Organizational Culture and Leadership

¶ … Bad Leader

Compare and contrast the trait and behavioral approach to leadership, discuss which approach is more effective and explain your reasoning. Lastly, identify and describe a leader who uses the approach you chose as more effective and evaluate why he/she is an effective leader

The trait approach to leadership encompasses the conception that there are particular virtues a leader must have. This leadership theory accentuates that there is a particular set of basic personality indicators that set leaders apart from followers. On the other hand, the behavioral approach to leadership takes into account a set of actions that any leader ought to undertake in relation to an organizational circumstance. In comparing these two leadership approaches, the fundamental similarity is that both approaches lay emphasis that there are distinguishable actions that any leader ought to be capable to undertake in any given circumstance. Behaviorism is similar to the trait approach in that it also asserts that leaders ought to display particular common personality indicators or habits of the mind. However, it makes the argument that such indicators can be prompted from any individual at any time and that no one individual has more potential compared to another (Johnson, 2016).

A point of contrast between the approaches is that the behavioral approach is a more independent sort of theory. Becoming a leader necessitates that a leader ought to have particular intrinsic, natural qualities. For instance, consider two individuals, one emanating from weak-willed upbringing whereas the other coming from a powerful and strong willed upbringing. In theory, the individual from the former upbringing will develop habits of obsequiousness whereas the other individual will develop the habits of assertiveness. Based on the behavioral approach, if their upbringings were switched, both of them would have developed differently, and therefore either is similarly likely to be a good leader with suitable training (Johnson, 2016).

The more effective approach is the behavioral approach. This is because the trait approach does not have precise traits of what makes an effective leader. On the other hand, with respect to the behavior approach, it is possible to train, teach and fashion a leader to be effective. One of the leaders that uses this approach is President Obama. What makes President Obama an effective leader takes into account the set of actions he undertook as a leader. His actions have been ethical, transformational, and transactional.

Evaluate and discuss organizational change through appreciative inquiry. Include the names and descriptions of the specific phases

Organizational change is inevitable. Resistance to change is a well-founded and ascertained fact of life within an organization. This is because change always involves uncertainty and may necessitate additional work. Appreciative inquiry is a positive way to espouse organizational change on the basis of basic supposition. This is for the reason that every organization has an aspect that functions correctly. That is, aspects that bring life when the organization is most alive, efficacious, successful and linked in healthy ways to its stakeholders and communities. The first phase is positive perspective. This takes into account looking at what goes right within the organization instead of what is going wrong. AI connects the dynamism of the positive principal directly to any change program and changes not ever considered conceivable before are swiftly and popularly mobilized (Thomas, 2013).

The four stages of AI include discovery, dream, design, and destiny. The Discovery phase is a meticulous and wide-ranging pursuit to comprehend the best of what is and what has been. It commences with a cooperative action of fashioning appreciative interview queries and creating an appreciative interview guide. Secondly, the Dream phase is an invigorating examination of what may come to be. This is a period for people to examine their anticipations and aspirations for their work, working associations, personal associations, and the world in general. The Design phase encompasses making decisions regarding what ought to be within the organization or system. Lastly, the Destiny phase instigates a sequence of motivated actions that support continuing learning and innovation (Thomas, 2013).

Compare and contrast management and leadership. Analyze and discuss the importance of leaders and managers to the success of organizations today

Leadership and management must be in tandem. However, they are not similar. In contrasting the two, leadership encompasses the capacity of an individual to influence, inspire and empower others to contribute towards the success and effectiveness of the organization. In contrast, management encompasses controlling and directing sets of people with the main aim of coordinating and matching such people towards attaining an objective. A key aspect of similarity between leaders and managers is that they are necessarily linked and complementary and function towards the effectiveness and success of an organization (Muray, 2016). Leaders and managers are of great significance to organizations in the present day. Leaders instigate and propel innovation within the organization, which is a necessity owing to incessant organizational change that is inevitable. On the other hand, managers are important as they ensure the management and implementation of such innovation and creativity within the organization on an everyday basis (Muray, 2016).

Examine the role of ethics in organizational culture. Analyze and explain how leadership, power and motivation relate to ethical decision making in organizations?

Ethics play a significant role in organizational culture. In delineation, ethics are the principles as well as values a person utilizes to administer decisions as well as activities. Therefore, with respect to an organization, ethics function as the principles that offer guidance to the organization with respect to its policies, procedures, practices and decisions for the business. Leaders and employees abiding by a code of ethics generate an ethical organizational culture. Leadership, power and motivation relate to ethical decision making in organizations in various ways. To begin with, leadership sets the tone and examples as to the kind of ethical behavior that ought to be followed within the organization. Power also relates to ethical decision making as the individuals in the organization that have authority are the ones that set examples of how employees should behave and the ethical principles. Motivation is also related to ethical decision making in that employees can be motivated to act and operate ethically through rewards and benefits (Kelchner, 2017).