Leadership Role

Leadership

Introduction

Leadership roles tells us the way the leaders set the leadership nature for their organizations by developing a mission of values to operate their company. Company policies or guidelines are set from the company's mission or values. In this assignment, we will be discussing the Alan Mulally's (CEO, Ford Motor Company) leadership style and his dealing with company employees.

Discussion

Leadership Role

Leadership roles in organizations are very important. Poor leadership can cause organizations to fail. All leaders use power and engage in political behaviors to influence others. True leaders do so effectively and ethically. Others in managerial roles, but who do not qualify as effective leaders, use power and political behavior in ways that are ineffective and counterproductive. (Hellriegel, Slocum, 2011, p.290).

Leadership roles can be broken down into five sources of power that leaders use to influence their followers. When leaders use these sources they are trying to reach one or more of the followers needs. To be an effective leader there must be a willing follower in place or the leadership method will fail.

Legitimate power is an important concept of the leadership role in that this type of power has to do with influencing ones behavior. Reward power provides things to the followers in order to get them to comply with or influence behavior. Coercive power deals with influencing the follower through punishment. Referent power is when a leader can influence the follower to like him /her and the follower wants to do what they can to please the leader. Expert power deals with influencing other behaviors through talents, specialized knowledge, or competencies. An effective manager that is also a leader, whether the individual is a first time manager or a top- level executive-uses a variety of sources of power. For successful leaders and organizations, the emphasis is on reward, referent, and expert power, with less reliance on coercive and legitimate power. (Hellriegel, Slocum, 2011, p.293).

Leadership roles also consist of having different behaviors. Political behavior in organizations is sometimes referred to as “playing politics”. In this type of behavior one is protecting their own interest and goals. Organization politics consist of individuals using outside resources or power to get what they want. Political behavior and organization politics doesn't always have a negative impact on organizational performance. A study of 30 organizations identified both harmful and beneficial effects of political behavior and organization politics to include career advancement, status, and recognition, because they were looking out for their own interest as well the interest of the company. The down side of political behavior and organization politics consist mainly of employees having anxieties and withdrawal in their performance.

“Successful organizational performance relies on the proper behavior from managers and employees” (Vitez, 2012).

No one individual is the same and leadership styles vary in many ways. Leaders can come from different cultures and backgrounds. In order to be an effective leader one must understand that diversity is a key factor and diversity could impact organizational performance in both negative and positive ways. Great leaders in leadership ...