My Leadership Style
You are interviewing for a position and your prospective employer asks you to describe your leadership style. How would you answer? Draft an essay describing your leadership style. Transformational leadership is my most admired style of leadership. It strikes me in a number of ways but most of all is the fact that it is effective, for both big and relatively small teams in the effort to translate their efforts into efficiency. Transformational leadership is based on certain axioms concerning the behavior of the followers.
One axiom or assumption is that people can be ignorant of leaders unless the leader shows them the essence of putting effort in their duties better known as inspiration. Transformational leadership emphasizes that leadership should boost the morale of their followers so as to get results, which are goal oriented. Transformational leaders are believed to be concerned not only with the organizational or institutional goals but also the employees’ personal goals. Transformational leadership is also believed to create a space for all to participate in decision-making, allowing participation by the employees, an aspect which motivates staff.
According to (Tobert, 2004), a transformational leader needs to uplift the integrity and faithfulness of his or her followers so as to succeed in goal pursuit. A transformational leader should always be innovative. This wins the leader a strong respect amongst employees, something which is responsible for organizational success. Transformational leadership also emphasizes on moral values of the employees, this is important to any organization in that, it leads to the formation of coherent and unified groups which can pull in the same direction.
The transformational leader is usually focused in explaining the essence of total devotion towards the set objectives (Warneka, 2006). This is crucial as leaders are supposed to play directional roles. As noted by Stacey, (1992), transformational leadership enables the organization or institution to change as well as the employees because the leader usually exhibits qualities such as: charisma, good communication skills, confidence, as well as innovativeness. Question2
For the most part health care organizations are no different from most other organizations. Indicate the reasons for your agreement or disagreement with this statement and give specific examples in your response. The management of health care institutions calls for basic managerial practices but a little caution is usually needed. The biggest challenge in the management for a health care organization arises due to the fact that, health organizations do not deal with production and supply of goods as we know the concept.
Secondly, these organizations deal with some-how different clientele. The business environment in a health care setting is not as charged, little bargaining is involved; usually it is an emotive environment. The provision of the treatment as a good or service is not guided by the common market forces which drive businesses such as supply and demand. General ethical practices which guide other organizations do not apply for health care organizations but a more heightened code of ethics guide the staff in such institutions.
The organizations deal with one of the most emotive topics in the face of earth that is death. This presents a challenge in that, all actions call for increased vigilance as well as being very cautious. In fact, health organizations pose another challenge to managers in that, there are so many independent professionals involved, such as medical doctors, therapists, nurses, surgeons as well as clinicians. This makes the organization to demand more of project management skills than organizational management skills.
This is further complicated by the fact that, usually these professionals work hand in hand executing duties supportive of each other. Unlike other organizations whereby managers deal with staff whore are divided into distinct operational units called departments, departments in health care institutions are integrated to comprise of various professionals. In other settings like business environments, all departments like accounts comprise of accountants who do not get a lot of interferences from the rest of departments and rarely interact.
Question3 B. `Nothing is impossible: there are ways which lead to everything; and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. ` Francois de la Rochefoucaud’ The task of leadership entails a mixture of skills and approaches in sourcing and managing the workforce. According to, Hackman, Wageman, Ruddy, & Charles, (2000), human resource planning is essential in organizations, in that, it enables organizations and in this case leaders to be aware of the things that may lead to staff demoralization.
Through realization of these causes, the leadership is able to save the organization much loss since it will work towards maintaining the key staff and human resource. Planning also ensures that the right employees are selected for the right jobs (Huselid, 1995). This done through competitive interviews and this should be accompanied by merit. It is only through selecting qualified staff that an organization is able to succeed since the workers will be confident with their work.
Human resource planning for instance enables the management in the organization to carry out continuous training. For instance, in- services training should be offered to the staff members especially those who have not interacted with computers before. This increases efficiency on the part of the staff. However, human resource planning can lead to collapse of the organization especially when selection of the staff and the managers is based on corruption grounds. Therefore, human resource planning should be viewed as the means by which organizations achieve their organizational success.
C. `I use not only all of the brains I have, But all I can borrow` Anonymous The whole organizational momentum is decided by the top management, the style they adopt determines how decisions are going to be made, what kind of decisions the business is likely to make, the nature of policies which the company is going to adopt as well as how the organization will respond to management issues such as competitor activity, industrial attractiveness employee relations, public relations as well as corporate social responsibilities.
The strategic fit of the organization is determined by whether the leaders are visionary or non-visionary whether these exercise foresight and how they balance risk taking and the drive for initiative. According to (Stacey, 1992), the momentum of a company is generated from the top management and perfected in bottom level, the success of an organization squarely rests on each and every single employee regardless of the role and position held in the organization.
Therefore, to achieve a well coordinated and motivated team, the leadership and in essence, every single employee must be able to play their role effectively so as to achieve a synergetic effect. The company which succeeds is that which handles all departmental issues in regard to solving problems which arise and keep on arising. The challenges can serve as the source of de-motivating an otherwise motivated staff, if issues are not well attended to, while on the other hand, the challenges can afford an organization the opportunity to bond its workforce and reassure unity of purpose in the organization.
Positive organizational behavior leads to organizational success while a negative corporate behavior leads to loss of profits and therefore organizational failure D. `The greatest thing in this world is not such much where we are, but where we are moving`…. Oliver Wendell Holmes In an organizational setting, the above statement refers to the ability of the leadership and the whole staff as well to look further in the organizational goals as opposed to being shortsighted and focusing on short-term objectives.
Usually the vision and mission of the organization is responsible for making sure that, the staff remain focused into the future and therefore do not focus on current position of the organization but concentrate on future growth of the organization. Focus on current situation may demoralize employees especially in cases whereby the organization is not performing well. Employees should focus on the long-term goals as opposed to focusing on the immediate challenges.
Sometimes, this calls for proper change management if the company is undergoing turbulent times. Such may be managed through holding meetings which keep constantly review and address any situation the organization finds itself in. Usually, the leaders should inspire hope in the staff and therefore guide them into achieving the organizational mission. This is attained by making sure that all employees are well focused and are sharing a common vision.
Failure to do this leads to organizations becoming redundant and ultimately companies may fail due to this. D. `Build your adversary a golden bridge to retreat across. ` Sun Tzi In connection with management, leaders should be able to guide the organization into all dealings with the stakeholders. In the business world, there are usually adversaries who in most cases include competitors. Competitor analysis is essential for all organizations if fair competition and incidences of unhealthy business competition is to be avoided.
In cases where competitor activity is not analyzed and monitored well, unfair rivalry, un-conventional means of doing business as well as unfair blackmailing happens. This can only be avoided if companies operate in conventional ways. This is mainly due to the fact that, unfair competition hurts businesses. For example when in the 1990’s a company like coca-coal was involved in long and protracted war with its key competitor in the US, Pepsi, it proved costly for both companies as prices fell and therefore profitability was harmed.
Business adversaries need to be handled by a profession in the organization, probably a public relations official or the communications officer, this is because of the fact that, such officers are well trained and can handle complex issues requiring specialized interventions. Conclusion Management is goal driven and the aim is achievement of organizational goals. Leadership should be exercised in a manner likely to give the desired results. The leader should try as much as possible to apply the right type of leadership style depending on organizational context.
