Being a global change agent does not necessarily mean you are in an executive leadership position, but it does mean you have a particular mind-set. That mind-set is one that you use to remain flexible to change, to develop creative solutions to complex business problems, to manage stress effectively, and to mobilize a culturally diverse team and inspire the team to help achieve organizational objectives. Global change agents must be competent in cross-cultural business practices. Imagine you are a global change agent similar to Janelle in the following scenario. Read the scenario, follow the instructions, and reflect on the results of your assessment.
Janelle is interviewing for a low-level management job, which will require her to supervise a small team of employees. One of the forms Janelle must complete as part of the interview process is a leadership style questionnaire. Janelle wonders what insight her potential employers hope to gain from the results, what insight the results will provide her personally, and how this information will impact her career.
Experiences like Janelle’s are not uncommon. Organizations use leadership style assessments and other such instruments for a variety of reasons. Bookstore shelves and the Internet offer a vast number of resources to help business professionals uncover their leadership styles and develop perspectives for positive and effective change. Given the widespread availability and use of such instruments, global change agents should evaluate the potential impact and usefulness of the assessments and their underlying leadership theories.
To prepare for this Discussion,complete the style questionnaire at the end of Chapter 4 in your course text, and reflect on your results.
Post your evaluation of leadership style assessments, such as the one you just completed, and the leadership style approach. Explain whether you think such assessments and a leadership style approach are useful for providing insight into leadership behavior for global change agents. Explain the potential impact of the use of such assessments for both individual employees and organizations. Also, explain the potential impact of the style approach to leadership for individual change agents and organizations.
Be sure to support your work with a minimum of two specific citations from this week’s Learning Resources and one or more additional scholarly sources.
Required Readings
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
- Chapter 1, “Introduction” (pp. 1–18)
- Chapter 2, “Trait Approach” (pp. 19–42)
- Chapter 3, “Skills Approach” (pp. 43–70)
- Chapter 4, “Behavioral Approach” (pp. 71–92)
- Chapter 12, “Psychodynamic Approach” (pp. 295–328)
Kotter, J. P. (2001). What leaders really do. Harvard Business Review, 79(11), 85–96. Retrieved from https://services.hbsp.harvard.edu/services/proxy/content/56406637/56406709/a9f97d3848b8d3aac247157b07339772
Latham, J. R. (2013). A framework for leading the transformation to performance excellence part I: CEO perspectives on forces, facilitators, and strategic leadership systems. Quality Management Journal, 20(2), 12–33.
Note: Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
Saxena, S. (2014). Are transformational leaders creative and creative leaders transformational? An attempted synthesis through the Big Five Factor Model of personality lens. Aweshkar Research Journal, 18(2), 30–51.
Note: Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
Walden University. (2015a). APA course paper template (6th ed.). Retrieved from http://academicguides.waldenu.edu/ld.php?content_id=7980596
Important Note: This template must be used for every Assignment in this course unless otherwise noted. Failure to use this template will result in a mandatory grade of zero for that Assignment. Download and save this template, so you have it available for future Assignments.
Required Media
Laureate Education (Producer).(2015). Leadership and management [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 3 minutes.
Assessment and Style Approach
Name:
Institutional Affiliation
Do such assessments and a leadership style approach are useful for providing insight into leadership behavior for global change agents
In to today’s business environment, organizations has resulted to adopting assessment and leadership style approach, a tool which is perceived to be effective in managing all aspects in the organization. At this age of globalization, institutions and communities are in need of a new kind of leadership capacity that will help them to deal with uncertainty, inspire others to transcend old habits and mindsets and adapt new strategies to manage change. Change agents in this regard benefits immensely from these transformative leadership as they deduce different perspective which are holistic in nature to help them have the authority to intervene and mobilize people to face these tough realities (Saxena, 2014). Following are some of the insights the global agents acquire from assessments and style approach to help them spearhead their obligations of effecting change:
Motivation
A change agent acquires emotional intelligence, values and drivers which are necessary to help them manage change in different communities they are working in all over the world. Transformative leaders all over the world are well known to be well versed in what they do and their personality and temperament are well checked so that they can be able to driver their point home without any problem with their followers (Walden University, 2015).
Technical know-how
Global change agents are able to acquire skills necessary to conduct their daily activities by observing how leaders in different organizations conduct their activities. Furthermore, leaders in different sectors have been educating change agents on how to effect changes through seminars and other functions where they meet to exchange ideas on how to effect change in business community.
Management Behaviors
By demonstrating leadership competence, organizational leaders’ gives the much needed insights and information to improve leadership effectiveness by mostly assisting the change agents to create action plans which are necessary in effecting and creating changes needed in society (Latham, 2013).
Impact of the use of such assessments for both individual employees and organizations
Individual Employees
As leading involves influencing others, assessment and style approach involves working closely with the employees and this will help them to directly benefit the employees as they will be closely interacting with the leaders and therefore, they will be able to assimilate their leaders’ behaviors. The employees will get first hand information on how to deal with different aspects relating to management and this will enhance their skills at all levels as they will genuinely be training while doing what they love to do.
Organizations
They will be the ultimate beneficially as when their employees acquire these fundamental skills and expertise, their performance in jobs improve which will give the organization a comparative advantage especially in production process. Due to well articulated working formula from a team of experts, every employee will feel obligated to conduct himself in accordance to the training he has undergone through (Latham, 2013).
Impact of the style approach to leadership for individual change agents and organizations
Individual change agents
The agents as described above will be empowered to conduct their activities in accordance to the needs of the communities as opposed to what they believe in. The change agents will be able to create trust and commitment which will profoundly bring positive impacts to the society through bring changes necessary at the time (Kotter, 2001).
Organizations
The style approach will help to define and redefine the organization desired culture and leadership style which will help them to support their unique vision which will bring success to the firm at the end. By emphasizing on the behavior of the leaders, and how they act in different situations, employees are likely to buy in their leaders’ traits and hence the outlook of the whole organization will reflect the leadership being offered by the leaders (Northouse, 2016).
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