When looking at the dynamics of a healthy relationship, most people would agree that there usually needs to be a decent amount of movement. Movement from both parties, room on both sides for progress to be made and errors to be fixed. This idea holds true in mostly any kind of relationship you would like to put into the equation, including leadership dynamics. The ebbs and flows between leader and follower should be fluid enough so that growth can take place, and this section of the book does an amazing job at highlighting just how much leaders need to be able to move through not only their employees, but issues at hand, learning curves and their own leadership styles.
When looking for a possible leader to fill your position in a company, typically you would not want a person who has little to no leadership experience, does not have very good human skills, and isn’t experienced with dealing with and working through heavy situations. A well rounded, typically extroverted and personable leader is someone who would potentially do very well as a leader in many types of roles. Human skills, something we were able to learn about in the prior lesson, is a heavy influence in this weeks lesson. Looking into the modules you will see a lot of information about how a good leader will not only create relationships with their employees, but also take an interest in their lives in order to create a more relaxed environment and allow the employees to feel comfortable and not like their leader is just someone who is hanging over their every move and viewing them as just someone who is there for work, this would be viewed as “production orientation”. Instead, employee orientation and consideration behaviors are encouraged to allow a more relaxed environment that enables that fluid territory for everyone to grow and learn from situations, viewing their jobs more as a team effort.
An area that hasn’t been explored much yet is failure. Why do leaders typically fail? It was extremely interesting to read the information about the “Self-Defeating Behaviors” in this section. The lesson explains 5 groups of behaviors that the managers that fail usually exhibit. The five behaviors are-
Inability to build relationships
Failure to meet business objectives
Inability to lead and build a team
Inability to adapt
Inadequate preparation for promotion
The slides explain these 5 behaviors in detail, but the one that stood out the most to me was the ability to adapt. This goes a long with the ability to have movement in your leadership style. A leader needs to ensure that whatever issue comes their way with any of their employees, they are able to recognize the issue, recognize the situation and adapt accordingly. Being open minded usually is never a bad thing, with anything you attach it to in life. It was interesting to read the closing sentence on self-defeating behaviors, it states that “One problem with self-defeating behaviors is that leaders are not always aware of the negative impact they have on others. Many leaders that exhibit these problem behaviors are not aware of how they come across to others. Therefore it is extremely hard to teach these leaders new behaviors” (PSUWC, 2020 ).
Lastly, looking again at the ability to have movement in your leadership style, we are able to unwrap the situational approach. This approach needs movement, this approach focuses on the situations rather than the skills, traits, or styles of the leaders. Looking at the lesson, it states that “the situational approach demands that a leader match his/her style to the competence and commitment of the followers. Effective leaders recognize what employees need and adapt their own style to match those needs”(PSUWC, 2020). This is where the importance of that ebb and flow comes into play. This is where leaders need to have that adaptability in order to act and react to situations. Situational approach is a huge foundation of what makes a leader great and successful.
All in all, a successful leader has many attributes. Many ins and outs goes into how an individual becomes a good leader who is able to not only be successful at their job, but also at guiding their employees successfully through situations in order to collectively reach success, and have it be a team effort. The olden days are long gone when it comes to having one person in charge who does not account for any thoughts/feelings/ideas of their subordinates. And these studies have been able to show that leaders with equally high importance in task behaviors as well as relationship behaviors. Well rounded leaders are needed, but hard to come by. This is an area that has been studied, but not studied enough, and when we do have more information underneath our belts about these two approaches, hopefully there are more programs developed in training in these areas in order to produce better leaders for our future.
References
The Pennsylvania State University (2020). Leadership in Work. PSYCH 485. Lesson 5: Style and Situational Approach. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2045005/modules/items/28166584