LEADERSHIP THAT GETS RESULT

LEADERSHIP THAT GETS RESULT

Introduction

“The Leadership that Gets Result” written by Daniel Goleman reflects how the organizational Climate, leadership style, and financial result or performance are associated with each other and affect the organization’s output. There is chain of relationship among these four components. Organizational climate affects the performance or financial result which in turn affected by the leadership style of the leader in the concerned organization. It focuses on the role and functions of effective leaders to spark the best performance from the employees in the organization. First, it offers a detailed understanding of how different leadership styles affect performance and results. Second, it provides better understanding of when and why leaders or the managers should switch between different leadership styles. It also strongly suggests that switching flexibly best way to cope with the changing environmental factors. In addition to these, the finding that each leadership style springs from different components of emotional intelligence is worth reading in the article. The article concludes that the more styles a leader exhibits, the better. Leaders, who can apply and switch into four or more leadership style especially authoritative, democratic, affiliative, and coaching styles, will be the best and not only this but also such leader can easily create the very best organizational climate (culture) and which in turn result the expected business performance and financial result. To be a most effective, leader should switch flexibly among the leadership styles as needed.

Points of agreement

Leaders are the strategic planner of the organization. The organization moves forward as per their plan and the follower follows the plans. So the credibility of the result, whatever it may be, goes to the leadership.  Therefore, what I agree with the article is that performance or financial result of the company is function of leadership.

Second point of agreement is that leader should not adopt the leadership style as per their personality but they should be able to match themselves or change themselves according to the given circumstances and the situation of the business scenario. And the third point I really agree with is to be a successful leader, one should be dynamic and apply different style of leadership as per the requirement of the situation and internal and external environmental change in the organization. 

Points of Disagreements

Yes, this is true that the leadership should be situational to be productive but it is also equally true that leadership is the function of personality trait of the leader. And the article just explains what leader should do and it doesn’t mention that why and how that is possible. It means, this article just considers the leaders are made not born. In fact, in some extent, leaders are born. Therefore, one should consider inborn nature, trait and quality of the leader. Some leader cannot change the way they do things. Their personality trait restricts them to be adoptive to the environmental change. And they hardly switch the leadership style as per the requirements of the environment and the situation.

Application of information to worldly views

Obviously, understanding of the different  leadership styles presented in the article of Goleman will in some extent, helps leaders to develop those styles within them  and to choose consciously when to employ each style. Leaders may develop all of these styles that don't come naturally by studying the emotional intelligence competencies that underlie the style, as set forth in the article. In real world there are so many leaders who follow one single style of leadership in their entire life and became unsuccessful. From that standpoint, we can apply the information and the research findings of the article to improve the efficiency of the leadership and to lead the whole organization to success. For example, recently in Nepal the Moist lead government last less than 350 days due to the lack of change in the government leader Mr. Puspa Kamal Dhal. If he had changed his leadership style then he would be able to run the government quite longer. There are hundreds of such example which signifies the importance of this article and its application in the real world.

Integration of information with material or concepts from the text

The information given in the case can be integrated with our text book of leadership which has 12 chapter starting with the “introduction of the leadership” to all the way to the “crisis leadership and the learning organization”. So far I understood the article and our text book, this article provides concrete idea and mechanism to be a dynamic leader applying emotional intelligence and other change initiatives. Not only this but also, the article provides concrete example of some leader with real work environment which links the core concept of the leadership principles and theories mentioned in the text book with the real world environment and  provides better understanding of those concept and theories.

Points of interest

Article describes six distinct leadership styles Coercive, Authoritative, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting and coaching with different emotional intelligence. It also linked among leadership and emotional intelligence, and climate and performance. As described in the article, each style can be used well in a particular situation, but the authoritative, affiliative, democratic, and coaching styles have a consistently positive effect on organizational climate and results. Therefore, my point of interest is how to match different leadership style with the emotional intelligence.     

New question sparked

Leadership is always judge upon the leaders’ actions and the result. As a matter of facts, there are various other factors which equally play the role in bringing out result as a whole. Therefore, my question is that, is the performance of the organization or financial result is just the function of the leadership style? What about the other internal and external environmental factors like resources of the organization (financial, human, and information), political, legal, sociocultural, and technological environment directly affecting the organization capability to perform well? Finally, is there any checklist that signals leader when they have to jump from one leadership style to another?

Conclusion

In real work environment, managers often fail to appreciate how profoundly the organizational climate can influence financial results. Organizational climate, in turn, is influenced by leadership style, as managers motivate direct reports, gather and use information, make decisions, manage change initiatives, and handle crises in the organization. As mentioned in the article there are six basic leadership styles. Each derives from different emotional intelligence competencies, works best in particular situations, and affects the organizational climate in different ways. Many managers mistakenly assume that leadership style is a function of personality rather than strategic choice. Instead of choosing the one style that suits their temperament, they should ask which style best addresses the demands of a particular situation.  The selection of a leadership style influences not only the outcome of a particular situation, but the overall organizational climate as well.. Each style affects each component of the organizational climate as well as the organization's financial results, and each may be used effectively in certain situations.

References:

Goleman, Daniel. (1998) Leadership That Gets Result. Harvard Business Review

Lussier N. Roberts,.Achua, F. Christhopher (2009). “Leadership’ 4^th  Edition