Leadership & Management: Assignment

Leadership & Management

Table of Contents
PART A...........................................................................................................................................1
Introduction..................................................................................................................................1
Main Body...................................................................................................................................1
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................3
PART B............................................................................................................................................3
Reflection.....................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

PART A
Introduction
Mahatma Gandhi is a great leader who had so many good leadership qualities and so
many followers.
Report will highlight the Mahatma Gandhi's leadership style. It will tell about the
leadership qualities which Gandhi had. It will also explain the leadership theories which is
applicable to the Gandhi's leadership style along with theories' advantages and disadvantage.
Main Body
Leadership
Leadership refers to the quality or skill which motivate the employees to achieve its
organizational objectives and goals (Northouse, 2017). Leadership is the essential quality in
today's managers and leaders so that they can direct their employees in that way where
organizational objectives can be attainable.
Leadership style
Leadership style refers to the method adopted by leaders in order to guide the employees
and motivating them (Northouse, 2018). There are various leadership styles such as
Transactional Leadership Style, Transformational Leadership Style, Democratic Leadership
Style, Autocratic Leadership Style, Bureaucratic Leadership Style and Laissez-Faire Leadership
Style.
Leadership style of Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi had adopted Transformational Leadership Style. In this style, leaders
keep abilities to influence his followers and direct / guide them towards positive change. Gandhi
always motivated his followers according to the situation which made him a successful leader.
Qualities of Mahatma Gandhi as a leader
There are various leadership qualities which was in Gandhi. These qualities made him a
better leader. These qualities are as follows -
Good Communication
Mahatma Gandhi was a great communicator. Not only great communicator, but also a
great influencer too. He listened to his followers and he made them understand the outcome for
which they were trying to change.
Empathy
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Empathy is the quality of understand others' emotions, experiences and thoughts
(Antonakis and Day, 2017). Gandhi was a great empathic leader who understand and aware of
the anger, pain, hate, emotions, experiences and thoughts of his followers and guided them to
achieve their objectives.
Commitment
Gandhi was passionate towards his goals and countries and for that they could do
anything. This lead them to become committed towards his countries and followers. They also
were confident and believed in peace and calm methods rather than conflicting methods.
Leadership theories which apply to Gandhi's leadership style
There are various leadership theories which can be applicable to the Gandhi's leadership
style. But there are two theories which are more accurate-able for the Gandhi's leadership style
(DuBrin, 2015). These 2 theories are as follows -
Transformational Leadership Theory
According to this theory, leader works with the team to create the need for bringing
changes and motivate them to adopt the changes through vision which is created by Leader
himself.
According to this theory, Gandhi had following qualities such as commitment,
adaptability, positive, clarity of goals, influencer and conscientiousness.
This theory helps leader to maintain a balance between vision and goals (Western, 2019).
It can be effective only when structure of the situation is fix.
Servant Leadership Theory
In this theory, a leader is considered to be a servant for their followers. Like a servant is
focus on the needs of his owner, the same applicable to the leader who is need to take care of the
needs and wants of their followers and accordingly motivate them to achieve their goals and
objectives.
According to this theory, Gandhi had following qualities such as Empathy,
Communication, Commitment and Awareness etc.
This theory can improve the performance of followers and motivates them for longer
time (Grint, Jones and Holt, 2016). It takes long time to achieve results.
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Conclusion
From the above study, it has been summarised that to become successful leader, leader
must have some attributes such as commitment, effective communicator & influencer,
understandable towards the needs of the change and needs of the followers. No particular
leadership style or theory is perfect because every style and theory has their own advantages and
disadvantages which may impact the situation differently.
PART B
Reflection
I with my team (5 members) was given a task to present a group presentation on the topic
of “LEADERSHIP STYLE OF MAHATMA GANDHI”. The time deadline was for 5 days.
Firstly me and team members decided that what subtopic will be taken under this
presentation after that we divided the subtopics with each other and decided to do collect data on
the respective topics till next 2 days. We collected the data from various sources and write it
down on the papers and discuss with each others. After deciding what data to put into
presentation, we decided that all members will make their own presentation and later will send to
me for the combination of all the presentations made by me and team-members till next day.
After that we decided that rest 2 days, we will practice the presentation regarding presenting in
front of our teachers and classmates. So that during presentation, we don't make any mistakes
regarding presentation.
Challenges faced
There are various challenges which I and my team members had to faced. These
challenges are as follows -
LACK OF TRUST
Trust is a crucial factor for the group team work. But in case of mine, there was lack of
trust between team members which lead to conflicts, lack of human connection and co-ordination
between team-members' efforts.
CONFLICT OVER TOPICS
Me and my team members were fighting over topics that what topics to choose or what
not to choose. Everyone including me were trying to take easy topics and assigning difficult
topics to another. This lead to more conflicts between me and my all team members.
LOW ENGAGEMENT
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Due to lack of trust, commitments and human connection and more tensions, me and my
team – members were not willing to do cooperate with each other, this lead to low engagement in
team. This also lead us to face some ego problems too.
Lesson learned and knowledge acquired
Due to above mentioned challenges, I learned and acquired a lot of lessons and
knowledge. These lessons and knowledge are as follows -
This group presentation helped me to learn the importance of trust and commitment for
the team working activities. Without trust, there won't be engagement of members, arise of ego
problems, start of blame game in case of any problems arise in presentation and no co-ordination
of efforts put by members. Also, there won't be no communication and no human connection
which lead to lack of commitments of team members towards team.
This group presentation helped to me gain knowledge of leadership, its importance, its
different styles and theories which will make me understand the behaviour, qualities and nature
of leaders. Also, this will help me to become a good leader in the future according to the
situations and team-members.
Improvements of skills to enhance the future team work
For the improvement of skills in me which is required to enhance the future team work
are as follows -
COMMUNICATION SKILL
For the better team work skill, I need to focus on my communication skills. If I will be
able to communicate my ideas, perceptions, thoughts, knowledge with my team members, this
will help me to rapport with them, which is essential for the team work.
CONFLICT MANAGEMENT SKILL
I need to manage conflicts between me & another members or between two another team
members. Because conflicts comes along with so many another problems which negatively
impact the team and team work.
CO-OPERATION SKILL
For the betterment of teamwork, I need to improve my co-operation skills so that I can
easily compromise with them and their requirements. Also, it will help me to co-ordinate my
tasks with another members' tasks.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Antonakis, J. and Day, D.V. eds., 2017. The nature of leadership. Sage publications.
DuBrin, A.J., 2015. Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Nelson Education.
Grint, K., Jones, O.S. and Holt, C., 2016. What is Leadership. The Routledge Companion to
Leadership, p.3.
Northouse, P.G., 2017. Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice. Sage Publications.
Northouse, P.G., 2018. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Western, S., 2019. Leadership: A critical text. SAGE Publications Limited.
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