Qualities of a Leader Essay
Qualities of a Leader Essay
A leader is someone who is passionate, intelligent, articulate and purposeful. A leader is someone who believes strongly in something and sees a way to change the present course of things. A leader is someone who stands up for what they believe in. While not all leaders possess these qualities, I feel that the most effective leaders likely do.
Determining a leadership philosophy depends very much on your own personal beliefs. A leadership philosophy will encompass what you believe about people and human nature, what you believe about life, and what you believe is the most effective way for groups or teams to function. All of these beliefs will determine how you are most comfortable in dealing with people. Although it may be appropriate at times to use different leadership styles, you will likely be most effective when utilizing a style that matches your personality and beliefs. As a child my conception of a leader was related solely to their directive and supervisory role. Leaders were the people in charge that told everyone what they were to do and kept things organized. Then in elementary school I had a teacher write on my report card that I had the intelligence and personality to do or be anything that I wanted to be, which started me thinking about leadership in a different way. I began to consider leadership as being less about directing others and more about living up to one's fullest potential. Since that time I have observed a number of people who have a passion and love of what they do and I began to think of these people as leaders, or examples of what I wanted to achieve. I was looking to find a way of helping people by being involved in something that I truly enjoyed.
Situational Model of Leadership
My philosophy of leadership has evolved to be most closely aligned with a situational model of leadership. This model of leadership is based on analyzing the needs of the situation that you are in and tailoring your leadership approach suitably. Hersey and Blanchard (1969) describe four components to their model: directing, coaching, supporting and delegating. Directing and coaching describe directive components of the model, whereas supporting and delegating make up the supportive components. In directing, the leader will closely define roles and expectations of the follower and monitor them closely. In coaching, the leader will still be responsible for defining goals and tasks but will seek input from the followers. This allows for greater communication between the leader and follower. Supporting allows the leader to take a more facilitative role, leaving day-to-day decisions to the follower but monitoring progress and providing inputs. In delegating the leader still remains involved in decision-making and problem solving but their degree of involvement is up to the discretion of the follower. As situational leadership depends, in a large part, on the types of people you are leading, the model continues to describe four developmental levels of the follower: low competence-low commitment, some competence-low commitment, high competence-variable commitment, and high competence-high commitment. These developmental levels are also situation based, such that someone who may be very highly competent and committed may be much less so in a new environment or with a novel task. While the situational leadership model does have four leadership components, usually a single component most closely matches one's personal beliefs and style and will be the one practiced most frequently. My personality and values fit in with the supporting component of a situational leadership model, and I would feel most comfortable in functioning as a leader in this capacity. This type of leadership style sees followers more as participants in the process with some amount of control, rather than passively complying with what is occurring, as the term follower implies.
The strengths of a situational model of leadership are that it can be adapted based on the needs of the situation, including the tasks at hand and the attitudes and behaviour of the followers. The directive aspects of the model are best used when new and unexpected challenges arise, or when you are leading people whose skills and traits you are not familiar with. If the team is comfortable with this type of leadership it can be quite efficient in dealing with problems. The supportive aspects of a situational leadership model empower each member of the group to make their own decisions and work as a team to determine solutions. When people become a part of the decision-making process they are more committed to action. This approach can foster a team environment and healthy working relationships, as everyone is made to feel a valuable part of the team. This leadership style allows the leader to challenge people and give them room to explore their abilities, as well as recognizing skills of the team and allowing these team members to utilize these skills. This leadership style also makes room for collaboration amongst the members of the team or group, which in turn leads to a healthier work environment.
The weaknesses of a situational leadership style are that this approach requires careful analysis of both the situation and the team members that you are working with. If the leaders are not competent in evaluating the situation, or their team member's level of skills or motivation, then there may be a mismatch between the situation and the style leadership adopted. This will lead to ineffective and inefficient leadership and will compromise the goals of the leader and team. In addition, the supportive component of the situational model requires a high level of trust between the leader and the followers or team members. The person in a leadership position must be confident in the skills of their team, which may be difficult if working in a new setting or situation. If they then resort to a directive style of leadership, this may be resented amongst the team, especially if the leader is new and the team has been working together previously. Research has shown that the leadership styles of women and men differ, with women's leadership philosophy being more democratic than men's (Eagly & Johnson, 1990). This may prevent both women and men from fully utilizing all components of the situational model. Women may not be willing to consider directive leadership behaviour, while men may be less comfortable utilizing a supportive leadership style. When working to lead a team of people it will also be difficult to choose just one leadership style to use with the entire team. Due to differing developmental levels of the team members, more than one leadership style will likely often be appropriate. This can create problems in a team environment when the group perceives different members being treated differently (Wright, 2003). The team members may perceive you as unfair, or as demonstrating favoritism amongst the team (Wright, 2003). Also, depending on the structure of the organization in which you may be working, there may be rules about how decisions are made or how actions are carried out that forbid some aspects of the situational leadership framework. For example, as a leader you may be comfortable in using a delegatory style of leadership, but the organization may not allow followers to be making decisions and may require that you fill this role, despite the competencies of your team.