In the present father good father, not a good leader, where competition has become cut-throat and where globalization phenomenon has increased the complexity and volatility, businessmen need to be both an effective manager as well as an effective leader to succeed. It is also known well in the business arena that leadership and management are two different and complementary systems of action since each of them has its own functions and characteristic activities. By becoming effective at both ends, a businessman will be able to cope with complexity as well as the change needed in the rapidly changing business environment.
It is also a reality that effective businessmen who have good management skills try to develop or improve their ability to lead, however, they should remember that strong leadership with weak management is no better, and is actually worse, than the reverse. Ironically, they must try to combine strong leadership and strong management and use each to balance the other(Kotter).
On the other hand, every businessman cannot be good at both leading and managing people. Some businessman has the capacity to become effective managers but no strong leaders, while despite having strong leadership potential, remain unable to develop strong management skills.
In this paper, leadership theories have been applied to my father’s current role in a business setting where he is a successful businessman and good manager while lacks strong leadership skills. Apart from this, he is a good father since he holds strong fatherhood abilities and successfully manages the business as well as family matters (Kotter).
My father as a leader and Leadership literature:
Vision sets direction and destination for reaching the next higher level. My father manages the household work and the business by applying simple principles of good management, without setting the direction of the business for reaching the next higher levels. However, He is able to motivate us at home but remains unable to motivate employees at the workplace, as he does not set challenging goals for himself and workers as a strong leader. My father however sometimes makes visionary statements at the business to impress the subordinates and workers, but his vision often lacks clarity. For instance, he can look at CEO Jan Carlzon’ vision of making Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) the best airline in the world for the frequent business travelers. He targeted business travelers since they travel more consistently than other market segments and are generally willing to pay higher fares (Kotter).
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My father’s Mood: vs Leader Mood:
My father behaves happily with all of us at home. He remains enthusiastic when we go outside playing and watching movies on weekends and holidays. He loves our whole family and treats all of us (two brothers and one sister) equally without any prejudice. When remains happy with family, leaves and returns home smiling. However, in contrast, his mood at the workplace does not foster a good relationship with line managers as well as workers. Because he always seems so down on them
He seldom smiles and often looks as though the whole business is going to collapse despite the fact that everything is going smoothly under his supervision and management. Moreover, he does not joke with subordinates and his managers. Over the years, my father has developed himself as a downbeat leader at a workplace, while he is upbeat at home. Hence, in order to be a successful businessman, he needs to become upbeat at a business setting as well so since the research shows that subordinates prefer to work hard when their leaders are happy and enthusiastic. Moreover, the effectiveness of a leader depends upon what kind of the mood he has at the business place to motivate his workers and managers (Jennifer M. George).
My father as leader and Decision making:
My father as a good father makes participative decision making at home, taking inputs from all members of the family. Whenever he thinks of purchasing a new car, we decide about the choice of color, brand, and its type. However, he sometimes he makes the autocratic decision when it comes to deciding about holidays activities.
Conversely, in the business setting, my father solely relies on his own gut feeling and information to make decisions. He does not realize those good decisions may help his business to achieve its goals and a bad decision may hinder goals attainment. He becomes autocratic at the business while ignoring the fact that subordinates’ participation in decision making and problem-solving can enhance his leadership. Thus he often faces bad decisions as well as little support from workers and management for achieving those goals. In order to become a good leader, he should remember that workers will accept a decision that affects them or requires their support. Additionally, he may be able to foster his workers and managers growth and development and achieve high productivity and job satisfaction through their active participation (Bernard M. Bass).
He also needs to delegate his power and authority to his middle managers and supervisors who handle different departments so that they could make effective decisions according to the situation and market circumstances.
My father as leader and Trait Theory:
My father tries to resolve issues at home by making assertive choices and using his creative skills. However, sometimes he seeks input from other family members at home when we are going for purchasing grocery and for shopping. Sometimes disputes arise between him and my mother, but he deals with them tactfully and diplomatically. He also uses his persuasive skills at home to convince us for watching movies of his own choice (Bernard M. Bass).
However, at business, he seems to be not having natural traits of assertiveness, cooperation, decisiveness, and dependability, since he is often unable to motivate his employees for achieving the targets. Most of the time, he looks at the negative side of everything and does not take an assertive approach to think about his employees’ point of views. That is why my father as a leader lacks the ability to use creative skills of his employees for productivity use and innovation. Moreover, he often loses emotional control when dealing with unexpected results from his business and performance of his employees. Additionally, the lack of the right combination of charisma and emotional intelligence abilities often lead my father towards low performance at the workplace. The lack of inhered traits of leadership, so far, has proved a hindrance for my father to develop a successful businessman as well as a strong leader in the business setting (Fullan)
My father as a Leader and Contingency Theories:
My father often makes the good situational decision at home. For instance, last weekend we planned for spending holidays in Dubai. At the eleventh hour, one of my brothers lost his mobile, it seemed impossible to contact my uncle who was also going with us since all the contacts were saved in his mobile. At that time, everyone was screwed up; however, fortunately, my father called the mobile phone operating company by using his situational handling skills and got the contacts back on his cell.
In contrast to family life, business life of my father does not prove to be so much success for him as a strong leader having abilities to act according to situation, followers’ needs and psychology.
He usually sticks with hard and fast rules of autocracy and centralized decision-making to lead his employees and solve the unexpected as well as routine problems at the business. This often leads to failure and loss of valuable resources for my fathers’ business. Hence, he should try to prepare himself for the situational leader whose leadership style successfully fulfills the situational requirements. Moreover, he should adopt different approaches to leadership according to different business situations and changing market conditions (Jennifer M. George).
By applying Fiedler’s least Co-worker theory, he can handle the repeated arising disputes among employees and the management, since he will be able to have a strong relationship with them. If he becomes a high LPC leader, his increased support for employees will win their confidence. Additionally, he will be to change himself from being task-oriented to relationship-oriented (Jennifer M. George).
In short, after looking my father as leader through the lenses of trait as well as behavioral leadership theories, my father will have to develop lot skills and traits such as situational handling, emotional intelligence, and effective decision-making in stressful situations, assertiveness and cooperativeness etc in order to be a strong leader at the business. He also needs to be both a charismatic as the well transformational leader, who is self-confident, enthusiastic, and can win his employees’ respect and support for achieving his vision.