Leadership Literature and Personal Experience

Leadership Literature and Personal Experience

In today’s highly competitive business environment, effective leadership is a must to achieve organizational goals which is essential for business success. According to Kierson (2009), a leader, in the context of organizations, is someone who can be counted on to create the future. In order to catch up with the rapid changes in the global business world, organizations modify themselves to a more knowledge-based workforce structure with highly specialized team members who are given great autonomy. As a result, becoming an effective leader requires having not only hard skills but also soft skills because soft skills are critical for productive performance in today’s workplace (Robles, cited in Nealy 2012, p. 453). In Robles’ study, the ten soft skill attributes categorized from executive listings include communication, courtesy, flexibility, integrity, interpersonal skills, positive attitude, professionalism, responsibility, teamwork, and work ethic (Robles, 2012).

Different leadership styles are used in relation to different positions, different industries and in various situations. A study held by Drexel University, USA, was trying to ascetain the best leadership style regardless of a participant’s position, industry and different situations. Surprisingly, the study ended with different results which were that the participant’s position and industry did affect the leadership styles. The leadership styles used in this study included command and control leadership, relations-oriented leadership, hands-on leadership, coaching leadership, and democratic leadership. The analysis of the study revealed that ‘the softer management styles were preferred overall to both manage with and to be managed with’. Its conclusion was that ‘management and leadership calls for good judgment, and that judgment will be needed to determine what style to use, and when’ (Boykins et al. 2013, p. 17).

I adopted the command and control leadership style when I worked in a Chinese company as a customer service department manager some years ago. Without providing any proper advice and help, I relocated one of my team members from the front line operation back to office to do data input because he had been struggling to deal with customers patiently and politely. The team member was disappointed and upset by my decision and he lost his confidence to talk to customers even by telephone. Eventually he left the company. This case had negative effect on my team resulting with decreasing morality and low productivity. It took me a while to understand that the reason was my leadership style. Later on, I learnt that the command and control style would be useful with beginners who had little to no knowledge about a task or assignment and needed direction. Also such a style should be more appropriate in a crisis situation.

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