Essay Example on Leadership: Unique Journeys, Shared Traits

Leadership comes in all shapes and sizes (Anastasia, 2017). Every leader has a unique success story on their journey to climbing up. Even with their different journeys, all of these leaders have often shared certain traits that their juniors wish to emulate, or even other young leaders use as a reference. Leadership is not just being at a place of command; it is the ability to set out goals for an organization and then mobilizing their juniors to implement these visions. Great leaders always have a plan of how to exercise their leadership. There exist different styles of leadership. Implementation of a protocol of administration may differ according to factors like the urgency of to make a tough decision, the qualities and value that the leader believes in, the position of leadership, the niche where leadership is exercised, among many others. For instance, in the nursing department, the way team leaders lead might be different from the way the head of the department exercises power. Also, the leadership styles demonstrated in the department of nursing are different from the leadership style demonstrated by the head of state.

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Similarly, even within the department of nursing, different scenarios require the implementation of differing leadership styles. For example, in Kenyatta hospital in Kenya, Mrs. J. Mugambi is the deputy director of nursing services. During the normal daily operations of Kenyatta hospital, Mrs. Mugambi will exercise a different leadership protocol, but during an emergency such as when Kenyatta hospital is flooding with patients, which could be due to reasons like a road accident, Mrs. Mugambi will quickly have to change leadership protocol to one that fits the situation.

Transactional leadership is a leadership framework that focuses on performance. Employees who demonstrate excellent performance gets rewarded, whereas employees who will be categorized as poorly performing get penalized. In this style of leadership, leaders acquire the compliance of their juniors through rewards and punishments. In such a leadership environment, the organization usually invests in training the employees. During the training Procedures are set out, rules clearly defined, and the expectation of the organization well-laid out. They are also warned of the consequence of disobeying either of the laid down procedures. This approach does not look forward to changes to incur in the future.

Leaders who use this model of leadership majorly, they have to pay attention to how workers do their roles. They observe everything the workers do to prevent workers from deviating from what they are taught. In moments where a crisis occurs, for example, when dealing with victims from a road accident, following protocols is the key. Following the treaties in such scenarios will not only help protect individual nurses but also the organization as a whole. This will reduce the incidences of each nurse administering different procedures to different patients, which will lead to confusion in applying a general procedure to all the patients. The generalized protocol is the key. Other benefits are that it will become easier to save resources since some resources can be reused. Here, leaders look for faults and try to reduce the repetition of faults by other nurses.

Transactional leadership, depending on different circumstances, has its benefits and drawbacks. Some of its advantages are- Self-motivated Employees are always appreciated, this can motivate other employees to follow instructions, and definitely, it discourages lack of order through the penalties administered to individuals who were found with faults. Another advantage is that with this kind of leadership, it is easier and faster for an organization to achieve its short-term goals. It also encourages productivity among members. Also, it is easier to understand the structure since rewards and penalties are clearly defined.

There are also drawbacks to this leadership. In situations where flexibility is required, transactional leadership will not work. As much as it rewards good performance, it does not reward personal initiative; thus, it is a significant hindrance to creativity. Also, it has a weak reward system. It pays employees with tangible rewards like money only, and no other reward package is administered.

The success of this leadership needs a leader who is confident enough to ensure that others follow commands. It is a leader's confidence that will have them gain confidence from their subordinates. Since rules and procedures are the keys, the leader should demonstrate excellent communication skills. It is the power of words of a leader that will motivate employees to achieve better results (Hasan, 2019) . The leader should also be accountable; this is by ensuring that the subordinate staff is accountable for their decisions. A good leader should also demonstrate excellent skills in the delegation of duties to the juniors. They should also be resilient; that is, a good leader should be able to implement difficult decisions irrespective of how difficult circumstances are.

Transformational leadership takes a slightly different approach to demonstrate leadership. In this theory, leaders work with teams of their subordinate where they have conversations of what needs to be done, what changes can they identify and together they create a vision to guide the changes through inspiration, and executing the change in tandem with committed members of the group (Transformational leadership, 2016). This form of leadership also still heavily relies on excellent communication skills of the leader, the goals of organizations, and an environment where employees are well motivated.

For this kind of leadership to work effectively, the organization should ensure that the leaders they choose should be capable of inspiring others. A leader should be well behaved and brings a positive employee environment. Their actions should be a factor enough to motivate others who want to emulate them. The leader should also be passionate about the job they are doing. In the field of nursing, a leader should be passionate about executing nursing duties. This quality should especially be displayed when the leader is interacting with recruits who are scared, and they have no idea what to expect; The recruits should be able to look at how passionate their leaders are, and this will motivate them and give them confidence that they are in the right place. This passion will also be an encouragement source for other employees during periods of crisis or even when they are tired, and it is this passion that will motivate the employees to strive and achieve the goals of the organization. The leaders should have excellent skill. Communication is the key, especially when laying down the goals of an organization. Excellent communication will not only help the employees to grasp what they are expected fully, but it will also aid in designing the strategies to achieving these goals. It is also through communication that the employees are motivated. When faced with a dilemma or multiple situations, a good leader should be able to make sound and safe decisions that would neither hurt the organization or the employees. In nursing, emergencies are quite common. A good leader should be able to have a meeting with the employees, access the different solutions of how to deal with the emergency, and come up with the most optimal solution. Accountability is one of the virtues appreciated in the field of nursing. A good leader should be able to face and accept responsibilities. A leader should be in a position to accept the share of the blame for every misfortune as much as they will accept credit for the success. A leader, especially while using a transformational leadership style, should be able to delegate duties. This is because, in this style of leadership, duties have to be shared among the team members, and the team should also be able to work under minimal supervision.

However, whichever the leadership style an organization may choose to use, leadership is developing. Leadership development is now an asset that most organizations are investing in. Leaders seek to improve their qualities, boost the confidence that the subordinates have in them, bettering their skills, among others. Most organizations today are adopting coaching and mentorship as a form of improving leadership within it.

According to Baldwin and Ford (1988), the success of efforts made to enhance leadership development is attributed to the following variables: The characteristics of the individual learner, quality and nature of leadership development program, and support of the lead supervisor for behavioral change. In the field of nursing, a lot of time and effort are put to ensure that leaders occupying different positions of power are the best suited for their jobs. Self-drive, strong work ethics, someone who is passionate about their job and values the goals of nursing professionals, someone with an appealing personality is a few of the many qualities that are treasured.

In leadership development, one of the strategies that an organization can choose to build on is the development of individuals to become leaders (Bandura) An organization can choose to observe employees that display leadership capabilities and train them through many leadership improvement and mentorship programs. They can also be assigned small leadership tasks to start exposing them to real leadership roles. This will help them to improve their leadership and also familiarize and better understand the type of decisions they will be expecting to face when they get to the top leadership positions. This is called succession planning. Another approach an organization can take is frequently taking the already existing leaders to leadership conferences and training where they can be trained on how to improve the skills they already have. They can also be taught new leadership hacks that they might not be knowing about. The organization can also take the leaders to benchmark on organizations that are known to have impressive leadership capability.

Almost everything that exists has setbacks. Even in leadership, some things hinder the administration and exercising of power. Barriers help organizations to review their procedures and identify where bottlenecks are. Both external and internal factors hinder leadership growth. One of the individual factors is being ignorant of the usefulness of mistakes. Mistakes are destined to be a learning experience in the journey of leadership. But rather, most of the leaders often try to find a way of running away from mistakes instead of facing them head-on; thus, missing out on an essential opportunity of growth. Another hindrance is a leader refusing to get help. Most people in a position of power suffer from insecurity, and they think that if they seek help with something, one may turn against them and backstab then in process. It is due to such uncertainties that lead to cases of a leader being overwhelmed. Being self -sufficient is an admirable character, but when the work is a little too much, it is okay to seek a person who they can trust to help out with a few tasks. Another limiting factor is a leader might become a hindrance for the employees to do their work. Common slang for this behavior is a "control-freak." Some leaders, probably knowingly or unknowingly might be getting into the way of employees doing their job; that is, the supervision and monitoring might be too much and getting into the space of the employees freely doing their jobs. A good leader should be willing to trust the employees that they will do an excellent job without requiring much supervision. Another bar...