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by Lakshman Balasubramanyam
Good leaders are made not born. If
you have the desire and willpower, you can become an effective
leader. Good leaders
develop through a never ending process of
self-study, education, training, and experience. This guide will
help you through that process. To inspire your workers into higher
levels of teamwork, there are certain things you must be, know, and,
do. These do not come naturally, but are acquired through continual
work and study. Good leaders are continually working and studying to
improve their leadership skills; they are NOT resting on their
laurels. Before we get started, let’s define leadership.
Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to
accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that
makes it more cohesive and coherent. Leaders carry out this process
by applying their leadership attributes, such as beliefs, values,
ethics, character, knowledge, and skills. Although your position as
a manager, supervisor, lead, etc. gives you the authority to
accomplish certain tasks and objectives in the organization, this
power does not make you a leader...it simply makes you the boss.
Leadership differs in that it makes the followers want to achieve
high goals, rather than simply bossing people around. Bass' (1989
& 1990) theory of leadership states that there are three basic
ways to explain how people become leaders. The first two explain the
leadership development for a small number of people. These theories
are:
- Some personality traits may lead people naturally into
leadership roles. This is the Trait Theory.
- A crisis or
important event may cause a person to rise to the occasion, which
brings out extraordinary leadership qualities in an ordinary person.
This is the Great Events Theory.
- People can choose to become
leaders. People can learn leadership skills. This is the
Transformational Leadership Theory. It is the most widely accepted
theory today and the premise on which this guide is based.
When a
person is deciding if she respects you as a leader, she does not
think about your attributes, rather, she observes what you do so
that she can know who you really are. She uses this observation to
tell if you are an honorable and trusted leader or a self serving
person who misuses authority to look good and get promoted.
Self-serving leaders are not as effective because their employees
only obey them, not follow them. They succeed in many areas because
they present a good image to their seniors at the expense of their
workers.
The basis of good leadership is honorable
character and
selfless service to your organization. In your employees' eyes, your
leadership is everything you do that effects the organization's
objectives and their well being. Respected leaders concentrate on
what they are [be] (such as beliefs and character), what they know
(such as job, tasks, and human nature), and what they do (such as
implementing, motivating, and provide direction). What makes a
person want to follow a leader? People want to be guided by those
they respect and who have a clear sense of direction. To gain
respect, they must be ethical. A sense of direction is achieved by
conveying a strong vision of the future.
The Two Most Important Keys
to Effective Leadership
Hay’s study examined over 75 key
components of employee satisfaction. They found that:
- Trust and
confidence in top leadership was the single most reliable predictor
of employee satisfaction in an organization.
- Effective
communication by leadership in three critical areas was the key to
winning organizational trust and confidence:
- Helping employees
understand the company's overall business strategy.
- Helping
employees understand how they contribute to achieving key business
objectives.
- Sharing information with employees on both how the
company is doing and how an employee's own division is doing -
relative to strategic business objectives.
So in a nutshell -- you
must be trustworthy and you have to be able to communicate a vision
of where the organization needs to go. The next section,
"Principles of Leadership," ties in closely with this key
concept.
Principles of Leadership
To help you be, know, and do;
(U.S. Army, 1973) follow these eleven principles of leadership: Know
yourself and seek self-improvement - In order to know yourself, you
have to understand your be, know, and do, attributes. Seeking
self-improvement means continually strengthening your attributes.
This can be accomplished through self-study, formal classes,
reflection, and interacting with others.
- Be technically
proficient - As a leader, you must know your job and have a solid
familiarity with your employees' tasks.
- Seek responsibility and
take responsibility for your actions - Search for ways to guide your
organization to new heights. And when things go wrong, they always
do sooner or later -- do not blame others. Analyze the situation,
take corrective action, and move on to the next challenge.
- Make
sound and timely decisions - Use good problem solving, decision
making, and planning tools.
- Set the example - Be a good role
model for your employees. They must not only hear what they are
expected to do, but also see. We must become the change we want to
see - Mahatma Gandhi
- Know your people and look out for their
well-being - Know human nature and the importance of sincerely
caring for your workers.
- Keep your workers informed - Know how to
communicate with not only them, but also seniors and other key
people.
- Develop a sense of responsibility in your workers - Help
to develop good character traits that will help them carry out their
professional responsibilities.
- Ensure that tasks are understood,
supervised, and accomplished - Communication is the key to this
responsibility.
- Train as a team - Although many so called leaders
call their organization, department, section, etc. a team; they are
not really teams...they are just a group of people doing their jobs.
- Use the full capabilities of your organization - By developing a
team spirit, you will be able to employ your organization,
department, section, etc. to its fullest capabilities.
Factors of
leadership
There are four major factors in leadership:
Follower:
Different people require different styles of leadership. For
example, a new hire requires more supervision than an experienced
employee. A person who lacks motivation requires a different
approach than one with a high degree of motivation. You must know
your people! The fundamental starting point is having a good
understanding of human nature, such as needs, emotions, and
motivation. You must become to know your employees' be, know, and do
attributes.
Leader: You must have a honest understanding of who you
are, what you know, and what you can do. Also, note that it is the
followers, not the leader who determines if a leader is successful.
If they do not trust or lack confidence in their leader, then they
will be uninspired. To be successful you have to convince your
followers, not yourself or your superiors, that you are worthy of
being followed.
Communication: You lead through two-way
communication. Much of it is nonverbal. For instance, when you
"set the example," that communicates to your people that
you would not ask them to perform anything that you would not be
willing to do. What and how you communicate either builds or harms
the relationship between you and your employees.
Situation: All are
different. What you do in one situation will not always work in
another. You must use your judgment to decide the best course of
action and the leadership style needed for each situation. For
example, you may need to confront an employee for inappropriate behavior, but if the confrontation is too late or too early, too
harsh or too weak, then the results may prove ineffective.
Various
forces will affect these factors. Examples of forces are your
relationship with your seniors, the skill of your people, the
informal leaders within your organization, and how your company is
organized.
Attributes
If you are a leader who can be trusted, then
those around you will grow to respect you. To be such a leader,
there is a Leadership Framework to guide you:
BE KNOW DO
- BE a professional. Examples: Be loyal to the organization, perform
selfless service, take personal responsibility.
- BE a professional
who possess good character traits. Examples: Honesty, competence, candor, commitment, integrity, courage, straightforwardness,
imagination.
- KNOW the four factors of leadership - follower, leader,
communication, situation.
- KNOW yourself. Examples: strengths and
weakness of your character, knowledge, and skills.
- KNOW human
nature. Examples: Human needs, emotions, and how people respond to
stress.
- KNOW your job. Examples: be proficient and be able to train
others in their tasks.
- KNOW your organization. Examples: where to go
for help, its climate and culture, who the unofficial leaders are.
-
DO provide direction. Examples: goal setting, problem solving,
decision making, planning.
- DO implement. Examples: communicating,
coordinating, supervising, evaluating.
- DO motivate. Examples:
develop moral and esprit in the organization, train, coach, counsel.
Environment
Every organization has a particular work environment,
which dictates to a considerable degree how its leaders respond to
problems and opportunities. This is brought about by its heritage of
past leaders and its present leaders.
Goals, Values, and Concepts
Leaders exert influence on the environment via three types of
actions:
- The goals and performance standards they establish.
- The values they establish for the organization.
- The business and
people concepts they establish.
Successful organizations have
leaders who set high standards and goals across the entire spectrum,
such as strategies, market leadership, plans, meetings and
presentations, productivity, quality, and reliability.
Values
reflect the concern the organization has for its employees,
customers, investors, vendors, and surrounding community. These
values define the manner in how business will be conducted.
Concepts
define what products or services the organization will offer and the
methods and processes for conducting business.
These goals, values,
and concepts make up the organization's "personality" or
how the organization is observed by both outsiders and insiders.
This personality defines the roles, relationships, rewards, and
rites that take place.
Roles and Relationships
Roles are the
positions that are defined by a set of expectations about behavior of any job incumbent. Each role has a set of tasks and
responsibilities that may or may not be spelled out. Roles have a
powerful effect on behavior for several reasons, to include money
being paid for the performance of the role, there is prestige
attached to a role, and a sense of accomplishment or challenge.
Relationships are determined by a role's tasks. While some tasks are
performed alone, most are carried out in relationship with others.
The tasks will determine who the role-holder is required to interact
with, how often, and towards what end. Also, normally the greater
the interaction, the greater the liking. This in turn leads to more
frequent interaction. In human behavior, its hard to like someone
whom we have no contact with, and we tend to seek out those we like.
People tend to do what they are rewarded for, and friendship is a
powerful reward. Many tasks and behaviors that are associated with
a role are brought about by these relationships. That is, new task
and behaviors are expected of the present role holder because a
strong relationship was developed in the past, either by that role
holder or a prior role holder.
Culture and Climate
There are two
distinct forces that dictate how to act within an organization:
culture and climate. Each organization has its own distinctive
culture. It is a combination of the founders, past leadership,
current leadership, crises, events, history, and size. This results
in rites: the routines, rituals, and the "way we do
things." These rites impact individual behavior on what it
takes to be in good standing (the norm) and directs the appropriate behavior
for each circumstance. The climate is the feel of the
organization, the individual and shared perceptions and attitudes of
the organization's members. While the culture is the deeply rooted
nature of the organization that is a result of long-held formal and
informal systems, rules, traditions, and customs; climate is a
short-term phenomenon created by the current leadership. Climate
represents the beliefs about the "feel of the
organization" by its members. This individual perception of the
"feel of the organization" comes from what the people
believe about the activities that occur in the organization. These
activities influence both individual and team motivation and
satisfaction, such as:
- How well does the leader clarify the
priorities and goals of the organization? What is expected of us?
- What is the system of recognition, rewards, and punishments in
the organization? • How competent are the leaders?
- Are leaders
free to make decision?
- What will happen if I make a mistake?
Organizational climate is directly related to the leadership and
management style of the leader, based on the values, attributes,
skills, and actions, as well as the priorities of the leader.
Compare this to "ethical climate" -- the "feel of the
organization" about the activities that have ethical content or
those aspects of the work environment that constitute ethical behavior. The ethical climate is the feel about whether we do
things right; or the feel of whether we behave the way we ought to
behave. The behavior (character) of the leader is the most
important factor that impacts the climate.
On the other hand,
culture is a long-term, complex phenomenon. Culture represents the
shared expectations and self-image of the organization. The mature
values that create "tradition" or the "way we do
things here." Things are done differently in every
organization. The collective vision and common folklore that define
the institution are a reflection of culture. Individual leaders,
cannot easily create or change culture because culture is a part of
the organization. Culture influences the characteristics of the
climate by its effect on the actions and thought processes of the
leader. But, everything you do as a leader will effect the climate
of the organization.
Leadership Models
Leadership models help us to
understand what makes leaders act the way they do. The ideal is not
to lock yourself in to a type of behavior discussed in the model,
but to realize that every situation calls for a different approach
or behavior to be taken. Two models will be discussed, the Four
Framework Approach and the Managerial Grid.
Four Framework Approach
In the Four Framework Approach, Bolman and Deal (1991) suggest that
leaders display leadership behaviors in one of four types of
frameworks: Structural, Human Resource, Political, or Symbolic. The
style can either be effective or ineffective, depending upon the
chosen behavior in certain situations.
- Structural Framework: In an
effective leadership situation, the leader is a social architect
whose leadership style is analysis and design. While in an
ineffective leadership situation, the leader is a petty tyrant whose
leadership style is details. Structural Leaders focus on structure,
strategy, environment, implementation, experimentation, and
adaptation.
- Human Resource Framework: In an effective leadership
situation, the leader is a catalyst and servant whose leadership
style is support, advocate, and empowerment. while in an ineffective
leadership situation, the leader is a pushover, whose leadership
style is abdication and fraud. Human Resource Leaders believe in
people and communicate that belief; they are visible and accessible;
they empower, increase participation, support, share information,
and move decision making down into the organization.
- Political
Framework: In an effective leadership situation, the leader is an
advocate, whose leadership style is coalition and building. While in
an ineffective leadership situation, the leader is a hustler, whose
leadership style is manipulation. Political leaders clarify what
they want and what they can get; they assess the distribution of
power and interests; they build linkages to other stakeholders, use
persuasion first, then use negotiation and coercion only if
necessary.
- Symbolic Framework: In an effective leadership situation,
the leader is a prophet, whose leadership style is inspiration.
While in an ineffective leadership situation, the leader is a
fanatic or fool, whose leadership style is smoke and mirrors.
Symbolic leaders view organizations as a stage or theatres to play
certain roles and give impressions; these leaders use symbols to
capture attention; they try to frame experience by providing
plausible interpretations of experiences; they discover and
communicate a vision.
This model suggests that leaders can be put
into one of these four categories and there are times when one
approach is appropriate and times when it would not be. Any one of
these approaches alone would be inadequate, thus we should strive to
be conscious of all four approaches, and not just rely on one or
two. For example, during a major organization change, a structural
leadership style may be more effective than a visionary leadership
style; while during a period when strong growth is needed, the
visionary approach may be better. We also need to understand
ourselves as each of us tends to have a preferred approach. We need
to be conscious of these at all times and be aware of the
limitations of our favoring just one approach.
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