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Individual Essay:
“Leaders cannot change their style. Discuss.”
Introduction
Leader is defined as a person that leads a person or a group of people. In Great Man theory, some individuals are born or by force of personality reach positions of influence so that they can dominate the directions of others (Buchanan et al, 1997). Those leaders are born to have the ability to take up the leadership positions in any situations. Leadership styles are behaviors displayed by a leader when they encounter both followers and change (Mclaurin & Amri, 2008).
Nowadays, organizational change has a serious implication for the survival of an organization (Furst & Cable, 2008). Change is critical, necessary, and has becomes a key factor to win the game.
It is often argued that change is difficult for most people, and people are resistant to change because it is so deeply entrenched in humans’ brains (Kotter & Cohen, 2002). In Contingency Theory, Fiedler argued that leadership style is fixed and cannot be changed as leaders’ behaviors only fit to a particular situation, which is linked to their own personality traits.
On the other hand, leaders are classified to be agents of change. A change agent is one who actually causes the change to begin in a person and may be the change leader (Zaleznik, 2004). Effective leaders understand have skills to manage the change process. Path-Goal Theory and Situational Theories (Hersey-Blanchard) support leaders can change upon the change in situations.
In this essay, agreements and disagreements to “Leaders cannot change their style” will be deeply looked at and different models will be discussed in details as follow.
Discussion
Organizational change is becoming increasingly i...
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...ange facilitator style, Regent University.
Kotter J. P. and Cohen D. S. (2002). The Heart of Change: Real-life Stories of how People Change Their Organization. Harvard Business Press.
McLaurin, J., & Amri Al ,B. M. (2008). Developing an understanding of charismatic and transformational leadership. Academy of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict. Proceedings. Cullowhee. 13(2), 15-19.
Miller, R. L., Butler, J., & Cosentino, C. J. (2004). Followership effectiveness: An extension of fiedler's contingency model.Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 25(4), 362-368
Phillips, A., & Phillips, C. (2004). BEHAVIORAL STYLES OF PATH-GOAL THEORY: AN EXERCISE. Allied Academies International Conference.Academy of Educational Leadership.Proceedings, 9(1), 95.
Smith, Kevin. (2013). Hersey-Blanchard Leadership Model. Law & Order. 61(7), 61-62.
A solid theoretical foundation is required to lead and manage change. For efficient and effective change to take place it must be intentional. Leadership set the tone and the direction of an organization allowing it or hindering it to change and adapt. Leader can use tactics and skills to create an organic change environment with the right change models and interventions when the organization is most ready for change.
Spector, B. (2013). Implementing organizational change: theory into practice. (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ
In today’s ever changing world people must adapt to change. If an organization wants to be successful or remain successful they must embrace change. This book helps us identify why people succeed and or fail at large scale change. A lot of companies have a problem with integrating change, The Heart of Change, outlines ways a company can integrate change. The text book Ivanceich’s Organizational Behavior and Kotter and Cohen’s The Heart of Change outlines how change can be a good thing within an organization. The Heart of Change introduces its readers to eight steps the authors feel are important in introducing a large scale organizational change. Today’s organizations have to deal with leadership change, change in the economy,
What is a leader? A leader is someone who takes command and leads an organization or group to success. Anyone can be a leader but in order to become a great leader you have to have to possess certain characteristics. I will be using Odysseus from the Odyssey isas an example of a leader who has suitable characteristics. You also have to know what harmful characteristics a leader may possess to determine if they are good leaders or not.
Graetz, F., & Smith, A. C. T. (June 2010). Managing organizational change: A philosophies of change approach. Journal of Change Management 10(2), 135–154.
The second theory is the “Leadership Behavior Theory.” This theory focuses directly on leadership actions rather than qualities. “Behavioral leadership theories assume that there are distinctive actions that effective leaders take” (Manning and Curtis, p.19, 2012). This theory is special since it involved researchers monitoring the behavior and actions of specified leaders. Researchers would assess a leader’s responses, consequences, rewards and patterns to determine how effective their leadership style was on individuals.
Fiedler’ model is considered the first highly visible theory to present the contingency approach. It stated that effective groups depend on a proper match between a leader’s style of interacting with subordinates and the degree to which the situation gives control and influence to the leader (Fiedler, 1967). Fiedler argued that the leadership style could be indentified by taking a Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) questionnaire he designed. When evaluating a least enjoyed co-worker, a relationship oriented leader scores high in LPC, while a task oriented leader scores low. Fiedler identified three contingency or situational dimensions: leader-member relations, task structure, and position power. A leader will have more control if he has better leader-member relations, high structured job, and stronger position power. The task-oriented leaders perform best in situations of high and low control, while relationship-oriented leaders perform best in moderate control situations. Feedler views an individual’s leadership style as fixed. To assure leader effectiveness, either situation needs to change to fit the leader or the leader needs to be replaced to fit the situation. But in reality, a leader can not use a homogeneous style to treat all their followers in a similar fashion in their work unit (Robbins & Judge, 2011, p. 382).
Yukl, G. (1999). An evaluation of conceptual weaknesses in transformational and charismatic leadership theories. The Leadership Quarterly, 10(2), 285-305.
For example, under this theory the leader would employ High Directive/High Support leadership behaviors to the Disillusioned Learner. Ideally, the leader helps the followers as they progress through the stages to achieve the Self-Reliant Achiever/Delegating level. While I do not necessarily fully subscribe to the theory, it does seem to have merit and I do believe that it is important for an effective leader to have the capability and flexibility to adapt his or her style to the needs of the followers in order to encourage everyone’s success. I also believe that an effective leader plays a significant role in promoting and molding individuals’ readiness as it relates to motivation and commitment. As such, I developed my leadership assessment with these points in mind. The assessment focuses on 14 attributes that I believe are important not only for a leader to be successful within the parameters of the SLT, but...
A leader is described as a person who guides others and has authority and influence over others. They work to influence others into meeting certain goals. There is no right or wrong definition of a leader and there is no recipe that ensures effective leadership. Successful leaders have a good balance of vision, influence, and power. Leaders gain their authority from their ability to influence others to get the work done; because of this, anyone has the potential to be a leader. (Finkelman. 2012, p15)
Change is a fundamental element of individuals, groups and all sorts of organizations. As it is the case for individuals, groups and societies, where change is a continuous process, composed of an indefinite amount of smaller sub-changes that vary in effect and length, and is affected by all sorts of aspects and events, many of which cyclic are anticipated ones. It is also the case for organizations, where change occurs repeatedly during the life cycle of organizations. Yet change in organizations is not as anticipated nor as predictable, with unexpected internal and external variables and political forces that can further complicate the management of change (Andriopoulos, C. and P. Dawson, 2009), which is by itself, the focus of many scholars in their pursuit to shed light on and facilitate the change process (Kotter 1996; Levin 1947; et al).
Fiedler’s theory is a trait-based, leader-match theory, meaning that leader selection depends on that person’s compatibility to the situation (Kelly 200). The Vertical Dyad Linkage Theory model is based on the belief that “leaders and followers mutually influence each other’s behavior, and focuses on the dynamic interchange between leader and follower dyads” (Kelly 202). The Vroom-Yetton Contingency Theory is a behavior theory that mainly focuses on improving the effectiveness of leaders by encouraging their examination of situational characteristics (Kelly
Fiedler’s contingency theory “assumes leaders are either task oriented or relationship oriented” and those who are task oriented are concerned with “accomplishing tasks and getting work done” (Nelson and Quick, 2015). These task-oriented leaders, those concerned with work rather than relationships, appeal to followers who want the most basic of the three needs, something to do. This need is met when the leader focuses on the task at
Leadership is the ability of a person to influence others thoughts, actions and decisions. This influence is exerted by a leader over his followers through his personality, actions and interactions. This is why, leaders are persons with a charismatic personality, owners of effective communication ability and a trend setter in what they do.
One of the first scholars to describe the process of organizational change was Lewin (1974). He described change as a three-stage process that consists of unfreezing, moving and freezing stage. During the unfreezing stage the organizations become motivated to change by some event or objective. The moving stage is like implementation when the organization actually makes the necessary change. Furthermore the freezing stage is reached when the change becomes permanent. Organizational change has also...