Leadership Approaches And Traits: Analysis And Practical Application

Characteristics of a Successful Leader

This model of leadership reflects on specific characteristics of a leader that makes him or her a successful leader. These are the consistent characteristics found in a leader that are responsible for their act of leadership.  Some of the traits that were identified are leadership motivation, achievement drive, self-confidence, honesty and integrity, business knowledge, cognitive ability, emotional maturity, flexibility, creativity, and charisma and many more (Brenner, 2015).

Among these traits, three major traits that I feel I possess are leadership motivation, achievement drive, and business knowledge. These traits were observed from the last project, where I was leading and I was effectively able to motivate my team members when they were lacking with the confidence and were demotivated to perform in the team. Moreover, I was able to apply my business knowledge to the project which results in successful project implementation. Moreover, from my marketing project experience, it was observed that I am very goal oriented personality and achieving the higher aspect is always on my mind, as the drive for achievement kept me motivated to complete the project, even after many difficulties faced (Cherry, 2018).

In my opinion, one of the traits that I possess is empathy, which was not specific in the list of traits in the theory, but I believe can be helpful for being an effective leader. I feel the pain or problem of my team member and help them accordingly, which makes them more loyal towards the team and their leader and motivated to provide a more effective result (Bird & Mendenhall, 2016).

After self-analyzing, I feel that I would be an effective leader, as the traits that I carry are very helpful and effective, like it is important to be self-confident before helping other to accomplish any task, and things are done from others. Motivational trait plays an important role while making the team perform better in any circumstances. Moreover, knowledge is very important in order to apply that successfully in the team. Moreover, the achievement drive, makes a person urge to accomplish another task to achieve what is the next step for success, this creates self-motivation to complete the task (Carton, 2014).

Situational leadership – within an organization, the situation are changing rapidly, and a leader has to lead to different followers and in different situations. According to situational leadership, the leader is changing their leadership style according to the change in the situation. This is an effective leadership style, especially if one is working in a dynamic environment or leading more than one team (Dolan & Kawamura, 2015).

Three Major Leadership Styles

Transformational leadership – this style of leadership is focusing towards change, according to this the need for change are identified by an individual, they believe in encouraging one another in the team to implement change for the better. Moreover, this includes the leader to create a vision to provide clear direction to the team to implement change and motivating people to accomplish change effectively (Li, 2018).

According to this leadership style, the leader is not willing to rules other but is willing to serve. This includes sharing the power with others, understanding people and their needs, and putting others before oneself. This is effective, where the major goal is customer satisfaction for the organization than to lead the market. They possess a natural feeling to help others and serve other first.  Some of the political leaders can be one of the examples, who are willing to serve to their nation, as they are more of servant first than the leader first.

Among the above three leadership, the situational leadership would be better than other two leadership style, the reason being that other two styles are specific, which would be suitable in major change management in case of transformational leadership. However, situational leadership is considering the dynamicity of the environment, which is more practically possible, as the leadership style must be changing according to the current situation that the leader has to face with the followers. This is most suitable in an organization, for example, a CEO has to apply leadership style differently with different teams or stakeholders. In addition, as the environment change, it may have to change the leadership style in the working environment. Therefore, in my opinion, situational leadership is better (Dustershoff & MacGregor, 2014)

A leader can use power and influence in a harmful way or in a positive way. For instance, the leaders that have used the power in a positive way could be Brian Krzanich, Intel’s CEO. He was able to apply a good leadership in the company and has been responsible for the up gradation, and success of the company.

However, the example of leadership power use in a harmful way from 2015 would be Dan Price, who was a co-founder of gravity payments. He raised the minimum wage of the staff’s to $70,000. This was taken as pay cut to 70K to 1 million dollars which shows disparity among staff apply and CEO.  The trouble for fermenting for price, for this his business partner and his brother decided to sue him.  The reason for this move could be the Price’s Heroic leadership, which turned out  to be harmful for him and company (fastcompany, 2019)

Using Power and Influence Effectively

The first scenario – in this scenario, one of the leadership style that would be helpful while considering the Hershey Blanchard model, is the selling leadership. Among the four major leadership style from this model, the most suitable is selling, the reason being there is the need to encourage and motivate the employees. According to this leadership style, it is helpful in creating competence for the followers and more time is spent to develop trust and offer clear instruction to the employees. Moreover, in general, the praises are used to encourage positive result and caret self-confidence among the employees (Caillier, 2014)  

The second scenario – from the scenario, while implementing the path-goal theory of leadership, it can be said that the person was demotivated towards the work, and needs the motivation to back in her form, which are the charters she actually possesses to be promoted. The most suitable leadership style in this scenario would be achievement oriented leadership style. The reason being she was not able to perform well and was unable to focus, which can get into the line with some clear objectives to be accomplished, providing her some interesting work in the job and motivating her to accomplish or achieve the goals (creativechange, 2018).

The third scenario – according to the path-goal model of leadership, the most suitable leadership style would be supportive leadership style. The reason being the current characteristics of the environment are creating dissatisfaction among the employees that can be resolved by the leader through a friendly relationship with the followers and showing concern for them, and the employees would be able to understand their leader as the more friendly approach is considered. Moreover, the leader can remove the obstacle, or get a solution to the employee’s problem, to get them motivated (D’Innocenzo, 2016).

The fourth scenario – for this scenario the most approachable leadership style would be the participating style of leadership among the four leadership style according to Hershey Blanchard model. The reason being the employees may feel like their point of view are not considered in the organization, and something is going wrong which may lead to dissatisfaction among the employees. If the participating leadership is applied, they would be held responsible for their decision, and point of view of each team member will be given due importance (Edelman, 2017).

The fifth scenario – according to the path-goal model of leadership, the most suitable leadership approach that can follow is a directive leadership style. The need for direction is very important in this case. The reason being the major issue is the lack of direction, which is the major cause of low productivity. It is important for the leader to explain what people are expected to perform in order to motivate them and increase their productivity (Frich, Cherlin, & Bradley, 2015) 

Application of Leadership Approaches in Different Scenarios

Before this leadership insight from the assignment, I was not sure if the leadership style is relevant to study or not, or it may impact the work environment and productivity of the followers.

As I started learning from the leadership theories, model and styles of leadership, I understand the relevance of the leadership style that the person possesses and major characteristics of the leaders that can be useful in success journey or accomplishment of a leader (Hill N. , 2016).

After learning from the leadership, there were major learning from the knowledge gained. Among the learned leadership style, the leadership style I would like to incorporate in myself to be an effective leader in future is the situational leadership style, according to which a person has to adopt the leadership style as per the scenario and level of followers to be effective in a dynamic environment of the organization. The core values that could be important for me is the leaders are self-confidence of leader, motivating skills of the leaders, providing a clearer direction to the followers (Hill C. , 2015).

• Leadership traits – from the experience I was able to know the major traits that can be used and what traits must not be used in order to be successful leaders in the future. This was learned from the trait theory of leadership. Among which I would like to adopt self-confidence and self-motivation in the future to be an effective leader (Hill N. , 2016)
• Understanding environment and employees characteristic – this was the major learning that is understanding the dynamicity of the environment and the understanding the employees or the followers, in order to understand the major issue that has been faced by oneself or the followers and then adapt to the leadership style, which is most suitable and would be helpful in effective lead the team and improve the team performance(Jacobsen, 2015)

• I would be able to use different leadership style, while understanding what the need to adapt the style, in different situations. This could lead me to lead my next project team more effectively(Koryak, 2015)
• Moreover, I would be able to keep my team or followers motivated, and this learning would be helpful in managing another team and keep them motivated to perform better. This will be helpful in accomplishing the project on time and with high productivity through more creative use of leadership skills and enhance the leadership competence  (leadershipcenter, 2018)

References

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Dolan, S., & Kawamura, K. (2015). Cross cultural competence: A field guide for developing global leaders and managers. Emerald Group Publishing.

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