MN7185 LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT - LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES

LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES

INTRODUCTION

It is great role in the nations or organizations that leadership plays. Leaders play a tremendous role as we know in number ways by using various styles. It does not mean that leaders are free from challenges, criticisms etc… or they are in a comfort zone having showing the direction or inspiring people or aligning the people, yet they encounter a diverse type of challenges.

The challenges of leadership are inside leaders. Stop blaming organizations and others for your shortfalls and failures. Take the bull by the horns. You are the bull (Dan, 2012).

Being a leader is not quite a cakewalk. In fact, to be very honest; managing people is one of the most challenging tasks. You really need to extract the best out of your team members and handhold them even in the worst situations. We all want to lead a team, but have we ever realized what are the challenges faced by a leader? Remember, a leader is just like the captain of a ship. One wrong decision and the entire blame comes on you.

The biggest challenge in leadership is to listen to everyone’s opinions and come to a mutually beneficial solution. You just can’t afford to ignore anyone, else he/she would turn out to be your biggest enemy and would neither respect you nor bother to listen to you. Agreed, there are all types of people around. You may like someone; you may not like someone at the workplace, but that does not mean that you start being rude to the person you are not comfortable with. Avoid favouritism. As a leader; you really need to be impartial towards everyone. Not every individual has the quality of being fair towards people. As humans, we generally tend to develop feelings of jealousy and hatred towards people we do not like. Remember, such negative feelings have no place in the professional world. Sit with your subordinates, listen to their grievances and always try to come up with innovative solutions. Never ever loose your temper. The moment you do so, trust me, very soon your name would appear in the bad books of employees.

The 12 Toughest Challenges of Leadership:

1. Humility during success.
2. Confidence during setbacks.
3. Stepping back so others can step up.
4. Putting plans into action – Follow through. Experience shows up to 90 percent of strategic plans never achieve execution.
5. Leading change. Leaders don’t just do things, they change things.
6. Admitting mistakes. One contributor suggests that self-awareness and honesty are essential to saying, “I was wrong.” (See more comments on Facebook)
7. Listening with the goal of learning.
8. Encouraging constructive dissent.
9. Learning from criticism.
10. Asking for feedback.
11. Maintaining focus on the future.
12. Building the team.

What’s most challenging about leading organizations today? And do the challenges differ around the world? When researchers went straight to the source to answer these questions, gathering input from 763 middle- and executive-level leaders in organizations from China/Hong Kong, Egypt, India, Singapore, the U.K., the U.S., and Spain.

Our study found these leaders consistently face the same 6 challenges — even if they describe their challenges and specific context in different ways:

1. Developing managerial effectiveness is the challenge of developing the relevant skills — such as time-management, prioritization, strategic thinking, decision-making, and getting up to speed with the job — to be more effective at work.

2. Inspiring others is the challenge of inspiring or motivating others to ensure they’re satisfied with their jobs and working smarter.

3. Developing employees is the challenge of developing others, including mentoring and coaching.

4. Leading a team is the challenge of team-building, team development, and team management. Specific challenges include how to instill pride, how to provide support, how to lead a big team, and what to do when taking over a new team.

5. Guiding change is the challenge of managing, mobilizing, understanding, and leading change. Guiding change includes knowing how to mitigate consequences, overcome resistance to change, and deal with employees’ reactions to change.

6. Managing internal stakeholders is the challenge of managing relationships, politics, and image. This challenge includes gaining managerial support, managing up, and getting buy-in from other departments, groups, or individuals.

CONCLUSION

Knowing that these challenges are common experiences for middle and senior managers is helpful to both the leaders and those charged with their development, according to our researchers.

Individuals can benefit from knowing their experiences aren’t isolated, and can feel more confident reaching out to others for help facing these challenges.

REFERENCES

https://leadershipfreak.blog/2012/10/22/the-12-toughest-challenges-of-leadership/

https://www.managementstudyguide.com/challenges-in-leadership.htm

https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/top-6-leadership-challenges/

MN 7185 LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT - 10 COMMON LEADERSHIP STYLES

10 COMMON LEADERSHIP STYLES

INTRODUCTION

At some point in your career, you may take on a leadership role in some capacity. Whether you’re leading a meeting, a project, a team or an entire department, you might consider identifying with or adopting a defined leadership style.

Most professionals develop their own style of leadership based on factors like experience and personality, as well as the unique needs of their company and its organizational culture. While every leader is different, there are ten leadership styles commonly used in the workplace.
 

TYPES OF LEADERSHIP STYLES

1. Coaching Leadership

A coaching leader is someone who can quickly recognize their team members’ strengths, weaknesses and motivations to help each individual improve. This type of leader often assists team members in setting smart goals and then provides regular feedback with challenging projects to promote growth. They’re skilled in setting clear expectations and creating a positive, motivating environment.

2. Visionary Leadership

Visionary leaders have a powerful ability to drive progress and usher in periods of change by inspiring employees and earning trust for new ideas. A visionary leader is also able to establish a strong organizational bond. They strive to foster confidence among direct reports and colleagues alike.

3. Servant Leadership

Servant leaders live by a people-first mindset and believe that when team members feel personally and professionally fulfilled, they’re more effective and more likely to produce great work regularly. Because of their emphasis on employee satisfaction and collaboration, they tend to achieve higher levels of respect.

4. Autocratic Leadership

Also called the authoritarian style of leadership, this type of leader is someone who is focused almost entirely on results and efficiency. They often make decisions alone or with a small, trusted group and expect employees to do exactly what they’re asked. It can be helpful to think of these types of leaders as military commanders.

5. Laissez-faire or hands-off Leadership

This leadership style is the opposite of the autocratic leadership type, focusing mostly on delegating many tasks to team members and providing little to no supervision. Because a laissez-faire leader does not spend their time intensely managing employees, they often have more time to dedicate to other projects.

6. Democratic Leadership

The democratic leadership style (also called the participative style) is a combination of the autocratic and laissez-faire types of leaders. A democratic leader is someone who asks for input and considers feedback from their team before making a decision. Because team members feel their voice is heard and their contributions matter, a democratic leadership style is often credited with fostering higher levels of employee engagement and workplace satisfaction.

7. Pacesetter Leadership

The pacesetting leadership style is one of the most effective for driving fast results. These leaders are primarily focused on performance. They often set high standards and hold their team members accountable for hitting their goals.

8. Transformational Leadership

The transformational leadership style is similar to the coach style in that it focuses on clear communication, goal-setting and employee motivation. However, instead of placing the majority of the energy into each employee’s individual goals, the transformational leader is driven by a commitment to organization objectives.

9. Transactional Leadership

A transactional leader is someone who is laser-focused on performance, similar to a pacesetter. Under this leadership style, the manager establishes predetermined incentives—usually in the form of monetary reward for success and disciplinary action for failure. Unlike the pacesetter leadership style, though, transactional leaders are also focused on mentorship, instruction and training to achieve goals and enjoy the rewards.

While this type of leader is great for organizations or teams tasked with hitting specific goals, such as sales and revenue, it’s not the best leadership style for driving creativity.

10. Bureaucratic Leadership

Bureaucratic leaders are similar to autocratic leaders in that they expect their team members to follow the rules and procedures precisely as written. The bureaucratic leadership style focuses on fixed duties within a hierarchy where each employee has a set list of responsibilities, and there is little need for collaboration and creativity.

CONCLUSION

By understanding each of these leadership types based on the outcome you intend to achieve, you can select the right leadership style for your current situation.

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/10-common-leadership-styles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlpKyLklDDY

MN7185 LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT - LEADERS AND MANAGERS

LEADERS AND MANAGERS

There is always a buzz when we talk about a leader and the manager. Leadership is a skill and the person who possess this ability is known as a LEADER. On the other hand, Management is a discipline, and the practitioner of this discipline is known as the MANAGER.

Leadership is setting a new direction or vision for a group that they follow, ie: a leader is the spearhead for that new direction. Management controls or directs people/resources in a group according to principles or values that have been established (Steve Myers, 2019)

Is a good manager automatically a good leader? What is the difference between leadership and management?

The main difference between leaders and managers is that leaders have people follow them while managers have people who work for them.

Definition of Leader

A leader is a person who influences his followers to achieve a specified goal. He is a person with a vision and inspires his followers in such a way that it becomes their vision. He helps them in making the strategy to achieve the goal and possesses a good foresightedness along with the other qualities like- motivating the subordinates, creating teams, innovation, developing trust among the stakeholders, etc.

A leader is required at all levels of the organization which acts as a representative of the organization. He encourages the whole team to work together and supports them in accomplishing their tasks, as a guide or a philosopher (Surbhi, 2019)

Definition of Manager

A manager is a person who manages the organization such that he is responsible for planning, organization, direction, coordination and control. They are the ones who get their work done by the employees through several ways and has the authority to hire or fire the employees. There are various types of managers present in an organization such as top level managers, functional managers, project manager and general manager.

The role of these managers depends on their nature of work like top level managers are held responsible for the vision and mission of the organization, functional managers are responsible for different areas of their work like marketing, sales, accounting, etc. Project managers take the responsibility of accomplishing a certain project, and the role of a general manager is vivid i.e. the various activities performed in the business are managed by him.

Leader and manager have a great role to play in any organization, in the sense that a leader is the one who inspires, encourages and influence his men, to work willingly, in the attainment of the organization’s objectives. On the other hand, a manager is an important link between the firm and its stakeholders, i.e. employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders, government, society, and so forth. He is the one who performs basic managerial functions.

This article excerpt might help you to understand the difference between leader and manager, take a read.

Key Comparisons

BASIS FOR COMPARISON	LEADER	MANAGER
Meaning	A leader is a person who influences his subordinates to achieve a specified goal.	A manager is a person who manages the organization and is responsible for planning, direction, coordination and control
Approach	Sets Direction	Plans details
Attribute	Foresightedness	Mind
Subordinate	Followers	Employees
Style	Transformational	Transactional
Decision	Facilitates decision	Makes decision
Aim	Growth and development.	Attainment of the required result.
Focus	People	Process and Procedure
Change	Leaders promotes change.	Mangers react to change.
Conflict	Uses conflict as an asset	Avoid conflict
People	Aligns people	Organizes people
Strives	For effectiveness	For efficiency

Conclusion

It is very clearly noted that leaders are not managers but managers often perform the role of leaders.

REFERENCE

https://www.go2hr.ca/retention-engagement/understanding-the-differences-leadership-vs-management

https://www.google.com/search?q=leaders+%26+managers&sxsrf=ACYBGNQCjda0_6F_PdUQ2-roOsjZGYsAzQ:1574215628574&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwic8tya2vflAhUVxzgGHSCUB8oQ_AUoAXoECBEQAw&biw=1366&bih=608#imgrc=RT9THuC44FUXzM:

https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-leader-and-manager.html

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/leaders-or-managers-and-discover-your-talents

https://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/leadership/management/definitions-of-leadership-and-management/