Complementary Partners

How to be a Great Leader
Effective leadership and a solid corporate culture are absolutely essential to organizational success. Leaders are like the captains of a ship while the corporate culture is like the sea through which the ship navigates. A good captain will make sure the shipmates understand the mission and have the right spirit to see it through. A good culture will allow for smooth sailing—and, of course, a bad culture will be like sailing through a hurricane or typhoon. Good leaders will help to create a good culture that empowers workers and fosters success; bad leaders will inevitably foster a bad culture that undermines the organization’s mission (Schyns & Schilling, 2013). This paper will discuss what matters most when leading and creating a positive culture.
No organization is ever without conflict. When it comes to managing conflict, one of the most important leadership traits a leader can have is emotional stability. Leaders are looked to for guidance because they are supposed to be firm and like a rock when all else around one is seemingly being tossed like a ship at sea during a storm. The leader has to keep a cool and calm head, show focus and determination, and demonstrate a keen ability to keep from getting ruffled and riled up by the issues that upset others. A leader who cannot show emotional stability is one who risks not being a leader long. As Kirkpatrick and Locke (1991) point out, a leader without emotional stability is more likely to derail an organization’s mission than a leader who is perceived to be emotionally stable.
Communication is also essential in order for an organization to be successful. One strategy a leader can adopt in order to improve communication is to request feedback from workers and make himself more available to listen to what his workers have to say. Poor leaders invariably alienate and isolate themselves from their followers. They appear aloof and disinterested in what their workers think, feel and would like to say (Schyns & Schilling, 2013). Good leaders take time to listen. They demonstrate emotional and social intelligence—i.e., they learn even how to listen and talk by reading people and looking for the meaningful signs of things that go unsaid, all so that they can address even those. However, simply requesting feedback from workers is a great strategy for strengthening communication.
Motivating employees and improving behaviors in the workplace will depend upon the use of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators (Gerhart & Fang, 2015). These can include incentives like bonuses, rewards for reaching goals, promotions, time off, extended holidays, or workplace parties. They can also include the satisfaction of a job well done, the gaining of knew knowledge, and the pleasure afforded by knowing that one has helped the company achieve an objective. Motivators can be both extrinsic and intrinsic in these manners.
The primary functions of management are to plan, organize, lead and control—and the associated skills, tools and theoretical approaches that can be used to reach these objectives include emotional stability, communication skills, and emotional and social intelligence. Managers also need to be able to motivate workers and Maslow’s (1943) theory of human motivation and the hierarchy of needs is especially helpful here. Maslow states that human beings have the power to attain a level of self-actualization, meaning that they can become self-motivated. However, in order to reach that level they must first have lower level needs met—such as the basics of shelter and support, friendship, love, and esteem. If managers are able to see and understand the needs of their workers and make sure those needs are met, they will empower the worker to move upwards towards self-actualization. Servant leadership is a style of leadership that is often linked with managers who want to see that their followers’ needs are met. Servant leaders essentially put the needs of their workers first because they know that in doing so they are adhering to the theory of Maslow, which is that the workers will never live up to their potential if their basic needs are ignored. For this reason it is essential that the fundamental consideration in managing and motivating individual and group behavior is situated in this concept of servant leadership.
Another leadership style that can be effective, however, is transformational leadership, which focuses on developing a clear vision for the workers to buy into. The transformational leader must then communicate that vision, use reason and logic to explain why the change is needed, and provide support to the workers so that they do not become resistant.
In summation, resistance can be a major obstacle to success, and in order to manage conflict the leader must be emotionally stable and must promote effective communication by opening the lanes for two-way flow of communication. The best strategy here is to request feedback from personnel so that they feel more involved in the overall decision-making process and that their opinions and insights are appreciated and that they matter. A leader who respects his workers enough to set time aside to listen to them is one who will improve morale and create a positive culture. Leaders have to be engaged with their workers—they cannot be distant and disconnected from them. Most workers are going to need help reaching the level of self-actualization—and for that reason leaders should acquaint themselves with the concept of servant leadership and be willing to use emotional and social intelligence to identify the needs of their workers so that they can be met.
References
Gerhart, B., & Fang, M. (2015). Pay, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, performance, and creativity in the workplace: Revisiting long-held beliefs. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 2, 489-521
Kirkpatick, S. A., & Locke, E. A. (1991). Leadership: do traits matter?. Academy of Management Perspectives, 5(2), 48-60.
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370.
Schyns, B. & Schilling, J. (2013). How Bad are the Effects of Bad Leaders? A Meta-Analysis of Destructive Leadership and Its Outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 24, 138-158.