Influences of Leadership Style Paper

Influences of Leadership Style 

Introduction

Global studies reveal that 79% of workers are willing to leave their jobs if they have a poor relationship with leadership (Feng et al., 2018). A leader’s behavior influences employees’ productivity, shapes their work perceptions, and modifies their organizational expectations. Leader’s must improve their administrative qualities to formulate a positive relationship with employees. Followers and employees are keen on evaluating a leader’s managerial style so they replicate the behavior and performance witnessed from senior staff. Consequently, leadership styles have a significant impact on organizational productivity and employees’ motivation. Research by Antonakis and colleagues (2011) showed that leaders could increase their charisma to improve leadership outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to show that there is a close relationship between leaders’ behavior, employees’ performance, and organizational productivity. Notably, leaders need to enhance their charisma to build positive management-employee relationships that foster institutional productivity and increases the team’s success.

Leadership Behavior

Leaders encounter different situations in an organization that necessitate varying behavioral responses. Ultimately, leaders must organize an entity, control employee performance, and allocate resources most efficiently. As leaders perform these functions, followers are keenly observing their behavior because it directly impacts them. According to Malik (2012), employees react to the manager’s actions and associate the outcome to the applied leadership style. In case the leader’s behavior is perceived as unjust, the employees’ motivation is likely to decrease. Subsequently, people in leadership positions have to understand that their behavior affects the management’s reputation.

In Malik’s (2012) study, the findings revealed that leadership’s behavior should be encouraging, supportive, and appreciative of the worker’s contribution to the organization. Based on the leader’s behavior, an organization may be perceived as a suitable or unsatisfying workplace. Management’s supportive behavior was deemed to increase job satisfaction and improve rational-decision making among employees. Subsequently, people in leadership positions are urged to behave in ways that improve the employees’ perception of a company and simplify their success pathways.

Leader-member relationship

Worker’s expect job autonomy and a streamlined journey towards high achievements from their management relationship (Huang et al., 2014). Cross-level relationships between management and employees are essential to corporate performance. The lead-member exchange theory suggests that employees develop organizational citizenship behavior based on how they relate with leaders. Workers expect respectful treatment from their leaders and trust and support to do what is best for the organization.

According to Huang and colleagues (2014), the LMX relationship contributes to positive and constructive employee behavior in areas that are not part of their job description. Leader’s behaviors are tied to the development of organizational citizenship behavior. Followers are ready to display commitment and loyalty to organizations where they relate with the leaders. Similarly, when followers rank a leader’s administrative qualities highly, the lead-membership relationship develops trust and admiration. Based on Van Dierendonck and colleagues (2014), servant leadership and transformational leadership were said to improve organizational commitment and worker engagement. Subsequently, the leader’s behavior was linked to increased commitment and an employee’s desire to perform tasks that lead to successful outcomes.

Productive Leadership

Charismatic leaders are posed to form positive relationships with employees and produce successful outcomes for organizations. Charisma is described as the ability to communicate eloquently with followers and to evoke strong emotional connections towards a shared vision. A study by Saxena (2014) sought to determine whether transformational leaders were also creative in their situational outlook. The research found that leaders’ personalities were influential in their situational viewpoint. Nevertheless, Antonakis and colleagues (2011) affirmed that personnel training impacts the development of charisma. The organizational behavior researchers argued that exposing leaders to complex situations requiring charisma will enable them to behave more charismatically. In this case, charisma was proven to be an acquired trait that can also be learned to generate more productive leaders.

While many leadership styles have been suggested to produce effective leaders, the transformational style is the most effective. Consequently, effective leadership styles have to be conscious of employees’ needs. Transformational leaders behave appropriately to guide the followers’ actions and ensure long-term success. Furthermore, productive leaders are flexible to different situational needs and offer ethical guidance to encourage subordinates’ positive behavior (Van Dierendonck et al., 2014). Overall, the leader’s behavior, lead-member exchange relationship with employees, and their ability to enhance charismatic traits are all essential in developing productive leaders.

Conclusion

In conclusion, leaders have a substantial influence on institutional productivity and employees’ expectations. The leaders’ behavior determines the presence of organizational citizenship behavior among followers. People in leadership positions should focus on their leader-follower relationship and partake in charisma training to become transformational leaders. As the articles displayed, transformational leaders enhance institutional justice, create a supportive work environment, and encourage workers to make rational decisions. The organization will experience improved performance when leaders maintain a positive relationship with workers and guide them to behave ethically. An organization’s performance depends on how leaders interact with employees and treat them respectfully. Additionally, productive leadership promotes job satisfaction and positive attitudes towards performance.

References

Antonakis, J., Fenley, M., & Liechti, S. (2011). Can charisma be taught? Tests of two interventions. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 10(3), 374-396. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2010.0012

Feng, W., Li, Y., Zhang, Y., & Liu, S. (2018). The interactive effect of authentic leadership and leader competency on followers’ job performance: The mediating role of work engagement. Journal of Business Ethics, 153(3), 763-773. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3379-0

Huang, J., Wang, L., & Xie, J. (2014). Leader-member exchange and organizational citizenship behavior: The roles of identification with leader and leader’s reputation. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 42(10), 1699. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2014.42.10.1699

Malik, S. H. (2012). A study of relationship between leader behaviors and subordinate job expectancies: A path-goal approach. Pakistan Journal of Commerce and Social Sciences, 6(2), 357-371.

Saxena, S. (2014). Are Transformational leaders creative and Creative leaders transformational? An attempted synthesis through the Big Five Factor Model of Personality Lens. Aweshkar Research Journal, 18(2).

Van Dierendonck, D., Stam, D., Boersma, P., De Windt, N., & Alkema, J. (2014). Same difference? Exploring the differential mechanisms linking servant leadership and transformational leadership to follower outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(3), 544-562.