Competent Leadership Approaches

Question: Discuss about theCompetent Leadership Approaches. Answer: Introduction The paradigm shift in organizational management takes a multidimensional angle with various views concerning leadership. Basically personality and individual perceptions and competences have been acclaimed as the leading factors in determining successful leadership abilities. However, different organizations hold different organizational culture in support of group tasks calling for the need of having clear chain of commands hence supporting the need of best team leaders, project managers, and communicators for efficiency and results. Leadership involves a social influence process where control is exerted by an individual over other people to structure the activities and relationships within an organization (Day Antonakis, 2012). Levels of Leadership There are three levels of leadership, team level, operational level, and strategic level. Team level leader controls a distinctive group of people ranging between 10-30 people with clearly specified task to accomplish. On the other hand, the operational level leader controls one of the major parts of an organization which has more than one team leader. Finally, in the strategic level the leader controls a whole organization with a number of operational leaders under one personal direction (Roebuck Business Expert Press, 2012). Team Leadership Model This model ideally invests on a leader-member exchange process to develop and maintain work relationships with group members. Significantly, team work spirit is on preference however tasks and responsibilities may be distributed amongst different employees. Group members enjoy a number of rewards, and trust in exchange for their loyalty and performance (Dzugan, 2013). Distinctive Features of Team Leader Approach of Governance First Impressions The leaders as well as the members of the team are able to dispose their abilities and competencies increasing trust amongst them. Such a move cultivates greater sense of belonging where each member expresses his or her views basing on ones knowledge. Basically, ideologies of the leaders under this kind of leadership are most likely to influence team members towards taking a given stand. Quality Relationships Team leaders are tasked with a responsibility of ensuring each member is heard and represented in decision making process. Each team player therefore is treated differently hence a positive contribution to quality relationship amongst members. As a matter of fact, when the leader-member exchange is high, group members become more committed to the goals of the company and maintain an effective working unity. Appealing to the Recognition Needs of Others The leader identifies individual merit behaviours and recognizes it through written, oral or material rewards. Recognition serves as a tool for motivation since it reflects on corporate values of the organization as well as helping workers to attain personal goals. It is effective to give recognition via e-mail, text message, voice mail, or paper note. Common Task Accomplishment Team members hold a similar objective therefore will be motivated towards accomplishing the goal using available resources. Personal needs are therefore integrated with task at hand creating an interactive space geared towards a common goal (Guenzi Ruta, 2013). Ideally, team leadership model allows leaders to use various styles focusing on situations at hand stressing on personal confidence and competence level. The model is structurally designed through various stages which include; creating new teams, developing the team, achieving results and sustenance of established teams. Generally, team leadership is based on four leadership styles ranging from supporting, steering, and stimulating. Stages of Team Creation Creating a Team New team seeks attention, clarity, and direction. The leaders therefore provide direction, purpose and goals to achieve. A directive approach hence plays a major role in this context. The leader in this context uses steering style to give directions however limiting over directive ideas. Developing a Team This stage is the most difficult one. Basically, the leader supports his team by collective bargaining through supporting individuals to recognize others strengths and how they can be coordinated into developmental agendas. As a way, the team resolves impending tensions for a common goal. Performing This stage aims at achieving results. Clarity in message delivery on strategies determines the success levels towards achieving the intended purpose. Basically, the leader stimulates individuals to develop on their strengths for the best output of the team. The leader prompts, encourages, and challenges individuals to excel and improve in their service delivery levels for the growth of the organization as well as individual. Sustaining Team Performance Sustaining the team demands leaders to bring together ideas, persons, opportunities, and situations. This move ensures the performance is sufficient to exist within the market dynamics despite any competitive challenges. Resource mobilization from all team players gives the organization an upper hand as far as developmental projects are concerned. Team Leader Competences Getting people to work and meet the set goals, team leaders dispose the following behavioural abilities. Setting directions and initializing actions Planning and Organizing A team leader is mandated with a responsibility to make future arrangements of the organization. Therefore, as a leader one should posses an eye of the market characteristics, competitive strategies. The leader should be proactive in generating ideas that will position the company within a speculated environment niche through realizing the needs and tests of the target audience. This will help in crisis management. Delegating Responsibilities A team leader has a responsibility to assign tasks, monitor the progress, and give credit to tasks accomplished as well as awarding the best team players. This to a broader angle serves as a motivation to employees raising their trust and competence within their work domains. The tasks should be assigned basing on personal abilities and knowledge level concerning the task at hand. This is the coordinating and controlling function of the management. Sensitivity to Needs and Individual Feelings To address sensitive needs and personal feelings, a team leader should be empathetic and be able to solve problems skilfully. Problem solving techniques such as critical thinking, analytic approach, problem evaluation, decision making, solution implementation, and outcome assessment should be incorporated within his framework (Heagney, Lewis, Amacom, 2011). The leaders should play a major role in stabilizing the organization by safeguarding its image and working in corporation with other team players. Ethical considerations such as honesty, accountability, transparency, and confidentiality are key elements of such a leader. Additionally, this kind of leader should be dynamic and incorporate others needs and concerns as far as management and decision making is concerned. Decision Making Decision making is the ability to solve problems within the organization. Team leaders therefore posses abilities to analyse problems, think logically, formulate creative ideas, cultivate a sense of reality, demonstrate good judgement skills, and generate workable solutions. Communicator Approach of Leadership Communicators have strength to make points well understood by others. The power of speech has incredible ability to persuade and guide by means of instructions, demonstrations and illustrations. As a leader, communication is the sole most important tool for exercising leadership and managerial duties that come with leadership. The communicator approach to leadership entails a constant exchange of information between all the parties under the jurisdiction of the leadership in question. Typically, leaders with great communication abilities display the following characteristics: Speak Audibly and Clearly The clarity of the message being passed across is vital in giving instructions or directions. Basically, managers who posses such a trait are able to express themselves concisely and effectively. As a leader, one is tasked with managerial functions such as controlling, coordinating, planning, staffing, and organizing. The key to meeting the stated management functions relies on the ability to communicate effectively in a way that all the key players involved understand ideologies, their positions, and tasks. Additionally, audibility and clarity of the message earns the leader credibility via their presentation. A good rapport is also established between the management, workers, and clients mounting to greater heights of trust. Listen to the Needs and Perceptions of others Leaders with communication abilities understand the need to listen to other peoples lines of thought and ideological predispositions in order to comprehend the context within which the said parties to the communication prosecute their case. Such leaders understand the needs of other people and their points of view on issues based on their articulation and not pre-existing biases. Communication savvy leaders handle the communication process as a two-way interaction between them and the other parties to the process, other than a self cantered process in which everything revolves around the leader and not everybody else. Such a leader portrays himself as a caring partner in the process rather the sole signatory to the outcome of the process in its entirety. Argue Assertively but not Aggressively. Leaders with communication abilities understand the need to communicate assertively without being overly emphatic. This allows them to retain their demeanour as leaders, while at the same time upholding their ideological anchor point. Leaders need not appear as defensive of particular ideological positions or combative in any communication event. This allows for the other parties to the process to delve deeper into unexplored perceptions or possibilities regarding the subject of discussion. Coordinate Duties Effectively. Managerial duties of leadership need to be timely and properly coordinated. Communication is invaluable for the execution of such duties and therefore, timeliness of communication events or otherwise, is undoubtedly necessary for any leader to excellently undertake his duties. Coordination is key to the smooth running of activities commissioned by any leader. This only means that understanding the underlying concept and adhering to it is a necessity. Recognize Non-Verbal Cues in Communication. Communication takes place verbally and non-verbally at any one given time. The spontaneousness of non-verbal communication only points out to the fact that one needs to be in a position to take note of such communication over and above the verbal communication with which it concurrently runs. Most of the emotional attachments to any communication are expressed non-verbally. This means that, to understand any communication fully, one needs to discern the non-verbal communication underpinning the verbal communication expressions. A leader with communication competencies will be best suited to wholesomely evaluate the context within which certain communication expressions are made and consequently, put utterances into befitting perspectives. Principles for Effective Communication Leadership Strategy Creativity Creativity is paramount in persuading any group of people through evoking their emotions and attitudes. Basically, a communicator leader aims at motivating his targets to rekindle their perceptions and energize their abilities. The influential capabilities and social confidence are ridding factors towards a successful communication strategy. Therefore the messages are designed in an impulsive manner to move the audience towards a given direction. Additionally, using incentives would create a good response towards the audience perception. As a leader, one undertakes a role to familiarize with the opinions of their target audience as well as their needs. Empathetic Approach Empathetic leaders include the needs and concerns of all the parties involved. They are supportive and considerate hence ease to get along with. Such leaders are equally concerned with others feelings. They show concern, create supportive environment, request inputs and suggestions, and ask multiple of questions. Assessing the Context Proper assessment allows leaders to determine individuals limits and possibilities. Ideally, communicators base on the cognitive and emotional ability of their subjects to influence them. The multidimensional approach based on different beliefs, values, emotions, and desires build a strong foundation to identify major interests with regards to their needs. Concisely, assessing the context helps the leaders to determine the types of battles worthy fighting and position proper messages accordingly. Equally, the leader should evaluate existing communication systems (Reynolds Curtin, 2011). This will enable the leader to familiarize with the present opportunities and constraints with regards to transmission of information that demands deep understanding of the organizational issues. To strategically handle the communication systems, the following concerns should be incorporated. The types of channels, communicational goals, type of message designs to be transmitted in the channel, and t he target audiences. Crafting the Strategy The context acts as the backdrop of a developing strategy. Having the context in place however demands that an individual works smart to have the strategy in place work. Therefore, a leader is mandated to select a communication strategy that communicates goals linked to the organizational demands as well as objectives, and financial position. On the advent of prioritizing corporate objectives, the leaders should henceforth ensure that employees understand these objectives before initiating them into the system. The objectives are translated into corporate priorities at each level of the organization. For example, reduction on production costs through retrenchment programs. Provoking Dialogue Persuasive in communication goes further into encouraging the target audience in a take-give manner to create a win-win situation to increase the credibility issues. Meaningful dialogue and discussion of proposals allows targets to bargain hence develop a strong sense of commitment towards the leaders ideas, mission, or purpose. Significantly, dialogue acts as a platform to clarify events and issues with conflicting ideologies. Naturally, employees are exposed to diversified information from multiple sources and are vulnerable to confusion or interpretation (Spaulding, 2008). Communicators give directives on confusing elements in the message to improve interpretation, information conceptualization, and cultivating right motives. Further, dialogue helps in checking the pulse to familiarize with employees thoughts and obtain feedback. Feedback could be achieved via routinely survey, pulse reports, and talking points outlining how the management thinks about a conspiring issue. Best Leadership Strategy to IBM Students Basing on the above discussions, it is evident that both the strategies are significant towards realizing organizational objectives and keeping relationships between employees. However, an IBM student would be at a better position if he or she embraced the communicators leadership approach. Communicators approach of leadership is tied to a number of advantages ranging from the following. Promoting Motivation Communicators inform and clarify issues of concerns under employees dispensation. The tasks at hand are equally done effectively specifying each workers roles and responsibilities hence minimizing conflicts. Such a move improves employees performance level according to the standards and regulations of the organization. Feedback in a way from the management helps employees to position themselves against the market and competence levels ensuring they competitively give their best. Information Circulation Information circulation within the internal and external environments is enhanced via communicator leadership approach. Free circulation of information within the organization ensures that organizational members take part in decisive role and other decision making processes. The management to a broader perspective identifies and assesses alternative course of action to be undertaken in times of crisis, hence effective for crisis management. Altering Attitudes and Behaviors Individual attitudes are molded and subject to change as a result of being well informed. Managers and leaders cultivate a positive attitude by winning the minds of the employees via effective communication strategies. Being informed is a means of building ones knowledge level and boosting the competence level. For instance, organizational magazines, journals, meetings, written, or oral communication influence employees attitudes, values, and beliefs. An Effective Interactive Tool Communicators leadership approaches help the management and the staff to fully interact and build a concrete relationship for a mutual co-existence. Workers equally coordinate, appreciate, and work as a team due to effective communication, hence a social tool. The management equally embraces cultural dynamics within its culture boosting staff participation towards meeting the objectives of the organization. Controlling Communication helps in controlling process within organizations. Basically, members behaviors are regulated in various ways. For instance, organizational rules and regulations are made known to the staff orally or written to constantly remind them of the set objectives, policies, customs, amongst other issues of concern. Hierarchical levels, principles, and guidelines that employees should steak to are spread to the staff concurrently. Competitively, employees remain objective while on call, comply with policies, perform their roles efficiently, and air out their work problems to the management for an effective cause of action by the management. Conclusion Concisely, the communicators and team leadership approaches are vital tools for the future of an organization. Stakeholders within any given market dimension should embrace the two strategies coherently to win the hearts of their target customers, investors, as well as stakeholders. An effective communication system calls for the managerial proficiency in delivery of messages. Therefore, the manager should be knowledgeable and establish setbacks hindering effective communication, analyse reasons for communication, and embrace workable procedures geared towards employee developmental agendas. References Day,D.V., Antonakis,J. (2012). The nature of leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Dzugan,K.E. (2013). The communicator during significant change in a civil society organization. Guenzi,P., Ruta,D. (2013). Leading Teams: Tools and Techniques for Successful Team Leadership from the Sports World. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Heagney,J., Lewis,J.P., Amacom. (2011). Fundamentals of project management. New York, NY: American Management Association. Reynolds,P.D., Curtin,R.T. (2011). New business creation: An international overview. New York: Springer. Roebuck,D.B., Business Expert Press. (2012). Communication strategies for today's managerial leader. 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