more NOTES!!

LEADING

Leadership is the process of influencing a group to achieve goals. The person or someone who can influence others and who has managerial authority is the leader. In leading, there are many motivation theories that can be applied. One of the theories is Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. We know human need physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization needs. Maslow’s theory is a motivation theory because it addresses unsatisfied needs. If a need is already substantially satisfied, it won’t motivate. Those needs that are unsatisfied and dominant are motivators.

McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y, is also one of the motivation theories. Theory X is the assumption that the workers are lazy, avoid responsibility and dislike work. While Theory Y is the assumption that the workers are creative, seek responsibility and can exercise self-direction. In reality, either set of assumptions may be appropriate. It depends on the situation – the type of job being done, the experience and skills of the worker, and so forth. If the manager followed the X theory, he/she can be effective, if they doing the job they like, and have experience about the job.

How can managers motivate high achievers? – the secret to motivating high achievers is designing jobs that score high on personal responsibility, feedback, and offer moderate risks. Interestingly, that probably makes working on teams less appealing. It doesn’t mean that high achievers won’t perform well on teams. But it does mean that you should probably make sure they have their own clear area of responsibility, let them know how they’re doing, make their tasks challenging but not too challenging, and provide individual as well as team rewards.

Isn’t it possible for goals to hinder motivation and performance? – Goals can hinder motivation and performance when they are set unrealistically high. Employees are likely to give up or only go through the motions if they realize their goals are reachable. Additionally, some people are likely to take offense if the goals are given to them without the being able to provide any input. This is particularly true among professionals. So assigned goals with such types could have negative results.

Do effective leaders have common traits (characteristics)? – Media seems to think that effective leader do have common traits. They always stated that in their articles. The research tells us that there are some common traits that regularly seem to differentiate leaders from others, which are ambition and energy, the desire to lead, honesty and integrity, self-confidence, intelligence, and job-related knowledge. But those traits provide no guarantee success because it depends on the cause and effect.

For example, are leaders self-confident, or does success as leader build self-confidence. But the fact is that an individual can show his/her traits and others will think that he/she is the leader, but not necessarily mean that the individual is successful at getting his/her team to achieve its goals.

Are leadership styles fixed? – Some people have a fixed style and some people are not. The reason for the person have fixed style because they are comfortable with it and regardless of the situation, they stay with it. Leadership success will require this leader (with fixed style) to select situation that match-up well with their style.

Do effective leaders treat all followers alike? – Leaders often act very differently toward different individual or groups. They put people they like into their “in-group” and people they dislike into their “out-group”. Those who are in the “in-group” normally have the same characteristics (age, gender, and attitudes) as the leaders have or have a higher-level of competence than out-group members. They are more trusted, get a disproportionate amount of the leader’s attention, and are likely to receive special privileges.

It seems like a lot of readers really can’t lead, but they do a good job of looking like a leader. Are such leaders still effective? – To answer this question, you must know how you define effectiveness. If you define effectiveness by looking at objective performance, then you are looking for leaders that can perform very well in achieving the organization’s goals. If the leaders perform poorly on objective measures, but you see him/her as smart, attractive, verbally adept, friendly, with good sense of humour; their consistent and unwavering in their decision making. People often mistakenly confuse these qualities with leadership, because they look at the person by perceptual measures. So, in reality, we need to be aware that in situations where hard and objectives measures of performance aren’t used, leaders are likely to be judge by their ability or inability to exhibit the appearance of leadership.

Is charisma a desirable characteristic for every leader? As a leader, how would you know when you needed to use charisma and when you didn’t need to use it? – Charismatic leader is someone with an enthusiastic, self-confident leader whose personality and action influence people to behave in certain ways. All situations don’t require a charismatic leader. Charisma is most appropriate when there is a strong ideological component. Charisma is something that most of us can turn off and on. Even if we could, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. People will see you as manipulative and inconsistent-neither characteristic which is desirable in a leader. On the other hand, if you can develop it, do so. It’s not going to hurt you.