Introduction
In 1899, American entrepreneur Elbert Hubbard wrote the book “A Message to Garcia,” which sold more than 40,000,000 copies worldwide (Hubbard, 1899). In it, the author stresses the significance of managers creating an atmosphere that encourages people to take initiative and work hard. The essence is that in difficult times, a gram of loyalty is worth a ton of mind and encyclopedic knowledge (Hubbard, 1899).
Most bosses consider brilliant employees the most valuable, those who generate big ideas, start innovative projects, or are particularly creative. However, according to Hubbard, the most valuable employee is the one who honestly and faithfully does his job, which gives it not 3-4 hours a day but all 8 (Hubbard, 1899). The most valuable thing is that the employee is ready to direct all their efforts, even to simple tasks, and bring them to an end. The objective of management is to establish an environment in which tactical goals can be achieved effectively and with the greatest likelihood.
Leadership issues affected by the author relate to which employees are of the greatest value. Valuable employees are an advantage for the company in terms of human resources. Properly selected and valuable personnel can take the company to a new level since it is on them to work for the enterprise at the proper level (Valero-Pastor et al., 2021). They produce innovative solutions and guarantee the smooth operation of the business.
As part of the employees, one can distinguish valuable employees from irreplaceable ones (Kouzes & Posner, 2017). Suppose the latter endangers the company’s well–being but brings significant benefits. In that case, the company’s valuable employees are the enterprise’s main labor capital. Several basic criteria distinguish such employees from others in the company, but scientists’ points of view on them vary.
Leadership Theories: Perspectives on Employee Value
According to leadership theory, proposed by Elbert Hubbard, a valuable employee is determined by loyalty (Hubbard, 1899). Valuable employees are interested in the well-being of the company, satisfied with their work, and perform it in accordance with their own goals and to benefit the company. Most often, valuable employees have their own interest in the enterprise’s success. There is a leadership theory in which competence determines a valuable employee (Valero-Pastor et al., 2021).
All valuable employees have the necessary skills and are well-versed in issues related to their position. They routinely update their working procedures following contemporary trends and continually expand their knowledge and competencies. According to another leadership theory, an employee’s value is measured by their productivity (Valero-Pastor et al., 2021). Every action taken by essential personnel is directed toward attaining the goal, resulting in high-quality work that improves business efficiency. Working independently and building on the work of their subordinates, they achieve high results in the shortest possible time.
According to the idea of leadership attributes, leaders are unique individuals with a unique set of character traits that are innate to them. The main idea of this theory is that leaders are not born but made. Ralph Stogdill, Warren Benine, and Edwin Giselli are the most well-known proponents and scholars of leadership attributes; their ideas date from the 1940s to the 1950s (Valero-Pastor et al., 2021). However, due to their work, behavioral traits unique to leaders were not revealed. This idea was necessary for creating and advancing other leadership theories, particularly the theory of leadership conduct.
Based on the traditional approach, a situational leadership concept appeared, proposed by Frank Fiedler, whose timeline is the 1950s–1960s (Kouzes & Posner, 2017). He considered that the leader learns his own qualities under specific conditions and expresses them differently under different conditions. Situational leadership concepts focus on the impact of outside factors that significantly affect a person’s capacity to lead a team.
To effectively manage a team and solve managerial tasks, a manager must understand the characteristics of people and know the main types of employees. Many scholars consider love and the ability to work components of effective followership. The best justification for the phrase “personnel quality” allows one to consider it from more than just the perspective of task performance (Kouzes & Posner, 2017). Scientists also consider it from the perspective of the enterprise’s primary business plan, which plays a vital part in boosting the economy (Valero-Pastor et al., 2021). Requirements refer to immediate expectations and promises, whereas characteristics refer to specific attributes of an employee that must be recorded in formal documentation.
Key Qualities and Skills of Effective Employees
All elements of a successful employee are conditionally differentiated into three main groups. The first category is abilities, which are comprised of knowledge, expertise, and education (Valero-Pastor et al., 2021). The second group includes aspiration and motivation, namely the willingness to work overtime and experience heavy loads. It was this category that Elbert Hubbard considered the most important (Hubbard, 1899).
Another set of qualities that make someone a good employee is their personal qualities, such as their capacity to withstand the emotional and mental strain of carrying out a specific work well (Kouzes & Posner, 2017). Assessing an employee’s professional abilities in connection with the position is a crucial task of the personnel department and the directors of the relevant departments.
I found Elbert Hubbard’s leadership elements very successful. This complex quality presupposes the presence of many related skills—organizational skills, communication skills, perseverance, and determination. According to Elbert Hubbard, a leader should skillfully use delegation and know that it is vital to successful projects (Hubbard, 1899). The leader effectively uses expectations, productivity, and resources to ensure that work is done holistically and in a team, not in separate, fragmented parts.
Conclusion
Summarizing all the presented theories of leadership and subordination, the conclusion is that management creates a state where effective strategies for achieving tactical goals are carried out with the greatest probability. For the performer to take a specific step, it is necessary not to impose this step on them so much as to create a state in which the expected step will be the most natural for them and, therefore, the most likely. Therefore, employees who are motivated to work and are as loyal as possible are the most effective, and the ability to delegate is an element of the most effective leadership.
References
Hubbard, E. (1899). A message to Garcia. Philistine.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2017). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.
Valero-Pastor, J. M., García-Avilés, J. A., & Carvajal, M. (2021). Transformational leadership and innovation in digital-only news outlets: Analysis of Quartz and el Confidencial. Journalism Studies, 22(11), 1450-1468. Web.