Introduction
Leadership is a fundamental aspect that determines the success of both developing and developed companies. In this regard, it determines the cohesiveness, commitment, and the incentive of employees in the organization. Although leadership is needed in both old and young companies, the young companies require more superintendence than the old ones. In this case, startup companies do not have well established organizational structure that could enhance effective execution of roles.
Most importantly, the young organizations lack coordination in the internal structure implying that they need much dedicated leadership. In addition, the leaders of these organizations do not have the experience to coordinate the internal and external environments of the organization.
This implies that those leaders must assess their leadership skills, improve them, and apply when executing their roles. Therefore, this paper will describe the requirements of good leadership, assess the good aspects of personal leadership, and illustrate a plan for developing leadership skills in line with the assessment.
Attributes of Good Leadership
Creating a Vision
The most fundamental requirement of good leaders is the power to create a vision for the companies. This requirement is based on the premises that an organization is formed on the basis of a vision. The vision comprises common objectives of the company which define what all stakeholders should attain.
Additionally, all roles of various stakeholders are based on a common objective of the company. In fact, this objective is regarded as a real factor of motivation because all employees aim at attaining that objective. This shows evidently that the vision defining the organizational objective is a core factor that determines the progress and success of the company. The existence of this vision is even more important to a startup company whose structure is weak and coordinated.
A good leader should have the capability to formulate, share, and help the stakeholders to implement the vision. He should be capable of creating the urgency of achieving the vision among stakeholders. This implies that the leader must elaborate the aspects of organizational aims, objectives, and vision to a substantially high degree of convincing clarity. In essence, the leader is also mandated to create a way of achieving the vision by defining strategies that could be applied to achieve a common objective.
In the same light, the leader must assess the expertise of various stakeholders in order to allocate duties according to expertise. This approach ensures that the employees work in their specialty field leading to efficient and proficient execution of roles. Lastly, a good leader should always assess the progress of vision implementation to determine the achievements, hindrances, and threats of the entire process. Essentially, good leaders should, therefore, oversee the conception, implementation, and assessment of the organizational vision.
Power of Influence
The second most important requirement of a good leader is the capability to influence people. In this regard, a leader is mandated to direct the stakeholders rather than commanding them. This implies that a company is not managed forcefully by dictating issues to employees.
Instead, leadership of all companies is based on convincing the people to support and share the ideologies of the leader. Otherwise, dictatorship could paralyze the independence, efficiency, and dedication of the employees. In fact, it is hypothesized that the most convenient strategy of managing an organization is allowing the employees to work independently. The independent functionalities inspire them to improve their managerial skills causing effective execution of roles in their respective department.
Power of influence is applied in various activities especially in a startup organizations considering that the institutions do not have defined procedural framework. First, leaders should influence the stakeholders when solving external and internal conflicts of the company. In this regard, conflicts paralyze the operations of the company in a substantial manner. It reduces the willingness of various stakeholders to work together, socialize, and settle their dispute harmoniously.
As a result, the leader should have the capability to influence the victim of conflict showing the importance of reconciling and working in harmony. Leaders who cannot influence their subjects can hardly solve conflict among stakeholders because they do not pay tribute to him.
While considering the power of influence, it is important to remember that the leader must lead by example in order to influence the followers. Leading by example implies that the leader implements strategies, keeps promises, and follows the regulations like other employees. A leader should, therefore, avoid contravening the rules that the organization has set. In fact, this is the primary requirement of developing the power of influence.
Second, leaders need this power in order to introduce change in an organization. This is very essential in a startup organization because it is prone to making changes in the structural, operational, and strategic autonomies of the organization. In fact, a startup organization experiences profound changes because its procedures are experimental. In this regard, experimentation requires a frequent change of strategies in order to determine their appropriateness to the organization.
The leaders should, therefore, have the capability to influence people during the introduction of change. Kotter (2012) suggested that the influence of a leader on employees is the major determinant of whether the change is realized or not. He further stated that a leader must influence people to consider change as an urgent, critical, and essential undertaking of the organization. If the stakeholders consider the change as urgency, they work towards attaining it with dedication, proficiency, and required expertise.
In addition, the power of influence helps the leader to succumb resistance to change. In essence, people are always resistant to change especially when working in a team. As a result, the leader should have proficient skills of influencing the stakeholders during such situations.
This implies that the leader must influence them to adopt the envisioned change without significant resistances. An influential leader is capable of accomplishing this role without using dictatorship and force. As a result, the involved stakeholders adopt change willingly leading to fast progress of the entire organization.
Team Building and Management
While managing a startup organization as a leader, building a team and managing it are two important tasks that the leader must accomplish. Like other organizations, a startup organization has employees with different cultural backgrounds, religion, and experiences. In addition, they have diverse expertise that determines their roles. These factors play an important role in determining the success of a startup organization.
However, they might act as dividing factors if they are not managed properly. This implies that a leader should be capable of harnessing the diverse aspects to use them as opportunities rather than aspects of the division. It also means that the leaders have to unite the employees regardless of their cultural backgrounds, religions and experiences. This ensures that the employees focus on the common organizational objectives rather than their differences.
Therefore, they became part of one community pursuing a common goal that unites them. This needs the leader to adopt very efficient strategies that could accomplish this task successfully. In fact, the ideology of uniting employees and other stakeholders is the most fundamental aspect of building a team. In addition, leaders should be accommodative in order to build a successful team.
This means that they must accept the weaknesses of their subjects and correct them rather than condemning them for making mistakes. As a result, they develop their employees harmoniously and in an effective manner that causes little conflicts in the organization.
Transformative
It is of essential importance for a leader to adopt a leadership transformative approach. The theory of transformational leadership states that a good leader should aim at transforming the face of the organization. In this regard, the leader must transform the ideologies of the employees, their dedication, and the principle of the organization’s behavior in a positive way. Additionally, it states that leaders should always be oriented to developing their followers rather than satisfying their own needs.
This premise implies that the employees should be helped to become the future leaders of the organization. This development of followers into leaders enables them to become resourceful.
As a result, the employees can give worthy opinions owing to their skills development. In regard to organizational strategies, a leader should be capable of transforming the strategies so that they correspond to the size of the firm considering that the company grows progressively with time. A leader who is not transformative delays development of the firm leading to low financial income and solvency of the company.
Servant
Leadership theorists state that all people are leaders although there must be some people to take charge of the organizations. In this regard, all stakeholders are leaders only that the managers have been put in charge of the company. This implies that everybody is important and nobody is unnecessary in an organization.
As a result, leaders should be servants rather than commanders and dictators. They should serve the customers, employees, and shareholders with humility in order to achieve humanistic success which considers the welfare of all stakeholders. The aspect of serving is evident in the theory of servant leadership which is a core theory of management and leadership.
In regard to the service, it states that leaders should exhibit six ideologies which include demonstrating authenticity, valuing and developing people, providing and sharing leadership, and building community. The aspect of authenticity ensures that the leaders exercise a practical approach while managing the organization. In this regard, leaders should accept their personal limitation, weaknesses, and ignorance in order to create a way for other people to use their strength.
This implies that leaders should not take on all roles. Instead, roles should be distributed to all the stakeholders of the organization. In addition, it recommends that leaders should maintain a high standard of integrity in the organization by portraying trustworthiness, honesty, and accountability in all activities. Valuing people is demonstrated when the leaders believe in capabilities of the employees, maintain a high opinion about them, and appreciate their accomplishments.
Good leaders are also required to consider the welfare of other stakeholders before considering their personal welfare. Lastly, valuing people involves the aspect of avoiding premature judgments about employees’ actions and opinions. Their opinions should be regarded as worthwhile and equally effective as those of the management. In line with the same theory, good leaders should develop employees enabling them to exploit their fullest potential.
The leaders develop employees through aspects such as motivation, role modeling, and offering professional inspiration. They consider organizational conflicts as opportunities for employees to learn and develop their power of making decisions in the organization. In the same light, leaders should have the capability to build a community.
The leaders build the community by executing roles such as enhancing relationships, working in collaboration, and emphasizing on team work. This is essentially conjoined to the willingness of appreciating other people’s cultures, experiences, and expertise. The leaders of a startup organization are also mandated to provide intensive leadership to their subjects. In this regard, they are expected to use intuition in order to provide directions about the organization’s future.
This contributes partly to building the vision, goal, and objectives of the startup organization which create its futuristic framework. In addition, it requires the leaders to clarify those goals to their followers ensuring that they are conversant with them. Lastly, a servant leader should share leadership with the employees.
In this regard, they should exercise low authority that uses persuasion rather than coercion when executing their administrative roles. It ensures that the leader uses their personal influence rather than resolute and positional authority. This implies that leaders should not demand honor form their subjects when managing the organization. Instead, they should earn respect by exhibiting humility and understanding.
These are some of the aspects of a good leader which are essentially crucial to managing startup organizations.
Personal Assessment as a Good Leader
Strength
This module has been a source of many lessons which form the basis of self assessment. While conducting a personal evaluation, I noted that I have various attributes that could lead to successful leadership. In my leadership, I always lead by example by doing what I expect the juniors to accomplish. In this regard, I exercise participatory leadership where the leader participates actively in the activities of the team.
This helps in analyzing the capabilities of the team members in order to assign them appropriate roles. For example, I have been a leader to my academic group where we have been conducting research on the qualities of a good leader. During the study, we interviewed various departmental heads in the university in order to obtain their opinions towards good leadership. During the interviews, I helped in the collection of data while my colleagues asked questions.
I assumed a minor role of recording the data rather than interacting with the heads orally. This allowed the group members to improve their interpersonal communication and oral skills. In addition, the other group members could easily accomplish their roles because I set the pace for them. This was a perfect example of how leaders should lead by example. In fact, it was one of the ways that my colleagues learned about humility, dedication, and active participation.
Secondly, I noted that I am a motivational leader who hardly gives up even when the situation is very tough. In regard to the study we conducted together with my colleagues, there were many difficulties especially when making appointment because the departmental heads are always busy.
For instance, we could find the offices closed when trying to look for the lecturers in charge of the departments. However, I was always optimistic even if the situations were very difficult. I could persuade my colleagues to find an appointment despite the absence of those heads. This persistence could always bear fruits.
Poor Attributes
Despite the good attributes, I realized that there are various aspects that impair my leadership skills. In this case, one of the main poor aspects is lack of accommodativeness. I believe in my opinions more than the ones provided by my colleagues. I always enter into unnecessary arguments in order to convince my colleagues rather than understanding their sentiments. I am tempted to make decisions alone and implement them.
This has developed a tendency of having the willingness to implement the opinions that I have provided and discarding the ones provided by other people. This behavior has impacted the unity of the academic group which I have been leading for the last one year. The effect of this vice is neutralized by the validity of my opinions because I always provide viable ideas. However, it is not right to believe in personal opinions resolutely.
This is one of the main attributes that I should eliminate in order to attain a highly reputable and effective leadership. Another, vice that impacts the effectiveness of my leadership skills is incapability of solving conflicts between team members. When I am solving conflicts, I tend to favor one party over the other in accordance to my personal preferences and morals. For example, I am tempted to make a premature judgment on a person if they have made some other mistakes in the past.
During my research for this module, I have realized that conflicts should be considered individually. When solving a conflict, leaders should not use past perception to adjudge a case or solve a conflict (Eunson, 2007). Instead, they should consider the aspects of that conflict as a separate case from the past ones. This will form the basis of improving conflict management which is one of the most important aspects of leadership.
Another crucial lesson that I have learned in the course of this module is that leadership does not only incorporate fine speaking and excellent content (Bass & Riggio, 2006). Instead, it needs a leader to listen to other people because listening is the sole tool of obtaining much knowledge.
Leadership Development Plan
There are various practices that I will embrace in order to develop my leadership skills in line with my views of a good leader. In this regard, I will be aiming at developing the power of accommodating other people by appreciating, considering, and implementing their opinions. I understand that leadership is an art that can be practiced and learned by all people. Consequently, accommodativeness is a practice that can also be learned and practiced.
As a result, when interacting with my colleagues, I will be slow at giving opinions about the issues that are discussed. By doing this, I will train to listen to other people’s opinions and become less argumentative. This will provide a good opportunity of obtaining new knowledge about issues. In addition, I will improve my motivational skills in order to become proficient in inspiring my colleagues. In this regard, I will be reading some books concerning leadership theories and principles.
This will help in obtaining vast knowledge on leadership. I consider these theories as crucial aspects of leadership although most people have dismissed theoretical approach to leadership. Such people contend that practical approach is the only basis that can develop proficient leadership skills.
However, we cannot live long to learn from our experiences only. Instead, we should read the theories that have been tested and proven through experimentation. In fact, it should be said that theories are the documentation of practical experiences. This implies that theories are developed from the practical implementation of the practices elucidated in the theoretical frameworks.
As a result, leadership principles will be part of my leadership development plan. Lastly, I will work on my skills of solving conflicts between team members which good leader should be capable of. This will be partly solved by studying theories about conflict managements. Since the theories cannot work without practice, I will be trying to solve any conflicts by applying those principles.
Conclusion
It is evident that leadership is a fundamental aspect in managing an organization. Additionally, it cannot be disputed that startup organizations need intense leadership that superintend the activities of the organizations since they do not have firm procedural frameworks.
In addition, this discussion depicts that a good leader should have the power of influence, capability of developing organizational vision, the willingness to accommodate others, and build a team. These attributes purport harmonious organizational environment which is crucial for success. Further, it has demonstrated the importance of assessing the leadership skills and improving them.
References
Bass, B & Riggio, R 2006, Transformational leadership (2nd ed.), Erlbaum Associate Publishers, Mahwah.
Bush, T 2003, Theories of educational leadership and management (3rd ed.), Sage Publications, London.
DuBrin, A 2004, Leadership: research findings, practice, and skills (4th ed.), Houghton Mifflin, New York.
Eunson, B 2007, Conflict management, Wiley Publishers, Milton.
Hammer, D 2012, Servant leadership, Pacific Creek Books, Sinaloa.
Trompenaars, F & Voerman, E 2009, Servant Leadership Across Cultures Harnessing the Strength of the World’s Most Powerful Leadership Philosophy, Infinite Ideas Ltd, Oxford.