My View on Leadership

1. What type of leadership is most used in your organization? In your opinion, what leadership style is most effective in your current organization? Is the leadership style most used the same as the leadership style most effective? Discuss.

The type of leadership used in my organization is a mixture of autocratic and democratic. On major decision, autocratic will be exercised. Decision making on areas such as pricing strategy, appointment of supplier and marketing strategy are decided solely by my CEO. Other areas such as logistics, appointment of distributors, staff employment, accounting and other administrative tasks are decided through democracy. Meetings will be called up to discuss on pros and cons before majority make the decision to proceed. In my opinion, I think this kind of leadership style in effective to the certain extend as there delegation and empowerment to the management team to perform at their best. CEO does not micro manage on issues that senior managers can handle whilst CEO focus on gearing the company direction on areas setting up foundation for the company direction. Senior managers have room to present their ideas and supported by justifications that can be brained storm together for further evaluation.  This hybrid style of leadership I think is working well as our organization is still at the growing stage and the dynamics of the member are made this possible. We were able to extend our distributing channels to 5 countries in a short span of 12 months time.

I think this leadership style works very well when our organization at the budding stage, in fact everyone was performing at their best as each were given the opportunity to present their ideas and some were adopted because there were really good. For example we have weekly updates and communication going on through web conference and most of the discussions were in fact done in the popular Whatsapp group where quick and instant decision can be made. We could expect almost instant response with fast decision from CEO as he travels all over places often.  Now we are at the tipping point of moving the company to another level. I see there is a shift of leadership style to more of a transformational type. We often get words of affirmation from CEO to encourage managers to persevere especially where challenges arise. Specific objective were set for different team to hit and CEO would check the teams from time to time to address the big picture so the team can focus on performing at their best to finish the task given.

1. Reflect on your leadership qualities and traits. What qualities make you stand out as an effective leader? What qualities prevent you from being effective in your organization? Might there be some types of organizations# in which you would be more effective or less effective? Explain.

To the person on the front line, their manager is the leader, exemplifying what the company is all about. Therefore to have any chance at all of getting the people stuff right, organizations must create leaders at all levels (Sunley Jane, 2011). I always remind my staff that I am always trying to develop them not just being a manager, but possibly to learn the best they can from the business and perhaps one day they can venture out and be future business partners instead. I believe conventional business model has limitation on growth for staff but I know I can’t make them stay forever.

I have a personality of major sanguine and minor phlegmatic. I would tend to be more phlegmatic when I’m off from work where I would like some quiet own time alone at home to wind down. When it comes to work or where leadership required, my other personality would be very dominant. My personality plays an important role as it makes me stand out too. It allows me to bring out the charismatic part of me to attract the customers and also at own organization management. I like to stay charming and humorous, ensuring the group has fun, creating enthusiasm and excitement, being on stage, not holding grudges, being demonstrative, moving quickly past the problems and seeing the sunny side.

What prevents me from being affective is the “side effect” of being a sanguine. As illustrated by Littauer and Sweet (2011), a sanguine is a very forgetful person , which I very much agreed.  Other negative qualities include compulsive talker, don’t pay attention to details, hate to work alone, make excuses, don’t always plan and prepare ahead are some of my negative sanguine qualities that preventing me to be more effective. I very much agreed with the traits mentioned upon reflective my own behavior from my experience of running the organization.

Personally I believe I won’t purposely choose the type of organization that fits my leadership style because almost all organizations have their own challenges. I would prefer to take the approach of understanding what the organization behavior and try to fit myself best. For example I understand my CEO is very choleric when come to certain decision making, whereby his decision is the final say and he must always win. I would try my best complement my strength and weaknesses with his to lead the team and other business decision making processes.