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Harnessing Strengths for Effective Leadership: Impacts and Follower Needs

Jul 4, 2023 | 0 comments

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Jul 4, 2023 | Essays | 0 comments

Question one

Leaders are associated with certain characteristics and talents. A leader has a greater chance of success if they have strengths that will support their leadership roles. The attitude and capacity of a leader plays a role in influencing their followers. There is no specific definition of leadership; however, the term is defined according to the influencing process that occurs between leaders and the followers (Hackman & Wageman, 2007). Leadership definitions contain the description of the leader, behavioral characteristics, and the impact of the leaders, the importance of the leadership context, and how the leader interacts with his followers (Bass, 2008). With the proper development programs, young leaders can be nurtured to great leaders. It is important to understand that the principles of leadership go beyond management and that the outcomes of leadership should exceed the expectations (Bass, and Riggio, 2006). Rath & Conchie, list some of the five greatest strengths of a leader.

 

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A leader should know their strengths and understand when and how to use these strengths. Using the strength finder aspiring and young leaders can find their strengths. When leaders are aware of their strengths, they build their confidence at an early age. The Gallup analysis recommends people who use their strengths at the workplace have an added leadership advantage. The leadership strengths by the strength finder are passion, excellent communication skills, commitment to staff, team building and decisiveness (Rath & Conchie, 2008).

Passion is an essential quality of leadership. Passion is having a positive attitude towards the task of being a leader. Passion can be passed from the leader to the employees resulting in more productivity. Some of the passionate activities can include congratulating the employee for the good work they have done and leading by doing. Passion is the driving force of leadership. Communication is also an important strength for leadership. A leader should know what they want to accomplish and why they want to accomplish it. A leader should relate his vision to their team to achieve the desired goal. Having a healthy line of communication means that the work environment favors high productivity. A leader should be able to communicate with the staff both at the lower and high level of management. With good communication skills the staff will be kept informed in case of any changes or updates, this is also important for regular meetings.

The commitment of staff involves appreciating employees. Leaders are supposed to provide sufficient training programs for their staff. In addition, expressing confidence to staff is important through delegation is important. Fair and equal treatment of all employees to increase productivity at the workplace. Leadership should be by example since employees are motivated when their boss or leaders lead by doing. Leading by example earns a leader respect and instills motivation among the employees (Bass, 1985).

Team building is an important strength of leadership because it encourages togetherness at the workplace. Having a cooperative atmosphere and ability to solve problems as a team means that there is reduced competition resulting in high productivity. The leader should be able to consult the opinion of the staff. Leaders are tasked with diagnostic functions such as monitoring of team performances and improvement of team performances. Team leaders are expected to perform forecasting roles in a team. Team leaders are expected to build and inspire teamwork, support team decision making, and foreseeing and influencing change (Burns, 1978). According to the team leadership model proposed by Stewart and Manz, team leadership styles are divided into power building, empowering, powerless and overpowering leadership styles. They identified overpowering and powerless styles are ineffective styles, further, they suggested that power building allows teams to manage themselves for instance through delegation (1995).

Decisiveness allows leaders to take the role of primary decision makers. The staff and employees rely on leaders for guidance and making decisions. Therefore, a leader is supposed to understand the scope of work for the employees to handle to make fast and effective decisions. Most of the time leaders are faced with challenging decision-making scenarios and are expected to balance their emotions and make intelligent decisions. The decision-making process involves a lot of changes that results in the unfavorable reaction from colleagues. Leaders must know when to stop and when to pursue certain information.

These five leadership strengths are very important for any leaders. Passion is one of the strengths that describe me best. I believe that passion drives us to achieve our goals and those of the organization. When one passionate about their work, then they tend to give the best outcomes. Another is team building; I am a believer of teamwork and that teamwork makes the achievement of organizational goals easy. My job allows me to utilize both skills, for example, most of the projects at work require us to carry out team projects. For instance, in a recent research project, we divided the work into two teams the team that would collect information from the field and the team that would analyze the information, through teamwork, we completed the project in good time.

Question two

Leadership is about recognition of the leadership traits by followers, follower’s inputs and identifying followers with the leader (Bass, 2008). The stronger the connection a leader makes, the more likely they will gain followers. The four basic needs of followers are trust, compassion, hope and stability (Rath & Conchie, 2008)

Trust is the foundation for leadership-follower relationship. For speedy and efficient outcomes in the workplace, trust must exist. Rath and Cronchie, through the Gallup research, explain that trust links employee organization commitment (Rath & Conchie, 2008). If an employee does not trust the organization, chances of working for the organization are minimal. Respect and integrity only exist if the relationship is built on trust. The relationship between leaders and employees should be based on a caring, friendly and happy relationship. The care should extend beyond the workplace since this motivates employees when their bosses care about them.

A leader should provide a stable foundation for his or her followers. Stability relates to the ability of a follower to count on the leader in times of need. Stability could be in the form of a paycheck and job security. For example, employees that are sure of the financial future of an organization are said to be more productive than those who are not sure. Transparency and integrity also create stability for followers. A regular update on the progress of the different organizational projects is very important. Hope provides followers with something to look forward to even in challenging times. Leaders should initiate conversation with employees to determine the general feel in the organization.

As a team leader, I strive to provide compassion, trust, stability and hope to my followers. The needs that come easily to me are compassion and trust. Passion as a leadership strength calls for a lot of compassion. Each task I give to my team members I make sure that I do it as an example. I put more time to ensure that I company my followers to the field for data collection, sometimes walking with them and eating the meals that they eat. Additionally, while, at the office, I make sure I eat at the cafeteria to engage with my followers on an equal ground. The skills that need improvement is giving my followers hope. I will achieve this, by creating more time to know every one of them and engaging with them at a personal level (Burns, 1978).

Question three

Leading with connectedness will create a lot of impacts if implemented at my place of work. This is because it results in the building of trust and show of compassion. Having trust in the between my followers and I will result in additional productivity. Trust results to mutual respect and accountability. Compassion results to common ground and shared interests. Connectedness also results to stability, which increases confidence among the employees. Financial stability and job security result to more confidence in the organizational leadership. Connectedness’s also resulted to hope among the followers and will help me cultivate the skill even further.

Question four

Team members are selected based on confidence and knowledge. This kind of selection is problematic because regarding strength the leaders often select people who think and act like them. To build an effective team, leaders need to understand that teams need to be made of people who are intelligent and capable of challenging their decisions. Rath and Conchie suggest that the 34-strength finder should be used to select team members (2008). Looking at the theme chart, I bring communication and connectedness, themes to my team, which is spread t in two categories. I have always had good communication skills, ready to learn and aim at staying connected to my team. My team is well rounded since; we have a member who has good development skills. Another member has strategic and consistency skills.

Conclusion

The definition of leadership entails the characteristics of leadership; in addition leader is defined by the nature and behavior of the followers. Strength based leadership is about understanding the strengths of a leader and using them to create positive impact in the lives of followers. Some of the strength qualities of a leader are being good communicator, commitment to staff, integrity, team building, and decisiveness. Fulfilling the needs of the followers is another duty of a leader. Rath and Conchie explain that the leader is supposed to provide trust to his followers. To add, leadership should provide stability to the followers. Followers tend to follow a leader who provides for instance stable financial future. Followers also need hope for better tomorrow.

References

Bass, B.M. (2008). The Bass handbook of leadership: Theory, Research and managerial applications (4thed.). New York: Free Press.

Bass, B.M & Riggio, R.E. (2006). Transformational Leadership (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Bass, B.M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press.

Burns, J.M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.

Hackman, J.R.,& Wageman, R. (2007). Asking the right questions about leadership. American Pyschologist, 62 43-47.

Stewart, G.L., & Manz, C.C. (1995). Leadership for self-managing teams: A typology and integrative model. Human Relations, 48 (7), 747-770.

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