Assertiveness and Effective Leadership

ASSERTIVENESS AND EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP

By Joseph Santora

1. This article deals with the study of the right level of assertiveness that should be use in having an effective leadership. These are the key points that I observe with this reading:

1. Leaders should have managerial competencies in order to be successful in any organization, one of these characteristics that people are looking in good managers is his/her assertiveness.
2. The connection between leadership and assertiveness isn’t that clear, there have been studies from the past regarding the relationship of leadership and assertiveness. Studies shows that there are certain levels of assertiveness that should be use in different situations in  order to become an effective leader.
3. On the first study, assertiveness was not consorted with leadership strength but rather it was considered as a weakness of a leader. Regardless of the level of assertiveness used, whether it is low assertiveness or high assertiveness, both were considered as weakness of a potential managers.
4. On the second study, it was viewed that people with moderate and low levels of assertiveness are much appreciated when it comes to conflict management and their influence to other, rather than people with high level of assertiveness, wherein they are still viewed as least effective leaders.
5. The third study conducted focuses on older managers and the result is leaders with too low in assertiveness were seen as weak for getting things done but are successful with their social relationship in the organization, while leaders with high level of assertiveness may be able to get things done but suffers his/her social life at work.
6. Though there are a lot of suggestions, the conclusion to this study is having a moderate level of assertiveness is more likely to be effective in leadership both in social and organizational goals. However, they should be flexible on the level of their assertiveness depending on the demand of certain situations.

2. How can you make use of the article in your daily life?

For me, assertiveness in my life means being aggressive and fierce in getting things done or in any circumstances. I think I can relate the level of assertiveness in my daily life as a spouse. Being a wife to my a bit temperamental husband, where his mood swings were kinda unpredictable, I have to make sure of the right level of assertiveness to apply in dealing with him especially when problem comes to avoid CHAOS.

LEADERSHIP STYLES AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STYLES OF EXECUTIVES

By S. Limbare

The study deals about the relationship between leadership styles and management styles of executives, here are the list of key points that I have taken into about what the article wants to convey.

1. Leadership is basically the ability to influence others to direct them in attaining specific goals, moulding their attitudes and behavior, and motivating them.
2. There are eight different styles of leadership according to Reddin (1970) and these are the following:

1. Deserter Leadership style means uninvolved or passive, who allows things to just happen and accept what other people would do without trying to change them.
2. Missionary style of leadership is primarily interested harmony and would avoid any conflict as much as possible.
3. Autocrat leadership style shows no confidence and lack concerns to others. And just interested in getting the job done. Usually self centered kind of leadership where it keeps all the control of the org within himself.
4. Compromiser style of leader is a poor decision maker, who would easily give up on something in order to end an argument or dispute.
5. Bureaucrat is normally based on following the rules and procedures and control the situation for their own sake.
6. Developer leadership style based his trust on people and is mainly concern in developing them as individual goal setter.
7. Benevolent autocrat knows exactly what he wants form people and the situation and knows how to get things done in his own way without causing resentment.
8. Executive is a good motivator who sets high standards treats everyone differently and prefers team management.

3. There are four main avoidance styles of conflict management at preventing or postponing conflict in different ways and these are:

1. Resignation the extreme avoidance adopted in helpless situations.
2. Wedrawal getting away with conflict.
3. Defusion the style that buys time or delays the dealing with conflict.
4. Appeasement style means agreeing temporarily with the group not because it is convinced but just to avoid conflicts.

4. There are four approaches modes or styles that are used in dealing with conflict and finding a solution and these are:

1. Confrontation is use to fight out an issue to get a solution in favor of one side. It is often adopted by management and may involve coercion and likely to fail in having solution.
2. Compromise process of sharing the gain without resolving the conflict.
3. Arbitration where a third party is sought to assess the situation and provide solutions.
4. Negotiation jointly discussion in dealing with the problem and finding solutions.

5. Different studies were made and same findings are missionary style of a leader was the most preferred and deserter leader was the most rejected. And that appeasement management style was the most preferred style in dealing with conflict.

The modes and styles of conflict management and managerial leadership style of managers

By khan

Key points from the journal reading:

1. Conflict in an organization is inevitable, because it is made up of individuals or group that affect one another with their actions. It can involve incompatible differences between parties that would result to opposition and violation of rules and procedures. Conflict signifies commitment, involvement and caring.
2. In this study there are five styles of conflict management, these are:

1. Competition, the use of this style in dealing with the conflict solution is the attempt to affect very strongly the opponent by the use of formal authority, power or threats.
2. Collaboration is mutual problem solving, where parties are face to face in discussing the issues. It is frequently viewed as a win approach because the solution is sought by all the participants for their advantages.
3. Avoidance a situation where one party avoids the other to prevent demonstration of disagreement, it is either withdrawal or suppression.
4. Accommodation it is viewed as a self-sacrificing behavior, where one party puts the other party’s interest first.
5. Compromise is created when each party gives up something to come up with the solution.

3. There are different kind of leadership style that was tackled in this journal these are:

1. Concern for people – leaders considers the needs of their members.
2. Concern for production – leader emphasizes high productivity, organizational efficiency in deciding how to complete the task.
3. Country club leadership – high people but low production because people operates under the assumption that as long as they are happy and secure they will work hard. The direction and control of the org suffers.
4. Produce or perish leader – also known as authoritarian or compliance leaders, strict rules, policies and views punishment to motivate the employees. Viewed as high production but low in people.
5. Impoverished leadership – it is a low production and low people approach and most ineffective.
6. Middle of the road leadership – medium production and medium people where leaders settle for average performance.
7. Team leadership – according to Blake mouton this is the pinnacle of managerial style. Where leader stress the production needs and people need equally high.

4. In their analysis, it is revealed that most managers used the accommodating and collaborating conflict management mode to handle issue in an organization.

Conflict management, efficacy, performance in an organizational team

By s. alper

Key points of the article:

1. In a traditional hierarchical organizations, employees are expected to inform their managers or supervisors of problems and conflicts and abide by their decision. In organizations that use teams, employees are supposed to resolve problems and conflicts by themselves.
2. There are some theories that argued that employees will work more effectively when they are in control of their own internal functioning and work coordination without eternal supervision.
3. Employees are expected to resolve issues around their personalities, work roles and habits, production procedures and quality of work to best way to complete the task.
4. Individuals who believe they can perform needed actions exert effort are productive than those with little efficacy are unproductive and fail to take initiative to contribute to the organizations.
5. Group efficacy have important effects on team performance.
6. Conflict is central to organizational groups that is why conflict efficacy may contribute significantly to the team overall performance. With low levels of efficacy the teams are unable to perform effectively. Conflict efficacy the belief of team members that they could successfully manage different conflict situations.
7. Some studies support that competitive conflict has a largely negative impact on conflict efficacy. Teams that relied to competitive conflict were found to have exhibit low levels of conflict efficacy and reduced group performance.
8. Organizational teams that rely on cooperative approaches to conflicts appears to be good candidates in working effectively for the organization because of their autonomy. Organizational teams do not improve by themselves, teams are not expected to automatically feel empowered and confident to deal with conflicts in any situation. Empowering them and giving them the proper enhancements to manage conflict would definitely give them the positive attitudes to do the work effectively and resolve conflicts.

The critical role of conflict resolution in teams: a close look at the links between conflict type, conflict management strategies and team outcomes.