Leadership
Leadership is the capacity to set an example for others to follow in order to accomplish predetermined objectives. The management team, which is made up of the managers whose responsibility it is to supervise the completion of all activities, is in charge of conducting business. In order for the organization to achieve its goals, managers play a key role in making decisions and demonstrating to staff how to do their duties. Their major objective is to secure the company's success, which guarantees its ongoing existence or ability to operate. Making sure that it fully executes its mandates is the only way to ensure that the firm has continuity. Making profits or losses and meeting business meeting its obligations determines the future life of the enterprise. Therefore, skills and knowledge of the leaders in an organization determine the degree of its performance. Managers must show exemplary leadership qualities for the employees to follow them and have trust in them. It is important to note that very few people are born leaders and therefore is important for people to learn and acquire leadership qualities. In this paper, I am going to look at the different characteristics of leadership shown by two managers who are Earl and Craig who are crew supervisors at the National Interagency Fire Center. They were both great leaders, but their leadership styles were very different (Rost, 1998, pp. ).
Decision-Making Process
Decision-making process is very detrimental as it shows the course of action in the organization. In making decision managers have different attributes. Altruism managers make decisions that meet the interests of the employees at the expense of the team. In this case, they ensure that employee's needs are satisfied at all cost whether the business meets its goals and targets or not. Egoism managers make decisions that will guarantee the success of the firm without consideration of the employees. The key factor is ensuring that the company targets are achieved regardless of the employee's needs. Ethical managers are the ones who makes decision putting into consideration the norms or the accepted principles by the business stakeholders. They ensure that all parties are in agreement regarding any decision they make. Unethical managers make decisions against the norms of the people. There is also a group of executives who make legal/illegal decisions. These are a decision which adheres to the requirement by the law or the authorities' and decisions which are prohibited by the law respectively. All decisions made by the managers have consequences which may be either positive or negative. In the case of Earl and Craig, they showed either of the above attributes in their decision making processes. However, it is important to look at the overall characteristics of the two leaders in their supervision of their crews. I have first-hand information since have worked with both the managers at some point during their supervisions of their crews.
Leadership Styles of Earl and Craig
Earl is a militaristic or authoritative leader. In his styles he emphasis mostly on meeting the goals of the company no matter the prevailing circumstances. He is firm on what the organization expects of the employees and deviation from the expectation is faced with severe punishment which may lead to termination of the employees' contract. To some extent, he exercises egoism trait in decision making. Also, to show he does not entertain any mistake done by workers, he fires a new employee because of working on his first day wearing earphones. He sets high targets which if not achieved severe punishment follows and aims to make his duties without pleasing any person. However, he is unethical as he favors me with the purpose of keeping his crew on assignment longer. These are illegal act in any business organization as it is against the law.
Craig is a democratic leader who takes into consideration the needs of workers in the organization. He neither uses altruism or egoism styles in his decision making processes. All the employees like him and give him respect. As a leader, he had positive interactions with the workers and helped them in their difficulties. During employment, he chose qualified personnel and placed them in the right jobs. These made him an effective leader with excellent performance records. However, he had some shortcomings in his supervision of the crew. Poaching of employees from Earl team was high, and this was illegal and unethical. In fact, these were the reason I worked with him as some of his crew members poached me. He was temperamental and vague at the time hence untrustworthy.
Characteristics of Leadership
It is clear that eventually the two leaders achieved the organization goals and objectives but with different approaches. However, they had some personality traits which was unique from each other, and I would like to examine them deeper. I would like to look at emotional intelligence, courage, ethics, leading teams, influence mechanisms, followership, strategic vision, and diversity.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability of leaders to separate his feelings which the directions he gives to the employees. Decision making should not be based on the emotions of the leaders such as anger, frustrations, despair, etc. leaders at all-time must treat the employees fairly without any signs of favoritism. They should not also hurt the feelings of the workers at any cause. When making plans, they ought to make plans that are considerate of the general feelings of the employees. At no point should leaders show their emotions as this may be used as a weakness point by the competitors. Conflicts in the organization are regular events, and it is, therefore, important for managers to have ways of resolving the disputes amicably and ensure business continuity. The emotional intelligence between Earl and Craig was almost the same as they both had emotional issues. Earl has poor emotional intelligence; he was short tempered shown by using his emotions to punish the employees who were wrong. He fires an employee because of using earphones during job time despite the employee removing them. These were a pity issue which in a usual manner could not lead to termination of the employee's contract whatsoever. Craig, on the other hand, was temperamental and moody with no consistent take discipline issues among the employees and sometimes was vague. These were an indication that his emotions played a part in his decision-making process. The two leaders have poor emotional intelligence which is unacceptable to managers as emotions are not always right thus decisions made may be wrong.
Courage
Managers must be courageous in the execution of their duties. Leading people isn't an easy task and requires patience, commitment and courage as people may be hard to manage, and also business situation may be unfavorable. Courage is a fundamental element for managers to enable them to ensure the success of the firm. They should be able to take risks and make decisions even though the majority of the employees do not conform or agree with them. Both Earl and Craig are leaders with courage. Earl is brave enough to force the achievement of the organization goal regardless of the opinion of the employees. They might campaign against him, but he is firm in his decisions. Anyone who goals against his set rules and regulations get fired. Craig is brave as he once walked ahead of the crew a long dirt road in 116-degree heat and also gave help to me when had difficulties. He is brave and courageous in the execution of his duties no matter the surrounding circumstances.
Ethics
Ethics are the morals principles that controls the behaviors of the managers in conducting any activity. Ethics shows what is good and wrongs for people and the society. The firms have both internal and external stakeholders, and it is the duty of managers to be aware of what is right and bad to do. Disputes arise from misunderstandings, and the managers should strive to eliminate them at all costs. Leaders should ensure that the firms carry out what is accepted by all. Earl was unethical from the point of treatment of his employees. He could fire them at his discretion, set high targets and punish those who did not achieve them. It was also wrong for him to show favoritism to me. However, he was ethical in that he never talked ill of the other firms and also was trustworthy as his decision was firm. Craig was noble as he mostly did what was accepted by the majority but reminded them of what was expected of them. He was also unethical as his employees poached Earl employees which not morally right. He was inconsistent and untrustworthy in handling issues like discipline; this was immoral for him as a leader (Jeurissen, 2007).
Leading Teams
Leading teams is the ability of the leaders to be able to lead their groups to achieve the set goals and objectives. Despite using different leadership styles both Earl and Craig resulted in their teams meeting the targets. Even though the goals of organizations are to achieve the set goals they should not meet them at the expense of the employees. Managers should strike a balance between achieving the organization goals and fulfilling the needs of the employees. Through this disputes will be minimized in the teams thus reducing time wastage in disagreements.
Influence Mechanisms
Influence mechanism is the degree at which the managers bring impact to the employees to do whatever they ask of them. Many things make employees be affected by the directors which include: leaders' personality traits, their treatment, remuneration, etc. leaders must have leadership skills to attract a following. Earl had little influence on employees to want to work with him as he was very strict. Employees sometimes want freedom, and this was not the case with Earl. Craig was most influential as many persons liked his leadership styles as all staff was of great importance. I was poached because I heard that Craig was the best and so I wanted to see whether it was true. However, both the leaders had the influence to get people working for them despites the leadership styles.
Followership
Followership determines the success or failure of an organization. The group individuals who follow a leader in a team decides how activities are to be executed. Leaders, therefore, must choose employees who have knowledge and skills to ensure execution of the organizations' agenda fully. Earl does not show ways of getting the most appropriate employees for execution of the business activities. Craig employee qualified persons and placed them to their particular task hence the implementation of services was ease and fast.
Strategic Vision
Strategic vision is the ability to have plans of what to in future ensuring the success of the business. Leaders must be visionary to ensure continuity of the firm and steps taken must be well researched to ensure the success of the organization. To achieve goals of the team strategic plans are necessary to show the way forward for the team. Both Earl and Craig are visionary leaders, and they set up plans for the execution of their plans. These are the first step for any team to be successful.
Diversity
Diversity helps teams to avoid competition. Offering things which are different make market increase for any teams thus guarantee high returns. Competition is high in the world, and therefore teams must come up with products not similar to those of competitors. Diverse products will be used explore blue oceans. Blue oceans are markets which have no competitors for the teams. Blue oceans strategy is used by groups to avoid competition in the market. When the teams have unique products, it means that they have markets for them hence high returns are assured (Kim, & Mauborgne, 2014).
Conclusion
Finally, the two leaders I had experience with were efficient though different n their approaches. I have learned that as a leader I should check the best ways to lead the team members to ensure better execution of the business goals.
References
Jeurissen, R. (Ed.). (2007). Ethics & business. Uitgeverij Van Gorcum.
Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. (2014). Blue ocean leadership. Harvard business review, 92(5), 60-72.
Rost, J. C. (1998). Leadership and management. Leading organizations: Perspectives for a new era, 397-114.
