Question

Read the case study below and answer the question that follows: [20 marks] Leadership and Management BUSINESS MANAGEMENT 2A TOTAL MARKS 20 MARKS Laura is the Associate Director of a non-profit agency that provides assistance to children and families. She is the head of a department that focuses on evaluating the skill-building programs the agency provides to families. She reports directly to the agency leadership. As a whole, the agency has been cautious in hiring this year because of increased competition for federal grant funding. However, they have also suffered high staff turnover. Two directors have left as well as three key research staff and one staff person from the finance department. Laura has a demanding schedule that requires frequent travel; however, she supervises two managers who in turn are responsible for five staff members each. Both managers have been appointed within the last six months. Manager 1: Kelly has a specific background in research. She manages staff who provide research support to another department that delivers behavioural health services to youth. Kelly supports her staff and is very organized; however, she often takes a very black and white view of issues. Upper level leadership values Kelly’s latest research on the therapeutic division’s services. Kelly is very motivated and driven and expects the same from her staff. MODULE Manager 2: Linda has a strong background in social science research and evaluation. She manages staff that work on different projects within the agency. She is known as a problem solver and is extremely supportive of her staff. She is very organized and has a wealth of experience in evaluation of family services. Linda is very capable and can sometimes take on too much. The managers are sensing that staff are becoming over worked as everyone takes on increased responsibilities due to high staff turnover. Staff have also mentioned that Laura’s “glass half-empty” conversation style leaves them feeling dejected. In addition, Laura has not shared budgets with her managers, so they are having difficulty appropriately allocating work to staff. Laura said she has not received sufficient information from the finance department to complete the budgets. The finance department said they have sent her all the information they have available. As staff become distressed, the managers are becoming frustrated. They feel like they are unable to advocate for their staff or problem solve without key information like the departmental budget Question 1 (20 marks) Based on your knowledge of leadership, discuss the nature of leadership, types of power that leaders require to lead constructively and the most appropriate type of leadership style (or combination off) that Laura should implement at her non-profit organisation and why this would be the best option. (Consider the character traits of her managers).

Answer 1

Introduction
Leadership refers to the superior's quality to manage, influence, motivate, instruct and direct its followers towards the accomplishment of a common goal. Leaders use their proficient persuading and inspiring skills to make the subordinate follow him and diligently perform their duties and responsibilities.

Nature of leadership:

1) Personal or Derived Trait
Leadership is an personal or derived trait that is either in borne in an individual or is adapted through mentoring and forms an integral part in not only managing but accomplishing the routine tasks.

2) leadership is different from management:
Managers can be leaders but leaders are not necessarily the managers, as managers wirk is limited to the formation and execution but leaders not only manage and execute the work but they find ways to keep their followers motivated, provides them with some purpose, motivates them to push themselves, instructs them to perform activities efficiently , finds solutions to the oroblem, resolves various issues and much more.

3) Leaders can belong to an unorganized group or to an organized group:

Leaders need not to be formal all the time, they can also emerge from an informal group. They are very goal oriented and genuine to their motive , and they use both formal as well as informal or friendly ways to keep their followers or subordinates motivated.

4) Motivation is a tool of leadership
Both of these concepts are closely related but they do not mean the same. Motivation refers to the ability of a person to understand the driving force that leads a person towards producing desired results. By understanding the nature of his people as what thier priorities area and what they want to achieve , knowing their personal interests will make it better for the leader to jidge how to mold and reinforce them.

6) Leaders lead followers:
The group of people that work with and under the leader are the followers who see something charismatic in their leader and thus are willing to follow him and follow his instructions. They know he will never wish bad for them and is reliable and genuine.

Leadership in most cases involve distribution of authority , responsibility to its followers and delegation of work. Leader involves their followers in decision making and other major activities, so the followers are not powerless

Powers of leaders:

Legitimate power:
The power that every person belonging to a specific well reputed position and has certain people under him and has a status of supervising these people. He has some authorities over them known as legitimate power.

2. Information power
A leader has an access to all the essential and confidential data reakting to the project as he makes use of that data to taje decisions. So all the intricate knowledge is supplied to him for use in the goal accomplishment.

3. Expert power
This is the power that a leader exercises because of his very nature of being more proficient , more knowledgeable, more experienced at and having a Knack at whatever it soughts to do.

4. Reward power
This power is because of his duties, responsibilities and amount of work load beared by him.

5. Coercive power
This is the power exercised by the leaders for accomplishment of some goals or objectives within the deadlines and budget. It is authoritative or even forceful in nature. Using threat when followers are adamant to work might work for some leaders.

6. Referent power
Leader obviously has lot of contacts and approaches. He maintains connections with lot of renowned people and can help his people through his social network whenever needed.

7. Charismatic power
The power of a leader to influence others , to create impact and to motivate people.

Styles of Leadership

The leadership style means how the leader behaves with his followers or his group members.
Leadership style is the attitude of a leader towards his people and how the followers see him. The style is influenced by the moral values, experience, value system of the leader as well as on the nature of followers , how they work and wabt drives them.

The leadership style which loura need to adopt as per the nature if people under him:

1. Democratic leadership style:
As it is very clear that laura has a very diligent set of people under her , who are responsible enough to do their work and are lively while working. It is the leadership style where minimum amount of power is exercised and will suit laura as it is very important for her to kerp a friendly and nice attitude towatds its staff genuine and skilled in their fields or areas. As clear that laura's workers are experienced enough to do their jobs , they like their job and thus leader needs to give them participative powers like decision making etc.

2)strategic leadership

It is the style where the leader uses her ability to influence her subordinates and make them competent in order to take efficient and favourable decisions through mentoring or providing them the training. It involves using certain reinforcing techniques or methods to motivate her followers towards maximum performance.

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