Leadership
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Introduction
The success of an organization is centered on the type of leadership. Different leaders are talented differently, and therefore, it is important to appreciate diversity within the workplace. Failure in the decision-making process has always been associated with human errors. However, a detailed researcher has indicated that the fault in the process itself contributes to the failure. Team leaders have an important role in the success of a team. Therefore, teamwork requires discipline, determination, and commitment to set goals.
Scientific models have been derived to address the issue of the decision-making process within an organization. The scientist has indicated that a psychologically-based argument on decision making is biased. They argue that a decision-making process based on the majorities may have negative impacts, as described in this paper.
Leadership plays a central role in the success of an organization. Therefore, leaders should regularly review their progress. Notably, this will improve their level of performance and address issues facing the organization in question. Regardless of how talented is, he/she will still make mistakes. Changes are inevitable; therefore, some behaviors and habits will be rendered inefficient over time due to changes. Therefore, leaders should embrace personal performance reviews (Jenkins, 2012).
Successful leaders do not focus on techniques that will help them stay on course. They develop leadership methods that will enable them to recognize deteriorating situations and get back on track soon. Such leaders have to step back regularly and ask themselves several questions on their progress. For instance, the leaders should ask themselves how frequently they communicate the organization’s priorities and visions in question to the employees. Are the employees familiar with the company’s vision? Have is taken my employees through the visions and strategies to achieve the goals set? Notably, these questions help to shape leadership skills. The employees for an important part of the stakeholders (Jenkins, 2012). Thus, they demand to know the progress of the business. Therefore, leaders have to brief them now and then.
Time management in leadership is also a key factor of consideration. Therefore, the leaders have to keep on track. Accordingly, leaders ask themselves different questions on how they manage time. Have I allocated enough time to my employees? How do I ensure timely response to queries and concerns? How do I give feedback on time? Notably, a strategy that addresses time management and timely responses to queries reduces workplace conflict and crises.
High level and middle-level staff should prepare the potential leaders to take their positions when they retire. A successful leader has to coach others through training and delegation of duties. Planning for succession is, therefore, essential in the leadership of an organization. Resultantly, this may negatively impact the organizational decision-making process. Potential leaders are mandated to involve their juniors by assigning duties to challenge their skills. On a personal level, a leader should have the following questions: have I prepared at least one individual to succeed me when I retire? Am I assigning my juniors with a challenging assignment?
Further, leaders should be in a position to evaluate the progress of an enterprise. Importantly, the leaders should focus on the current organizational design and develop a few questions. Is the current design favorable for my business? If I were to start the business again, would I still embrace the same design? Debatably, this would help the manager to determine the policies and strategies that best suit the organization.
Additionally, leaders should also work under pressure. Since junior staff emulates their senior officials, leaders need to make decision soberly. Lastly, leaders should stay true to themselves. A leader with a strong belief embraces leadership skills that fit the needs of the organization in question. Am I comfortable with my leadership skills? Do my colleagues emulate me?
Leadership is viewed as a glamorous endeavor in which an individual inspires others. Since changes are inevitable, the changing global trends may force leaders to adopt adaptive changes. It is important to know that such transformations are linked to risks. The leaders may lose their positions and reputation in case such risks negatively impact on the organization. During radical changes, the leader has to support the employees since workers feel disqualified or incompetent since they face a hostile working environment.
For leaders to remain productive in their position, they have to reduce the level of resistance within the workplace. Leadership has been described as an improvisational art, which implies that the leader has to be guided by the organizational vision, strategic plan, and clear value. Successful leaders should value the contribution of others. Therefore, a leader should have partners who challenge their views and protect them from ideological attacks.
In the present world, decision making has been a key role for team leaders. Team members hardly come to a consensus during decision making. They have to rely on the CEO’s final decision. Resultantly, the team members always blame the CEO while the CEO passes blame to the executive. This situation of blame game is referred to as dictator-by default syndrome. Researchers in the pat gas described this dynamic as teamwork or leadership problem.
Companies have developed a mechanism of fighting against the dictator-by default syndrome. Such measures include team-building, where leaders and the executive exchange ideas. Additionally, teamwork building helps in creating mutual trust between senior and junior staff. The challenge of such a form of addressing organizational issues is that it does not highlight the real problem in decision-making.
Scientifically, mechanisms to break the impulses of dictator-by default syndrome has been derived. Therefore, teams should adopt voting-stem mathematics. Such a technique helps to avoid the blame cycle and embrace a no-fault style o decision making. Getting to a collective decision based on inclinations is faulty science. While setting priorities, the wishes of the majority can clash. Marquis de Condorcet indicated that different subset amongst the group might create a conflicting majority for all possible alternatives. In his voting paradox, the boss is always wrong.
When a challenge arises during the decision-making problem, most leaders will highlight psychological factors such as low employee morale, poor communication, mistrust, etc. however, scientists have indicated that the problem is not the team’s people but the process of decision making itself. Decision making based on priorities is biased. The dictator will endorse a decision that favors the majority. Frisch recommended different scientific techniques of decision making. For instance, he recommended a clear articulation of the outcome the team aims at achieving. While all the team members are aware of the expected result, they remain focused on the task.
Additionally, the team members can raise concerns and consult with their seniors. Alternatively, leaders can use pre-meeting surveys, which indicate the areas of preference. Notably, the pre-meeting surveys help leaders to identify and highlight areas of agreement and disagreement. Such tactics are scientific and help to prevent the organization from experiencing deadlocks.
According to Frisch, one should specify the desired outcomes; thus, team members may not opt for available options. When the outcomes are not clear, the other team members may choose other alternatives based on their unspoken assumptions. The leader should also provide a range of options. Test fences and walls is also a criterion used to assess the best decision. When options are raised under the fence and walls, most of the workers will focus on what they cannot achieve. While discussing the available options, therefore, it is important to ask yourself whether the barrier is a wall or a fence. It is possible to eliminate a fence but hard to eliminate a wall. In this concept, to move a wall require to change the available strategies.
The virtuoso team comprises of elite personnel who ensure strong revolutions of the companies. The Virtuoso team endorses conservative approaches to teamwork; thus, they are always uncomfortable. However, with the right people working together, the team may achieve extraordinary results. The ingredients for the virtuoso team are rarely used since they are considered highly risky, difficult to control, too ego-centric, and too temperamental.
Silence does not make people more productive. Therefore, communication within the firm is essential. When people remain silent with critical disagreement, they start feeling anxious, losing morale, and angry. When the level of conflict remains unsolved for a long time, the employees become self-protective, distrustful, and fearful. Therefore, silence may lead to the failure of a business. The spiral of silence has to be substituted by a spiral of communication.
One can become an authentic speaker through rehearsing. An authentic speaker should be open to involving his/her audience. When one appears to be a closed speaker, the audience views him/her defensively. The speaker should learn to create a close rapport with the audience. One should also try to create a mental picture so that the audience can figure out what you are delivering (Shapiro, & Stefkovich, 2016).
A team refers to a small group of people who have a common agenda. Members of a group have a common commitment. Without such a commitment, the group can lose focus and become ungovernable. The discipline of a team requires all members to focus on the common goal, thus building ownership of the team’s purpose. In any workplace, conflict is common and natural. Top-level management understands that conflict is a result of ideological differences. Therefore, people are allowed to have their views and opinion, thus developing a more and strong understanding of their choices and creating a richer range of choices, thus making the best decision.
At times, team members find it difficult to convince their colleagues to adopt their proposals. In that case, it is important to change how an individual persuades the team members. First, the team leader has to be charismatic; they can take huge information and dissect it. Though such characters are risk-seeking individuals, they are responsible as well. The charismatic leaders are highly skilled since they are highly experienced. They have made mistakes in the past and, therefore, are aware of measures to undertake if such a challenge arises in the future.
To persuade a charismatic leader, one has fought his/her urge to join his excitement. Therefore, one has to detail his/her proposals, which criticize their proposals. Thus, they build strong trust in you. Further, while addressing an issue, it is important to highlight the key points at the beginning, thus catching the leader’s attention and other team members.
Thinkers are also another category of leaders who strongly believe in comparative data. Therefore, it is hard to persuade such leaders. They make a decision based on the information available. To persuade thinkers, it is important to highlight your concerns and worries in the proposal. Notably, this is because thinkers are much convinced when they understand the risks of their decisions.
On the other hand, skeptics are leaders with strong personalities. Persuading skeptic leaders an individual need to garner much credibility. Skeptic leaders have great trust in people; they have strong similarities such as their schoolmates etc. therefore, to persuade these kinds of leaders, one has to seek endorsement from individuals trusted by the leader. It is risky to handle a skeptic leader; thus, an individual has to be keen. Therefore, while challenging such a leader, one has to defend his/ her reputation.
Followers are a category of leaders who believe in innovation, which has been proven to be operational. They are always concerned to never lose their jobs. Therefore, these leaders can be persuaded by avoiding selling yourself to them, not unless you have a very high track of success. One can persuade the followers by convincing them how a certain solution has been applied elsewhere, and it perfectly worked. Such leaders are listening and expect to gain assistance from team members.
Lastly, to persuade controllers, one has to offer a linear, credible, and structured argument. They accept challenges only if professionals present them. Unlike the skeptic, they require ample time to make their decision. Therefore, one has to be an expert to persuade this category of leaders. Importantly, these types of leaders avoid as much as possible to be held accountable for their decision. When anything goes wrong, the controllers will assume that all the rest were at fault.
In harnessing the science of persuasion, researchers have indicated that people are most likely to be persuaded by people who are similar to them (Westaby et al., 2010). Therefore, senior staff will recruit peers who will help him/her make a decision. The study has also indicated that people are more likely to cooperate with people who like them. Therefore, managers will feel secure if they work with people who love them and appreciate their effort. People like to treat others the way they expected to be treated back. Therefore, senior staffs are keen to listen to their junior employees. Promises should be made in writing since individuals like making decisions explicitly and voluntarily.
There is power in talking. Human beings use words to express their views and feelings. There are many reasons for talking, such as getting a sense of doing something. Through talking, we also get a chance to listen to others. Therefore, people exchange ideas through talking. Leaders have to express their views to the employees.
Similarly, the followers have to give their opinion to their leaders. Resultantly, both leaders and followers adjust their minds, thus making a critical decision. Lastly, thoughts are less productive in an organizational setting, not unless they are expressed in words.
A servant can be described as a person who performs duties for others. The concept of servant-leader entails an individual feeling that he/she should serve others first. On the other hand, other people want to serve them to gain resources. These kinds of leaders are very different. In the corporate world, servant leaders have the needs of the people at heart (Fulop & Mark, 2013). Resultantly, the leader develops a strong professional relationship that mutually benefits the employees as well as the leader. A manager who embraces the servant-leadership style boosts the morale and confidence of his workers.
Servant leaders are committed to the success of their organization. Such leaders encourage consultation at all levels of management. They delegate duties to the junior staff, thus equipping them with adequate skills. Leaders who are interested in accumulating wealth do not value the welfare of their employees. Such leaders do not plan for training programs for the workers.
Additionally, they do not reward creative and innovative employees; thus, no motivation (Parry, Cohen, & Bhattacharya, 2016). Unlike the servant-leaders, other leaders are selfish. In case of conflict, materialistic leaders take a dictatorial position to address the situation. On the other hand, servant leaders have to understand the root cause of the conflict.
In conclusion, leadership has a central role in the success of an organization. The decision-making process is very important in any company. In the past, leaders based on the failure of an organization’s decision making based on psychological factors such as low morale, poor communication, and mistrust. However, scientists have indicated that the failure in the decision-making process is due to poor techniques and not the people themselves. Dictator-by default syndrome is common where the blame cycle persists in an organization. The CEO argues that failure is a result of the executives’ laxity while the executive believes the CEO decided without consultation.
Leaders should develop techniques that address the issues of the company. Additionally, leaders should be conscious of their undertakings within the organization. For instance, the leader should have critical questions in mind, such as, are my employees aware of the company’s vision? Do I report the vision of the firm to the employees regularly? Have I allocated enough time for the employees? Do I give timely feedback to the employees? Do I have at least one person I can appoint as a leader in case I retire?
Leaders should also prepare for their succession by equipping potential leaders with adequate skills through training and delegating duties. Leaders should endorse a servant-leader technique of leadership. Arguably, they should consider the welfare of junior officers. Thus, they will build their confidence.
There different types of leaders who include charismatic, thinkers, followers, controllers, and skeptics. Arguably these leaders are persuaded differently. For instance, to persuade a charismatic leader, one would convince such leaders the risks of the current decision. Charismatic leaders are experienced and solve the emerging challenges based on their experience from a similar situation in the past. A one-sided argument rarely convinces them.
References
Fulop, L., & Mark, A. (2013). Relational leadership, decision-making and the messiness of context in healthcare. Leadership, 9(2), 254-277.
Jenkins, D. (2012). Global critical leadership: Educating global leaders with critical leadership competencies. Journal of Leadership Studies, 6(2), 95-101.
Parry, K., Cohen, M., & Bhattacharya, S. (2016). Rise of the machines: A critical consideration of automated leadership decision making in organizations. Group & Organization Management, 41(5), 571-594.
Shapiro, J. P., & Stefkovich, J. A. (2016). Ethical leadership and decision making in education: Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas. Routledge.
Westaby, J. D., Probst, T. M., & Lee, B. C. (2010). Leadership decision-making: A behavioral reasoning theory analysis. The Leadership Quarterly, 21(3), 481-495.
