Effective Leadership Case

Competency Paper #1

When talking about effective leadership, the first thing we should clarify is what effective leadership is. In the first chapter of our text book, there are three ways to think about effectiveness. “Goal Approach to Effectiveness,” “Systems Theory Approach to Effectiveness,” and “Stakeholder approach to effectiveness.” They seemed totally different; however, I think there are links among them.

In my opinion, if we divide the whole management system into three levels, which are basic, medium and highest level management, we should use different approaches to judging effectiveness. For example, for the basic management level, the leaders’ job is to supervise staff and make sure they finish their work on time. In this level, we would better use “Goal Approach to Effectiveness” to judge who is an effective leader or not. For medium management level, besides supervising staff, leaders should take more parties’ benefits into consideration, such as shareholders and investors. In this situation, we would better use the “Stakeholder approach to effectiveness” to judge effectiveness. For highest management level, the leader should consider more issues, like the environment, the economic system, politics, and so on. Here, we would better use the way of “Systems Theory Approach” to judge the effectiveness of leaders. So, if we want to judge one person’s effectiveness, we should distinguish between the three management levels and three ways of assessments. It is easy to notice that leaders need different competencies to meet the requirements of their different management levels. These various competencies will help leaders become more effective.

For our class, we are focusing on three competencies: Collaboration, Interpersonal Understanding, and Team Leadership. However, not all leaders need to have the same level of competency. Collaboration has several levels, as do Interpersonal Understanding and Team Leadership. For example, as a leader who works as chief of staff in a small store, what kind of competencies does she need? Let us consider collaboration. Maybe the second level of Collaboration, “Expresses Positive Attitudes and Expectations of Team or Team Member” (NHCL full competencies, pg 5) is enough for her to become an effective leader. However, if you are a CEO in a big international company, I believe third level of Collaboration, “Solicits Input” (NHCL full competencies, pg 5) is the basic abilities required to become an effective leader. Judging the effectiveness of leadership also depends on different requirement from different potions and industry fields. For example, NCHL Model has 26 basic competencies to meet effective healthcare leadership.

In a conclusion, what is the requirements for effective leadership? Firstly, it’s hard to judge what effective leadership is. The three ways to think about effectiveness gives us a hint. In my opinion, I’d like to use these three ways to judge effectiveness according to different management levels. Second, different leaders require different competencies or different levels of competencies to help them become an effective leader.

Different leadership styles also affect effectiveness. At first I thought I was more like relationship-focused style than task-focused in my leadership. But, according to the test of leadership style, I know my leadership style is task- focused. I am the person who have well-articulate goals and well-defined problems. After I make up my mind, my execution is effective and committed.