Leadership In Everest Simulation

628 Words2 Pages

The role of the leader in the Everest simulation was to motivate, instruct, resolve conflict and achieve group goals. I, as the team leader, made the point of differentiating myself from a manager, to someone who was extraverted, energetic and driven, within and outside of the simulation. This involved organising location times and communication between members, drawing up the team contract and building relationships between team members beyond the classroom. During the simulation however I chose to adopt a less prominent role to minimise conflict and maximise satisfaction.

During the initial simulation I implemented a laissez- faire approach to leadership. I adopted this form of behaviour as I was no more skilled or experienced in the Everest simulation than any other team member. Logically, I believed that as all team members had equal ability, all team members should therefore have equal input. Unfortunately, due to the overwhelming presence of freedom, conflict of interests and an abundance of communication barriers due to the poor choice in leadership styles, an environment of chaos and anarchy was created. In effect, the group failed the task. On a positive note, this form of leadership saw the group bond together and the level of satisfaction was high. Furthermore, the level of pressure for team members to perform under this form of management was minimal; hence the lack of success achieved was minute.

During the second attempt, I chose to adopt a democratic style of leadership. Once again, I was no more informed than any other member of the group concerning the correct performance of the task; hence I chose not to make autocratic decisions. I did however note the need for structure in any given task. Therefore, the...

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...rmine a successful outcome. Hence, a laissez- faire approach to leadership was successful in small groups. Overall, the democratic approach, like the laissez- faire approach, was enjoyable and good for conflict resolution, however using this approach we also achieved a solid team score.

In hindsight, I believe a more autocratic approach to leadership should have been employed in order to improve the team score and to minimise time wastage. An article by Judge, Piccolo and Ilies (2004) suggested an initiating structure of leadership is highly correlated to objective outcomes including “leader job performance and group – organisation performance” (Judge, Piccolo and Ilies 2004 pp36). If I, as leader, were more informed concerning the task at hand, this form of leadership would have been more efficient, in order to avoid the interminable decision making process.

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