Leadership applications and best practices

Leadership Application

Effective leadership has a big role to play when it comes to the life and success of any organization. Leadership normally transforms what is potential into a reality. Leadership is therefore the successful act that brings success to all of the potent potential that is in an organization as well as its people. Each day there are new paradigms that are proposed and at the same time the old ones are loosing their effectiveness. Leadership is therefore a major way through which people normally change the minds of other people and steer forward towards the accomplishment of the goals that have been identified within an organization. Organizations need leaders so as to orient and make new employees familiar with how things go about in the organization.in this case George Latour is making attempts of leading and coaching a new employee into the organization, Sherry Stern. However the relationship between this two immediately goes downhill since the leadership style that George employs runs afoul of the sense of professionalism held by Shelly. This implies that the leadership style that George used was not appropriate hence the reason why they were not getting along as well as they ought to have been doing (Fryer, Goodnight, Goulston, Lawrie & Chappelow, 2004).

George's leadership style

The leadership style that George was employing when dealing with Shelly was autocratic leadership. This is also known as authoritarian leadership and is characterized by a leader who has control over all decisions and requires very little input from other members of the team which they are in charge of. This type of leaders makes decisions based on their own ideas and judgments and rarely accepts any suggestions that are made by their followers. This leadership style involves a leader that dictates the policies as well as procedures and makes the decision on the goals which are to be achieved as well as directing and controlling the activities without accepting any form of participation from others.as an autocratic leader George believed that Shelly requires direct supervision all the time or else she can not operate effectively (Benincasa, 2007).. He believes that it is his role as a leader to control Shelly as an employee who is under him since he believes that Shelly might be having an aversion for work and can abstain from it whenever she feels like. He also holds the thought that employees have to be compelled through force, authority or intimidation, directed or even threatened with some form of punishment so that they can accomplish what is required of them by the organization. Some of the actions by George made Shelly feel intimidated and made her feel a foul in her sense of professionalism. This is not what she expected from this new work environment and from George as her leader. However, George felt as if he was doing nothing wrong but simply exercising his leadership as he knows best. This brought about a conflict between the two since George thought he was just exercising his normal duty as a leader while Shelly felt she was being intimidated as an employee particularly due to the fact that she was also holding a managerial position just like George.

Analysis of the leadership style

The autocratic leadership style exhibited by George was certainly not an appropriate on. First of all if this leadership style was appropriate then the relationship between the two would not quickly go downhill as it did. If it was really appropriate then the two would have kicked it off well and there would not be any conflict or complain between these two. This style was not appropriate since the communication that was used was one-way whereby George was giving orders and Shelly was expected to take the orders and execute them as required.at the same time George would make independent decisions and sets policies or procedures without making any consultations with Shelly. At the same time George did not give room for listening to Shelly or give her a chance to give any suggestions or make any contribution.it is a bad leadership style since George was attempting to control Shelly through the policies, orders to an extent of almost forcing her to work and deliver what the organization considers to be satisfactory. He failed to listen or perfunctorily listened to any suggestion that Shelly brought forth. With this leadership style George did not provide any support for Shelly towards carrying out her duties in the new work environment (Simonton, 2010). Her role requires a lot of support and working together with George in order to achieve some of the goals that have been set for her by the organization. However she could not be able to work efficiently since she lacked support from George her leader.as an employee Shelly requires that her views and suggestions are factored into the decisions that are made within the organization but this was not the case with George as the leader.in fact George had established a do as I say, not as I do policy which he wanted Shelly to embrace. This leadership style by George was demoralizing to Shelly and within the short period of time she was working in the organization she was so dissatisfied and was even regretting getting employed there in the first place. Shelly is quite professional and therefore needed a competitive environment where she could fully exercise her duties and be useful to the organization. With this kind of leadership it was quite difficult for her to effectively carry out her duties and hence the reason why we can term George's leadership style as not being appropriate (Simonton, 2010).