The psychodynamics of the democratic leadership style, including the structure of the value system
Democratic leadership involves all the people within a team. Democratic leaders find ways to influence the rest of the group members to assimilate the qualities of the group to their core identity. As a democratic leader, one must focus on the social aspect of life because such qualities guarantee success in leadership. The social identity influences the core identity of a person in democratic leadership. On the other hand, the personal qualities of a leader affect the group identity.
Leaders try to propagate their idea of life into the rest of the group members (Hogg, 2001). For instance, an innovative leader would try to instill innovative skills to every member of the group. This approach of leadership helps in motivating followers to work for a collective goal.
The value system of a leader has a significant impact on their general leadership concept. As a democratic leader, it is easy to assimilate my value systems into the leadership activities because my personal and business life is the same. My value system helps in shaping my decision-making techniques, as well as my behavior as a leader. For instance, I believe in inspiring and motivating my followers. Therefore, during the decision-making process, I allow people to speak their minds, and I consider all the suggestions made. The value systems of people determine how they view the external environment (Peterson, 2013).
A person with high levels of visionary sees challenges as opportunities for growth. The value system of leaders is what differentiates successful leaders from good leaders. Additionally, my value systems help in the value creation for the stakeholders as well as in making strategies. Despite the group identity of democratic leadership, the leader must have a plan for the future of the organization. Value systems help in shaping the strategies of the organization.
Group members identification with their leader and the concept of followership
It is rather imperative for followers to identify with their leaders for business success. The leader has a duty to inspire the group members to believe and trust in the course and the purpose of the group. The leaders must show a level of trustworthiness, compassion, stability, and hope for team members to identify with them. Followers respect and bestow power on a manager depending on the leader’s ability to show commitment to the group. The respect helps the manager to influence the team to operate in a certain way that guarantees success. In addition, followers who identify with their leaders easily conform to the group dynamics (Knippenberg, 2011). In general, the success of an organization is embedded in the followers’ ability to identify with their leaders.
Group prototypically is important in achieving followership. However, the leader’s individualism is necessary to propagate change and innovation within the organization. Group prototypically focuses on the constant qualities of the organization. For this reason, such an approach can hinder growth and development, which is necessary for competitiveness in business. Therefore, leaders must use their individualism to inspire people to change and embrace new methods of operations.
Innovation also requires the leader to focus on individualism rather than group prototypically for obvious reasons (McLean, 2006). Processes that require swiftness demand that leaders embrace personal individualism rather than group prototypically. However, regardless of the approach that the leader uses to run the team, trust, stability, compassion, and hope within the organization must remain a priority.
References
Hogg, M. (2001). A social identity theory of leadership. Personality and social psychology review, 5 (3), 184-200.
Knippenberg, D. (2011). Embodying who we are: the leader group prototypicality and leadership effectiveness. The leadership quarterly, 22 (1), 1078-1091.
McLean, G. (2006). Organization development principles, processes, performance. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Peterson, G. (2013). Leadership 310: the four principles of followership. Web.