Summary of Leadership for Organizations

Summary of Leadership for Organizations

John V. Duran

MGT/LDR 380 Leadership for Organizations

Ray Levesque

November 7, 2004

Summary of Leadership for Organizations

Leadership for Organizations has been a very interesting and enlightening class for me. I thoroughly enjoyed learning new theories, approaches, styles and ethical concepts on the topic of leadership. My personal leadership perspective, style and approach are derived from several styles and approaches. From a style standpoint they I fall in line with Opportunism, Participative, Situational, Transformational and Laissez-faire styles. From an approach standpoint I fall in line with the psychodynamic approach. From an ethical standpoint I am most likely to fall in line with the utilitarian or servant style. Once leadership styles and approaches were discussed, it was much easier to see them at play in my work place.

Assessing my leadership perspective and style was something that I never really paid much attention to from an academic point of view. As I read through the course text books, I began to take a closer look at what that perspective/style is. I arrived at the conclusion that there are many factors that influence this and I think that no one person falls into one category solely. I certainly do not. My perspective is influenced by my experiences and personality. I feel that I incorporate several styles of leadership into my own style. Allow me to explain.

Opportunism refers to a leader who uses any combination of the six basic management styles for the purpose of personal advancement. The six basic management styles that are referred to are Authority-Compliance, Country Club, Impoverished, Middle-of-the-Road, Team and Paternalism. Peter Northouse summarizes these styles in his book Leadership Theory and Practice in the following ways. The Authority-Compliance style places heavy emphasis on task and job requirements and less emphasis on people. The Country club style represents a low concern for task accomplishment coupled with a high concern for interpersonal relationships. Impoverished style represents a leader who is unconcerned with the tasks and interpersonal relationships. The Middle-of-the-Road style describes leaders who are compromisers with both task and interpersonal relationships. The team style places a strong emphasis on both and interpersonal relationships. The paternalism style refers to a leader who uses both the Authority Compliance and the Country Club styles but does not integrate the two. (Peter Northouse, p.69-72)

Given the definition of Opportunism and the summaries of each style above, I will state that I employ the Opportunism style because I definitely possess the traits of Middle-of-the Road and Team styles of leadership. I find that it is very important to me to maintain balance in working relationships, work load and fairness in listening to others input. Maintaining balance has lead to success and the ability to balance my own tasks and interpersonal relationships.

Another key factor to maintaining balance is that I also employ the Participative approach to leadership. Participative leadership refers to leaders that who invite subordinates to share in the decision making process (Northouse, p. 126). In my view it is important to include subordinates in the decision making process, especially in the situation where the decision will directly affect their quality of life and ultimately their happiness. Of course it is not possible to include subordinates in every decision, but even if a survey can be polled to gain a better understanding