Self-Audit on Leadership Theories-Free-Samples-Myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about the Self audit on Leadership theories. Answer: Introduction: Leaders can be defined as the individuals who develop the capability to guide a team of subordinates in way that motivate them to work beyond their capabilities and hence meet the organizational goals successfully (Zhu et al., 2016). They have the capability to engage with the employees in a way by which they can effectively participate in feedback sessions with the employees sharing their concerns and helping them to overcome barriers. Researchers are of the opinion that effective leadership has many positive impacts on the employees in the workplace. They help in development of the employee morale and influences employee dedication to the organization. Employees feel satisfied with their job and do not burn out easily under the guidance of the employees (Banks et al., 2016). Moreover, it also helps in employee retention as employees feel that the organization care for them. They also get the scope to learn important things that helps them to enhance their career and develop their k nowledge in their fields making them expect in their working domains. Therefore, expert leaders can help in preparing the employees for overcoming the barriers both mentally and emotionally which prevents them from feeling burned out or stressed (McCleskey, 2014). Leaders help the organization to reach its objectives by providing focus and thereby driving the team forward, empowering the team members for working their full potential, taking responsibility for decision-making and others (Rouche, Baker Rose, 2014). Therefore, this assignment will show how the theory of transformation leadership helps in developing the organization towards betterment and will depict two of my experiences that had helped to develop my leadership traits effectively. Expert named James McCregor Burns in the year 1978 first developed transformational leadership. Researchers have since then supported the application of this leadership in every organization as it had brought out the best outcomes both in terms of organizational productivity and in terms of development of workplace climate. The expert Bernard M Bass further developed the concept of this leadership style where he based the style of leadership on the model of integrity as well as fairness (Dong et al., 2017). It helps the leaders to set clear goals for the employees and has high expectations or the employees to meet the goals. The leaders mainly help the employees to meet the organizational goals by encouraging others, providing support and recognition by stirring the emotions of people. Such leader inspires the employees to look beyond their self-interest and motivates them to reach for the improbable. Researchers are of the opinion that four important aspects remain associated with t his form of leadership (Breevaart et al., 2014). Individualized consideration is one of the aspects. This aspect mainly describes the ability of the leaders to meet the needs of each individual follower and thereby act as a mentor or a coach to the subordinate. They listen to the needs, require of the followers, and provide them with empathy and support (Gorman Messal, 2017). They respect the subordinates and always keep communication open with the employees by effective feedback sharing. They also celebrate the contribution of each of the followers in the teamwork and encourage them in ways by which employees develop will and aspirations for self-development. Thereby, subordinates develop intrinsic motivation for the tasks. The second aspect of the transformational leadership is the intellectual stimulation. This is the way by which transformation leaders develop the capability to challenge the assumptions and even take risks and solicits the ideas of the followers (Schimmt et al. , 2016). A leader of this style is seen to stimulate as well as encourage the creativity of the followers, thereby nurturing and developing people who think independently. Such leaders put huge significance on learning and consider taking unexpected situations as the opportunities for the subordinates to learn. The subordinates are influenced to think deeply, ask questions and develop better ways for executing their tasks (Frieder, Wang Oh, 2018). The third important aspect is inspirational motivation. Researchers are of the opinion that transformational leaders have the capability to articulate a vision effectively that appeals and inspire the followers largely. Such leaders are seen to engage in inspirational motivation that challenge the followers to meet high standards along with communicating with the followers about the future goals and ensure that they provide meaning for the task. Such leaders put importance to development of strong sense of purpose for the employees to meet their goals and this gives them the energy to drive the group forward (Qu, Janssen Shi, 2015). Such leaders have high skills of communication that makes the vision understandable, powerful yet precise and engaging. The main benefit of this aspect is that the followers become more willing to invest more efforts in their tasks. They remain highly encouraged as well as optimistic about the future and thereby believe in their abilities. The fourth aspect of this leadership style is called the idealized infl uence. The leaders themselves try to act as the best example about what they deserve from the employees (Van et al., 2014). This makes the subordinates develop an understanding about the skills and knowledge necessary for them to comply with the organizational culture and the patterns of working that help to gain high productivity and ensure job satisfaction. The role model ensures high ethical behavior, instilling pride, gaining respect as well as pride. Recent day leaders are facing severe, challenge where they cannot develop managerial effectiveness by absence of certain skills of the employees like proper time management, strategic thinking, decision-making, prioritization, getting up to speed with job so that they can be more effective at work (Mittal Dhar, 2015). Many of the employees possess negative behaviors and thereby been extrinsic motivators as salary, incentives as well as work flexibilities cannot ensure them to be motivated. Leading huge team and guiding change are also some challenges faced by leaders. Lack of honest feedback and lack of emotional intelligence among the employees are also barriers to high productivity in workplace. Therefore, in order to overcome the challenges, the four aspects of transformational leadership is highly successful by effective mentoring, communication skills, leading by example, engaging in corporate learning, guiding them in their difficulties and attaching them on an emotional levels (Boehm et al., 2015). The leaders should put focus to certain important strategies that will ensure development of high productivity work output in every organizations. Therefore, leaders who would be adopting the transformational leadership style should make sure that they develop a challenging as well as an attractive vision along with the team of employees and thereby tie the vision with the strategy for its achievement. Moreover, they should develop the vision and thereby specify and translate it to other actions. They should express confidence, optimism as well as decisiveness about the vision and its implementations. They should also take the initiatives to develop small planned steps for the employees and thereby develop success in the path for its implementation. There are a number of benefits for this type of leadership style on the working climate. This form of leadership helps in developing exceptional people skills through effective motivation that helps to complete assignments successfully. I t increases employee morale and job satisfaction that thereby makes the employees feel that organizations are indeed thoughtful about their career advancements and thereby reduces turnover and increases retention. One of the most important advantages of this form of leadership is that this becomes highly suitable for the times of organizational changes (Muenjohn Armstrong, 2015). Such leaders are able to respond to ever-changing needs of the organization as well as the team. They can empower the employees to participate and adapt themselves to the new changes in the organization by realizing their full potential. Researchers have stated that transformational leadership is excessively helpful for organizations where changes are required like those organizations that are outdated and requires severe retooling. Corporate learning is one of the domains where transformational leadership is highly advantageous. Moreover, it was also seen that such leadership brings effectiveness to staff when he engages in corporate learning improving the skills and knowledge of the existing employees and thereby equipping new employees for productive work (Mittal Dhar, 2015). Experiences: One of a negative experience that I had during my placement years had helped me develop an insight about the importance of leadership traits in leading a team. During the placement, I was given the opportunity to lead a team of fresher who had been appointed as interns in the organization. I had to complete an assignment with the help of teamwork. This was my first leadership opportunity but I was quite confident about my knowledge and skills. After assigning the tasks to each of the team members, two of the members came towards me and tried to suggest that they would like to swap their work, as that would help the team to meet the deadlines. Moreover, another of the member suggested me to conduct the team meeting as that would help in meeting the goals effectively without resulting in overlapping of the work. Another individual came to me for feedback on a presentation that she had prepared for the final day. However, as the time was quite short and the deadline was near, I cut them short and asked them not to waste any time on suggesting me and rather concentrate on the jobs assigned to them. I thought these would help them to learn to face challenges of working in short deadline. However, although the project did not fail entirely but the quality of work was very poor and the work of each of the members did not align with that if the other members which reflected improper teamwork. Moreover, many of the employees were suffering from poor morale, were emotionally down, and stressed on the work floor. One of them was even thinking of leaving the organization. My mentor called me and advised me to find out the cause of failure and such low morale of employees. To these I came to realize one of the most important aspects that was completely missing from my leadership. This aspect is effective feedback giving and receiving. I did not entertain the suggestions that were made to me by the employees. If I had put significance to the suggestions, the quality of the w ork might have been better by several folds. Moreover, as I was cutting down the feedbacks of the employees midway, they felt disrespected and their ego was hurt. They felt that they are junior to me in position; they had no right to suggest and provide feedbacks in the team. This made them feel that they had not been accepted in the organization and therefore these affected their employee morale. Moreover, they also felt that i was unsupportive to them in their decisions that made them feel that they would never get any help from me in the future. Hence, I should have followed the traits of proper transformational leadership and should have conducted frequent meetings of feedback exchanging sessions that could have developed the quality of the project by the amalgamation of the ideas of my subordinates. This teaching helped me to develop my communication skills and incorporate this aspect as one of the most unimportant criteria in my leadership abilities. Once in my university years, I was placed in an organization for my internship where I had to lead a team of five members and groom them for making them perform better quality work. My mentor said that they are quite negative in their behavior as they are low on morale and think that they can never develop the skill properly. When I heard, that they are negative in their attitude, I developed a feeling that I need to be strict by them if I want them to develop their capabilities. Therefore, from the very beginning I incorporated autocratic leadership style. I took the authority to make decisions and did not consult them while taking the decisions. I took all the decision and dictated them of all the work methods as well as the processes. Although, they tried to interact with me and provide suggestion, I did not listen to them. I could not trust them at all and thereby instructed them their job roles and did not allow any feedback. I provided them a highly structured work method that was rigid. I told them clearly that rules would be very important for working in my team. I clearly outlined the rules and instructed them to abide by them. I made decisions on my own behalf and only allowed my choices to be put to implementation. Therefore, the entire result of my leadership style was very negative as not only the negative attitudes of the employees became more negative but the project also failed. I realized that such autocratic traits had made more destruction to the morale of the employees. They were not satisfied with their jobs and they became confirmed that the organization do not care for them in anyway. Had I allowed them to exhibit their skills and thereby helped them to identify the loopholes and transform them in better professionals, the entire project would have not felt. They lost their self-esteem and confidence on their own abilities and could not share their concerns and issues that they were facing while conducting the tasks. They burned out easil y and could not maintain proper emotional stability required to work properly fir meeting the goals. The rationale of my choosing autocratic leadership style proved me wrong and my mentor stated that I should have been more empathetic towards them and tried to transform them with proper corporate learning an developing their skills and knowledge by effective corporate learning. Hence, from this experience, I learnt that autocratic leadership traits can never be applied in such situations where change is required. It is only required in times of crisis and hence I made a mistake by applying this style. Conclusion: From the entire discussion, it becomes quite clear that transformational leadership is one of the most important leadership that needs to be taken up by every leader in the 21st century. Four important traits are important for this form of leadership like the intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, idealized influence as well as inspirational motivation. Such aspects ensure employees to be high on morale. It also increases job satisfaction as employees feel that they are understood and their leaders share their emotions. This leadership style also helps in development of the career of the employees by engaging them in corporate learning as well as development of skills and knowledge. Such style influences effective feedback sharing sessions that make employees feel that they are cared and wanted by the organization that increases their dedication towards the organization. Employees are highly motivated, which make them work beyond their potential and thereby help them to achieve organizational goals with much ease. Autocratic leadership style is now highly criticized as it does not influence employee engagement. Transformational leadership is therefore advised for all leaders to take up for effective leading and management. References: Banks, G. C., McCauley, K. D., Gardner, W. L., Guler, C. E. (2016). 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