The Definition Of Supportive Leadership Management Essay

INTRODUCTION

Leadership is defined as a process of influencing people to accomplish the mission, inspiring their commitment, and improving the organisation ( www.mindef.gov.sg 4/12/09 ). As defined leadership is a continuous process it is a chain of influencing and achieving. Moreover leadership is basically depends on the behavior of a leader, it means the way leader handles the group it can be charismatic leadership where followers are truly depend on the leader with high vision, participative leadership where followers are allowed to take part in group discussions and they participate in the final decision, directive leadership where leader is strict with his rules and give directions, supportive leadership where leader consider follower’s problems and grievances or reward and punishment leadership where reward or punishment is given on the basis of final task results.

In this assignment the main objective is to come up with my own leadership style and to show how effective it is in terms of handling change. Also the important aspect of this assignment is to show the factors which help the change to get the tag of effective change.

SUPPORTIVE LEADERSHIP

The leadership style I use to follow is Supportive leadership because according to me the followers are as important as task. The goals can only be achieve with the help of followers if followers are facing any problem either in their personal life or under organization roof the affect of that problem can be clearly measured from their task results. Moreover I use self made theory in my leadership which is ‘Get addict an achieve ‘, according to this a person can achieve any thing but the conditions is that the person must be addicted to it. If followers are facing any grievances they can not be addicted towards achievement. Supportive leader in my way does not only mean handling grievances of followers but I call myself supportive leader because I plan my tactics towards achieving a goal according to the followers ability and skills moreover according to their willingness and motivation towards work. Supportive leadership is ”It leads people: It doesn’t drive them. It involves them: It doesn’t coerce them. It never loses sight of the most important principle governing any project involving human beings: namely, that people are more important than things”, ( Kriyananda, www.crystalclarity.com 4/12/09 ). Supportive leadership is working along with followers guiding them helping them instead of working ahead of them. Human beings are most important aspect of this type of leadership. According to me this leadership can be done effectively if leaders treat followers as one who work with him rather work for him. Being the basket ball captain for two consecutive years I applied my leadership style and maintained a team.

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My basket ball team called Descent Killerz was one of the most conflicted team. Being the youngest in the team I learned a lot about my team members , the team was on loosing streak and the main problem of the team was conflicts between team members. The coach of the team had tried all his best efforts to improve the team and reduce the conflicts but he was failed. I was youngest in the team and new member as well, my friendly nature helped me making friendship with all of the players of my team. My understanding ability made me the favourite in the team members, ignoring my problem of unable to make dunks, the team let me play for them. Sooner I was appointed as a captain of the team only because of my supportive nature and supportive leadership behavior. I was the one who solved the conflicts of the team as every player was frank with me and use to share his problem which helped me to understand the main problem of conflicts which was a poor formation. Players were playing in a poor formation which was disturbing them, some of the times defenders were used in attack which was uncomfortable for the players. I had a talk about this with my coach and he changed the formation according to the abilities of the players which eliminated the conflicts between the team players and I achieved a team with decency and named it Descent Killerz. My style of leadership i.e. supportive leadership was proved efficient at that time. And according to me this type of leadership behavior always come up with efficiency in achieving the goals.

TYPES OF SUPPORTIVE LEADERSHIP BEHAVIORS

Showing concern for followers need : A supportive leader should concern the needs of followers and then try to fulfil them for increasing the efficiency of the followers.

Being considerate and understanding : Understanding the problems of followers and them try to eliminate them makes the supportive leadership in action.

Showing trust and respect : As supportive leader works with followers so the main responsibility of such leader is to respect his followers and trust them. ( www.skagitwatershed.org 4/12/09 )

Being friendly informative, and encouraging : Supportive leader should be friendly with his followers and try to provide as information as he can to make the employees efficient and most importantly he should always encourage his followers towards achievement of goals.

Being sympathetic to others problems : Supportive leaders should be sympathetic toward the problems of followers if they are not serious towards the problems of their followers they will not share their problems with the leader then.

Helping followers develop abilities and careers : Supportive leaders are the one who help the followers to improve their abilities and advise them toward a good career.

SITUATIONAL FACTORS THAT ENHANCES SUPPORTIVE LEADERSHIP

FOLLOWERS CHARACTERISTICS :

Low self confidence

Low self esteem

Insecurity

Expectations that leader will be supportive

High growth need

TASK CHARACTERISTICS

Dissatisfying

Stressful

Highly structured

Requires creativity

Requires learning

ORGANIZATIONAL & GROUP CHARACTERISTICS

External conflict

Newly formed group

Cohesive group with shared beliefs in leader

Formal plans, goals & procedures

Mission emphasizing human services

Authoritarian superior

SITUATIONAL FACTORS THAT NEUTRALIZE SUPPORTIVE LEADERSHIP

Dogmatic Followers

Large Size of Group

High Level Job

Broad Task Scope

FACTORS OF MANAGING CHANGE IN AN ORGANIZATION :

The factors that contribute to effectiveness of leadership in relation to managing change in an organization are as follow :

Followers support : if a change is supported by the followers it makes an easy task for a leader to manage that change. For example if change is less absenteeism and followers are supporting this change by reducing their number of leaves.

Followers understanding : one of the most important thing is understanding . If followers are understanding the change it becomes easy for followers to follow the change. Moreover an understandable change becomes more easy for a leader to manage.

Followers trust : followers who trust their leaders will always trust any change made by their leader. As an organization is made on trust between people it is one of the most important thing. As trust-able leaders are always welcome by followers so does their changes

Situation : the situational factor can help a leader to manage a change easily as the change always depends on the situation it is arrived on. For example if employees were feeling a hectic schedule and them leader come up with change in timings and breaking the schedule with certain breaks, this type of change depends on the situation.

Rules : if a change comes as a rule of company it becomes too easy for a leader to manage it as it is compulsory to follow it. For example if company comes as change in rules for not allowing smoking in premises it becomes compulsory to be follow by followers without an argue.

Acceptance : If change is accepted by the followers it is easy to manage it. For example if the change is in timings of lunch and followers accept it then there is no need to worry about managing that change by a leader.

Expectations : if the change is according to the expectations of the employees then there is no need to manage that change. For examples staff was demanding 15 days vacations in the time of Christmas and new year and company agrees on it then their will be no need to mange such a change.

Superior’s support : if the change created by a leader is supported by its superior then it become less hectic for leader to manage it. But if superiors are against the change then it is difficult for leader to mange it. For example if leader says that every body should be their in office by 8.30 in the morning and its superior comes at 10 am it becomes difficult for him to handle.

Feedback : the most important aspect of managing is feedback as it comes as a report card to the manager for his performance and if the result is not good it indicates that there is need for better management.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion it can be said that how effective is the supportive leadership is. Supportive leadership not only help followers to work efficiently but it also provides bundles of knowledge to the leader as supportive leadership behavior helps leader to interact with each and every of his follower. Supportive leadership can be used mostly but it can be non-effective where the number of followers are many, as a leader can not create personal relations with huge number of followers. In the assignment I shared my own personal experience with this type of leadership and for me this leadership behavior was a huge success.