Understanding Different Types Of Leadership Essay And Their Importance.

Question:

 Discuss about the Leadership Skill Theory and Practice.

Leadership is the ability of an individual or organization to mobilize or influence people, organization or teams for the achievement of certain goals in a given situation. In an organization, the leadership role is mainly concentrated on the top executive but also draws down to the managers and other senior leaders. The leaders have the responsibility to positively influence other organizational employees towards achieving the set goals and objectives. In the contemporary society today, leadership is very important but has been curbed by many challenges, this has been as a result of the many issues that result in the lack of trust in leadership by other stakeholders. Among the many functions of a leader some include; control, evaluate the level of organization’s performance as well as that of the employees after a given period of time, motivate the employees as well towards achieving the set goals among others.

There are different types of leaders who are classified according to their level of ability to lead, the ground into which leadership is to be offered as well as the organizations set qualifications of a leader that relates to the set goals and objectives. These leaders’ classifications are as follows;

The benevolent leader is the one who understands the personalities of a group of people and appreciates that each person responds to altered situations to motivate the same person according to their own personality. This leader ensures that the team members are aware of their goals in the field that they have been allocated. This is important as every individual has a different personality and ability to deliver. In the business world today, different personalities fit the different business context in relation to abilities of an individual and the set business goals.

A team leader is a person who creates a clear picture regarding organization’s future expectations and acts as a role model, understands what the group stands for and what they are all about. Team leadership has a strong sense of purpose and direction. This type of leadership involves working with people’s personalities and minds. For one to be a good team leader they have to have very good leadership skills and qualities because this type of leadership may fail if one does not have the right qualities of the team leading like understanding, patience and critical thinking. It’s of great importance for all team leaders to ensure that the goals set for any team to achieve incorporate the abilities of the team members to deliver.  Teamwork is very important as it enhances the development of an individual’s ability to grow as well as achieve the set goals.

Laissez Faire leadership

This is the kind of a leader that gives consultants to the employees as they are allowed to work as they desire with minimal or no interference. In this type of leadership, employees have the power to make their own decisions as long as they are in line with the set rules which in most cases are not strict. Having it mind that the only included personnel match the requirements, there is minimal follow-ups as well as conflicts. This type of leadership is very important in the modern organizations as it ensures that everyone’s ability to lead her is exercised. This is mainly found in the designing business, product design firms and architectural firms where the ability to deliver depends on one’s creative mind. People who have strong skills, extensive education and experience are successful in this kind of leadership. People who are easily motivated also thrive in this kind of leadership and develop with a lot of ease.

Team Leadership

Autocratic leadership

Autocratic leaders hold the authority and responsibility and make all the decisions even without consulting the employees under him and this decision is based on their ideas and judgments and rarely accept an opinion from their followers. Institutionalization theory of business illustrates that in every set of organizational leadership other employees or stakeholders views should be considered during decision making, thus this type of leadership may not be successful. The leader, in this case, has the final say and only requires the employees to implement and not question anything. In the modern world today, this type of leadership cannot influence the development and so should not be encouraged as it's mainly associated with the tyrants and dictators. People normally don’t like this kind of leadership because they feel it epitomizes authoritarianism. An example of autocratic leadership is a standard oil founder John D Rockefeller and US president Nixon.

Democratic leadership

This is the kind of leadership that even the employees are involved in the process of decision making and their contributions are the ones mainly involved in the headship. In this kind of leadership, the leader is mainly known to delegate authority to other people though he holds the final responsibility. In this type, communication is valued to ensure that the employees have a significant role in enhancing development. It is the most preferred kind leadership since it is known for fairness, creativity, courage and intelligence and is based on mutual respect. There is a collaboration between leaders and the people they guide. Democratic leaders cannot accomplish their goals without direct participation of others. Examples of this kind leadership are the US presidents.

Visionary leadership

This is the kind of leadership that understands and recognizes that the methods and the process of leadership are obtained through people. They understand and transform their visions into realities. They are builders of a new dawn since they work with imagination, insight, and boldness. This is not a common type of leadership especially in a group setting as it dwells on the mind imaginations, beliefs, values as well as creative thinking. In the modern setting, visionary leaders are only taken as an impact where the goals to be met are only imagined and visualized as they are achieved.

Negative emotions and leadership

Negative emotions are any psychological feelings which causes one to be miserable and dislike yourself and other people and it takes away confidence and they affect our productivity and relationships. Examples of negative emotions are Sadness, anger, frustration, annoyance and resentment.

Most of these negative emotions affect leader’s productivity in following ways:

• They don’t fulfill people expectations as agreed since they have a disturbed emotional setting.
• They feel misjudged
• They tend to be passive aggressive
• They fail to take responsibility
• They lack trust on other people.

But negative emotion at any level of leadership van is handled by:

• Addressing the issue of miscommunication
• Engage in dealing with problematic behaviors.
• Managing conflicts productively.
• Engaging with the employees in life building skills

Emotional intelligence is the ability to say, understand and know how you have an influence on other and in return you were able to manage yourself in regards to that. Emotional intelligence usually increases corporate performance through discretionary effort. In the contemporary society today a leader must be very aware of him/herself: motivations and behaviors for them to develop an understanding of his or her people. Lack of self-awareness of a leader results to poor leaders thinking. For high emotional intelligence one to have self-assessment, empathy and compassion, self-regulation. Effective communication and relationship management helps the leaders to be in a place to put themselves in other people’s situations before condemning them. Leaders with high emotional intelligence are likely to be very good in their leadership roles and they are known to have better productivity abilities with positive relationships with other organizational members. High emotional intelligence can be motivated by setting a positive working environment for both the employees and the leaders that as a result ensures positive relationship as well as the development of the organization set goals.

Laissez-Faire Leadership

What type of Leadership style did Mayer demonstrate, judging from the Case study?

According to the case study, Mayer demonstrated autocratic leadership. In this type of leadership, the leader made decisions based on their own understanding. In relevance to the case study, it was clear that her leadership was more of herself than those she was leading. A good leader listened to his or her followers however Mayer could not practice good leadership as she capitalized on talking more than on listening (Adair, 2013). Mayer did all the leadership work herself she did not consult any of her counterparts of the best way to do regarding her leadership.  It is noted that Mayer used her leadership to intimidate her colleagues as it evidently seen in the case study. Her counterparts had different views in regard to different ideas and issues in her constituency however she disregarded the ideas once they were presented to her. According to the case study, it is written that once leader does not listen to her or his subjects then they are afraid to share their insights. Mayer forgot that if her subjects are afraid of her then she will not see the best out of her subjects.

Mayer as a leader had gone wrong in all aspects of leadership. It evident from the case study that she did not fully understand the culture of the people she was leading. According to the study, it is written that culture was always focused on but it was not understood (Harris, 2009). The case study revealed that culture was the main issue in the livelihood of people of a certain region, therefore, it was the main determinant of leadership. Mayer did not know the culture of the people she was leading; therefore, her leadership was termed as null and void. Mayer had taken leadership as her own affair and was not interested in the feelings of other people. She made decisions based on her own liking and did not take into account the feelings of others hence this action formed the falling stone into her leadership. As a leader, Mayer did not take the time to learn from her mistakes and this was a problem with her leadership (Owen, 2012). According to the case study, we saw that Mayer undermines a comprehensive and well formulated leading strategy however she assumes the complexity that comes with leadership. Evidently, Mayer was an ignorant leader who did not lead for the benefit of her subjects but was using her position to undermine the views of others and also to intimidate her subjects as she tried to introduce new beliefs in a culture she did not take to understand.

In my opinion, Mayer would have tried to understand that leadership is service to others, not self. She should have taken the time to learn about the culture of the people she was leading. Mayer would have strived to build some trust with her constituents and colleagues so that she could have been able to lead without difficulties. Mayer would have taken an action to listen to her work mates and through this way she would have built a good rapport with her and her

Autocratic Leadership

Colleagues. If her subjects were not afraid of her, they would not be afraid of making mistakes, therefore, they would have been producing the best hence enhancing her leadership. It is important if she had noted her mistake and corrected her relationship between her and others in the constituent as this would have led to the improvement of her leadership. Mayer also decided to ignore the complex nature of leadership because she did not put into account the mandate of leading her people according to their culture. In my opinion, Mayer would have taken into consideration the culture of her people thus proving to be a good leader.

Leadership theories

These are perspectives that give a view of traits that enhance effective leadership. the styles of leadership, forms as well as the expected techniques that influence effective and efficient leadership. These theories include;

Trait leadership theory

Every form of leadership enhances good leadership traits that are key to effective leadership. This theory gives a view on the relationship between individual personality and the expressed leadership skills (Ferguson, 2004). According to the proponents of the theory, the personal or individual characteristics greatly influence leadership skills. The environment in to which these skills are offered does not greatly influence the qualities of leadership as leaders emerge from a great variety of situations and responsibilities.

Contingency theory

The theory explains that all leaders do not have same qualities and abilities and a leader in one situation may not be a leader in a different situation as skills vary from one situation to the other. The theory proposes that the leadership qualities are independent of the individual concerned.

Behavioral theory

The theory proposes that any type of behavior that relates to leadership is modified by rewards or punishments (Northouse, 2013). Positive leadership is rewarded thus motivating the leaders to perform even better while negative leadership in most cases to punishment. As a result of this issues, leaders with viable qualities should be encouraged and the ones failing should also be encouraged to perform better.

Full range theory

The theory expounds on the need for enhancing motivation and morale of the leaders. This is done by relating the leaders with their project achievements openly to enable them to have a sense of belonging.

Conclusion

A leader being the one in charge of influencing and leading others towards a certain mission or goal of any organization he must understand the people’s personalities and help each one of them to achieve their goals as well as enhance their personal development.  A good leader must not only be result oriented but also be mindful of people’s involvement towards attaining the goals of a company. A leader must be aware of every person and be all round. A good leader must have all types of leadership qualities for them to be more successful and more productive. Leadership skills are key to any leading scenario that has set goals and objectives that are important for development. Poor leadership skills influence limited achievements in any given unit of production that are seasoned to support developments.

References

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