(Photo: DiGioia, n.d.)
The word leadership is the buzzword of the 21st century. Instead of it being the next catchword of the business world, we need to understand the essential component of leadership, so that we know what makes good leaders and bad leaders and how they can impact the success of a team or even a business. What we have learned over time is leadership is complex, and there is not one set of rules or guidelines that make you a good or bad leader. As Barge (1996) and Drecksel (1991) defined, “…a good team leader needs to be behaviorally flexible and have a wide repertoire of actions or skills to meet the team’s diverse needs” (Barge), and “When the leader’s behavior matches the complexity of the situations, he or she is behaving with “requisite variety”, or the set of behaviors necessary to meet the team’s needs (Drecksel), (as cited by Northouse, 2016, p. 366).
What behaviors or characteristics do we associate with a good leader? There have been many great leaders over time, according to Entrepreneur.com (Tobak, 2015) some common behaviors that good leaders display is:
- They teach their followers, and they want them to grow and develop their leadership skills
- They listen to hear, versus listening to respond. The ability to listen to what is being said allows them to gain new perspectives.
- Their visions inspire other people to act and respond.
- They don’t whine or complain when something does not go their way; they work toward solving issues.
Along with leadership minded behaviors, there are specific characteristics that contribute to a person being a distinguished leader. According to Forbes Magazine (Fries, 2018) the below are some of these characteristics:
- Integrity – A good leader gives proper credit to those who deserve it. They are not in it for themselves.
- Communications skills – Leaders need to be able to communicate not only with their people but those outside of their organization. They need to be able to articulate the message that needs to get across, not only when the news is good, but when it is bad, as well.
- Decisiveness – A leader needs to understand how the risk of a decision is measured and know when they need to make decisions. They also must be willing to stand by the choices they have made, holding themselves accountable.
- Charisma – People naturally migrate to an approachable leader. Leaders who are sincere, friendly, and social with their followers have been found to have teams that stand behind them.
All these behaviors and characteristics we learned about when we discussed the trait approach, the skills approach, and the behavioral approach. We have also learned in more depth about different theories that use some, if not all, these different behaviors/characteristics. Take, for example, the path-goal theory, this theory revolves around how leaders motivate their followers to accomplish their goals (PSU WC, L6, 2019). In path-goal theory, a leader has determined what style of leadership will motivate their employees. The leader must be flexible in their behaviors to obtain this. They also must have the characteristics that will allow them to utilize this knowledge.
Most of our focus in life is on what makes a good leader; however, I believe that to understand the good, you must be aware of the bad, as well. The most common behavior or characteristics of a weak leader would be the opposite of what makes a good leader; however, there are a few more. According to the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC, 2019), the below items lead to poor leadership:
- Ego – This is a big one. If a leader’s ego will not allow them to see any other idea, or listen, or change, then they are in their own way, and a team will not follow them.
- Working 24/7 – As a good leader, you are setting an example for your team. If you work all the time, your team is going to assume they must also. Burnout will be inevitable and competent team members will not stick around.
- Being overly conservative – Leader’s goal is results and utilizing what they have available to get there. If you do not take risks as a leader, you will miss opportunities that could contribute to you and your teams’ goals.
- Inconsistency – If you are continually changing your mind, strategies, products, team members, etc., you are telling everyone watching that you don’t know what you are doing. People, in general, do not want to follow a leader with no confidence.
What all this information has reinforced for me is that leadership is complicated and complex. There is not one set of skills, traits, behaviors, or characteristics that can be used for every situation or every leader. As leaders, we must have the flexibility to apply more than one concept to each situation and the knowledge to know that. After reading about good leaders and weak leaders, I can see throughout my career where I have had both and the impacts that they have made not only on the teams they oversaw but on the overall company. As I now am the leader of a large group of people, I am taking the knowledge that I have been exposed to and incorporating it into my daily interactions and routines.
Reference:
DiGioia, S. (n.d.). Good Leadership Bad Leadership [Photograph].
Fries. (2018, May 23). 8 essential qualities that define great leadership. Retrieved October 27, 2019, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimberlyfries/2018/02/08/8-essential-qualities-that-define-great-leadership/#782a33263b63
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Chapter 14: team leadership (pp. 363-396). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2019). PSYCH 485 Lesson 06: contingency & path-goal theories. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2008237/modules/items/27074683
Tobak, S. (2015, August 07). 10 behaviors of real leaders. Retrieved October 27, 2019, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249205
YEC. (2019, October 18). 15 traits of a terrible leader. Retrieved October 27, 2019, from https://www.success.com/15-traits-of-a-terrible-leader/
Brianna Strohmeyer says
Great post. It is interesting to me that you were able to learn from past leaders to better inform your current style of leadership. As Northouse (2016) mentions, there are a wide variety of different theories regarding leadership. In terms of the qualities of an effective leader that were mentioned in your post, do you believe that these qualities are overarching or that they are only present in specific theories of leadership? To me, it seems like these qualities could be attributed to different theories of leadership although I was unable to find a specific theory in the text that includes all of these qualities. These qualities are reminiscent of a trait perspective on leadership, which essentially means that an individual is born with specific traits that work together to make them an effective leader (Northouse, 2016).
Do you believe that it would be possible for an effective leader to have qualities that are typically related to ineffective leadership?
Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: theory and practice (8th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.