Kim Woods Only (600 3.2 Response)

Respond to each post.    

 150-200 words per response.     

Include 2 reference’s in each response

Post #1

According to the to the Leadership Grid, I would be at 9,9 style, “Promotes a high degree of participation and teamwork in the organization and satisfies a basic need in employees to be involved and committed to their work ( Northouse, p 77).” I don’t believe the following style of leadership works with the current employees, because they have very little desire to work or discipline. I feel at the moment, I am not able to be that type of leader, because employees have very bad habits that need to be corrected; however, I believe eventually we can get to the Team management (9,9) style.

At the moment, I believe the most effective style would be to be at Middle-of- the- Road management (5,5), “Who have an intermediate concern for the task and intermediate concern for the people who do the task (Northouse, p 76).” I feel, if I show concern for both we can come to a middle ground with each other of trust and loyalty. I believe, part of the problem has been the amount of change they on the past twelve months. And I have been one of the longest leader or manager they had for a while.

Reference:

Northhouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership, Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks SAGE.

Blanchard, K.H., Zigarmi, D., & Nelson, R.B. (1993). Situational leadership after 25 years: A retrospective. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 1(1), 22 – 35.

Post #2

Researchers and practitioners have established that “leadership is composed of two general kinds of behavior: task behavior and relationship behavior” (Northouse, 2016). Task behavior is all about production, mission accomplishment (concern for results) while Relationship behavior emphasizes on peoples needs, and satisfaction (concern for people). After taking the Leadership behavior questionnaire and comparing the results to my leadership challenge and scoring in the mid 30’s on both task and relationship which I considered a middle of the road management (5,5). I found it surprising, I considered myself at the time as more task-oriented. I believe this has to do with the fact that I was new in the command and was deploying as the leading Petty Officer, with a team that I did not know and an aircraft the I was not familiar. My current leadership style could correct this situation, because of all the additional experience that I have gained since then. The ultimate goal is to reach (9,9) on the leadership grid which will be the most effective style. However, based on the situation I do not believe a different style would have been more effective.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Blake, R., & Mouton, J. (1975). Overview of the grid. Training and Development Journal, 29(5), 29 – 37.

Post #3

Using Figure 4.1 The Leadership Grid in Northouse, assess the need for “concern for results” and “concern for people” in your leadership challenge. Compare your assessment with your results on the Style Questionnaire at the end of chapter 4. Will your current leadership style(s) address this situation? Is there a style that would be more effective?

This is my post from 3.1 to give context: My leadership challenge had many layers. I was the Director of a satellite college program on a naval base as my civilian career. I had been there for a little over two years when I joined the Army as a reservist. I was gone for six months. When I returned things were rocky and the program had suffered but I transitioned back into my role easily. Less than 3 months later I was given 400 day orders to Iraq. In my absence, my boss, the Associate Dean, filled my position with an Acting Director and also hired some new staff. I returned to my position 15 months later to find someone (the Acting Director) who had no idea who I was and who was put off (to put it mildly) that I was taking over “his” office. My boss neglected to brief him about the transition. I also had new staff who did not know me and had taken over my office. I could see issues all over the office and had to re-assume my leadership position in a rather uncomfortable way since the way had not been made for me. I’m not sure my leader is even on the SLII chart as I see his behavior as driven by fear rather than a strategic decision. He did not want to oust the acting director because it was uncomfortable, yet he could have set up the parameters from day one to make things clear and streamlined for all parties. If I had to pick a style I would say S4. He took the low road all around. As for my new employees, one in particular, was very clearly D1 (Low Competence/High Commitment). (Northouse, 2016, p.95) He was extremely committed and enthusiastic, but in general not very good at his job. This was likely due to having a boss who was put there to hold a spot who had no idea what he was doing either. My natural leadership style and the one that most often displays itself is S3. “Style 3 (S3) is a supporting approach that requires that the leader take a high supportive-low directive style.” (Northouse, 2016, p.95) I did have to become a bit directive here and there to help him progress, but eventually he was let go, because he could never fully grasp the job or the expectations.

When taking the quiz at the end of Chapter 4, I got almost the max points on relationship driven leadership and very high on task driven as well. On the Leadership Grid 4.1 (Northouse, 2016, p. 76), I fall between the Country-Club Management “thoughtful attention to the needs of the people for satisfying relationships…” and Team Management “work accomplishment is from committed people”. In my job as Director with the college it was a very high-paced often thankless job with high turnover due to the intensity and low compensation. Since I could do nothing about the compensation, my goal was to create an environment where my team liked their job and felt buy-in to the value of the programs we offered. In my leadership challenge I used this style with my new employee, but unfortunately, he is the only employee I had to let go in 13 years. I’m not sure what I could have done differently. I honestly think he was just not suited for that particular line of work. In ousting the Acting Director I used an Authority-Compliance style (controlling, demanding, hard driving, and overpowering). I reentered my workspace with my normal style of team mindset, but he was not having it, so I had to become forceful and state my position. My leadership was not helpful in this transition, so I had to make it happen. It was not pretty and took many years to overcome this rift (because we still worked in the same field). In retrospect, I probably could have taken a softer approach, but after a year in combat when pushed, I was going to push back.

Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. Los Angeles, California: Sage Publications, Inc.