All 19 entries tagged Leadership

PMA reflections LE

During the leadership PMA, I realised that all the theories are related to each other and every theory can be used effectively depending on the situation, on the followers and on the leaders. All the theories have got advantages and disadvantages and there's no correct answer, because leadership means something different for all the individuals. Consequently, leadership is very complex and very difficult. Furthermore, it takes a lifetime to learn continuously in order to comply with different situations and people.

: 27 Mar 2016 22:14 |  Tags: Leadership |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Ethical leadership

Because I am writing my dissertation about ethics, I came accross ethical leadership that I find interesting. Ethics is basically about knowing what is right and what is wrong. Ethics goes back to the ancient Greek philosophy, particularly to Aristotle...

But what is the right behaviour? It is quite difficult because for different cultures, religions and individuals right and wrong can mean different things, therefore ethics can vary.

Ethical leaders must act, make decisions and lead ethically in terms of their attitudes, behaviours, interactions and directions. It is very important how these leaders treat other people in his actions and what their principles and values are that drive them. Ethical leaders are ethical all the time and they continuously prove this. Ethical leaders are able to put their egos and personal interests on the side for the sake of the people, the company, or the greater good. Ethical leaders understand the power of leadership and they know how to use it well. Ethical leaders are the role models of ethical behaviour in an organisation, they build trust, they bring credibility, integrity and respect into the organisation, they are able to create a good climate within the company. Ethical leaders have a particular obligation in order to make the world a better place. Ethical leaders can sleep well at night, because they know that they always acted and behaved ethically.

: 21 Mar 2016 20:33 |  Tags: Leadership |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Leadership – power

According to my opinion, leadership and power are closely linked to each other, because leaders must have "power" to influence the followers because of their skills and personal qualities, to be admired by the followers or they have power because they are expert in their specific field. I read about French and Raven's five types of power (legitimate, expert, referent, coercive, reward) and I don't think that they can work in many situation because we all know that effective leadership depends on the characteristics of the leader, followers and situation. However, I found expert power useful, because when a leader is aware of his/her skills, competencies, abilities, knowledge, professionalism, he/she can understand the situation and make right judgements and creative solutions, the followers will listen to him/her. When leaders can demonstrate their expertise, they can gain trust and respect from their followers. Furthermore, because of the expert power, leaders can demonstrate their confidence, decisiveness, professionalism and rational thinking to their followers and gain support from them. In addition to this, this power is based on knowledge what nobody can take away from the leaders, although they have to learn and improve their knowledge continuously in order to be able to keep up their expert power.

: 20 Mar 2016 18:33 |  Tags: Leadership |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Effective leaders

Effective leaders know the people around them and their perceptions because they have got honest communication and understanding between them. Therefore, leaders will be able to get to know the needs and expectations of their people. It is easier to build a strong team when leaders know their people's values and goals. Effective leaders have vision and they know the strategy, purpose and goals of the company and they know how their people can fit into this picture. Effective leaders have excellent communication skills, they are inspiring, motivating and engaging people. Effective leaders take risks at the right time. Effective leaders know how to articulate their vision to their people in order to work towards the same direction. Effective leaders have values and principles such as integrity, optimism, transparency, honesty. Effective leaders are passionate, creative, confident and they are continuously learning.

: 15 Mar 2016 09:52 |  Tags: Leadership |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Transformational leadership

Transformational leadership and visionary leadership relate to each other. Transformational leaders are energetic, passionate and enthusiastic to inspire their followers for positive changes and to work towards common goals according to their vision. Transformational leaders can gain admiration, trust and respect from their followers thanks to their characteristics such as charisma, passion, support, energy, determination and so on. There are four different components of transformational leadership:

- intellectual stimulation: to encourage creativity between the followers

- individualised consideration: thanks to open communications, followers can share their ideas and they can be recognised for their contribution

- inspirational motivation: according to the vision, leaders can motivate and inspire their followers by expressing them their passion towards the vision

- idealised influence: leaders can serve as role models thanks to the respect and trust from their followers.

I think that visionary leadership should work together with transformational leadership because in order to reach the vision, leaders need to make transformation in many areas: in themselves, in their followers, in their strategies, ect...

: 12 Mar 2016 13:14 |  Tags: Leadership |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Visionary leadership

A good vision which is realistic, attractive and credible can take a company to a better desired future (Nanus, 1995). A leader who has got passion about the vision, willingness and necessary knowledge to achieve this vision can inspire his team better towards common purpose and organisational goals. Some of the characteristics of a good visionary leader includes good communication skills, as he needs to communicate his vision effectively to his employees; charisma to help to engage employees towards the vision; optimism, because he can see opportunity everywhere in everything; good organisational skills; intelligent risk takers and strategic planners as strategies take the leader towards his vision. A visionary leader promotes organised learning, creativity and innovation, empower employees, respectively, creates a nice working atmosphere.

I believe that an effective leader needs to be visionary first, as everything starts from the vision. Employees need to know what is the goal of the company and the direction how this goal is going to be reached.

: 11 Mar 2016 17:45 |  Tags: Leadership |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Leadership theories

There are a huge amount of leadership theories in the literature and their right application depends on many factors, for instance the experience, behaviour, knowledge, personality and characteristics of the leader, the actual business situation and the characteristics of the followers. I realised that someone can perceive and adopt a leadership theory in a totally different way than someone else because everybody expects something else from a leader.

I believe that in our case, one leadership theory is not enough to apply, as there are different theories that relate to power, style, traits, behaviour, and so on. I strongly believe that in order to be a successful and effective leader, different types of leadership theories need to be combined to achieve the best result.

: 05 Mar 2016 13:45 |  Tags: Leadership |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Some reflections

- Leadership is hard. It needs special characteristics, skills, styles, phylosophy, knowledge, values, principles and so on in order to work effectively.

- Everything starts from the vision. Vision is over the horizon. The vision needs to be set from the beginning to show the right direction and the goals, where the team needs to go to achieve that vision.

- Sometimes it is better to step back. And just watch. Observe people, observe the process. If we see people's behaviours from outside, conflicts between people, ect., we can have some suggestions or ideas how to improve.

- Time management is crucial.

- Leaders should know how to deal with failures. Leaders should never blame the team members but only himself/herself.

- It takes time to assess the skills of the team members.

- Giving and getting feedback is important in order to see our strengths and our areas of improvements.

- Leaders should take attention to every details accurately.

- The success of a project is based on the team members.

- It is significant to give space to the team members to come up with new, creative, innovative ideas.

- We should treat others in a way we would like to be treated.

- A good leader disposes of honesty, integrity, transparency and authenticity.

- Leadership without ego. Leaders need to put their ego on the side if they would like to gain support from the team members.

- The leadership style depends on the situation, followers and on the characteristics of the leader.

- Effective leaders can achieve the voluntary work of the employees.

- Good leaders are continuously learning and they are grown to become leaders.

: 26 Feb 2016 21:03 |  Tags: Leadership |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Coaching

Coaching is about unlocking someone's potential. Coaching is not about you, but about the coachee. Coaching is NOT about giving direction or setting up goals or telling people what to do. But it is more about making people take their own responsibility about their problems or issues. Coaching is about helping. Helping people to open up to the coach, to gain trust and build a relationship between the coach and the coachee. It is about helping others to solve their own problems by questioning them about when? what? where? how?. It is also important to emphasize the avoidance of why questions, because they are challenging. Coaching is not giving guidance but getting the coachee to realise his/her own solution to the problem. We should never give examples from our own experience. Coaching is about gaining commitment and making sure that there are available resources to be able to solve the problems.

Before the coaching sessions, I thought that a coach should have some similar characteristics as a leader but coaching and leading are two different approaches.

: 26 Feb 2016 20:37 |  Tags: Leadership |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Hotel Simulation

Firstly, I have been given a task to be the observer of my team which means that I wasn't able to contribute to their decision making, I couldn't suggest any ideas, I just had to sit back letting them doing their tasks, observe and listen. It was very difficult for me, because I like to express my thoughts on different tasks and give suggestions how various problems can be solved. However, I have learned a lot by observing their behaviour and their way of thinking. Sometimes in life we need to step back and see what's going on without our contribution. Sometimes we also need to step back to move forward.

Secondly, because my role was a deputy manager, when the general manager had to travel abroad, I had to take his role, but there was a twist in this exercise, I had to leave my team and join to another one as their general manager, when their hotel was already running and producing a huge loss. This was a challenging situation, especially, because I didn't know what was going on and I had to ask all the details from the team members. The first decision wasn't great and we produced even more loss. Then I realized that we need to have a drastic change in order to develop and get back to the right path. I tried to encourage this team that we can do better, we need a different way to get out from this situation and we are able to improve our occupancy level. In the last three quarters, we have made the right decisions, we reduced our loss from like -$168.000 to -$32.000 which was an incredible change and we also increased our occupancy level from 31% up to 80%. We didn't win the game, but I think we have won much more - inspiration, motivation, teamwork, collaboration, enthusiasm and "can do" attitude. Nothing is impossible. I am very grateful for all the feedback I have got, I know I still need to improve on some areas, but this life is a continuous learning process. And I am learning new things every day. :) Thank you very much team. Everybody has done a very good job.

: 23 Feb 2016 23:32 |  Tags: Leadership |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem