In undertaking any endeavor requiring the collective effort of different individuals, leadership plays a significant role in offering the active direction and holding together the team, enhancing the bond with their followers and within their followers. As such, leadership is crucial for the success of any group/team undertaking, including companies and organizations. However, while leadership is significant, the role of followers, which is often overlooked, cannot be ignored when it comes to evaluating successful organizations and companies. According to Suda (2013), leadership and followership is a supportive bond. While leaders depend on their followers to fulfill their visions for success, followers look to their leaders for direction and moral support. As such, a company's or organization's success is inherently dependent on the sufficient bond or connection between a leader and his/her followers. The essay illustrates this using a construction company set up.
The chosen company is a consortium involving a wide range of professionals in the construction industry, including Architects, Engineers, Quantity surveyors, Construction managers, contractors, and Real Estate. These different professional fields make up various departments within the company. in the event the company contracts a construction project, one member from each department come together to form a project team under the leadership of the project manager. The team's development is due to each department's different roles at different phases of the project. Working together under the guidance of the construction manager is essential for the smooth running and eventual success of the construction projects. A significant problem often experienced when the followers do not adhere to the demands of their leader includes the delays of project completion and non-compliance with legal requirements, which may impact fines and other charges towards the company.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
While different leaders have predetermined leadership styles that they often apply whenever they come in command of certain groups or teams, a majority of leaders also possess the capability and skills of adapting to their conditions and respective followers to whom they work with at any given time. The relationship/bond formed between leaders and their followers effectively impact their behaviors towards one another. Followers can influence their leaders' behavior through an active leader-member exchange. Leader-member exchange includes discussions between leaders and their members either collectively or individually on the various disciplines and dynamics of the team's operations, duties, and objectives. Through effective interaction, leaders not only motivate, guide and influence their followers towards success in line with their visions but also provide an opportunity for the followers to also impact the leaders' behavior and leadership style.
Different leadership styles influence the relationship leaders have with their followers. Leadership styles such as transactional, transformational, democratic, and coaching encourage and enhance adequate and sufficient interaction between followers and their leaders. Others, such as Autocratic, Bureaucratic, and the Laissez-Faire leadership types, are quite rigid and limit interaction between leaders and their followers. Leadership styles that encourage active leader-member exchange enable leaders to significantly motivate and shape the behaviors of their employees, thereby leading to enhanced performance and practical success. Organizations with rigid leadership styles, however, have lesser employees effectively motivated to work. The employees' behaviors are often controlled by rules and stringent guidelines leading to limited performance and the potential of limited margins of success.
Investing in the development of organization culture is a critical activity that a company can involve within training to enhance leadership training and performance measures for all employees. McLaughlin (2018) defines organization culture as a system of shared ideals, values, and beliefs that guide individual behavior and interaction with one another in the workplace. In developing an organization culture, a leader can effectively interact and understand his/her followers much better. This understanding enables them to employ effective leadership and motivation techniques for each impacting their enhanced performance and eventual organization success. In turn, the organization culture outlines the expected behavior at a workplace and performance measures for all employees.
References
McLaughlin, J. (2019). What is Organizational Culture? - Definition & Characteristics . Study.com. Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-organizational-culture-definition-characteristics.html .
Suda, L. (2013). In praise of followers. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2013—North America, New Orleans, LA. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
