BUS501: Report on Leadership Philosophy, Application, and Issues

This report delves into the concept of leadership, specifically focusing on transformational leadership style, and its practical application in addressing organizational challenges. It begins by outlining the author's leadership philosophy, emphasizing the principles of simplification, motivation, innovation, and preparation. The report discusses how personal beliefs, such as religious values, influence leadership approaches and decision-making processes. A key experience is highlighted, illustrating the importance of communication in managing change and motivating employees. The core of the report then applies the leadership philosophy to a real-world organizational issue: a lack of two-way communication between management and employees. The issue is analyzed, highlighting its impact on employee turnover and performance. The report proposes solutions, including changing organizational communication processes, choosing appropriate communication channels, gathering and encouraging feedback, and acting on feedback promptly. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of leadership in motivating employees, resolving conflicts, and fostering organizational success.

BUS501

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Part A: Leadership philosophy...................................................................................................3
a) Own leadership style..........................................................................................................3
b) Principle that would not be violated...................................................................................3
c) Impact of personal beliefs on leadership approach............................................................4
d) Key experience...................................................................................................................4
Part B: Application of leadership philosophy............................................................................5
a) Key leadership issue...........................................................................................................5
b) Overview of the issue.........................................................................................................5
c) Controlling the identified situation and justification of decisions......................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
Reference list..............................................................................................................................8
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Introduction
A person with courage, personality, clear vision and intention to achieve goals, can lead
others and they are called leaders. Different kinds of leaders take different initiatives to
inspire, motivate and guide their subordinates. This study is focusing on the concept of
leadership and application of leadership in controlling conflict situation.
Part A: Leadership philosophy
a) Own leadership style
I believe and focus on transformational leadership style as it helps to collaborate with people
to manage situational changes. According to Balwant et al. (2019), this leadership style
allows to motivate and inspire people to be an active part of change for shaping the future
success of the organization. These leaders are responsible to set examples for motivating
others. Transformational leaders believe that inspiring and motivating employees can help to
manage change and they do not need to control activities of employees for that. These leaders
ask their employees to cooperate with the change process and discuss the advantageous
aspects of change. Focusing on open communication, allow me to understand issues of
employees regarding change and I take initiative to solve their issue for engaging them in the
process of change. As stated by Holten and Brenner (2015), transformational leaders trust in
the ability of their subordinates. On the other hand, they are concerned about positive growth
of their followers. Fostering ethical working environment helps me to gain cooperation and
respect from employees in return. This leadership approach support leaders to motivate
people to become flexible with workplace situations. They mentor people to make the
appropriate decision in every situation of business. These aspects of transformational leader
help organizations to design and implement change for getting more benefit.
b) Principle that would not be violated
There are different principles that I am not willing to violate are:
Simplification: This is an essential principle for transformational leader. As stated by Orr
and Cleveland-Innes (2015), a transformational leader speaks in a clear and practical manner,
which helps in heading a team. Plan for each change project can be explained to subordinates
in a simplified way. It is essential for a transformational leader to establish vivid
communication in a simplified way.
Motivation: For commencing a change, it is essential to motivate employees to gain their
best performance. This principle of motivation helps to gain commitment and agreement of
employees to bring a change in current operations of structure in an organization. This
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principle helps to know different needs of employees as a good work environment,
expectations of benefits and others.
Innovation: Change in a business can be made possible through this principle of innovation.
This principle provides courage to accept new things and learning new approaches.
Innovation is necessary for a transformational leader to embrace changes and provides new
things to the company (Udofia and Alexander, 2017).
Preparation: For transformational leader, it is essential to gain acquire learning continuously
for providing assistance to others. This principle helps leaders to nurture subordinates and
increase relationship.
c) Impact of personal beliefs on leadership approach
Personal beliefs like religion manifest leadership styles of a person. As opined by Beerbohm
(2015), leaders often use their religious belief and practice to model, enable and inspire key
dimensions of a leadership style. Transformational leader usually have high belief on oneself,
which helps to manage large group of employees. Religion of a leader serves as a backbone
with respect to ethics, values, and morals. Strong personal beliefs can help to lead positively a
large workforce efficiently. If personal beliefs are positive then future possibilities of leader
get stronger. On the other hand, religious and cultural beliefs of a leader can differ than that
of subordinates, which can impact work environment. My religious beliefs help in achieving
my leadership goals and motivate me to bring positive change in the organization. Moreover,
personal characters like inclusiveness help in minimizing unproductive conflicts and also
help in encouraging different perspectives. Inclusive character in a leader helps to orient with
people and increases the ability to listen. These personal belief and characters have impacted
on my leadership approach. These personal beliefs help to initiate or embrace any change in
the organization (Amanchukwu et al. 2015).
d) Key experience
Previous experiences have helped me to understand the importance of considering
transformational leadership approach. I have seen that employees show reluctant to cooperate
with organization during the change process in most of the cases. As stated by Xu et al.
(2015), people resist change as they do not want to leave their ease and comfort of working.
In this kind of situation, a person is required, who can motivate and inspire people to
cooperate with the change. Once, our company has introduced a new policy all of a sudden
and the management has not informed employees about it in advance. As a result, employees
resisted complying with this policy and they have questions about the company about their
business ethics. It has been found that lack of communication has created that problem. I
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have communicated with both employees and management regarding this. Employees were
informed about the advantages of the new policy and they were convinced for the new policy.
This experience has informed about transformational leadership style. I have learned that a
leader must communicate with their subordinates to motivate them to comply with the
change. Transformational leaders are capable to deal with this kind of situation easily and
organization can get support from their employees in terms of positive changes.
Part B: Application of leadership philosophy
a) Key leadership issue
In present organization, an issue arises regarding two-way communication. This is an
important leadership issue, which impacts on the relationship between management and
employees. As stated by Rosenbach (2018), two-way communication helps management to
gain feedback from employees and different essential policies and changes can be provided to
employees in return. For solving this issue, it is essential to take critical decisions and
establish proper communication in the organization. Change in organizational communication
process is essential, which can be resisted by current employees. This is because they are
accustomed to old method of communication.
b) Overview of the issue
Leadership issues impact on performance of employees and organizational performance.
Nelson et al. (2016) have mentioned that leadership issues must be identified and resolved as
soon as possible to ensure organizational growth. Lack of communication between leaders
and employees is the cause of poor performance of employees. Our organization is facing a
high rate of employee turnover since past 2 years. It has been found that employees are
leaving this company without mentioning a prior cause. It has been found in many cases that
they are joining rival companies. On the other hand, it has been monitored that performance
of employees are becoming poorer day by day and this fact is affecting organizational
performance. As stated by Hargreaves and Ainscow (2015), lack of communication prevents
leaders to develop a relationship with their subordinates and they fail to gain support from
employees in achieving business goals. It is important to implement two way
communications between employees and leaders to solve workplace conflicts.
After investigation, it has been found that leaders of our organization do not communicate
frequently with employees and workplace conflicts not get solved. Due to this reason,
employees are seeking for better opportunities and leaving this company. On the other hand,
remaining employees are not delivering their best effort to help this company to achieve their
business goals. This kind of negative attitude of employees is affecting overall performance
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of the organization. As suggested by Nguyen et al. (2017), this kind of conflicts situations is
the results of one-way communication. If employees do not get freedom to introduce new
ideas and opinions, they fail to perform well. Leaders are liable to develop a good
relationship with employees through their effective communication skills. Implementation of
two way communication can help organizations to gain support from employees in meeting
business objectives. The issue of communication gap between leaders and employees is
making this organization less competitive by nature.
c) Controlling the identified situation and justification of decisions
For controlling the situation, leaders need to change the organizational communication
process, which can facilitate two-way communication. Firstly, leaders need to understand
the issue and needs of audience. In this case, different grievances and needs of employees
cannot be forwarded to management due to lack of two-way communication. As stated by
O'Neill Jr and Nalbandian (2018), lack of proper communication is a serious leadership issue
that creates a barrier between employees and management. Moreover, employees can be
encouraged properly by knowing different needs. Like career development.
Secondly, a leader needs to choose the proper communication channels to mitigate the
leadership issue of lack of two-way communication. Considering audience and environment
of an organization is essential for choosing a proper channel. Moreover, measurement of
existing channels is also essential, which can give ideas about the gaps. Different factors like
invested time in communication, access to modern technology and skills of employees needs
to be kept in mind while choosing communication channels. Two-way communication can be
facilitated by increasing the skills of both managers and employees in using modern
technologies of communication (Ghasabeh et al. 2015).
Thirdly, for bringing the change in organizational communication process, a leader needs to
gather and encourage feedback. Gathering feedback from employees can help to design
proper process by selecting suitable channels. As said by Beerbohm (2015), collection of
feedback helps to eliminate any risk of internal conflict and resistance. Moreover, collection
of feedback can help to gain trust and loyalty from employees and they feel valid in the
organization.
Lastly, leaders need to act on feedback by investing less amount of time. This can help to
increase belief among employees and flow of ideas can also be increased. Incorporating
feedback effectively can eliminate any sorts of internal conflicts and job satisfaction of
employees can increase. Hence, two-way communication can be established and different
problems like employee turnover, low motivation of employees, low productivity of the
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organization can be minimized. Besides, collecting and incorporating feedback from
employees can help to increase collaboration. Following these steps is essential for a leader to
innovate the process of communication.
Conclusion
From the entire discussion, it has been understood that leadership is an essential process that
helps to motivate employees to achieve a common goal. Different principles of
transformational leadership like innovation, motivation is essential, which can help a leader
to bring in a change within an organization. Proper leadership approach helps to increase job
satisfaction of employees and eliminates threats of internal conflicts and low trust on
management.
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Reference list
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leadership style and management control system on managerial performance. Journal of
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O'Neill Jr, R.J. and Nalbandian, J., 2018. Change, complexity, and leadership challenges.
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Xu, F., Caldwell, C., Glasper, K. and Guevara, L., 2015. Leadership roles and transformative
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