Values, Skills and Competencies of a Good Leader - Essay Example

Name Tutor Course 25th July, 2009 Leadership Leadership is a very important aspect in any given organization. A person who leads the way with an aim of influencing others to follow the set direction is referred to as a leader. Leadership can thus be described as the ability to influence or motivate a number of people to achieve a given common aim/ goal. It involves giving directing the action and behavior of other people towards accomplishing a given set of objectives. Generally, leadership can be viewed as a rather complex action involving an influence process, two actors-a leader and a follower and a variety of achievable outcomes that include goal achievement, individual’s commitment to the goals, development of group unity or cohesion and the enhancement of organizational culture change (McNamara 12). Values, Skills and Competencies of a Good Leader Leadership skills and behavior are based on a leader’s behavior. The increasing awareness and growing need for idealist leadership principles are enhancing more emphasis on personal integrity, business ethics, corporate responsibility and emotional maturity. A good leader must possess the necessary qualities, values and skills to ensure that he or she leads his team members into the successful achievement of the desired goals and objectives (Vroom and Yetton 130). One quality of an effective leader is honesty towards his or her team members as well as to his or her work. Good communication skills is also another effective leadership quality. This mainly ensures that the manager is a good listener. Any good leader must be a fast learner and have the ability to spot and nurture potential talent and to take necessary risks. A suitable leader needs to be enthusiastic in relation to their role, work and cause. This quality does not only escalate dedication and passion from the team members but also acts as a source of motivation and inspiration. Good leaders tolerate ambiguity as well as harsh conditions and are always composed, calm and steadfast to achieving the main goals. They are also concerned to maintenance good work standards and excellence. Other qualities of effective leadership include good decision making skills, creativity, confidence, humility and appreciation for what others have done (Vroom and Yetton 132). Global leaders require having various essential competencies and skills to enhance continuous success. The recommended competencies are divided into three groups: Those that refer to tangible and explicit information and the knowledge to execute roles and responsibilities. Those that refer to behavioral and cognitive abilities to make use of gained knowledge to perform these roles and responsibilities. Personal characteristics necessary to enable the manager make effective decisions. These three competencies can be further categorized into three groups; knowledge, interpersonal and personal competencies. Knowledge competencies deals with the manager’s knowledge and understanding of the relevant business, industry and technology required to successfully carry out the assigned roles and responsibilities. An interpersonal competency is concerned with the manager’s possession of the necessary skills and ability to transfer the gained knowledge into effective action. It deals with a manager’s social interaction and management of others. These competencies include the ability to resolve conflicts, good motivational skills, ability to work in different cultural settings and good decision making skills. Personal competencies are concerned with the personal characteristics of a good leader or manager. These include emotional intelligence and self awareness, having an inquisitive mind that is constantly looking for knowledge, integrity and honesty, open mindedness, flexibility, optimism and empathy (Parker 54). Styles of Leadership The leadership role in management is mainly determined by the company’s organizational culture. A leader’s values, assumptions and beliefs are very important to the leadership style the leader adopts. the kind of leadership style to use within an organization depends on the situation, the leader’s background in relation to his or her ethics, personality and ethics, the team members’ back grounds and personalities and the traditions, philosophy, values and concerns of the organization. There are four major styles of leadership; autocratic, laissez-faire, democratic and bureaucratic leadership (Veccio 289). An autocratic form of leadership is one whereby the leader uses unilateralism to dominate team members, who are in this case his or her followers, with an aim of achieving a particular objective. The leader is the sole decision maker and maintains as much authority as possible such that the team members are not in any way supposed to question his or her instructions. Punishments and rewards are used as the means of motivation. This authoritarian style is not very successful as it results into resistance from team members thus demanding the leader to always use excessive continuous direction and pressure to have tasks completed. The approach discourages the team’s effective performance and has been regarded as a probable cause of absenteeism and high levels of turn over in organizations exercising it (Bittel 173). Autocratic leadership has however been found to be appropriate in situations that require immediate action, where all other styles have failed, where there is need for extremely high production volumes and in situations where most employees or team members are new thus require instructions. The style can also be appropriate in organizations that are poorly managed and where the team members act as a challenge to the manager. Additionally, the style is familiar to many members making it easy to adopt it. Some subordinates have also been found to prefer this form of authoritarian leadership more than the other styles. The approach should however be discouraged when the team members become resentful or fearful, when they expect to air their views, in cases of increased turn over and absenteeism and when the team becomes very dependent on the manager for decision making. The Laissez-Faire leadership style is one whereby the leader has no power to the team members. The team members perform their different roles and responsibilities without any, participation from the leader and with very minimal directions. The team has all power and authority to set goals, resolve problems and make decisions. This approach is effective mainly when the team members are highly skilled, motivated and trusts worthy, when they have shown brilliant results before and have the self drive to successfully work on their own. Allowing team members to take control of the tasks and assume ownership empowers them to achieve the set goals. The style should be avoided when; the team feels insecure of the manager’s unavailability, the leader fails to constantly give feedback on the team’s performance, leaders fail to appreciate the team’s commendable efforts and when he or she does not know his or her role and requires the team members’ help (GoodWorth 10). In democratic leadership, a leader’s decision making is based on the views of his or her team members. The leader in this case consults his group members on important issues while still retaining control. He or she allows the team to make a decision on the tasks to be performed and the persons responsible for those tasks. A democratic manager can be viewed in two ways. Firstly, such a leader enhances participation and wisely assigns responsibilities but never forgets the fact that he or she holds the leadership role. He or she values his or teams out put thus encourages group discussion and can be viewed as one who is always ready top learn from the team members to ensure that the team performs in the best way possible. Most team members enjoy the trust accorded to them thus respond with high morale, team spirit and cooperation. The leader is always a great motivation to his or her team (Veccio 293). Democratic leadership is most effective when the manager wants to; give the team members an opportunity to acquire a sense of job satisfaction and personal growth, keep them well informed, enhance participation and team building and wants them to take part in solving certain problems within the organization. A complex problem that requires a lot of ideas to solve can also necessitate the need to practice this type of leadership. Situations in which democratic approach can be ineffective hence should not be used include; where the manager gets threatened, when the organization cannot risk making any mistakes, when it is cheaper and easier when the leader makes the decisions and when immediate action is necessary (Veccio 296). The leader in this style can be viewed as one who is not sure of him or her self a major reason why he or she always has to consult the team members for decision making. In this case, the leader is not leading in any way. In bureaucratic leadership, the manager ensures that every thing is done in accordance with the set policy and procedures. For anything that is not within the policy or regulation, the manager refers it to the higher levels of power. The manager’s main role in this case is enforcement of the rules. This style is most effective in organizations where the team members are involved in routine tasks, require an understanding of various procedures or standards, are handling delicate or dangerous equipment that necessitate definite operating procedures and when they are required to perform tasks that involve handling cash (Veccio 299). The style should be completely discouraged when the team only does that which is expected and nothing more, when the members lose interest in work and in their colleagues and when they form bad work habits that are difficult to break (GoodWorth 14). Other minor leadership styles include charismatic leadership, servant leadership people- oriented, task oriented, transformational and transitional forms of leadership. Charismatic style of leadership is whereby the leader injects a lot of zeal, interest and passion into his or her followers or team members. He or she is extremely energetic in making the team a success. This style however accords a lot of responsibilities to the leader such that he or she is seen as the pillar of the organization hence creating a risk of having the project collapse if the manager or leader leaves (Chemers 54). A people oriented leader puts all of his or her focus on organizing and developing the team members. People oriented form of leadership helps in enhancing team work and collaboration but if taken to an extreme, the successful achievement of goals fail.A can task oriented leader on the other hand focuses on completing the work or tasks assigned making him or her quite autocratic. The team member’s well being does not matter in this case leading to difficulties in retaining and motivating staff (Chemers 58). In transactional leadership, the team members are in agreement to completely obey the leader and that payment will be according to a member’s efforts and compliance. The leader is at liberty to punish any member whose work is not up to standard and to reward those whose work is commendable. A transformational leader is regarded as a great leader who highly inspires his team members. Transformational leadership ensures that proper initiatives are put in place to add value and enhance the success of the project being undertaken. The leader whole heartedly assigns responsibilities to the team members without necessarily having to be in the fore front. For a business to achieve its goals, these two leadership styles are needed (Parker 57). Leadership Situations in My Life In my life, I have held various leadership posts in different situations in and out of school. These posts have had their different roles and responsibilities, different team members and different goals and objectives meaning that no one post has been completely similar to the other. My styles or methods of leadership have continued to evolve as my level of awareness and knowledge of good leadership and principles of good leadership has continued to change. To me, every new role is a learning experience and is always a chance to be a better leader and to enhance better qualities. Being a youth leader in the church has been my greatest role. It is in my position in this post that I have been able to put my most effective leadership skills and knowledge into practice. Though I do not possess all the necessary values, skills and qualities that make up a great leader, I believe I have some of what it takes. Empathy, enthusiasm, confidence and good communication skills are some of the personal values that have enabled me to excel in performing my responsibilities and roles. My major leadership style has been the democratic approach that gives the youth members chances to air out their different views and ideas and to take part in decision making. Most of the youth meetings and activities involve discussions on issues affecting the youth today and hence require the active participation of all members making the democratic approach a very appropriate style of leadership. This style has not only helped gain knowledge from other youth members but has also allowed me effectively interact with them, gain their trust and cooperation. During my research for this essay, I have gained ample knowledge and skills to make me a better leader. One such skill is the need to always seek knowledge and the importance of having good listening skills as a leader. Some of the discussions within the group have led into major arguments among the members and also between the members and I, a situation that has always been easy for me to handle. This study has however enabled me to learn on how to handle such situations, how to always remain calm and resolve the various conflicts. These and other learned qualities are what I intend to use during my time as a leader not just now but even in the future. I also intend to combine my democratic leadership approach with other effective styles like the transformational and transactional forms of leadership. I will purpose to be a more enthusiastic person seeking to successfully work with my team members to successfully achieve the common goals of the team. Works Cited Bittel, L.R. The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Management Course. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989. Chemers, M. An Integrative Theory of Leadership. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, 1997. Goodworth, C. The Secrets of Successful Leadership and People Management, Oxford: Heinman Professional Publishing, 1988. McNamara, C. Overview of Leadership in Organizations. Florida: Authenticity Consulting, LLC, 1997. Parker, B. Introduction to globalization & business. London: Sage Publications, 2005. Veccio, R.P. Organizational Behavior. Plymouth: The Dryden Press, 1988. Vroom, V. H. and Yetton, P. W. Leadership and Decision-Making. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973. Read More