Mintzberg Leadership
Leadership strengths and weakness
From the below test it is concluded that as a leader I’m doing better and am on the way to become a good leader. But it is not necessary that you perform great in all the areas. I have many good leadership qualities as well. I always consider the skills of an employee and area in which his interest lies at the time of assigning the tasks. Even when working with the whole team, I always try to motivate everyone towards accomplishment of goals & the overall objectives. I have always tried to maintain a positive attitude and have tried to maintain a positive outlook towards my problems and issues at the workplace. I believe that personal feelings should not be allowed to get in the way of productivity and performance as it may hinder your performance. Personal and professional life should not be mixed, as it makes it difficult for the person to make a decision at times. I always feel highly motivated as I know that I have all the required skills and abilities, competencies that are required for being successful at the workplace. I have always tried to build an optimistic approach towards life so that it can help me to look beyond my temporary problems and shortcomings. Also whenever the situation or circumstances change, I prepare myself on how to deal with the situation and struggle to know what I should do at that point of time to tackle that situation (Daft, 2014). I believe that it is necessary that the employees should always try to learn the new skills and abilities to deal with the upcoming challenges instead of just keep doing and repeating the same tasks and perfecting them.
On the other hand, there are some areas where I’m not doing well as a leader. I doubt myself and my ability to succeed, this shows that I have a lack of confidence in myself regarding the tasks completion. I get upset and worried quite often in the workplace, this show that there are things going on which results in depressing my mood and making me thinking a lot (Kacmar, et al., 2013). Sometimes, I expect my employees to work harder than I do which is a negative sign of growth. Making yourself stand in a position that only you have the sole authority to take the majority of decisions in the company without letting the other employees let give their inputs or ideas make the situation worse. The employees will start feeling a state of frustration as they will feel that they are not been viewed as a part of the company (Hendricks, et al., 2010). The employees should be given all the necessary support and guidance they need to accomplish the goals and objectives. When someone criticizes me for my performance I should never judge that person in return, instead I should always try to find out what the reason behind criticizing is and where I have lacked. It can be concluded that it is not necessary that the leader is always right in whatever he does and it is possible that he also commits mistakes.
Critique Mintzberg and his theories on leadership
Mintzberg has identified 10 different roles in the managerial work. He has separated all these roles under three different categories: interpersonal, informational and decision-making or decisional. The ten different roles are figurehead, leader, liaison, monitor, disseminator, spokesperson, entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator.
A leader is one who has the responsibility of motivating and guiding its followers towards achieving and accomplishment of the goals of the company. The leader is followed by its followers, and they believe that the leader is always doing something for the betterment of the organization as a whole. But, it is not very easy to motivate the employees as every person is not same. Every employee distinguishes from each other, in terms of personality, character, ideas, beliefs, etc. So, this makes it difficult for the leader to motivate the employees as everyone is having their own needs which are not same (Alexiev, et al., 2010). There are many ways to motivate a person and it’s necessary that a single method will be applicable on each and every person. A leader is one who has the authority to take the decisions. But, leader should not exercise this authority in a wrong manner, initiatives should be invited from every employee, every employee should be given the right to express their own views, ideas, and to provide suggestions regarding the decision-making process.
The followers should also not blindly trust the leader as it’s not necessary that the leader is always the correct person to take the decisions. It is important that the leader should always gather the appropriate and prominent information and should deliver the same to all the followers at the right time. The leader should not exercise negative control to use the resources of the organization (Golden Pryor & Taneja, 2010). The leader should be responsible for both the positive as well as the negative outcomes, it should not happen that the leader put blames on the followers for not achieving the outcomes and should give credit to himself alone on achieving the objectives. Leader should always maintain the team spirit and should always treat everyone as a part of the organization as a team not as just individuals. The state of frustration, ego, dismissing others ideas, not listening to anyone except yourself, lack of empathy, should not be entertained by a successful leader. The leader should never show biasness among any of his followers, he should always treat everyone equally in the organization. A leader should always help the followers in enhancing their performance and improving their performance, skills and abilities to achieve the desired results. Leader is solely responsible for providing a healthy working environment and for marinating a better relationship between the followers and the leader. The leader should not always land up in a situation where only he is gaining benefit and others are facing problems or difficulties. The leader should benefit the organization as a whole.
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