Bus 610 Organizational Behavior

Leadership Style

The topic I have chosen to dive deeper into this week is leadership style! The one thing I love about studying leadership – is the common understanding that everyone should reach in that there is not ONE specific way to be a good leader. There is not one specific personality trait that sets you on the path to being a leader. The debate question is asked all the time “are you born a leader, or can you learn to be one”? Even our text continues to discuss personality traits vs. behavioral theories to establish potential for leadership. I don’t believe in the either-or mentality. Rather, being a good leader is largely a result of using your innate skills and abilities (personality traits), combined with learned skills and abilities (behavioral), and recognizing what is going to be the most effective leadership style for each given situation (situational).

I think one of my favorite illustrated pieces of information in Chapter 8 this week is the ‘Leadership Grid’ (Baack, 2012). This is a product of the behavioral theories era of leadership research. This is a very basic concept that is incredibly applicable to almost all leadership positions and it requires an evaluation of two things:

1.) Are you people-oriented? Do you have concern for people?

2.) Are you production-oriented? Do you have concern for production?

In general speak – here’s what you can take away from this grid. In order to be an effective leader – you must have concern for people AND production! It can’t just be one or the other. Being really high in one will never compensate for being low in the other. You must have HIGH concern in both areas to be an effective leader. Even the “compromise” box is only considered to be an adequate leader.

Wrap-Up

People don't follow money or ideas... people follow people. We know this is achieved through strong leadership – but sometimes I think people have a flawed idea of what being a good leader really is. The fundamental goal of effective leadership is to get extraordinary results from ordinary people. As a manager, who prides oneself on my ability to lead people, I really love this concept. This is what leadership is all about. Leaders prove that they can influence others. The key word associated with leadership is influence. Our text this week discusses many different theories regarding leadership. Towards the end of the chapter, situational leadership is discussed a little further. It has always been my belief that the reason we have so many theories on various topics is because we have so many different situations. It’s very likely that the manager of a car dealership will manage their employees much differently than the manager of a local bank. This is because they are different situations with different types of employees. It’s up to you as a manager to determine your situation, your type of employee, your environment, etc.

I said this at the beginning of the guidance, and I will close with it again… if you remember nothing else this week, I hope you will remember this:

Being a good leader is largely a result of using your innate skills and abilities (personality traits), combined with learned skills and abilities (behavioral), and recognizing what is going to be the most effective leadership style for each given situation (situational).