The study of leadership is essential to help leaders propel their subordinates towards achieving a common goal. Leadership involves positively influencing and motivating people to take the right direction while leveraging the available tools and resources to help subordinates attain their goals. In the past couple of weeks, I have learned different leadership models, styles, and theories, which have reinforced my knowledge and awareness on how to effectively manage teams. My leadership behaviors positively impact subordinates and motivate them to focus on goal accomplishment based on the recommendations of the path-goal theory to improve motivation, employee satisfaction, and a positive work environment for accomplishment.
Leadership theory that best describes me as a leader
A path-goal approach is the best leadership theory that best describes me as a leader because it motivates subordinates and help them accomplish their designated goals. The path-goal style majorly focuses on the leaders’ behaviors, including how to work while adjusting to adapt to prevailing circumstances and helping them to accomplish tasks on time and attain their long-term goals. As a leader, I used the path-goal approach theory by taking a directive approach to assigning leaders direct assignments that are based on clear instructions on the same task. I also offered the employees a supportive approach to ensure that I invest, nurture, and mentor employees to ensure that they attend to the human side. Thirdly, I used the participative approach to mirror my leadership style and give employees a stake in the organization. Ideally, the participative approach enabled me to share my thoughts and ideas while giving employees adequate time to share and their opinions and arrive at amicable decisions. I also use another fourth strategy by demonstrating the qualities of an achievement-oriented leader by focusing on goal accomplishment, while motivating employees to strive towards achieving their goals. I prefer the last approach because the style pushes people to strive towards attaining excellence. For example, I would set high goals and encourage the workers to feel challenged and urging them to strive towards achieving those goals.
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I understand that the various dynamic is a crucial aspect of good leadership; hence, it is essential to merge all the leadership styles to fit the situation and demands of subordinates. I prefer to demonstrate more supportive and participative leadership styles to suit the human side of the arising situations in the organization. A typical example of a supportive leadership is evident when Pat Summit understood her role in understanding her players, and take care of them personally and professionally. Pat Summit realized the need to leverage information and skills to make everyone better. Indeed, Pat influenced employees positively and encouraged them to attain their goals and pursue excellence no matter the cost. I learned that a great leader must be tough and brutal because they focus on driving vision, protecting the team, boosting morale, and preserve the company’s culture despite the storms. A leader motivates employees to strive towards achieving their goals, while focusing on the path-goal theory to become successful. Therefore, the leadership approach improves performance and satisfaction because subordinates feel motivated (Northouse, 2013). From Pat’s experiences, the path-goal leadership approach can motivate team members to become all-time champions. In real life, every leader I met always embodied the same techniques to motivate me to aim higher towards excellence. Precisely, a path-goal approach of leadership style is essential in motivating team members and encouraging them to embrace SMART goals.
My most distinguishing leadership traits and the traits I strive to learn to develop
My most distinguishing leadership traits include determination, integrity, and sociability, motivate me to desiring to be successful. Through determination, I am always motivated to continue pushing hard despite the challenges I encounter in dealing with people. Nonetheless, I strive to do “good” wherever I am and at any time. Being sociable involves pleasant interaction and relating with people from diverse backgrounds, and meeting their needs and concerns regardless of their conditions. Recognizable leaders, such as Pat Summit, demonstrate these leadership qualities because her determination, integrity, and social skills have won her five NCAA titles. Pat is a “confidante and substitute mother”, “teacher”, and “coach”. Confident leaders usually replace ego with empathy that improves their authenticity and transparency (Myatt, 2020). She constantly advocates for youths and is at the forefront of leveraging her skills to ensure peak performance. I usually leverage the three leadership traits to take teams to victory continually. However, it all depends on good behavior to help subordinates struggle to achieve their goals and accomplishments. However, the successful management of a team to victory requires demonstrating three specific behaviors, including image management, relationship development, and resource utilization (Haycock, 2010). Ideally, the three behaviors support efforts geared towards leadership success since they focus primarily on projecting a good image that conforms to subordinate expectations. Also, they are consistent with the capability to motivate team members, and interact with various people from diverse cultural backgrounds; hence, bringing ideas and solutions together to make goal attainment a success. Notably, leaders who utilize their skills and social ability to accomplish their goals using the resources available are always successful. They are truly effective leaders characterized by determination, sociable, and practice integrity.
I want to develop a skills approach to leadership style. Using the skills approach, I will use a three-skill approach to leadership, including technical, human, and conceptual skills. For example, I prefer utilizing my technical skills to resolve technical queries, especially those asked by the team members in my organization. Again, I will strive to lead by example by guiding them through any technical aspects of every project we undertake within the organization to ensure that they produce topnotch and effective designs and solutions. However, I may change my approach, especially when dealing with different people. For instance, one team may require motivation to perform their duties and conduct their responsibilities, and this implies that they may need guidance and support. Therefore, team members may require a very strict approach, like the path-goal leadership theory. I will use SMART goals to guide team members that require more authoritarian approaches by adopting person-to-person leadership style coupled with conceptual skills to make effective decisions during meetings. Therefore, I believe that I will gather their views, opinions, and ideas regarding the project. I will need to work on accountability, resilience, and integrity to improve my problem-solving skills, social judgment, and knowledge acquisitions.
The leadership approach I prefer from my leader
I prefer the goal-path leadership approach because it helps leaders motivate subordinates and encourage them to work towards achieving their goals. In the goal-path approach, leaders comprehend the significance of leveraging performance and satisfaction to attain high goals. From my experiences, I scored high in every area, and I can relate it to every individual leader and subordinate in my team. As a follower, I receive commendable support and respect from my leader; hence, he motivates me to adopt new ideas and take suggestions positively and weigh how best they can support efforts towards go. Charismatic leadership approach promotes popularity and enables leaders to gain many supporters who are interested in climbing the corporate ladder and becoming hugely successful. The leadership approach ensures that senior leaders continually motivate and approach their team members with the dignity and respect they deserve and consider opinions from their level to reinforce positive relationships that get employees to excel. Pat Summit exemplified this scenario when she strived to understand her players both personally and professionally while leveraging the information and skills to improve the status of her subjects. The approach encourages leaders to strive towards meeting their goals and develop the desire in pursuit of excellence. Ideally, the path-goal theory is crucial since it enhances performance and satisfaction while focusing on constantly motivating employees (Northouse, 2013). Northouse (2013) concludes that a critical application of the theory motivates team members to aim higher and desire to become champions while pushing themselves towards success.
Leadership model or theory that best describes how I influence others?
Charismatic leadership theory is the model that best describes how I influence team members. I find charismatic leadership the most influential and motivational style because I can motivate members through energy, effective communication, and persuasion to ensure that they meet performance standards and requirements (Colorado Christian University, 2017). Charismatic leadership ensures high optimism and encourages leaders to develop solutions to perplexing situation. Again, I prefer charismatic leadership because it arouses enthusiasm and commitment by ensuring that team members focus on their vision to increase confidence and strive towards achieving better results. Charismatic leaders lead through personal conviction due to their charm and persuasiveness. The commitment to their cause to make the status quo better (Nikoloski, 2015). For example, I can accomplish specific tasks in the organization and challenge the team members to aim higher than me to perform better and deliver more efficient results. I utilize charismatic leadership to positively influence the emotions of my team members by helping them build a strong personality and commendable behavior, self-confidence, and high moral standards. Importantly, charismatic leaders are skilled communicators who relay information effectively to improve the mood, emotions, and trust among employees (Kolzow, 2014). Once they become confident, team members can get rejuvenated to work harder for success. Achieving the leader’s goals. Charismatic leaders have high energy, which boosts their enthusiasm, diversifies their ideas, and makes their actions and communication more expressive (Nikoloski, 2015). Therefore, they can easily transmit these ideas to their subordinates and team members. For example, after successfully delivering a project, I can utilize my charisma to motivate members to demonstrate higher credibility, professionalism, and vision to achieve better results. Charismatic leadership ensures that leaders can direct, support, and demonstrate achievement-oriented behaviors to help team members progress despite the frustrations involved in military training. Notably, “The use of personal power is more effective than positional power because it is based on the leaders’ personality, ability to inspire, and charisma” (Wiggins, 1996, p. 44). In this regard, power inspires open and honest communication that earns leaders deep respect; hence, utilizing this power appropriately can yield extraordinary results. When team members realize the importance of personal power, they can use it to refocus their priorities and goals
Goals I will you set and plan of action I will implement to improve my (1) leadership and (2) motivation
The course has broadened my understanding of the specific management and leadership theories. The course introduced me to various approaches to leadership to shape leaders’ behaviors, including traits, skills, and style. I gained insights into the situational, contingency, and path-goal leadership approaches, which helped me understand the strong relationship between leaders and followers (Northouse, 2013). Ideally, the concepts I gained in class gave me a strong foundation on how to manage leaders and team members effectively. Therefore, the lessons have provided me with insights on how self-assessments of my behaviors can enhance my knowledge and understanding of leadership. I plan to improve my self-esteem and develop a positive thinking by enrolling for continuing courses to attain high leadership and management expectations. I would apply the path-goal theory to improve employee motivation and help team members achieve their goals while improving the team management to help subordinates and peers achieve their goals. This implies that I will acquire leadership skills for balancing my skills and interpersonal goals to utilize resources and information to become effective followers efficiently.
The steps I need to take to complete each of these self-improvement goals
I have a timeline to accomplish the leadership knowledge goals in December 2020. I will strive to complete my current studies in leadership, but I am interested in continuing education. I will apply my experiences and knowledge gained in the course to help me improve my leadership skills. Even after completing my degree course in 2020, I will still push on to hone my leadership skills through social interactions, conducting research, and sharing the knowledge gained to improve my knowledge and delve in formal leadership position.
Path-goal theory is vital for leaders who want to motivate employees and improve their satisfaction to create a positive work environment for goal achievement. Leaders who positively influence employees are successful because they take advantage of the right leadership models and theories to motivate employees to strive towards achieving success. Adopting the path-goal approach gives leaders a directive and participative approaches that ensure that employees focus on goal achievement. Importantly, leaders should utilize specific traits determination, integrity, and sociability, motivate me to desiring to be successful.
References
Colorado Christian University. (2017). 10 Characteristics of an Effective Manager. https://www.ccu.edu/blogs/cags/2017/06/10-characteristics-of-an-effective-manager/
Kolzow, D. R. (2014). Leading From Within: Building Organizational Leadership Capacity. https://www.iedconline.org/clientuploads/Downloads/edrp/Leading_from_Within.pdf
Myatt, M. (2020). 10 Communication Secrets of Great Leaders. http://deeelliottconsulting.com/system/files/10%20Communication%20Secrets%20of%20Great%20Leaders.pdf
Nikoloski, K. (2015). Charismatic Leadership and Power: Using the Power of Charisma for Better Leadership in the Enterprises. Journal of Process Management – New Technologies, International , 3(2). https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/35342228.pdf
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and practice. (6th ed.).Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
