Critically analyse the relationship between traits, motives and effectiveness of leaders.
Leadership plays a significant role in any organization. Today organizations are operating in dynamic environment where situations are changing rapidly. The organizations have to face various challenges and the managers who work as leaders in the organization provide guidance to other members to deal with those challenges. Leadership can be defined as an action in which managers influence employees to achieve goals and objectives. The managers set a clear vision for the company and motivate employees by providing them continuous guidance (Bryman, 2007). In the given essay the role of leadership and relation between traits and motives are explained. We have taken Steve Jobs as the role model for all the mangers. The essay also elaborates how Steve Jobs had applied those traits for the growth of the organization. One leadership framework is also showed in the essay.
The given paragraph focuses on the role of leadership. Leadership is an important part of management that helps to maximize effectiveness and efficiency and also helps in achieving goals of the organization. The managers who work as leaders formulate plans, policies and strategies and communicate the information to subordinates. Leaders provide motivation to employees. For motivating employees they use economic and non-economic rewards. Leaders build confidence among employees by explaining them their roles and also by giving them proper guidance to attain goals. The main work of mangers or leaders is to get the work done through people. Leaders also help to create an efficient work environment in the organization.
In current market condition to meet complex challenges, the leaders formulate specific strategies and motivate employees to perform their task properly. Leaders possess certain traits and motives which are both interrelated. All the traits and motives contribute to leadership effectiveness. Effective leaders have certain characteristics which contribute to the success of the organization. Certain of the personality traits include trustworthiness, self-confidence, extroversion, assertiveness, enthusiasm, emotional stability, high tolerance and a sense of humor. A good leader should have traits such as sense of humor trait which will help in creating friendly relationship with employees (Carlo, Okun, Knight & de Guzman, 2005). In many leadership theories personality traits are used to provide definition of good leader. A good leader mainly uses situational leadership theory that suggests that single leadership style cannot be applied in all situations. According to the situations the leaders have to select proper leadership style. Some factors like organization culture, employees’ behavior, and certain other conditions the leaders consider for selecting the best leadership style for the situation. Some task related personality traits a good leader possesses are flexibility, passion, courage, emotional intelligence and adaptability. All these traits help leaders to perform the work effectively and efficiently (Judge, Piccolo & Kosalka, 2009). With all the mentioned leadership traits, the leaders also contain some motives like power motive, strong work ethic, tenacity, drive and achievement.
The power motive indicates that the strong leader or a manager require to control other people in the organization. The leaders have to use their powers to influence the behaviors of others. Strong work ethic motive can be understood as the leaders believe in dignity of work. They support strong work ethic in the organization. The leaders assume that group task provide more productive output than individual task. The drive and achievement motive indicates that the leader implements best ideas that can give good returns. Through the efforts of managers who perform effective leadership role in the organization both company and the managers get benefits (De Hoogh et al., 2005). Tenacity motive shows strong determination of leaders. The effective leaders provide creative solution to solve complex problems. There are strong relationship between leadership traits and motives. Successful leaders use leadership traits which provide support to achieve motives. For fulfilling power motive the leaders must have certain characteristics like risk taking, self-confidence, and extra version (Geoghegan & Dulewicz, 2008). For maintaining strong work ethic the leaders must possess emotional intelligence, sense of humor, enthusiasm and assertiveness. For accomplishing tenacity motive the leaders must have high tolerance level and for attaining drive and achievement motive the leaders must have certain qualities like courage, enthusiasm, initiative, flexibility, and adaptability.
Steve Jobs is the famous name in corporate world. He is the person who is responsible for Apple Company’s success. Some major leadership qualities Steve jobs had adaptability, focus, assertiveness, innovative and self-confidence. The major motives of Steve Jobs were tenacity and strong work ethic. Steve Jobs was a motivational leader. He formulated business strategies and motivated employees to work for the betterment and growth of the company. Modern managers can learn leadership qualities from him as he faced various challenges in his life but faced those challenges with full zeal. Steve jobs, was very passionate for his work. He provided right directions to the Apple Company when company was facing many problems (Isaacson, 2012).
The leaders should use appropriate framework to provide effective leadership to the organization. The framework or model of leadership helps to deal with complex problems. Michale Fullan has given a leadership model that can be used to implement change in an organization. Fullan’s leadership model includes 5 major points like moral purpose, relationship building, understanding change, coherence making and knowledge sharing (Knuth & Banks, 2006). Mainly the leaders are responsible to introduce change in the organization. The five major elements showed in the framework are explained in below mentioned points.
Moral purpose: Moral purpose plays an important role in introducing change in the system. The leaders should perform with the intension of making positive change in the system. The leaders or managers should think about the benefits of the organization. The leaders are motivated by a sense of determination to do valuable for the organization (Wise & Jacobo, 2010).
Figure 1: Leadership framework
Understanding change: The leaders should give focus to understand change before implementing it in the system otherwise change cannot be managed or controlled. The leaders should not introduce complex ideas which cannot be accepted easily by the organization. The managers should give enough time on pre implementation preparation. Leaders should formulate strategies to deal with problems which can be occurred during change implementation process.
Relationship building: The simple concept is if relationships in the organization improve then many problems will be solved automatically. Emotional intelligence is a leadership trait that can help to manage conflict in the organization. Effective leaders give efforts to develop harmony in the organization.
Knowledge creation and sharing: It means the leaders should give focus to create and share knowledge. Continuous learning method can be used for knowledge creation. For the success of the organization, the members should share the knowledge. Knowledge sharing not only helps in organizational growth but also helps in achieving personal growth (Edwards, 2012).
Coherence making: The leaders put efforts to introduce essential change in the system but sometimes change can create disequilibrium in the system. People should understand the change as when changes are taken positively, problems cannot be occurred. Effective leaders make people realize that even in hard time, problems or issues can be discussed productively (Gilley, McMillan & Gilley, 2009). Sometimes the leaders have to avoid certain things to maintain equilibrium in the organization.
There are also some issues which can have impact on organizational leadership. Many organizations are facing several challenges such as lack of employee cooperation. Employees do not listen to their managers. Sometimes manager who works as leader has to take strict action but the employees do not understand the reason behind the behavior and do not provide support to the manager. One person cannot implement change in the system so leaders require honest feedback from the members but the members do not provide support because they think that it not their work (Howell & Shamir, 2005). The leaders need to have many qualities. They cannot always impose their decisions on members. Sometimes the leaders have to listen views of others. Many times the leaders provide directions to others according to their views but the members do not understand the views of leaders. In some organizations due to complex hierarchy structure the members face problems in communication. Lack of communication also creates problem in implementation of organizational leadership (Van Wart, 2013). For the success of the organization effective leadership is required. Modern business world is highly competitive. To survive in the market, organizations need to have strong leadership support. Each organization faces both good time and bad time. In the bad time only leaders can motivate people to deal with the situation.
The role of leadership, leadership traits, motives and framework are explained above. Some issues are also mentioned that can influence organizational leadership. To avoid problems employees should understand the views of leaders and leaders should also consider the suggestion of people. Each person should understand the responsibility. The leaders should provide proactive solutions for the upcoming problems and should also explain others the concept so that everyone can understand. Both the leaders and the members should show positive attitude. The members of the organization should work to achieve goals and objectives of the organization.
References
Bryman, A. (2007). Effective leadership in higher education: A literature review. Studies In Higher Education, 32(6), 693-710.
Carlo, G., Okun, M. A., Knight, G. P., & de Guzman, M. R. T. (2005). The interplay of traits and motives on volunteering: Agreeableness, extraversion and prosocial value motivation. Personality and Individual Differences, 38(6), 1293-1305.
De Hoogh, A. H., Den Hartog, D. N., Koopman, P. L., Thierry, H., Van den Berg, P. T., Van der Weide, J. G., & Wilderom, C. P. (2005). Leader motives, charismatic leadership, and subordinates’ work attitude in the profit and voluntary sector. The Leadership Quarterly, 16(1), 17-38.
Edwards, A. (2012). The role of common knowledge in achieving collaboration across practices. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 1(1), 22-32.
Geoghegan, L., & Dulewicz, V. (2008). Do project managers’ leadership competencies contribute to project success?. Project Management Journal, 39(4), 58-67.
Gilley, A., McMillan, H. S., & Gilley, J. W. (2009). Organizational change and characteristics of leadership effectiveness. Journal Of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 16(1), 38-47.
Howell, J. M., & Shamir, B. (2005). The role of followers in the charismatic leadership process: Relationships and their consequences. Academy of Management Review, 30(1), 96-112.
Isaacson, W. (2012). The real leadership lessons of Steve Jobs. Harvard Business Review, 90(4), 92-102.
Judge, T. A., Piccolo, R. F., & Kosalka, T. (2009). The bright and dark sides of leader traits: A review and theoretical extension of the leader trait paradigm. The Leadership Quarterly, 20(6), 855-875.
Knuth, R. K., & Banks, P. A. (2006). The essential leadership model. Nassp Bulletin, 90(1), 4-18.
Van Wart, M. (2013). Lessons from leadership theory and the contemporary challenges of leaders. Public Administration Review, 73(4), 553-565.
Wise, D., & Jacobo, A. (2010). Towards a framework for leadership coaching. School Leadership and Management, 30(2), 159-169.
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