To
be good leader and manager there are a number of traits that are needed in
order to be truly effective. These are listed in the text as a specific set of
traits relating to leadership effectiveness. Each of these traits are often
seen in leaders due to the typical environment and responsibility they hold.
Depending on the leader a person may have one or all of these traits. For
myself I feel that I have to some degree all of these traits but realize that I
need to continually work on each of them.
High
energy level and stress tolerance is a trait that is needed for leaders and
managers. Managers are required to carry
a lot of responsibility while being willing to work longer hours and until the
job is done. For low energy people with low stress tolerance levels this may be
impossible for them. I’ve realized in my
own life that as I prepare for the next day and make sure I have people I can
count on to help me out the more my stress levels go down. While stress
tolerance is very important it’s also important for a leader to be trained and
have a good understanding of how to deal with stress. Often times exercise,
healthy eating and positive thinking can help to bring stress levels down. I
have found that in my role I have at the moment it can be very stressful and
fast paced. I am able to use my energy and interpersonal skills to help those
around me deal with stress in an effective manner. It can be difficult but I
have found that if I prepare for the next day and week I rarely find myself surprised
or thrown off by anything. Even when things come up out of the blue I have
enough control over my day to be able to handle the new things that are thrown
my way.
Self-confidence
is also important for a leader to have. To be effective and have the desire to
go after difficult objectives and goals a leader needs to know they can achieve
these things even if they are not sure how to go about it. Yukl states in the
text, “Leaders with self-confidence are likely to be more decisive in a crisis
where success often depends on the perception by subordinates that the leader
has the knowledge and courage necessary to deal with the crisis effectively” (Yukl, 2013, p. 140) . Self-esteem is
clearly an advantage when it comes to leadership, however, it can become
excessive and can cause a leader to make poor decisions that are too risky. I
have had to learn to build my own self-esteem over time and often struggle with
the notion that I do not always know what I am doing. I have to use positive
thoughts and reinforcement to force myself to get over this and remind myself
that with hard work I can be a good leader.
An
internal locus of control is another important managerial trait. A person with
a strong internal locus of control “believes that events lives are determined
more by their own action than by chance or uncontrollable forces” (Yukl,
2013, p. 140) .
This helps these people to be more future oriented, having a desire to be in control
of what happens to them. This is something I have had to work on throughout my
own life. It is easy to blame things that go wrong on other people or
circumstances. In elementary school it was easy to blame bad grades or not finishing
my homework on the teacher. As I grew up I learned that no matter who I blamed
it was always up to me to fix it. Being able to take control of my own life and
what happens in it is a key aspect of learning to lead and manage people.
A
leader needs to have emotional stability and maturity. Leaders deal with a lot of stress on a daily
basis. This stress comes from both the work place and the lives of their
subordinates. If a leader finds themselves to be emotionally falling apart it
can make it difficult to lead others. This isn’t to say however, that a leader
can’t use examples of when they have struggled in life to help others that come
to them. I myself have been able to use things I’ve gone through to help others
make it through difficult situations they are in. When people come to me as a
leader I need to be in a place emotionally that enables me to be able to help
them. I have had people come to me with terminally ill spouses, questions about
school and how to get in shape or family problems or just to talk because they
are too stressed with the daily frustrations of life. If I find myself to be in
a tough place emotionally I need to find a way to come to terms with what is
going on in my own life so I can be available to help others.
Part
of being a leader is having power over others to some degree. This power can be
motivation to help or hinder those around us. Yukl states that “someone with a
high need for power enjoys influencing people and events and is more likely to
seek positions of authority” (Yukl, 2013, p. 142) This can manifest
itself in a positive or detrimental way. Leaders with a personalized power
orientation will use this power to aggrandize themselves to satisfy their own
desires rather than to help others.
Motivation for being a leader is an important part of leading. If a
person’s motivation is not in the right place it can lead to a manager being
ineffective. A leader with socialized power orientation is willing to exercise
that power in order to benefit others. This makes it a much more beneficial
orientation. They build up subordinates and make them stronger and more
effective while creating pride in each person and the unit as a whole. If a
leader’s motivation is to help and build people up they will be much more
effective. I have found within my own experiences that days where I can go home
and know that I have helped someone I am much happier and much more excited
about going back to work the next day. Power is not about making myself to be a
bigger and cooler person. Power is about bringing good into the world. The
power we have the more good we should bring. From a leadership perspective if
we can help others to become better, more efficient workers with high
self-esteem and strong emotional-intelligence than we can be assured that we
are successful. If our goals are contrary to these we may to step back and
reexamine our intentions. I believe we can accomplish the goals of whatever
organization we are with while taking care of the people from the organization.
A
well-established understanding of contingency theories and variables can help
us to see more clearly how we can be more effective as leaders. Depending on
the situation and the variables at play our style of leadership may need to
change. Whether the change is a new work environment, new subordinates, new
bosses or a change in company policies these are all variables that effect work
on a daily basis. Even the different personalities of each worker is a variable
that may force the leader or manager to have to change their leadership style.
Depending on who I am dealing with means I have to change my leadership and communication
styles. Some people like a more outspoken person that corrects them on the
spot. Others may need someone that talks to them about how to fix things and
helps them to figure it out for themselves. Some people need motivation while
others are self-motivated. Each person is different and requires a different
type of leader.
The
path-goal theory suggests that we can help our subordinates clearly see a path
to reach the end goal. It is our job to help them visualize that path and
understand it is possible to reach the goal. If we make the goal seem too hard
to reach it can demotivate. I have used this theory at work on several
occasions. When we have a lot of work to get done I remind my team that if we
can do it right and work together it shouldn’t be a problem. Sometimes the
goals aren’t that difficult to reach, it just happens that the path is laden
with clutter that makes it hard to traverse.
A
theory that I personally struggle with is the Cognitive Resource Theory. This
theory suggests that using two traits (intelligence and experience) is a key
part of leadership and effective accomplishment of goals in the work place. I
am by far the least experience person in my office and am still expected to
lead those people. To a degree I have to trust (but verify) that they are doing
their job in the right way and getting it done the way they should be. Over
time, as I become more proficient in the day to day work this will change as my
expertise grows. Because I am less experience than others I rely heavily on the
expertise of the non-commissioned officer in charge of the office where I work.
We are generally a team. While he is much better on the knowledge side of the
house while I tend to be more personable and outspoken. This combination helps
us to work together as a team and make sure that production in the office is
high.
I
have noticed that over the past few months that moral in the office has been
very low. I suspect that previous leadership in the office had very little
understanding of situational variables. These are variables that can influence
group performance greatly. Some examples of these included in the text are “the
formal reward system and intrinsically motivating properties of the work” (Yukl,
2013, p. 186) .
Due to the repetitive nature of some of the work in the office it can be
difficult to make this as a form of motivation. The formal reward system
however is much more effective. When we accomplish a task with professionalism
or receive high marks during an inspection or exercise it can be beneficial to
use the reward system. Thanks to their efforts during a previous inspection we
will be having an office BBQ followed by early release. There is a two-fold
purpose behind this. The first is to reward for hard work and the second is to
bring office moral up so that work is done more efficiently and the days are
more enjoyable.
Leadership
is by no means a one way road. Many paths can lead to success as a leader. The important
thing is to have a well-rounded understanding of leadership styles and how to
use them. To be a good leader we need to understand how important leadership
traits, motivation and power effect not only leaders but those they lead and
how variables effect leaders and the work environment.
References
Yukl, G. (2013). Leadership in Organizations.
Boston: Pearson.
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