Leadership_Approach

Determining Your Perfect Position Michael S Scott LDR/531 July 12, 2011 Todd McGonicle Determining Your Perfect Position The company you work for is about to expand and restructure your area. You have been given the golden opportunity to develop your position that best servers the needs of the company, and allows for the best benefits. Some key areas to consider are leadership style and show the strengths and weaknesses of that style. The second half is to show the comparison and contrast of your leadership style. Perfect Position To start I need to show that I am a dominant type “A” personality, however I can be people oriented and seek some participation from team members as long as time permits and there is a general flow towards the goals. The perfect position is actually one that I am striving to reach in my current career. It would be a government position around the 14-15 level, or director. The field is Information Technology. The role and description would be a director of operations for an IT division of about 50-100 associates specializing in system and database administration, data farms and application support. The primary duties would be to create and enforce the vision statement, manage personnel, and maintain a strong flexibility to stay current with the rapid changes in technology The Strengths versus Weaknesses I try to stay more toward a situational leader style; however my strong personality tends to pull me more towards an autocratic style. I still am people oriented and need social input and interaction, so I lean towards the democratic style. The democratic style of leadership is team focused and the leader tends to be more of a motivator and guide. It’s the team that sets the goals and assigns the tasks, but as the leader, never lose site that I hold the responsibility of the position. This style tends to create a more empowered team, which fosters an area of friendliness and personal growth. Overall the team creates more production and a smoother implementation of the tasks and reaches its goals with more motivation. There are some disadvantages with the democratic style. The decision making process tends to be slower. Takes some more time to spin up the production, have to wait till roles are defined and tasks are generated. The leader can be often unsure and relay on group process to much. The democratic style suites me, due to the fact that I enjoy motivating and developing people to reach their maximum potential. I thrive on listening to a diverse array of conversation and thought patterns, and team cohesion. My strong and dominant personality helps to offset the disadvantages of this style. I can direct the group to more production and some faster decisions if I feel that time is being wasted. I am also very capable of taking action in my hands if needed to ensure the project stays on course. Compare and Contrast In an odd way, parenting is a strong example of a situational approach to leadership. The parent or leader has to show a strong balance between that of education and supporting. Change is always on the horizon and the need to reassess the situation constantly develops. The cycle of educating, nurturing, observing, and reassessing results has been around for years. In a comparative state there are no two families alike, or parents, so each new task or event has to be evaluated using the know traits of the leader and the followers however; the environment (e.g. lifestyle, education level, geographic location--) can play a key role also. In conclusion, situational approach is one of the basic five theories studied within this leadership course. Considered a common approach because it has an inherent flexibility; this ability to adapt to rapid changes in tasks allows it to be used by global markets and organizations. The key shortcoming is the required strengths and traits needed by the leader, unfortunately these traits are not within everyone. The intimate knowledge a leader must have of the follower’s traits and characteristics makes it ideal for small companies and more complex for larger ones. This paper has discussed situational leadership, which is one of the five major approaches discussed in this course. Reference Page Yuki, Gary (2010). Leadership in Organizations, (7th ed). New York, NY: Pearson Education. Retrieved from: https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/content/eBookLibrary2/content/eReader.aspx