Conceptual Leadership

Leadership Model

Michelle Corrigan

Calumet College of St. Joseph

Summary

A conceptual model's primary objective is to convey the fundamental principles and basic functionality of the system in which it represents. In this paper we will look at a basic model of Leadership. Also, a conceptual model must be developed in such a way as to provide an easily understood system interpretation for the models users. A conceptual model, when implemented properly, should satisfy some fundamental objectives, it needs to enhance the individuals understanding, the message needs to be efficiently conveyed to those stakeholders, it needs to hold a point of reference and finally have a means of collaboration.

This paper will go through the leadership model from one person’s perspective to help the readers gain a better understanding of the process. (SHRM, 2013).

Trust

The first things you will see in this model is Trust. No matter what type of industry you are in there has to be some level of trust between the Supervisors and employees and their also needs to be trust among the employees themselves. In the readings even Kotter noted that one necessary component is TRUST (Kotter, 2012).  

Building trust is not something that just happens overnight, but it is something that can be gained over a course of time. Trust is a relationship established between a trustor and a trustee. Often you hear people say it takes two to tango, and two to trust, well its true they both go hand in hand and this is true not only of interpersonal trust, but of trust between people and organizations. There are many ways that the trust building can be done but often when you make it personal it can be more effective.

Engage

 Then next one is engage good conflict, you may be reading this and think, why ever would you want conflict? When you are a leader of a team you want your team to first have trust which will allow them to feel comfortable voicing their opinion. As a leader we need to be able to provide or employees with a safe environment and encourage them to have conflict and debate over ideas. Healthy debates are good and can lead to great new ideas. This can be done by making sure that the debate is focused on the idea not the individual with the idea.

So by providing the initial trust and a safe environment to engage in healthy conflict will lead us to the next step in our process.

Commit

As many have learned it often easy for leaders to fall into complacency. We need to increase the urgency and remove the source of complacency (Kotter, 2012). We need to increase the level of commitment the employees have and give them a sense of ownership. If we allow everyone involved a chance to voice their thoughts and idea, they may have a higher level of commitment to the organization and feel a sense of ownership even if their idea wasn’t used they would at least know that they were heard.