Reflexive Research For Transformational And Charismatic Leadership

Current role and responsibilities

Discuss about the Reflexive Research for Transformational and Charismatic Leadership.

A leadership style is about providing right direction to the people, implementing plans and motivating other people.  The leadership style is one of the major factors that works behind the success of a business organization (Avolio and Yammarino 2013). In the business organizations, basically the managers are considered as the leaders of the organizations. They are responsible for managing all the people working within the organization. In this report, the different perspective of a manager and the leadership style has been evaluated. This is about the self reflection of the journey I have completed as a manager of a restaurant.

At present, I am working as a manager of a restaurant in Australia. The key of getting success in the business of the restaurant is to provide the best customer services. As the manager, I have the responsibility of managing all the people who are working in the restaurant for providing the most superior services and fresh foods to the customers. The different role and responsibilities I have in the workplace are discussed in the following section:

Recruitment and selection: I am the responsible person for recruitment and selection of the employees for the restaurant. The recruitment and selection of an employee for the restaurant is associated with selection of the right candidate who will be able to fulfill all the objective of the restaurant by applying his or her skills.

Training: After selecting a candidate as an employee of the restaurant, professional training of the candidate is done under my supervision.

Supervising: How the workforce of the restaurant are working in the workplaces is my another important job as the manager. I used to supervise the workers and taking proper actions regarding any wrong actions. I also used to give rewards to the employees for outstanding works.

Menu planning: I used to plan the menu of the restaurant depending on the choice of the customers. The food habit of the customers are associated with the seasonal factors. I used to consider the weather conditions and festivals for deciding the menus in the restaurant.

Promotional activities: In order to promote the services, I used plan promotional activities like special offers and advertisements.

Maintaining health and safety: Health and safety maintenance for both the employees and the customers is very vital in the restaurant. As the manager of the restaurant, I used check each of the food items for hygiene and taste. I am also responsible for ensuring the health and safety of the employees while they are working within the workplace.

Major challenges faced in the position

 The main challenge faced in the job position currently I am working is the selection of the right people. The workers of a restaurant should have high level of communication skills for serving the customers in the best way. The behaviour of the employees is the main factors behind the success of the restaurant. In this context,, it has been found several time that the employees are failed to behave properly. I had to use strict actions against the employees. Another challenge I have faced in the role of the manager of the restaurant is the selection of the menu as per the customer preferences. Sometimes, I have failed to fulfill the demands of the customers. More understanding of the customers’ perception is required to get desired level of success in this job.

The leadership style I have followed is transformational leadership. I am working with my subordinates to identify the requited changes in the restaurant. This is a kind of business, which needs frequent changes to match the demands of the customers. In order to provide the best customer service, it is very important to implement changes as per the demands of the customers. The bottom line employees interact with the customers and get the information regarding the perceptions of the customers and their expectations. I used to help the junior level employees to understand the responsibilities of the positions they are currently working (Van Dierendonck et al. 2014). I used to motivate the employees for getting better performance from them. I am following the reward and recognition system for motivating the employees. These help me to build a strong workforce for providing a great service to the customers. The rewards and recognitions are given based on the performances of the employees. The job performance are analyzed based on certain performance indicators. Maximum values are given to the section  of customer satisfaction while measuring the level of performance of the employees.

My leadership style has been developed by following the style of the former manager of this restaurant. I used to work as a junior assistant in the restaurant when I have joined here. I have learned the way of managing people and organizing different types of activities in the restaurant from the manager. I am following the way learned from the transformational leadership which was followed by him within the context of the different types of activities of this restaurant. He introduced many changes in the operational environment of the restaurant. Many changes also done by me after being the manager of the restaurant. The changes are done with respect to the changes of the technology and the food habit of the target customers. The food processing system of the restaurant is updated with the hi-tech food processing systems in the last year. In order to operate the system properly staff training was required in the workplace. In this context, I have arranged a training program for the employees who will handle the system. Experts form the system’s company gave a training of one week to the employees (Choudhar et al. 2013). The result of using the system was very good. The employees are able to produce healthy and tasty foods within a shorter time period with the help of the system. The main aspect behind these kinds of works of me is to provide something new for upgrading the operational environment and provide the best support to the employees to adapt the new changes (Wright et al. 2012).

Key aspects of the leadership style followed

I used to understand the strength and weaknesses of individual employees and take necessary actions against them. I always used to do give proper support to the people require to develop themselves as a professional in this field.

As per the feedbacks given by my co-worker my leadership style is overall good but I have some problems with my behaviour. According to him, sometimes I become too strict against the employees and lose my patience level. This happen when I found some problems in the works of the employees which may affect the customers’ perception regarding the services of the restaurant.

Another negative feedback I got regarding the decision-making criteria. I have tried my level best to take suitable decisions regarding the operations of the restaurant by considering the concern of all the employees. However, I have got the feedback that I need to take concern of the employees regarding the decision making for increasing the customer satisfaction rate as the employees are more close to the customers than me.

The implications of the feedbacks are in the area of the employee satisfaction and retention rate. The negative feedbacks got regarding the behavioral aspect create negative impact on the employees, which is not good for the overall success of the restaurant. I need to give focus in this area for holding more patience at the time of taking actions against the poor quality of work.

The decision making error is a big mistake of my leadership style. It has been fund that the decisions taken by me were not highly successful all the time. Especially the selection of the menu failed many time to attract the customers at the expected level. I need to give more focus in this area and need to take concerns from all the front level employees who are responsible to handle the customer directly.

Application of the leadership theories and models for solving the implications:

The theory of transformational leadership style is saying that the leader should highly co-operative to the employees. I have followed this rule to some extent but as I got the negative feedbacks regarding this, it can be considered that there are some problems in this area. I have to follow the core concept of the leadership style I am following as the manager of the restaurant. The theory of transformational leadership style is also stating that the leader should take necessary steps for align all the followers to the goal for getting the maximum performance (Roueche et al. 2014). In order to align all the employees to the workplace activities of the restaurant, I need to work with them with more dedication and patience. The behaviour of the leader is an important aspect of the overall success of an organization (García-Morales  et al. 2012). In order to fix the problem regarding the behavior towards the employees, I need to increase my patience level. I can do meditation for this purpose.

Feedback regarding the leadership style

The transformational leadership style is also stating that the followers need to be allowed to take part in some organizational activities and decision making process for being more aligned with the workplaces activities. The employees should be motivated to the level at which they may be able to think beyond of their self-interests to the corporate objectives of the organization (Braun et al. 2013). The persuasive appeals of the employees should also be taken into consideration based on the causes at the time of decision-making. I am responsible person for this in the workplace I am currently working. This can be accomplished by arranging periodic meetings with the employees and allowing them to represent their viewpoints regarding the current approaches taken by the management (Leithwood and Sun 2012). I should evaluate the problems faced by the employees with the current approaches and then proper actions should be taken for resolving the issues (Carter  et al. 2013). At the time of taking decisions, the overall benefits of all the employees should be taken into consideration.

In the context of the transformational leadership style, maintaining the morals and ethical considerations is highly important. In this context, I need to provide equal opportunities to all the employees. I also need to focus in the area of the quality of the food products. The health consciousness of the customers should be taken into consideration while processing the foods (Grant 2012). The employees should get all the required facilities for maintaining the health and security at the workplaces.

Conclusion:

In this report the self reflection about my work as a manager of restaurant have been discussed. As a manager of the restaurant I am working quite successfully. I am responsible person for recruiting new people, provide them proper training, improving the overall process of the restaurant, menu planning, motivating the employees. As the leadership style I am using the transformational leadership in my workplace. I have tried to maintain all the aspects of the leadership style. However, all my works were not able to have the same level of success. I have got some negative feedbacks regarding my works also. I used the feedbacks form one of muy co-worker for understanding the overall aspect of leadership in my workplace. The negative feedbacks given by him are valid enough to affect my leadership and overall status of the restaurant. I need to improve the concerned area. The theory of transformational leadership is evaluated again in the last section of the report for understanding the necessary steps for resolving the issues of my leadership style.

References:

Avolio, B.J. and Yammarino, F.J. eds., 2013. Transformational and charismatic leadership: The road ahead. Emerald Group Publishing.

Braun, S., Peus, C., Weisweiler, S. and Frey, D., 2013. Transformational leadership, job satisfaction, and team performance: A multilevel mediation model of trust. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), pp.270-283.

Carter, M.Z., Armenakis, A.A., Feild, H.S. and Mossholder, K.W., 2013. Transformational leadership, relationship quality, and employee performance during continuous incremental organizational change. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(7), pp.942-958.

Choudhary, A.I., Akhtar, S.A. and Zaheer, A., 2013. Impact of transformational and servant leadership on organizational performance: A comparative analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 116(2), pp.433-440.

García-Morales, V.J., Jiménez-Barrionuevo, M.M. and Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, L., 2012. Transformational leadership influence on organizational performance through organizational learning and innovation. Journal of Business Research, 65(7), pp.1040-1050.

Grant, A.M., 2012. Leading with meaning: Beneficiary contact, prosocial impact, and the performance effects of transformational leadership. Academy of Management Journal, 55(2), pp.458-476.

Leithwood, K. and Sun, J., 2012. The nature and effects of Transformational school leadership a meta-analytic review of unpublished research. Educational Administration Quarterly, 48(3), pp.387-423.

Roueche, P.E., Baker III, G.A. and Rose, R.R., 2014. Shared vision: Transformational leadership in American community colleges. Rowman & Littlefield.

Van Dierendonck, D., Stam, D., Boersma, P., De Windt, N. and Alkema, J., 2014. Same difference? Exploring the differential mechanisms linking servant leadership and transformational leadership to follower outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(3), pp.544-562.

Wright, B.E., Moynihan, D.P. and Pandey, S.K., 2012. Pulling the levers: Transformational leadership, public service motivation, and mission valence. Public Administration Review, 72(2), pp.206-215.