Value-Based Leadership

Value-Based Leadership

Introduction

Leadership is a process that enables the individual to influence the subordinates working under, towards the achievement and fulfillment of the aims and objectives of the organization. No individual is born with innate leadership skills, thus these skills develop over time with training, self learning and experience. Value-Based Leadership style is witnessed when the leader empathizes on the organizational values and morals while targeting high quality, integrity and high levels of productivity. The corporate culture is very different in an organization where this leadership style is practiced, as the main focus of each employee is on the core values of the organization, as it becomes a part of their own personal values.

Discussion

As we know that every leadership style has its own advantages and disadvantages, similar is the case with Value-based leadership, as it is argued that it is very certain for the individuals and the organization under Value-Based leadership style to say that they have mutual feelings about the values of the organization and that both value the same concepts and beliefs, but this might not be the case in real. This can be better illustrated by an example e.g. a common value in an organization is respect, and this belief is apparently followed by all the individuals in the organization, including the organization itself as the Value-based Leadership style is practiced. It should be remembered that there will be different interpretation of this belief at different levels of hierarchy .e.g. an employer would consider it disrespectful if the employee arrives late to work, though he sits overtime to fill the gap. This style does not leave enough room for the leader's to be considered as role models by their subordinates. Besides that every employee does not adopt this leadership style efficiently as most of them are very reluctant in accepting the formal values and making them a part of their aims and objectives. On the contrary employees become a representation of the core values or the organization which connects them strongly to the objectives and assists them in its achievement. Decentralization being one of the major features of this leadership style helps a lot in making each employee responsible towards their common goal. This often leads towards the concept of synergy, as all the employees work together towards the same goals and objectives (Kraemer, 2011).

Leaders often have to face a lot of challenges while leading a team, as usually a team consists of many people with different attitudes, behaviors and values. While dealing with the employees leader has to go through a lot of obstacles for instance during downsizing, once the process has been completed, the remaining work force becomes very demotivated as the fear of losing their job leads to stress and worry which indirectly effects their performance leading to a loss in productivity and wastage of resources as it creates a view that a company's main aim is cost minimization even if it puts at stake employee's satisfaction and their job ...