Leading in a changing word Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Leading in a changing word - Essay Example The leadership styles should be capable of responding to changes in customer demands, economic changes, political changes and changes in the expectations of the employees (Judge and Piccolo 2004: 755-768). According to the competency framework of leadership development, leaders are expected to deliver, build and drive organisational success. Leaders should create a plan and make decisions with confidence while managing ambiguity (Ibarra & Hansen 2011: 71). The leader should also drive change, innovation and make initiatives that unlock new business opportunities in order to satisfy customer changing needs. A leader should coach and mentor the subordinates while encouraging feedback and performance evaluation. Adair’s leadership model is an action-centered leadership model that asserts that leadership can be applied like a tool and concentrates on the ability of the leader to inspire a shared vision. (Adair 1973). According to Adair (2003: 04), the leader should provide directi on, build effective teams and set an example for the followers. This model asserts that the leadership style will depend on the character of the leader and unique situation including the needs of the followers and level of task differentiation. The leader should build the team spirit, ensure team cohesiveness and establish proper communication channels (Ibarra & Hansen 2011: 75). Transformational leadership model also provides the guidelines of leading in a changing business environment (Judge and Piccolo 2004: 755-768). This model of leadership requires the leader to intellectually stimulate the ideas of the followers through articulating a clear vision and expressing confidence (Mullins, 2010). Individualised influence and inspirational motivation of the leader ensures that the employees express their creativity. In addition, the leader acts as an example thus modeling the behaviour of subordinates. On the other hand, the model fails in supporting the unique cultural background of the diverse workforce since employees have different norms and values depending on their cultural norms (Judge and Piccolo 2004: 755-768). The above challenge can be addressed by ensuring that the leader gains the trust of followers and cordial working environment in order to support teamwork (Mullins, 2010: 378). Another leadership style is the situational leadership style that combines task behaviour and relationship behaviour. According to this theory, there is no one acceptable model of leadership. Ideally, this model asserts that leaders should change their leadership approach depending on the unique tasks and relationship with followers (Lord and Brown2001: 133-152). The model is acceptable since leaders need to cultivate enabling relationship with the followers. In addition, some tasks may be clearly defined thus requiring minimal leader intervention. In the changing business environment, leaders will be required to change their leadership approach depending on the underlyin g situation such as the level of relationships, the degree of task differentiation, the use of controls such as rewards and punishments in the organisation (Judge and Piccolo 2004: 755-768). The other model of leadership is transactional leadership. Transactional leaders emphasize on the task outcomes and mainly rely on power systems and control in order to attain the desired goals. This style is fair to all employees since everybody is expected