A Reflective Evaluation of Different Approaches in Various Situations

Understand own ability to fulfil key responsibilities of the leadership role

Evaluate own ability to use a range of leadership styles, in different situations and with different types of people, to fulfil the leadership role.

Learner Guidance Notes

Provide two or more examples of when you have used different leadership styles, in different situations with different people.

Leadership styles – autocratic, consultative, democratic, coaching, situational, pace setting, commanding, laissez-faire

Evaluate (form opinions, make judgements) how effective you were at using that style.

(20 marks)

Begin your response here:

Introduction

In this essay, I will cover SILVA Homes, where I am currently working as a Service Charge Manager. I am managing the service charge team to deliver strategic objectives and maximizing income, and safeguarding assets.

SILVA Homes is a nonprofit and independent housing association. The company manages approximately 6,500 rented properties, and more than one thousand shared ownership properties. Also, the company has more than 2,500 garages in southeast England. All these properties give living homes to over 14,000 people. The company's goal is to improve people's lives by offering the stability of a home and supporting societies. The company is investing today for a secure tomorrow. Similarly, the company has a vision of being trusted for the quality of homes and the services provided. Besides, the company has come up with a draft Silva Strategy which shares the company vision and has plans for the next four years to 2025. It has been developed by working with groups of customers, colleagues, and board members. Just like other registered housing associations, Silva Homes is regulated by Homes England, which is a government body.

The company leadership guides the organization's management to function according to set rules and reach the company objectives. Also, the leadership controls the company's internal matters and provides direction to the organization's organization and management. One of the most applicable leadership theories is situational Leadership. The company is working in some of the world's most aggressive and competitive industries of real estate. Therefore, due to its operation in various regions of the country and its partnership with other organizations (co-ownership), the company is well suited to Situational Leadership. Therefore, situational leadership can be adjusted to adapt to each situation or task and the needs of the team or team member. Due to different needs, leadership needs to change based on region.

Other than the growing market, the company has an already established market in the United Kingdom. In this case, the company needs to recognize the significance of employees in promoting the success of an organization (Rodrigues, 2019). The research shows that one of the significant challenges the sports and technology industry faces is employee retention. Employees often leave an organization due to job dissatisfaction, lack of attractiveness, and interest. Similarly, when employees are poorly motivated, they tend to leave an organization to look for better companies (Kerr & Moloney, 2018). Therefore, in a stable market like the United Kingdom, the company's establishment of transformational or consultative leadership is critical. In this leadership, the company leaders often target team building and use the skills of others to make a decision and create plans. The company team has to be inspired and mentored to ensure that they are satisfied with their jobs. Therefore, transformational leadership creates effectiveness among its employees and emerges victorious in the competitive market. Leadership involves high employee motivation and encouragement to make the employees very innovative and retain them (Kerr & Moloney, 2018). Therefore, leaders need to develop a vision of what the corporate culture dictates and communicate to subordinates. The application of this kind of leadership ensures that employees are stimulated and use their skills to manage their activities. Also, consultative leadership makes employees stay motivated, and this impacts their stay in the company. Poorly motivated workers quit a job or develop negative perceptions. Therefore, the company's use of transformational leadership in the United Kingdom makes employees are satisfied; they decide to stay in an organization, making it remain competitive all the time. However, from my reflection, I have discovered that though I have a high ability to inspire people, my abilities were more of control- manager than leader, thus the need to advance my leadership skills.

Furthermore, Democratic Leadership is also critical in some markets. This leadership enables members of the group to take a more participative role in the decision-making process. Therefore employees are allowed to make a decision that affects a more significant number of people. There are various housing needs thus the development of products-house should suit these regions and people needs. Therefore employees might be sources of vital information concerning the product and services developed. Moreover, this kind of leadership is critical since it promotes increased feelings of recognition, involvement, and satisfaction.

The use of various leaders in various regions has proved the effectiveness of my leadership traits. Therefore, I have effective leadership traits which can be used effectively in organizational success.

Use theories of emotional intelligence to review the effect of emotions on own and others’ performance.

Learner Guidance Notes

Look at two or more theories of emotional intelligence.

On the course we covered Daniel Goleman’s theory but look at the work book for this unit. From page 44 other models are The Mayer-Salovey ability model, Higgs and Dulewicz, Six seconds model.

Link these theories to what you know about the effect of emotions on your own performance and the performance of others.

So take one model like Daniel Goleman who had 5 elements in his model:

Self-awareness

Self-regulation

Motivation

Empathy

Social skills

Now look at that with an example for you and your colleagues.

So perhaps you have an example where a colleague had an effect on your emotions (irritated you, made you mad, sad etc). In the example what do you notice about your self awareness? (were you reacting before you noticed and regretted snapping etc or could you sense your emotions and were aware enough not to react?).

What about your self regulation in this example, could you contain your emotions and what did this feel like or did you lack regulation and find your emotions got the better of you?

What was your motivation in this example – to keep the piece, have you say, make your point – and how did it affect your emotion s and your performance?

In the example were you able to display any empathy and with or without it what was the impact?

What about your social skills? We’re any of these evident – ability to listen, maintain rapport, non-judgemental – and what was the impact?

Overall sum up what was the affect of your emotions on your own performance and the performance of the other person.

Now do the same with one of the other models.

Make judgements about the effects you have identified.

(20 marks)

Begin your response here:

Emotional Theory

Emotional control refers to how well an individual can manage and control our emotions or emotional reactions. Leadership skills enable individuals to remain calm when handling minor problems and reacting with just the right amount of emotion.

For instance, while rewarding an employee, one sales representative in the company has been making great sales since she came to the company. Her sales have improved continuously due to her character of being enthusiastic and hardworking. One male employee shouted that I was discriminative and insulted me regardless of the decision to award the employee from top management. The employee behavior made me frustrated, but I could not show a reaction. I acted calmly and explained to him the employee's success and her all-time improvement in sales. However, he was still not satisfied. Thus, there is a need to advance my communication skills.

Daniel Goleman’s theory

My emotions in the event can be explained by Daniel Goleman's theory (appendix 3). The approach reveals that emotional intelligence is twice as important as cognitive intelligence for predicting career success. Emotional intelligence influences how we control our emotions and deal with relationships (Odukoya et al., 2020). Therefore the theory is based on the individual ability to identify, assess and control one’s own emotions.

From the above scenario, it is evident that I have great self-awareness. This refers to a high level of emotional intelligence and how emotion can impact others. Therefore, I understood that my position in the company and any adverse emotional reaction could affect my relationship with employees. Also, the reaction demonstrates high self-regulation (Odukoya et al., 2020). This is my reaction and ability to manage and control emotions. This ability enabled me not to make mistakes that might impact my relationship with employees. Another factor is self-motivation and social skills. From my reaction, I acted friendly regardless of feeling offended and applied my communication skills effectively.

Therefore, I extensively showed self-regulation; though I felt satisfied, I was still frustrated and offended. Though I acted calm, I was very frustrated; however, I regulated myself and improved my communication. However, I wasn't able to show any empathy; I knew that I had to talk the truth to ensure that everyone understands the motivation procedure. Also, from the scenario, I was nonjudgmental with the ability to listen and communicate effectively. These skills enabled the employee to understand the motivation procedure regardless of not being satisfied. However, regulation of emotion promoted effective communication while maintaining good relationships.

Therefore my self-regulation was effective and significant.

The Mayer-Salovey ability model,

In another scenario, the company was making some profit decline due to the government's impact in recent years. After making a decision, the company decided that the annual employee salary increase would be suspended for some time until the company and profit become stable. At this period, the employee approached the human resource manager. The employees were very furies and threatened to quit the company. However, he encouraged them to work hard to enable the company stable and promised to add salary for the years not considered. To me, this situation was challenging though he was able to deal with the issue in a way that impressed me.

This situation can be explained by the Mayer-Salovey ability model (appendix 4). This model contains significant steps that include expression of emotion, emotion to facilitate thinking, understanding of emotion, and management of emotion in oneself and others (Cabello et al., 2021).

From the scenario, the human resource manager recognized the employee's emotions and their frustration. However, he used these emotions to facilitate thinking and understood the emotions. Lastly, he managed to settle these emotions.

Reference list:

Cabello, R., Gómez-Leal, R., Gutiérrez-Cobo, M.J., Megías-Robles, A., Salovey, P. and Fernández-Berrocal, P., 2021. Ability emotional intelligence in parents and their offspring. Current Psychology, pp.1-7.

Odukoya, J.A., Omonijo, D.O. and Oraetue, H.N., 2020. Review of Notable Theories of Emotional Intelligence. European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine, 7(2), pp.3779-3789.

Be able to evaluate own ability to lead others

Review own ability to set direction and communicate this to others.

Learner Guidance Notes

In your review you are looking at 2 things – your ability to set direction and your ability to communicate this to others.

Review your own ability to set direction - this could be target setting, objectives, work flow, embedding change, performance management for example. Think about how often you do this, how you do it, where you get data from etc.

In your answer refer to appropriate evidence and suitable theory. Examples could be communication theory you are using to be effective – social styles, ABC or change theory Kotter.

Now make a judgment regarding the effectiveness of your ability.

(20 marks)

Target Setting and Performance Management

From a leadership position, I have adopted a remarkable ability to set targets and evaluate performance. Target setting helps individuals stay focused on what truly matters (Gilbey et al., 2019). Therefore, being a leader requires setting goals with a bigger picture and what one wants. These goals must be SMART goals, with great ability to prioritize. I have also realized that leadership is the art of managing and developing strategies to be followed in a company. Therefore the success of the company depends on making decisions and the quality of decisions and targets made.

Long-term decisions are made for ten years in the organization, short-term targets set annually, and other targets set monthly.

Therefore to set the target in the organization, the first step is to determine the company goals and visions. This process includes making a list of the target that should be achieved at a specific period and how they can be met. Also, at this point, employees' opinions are extensively considered. The second step is to ensure that the targets are analyzed with the S.M.A.R.T. system (Gilbey et al., 2019). The S.M.A.R.T. systems ensure that the targets are specific, attainable, measurable, time-based, and relevant. At this point, goals which pass the SMART test pass to the next step of evaluation while the rest are omitted. Also, there are minor edits on the set targets. Then comes the most critical part of target setting, determining which one is more important. After listing these goals, I decide which ones are critical based on time and region and list them based on hierarchy. Also in this point employees' opinion is considered with a goal to get an insight into certain team functions or roles. This stage primarily involved employees in making them motivated and inclusive in the targets (Gilbey et al., 2019). The last step in setting targets is announcing the targets to employees. This step includes information on how to execute these new targets and the time required to meet the targets. Also, this step comprises addressing any questions or concerns they might have. Due to the company's nature, employee ranks, and working in various regions, Lasswell's Model of communication is used (appendix 1). According to Sapienza et al. (2015), Lasswell's model attempts to understand a communication event through the use of critical including the message, message creator, what is being communicated, among other questions. Therefore, it offers a straightforward and practical way of critiquing and conveying a message.

Performance management

The company is adopting the current trends of continuous performance management. This step is focusing on an agile and data-driven approach to helping the company succeed. Performance appraisal is undertaken to make employees performance-oriented and enthusiastic.

In the company, performance management is undertaken both yearly and monthly. However, in the company, the process is being conducted by and facilitated by Human Resources managers. However, I am the coordinator and help supervisors with the process. This step includes what is expected of both worker and supervisor, how the expectations are met, what employees are doing, and clear expectations from both parties. The performance management in the company is undertaken using the 360 Feedback appraisal method. This method is a multidimensional process that explores workers using feedback from close people - peers, clients, and reports. Aggarwal and Thakur (2013) state that worker's development is dependent on the achieved progress in a particular department where employees work and the effectiveness when working with the rest of the organization. Therefore the 360-degree feedback is a common and most used performance appraisal method in contemporary organizations. In this method, workers are evaluated by a wide range of people. Some people who consider a worker include colleagues, managers, customers, supervisors, and friends (appendix 2). This method is advantageous in that employees can view how various stakeholders perceive performance in the key relationships essential to the worker’s role.

Dig deeper into A Comprehensive Assessment of Qualities, Skills, and Style in the Context with our selection of articles.

Reflection

Communication of targets and appraisal is very effective since there has been improved productivity over time, there has been great motivation due to promotion and motivation programs in the company. Also, the excellent outcome in the company is linked to target setting and employee performance against these goals.

Review own ability to motivate, delegate and empower others.

Learner Guidance Notes

Put 3 headings – motivation, delegation, empowerment – to keep you on track.

Start by providing a definition of motivation, delegation and empowerment under the correct heading.

Then by giving work examples review your ability to do each of them. How effective are you? In each heading you can link your example to theory you have completed on the course – 10 factors motivation or other theories (page 84), coaching theory / models to empower eg (GROW) Tannenbaum and Schmidt continuum of leadership to show how you withdraw for delegation (page 12)

Now make a judgment regarding effectiveness of your ability in all 3 areas. The more detailed the judgement the high the mark.

(20 marks)

Begin your response here:

Motivate, Delegate and Empower

Motivate

Motivation refers to a feeling based on how a person acts or behaves on a particular task or activity. It is a human psychology factor that pushes or drives a person to behave in a specific way. Therefore motivation is critical since it allows employees to change behavior, be creative, develop competencies, make plans, and boost engagement (Lorincová et al., 2019).

In the company, an established employee motivation program recognizes employees and aims to make the company thrive. For example, some of the company's factors include improving employee morale, promoting professional and career development, creating a better employee-manager relationship, and creating employee recognition platforms. Other strategies include work-life flexibility, onboarding and training, and lastly, compensation. All these strategies promote work satisfaction, thus enabling workers to be comfortable working in an organization. For instance, in the company, I have established a motivation system, where, when an employee reduces arrears by 25% in a month, they receive £25 amazon vouchers as a reward. Last month, I rewarded two employees. This practice is informed by the V-room expectancy theory, which suggests an individual's belief that effort will be rewarded after success. This strategy is aimed at improving productivity and employee retention. On the other hand, big bonuses are given annually and quarterly and motivate the workers to achieve satisfaction during the year (Lorincová et al., 2019). Similarly, the company motivation is based on Hertzberg's two-factor theory, which suggests that Hygiene issues like salary and motivators like recognition and achievement promote commitment and satisfaction.

The motivation program is effective, thus reflecting great ability to motivate employees. The motivation program is effective since employee satisfaction has been archived and turnover significantly reduced.

Delegate

Delegation refers to giving certain specific tasks or duties to a subordinate along with some powers to take decisions. Delegation gives individual ability to focus on higher-level tasks and enable employees to learn and develop new skills (Ugoani, 2020).

In the company, delegation is a common issue that starts with looking for the right person with effective training and skills. The next step includes explaining to the individual the significance of delegating tasks which helps the individual know context of the job and the responsibility. This step is followed by providing the proper instructions. In this case, the correct information is provided without micromanaging. This step includes telling employees the right goals and objectives. After giving the individual the correct information, the next step is to provide resources and training. This step ensures that the individual is competent and has all the resources to succeed (Ugoani, 2020). However, an individual must also delegate responsibility and authority in addition to providing information. This step is essential to empower individuals to decide and enable them to control his subordinate. Moreover, the delegation involves checking the work and giving feedback. The last and most critical step is employee recognition which might include verbal and or gift rewards. Leasehold management has a high level of job specialization. Therefore, I always delegate complex enquires regarding lease disputes to our legal time for sign-off, and when dealing with insurance claims or dispensation applications, I always ensure a qualified, experienced surveyor attends all inspections with the repairs operatives. It is vital to understand my teams' skill set, and with many team members new to the field, it’s essential to review letters, so I ensure all assistants, until approval that they have now got the skill set to send out without consent, letters are reviewed by the patch offer to avoid the error which could put us in the beach of our own leases review of this is not time-based but picked up in coaching sessions where they review goals and demonstrate how their knowledge and skills are growing in this area. For example, in January this year, we appointed a new assistant who had worked in leasehold management for two years; an assumption was she was experienced due to staffing issues we were expecting her to hit the ground running with very little supervision at a time while I was also on leave, she was asked to approve a valuation which was not her role or expertise, being new and not wanting to disappoint she went back a day later and said its fine, she had not had a qualified person review this and just gave her opinion, lucky this was reviewed and someone noticed a 30,000 difference on a recent neighboring property so the resale was stopped while we got a new valuation and saved ourselves losing almost 18000 I then picked up where all our processes are and what to do if in doubt along with some goal setting with the employee to empower her to deal with conflicting demands and feeling ok to say I am not sure, but I'll find out. The delegation task is informed by transformational leadership, and it acts as a motivation strategy (Ugoani, 2020). However, this also identified a need to develop a clear onboarding program.

My ability to delegate roles is essential and critical, and delegated roles have been successful under my management, but effectiveness in the delegating and its procedure also looks at staff delegating too. The success also indicates the ability to consider all factors that might impact the role delegation, therefore effective delegation.

Empower

To empower is providing employees with a certain degree of autonomy and control in their day-to-day activities. This indicates that employees can make crucial decisions and helping ensure those decisions are correct (Potnuru et al., 2019).

In the company, empowerment is very critical and is highly encouraged. Though there are no set procedures, some processes undertaken to empower employees include delegating tasks to develop, setting clear expectations, giving employees autonomy over tasks, offering the necessary resources, offering constructive feedback, communicating the organization's vision, and recognizing employees for hard work. For instance, the company empowerment system includes training and employee development. For example, I have set a regular training program that enables employees to be updated with the current market skills. The training system is informed by the GROW Model, which helps in structuring coaching and mentoring sessions with team members. This model allows me to acknowledge the current reality, set goals, and think of options, thus creating effective employee training. At the same time, I encourage people to take responsibility for setting their purposes or targets, which make them feel empowered.

My ability to empower employees is excellent since the company has achieved great expectations and enabled employees to achieve the primary purpose of their work.

Produce a personal development plan to improve own ability to lead.

Learner Guidance Notes

A personal development plan must be produced which includes activities, timescales and resources, support and costs to improve own ability to lead.

Short, medium and long term goals/ objectives should be included.

You might use the leadership effectiveness profile as the basis of the plan.