Introduction to Leadership Theory
Leadership encompasses a diversity of human makings and traits of character. A qualified leader sets a role model for their colleagues to follow. Stress resilience, tolerance, and the ability to anticipate company members’ emotional conditions and advance their promotion are paramount and fundamental insignia of a credible leader. The aptitude to influence and lead other people means to predict their behavioral patterns by setting contact between a leader and their subordinates. Having Emotional Intelligence is a prerequisite for successful company executive leadership to guarantee stable and abundant company development.
Leadership implies personal and informal relationships between a company executive and their subordinates. Gradinarova (2021, p. 155) states that leadership is “a result of interaction between group members, in the performance of an overall activity, a person climbs a ladder to organize the group in solving a specific task.” Therefore, it is obvious that a leader cannot be chosen and appointed formally. Leaders acquire spontaneously, as this is a case of employees’ internal evaluation of a company executive’s efficiency, which might fluctuate, as a former leader cannot tailor employees’ anticipations. The term leadership comes from the phenomenon of a micro-working environment, where the position of a leader is unstable, as it doesn’t manifest its facilities in the formal working environment. To get a leader’s function in the long run, a person has to perform self-evaluating analysis to detect their strengths and weaknesses. This practice might enable a current leader to develop well-informed strategies to advance their leadership practices.
Leadership Styles Relevant to the Workplace
Every leader has to choose the most beneficial leadership structure in their performance. There are many different leadership approaches aligned with a particular set of responsibilities and perspectives. It is complicated to implement all existing leadership patterns in a company adjustment due to various obstacles, different participant social contexts and their backgrounds, and the final goal of a leader. From my perspective, an efficient organization has to operate on the following leadership structures. They are:
- Situational leadership (contingency theory);
- Servant leadership style (democratic basis);
- Transformational leadership style.
Situational Leadership (Contingency Theory)
Situational leadership style represents a leader’s ability to react, facilitate and enhance employees’ abilities related to the current situation. A leader might have a working knowledge concerning their employees’ aptitudes, skills, working, and salary expectations. This very information might help leaders enhance company performance and prosperity. It is not surprising that this kind of leadership style applies to most organizations. It gives a clear-cut depiction and evaluation of both phenomena: people’s participation and company maintenance. Although this style provides action flexibility and a vast expanse of beneficial outcomes, this approach might be slightly modified to great advantage.
Servant Leadership Style (Democratic Basis)
Significantly, servant leadership style associates with a particular behavior, when a current leader encourages team members through increasing their confidence and erasing potential disappointments. Consequently, Rabiul and Yean (2021, p. 1) claim that the core servant leaders’ goal is “to achieve a shared vision by serving followers.” Connor and Pokora (2017) argue that servant leaders are driven by the desires and needs to learn and understand the deep-seated emotional triggers of people in order to make them listen, persuade, facilitate and guard. Thus, servant leadership emphasizes self-reliance through strengthening team members’ behavioral and principled growth rather than focusing on the organization’s interests. As follows, I assume that a democratic leadership style is a suitable substitution for the servant leadership style because both empower members’ ethical and righteous progress and concentrate on self-realization.
Transformational Leadership Style
Transformational leadership style refers to a core ethical and social behavior in a working environment context. According to Rabiul and Yean (2021, p. 1), it addresses organizational objectives “by expanding and uplifting employees’ self-interest.” Purwanto et al. (2021, p. 62) suggest that following the transformation leadership style, a leader anticipates modifying followers’ vision and become a role model by “providing support and stimulating the desire to change for the better.” Hence, transformative leaders are seen as advisers with coaching skills who encourage and fuel employees’ inspiration and eagerness to achieve better results.
Critical Analysis
Notably, a leader should integrate the mentioned three approaches to share the idea of cooperation’s importance with team members. Additionally, the coach will create and sustain a productive and friendly working atmosphere by indicating a specific role model considering the core servant’s fundamentals and situational and transformational leadership systems. Hence, an organization’s leader will maintain harmonious and cordial relationships, ensuring that members follow and perceive a leader as a role model. Furthermore, to resolve the responsibilities distribution’s issue, general mood-boosting and supervision of the employees are not enough. Thus, a mentor must devote and use other leadership attitudes and assets in the leadership administration strategy to erase difficulties relating to the organization’s objectives.
The fundamental responsibilities refer to monitoring, motivating, supporting, setting objectives, plans, and deadlines, as well as maintaining close business contact with team members. According to Z. Todorović and B. Todorović (2020), situational leadership style associates with a leader’s practices that influence team members. Consequently, I argue that I might apply situational leadership practices to be seen as an encouraging and heartening leader by employees in my performances.
Important to mention that I face some significant difficulties directing my team members to achieve the organization’s objectives. In my performance, I exaggerate a servant leadership style usage synthesized with democratic leadership style. Jain and Luhar (2021) suggest that a democratic relationship highlights equal rights between a leader and team members; thus, everyone does not hesitate to share opinions, thoughts, and worries. Therefore, I should focus more on members’ individualities and support them under established leadership practices.
Leadership Self-evaluation
In order to conduct my leadership self-assessment, I will employ crucial elements: my understanding of leadership management practices and perception of individual advantages and disadvantages. As a consequence, these two components will enhance and strengthen methodical and profound communication with my subordinates to accomplish our joint mission. Therefore, I demonstrate my motivation and desire to perform at my best with the aim to create loyalty, trust, mutual support and terminate potential issues and risks.
After my personal strengths evaluation, I discovered that I follow the democratic leadership ideas, which provide employees’ need satisfaction guidelines for successful team management. It is critical for me to identify my employees’ working potentials and connect them to the company’s strategy, value proposition, and objectives. Significantly, I do my best to consider team members’ desires and necessities to change my behavior and practices accordingly and contribute to a healthy working atmosphere. I aim at mixing the democratic leadership approach combined with a team management framework as a dominant style. This effective combination is a prerequisite for employee freedom expansion, motivation refinement, and a company goal orientation. This style plays out as a driving force, creating a positive workplace where all employees’ objectives are satisfied, thus providing further prospects for fulfilling the leader’s anticipations in terms of company prosperity.
Moreover, I am a diligent supporter and follower of the democratic leadership approach. Hence, I trust my team members, who consequently approve of my loyal team management practices. On the other hand, giving my colleagues a lot of freedom is also the main weakness of my approach. Freedom of action in some cases can cause a weak attitude of employees towards the organizational practices of the company. In order to avoid the dire situation and the neglect of the team members about the organization of the company, I introduce traditional leadership methods that will possibly affect my relationships with colleagues.
Also, I understand how important it is to constantly learn and invest in acquiring new skills to motivate and lead people in the right direction. This knowledge helps to analyze and evaluate the behaviors and unique characteristics of my team members. Also, my management leadership practices refer to recommendations for improving and growing my knowledge and abilities, which describe me as a team leader.
Therefore, from the above, the assessment of my colleagues as team members helps me highlight their ability to work and specific tasks, the level of workload and stress resistance, and motivation to achieve results. By following these practices, I will be able to make my company more successful and productive where all colleagues will be satisfied with their authority, responsibilities, and schedule and strive to further develop for the sake of the company and common goals.
Critical Analysis
Leadership is a critical element in the strategy of any company from the perspective of achieving success and effective management. In addition, critical leadership assessment refers to the study of leadership theories, identifying the weaknesses and mistakes of leaders, analyzing the goals and course of action for proposing alternative solutions and criticism, or, on the contrary, maintaining the chosen leadership practices. The critical leadership analysis arranges “a critical perspective on the appropriateness of assumptions” and displays the necessity of introducing innovative and diversified alternatives to the problem-solving process (Batista-Foguet et al., 2021). Thus, I agree with Fakhri et al. (2021, p. 813) that a leader should encourage “group participation and group decisions. To summarize, my main goal is to formulate trustful and strong relationships with my subordinates and remove the debilitated notions that may stimulate the organizational process decline.
Leadership Functions
My current responsibilities and functions include minimizing weaknesses, mistakes, omissions, and risks to improve my leadership effectiveness, considering the general and specific assessments of my leadership qualities. To successfully complete this mission, I need to identify and analyze the knowledge and abilities of subordinates to draw up a clear leadership plan that contributes to the further improvement of my team at the individual level and as a whole. Creating an organizational structure where all employees give their full authority and responsibility to fulfill the set plan and increase the company’s profits is my goal.
Various practices and methods, such as in-depth analysis of the skills of my subordinates and thoughtful monitoring of their characteristics, are included in my leadership style, which will help me develop further as a leader. According to Ford et al. (2021, p. 89), it is crucial to ensure that the results achieved under my control are prosperous and related to the “group integration and maintenance, including adaptation and innovation to internal and external conditions.” Thus, I will develop a sense of responsibility for the performed actions in each member of the group; thus, I will facilitate the functionality and organization of the team. Therefore, I do not have to indulge frivolous and thoughtless behavior and deduction to work duties with punishment and unscheduled meetings.
Generally speaking, in order to eradicate all possible pitfalls, a leader might use a modified situational leadership pattern that involves four leadership styles:
- S1-Telling (orientation on motivation, goal achievements);
- S2-Selling (satisfaction of employees’ social and emotional needs);
- S3-Participating (encouragement of skill development and task fulfillment);
- S4-Delegating (orientation on employees’ freedom) (Z. Todorović and B. Todorović, 2020).
The multiple and practical usages of these styles are beneficial solutions to issues a new-appointed leader might face. Combining these techniques, a leader can help sustain a positive working environment, where all participants are goal-oriented, motivated, and stimulated to work in a company advance. A competent leader has to apply these management approaches in order to expand their followers’ outlooks and standpoints to make them step in the right direction.
Critical Analysis
What matters is that I strive to provide strategic leadership to team members with specific talents. The study of their characteristics and predispositions contributes to the further development of the company’s processes. My leading roles in leadership activities are divided into external and internal, considering specific ways and actions. For instance, presenting a company’s image, developing networks, and building collaborations are external roles. The inner function is associated with the organization’s internal management, such as creating a strategy for working within the company, especially within the team, encouraging a team members’ motivational attitude, and innovative suggestions and ideas. Ramos (2021, p. 9) suggests that it is crucial “to lead others in the organization to complete a task or a broad objective” to contribute to the intellectual reserves of the company. Therefore, I acknowledge that my responsibilities and functions in the company must be coordinated with my subordinates to ensure and achieve a common structure of cooperation.
Besides, I have to manage the team’s boundaries because team members see me as their coach who can be relied on and trusted. I also admit that in order to meet the needs of my team members and motivate them to succeed, I need to remove the fine line between personal and impersonal, namely informal communication and formal interaction.
Reflections; Recommendations; Leadership Strategy Development
Through a reflective analysis of my leadership style, I demonstrate several vital actions for improving team management, assigning roles, and maintaining good relationships. Carswell (2021) provides examples of vital activities to ensure a positive and effective environment: empowering team members, continuing education and skill acquisition, and motivating and building trust in the team.
It is essential to add that it is necessary to consider the process of the team’s work from the very beginning, namely from the initial entry of employees into the company and, as a result, into a specific team. Therefore, I consider it my main task to find and attract highly qualified specialists who will show their essential skills to the company. According to Sagnak (2016, p. 4), “when individuals are intrinsically motivated, they are more effective and contribute more meaningfully toward the attainment of the organization’s mission.” To conclude, I should focus on a friendly working environment, motivational and intellectual incentives, and common objectives formulation.
Recommendations: My loyalty and adherence to instructions should not be a threat to the organization and the achievement of productive results. This is why I recommend to myself to find alternative approaches to establish myself as a role model and persuade my colleagues to follow my example. Most importantly, I must combine responsibility for assigning tasks and performing them with an analysis of my group’s behaviors and personality characteristics. Operating on a transformational leadership structure, I have to choose what model to follow: mentoring or coaching to prioritize a company participants’ well-being or overall performance.
Conclusion
Running a successful, best-performing business implies possessing particular personal aptitudes and characteristics. Company executives might have leadership makings, management orientations to lead a company and its members into a top competitive position at a vast expanse of rival firms. The primary goal of an efficient leader is to modify the perception of their subordinates, establishing as a role model, motivating and supporting in the decision-making processes, and inspiring them to grow and develop to achieve better results.
Thus, the assessment paper includes an analysis of my leadership style, including strengths and shortcomings, based on the crucial evaluation of various leadership styles to indicate the suitable approaches and enhance my leadership skills. In this research paper, I carefully analyzed my attitudes and behavior to identify my main strengths and weaknesses and choose ways that will help me eliminate problems while working and managing my subordinates.
I also found out what leadership styles are typical for me and that I need to pay attention to improve my qualifications as a leader. As a result of my analysis and reflection on leadership, I highlight the primary responsibilities for providing an effective working environment for team members and motivating them to succeed and achieve their goals. Consequently, I noted what methods and valuable concepts in my leadership define me as a team leader. To conclude, self-analysis has been helpful in critically evaluating my management style because it will help me develop my skills and knowledge to become even better and more competent in the future.
Reference List
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