Analyzing Leadership Styles and Their Impact on Team Dynamics

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LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
IN PROFESSIONAL CONTEXT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part 1- Management style............................................................................................................................1
Part 2: Leadership, management and change..............................................................................................4
Part 3: Leadership, management and decision making...............................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................................10

Part 1- Management style
Introduction and description of feelings
The workbook objective is to reflect on the experience in working with the group of five students tasked
to analyze critically the case and create the group presentation. The use of reflection model called as
Gibbs reflection model will be applied to explain and assess the lessons gained through my experience
(Travers et.al. 2015). At the beginning of the group meeting, a leader was chosen and supported in
implementation and task planning. But, the experience of my with the group was quite challenging and
difficult. At the first stage, group formation, we faced the big challenge of meeting the group because of
difference in schedule of university. On the meet, few of the people decided not to attend while rest of it
were even more demanding and were dominating in discussions. In the group, the leader made some
priority order at the initial meeting and shown authoritarian style of management. While running the
team meeting, I was also becoming frustrated at the initial and thought that we can even more successful
in group presentation if we have worked more in collaboration with proper management (Geithner and
Menzel, 2016). Our presentation was not up to the expectation and disappointment is seen from all
members’ performance including me.
Discussion
Management is referred as the procedure where governance of leaders and decision making is done in
the organizations. It also includes task planning, work managing, staffing, activities directing and
controlling at end. The main objective of the management is that the manager motivates the group
members to meet the task activities. On reflection, my leader of the team reflected the authoritarian style
of leadership (Amanchukwu et.al. 2015). This leadership type explains that the leaders give commands
and instructions to the team members to meet the objectives in this manner only. He also does activities
supervision of the sub-ordinates and de-motivates the team member’s opinions or direction. This
management style is suitable in high structured organization with configuring daily operations. My own
evaluation experience in the team as not much effective and has little communication and cohesion in
the initial stages of working in team.
As per model of Tuckman’s team development, there are basically four steps of formation of group. It
includes forming, storming, Norming and performing. In the initial stage of forming, in which our
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lacking is seen in carrying out the team with difficulties and cohesion. The members in the team were
still forming the role in the team and tend to be diplomatic and polite (Lemons and Strong, 2016). Due
to authoritarian management style of the leader many team members was reluctant for taking the
activities, our leader made decisions to allocate the team roles and assures that every team member has
to participate the meeting. The entire supervision is done by the leader. On my reflection, initially the
management style was effective as it prevents absenteeism and reluctant (Wang et.al. 2017). This style
in beginning was appropriate as initially the tasks were simple and of shorter time. Our leader in group
was taking the regular follow ups on the task allocated by them only. But as we moved towards the
second step the conflicts soon arose in storming.
There are team members who always dominate the discussion and do not be supportive with the leaders
on the roles he assigned to the team members on presenting the case study. This conflict has placed the
negative influence according to my opinion but in general scenario the conflicts among the team
members are obvious and it does not always results into negative influence on the team development and
function (Iqbal et.al. 2015). The member’s who does not agree with the team leader on the presentation
of case study were not interested in attending the following presentation and playing the role (Jing and
Avery, 2016). As authoritarian style of management is taken by leader, he does not listen to the
member’s opinion. The conflicts can even support in team development if every team member addresses
the team members differences and understand to adjust the roles on individual basis.
On my reflection, majority of the team members decided not to compromise on the individual conflicts
and differences (Aufegger et.al. 2019). On contrary, it creates discordant team that clearly indicates on
the final presentation. I even felt that presentation was lots of chaotic and reflects very low on our role as
team members. On the part, our team will also have benefits in using the transformational style of
leadership (Aga et.al. 2016). This style of management motivates the members of the team to contribute
in decision making and is aligned with the goals and objectives meeting.
Conclusion
The management style of authoritarian is not supportive leadership style in team management since it
fails to motivate the team members in decision making contribution. This leadership style is also placed
in actual organization settings since customer centred is encouraged and working in team and
contribution is highly motivated.
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Action plan
In team management for the future, I will make sure that I am very much clear about my role in the team
for performance. The conflicts arising in the team should be used as the team development learning
rather than destroying the team. I will also take the leadership style that enables the team members to
attend actively in making the decisions (Muller and Turner, 2017). In special context, I will being the
leader will focus on the transformational style of leadership that ensures that members has the chance to
give their opinion and offer them value during task achievement.
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Part 2: Leadership, management and change
Introduction and description of feelings
In the whole team of ours, the change management concept surfaced as our leader was unable to have
impact on the team members to show the different team roles. I had also seen that I was alone
completing my tasks and not as the collaborative team working (McCaffery, 2018). In the group
presentation, I was not the leader although then also I have to reflect on suitable leadership or
management style that will be applied in team working for the future. In team meetings, I was little
frustrated and got irritated as we were moving slowly but on my part in the end I have develop the team
work ability.
Analysis
Change is referred as the transition that includes movement for the current situation of the firm to the
desired state in future (Holten and Brenner, 2015). Changes generally happen in the enterprises and
therefore it needs to have change management in the firm. In the period of role play and meetings,
partnership working in team was motivated to meet the team objectives (Bush et.al. 2019). This shows a
change that I meet the tasks. From finishing allocated activities alone, I have to gain an understanding
on the tasks completion in group. Irrespective of the changes for tasks completion, there was
recommended leadership style change to transformational from authoritarian leadership style (Al-Ali
et.al. 2017). On examination, change management was important in the group of ours, as it has
addressed the factors that lower weak performance and enhanced the factors that results into the
successful performance of group.
Change management practices are important as it will support in developing me for the role in future as
leader or employee in organization. There are mainly three theories that supports in change management
(Al-Haddad and Kotnour, 2015). These are PDSA (Plan-do-study-check), Lewin’s change management
and Kotter’s model. The cycle PDSA is generally applied in the organization like healthcare as it
enables leaders and doctors to develop the ‘plan’ for executing a change. While in ‘do’ step involves the
actual plan performance and ‘study’ step the employees and leaders examine the performance and
whether it requires modifying. In the last phase ‘act’, the recommended changes in the plan of action
and performance is executed. The whole procedure is continued until the changes had been deployed
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completely in the firm (Patel and Deshpande, 2015). On the critical side of the PDSA plan includes
complexity in repeating the cycle as seen that only 20% of the organization repeats the PDSA cycle. The
PDSA applicability is restricted with few of the organization settings not giving advantages from change
management of this type.
The Lewin change process model explains the three stages of change that are unfreezing, change and
refreezing (Cummings et.al. 2016). This approach is generally applied in the organization as it considers
into account all the components that allow the change in real practice. Force field analysis is conducted
and components that allow the change are enhanced while other components that deter the changes are
lowered (Hussain et.al. 2018). Finally, the Kotter model of change takes top down strategy and is
generally used in organization setting. It is very complex to apply the model change in the organization
like healthcare as this organization highly encourages team member’s participation in executing the
change efforts (Small et.al. 2016). But my own reflection had reflected the Kotter change management
process as our leader has used the authoritarian style of management. This change comes from leader
which is trickled down with team members.
On the part of reflection, placing Lewin change model is significant for the future role as employee or
leader lead the multidisciplinary team. In organization, it is determined that there are various factors that
promote or discourage the changes in practice (Hussain et.al. 2018). For example: the changes
recommended raises the paperwork can discourage the adopting the practice of change. This perspective
is helpful for the employees to spend the averagely 2.5 million hours per week finishing the tasks
clerically. Thus I have to make sure for the factors that encourage or discourage change. On own
reflection, the authoritarian leadership style coupled from top down approach for change does not result
into successful group performance. The Lewin model is suitable for change as it is suitable in supporting
the team members adopting their separate roles and in modifying their personal way of finishing the
activities (Salman and Broten, 2017). The model will be helpful for the team leader to search about the
components or factors that outcomes into weak performance for the team meetings and team members
refuse for solving conflicts.
Conclusion
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Useful leadership and management change are significant in executing the change and finishing the
group activities. By application of Lewin model team members will work efficiently by determining
factors of change that will ultimately supports in getting the team objectives.
Action plan
I will make efforts to develop my leadership skills and capabilities to use the Lewin change model
(Cummings et.al. 2016). I will determine the opportunities of practising the skills of change
management in the organization and report consistently to the team members and colleagues. I will also
take the feedbacks from the colleagues and mentors if I have get change management and leadership
skills.
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Part 3: Leadership, management and decision making
Introduction and description of feelings
In the group work, the team leader does not made the decision for determining the elements that
discourage the contribution from solving the conflicts and adjusting team roles (Noe et.al. 2017). There
was not any decision to show on why the team members are hesitant to take the given activities and the
points for less attendance at the meetings. I personally feel that this non-decision has impacted our team
performance (Newell et.al. 2015). As the group, we develop the confusing conclusion that resulted into
poor presentation and performance. In the meetings, I was apprehensive and quite anxious that we were
not able to finish the task in the given time pre-specified.
Analysis
The non-decision to determine the factors that de-motivates the group contribution in meeting and
adopting the tasks has the major negative influence on performance of the team. The capability to
develop the decisions is significant when finishing the activities as the employee and in developing
myself as the leader or employee in organization. The decision making is important in any organization
and in the team. In actual settings of organization, decisions are made consistently and ranges from
decision on whether to include the customers for decisions on which interventions to apply for particular
organization condition (Newell et.al. 2016). These decisions are impacted through policies, leadership
styles, legislations and practices related to customer care. On the analysis part, it is significant to
consider decisions in the groups.
However, it is seen that collective making of decision will show group thinking without assessing the
influence of the decisions on rest of groups and in procedure, avoid actions or alternatives (Parks, 2018).
It is significant to address that group thinking is supportive when members are from same background,
when decision making is not much clear and other member’s opinions are not taken. My own experience
shows that we were even not able to take the decisions or shows group thinking irrespective of the
similarities of background. I think that lack of cohesion protects us from taking faulty decisions that
generally occur in groupthinks team (MAKING, 2015).
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The power relation is also not seen and it is influenced by the people who are involved in decision
making. Power is referred as formal authority of group making decision and accordingly having
resource access (Argyris, 2017). The other thing is that power is also referred accordingly having less
capability to have ideas control. In teams, there might be imbalances in power when social, professional
and cultural factors reinforce the imbalances. The imbalances are majorly seen in the healthcare
organizations due to medical dominance. This will develop imbalance in power as employer generally
has more power in making the decisions in comparison with others (Sessa and London, 2015). This is
just opposite to what is generally observed in healthcare firms where every member of the team tends to
have power sharing and taking decisions accordingly what is suitable for the customers.
On the other side, the therapeutic relationship in development, there is requirement to take the
relationships power among employee and customers. It is recommended that power can be applied in
both positive and negative manner (Stapley, 2018). On examination, my capability to have
understanding on the power relations by my experience in team working will be important when serving
customer. In the team of ours, power was applied negatively as the leader has to force the team members
to take the assignments. Thus, I felt that in real settings, it is significant to motivate and give power to
the employees and customers for improving the customer services. It is been reflected that customer
empowerment results into quality improvement of customer and its services (Brunsson and Olsen,
2018). On examination, there was major imbalance of power in the group as the leader takes all
decisions and the change use was top down approach was followed.
Conclusion
Taking the decisions are significant in working in team and when serving the customers. Hence, the
capability for decision making will be based on one’s power only. Those with more resource access and
power have higher capability to impact decisions. In any organization settings, it is important to apply
the power in the positive way and giving power to the customers in the organization for making the
decisions. The positive power use is also significant in protecting group thinking criteria that can result
into the negative influences for the group.
Action plan
Being the individual when faces the similar situation for the future, I will make sure to involve actively
in making of decision. But I should also give power to the others and myself to take right decisions.
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Allocating the power is important to protect against imbalances in power (Jo and Park, 2016). I will be
regular in training on practicing useful leadership and management skills in respect of empowering the
others to actively participate in organization decision making.
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References
Books and Journals
 Al-Ali, A.A., Singh, S.K., Al-Nahyan, M. and Sohal, A.S., 2017. Change management through
leadership: the mediating role of organizational culture. International Journal of Organizational
Analysis, 25(4), pp.723-739.
 Al-Haddad, S. and Kotnour, T., 2015. Integrating the organizational change literature: a model
for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), pp.234-262.
 Amanchukwu, R.N., Stanley, G.J. and Ololube, N.P., 2015. A review of leadership theories,
principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management, 5(1), pp.6-14.
 Argyris, C., 2017. Integrating the Individual and the Organization. Routledge.
 Aufegger, L., Shariq, O., Bicknell, C., Ashrafian, H. and Darzi, A., 2019. Can shared leadership
enhance clinical team management? A systematic review. Leadership in Health Services.
 Brunsson, N. and Olsen, J.P., 2018. The Reforming organization: making sense of administrative
change. Routledge.
 Bush, T., Bell, L. and Middlewood, D. eds., 2019. Principles of Educational Leadership &
Management. SAGE Publications Limited.
 Cummings, S., Bridgman, T. and Brown, K.G., 2016. Unfreezing change as three steps:
Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. Human relations, 69(1), pp.33-60.
 Ellis, P., 2018. Leadership, management and team working in nursing. Learning Matters.
 Geithner, S. and Menzel, D., 2016. Effectiveness of learning through experience and reflection in
a project management simulation. Simulation & Gaming, 47(2), pp.228-256.
 Holten, A.L. and Brenner, S.O., 2015. Leadership style and the process of organizational
change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(1), pp.2-16.
 Hussain, S.T., Lei, S., Akram, T., Haider, M.J., Hussain, S.H. and Ali, M., 2018. Kurt Lewin's
change model: A critical review of the role of leadership and employee involvement in
organizational change. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 3(3), pp.123-127.
 Iqbal, N., Anwar, S. and Haider, N., 2015. Effect of leadership style on employee
performance. Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review, 5(5), pp.1-6.
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