Leadership Self-Assessment Analysis
In the wake of the corporal scandals of Enron and the Arthur Anderson Company, there have been increased calls for strong ethical leadership. Leadership had always been regarded as a key factor in ensuring the effectiveness of any organization. However, new models are also being developed to challenge the limitations of the prevailing classical theories of leadership.
This paper argues for a tempered approach, one that combines effective leadership with good management. Both factors are important, since over-managed and under-led organizations tend to lose sight of their goals. By the same token, while charismatic leaders can lead their organizations to high levels of success, the lack of management skills means that such victories do not last in the long run.
The growing awareness of corporate and white-collar crime has likewise presented new challenges to the classical leadership model. Organization leaders should now be wary of lawsuits the way physicians fear malpractice cases.
Furthermore, advances in technology, the crash of the dotcom industries and an increasingly diverse and sophisticated clientele have created a new need for a leader has both the old-fashioned skills of management combined with the vision to identify new needs and innovations before they become trends.
In this paper, I apply the leadership theories discussed in Peter G. Northouse's
Leadership: Theory and Practice and Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal's Reframing Organizations to my own profession as a partner in a local accounting firm. The first part of the paper discusses various leadership styles. In this section, I note how the classical leadership style necessarily limits the ways in which a leader can both lead and manage in the modern era. Instead, I propose that like most organizations, my accounting firm would benefit best from a leader who embodies the consideration style of leadership.
In the next section, I will discuss the results of my self-inventory process, which brought out several leadership qualities that characterize my leadership style. The results show a leadership style that is focused on fulfilling a company's goals by fostering communication and cooperation among employees.
In the last section, I discuss the effectiveness and other advantages of this style of leadership, both in my accounting firm as well as in other companies in general. These examples show how traditional, top-down hierarchies in organizations are increasingly giving way to team-based organizational structures.
Leadership styles in modern organizations
The classical style is the oldest and most well-known form of leadership. This style is akin to a military hierarchy, where a leader/general rules over a body of followers. The classical leader is focused on the end goal - whether it is conquering a territory or selling more cars than a competitor. Unfortunately, the classical leader's focus on the end-goal often comes at the expense of monitoring the means towards that goal (Northouse 1997). For example, many classical leaders, the narrow orientation towards increased production and profit can trigger worker dissatisfaction and low morale. It can also compromise product safety and, as seen in the Ford Pinto case in the 1970s, the marketing of an unsafe and dangerous product.
Furthermore, the classical style of leadership emphasizes the leader's authority in making business decisions, evaluating workers and dealing with other issues related to the operations of the organization. This arrangement can have benefits.
For example, centralized decision-making can cut through the bureaucratic red tape that strangles many organizations. However, this also shows that classical leaders loathe delegating authority, and thus tend to make decisions without discussing or considering other relevant concerns.
Furthermore, this style of leadership values stability and generally eschews change. As a result, suggestions for change in the production process, for example, are viewed with suspicion, as potential sources of destabilization within the organization and dips in profit levels. Employees who try new methods of production are seen as disturbers or potential troublemakers.
This classical style of leadership is best applied in a workplace setting with unskilled or low-skilled workers. As in the military, where soldiers are trained to follow their superior's orders without question, classical leadership is most effective in organizations like factories, where workers are accustomed to following instructions from management.
Thus, in a classically led organization, there are no programs in place to ensure worker motivation or employee morale, since the classical leader believes that a worker relies solely on directions from management. Thus, the classical leader is geared towards developing a system that accomplishes the organization's goal, despite any negative effects this system may have on the workers.
Such a strictly hierarchical leadership style would no longer work in many modern organizations today. Though varieties of classical leadership are still evident...
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