A521.9.3.RB – A Different Kind of Leader
A Different Kind of Leader
Winston and Patterson (2006) described leadership as shaping the followers’ values, attitudes, and behaviors towards risk, failure, and success. They further indicated the leadership is creating and sustaining peace in the organization-not a lack of conflict but a place where peace grows. Whenever a leader influences the followers’ values, the followers develop the willingness to be more agreeable to the leader’s initiatives and trust that the leader will lead his/her team to success. When the team is successful, it brings pride and self-confidence to every member of the team. When every member of the team are confident, well-engaged and empowered, peace within the organization is sustained and inevitable.
Dubois et al., (2015), studied the different leadership styles such as transactional leadership, situational leadership, and transformational leadership that would be most appropriate or advantageous for healthy and successful project management. Transactional leaders exercise tactics that utilize power to discipline their subordinate and incentivize their subordinates as a form of motivation to behave or perform at their highest quality. The impediment of this style of leadership is that it limits innovation and a higher level of engagement in a professional environment punishment and the reward is the primary focus of this type of leadership.
Transformation leadership thrives on change, exercises “control” through a true and inspiring vision of what might be. To gain the respect and trust of followers, a transformational leader must always be a role model behavior or characteristic and “walk the walk” even in times of testing occasions (Dubois et al., 2015). This style of leadership’s focus is motivation, team-building, and a collaborative effort with followers to achieve transformation successfully. To eliminate pitfalls in this leadership style, a leader must be able to find a different avenue to elicit performance in the absence of blind allegiance. Although transformational leader encourages commitment to excellent work towards achieving a desired strategic goal and increase in productivity, long hours of work and unreasonable deadlines will result to the followers burn out.
Dimensions of Leadership
The interactive leader works with the world rather than against it. Developing teamwork is crucial to the success of any organization. It is to the advantage of my department and organization as a whole when every member of the team works cohesively to accomplish departmental and organizational goals. It is not only of utmost importance that team members had the autonomy and freedom to achieve assigned tasks and tapped into their creative and innovative minds, but it is also of importance that they can work well with other members of the team.
Building bigger brain means understanding what motivates or demotivates my team. As a leader, I need to take the hat of an innovator to appreciate our workforce innovator's perspective when their projects are not as successful as anticipated. Failure can also be a means of growth and success if handled with care and sensitivity. Evaluating the performance of my team is a critical part of my position where it requires to give positive, constructive feedback. There will be times that my comments may be construed as negative criticism. So, it is crucial to be transparent of having self-awareness of my weaknesses and turn those weaknesses into my strengths to set an example to my team.
When faced with problems that are in need of resolution, stepping back and asking appropriate questions like “why,” or “why not,” before finding and developing solutions is more beneficial. Asking the question “why” enables me to see the different frames of a situation when approaching different types and levels of challenges. Developing my skills in reframing the challenges I face daily can be a valuable tool for increasing my creativity and innovative thinking since it will unlock an array of determinations.
Building a better brain allows enabling our employees to showcase their creative and innovative ideas becoming the cornerstone of our organizational sustainability empowering innovation and reenergizing individual growth. Innovation is the adaptation of anything new that represents an interactive application embraced and used by the collective. Change and innovation when appropriately applied can modify and influence the workplace and the globe (Llopis, 2014).
Interactive leadership builds on personal integrity and authenticity. As a leader, I am accountable for the creation, development, and leading a team to the highest standards of ethical performance outcomes. It is of utmost importance to embrace the diversity of members of my team, be empathetic to their emotions and continuously develop my social and communication skills. Cultivating an environment of continuous innovation, improvements, and initiatives in the workplace is one way of fostering team commitment embracing a mindset of innovation, empathy, and integrity. Innovation and change are not entirely dependent on executive leadership’s participation, but it is reliant on every member of the workforce who are focused and familiar with the organization’s customers, employee, and stakeholders’ unique needs.
I need to free myself with ego and be respectful, perceptive, and sensitive to other people’s needs. Recognizing that the success of our team and organization as a whole is a group initiative, I need to take the time to observe the people around me identifying those that require solutions. Being sensitive, empathetic, and perceptive to my team will enable me to be a supportive change agent recognizing or identifying opportunities in everything, improving my team’s performance as well as gain their respect and trust. I also find it of utmost importance to remove my innate inhibitions. Inhibitions if not dealt appropriately limits my confidence to be courageous in pursuing initiatives that others might not fully accept or agree. By eliminating harmful assumptions and perceptions, I will have more ability to think outside the box and have the strength to encourage others to have an open mind to new ideas and solutions without setting confining convictions and losing their own authenticity and authentic selves.
Interactive leadership entails active participation in the world rather than detached observation. My current organization is exploring on empowering and encouraging the leadership team to adopt and practice complex adaptive leadership style. Adaptive leadership is predominantly focused on ways of helping their followers to accomplish their tasks the way they are required to perform their work to conform to the challenges they experience in a complex environment (Northouse, 2016). This type of leadership is all about assisting others to examine their values and encourage them to modify, address, and change the central core of their lives in a complex workplace environment. As an effective leader, I do not only need to be adaptive in my followers’ or team members’ behavior, values and culture. I must also have the ability to acquire new skills and competencies to smooth transition into their new role within the organization such as empowering and supporting my team or followers (Rowe & Guerrero, 2012).
Whetten & Cameron (2016) defined empowerment as giving individuals the autonomy to do what they want to do instead of asking them to do what we want them to do. The foundation of empowerment is giving up my power or control and instead let members of my team set up their own goals, make appropriate decision making, accomplishing results and receiving compliments and rewards. When leaders like me who have developed the skills of empowerment, we accelerate our effectiveness in the workplace because the source of empowerment is internal (Whetten & Cameron, 2016).
To shape a better future, I will consistently inspire powerful, beautiful, and provocative ideas in our workplace. Instead of criticizing my team members and colleagues innovative ideas, it is more beneficial to ask questions that would stimulate or encourage more creative thinking at the thought or creativity that did not meet the standards of expectations. I have to be fully aware that it is of the essence that members of my team have a convenient and safe avenue to raise rational and logical concerns about workplace issues or ongoing personal barriers or impediments. I have to be consistent that maintaining a trusting relationship environment is developed, and it is inevitable that together, we will openly share our innovative thinking knowing that our shared ideas are valued. As a leader, I have to be able to communicate with my team in a clear and concise manner without ambiguity. Strong communication initiative is critical for building a collaborative team and trust within our group.
Conclusion
According to Dubois et al. (2015), it requires a combination of technical skills, ability to effectuate behavioral competencies, ethics, vision, and ability to initiate change to be a successful and effective leader. An excellent leader is an excellent communicator to clearly communicate his/her vision, goals and deliver constructive feedback. S/he must have the ability to listen and accept feedback from team members, colleagues, and stakeholders. S/he is a team builder who is capable of delegating tasks to a fitting team member to derive positive results. Although it is inevitable that errors may arise due to a wrong decision making, a good and strategic leader must have the capacity to take ownership and responsibility and ascertain appropriate resolution for successful completion of the task(s) at hand.
Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the method of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives (Yukl, 2012, p. 7). I always believe in the saying that there is always a time for everything. To be an excellent leader, I have to learn when is the right time to be a transformational leader where motivating, training and only listening is necessary. I have to know when specific instructions need to be followed by my team members to accomplish team or departmental’s goals. Moreover, of course, to be an excellent and effective leader, I need to continuously and consistently give expert members of my team the autonomy to make decisions for the success of accomplishing their assigned task(s) or project(s) without consultation or approval from myself, as their team leader.
References
Dubois, Melissa, Hanlon, John, Koch, Jodi, Nyatuga, Betty, & Kerr, Nathan (2015). Leadership
Styles of Effective Project Managers: Techniques and Traits to Lead High Performance Teams. Journal of Economic Development, Management, I T, Finance, and Marketing 7.1 (Mar 2015): 30-46. Retrieved from: http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1681254193?pq-origsite=summon
Llopis, G. (2014). 5 Ways Leaders Enable Innovation In Their Teams. Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2014/04/07/5-ways-leaders-enable-innovation-in-their-teams/#7b0a812a8c4c
Northouse, P. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage
Publishing.
Rowe, W. G., & Guerrero, L. (2012). Cases in leadership (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.
Winston, Bruce & Patterson, Kathleen (2006). An Integrative Definitions of Leadership.
International Journal of Leadership Studies. Retrieved from:
http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/ijls/new/vol1iss2/winston_patterson.doc/winston_patterson.pdf.
Yukl, Gary (2012), Leadership in the organization (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice
Hall
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