A511.1.3.RB. Module 1 - Two-Way Street
In my more than thirty years of being a member of the workforce,
I have encountered and worked with different leaders/managers with many different styles of leaderships. I have encountered a “post-hoc” manager who definitely did not have a very clear goal or
objective as to where she wanted to go or where she wanted to lead her
department. Another was this manager who was what we call a “micromanager”. He was very
used to things his own way in that he felt whenever his subordinates, like me
would try to be innovative he believed that the individual was not able to
understand what he was trying to accomplish.
This went on for quite some time until there was a time when under this
supervisor’s management I decided not to even voice my recommendation (even
when asked). I thought it was just a waste
of my time and a waste of utilization of my mind.
In
due time, I have learned how to appropriately deal with the post-hoc manager and
a micromanager. Dealing with the
post-hoc manager was quite challenging at first. Finally, I learned that as long as I addressed
her with a salutation of Mrs. and her last name, she was beginning to pay
attention to what my thoughts are with regard to a certain situation that may need
to be addressed or resolved. I started
asking her for her thoughts on how to resolve the certain issues by asking “what
do you think are my best options”? We
would then discuss the positive and negative repercussions for each option I had
then, together, we would choose the best option. From then on, Mrs. C started the process,
presented and she turned out to be an excellent strategic thinker, and if I was
analyzing her style correctly, she became a situational leader from a post-hoc
manager.
Situational
leaders like Mrs. C, they are excellent in diagnosing a situation that
they are faced with. Once they have reached
an understanding of the situation, they then make necessary adjustments to
their behavior in order to appropriately respond to the given situation. When a situational leader reaches a
resolution to a situation, they communicate this to their followers in a way
that is acceptable and understandable to them.
With regard to Mrs. C’s situation, she was a new leader in a new organization
and it was automatic that her defense mechanism was to strengthen her team and followers. Still today, I am very proud of having been a
part of such transformation in an organization.
Going back to
work for my “micromanager” Dr. Smith, it was a bit arduous because Dr. Smith
was the real meaning of an “old school” individual or leader. Dr. Smith like other micromanagers literally
required all of his leadership team to keep him posted on every single detail
and the progress of our assigned projects.
There were times that he would re-write or re-phrase my entire report where
my originality was totally discounted. At
times, I have asked myself, “what am I doing here? I can’t seem to do anything right!”
Dr. Smith has
been an executive leader of the organization for more than 10 years and he had
the support of the President of the organization and most especially, he had great
influence with the President. Dr. Smith’s
two Assistant VPs, Directors, and Managers were to meet with him once a week to
report openly on the progress of assigned tasks and projects. At times, I would observe that not every member
of the team was comfortable with the status quo including myself. I was not comfortable being corrected right
in the open along with the other division leaders, but overall, I was not
comfortable being present and witness to how he embarrassed other leadership
team members.
After about
2 years of employment under Dr. Smith’s management and leadership, I came to accept
the fact that it was not me who was inadequate at performing my tasks. I have stopped defending my work and my
decisions when asked and instead I was quiet during our conversation, to let
him know that I was attentively listening to his directions and recommendations. In a very respectful way, I would at times explicate
my concern but in the end, would seek his guidance.
Slowly and discreetly, I tried reverse psychology
on Dr. Smith. Since he wanted to make
decisions for everything, I would come to him and present at least two or more
options to resolve a situation and let him decide the resolution that I will
execute. For example, we had a situation
where the manager disciplined an employee in front of other team members. The disciplined employee came to my office
and made a formal complaint. To resolve
the issue, I came up with two resolutions: 1) Call the manager and serve him a
verbal warning that employee discipline needs to be conducted in private and the
next time he disciplines an employee in front of another employee, he will be
served a written warning; or 2) Call the manager, let him know about the complaint
and explain to the manager the reason behind why it is necessary to conduct
discipline in private. Once the manager
understands that he needs to apologize to the employee for embarrassing her by executing
discipline in public, we can schedule a
meeting with the manager and the employee so the manager can apologize to the
employee for disciplining in public and acknowledge that error and it states
that it will not happen again. Dr. Smith
at the time was pressed with projects from the President. I asked him if he was comfortable with the
decision that I believed was our best option.
He said, “yes”. Slowly, Dr. Smith
started soliciting my thoughts, opinions, and recommendations on certain
departmental relative issues. He became
very interested in what the other team members thought pertaining to certain
initiatives.
The day that
Dr. Smith said “yes” was the start of his leadership behavioral shifts. He began adapting a task-oriented behavior,
relations-oriented behavior, and change-oriented behavior. According to Northhouse (2016), task-oriented
behavior is behavior primarily concerned
with accomplishing the task in an efficient and reliable way; relations-oriented
behavior is primarily concerned with increasing mutual trust, cooperation, job satisfaction
and identification with the team or organization; and change-oriented behavior
is primarily concerned with understanding the environment, finding innovative
ways to adapt to it, and implementing major changes and strategies, products,
or processes. Dr. Smith in due time has
changed his micromanagement style. He
came to accept that mutual trust is a necessity for the division’s success and
accomplishing the division’s goals can only be achieved by teamwork, open
dialogue and implementation of new and effective processes and strategies.
In summary, leaders
thrive due to followers and visa vi, followers thrive due to leaders. Leaders and followers co-exist and influence
each other for each others’ benefits and the organization as a whole. Both personalities and characteristics of a
leader and a follower, are very meaningful and of importance in order to
establish an effective dialogue in order to achieve the desired outcomes. Most importantly, both the leader and the
follower must have the ability to analyze their own strengths and weaknesses in
order to get a feel for how others in the organization see them (Northouse,
2016. p. 29).
References:
Northhouse, Peter (2016).
Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage
Publishing
Williams, Terri (n.d.). Weak
or Negative Styles of Leadership. Demand Media.
Retrieved from
Yukl, Gary (2012). Leadership
in the organization (8th ed.).
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice
Hall
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