Abstract
PSY FPX 6720 Assessment 2 Leadership plays a significant role in any organization for any team, to make them flourish there are three qualities that each leader should have. Qualities of integrity, decisiveness, and enthusiasm is within reach for any leader willing to put their followers ahead, e.g., affiliative management style people and people applying adaptive leadership. Successful and effective leaders that are able to create these traits as well as transition various leadership and management styles, have proven to be better at motivating subordinates in the effort to become more successful.
The Importance of Leader Values, Traits, and Context
To be a dominant leader is not just holding an office title at work. A leader should be one who has some and particular characteristics that may allow them to become leaders within the workplace so that they may be more efficient. Becoming a great leader may intimidate some, but something should be remembered while in this process of development: leaders are not born, they are created. The experiences one has along their path to leadership have the potential to transform them positively and form a stronger, more confident them (Bennis & Thomas, 2002).
Some of the key qualities every leader has to develop during their transformative process are those of integrity, decisiveness, and enthusiasm. To employ qualities collectively, one has to be familiar with them individually. The integrity character encompasses the want to accomplish things and the passion to lead; the decisiveness character encompasses the bravery to face daily challenges with the belief that all objectives will be accomplished; and lastly, the enthusiasm character enables leaders with abundant energy to push their objectives and never give up (Emere, et. al., 2019).
PSY FPX 6720 Assessment 2 The Importance of Leadership and Diversity
I was working at a theater in my neighborhood, where I was an employee, and the general manager was the best representation of a good leader since he fulfilled all the requirements of what it means to be a good leader. For instance whenever this manager was around, he would never fail to make sure all guests had an excellent time while they were at the theater, this being everything ranging from having theaters clean for the next crowd as well as employees’ work environment being positive. So when the time came to ready for the next film location and the staff was behind schedule in cleaning, this supervisor would grab a dustpan and a broom and assist his followers. This action not only demonstrated his integrity as well as consistency of imposing the norms which he imposed on the workers, but also on himself. Secondly, this act demonstrated his desire to make everybody have a good time while within the theater. Moreover, such tendencies that were demonstrated by this leader, had cemented his bond with the followers.
PSY FPX 6720 Assessment 2 Scanning a working environment, the position that exerts the largest amount of authority over the other members of staff is leadership or, more simply put, the leader. In spite of the constantly changing definition of effective leadership, characteristics like integrity, decisiveness, and enthusiasm have been identified as major factors when it comes to being an effective and successful leader (Hunt & Fedynich, 2019). Studies have indicated that if leadership is able to display such characteristics, they enable their followers to trust them more and also give confidence that their leaders will be capable of accomplishing the task in question, as effective leadership can play a major role in a company (Putra & Cho, 2019). The importance of this is to show that attributes that leaders bring to the table not only affect them, but also affect their team and their business.
Choices that Reflect a Leader’s Values
Decisions that leaders make have a powerful impact when it comes to motivating their employees and staff. While different leadership styles are being employed by the majority, there exists one style that appears to work best for leveraging the traits of optimism, decisiveness, and integrity so that optimism can be maintained and that is Affiliative Management Style. The Affiliative Management Style is the act of making your followers, or team, work in a cooperative and harmonious working environment (Pinelli, et. al., 2018).
The importance of this is to demonstrate that when leadership and members of the team are able to work in unison with each other’s expectations from one another, it makes the working environment sweeter. No matter how great the decision of the leader is, there is also the aspect of a good follower present. A person that establishes standards of a good follower is one that is ready to be bold and confident enough to speak respectfully to your leader if you feel that you’re heading in the wrong direction (Chaleff, 2009). The need to have quality followers in your business, is because there has to be mutual understanding and trust towards the achievements to be realized on both ends.
PSY FPX 6720 Assessment 2 The Importance of Leadership and Diversity
In the video “Leadership Lessons Learned at Starbucks,” Howard Behar recounts a tale of how his believers, who initially had been extremely optimistic about his promotion, had started losing confidence in his capacity to express their concerns. When Howard started changing his personality, in an attempt to fit into some undefined requirement, while sitting in meetings. This change of his characteristics had started weakening the relationship between Howard and his followers. The leadership qualities and skills Howard displayed that made his followers believe in the effectiveness of their leader, was how passionate his leader was and how ready he was to share his ideas and thoughts with others.
His leaders, Howard, considered being followers since they knew he was not a man to be the quiet one at the conference table, he traveled there to be a servant and the voice for his followers. This helped bring to light how a leader would be successful if they make time to listen to the complaint of his followers. Studies have indicated that when Affiliative leaders lose the power of motivating their employees, as well as themselves, this makes employees perceive that the job now feels strange to them and their job as well as moral satisfaction levels begin to decline (Preston, et. al., 2015). The significance of such values-based leadership and ethical leadership in this case study is that performance of the employees will suffer if the trust of the followers and the trust of the leadership are lost.
The Importance of Adaptive Leadership in the Workplace
Being adaptive should be one quality that any leadership must cultivate in order to enjoy a successful career.Adaptive leadership is quite similar to the Affiliative Management Style since both the styles are follower-centric whose key interest is in the followers and the leaders’ relationship (Nelson & Squires, 2017). Those leaders with traits of integrity, decisiveness, and enthusiasm can help leadership become connected with the followers. Adaptive leaders who are able to use the affiliative management style, offers another solution that is founded on cooperative solutions between the management and follower camps. Research has indicated that leaders who are able to use a variety of different leadership styles to their repertoire, have improved relationships with followers (Nelson & Squires, 2017). In my old workplace, where I had previously worked in a cinema hall, the management would recognize employees who performed exceptionally well and sold exceptionally high by giving them a “shout out.”
This shout out would be in the form of the management announcing their achievements to the rest of the workers and committing to sponsor one of their lunches for the week. By rewarding followers in this way, adaptive and affiliative leaders demonstrated followers that their work is appreciated and leads to the prosperity of the rest of the team and corporation (Heifetz, et. al., 2009). The significance of how a leader decides and how they demonstrate a leader’s values is that a leader’s actions touch everything around them. Hence, whenever a leader can aptly define his or her followers, it opens an employee’s extent of job satisfaction and morale. Science has demonstrated that as adaptive leadership has the potential to engage followers at a multiple number of levels, it increases higher retention rates, improves worker motivation, and improved worker collaboration (Randall & Coakley, 2007).
Conclusion
The leadership management position is the most significant job for any organizational team, and also one of the most significant jobs.Effective leaders who can switch between the leadership and management styles are better at influencing other members in their team in an attempt to be more successful. Management skills do not come by birth, genuine and true leaders are created by experience. It requires good traits to be capable of relating with one’s followers, i.e., enthusiasm, decisiveness, as well as honesty. Possessing such traits will allow leaders and followers to succeed to coexist because, if they do not coexist, then neither of them would be existing.
References
Bennis, W. G., & Thomas, R. J. (2002). The crucibles of leadership. Harvard Business Review, 80(9), 39–45.
Chaleff, I. (2009). The courageous follower: Standing up to & for our leaders. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Emere, C. E., Aigbavboa, C. O., & Thwala, W. D. (2019). Critical Traits for Effective Leadership Style in the South African Construction Industry. Creative Construction Conference. 19(37). https://doi.org/10.3311/CCC2019-037.
Heifetz, R. A., Heifetz, R., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). The practice of adaptive leadership: Tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. Harvard Business Press.
Hunt, T., & Fedynich, L. (2019). Leadership: Past, Present, and Future: An Evolution of an Idea. Journal of Arts & Humanities. 8(2), 20-26. https://dx/doi.org/1018533/journal.v8i21582.
PSY FPX 6720 Assessment 2 The Importance of Leadership and Diversity
Nelson, T., & Squires, V. (2017). Addressing Complex Challenges through Adaptive Leadership: A Promising Approach to Collaborative Problem Solving. Journal of Leadership Education, 16(4).
Preston, G., Moon, J., Simon, R., Allen, S., & Kossi, E. (2015). The Relevance of Emotional Intelligence in Project Leadership. Journal of IT and Economic Development. 6(1), 16-40.
Pinelli, N., R., Sease, J. M., Nola, K., Kyle J. K., Heldenbrand, S. D., Penzak, S. R., & Ginsburg, D. B. (2018). The Importance of Authentic Leadership to all Generations Represented within Academic Pharmacy. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. 82(6). 637-640. https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe6694
Putra, E. D., & Cho, S. (2019). Characteristics of small business leadership from employees’ perspective: A qualitative study. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 78, 36-46.
Randall, L. M., & Coakley, L. A. (2007). Applying adaptive leadership to successful change initiatives in academia. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.
