Leadership and leadership types
Many studies have shown that the more styles a leader exhibits, the better. Leaders who have mastered four or more — especially the authoritative, demo-cratic, affiliative, and coaching styles — have the very best climate and business performance. And the most effective leaders switch flexibly among the leadership styles as needed. Although that may sound daunting,we witnessed it more often than you might guess, at both large corporations and tiny start-ups, by seasoned veterans who could explain exactly how and why they lead and by entrepreneurs who claim to lead by gut alone. Such leaders don’t mechanically match their style to fit a check list of situations — they are far more fluid. They are exquisitely sensitive to the impact they are having on others and seamlessly adjust their style to get the best results. These are leaders, for example, who can read in the first minutes of conversation that are talented but under performing employee has been demoralized by an unsympathetic, do-it-the-way-I-tell-you manager and needs to be inspired through a reminder of why her work matters. Or that leader might choose to reenergize the employee by asking her about her dreams and aspirations and finding ways to make her job more challenging. Or that initial conversation might signal that the employee needs an ultimatum: improve or leave.
Like parenthood, leadership will never be an exact science. But neither should it be a complete mystery to those who practice it. In recent years, research has helped parents understand the genetic, psychological, and behavioral components that affect their “job performance.”
The business environment is continually changing, and a leader must respond in kind. Hour to hour, day to day, week to week, executives must play their leadership styles like a pro-using the right one at just the right time and in the right measure. The payoff is in the results.
Leadership and leadership types
Management theory deals with various concepts related to management (leadership, administration, organization of work, motivation, etc.), which are also relevant to understanding the problems of management and team leadership as a specific type organization. Some of them - management, leadership, administration - are also used as synonyms, although they have their own content. Let's look briefly at the concepts.
Management means:
o Practice of management; all people managing a production;
o Management and organization of business activities;
o The type of management whose main function is to improve the activity within the organization.
The term "management" is used with the following content:
o Organizing and managing the activity of an institution;
o Way of leadership; Impact on a system (object or process) in order to bring it from one state to another;
o Executive power;
o A purposeful way of influencing a particular system.
According to Jan Fleming, management (team) means:
o Drawing up plans and specifying details;
o Establishing a structure for implementing the plan;
o Track progress towards the plan;
o Receiving the results that others expect.
The term "leadership" is used in the following meanings:
o Leadership activity and status;
o Skill to influence people so that they accomplish certain tasks and goals;
o Main management function and quality of the manager - "all managers must be leaders, but ... leaders are not necessarily managers";
o The socio-psychological phenomenon that refers to the dynamic processes in the small group; a concept characterizing the relationship of dominance and subordination in the group.
In order to effectively achieve the goals of the team, the leader must be a leader - not only because of the position he occupies, but also as a complex feature of personal and professional qualities that help him persuade people to follow him towards the common goals. Leadership is an active part of the manager's work to help each member of the team individually and to all teammates present themselves to the fullest of their abilities and thus to make a unique contribution to the team.
According to John Hunt of the London Business School, the most effective leaders are:
o Competitive people highly motivated to succeed;
o People who take their careers seriously;
o People with a high level of energy - the energy you need to persevere, let yourself be frustrated and struggle to rise in the hierarchy;
o Perspective people - longer term planners;
o Purposeful people - who constantly pursue their goals and those who continually set new goals;
o Politically active people.
Regardless of their life situations, leaders have the following main characteristics:
o Intelligence - above the average level and higher than the subordinates, so that it can solve the problems and discover the regularities in the events of the team's life;
o Initiation - the ability to sense the need for action and to take action, and this requires energy and a reservoir of vital forces;
o Self-confidence - based on good self-esteem - to believe in what he does and to be able to express his / her position peacefully and confidently, without unnecessary emotions;
o "Helicopter qualities" - the ability to rise above the situation (especially in a conflict) and to see it in a wider context, then "down" down and consider the details.
Other qualities that the leader must possess are: enthusiasm, sociability, courage, imagination, vigor, faith in himself and others and, of course, professionalism that guarantees him the power of the specialist and the respect of the team members.
The leader must always remember that he has a relationship with people, not objects. This means that it must have the appropriate qualities:
o Trust people;
o To offer them constructive criticism and to encourage them;
o To be completely fair and firm (not to show his / her doubts);
o To be self-confident;
o Trust in yourself and be determined.
Qualities of the team leader
Many researchers note that an effective manager has many personal qualities such as charm, enthusiasm and others, but the qualities that are more important to his management are: the result of gained experience. According to M. Armstrong, if one wants to be an effective leader, he must:
o Know yourself - to see if it has any of the ten qualities: ability to work with people; ability to gain respect and support for people; determination; enthusiasm; imagination; the ability to convey their enthusiasm and imagination to others; desire for hard work; ability to analyze; integrity; the ability to change the style of management depending on the situation.
o Knowing the situation means that the manager answers the questions related to the task, the team, the individual team members.
o To be able to choose an appropriate management style - depending on the situation, personal managerial skills, the group and the individuals in it.
The quality of the supervisor reflects on the whole organization of work and, in particular, on the outcome. If we take the example of a project team leader, we can summarize the following important features that he / she must possess: organizational and managerial experience; ability to secure and coordinate different resources; communication and processing skills; ability to delegate responsibilities and monitor performance; reliability.
Michael Tomset (USA) also draws attention to another feature of the manager - the methodicity that is important to each team leader.
Team leader roles
For the head of his team to be effective, he should not be just the formal leader - the boss who assigns the tasks and expects the results to be reported to him. He performs many different roles at the same time: a leader supporting, facilitating, motivating, asking questions and answering, clarifying, supporting and encouraging the development and improvement of team members, supervisors, role models.
According to Minzberg, ten roles of the team leader can be distinguished, divided into three major groups:
o Interpersonal roles - related to human relationships:
¬ Representative figure - performs official authority to present the team to other persons, institutions and the public;
¬ Leader - brings together the needs and interests of the team with those of the team members;
¬ Relationship - interacts with team members and people inside and outside the organization;
o Information roles - related to the collection, transmission and dissemination of information:
¬ Observer - monitors the activities of the team members;
¬ Distributor (information) - Receives and provides information about team events and internal (outside team) events related to teamwork;
¬ Speaker - informs on behalf of the team external persons and institutions about the activities of the team;
o Role in decision-making:
¬ Entrepreneur - takes decisions on necessary changes in the team and implements them;
¬ Dealing with sudden problems - takes decisions imposed by unforeseen events related to critical and conflicting situations;
¬ Resource Distributor - takes decisions on the allocation of monetary, material and human resources, schedules and schedules the time and activities related to the implementation of the team task, sanctions the results;
¬ Intermediary (Negotiator) - negotiates with individuals and institutions and, within the framework of the negotiations, makes decisions on the engagement of the team and its resources.
Management styles / leadership styles
The characteristics of the team as a group and the individual characteristics of the members and its manager, as well as the deadline for completing the task, influence the choice of team leadership style. There are many different styles of organization management and staff management: authoritarian, autocratic, work-centered, closed (direct), democratic, centered on people, and so on.
According to Kenneth Blanchard, there is no good and bad management style - everything depends on the task and the situation. He offers four basic styles of team leadership:
o Targeting - the manager gives instructions and closely monitors their performance;
o Training - the supervisor explains the directives, receives and provides ideas, gives guidance;
o Support - the manager shares the decision-making process with the team members and supports them in performing the tasks;
o Delegation - the leader gives responsibility to decision-makers and problem solvers.
The effective team leader does not use just one particular style of leadership.
"Perhaps the biggest mistake anyone can make is to adopt the same style of leadership in changing situations and circumstances." (Jan Fleming)
Useful resources and video links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBqwhYLEJo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49-LbHZSF3U
https://www.projectmanager.com/training/leadership-vs-management
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_84.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddt_IGMMOrI
Literature:
• Concept of management (team leadership)
- Cole, Gerald A. Management theory and practice. Cengage Learning EMEA, 2004.
- Meredith, Jack. "Building operations management theory through case and field research." Journal of operations management 16.4 (1998): 441-454.
- Dean Jr, James W., and David E. Bowen. "Management theory and total quality: improving research and practice through theory development." Academy of management review 19.3 (1994): 392-418.
- Hill, Charles WL, Gareth R. Jones, and Melissa A. Schilling. Strategic management: Theory & cases: An integrated approach. Cengage Learning, 2014.
• What does it mean to be a leader
- Stogdill, Ralph M. Handbook of leadership: A survey of theory and research. Free Press, 1974.
- Hersey, Paul, Kenneth H. Blanchard, and Dewey E. Johnson. Management of organizational behavior. Vol. 9. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice hall, 2007.
- Srivastava, Abhishek, Kathryn M. Bartol, and Edwin A. Locke. "Empowering leadership in management teams: Effects on knowledge sharing, efficacy, and performance." Academy of management journal 49.6 (2006): 1239-1251.
• Leadership as a role
- Vaccaro, Ignacio G., et al. "Management innovation and leadership: The moderating role of organizational size." Journal of management studies 49.1 (2012): 28-51.
- Danielson, Charlotte. "The many faces of leadership." Educational leadership 65.1 (2007): 14-19.
• Qualities of the team leader
- Danielson, Charlotte. "The many faces of leadership." Educational leadership 65.1 (2007): 14-19.
• Team leader roles
- Strauss, Karoline, Mark A. Griffin, and Alannah E. Rafferty. "Proactivity directed toward the team and organization: The role of leadership, commitment and role‐breadth self‐efficacy." British Journal of Management 20.3 (2009): 279-291.
- Avey, James B., Tara S. Wernsing, and Michael E. Palanski. "Exploring the process of ethical leadership: The mediating role of employee voice and psychological ownership." Journal of Business Ethics 107.1 (2012): 21-34.
• Types of leaders and leadership
- Shaw, Marvin E. "A comparison of two types of leadership in various communication nets." The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 50.1 (1955): 127.
- Tichy, Noel, and Marianne Devanna. Transformational leadership. New York: Wiley, 1986.
Nurmi, Raimo. "Teamwork and team leadership." Team performance management: An international Journal 2.1 (1996): 9-13.
Open ended questions:
- The term “management” is used with the following content: _________ and __________ the activity of an institution.
- Regardless of their life situation, leaders must have the following main characteristics: _____; _______; ________; _______.
- The leader must always remember that he has to trust people, to offer them _________ criticism and to ________ them.
- According to Minzberg, ___ roles of the team leader can be distinguished, divided into __ major groups.
- The effective team leader does not use just ________________________ of leadership.