1. Introduction
The Sandwich Factory was set up by Kirsty Flower in 2005 to provide foods and services to office in the Canary Wharf and City of London areas. Concerning the leadership style of Kirsty Flower, The Sandwich was become into the sights of London based national catering company already. ‘’ Leadership is the activity of influencing people to strive willingly for group objectives’’ (Vaishali and Kumar, 2001). According to Kistey’s leadership, it is need to understanding the leadership style of Kirsty’s, based on the leadership theories and the approaches. Lots of the modern leadership theories and approaches will be useful for discuss the Kirsty’s leadership, such as Path-goal theory and Leader member exchange theory (LMX). Both of them have
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It was specifying the best of the leadership style fit to the team of employee and work environment in order to achieve the organizational goal (House and Mitchell, 1974).
The goal is to increase the empowerment, motivation and make the goal look attractive to achieve the goals. Therefore, the Path-Goal Theory can seen as a process to the leader select the specific behaviors that are most suitable to their employees’ need and wants, in order to have the best guide through their path to achieve the goals (Northouse, 2013). There are three basic steps include in Path-Goal Theory, the first one is to determine the employee and environment characteristic. Second, to select a leadership style. The third is need to focuses on the motivational factors, in order to help the employee succeed. An example of this style is ‘’ I have a vision and I try to make it clear to staff that we are in together, all going the same way towards one goal’’ (Case Study: 2). Kirsty is aiming to let everyone understand and know this statement that there is a path and target to everyone they are in together as a team not individual or
...-goal theory focuses on the personal characteristics of the follower in addition to factors in the environment that are outside the control of the follower. Environmental factors determine the type of leader behavior required and personal characteristics of the follower determine how the environment and leader behavior are interpreted. Both theories acknowledge the importance of followers and effectively compensating for their ability and motivational limitations. There is never just one way to succeed as an effective leader. It is a continual process of assessing and reevaluating the team and environment while adjusting the leadership style and behavior to maximize the performance and satisfaction of the team.
Path-goal approach to leadership by House (1971) mentions that the roles of a leader involve primarily increasing individual rewards of followers to gain goal fulfillment and make the path to rewards seamless by clarifying, removing roadblocks and increasing followers opportunities for satisfaction (Dessler & Valenzi, 1977). The theory, which primarily feeds off motivation, has conquered as an acceptably rational explanation for an individual decision-making process. The days when organizations were able to function and prosper based on their product, service, or structural innovations are no longer sufficient to keep them afloat. Nowadays, companies are required to pay extra attention to the leadership process that makes things happen.
A leader can be defined as a person who influences a group of people, organization, etc. in to achieving a set out or common goal. The aim of this paper is to identify the different approaches to leadership, but there is no single definition of leadership, as it can mean many different things to many people depending of their profession, environment and leadership style (Mielach, 2012).
Everyone has a different definition of what makes someone a leader. My definition is not a statement of requirements, but more so a list of characteristics. I believe it takes a strong, independent, dependable, open-minded, thoughtful, selfless, smart and creative, someone who can work well with others, able to work under pressure, respectful, and experienced individual to be a leader. I believe it is someone who knows who they are and know their morals, someone who has already found who they are in life and accepts who they are, making what I believe the most important characteristic is, is someone who knows and sticks with their personal values. If someone cannot respect values and stick to their word, then how can they be a leader of others? A leader takes a lot of work, but if you are good at it, it may seem like nothing. Some people are leaders and do not even know it, like role models. When little kids look up to certain people that have impacted their lives in a way, they will see those people as role models. Truth is, leaders are everywhere and not everyone knows or can see that. It's not always the person who stands out for taking control or being bossy, but the one with the characteristics and high values that do the right things, even when no one is watching.
Leadership at times can be a complex topic to delve into and may appear to be a simple and graspable concept for a certain few. Leadership skills are not simply acquired through position, seniority, pay scale, or the amount of titles an individual holds but is a characteristic acquired or is an innate trait for the fortunate few who possess it. Leadership can be misconstrued with management; a manager “manages” the daily operations of a company’s work while a leader envisions, influences, and empowers the individuals around them.
The theory of goal setting was developed by Edward Locke and Gary Latham (1990) and states that there is a direct relationship between the setting of specific high goals and task performance. A higher degree of employee performance is obtained when specific goals are set compared to the performance achieved when employees are simply told to do their best (Latham & Locke, 2007). These findings have helped shape leadership styles and improve employee performance and job satisfaction (Posthuma & Al-Riyami, 2012).
Path-Goal is another form of leadership development approach. It is about how leaders motivate their subjects to see them accomplish the given objective. According to this school of thought, an active leader should have the ability to drive their followers, as well as removing the possible obstacles towards the given goal (Baker, 2013).
Leadership is necessary for a group to accomplish goals. Leadership according to Lamberton and Minor (2014), is the ability to impact people to attain a goal. A leader according to Gaiter (2013), sets direction and influences others to accomplish goals and directs cohesiveness. A leaders’ goal is not just the success of the team but, also the success of individuals on the team, a leader must motivate, inspire and empower others for success (Gaiter, 2013). To accomplish these goals a leader will utilize a leadership style.
Presently, most organizations emphasize extremely about leadership in organizations. Leadership means that ability, capability, and skills of leader to guide members of organizations to success or achieve objectives and destination. Leadership studies are interesting in several organizations. According to Walters (2009), “Leadership has been an intriguing and important part of human interactions for as long as people have lived and worked together in groups” (P.1). Some organizations have studied about leadership for long times to know what elements and significant factors of leadership is. Those elements will help leaders to have ability, capability, and skills to suggest members of organizations or being leaders efficiently.
According to Maurice Flanagan, “Some are born leaders, some achieve leadership and some have leadership thrust upon them, which of these are you, or would you rather not bother?“
To become a truly effective leader, one must encapsulate the various behaviors related to the aforementioned course learnings in his/her persona and demonstrate such behaviors daily. This course has allowed me to identify four behaviors that all leaders must portray to be effective. The first of which is that a leader must be inspirational. To do so, a leader must set the appropriate vision and direction for the organization and provide a path to achieving defined goals. Additionally, a leader must induce the proper levels of motivation so that each employee has sufficient incentive to work towards the organization’s goals. As discussed in the class, motivation can be accomplished by factors such as rewarding hard work and providing the correct opportunities to employees. While these are motivating in that employees desire to be fairly compensated and to be doing work they deem valuable, inspiration comes more from organizational culture. A leader will be inspirational by setting a tone that appreciates each employee’s contribution, no matter how small in scale it is. Further, employees are inspired when they work collaboratively in a group setting and can capitalize on individual strengths to drive organizational goals.
The basic premises of the goal-setting theory is the relationship between how difficult and specific a goal is and people’s performance. We live in a goal-oriented society as people usually adhere to specific targets with a plan of action for guidance. Lack of accomplishment of goals leads to job dissatisfaction. Locke’s Goal-Setting Theory from 1968 has been a powerful way of motivating people and is often utilized in whole organizations to increase focus and productivity. The more specific and difficult goals are designed the more likely staff can achieve these goals as opposed to being too vague or easy goals. An organization should consider the five following principles of goal setting: clarity, goal difficulty, goal acceptance, goal specificity and feedback. Organizations that set clear and challenging goals and are open to honest feedback have a greater chance of achieving goals. According to Locke and Latham (2002), goal setting can be useful in predicting job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is an important attribute for employee productivity and commitment to the
Many theories have been introduced to shape the leadership approach. As in today’s world, it is important for one to have the most resourceful skill when it comes to leadership. It is being fulfilled by incorporating proper leadership approach. To fulfill the social needs path-goal is useful for a leader than any other theories to be successful. This theory is based on emphasizing a leader 's technique or actions that fit the employee and work atmosphere in order to achieve a goal within an organization. For leaders in an organization, it is crucial to motivating the subordinates to achieve a goal. This theory specifically sheds a light on why it is beneficial for leaders to utilize path-goal model over other theories. On the contrary, the
Rigorous research has identify the leadership style can adapt to different situation. Most company may be subjected to specific environment and rely on how the leader chooses to handle it. The culture is most time embedded and has the combination of founders, past leaders, current leaders, and history (Newstorm, Davis, 1993). The leadership style must adapt to the organization culture, the fact a leader may often times adopt because leadership is not “one size fit all” every situation may require a different approach as this will show how effectively the leader leads. The researcher chooses to look into the leadership that will be evaluated.
In this paper I will look at the four major leadership styles, their characteristics, advantages, disadvantages, and in what situations a particular leadership style is desired. Additionally, I will look at my leadership style and how I acquired this style throughout my career.