Leadership Essay: Analyzing Leadership Styles and Communication

This essay delves into the multifaceted realm of effective leadership management, exploring various leadership approaches, theories, and communication processes. The paper begins by defining leadership as the ability to inspire and motivate employees, as well as to incorporate innovation. It then examines leadership approaches, including leadership by action, influence, and expertise, drawing on the author's personal experiences with a highly effective team leader. The essay further discusses four key leadership theories: Trait Theory, Contingency Theory, Situational Theory, and Management Theory. It also explores factors influencing leadership strategy, such as force, rules, exchange processes, ecology, and magnetism. The essay highlights specific leadership styles, including visionary, coaching, democratic, and affinitive approaches, along with the Tannenbaum-Schmidt leadership propositions and the Blake Mouton Managerial Grid. The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory and the six bases of power, as proposed by French and Raven, are also analyzed. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding these theories and applying them to foster effective communication and increase organizational productivity.

Running head: EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
Effective Leadership Management
Name of the University:
Name if the Student:
Author Note:

1Effective Leadership Management
Leadership is one of the most important aspect of the organizational management
process. Leadership can be defined as having characteristics to inspire and motivate
employees in order to increase the output of the organization as a whole. It is also defined by
the ability of the leaders to potentially use the processes of innovation into the system and to
increase the output of the organization.
Therefore, in the following essay the leadership approaches, theories and the
communication processes used or should be used by the leaders will be discussed and the
paper will also focus upon the best leaders that I have come across in my life, and the
leadership approaches and the communication processes used by that person will also be
highlighted.
While working as a sales person, in my first job, the team leader, under whom, I was
assigned, was the best leaders as according to me. After that I have changed three
organizations, and have worked under and with many people, but none of them were as good
as him, and now that I am a team lead in an eminent organization, I try to manage my team
and my works as he used to do.
The leader followed the leadership approaches, which were propounded by
Kanungo&Mendonca (1998), which are, Leadership by Action that entails that the leaders
must establish themselves as leaders through their actions, which can be the methods or the
system of communication that they will include in their leadership approaches. This
proposition further entails that the leaders must be consistent in their approach. The leader of
my first organization, had included a communication process that made us enabled us to
incorporate into our work.
The second approach is the leadership by influence, which basically refers to the
methods of incorporating values and work ethics into the processes of work, which was

2Effective Leadership Management
hugely practiced by my former leaders. He used to uphold the ideas of work ethics and
motivated us to follow them properly so that the quality of the work is preserved. He also
practiced the values related to human labor and work conditions and wage and labor, which
had enabled me to practice the same among my subordinates and establish a position among
them.
The third approach is the leadership by expertise, which basically refers to expertise
of the leader. My former leader had a vast knowledge in his filed and he was very adaptive
and included a continuous learning method in his approaches to work. This had motivated me
greatly and today, when I myself am a leader, I can understand how knowledge and proper
conception of work can help me to motivate my subordinates and elicit a good and quality
product from them.
The leadership process is guided by certain leadership theories. There are four main
leadership theories that govern the leadership processes. Firstly, the Trait Theory, states that
there are certain characteristics of a person which govern the leadership abilities of a person,
these are essentially, self- confidence, extroversion, adaptability and adeptness. Secondly, the
Contingency Theory also talks about the qualities of the leader, and states that the abilities of
the leaders to understand and balance between the behavior, context and needs, paly an
important role in managing the leadership within the organizational context. Thirdly, the
situational theory of leadership depicts upon the fact that it is important for the leaders to
understand the context and further take actions that will properly account the situations.
Lastly, the management theories illustrates that the leadership skills refer to the ability of the
leaders to manage, supervise and organize the group behavior and group performance
(Landis, Hill & Harvey, 2014). Therefore, every leader must know about these theories and
must abide by the guidelines.

3Effective Leadership Management
The leadership strategy is usually influenced by certain factors, which were
propounded by the Charles Handy. These influences are, Force, which refers to the negative
behaviors that govern within the organization; Rules and Procedures, which are the
organizational guidelines that underlie the organizations; Exchange processes that refer to the
processes of negotiation, contributing to employee performance appraisal; Ecology, referring
to the organizational culture that motivate the employees of the organization and Magnetism,
referring to the personality of the leader (Handy, 2007). These six rules of influence help the
organization to create a motivational culture and to create an effective communication
process within the organization to increase the productivity of the organization as a whole.
As found from the views of Handy, leadership is about inspiring people in an organization
which was well evident in our leader who always shared his own beliefs and ideals. He asked
the audience for discussing and telling what they felt and celebrate every moment of success.
It increased the confidence-level of the followers and they used to become eager in taking up
challenges.
The leader further elicited the leadership styles or attributes that had been propounded
by Goleman, which are, being Visionary, that is, mobilizing people towards the vision of the
organization; Coaching, that is, providing the subordinates with the necessary training;
Democratic, that is, exercising an organizational set up that will enable each and every one to
exercise their personal opinions and Affinitive,that is, creating emotional bonds among the
employees (Goleman, 2000).
Along with this, my former leader had also elicited the leadership propositions that
were propounded by Tannenbaum-Schmidt. According to this, the best leaders is the one who
makes the decisions and Tells the team; who Sells the decision by using proper rationale;
Suggests certain outlines that adhere to the decisions; consults with the team before taking the

4Effective Leadership Management
decision and further Abdicates the team to identify the [problem and further expect the team
to follow the decisions taken (Covey, 2002).
In this notion it is important to mention the leadership policies and propositions, as
propounded by the Blake Mouton, who had presented a Managerial Grid, that is, what are the
various approaches and which approach is the best (Blake& Mouton, 1981).
Another leadership theory that often guides the behaviour of the leader are the
Hersey- Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory, which offers four maturity levels that
define a team and also include the relationship behaviour present among the leaders, which
affect the leadership policies. This particular approach to leadership suggests matching of the
two required key elements properly such as the leadership style of the leader and the level of
preparedness (Hersey, Balnchard & Natemeyer, 1979).My leader had an exceptional
understanding of the circumstances and the ability handle the circumstances. He had the
maturity level to take the correct decision and to keep calm even in worse situations.

5Effective Leadership Management
Therefore, all these lead him being the situational leader. I have also found that my leader
had a directive and authoritative approach and he always dictated the employees what to do
by making appropriate decisions. He also used to communicate and persuade the workers in
the right direction. Moreover, my leader engaged the team members too in certain situations.
In all the four level he maintained high competence and high confidence too.
However, in that notion the six bases of power as propounded by French and Raven
that guides different forms of leadership processes. These are, legitimate power, reward
power, expert power, referent power, coercive power, and informational power (Meng, Y.,
He, J., & Luo, 2014).The former leader of mine used to effectively exercise the reward and
the expert power. The reward power is about giving the positive things to others such as
praise, perks and money where money works as the most valuable one. Apart from this, he
also used the expert power of learning everything that became the key. His competencies and
his innate skills became the base of his string communication. He As I had already
mentioned, had immense knowledge regarding his work and which he used effectively and
the small recognitions that he used to make to encourage us, also made a huge contribution.

6Effective Leadership Management
References:
Blake, R. R., & Mouton, J. S. (1981). Management by Grid® principles or situationalism:
Which?. Group & Organization Studies, 6(4), 439-455.
Covey, S. R. (2002). Leadership in organizations.

7Effective Leadership Management
Goleman, D. (2000). Leadership that gets results. Harvard business review, 78(2), 4-17.
Handy, C. (2007). Understanding organizations. Penguin Uk.
Hersey, P., Blanchard, K. H., &Natemeyer, W. E. (1979). Situational leadership, perception,
and the impact of power. Group & Organization Studies, 4(4), 418-428.
Kanungo, R. N., &Mendonca, M. (1998). Ethical leadership in three dimensions. Journal of
Human Values, 4(2), 133-148.
Landis, E. A., Hill, D., & Harvey, M. R. (2014). A synthesis of leadership theories and
styles. Journal of Management Policy and Practice, 15(2), 97.
Meng, Y., He, J., &Luo, C. (2014). Science Research Group Leader's Power and Members'
Compliance and Satisfaction with Supervision. Research Management Review, 20(1),
n1.