Leadership and management of conflicts

In the seminar of how a leader can manage conflicts we analyzed his responsibility regarding the personal conflicts some if his/her team members might have. It requires a great deal of social intelligence from the leader to understand the importance of a conflict and know at what level he/she has to intervene in order to resolve it and secure the team's harmony. People especially in western societies prefer to have a team that works in harmony but what is the probablity of that when people from different backgrounds and usually different cultures have to work together.

In every job it is almost certain that you will have to work with someone that you don't like at all but how can you let aside these feelings and focus on the work only? Can a leader alone help you with that or it also depends on the team members involved or the situation? If a member does not want to cooperate should he/ she be excluded from the team and can a leader decide sth like that?

: 04 May 2009 16:15 |  Tags: Conflicts Leadership |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Leadership and coaching

During Day 6 that we had the coaching exercise, I realised how hard it is to coach someone. The hardest part is to elaborate the options to the person you are coaching. People tend to give advice and always think that what they have in mind is the best for the other person. Unfortunately, an effective coach should try to help the other realise alone his/her options and help in the evaluation without influencing.

But in the context of leadership the leader according to the definitions is supposed to influence the thoughts and actions of the followers. So is it possible for an effective leader to be able also to coach the members of his/her team or these are two different roles that one person cannot have the same time?

: 04 May 2009 15:32 |  Tags: Coaching |  Comments (6) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Leadership and communication

Writing about web page http://www.skagitwatershed.org/~donclark/leader/leadcom.html

Clear, full and effective communication is critical for a team. The leader is responsible for communicating his vision to all the team members and clarify everything needed. In addition,  he/she should ensure and encourage that all the team members share their ideas but also listen to others'. Challenging the other people's views can only be achieved in an environment of good communication because only then can people combine effectively their ideas and improve the existing ones by commenting to what others say and have a proper discussion. Good communication can build brand new ideas because if the team members share their thoughts something new may come up that they never thought or was quite in the contrary of their initial approach. So, a good leader should encourage this kind of procedure and ensure that it takes place because the results can be very good. On the other hand, if effective communication is not achieved the team will probably experience many problems such as misunderstandings, different definitions of the team's objectives and no clear direction of what it is doing and why.This can lead to letting only a couple of members working and probably know what they do and the rest being confused and demotivated.

So, I believe that when I will have the opportunity to lead a team I will ensure that full and effective communication is achieved by encouraging everybody to share ideas and discuss upon them before making a decision. I will also try to communicate my vision as well as I can so everybody has a clear direction.

The attached website just gives some ideas upon the topic and refers to some of the problems in team communication.

: 21 Apr 2009 00:37 |  Tags: Communication; In Leadeship; Problems Teams |  Comments (16) |  Close comments |  Report a problem