goal theory will be most effective as there are lot of conflicts in the team. The employees needs to be directed as no one knows what they should do. Constant arguing has ended and shattered the objective of organisation. A directive leader will tell them what to do and how to do. He will schedule and coordinate their work. This style is most effective when people are unsure and uncertain about their work.     

I want to be a leader who is perfect in all the dimensions especially in convincing and maintaining its employees. I believe that I am a participative leader, as I like sharing the ideas before making decisions. I decide my leadership style on the basis of my personal life experiences and recent successful corporate leaders. I am strongly committed to serve people in order to achieve the personal growth. I inspire my subordinates with the help of knowledge and experiences, which I have acquired in my journey. I believe that following any of the leadership theory will lead to be a better future leader where I am choosing participative leadership. The main aim is to transform the mindset of many people, empower them and younger generations that will lead to creation of a better society. While maintaining the traits of a participative leader, I undertake to empower the co-workers to achieve even the harder tasks, solve technical issues, relies on teamwork, counselling of the co-workers in the complex situations, and maintaining the outstanding ability in order to interact with people who are at all the level of management (Liden et al., 2015). While evaluating my behaviour as per the leadership theories, I have identified some areas of strength and weakness where strength is to be identified to grab the potential opportunity and weaknesses have to be catered to improve the personality. I am honest and have the ability to integrate and coordinate the work of employees. As discussed in the trait theory, I lack self-confidence, which is quite necessary to be a good leader and I have to work hard for it. I am sensible who expresses the potential emotion and I can take advantage of this expression by rewarding for their achievements. Relationship-oriented behaviour are more based on servant leadership because I tend to place my work at first before any of self-interest, I listen to employees so that I built confidence in others, inspire others by becoming trustworthy, lend a hand or a space to express their problems and provide them an emotional healing (Tepper et al., 2018).

References

Anthony, L. (2018). Define Situational Leadership. Retrieved from: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/define-situational-leadership-2976.html       

Big Dog, (2015). Path-Goal Leadership Theory. Retrieved from: https://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/lead_path_goal.html

Donohoe, M., & Kelloway, E. K. (2016). Transformational leadership training for managers: effects on employee well-being. In Creating Healthy Workplaces (pp. 231-248). Routledge.

Hoch, J. E., Bommer, W. H., Dulebohn, J. H., & Wu, D. (2018). Do ethical, authentic, and servant leadership explain variance above and beyond transformational leadership? A meta-analysis. Journal of Management, 44(2), 501-529.

Leadership mindset, (2018). Here are the top five traits that all effective servant leaders possess. Retrieved from: https://leadershipmindsetseries.com/effective-servant-leaders/

Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., Meuser, J. D., Hu, J., Wu, J., & Liao, C. (2015). Servant leadership: Validation of a short form of the SL-28. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(2), 254-269.

Northouse, P. (2013). Leadership Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc.

Oksman, O., (2017). FIFA corruption report has scandals but no disqualification. Retrieved from: https://www.marketplace.org/2017/06/28/business/fifa-releases-report-corruption                             

Sivasubramaniam, J. (2017). 5 Companies That Embrace Servant Leadership. Retrieved from: https://ideas.bkconnection.com/five-surprising-companies-that-embrace-servant-leadership

Spears, L. C., (2018). Character and Servant Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders. Retrieved from: https://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/jvl/vol1_iss1/Spears_Final.pdf

Stouten, J., & Liden, R. C. (2018). Social Loafing in Organizational Work Groups: The Mitigating Effect of Servant Leadership.

Tepper, B. J., Dimotakis, N., Lambert, L. S., Koopman, J., Matta, F. K., Man Park, H., & Goo, W. (2018). Examining Follower Responses to Transformational Leadership from a Dynamic, Person–Environment Fit Perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 61(4), 1343-1368.