The act of leadership

The Act of Leadership

The act of leadership is defined as an individual's ability to inspire people or an organization to follow them through trust, action, vision, focus, and perceptions. Leadership entails establishing a well-defined goal, inspiring followers without compulsion or fear by sharing the vision with others, and devising procedures for a path to the vision's realization. The leader also serves as a coordinator, ensuring that any competing interests among members or stakeholders are addressed and a common ground is found. In leadership, trust inspires commitment to the objectives and vision of the group with the leader responsible for directing the implementation of the group's goals by ensuring focus on their desired outcome by having a well-defined vision. Different leadership styles can be employed depending on the environment, existing situation, or even the needs of the individual leader or the subjects.

Different Leadership Styles

Different leaders identify with varying style in their direction of a group's goals. Such leadership approaches depend on either the behavior of subjects or the leader, leader's skills, existing situations, the leader's traits, or a goal-oriented approach. As a leader in my person, I identify more with the situational approach to leadership.

The Situational Leadership

The situational leadership dictates that decision making in leadership is never static or similar in nature and instead dependent on the prevailing circumstances. The leader's relationship as well the interrelationships between the group's members varies as well and that the leader in question needs to always assess the perception of the group before making any determination. Upon the analysis of particular situations, the leader may opt for a different leadership style suitable for his/her relationship with the followers and the task. This way, the application of this leadership approach may very well be different between individuals and even for the same person in different situations.

Maturity of Followers

Situational leadership is the only style of direction that is flexible in nature allowing different approaches. This approach on the choice will also be dependent on the level of maturity of the followers to the leader that is determined by the leader in question evaluating their commitment to the organization's vision and competency to the mission statement. (Thompson & Vecchio, 2009).

Effective Leadership Traits

According to Robert Hewes, leadership traits considered effective include; ability to inspire trust from followers, bearing effective communication skills, ability to resolve conflicts, decision maker, motivator towards the group's objectives, results-oriented and focused in line with setting out goals. (Robert, 2014)

Coaching Leadership

Among the different leadership traits, I am more enthusiastic about coaching leadership. This is primarily because, in situational leadership, the leader has to get the perceptions of the group before making the ultimate decision. In this case, communication has to be two-way even when the leader bears the ultimate decision to define roles and tasks to the followers. Coaching will allow suggestions and feedback from the whole group, thereby reducing possible conflicts and improving the interrelationships among members of the group. With improved relationships, there will be better performance in the group as everyone will feel part of the organization being involved in the decision-making process. Coaching also allows for the advancement of members' skills by the guidance of the leader as well, guidance and inspiration towards the strategies of the group. It is because of these reasons that I would like to take up and develop coaching as a skill in my leadership as it allows me direct contact with my followers.

The Transformational Style of Leadership

As a follower, the leadership model that I get more inspiration for a leader who takes up the transformational style in the management of the group/organization. This model gives an opportunity to us as the followers for direct interaction with the leadership. It facilitates inspiration, motivation, and general engagement as the needs of followers are sorted. Ensuring maximum potential of the followers will allow personal improvement among different members.

Influence in Leadership

Influence is quite significant for any leadership style in case there needs to be effective and successful realization of a group's objectives. The leader has the responsibility to influence the followers positively towards the desired vision. In order to effect change in leadership, the leader needs to demonstrate understanding the followers by mobilizing for informal networks in order to improve interrelations. The likability of a particular leader by the followers will influence their leadership success.

Influence of Transformational Leadership

Transformational style of leadership tends to inspire more influence with the situational style of leadership inspiring influence among the followers to some extent. This is based on the leader's interaction with the followers, their contact period, consultancy, and participation in the organization's processes. In transformational leadership, a deeper connection is created by the engagements made by the leader and the followers that allow morality and motivation to both the leadership and the group's members. In this regard, leadership is considered extrovert as the leader has ensured maximum potential in his/her followers by reaching out to their motives and needs that are key for initiation, development, and implementation of necessary changes in the organization. These changes can only be achieved when both the leadership and the membership are in agreement.

Familiarity and Attitude

This kind of interaction allows the direct influence of the leader to his/her members thus enabling understanding from both the groups. When one is more familiar with another person or a particular thing, their attitude towards the particular person or thing gradually grows positive merely because of the number of times they have interacted with a tendency of liking as opposed to an individual or something that seems unfamiliar (Cialdini, R. B., 1987)

Comparison to Situational Leadership

In as much as the situational type of leadership has the potential for inspiring influence by the leader among his/her followers, it is to a lesser extent compared to transformational leadership. This is because the leader using this approach is solely responsible for the ultimate direction to be taken. The leader decides the approach he/she takes based on the feedback made from the followers' competence and commitment to either adapt or adjust a particular decision-making approach. In this approach, the followers do not directly participate in the decisions of the group as the decision on whether to use a directive or supportive approach lies solely on the leader as opposed to transformational leadership.

Personal Improvement Goals

Personally, by self-assessment of my leadership, motivational and inspirational skills; I would take up situational leadership and allow the opportunity to adopt other styles when necessity calls and as well borrow certain traits effective for those styles of leadership in different situations.

Self-Improvement Goals

My self-improvement goals include facilitating team building and promoting teamwork, enabling effective communication, increasing consultations, accountability and enabling more interactions with the followers. I have also endeavored to increase learning agility by improving my critical thinking skills, social and emotional intelligence as well, encouragement, and determination to achieving set-out objectives.

Strategies to Achieve Goals

I intend to achieve these goals in various ways and incorporation with all the members of the organization. Organizing forums for team building will help improve the relationships among followers and with the leadership of the organization. Such team building sessions will also act as platforms for conflict resolution, thereby facilitating unity in the organization towards the objectives of the group.

I will also facilitate regular updates to the members on the current situations of the group in regard to the goals. This will enable the outline of the position of the organization by the leadership to the members, set out adjustments, and allow alternative strategies towards achieving the stipulated goals. This is all in an effort to facilitate accountability on the part of the leadership and provide a platform for feedback and proposals from the membership. It will also enable effective communication on the part of the leadership.

Allowing the formulation of a welfare department for the membership will also be significant. This will allow that the issues of concern to the members be looked into and solved amicably. By allowing the concerns of the members, they will feel part of the group as there will be reciprocation thus improved motivation towards the organization's goals. On the part of the leadership, welfare groups will facilitate team building efforts.

References

Bass, B. M., & Stogdill, R. M. (1990). Handbook of leadership (Vol. 11). New York: free press.

Cialdini, R. B. (1987). Influence (Vol. 3). Port Harcourt: A. Michel.

Thompson, G., & Vecchio, R. P. (2009). Situational leadership theory: A test of three versions. The Leadership Quarterly, 20(5), 837-848.

Robert Hewes, (2014) Top Ten Traits of Great Leaders; American Management Association http://www.amanet.org/training/articles/top-ten-traits-of-great-leaders.aspx