Paper Example on Leadership in Organizations

Having no Successor or Succession Plan

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When it comes to making plans for when one has left their leadership position in a company, some leaders tend to neglect this responsibility. This is bound to have many negative repercussions for the company once the leaders time to leave has come. Firstly, this creates a situation where the selection of a successor is done without the input of the outgoing leader. This in most cases means that a successor is normally picked without the input of their last boss. This normally leads to the selection of people with character flaws missed during the selection of the successor (Rothwell, 2010).

Another common disadvantage of this plan is the fact that the successor will have to learn the ropes on the job in most cases. Having a person to guide you into your new managerial position will ease the transition in most cases, as an outgoing leader exits, there are normally ongoing projects that will require the handing over of projects and clients. This is very important because this handing over process would be the step that ensures success or assures failure in these projects (Rothwell, 2010).

Another disadvantage comes from the fact that the new leader will have to do most of the planning that the outgoing leader neglected. This will be a very counteractive and time-consuming endeavor. This implies that it will most likely involve a lot of back and forth with the outgoing leader. This in essence means the leader will have been put in a position of temporary extension of his tenure. By means of this position, he can continue to execute his poor planning and this might create problems for an organization.

This succession plan does not bear any advantages.

Going through the motions of designating a successor

This succession model covers leaders who pretend to have a succession plan. This means they often act as if they are preparing for succession while in public but in reality they never make succession plans. This may have one advantage. Since unlike the leadership style discussed earlier where the leader will not even try to hide the fact that he is not picking a successor, this leader will have to pretend. Furthermore, in as much as he will do as little as possible, there has to be a little preparation that will in the very least help out in the succession process (Tichy, 2014).

The disadvantages are plenty. Firstly, the lack of a real plan will mean this shares disadvantages with the previous plan. An added disadvantage is the fact that if this kind of leader is not caught earlier on in his pretense, the scale to which his act can go on unnoticed will lead to a clear timing issue. The lack of a succession plan may be discovered so late that it affects the organization negatively. Because of this, a leader of this nature is in some cases worse than a leader who did not try to hide the fact that he did not make succession plans (Rothwell, 2010).

An added disadvantage would be the fact that this type of a leader may create tension in an office where there are a number of aspiring leaders. The opportunities created by the news of the vacation of a leadership position in an organization make it so important in a workplace that aspiring workers begin to present themselves for selection. A leader who pretends to be vacating will create tensions between these workers because most of them will mostly be fixated on the pretend succession plan of the outgoing leader. This will make it even harder to select a leader especially where a worker had been fooled into raising his hopes (Tichy, 2014).

Designating the wrong successor

There are leaders who pick the wrong successors. Sometimes this is done consciously of the fact that the chosen successor is not the right person for the job. The outgoing leader sets it up this way so that he will always be required to come sort out issues worked during his tenure. A faulty successor may also be chosen unconsciously. The outcome will also be failure so this is equally as bad.

This has advantages because it may actually show the areas where a successor exhibits shortcomings. The knowledge of these shortcomings will be useful in the future of the organizations. Some leaders may fail because they pick successors based on the traits they have in common with their successors. These may be the traits that make their leadership styles work so when a successor with these traits is picked they may end up being ideal for the job (Saporito & Winum, 2012).

The disadvantages with the previous two apply if they fail to achieve a smooth transition. Another disadvantage is a waste of time because the new leader will have to serve before he is discovered to be wrong for the job. There will also be the issue of tensions because the selected successor may fail to understand why an outgoing leader is bringing his leadership to question after a legitimate selection. This may lead to professional differences especially where a new leader is selected to replace a leader who has been demoted because he has been found to be unfit for the position. These rivalries tend to affect the work environment negatively and could take a lot of time and team building exercises to fix (Saporito & Winum, 2012).

Undermining or discrediting the successor

This type of leader sets a bad example for other employees because they tend to put their successors down in front of their new juniors. The only advantage this will have to the organization is that the successor will have to work harder than usual to impress the outgoing leader.

This type of succession plan has some disadvantages. The main disadvantage is the fact that this will create a workplace where junior employees disregard their new leaders authority. This is bound to create workplace tensions that may affect the whole organization.

Another disadvantage is the caused by the constant undermining and discrediting the successor has to endure. If a person in constantly being forced to learn another persons individual work technique, this will restrict creativity. This means the new leader will repress his individual leadership qualities and adopt the qualities of their predecessor. This is bound to prevent innovation and individuality, which will affect the adaptability of the organization as a whole in the end (Saporito & Winum, 2012).

This succession plan may also create a work environment where sexism, racism and many other forms of discrimination make it hard for people with certain qualities that make them perceivably different have to jump more hurdles that other perceivable privileged individuals. A good example is the fact that in a male dominated organization a woman may have to work twice as hard as a man does for the same job, or work position. This will be caused by issues like an outgoing male leaders perception of women as less capable of holding their job, simply because no woman has assumed leadership at the organization prior.

WHICH LEADERSHIP PERSONALITY YOU WILL PUT YOUR BOSS INTO? AND WHY?

My boss shows the qualities of a bold leader. Bold leaders have been described as being very forward in their leadership styles and going out of their way to make their organizations successful under their constant leadership. There are few problems with these leaders key among them being that they show some degree of narcissism. Most of them have a very hard time delegating particularly delicate tasks. In most cases they are very hands on, which is good for the organization.

The problem with this hand on leadership is that in some cases in ends up adding on the experience of an already experienced leader while denying less experienced employees important chances to advance their careers. Ambitious junior employees end up having to compete for opportunities with their leaders, an issue that is made worse by the fact that the leader will always be in a better position to take advantage of this opportunities. These turns the workplace into a very bitter environment. This bitterness is bound to manifest itself in the organizations productivity.

Another problem that stems from this unfair competition is that some juniors start looking for opportunities by providing admiration to the organizational leaders. This means some employees go to extreme unprofessional heights to impress their leaders so that they can get opportunities like promotions. These opportunities are supposed to be presented to workers based on their professional competence. The provision of opportunities based on social standings is also bound to bring very many problems to the organization.

A workplace that is focused on social standing is bound to uplift the wrong people while denying leadership roles from people who might actually be better in leadership positions. Traditionally unprofessional habits are bound to be exhibited more commonly by the workforce. Bosses will promote their own leadership ideals. This will discourage the introduction of new ideas and prevent any occurrence of junior level innovations.

This is the type of leadership exhibited by my boss. There are some exceptions to the rule key among them being the issue of ego centrism. I do not believe his failure to delegate stems from his being naturally self-centered or that he possesses any malice that prevents sharing of opportunities. It seems more as if he is personally too concerned and attached to the future of the organizations that this concern prevents him from letting other people be in charge. This could be an indicator that he intends to still be attached to the organization in a capacity that is very similar to the one he holds currently.

This shows that my boss would love to see the organization succeed even after he is gone. This can be evidenced by the fact that he will try to find a successor to exhibit similarities to him so that his leadership can remain at the organization after he is gone. It can also be supported by his inclination towards always being available for consultation if the organization ever needed him to come back and save the day during a crisis occurring after his departure.

WHICH LEADERSHIP PROFILE YOU WILL PUT YOURSELF INTO? AND WHY?

My leadership profile is set up to prevent the creation of strains on the organization. Its employees and my preferred successor. As a leader, I understand that there comes a time in the life of every leader where they have to evaluate their input into the workings of an organization. If they have served to the best of their abilities, it is their responsibilities to acknowledge they have done everything for the organization and that it is their time to select a successor. This is a quality I find lacking in the leaders who have been portrayed in these succession plans.

The first leader does not have a plan, this shows his intentions are to remain with the organization indefinitely. The second leader does not also seem to understand that his time to leave has come because he pretends to have a plan while actually not doing anything about it. This pretense shows he knows that he is expected to be working in a succession plan. His failure to do anything towards this end shows that this leader is in denial about the survival of the organization after his departure. The third leader sets his successor up to fail so that the organization can request his continued assistance after his departure. The fact that this leader has picked a successor shows that he understands that his time to leave has come. This is a good thing. His plan fails when he selects a successor without the skill required to execute the tasks that leadership job demands.

This shows that the leader has problems letting go of his position as the leader of that organization. This makes his leadership style a failure. The fourth leaders type o...