Nicolas Martinez

Final Reflection
Organizational Leadership
OGL 300: Theory and Practice of Leadership

In OGL 300: theory and practice of leadership, we spent seven weeks looking at different approaches to
leading. This reflection will revisit my definition of leadership and identify how leadership impacts
employee performance. Additionally, the eleven leadership approaches will be examined with one
strength and one criticism of each discussed. I will also examine what style fits me best as well as look at
approaches that resonated with me or those that I might not have taken a liking to. Lastly, I will reflect
on a real-life situation where leadership approaches surfaced and determine if there were other
approaches that could provide alternate results.

Definition and employee performance

In the beginning of this course I provided my insights on what I thought leadership meant to me. I wrote
that leadership was once described as “the ability to make people do things they don’t want to do” and
used the phrase “manage tasks, lead people”. Those two definitions hold true to how we have explored
leadership the past six weeks and I can add to that “definition” by noting that there are many different
ways to motivate people to accomplish their tasks, but in every approach, there are always two
constants: a leader and a follower. The type of approach one takes to leading should always be focused
on getting the most out of your team and making sure they are equipped and ready to tackle any
organizational challenges that are ahead of them.

The 11 Leadership Approaches

Northouse (2019) noted that the trait approach suggested that “certain people were born with special
traits that made them great leaders (p. XX)”. One strength of this approach is the century of research to
back up its findings and the fact that the approach clearly fits with our notion of what leaders are and
supposed to be. A criticism of the approach is that the most important leadership traits are highly
subjective with different studies identifying different traits that leaders should model.

The skills approach is a leader centered approach focused on identifying and honing the skills necessary
to be an effective leader. One strength of this approach is focus on making leadership available to
anyone through a set of skills that people can learn and develop over time. A criticism of the approach is
that many of the skills that established models suggest are still “trait-like” and it is difficult to distinguish
what individual attributes, if any, can be bettered like skills.

The behavioral approach focuses on the things that leaders do and that combining these behaviors can
influence other to accomplish goals. A strength of this approach is that the research on the topic has
indicated that there are two primary types of behaviors: task and relationship, and a focus on
understanding how integrate your leadership of both can proves successful. A criticism of the approach
is that little rea has established a link between these leader behaviors and outcomes such as morale, job
satisfaction, and productivity.

Situational leadership suggests that leaders can be effective in many different types of organizational
settings. A strength of the situational approach is that it is very practical and easy to understand. This
makes the approach sensible and simple to apply in a bunch of different settings. A criticism of the
approach is that there are still few studies to justify the assumptions made in the approach’s modeling
and there is little clarity on how commitment is combined with competence to accurately describe and
reflect employee behavior.

Path-goal is similar to the situational approach but it is more focused on the leader choosing different
styles based upon the follower’s motivational needs, not their competency. A strength of this approach
is that it provides a useful theory and framework for understanding how leadership behaviors affect
follower’s satisfaction and work performance. A criticism is that path goal theory is complex and
incorporates so many different aspects of leadership that interpreting it well can become confusing.

The leader-member exchange (LMX) approach sees leadership as a process centered around the
interactions between leaders and followers. A strength of LMX it that it is a descriptive theory that uses
sensible descriptions of work units in terms of those who contribute more and those who contribute
less. This description of work units is generally how things naturally pan out in the real world and it is
good to have a theory that understands and applies this. A criticism of the theory is that it runs counter
to the basic human value of fairness and it feels wrong to form in-groups or cliques within the workplace
because they can be harmful to outsiders.

Transformational leadership gives “more attention to the charismatic and affective elements of
leadership (Northouse, 2019).” A strength of transformational leadership is that it focuses on a process
that occurs between followers and leaders that incorporates the needs of both levels. The interplay
between both sides is a crucial part of the theory. A criticism of the approach is that it treats leadership
as a personality trait instead of a behavior people can learn and some argue that it was created to be
used within social and political contexts, not corporate ones.

Authentic leadership focuses on real and genuine leaders. A strength of this approach is that it fulfills a
need for trustworthy leadership in society and it has both practical and theoretical approaches to clearly
point to what leaders should do to become authentic leaders. One criticism of authentic leadership is
that it is still a young concept and needs more study and development and the ideas are still not fully
explained.

Servant leadership is a complex idea that boils down to the premise that leaders should place the good
of the followers over their own personal interests, emphasizing the development of their followers. A
strength of this approach is that it is one of the few theories that focuses on ethics and altruism as the
primary component. It also is a proactive and counterintuitive approach to leadership that argues that
leaders should not dominate or control but should give up control as a way to influence. A criticism of
the approach is that the title and concept of servant leadership creates contradictory feelings about the
idea and drives conversation about the topic off course. People continue to misinterpret the idea of
taking care of followers and assume the theory wants leaders to literally become servants, which goes
directly against the ideas of leading.

Adaptive leadership is about how leaders help followers do their work and adapt to the challenges that
the followers may face. A strength of the theory is that it takes a process approach to leadership and
highlights the mutual affect that leaders and followers have on one another. It emphasizes the complex
process of leading formally and informally. One criticism of the approach is that the idea was initially
meant as a practical approach to leading and was based off of theories and assumptions, many that still
need research and evidence-based support.
The last approach discussed in the course was the followership theory which focuses on the ability of
subordinates to accept the leaders influence to accomplish the main goal. A strength of this approach is
that it gives recognition to the integral role that followers have in the leadership equation. it gives
leaders a new way to think about leadership and the relationships with subordinates. A criticism of the
theory is that the current followership texts are very anecdotal and personal and there is still no precise
theory, model of followership, or sets or principles and practices to implement the approach.

My leadership styles
Servant leadership is the theory that best describes my leadership style. This is one of the theories that
the US Army is heavily implementing and teaching mainly because of the approach’s focus on taking
care of your followers (Soldiers) and putting their needs above your own. In a military sense, those traits
are common and rewarded, with successful leaders being seen as those who not only accomplish their
mission but also place a priority on the welfare of their soldiers.

Relatable and non-relatable

Two of the leadership approaches that resonated with me, aside from servant leadership which I
discussed above, are authentic leadership and adaptive leadership. Authentic leadership is relatable
because it focuses on honesty and trustworthiness, two assets that can garner support from your
followers even if you aren’t right 100% of the time. People are generally more apt to follow those they
trust and have faith in, even through hard times. Adaptive leadership is focused on helping workings
adapt to the challenges they may face. The leader focuses on learning which problems are technical (a
simple answer) and which are adaptive (an answer hat needs working through) and helps guide their
employees through the solving of those problems. This approach relies upon a strong relationship and
shared understanding between the leader and the led. This sense of trust and shared sentiment is
similar to what authentic leaders are striving for. These two approaches are different in how they
diagnose and attempt to solve problems. The classification of types of problems doesn’t matter to
someone following authentic leadership and they have differing goals with their interactive methods.

Two approaches that did not resonate very well with me were the trait approach and leader-member
exchange. While there are traits that might make it easier for people to be engaged in group setting, or
more social, I personally feel that people of all different types and who possess very different traits can
be effective leaders. The “great an” theory does no justice to silent leaders in their fields aside from
politics or corporate leadership and generally mainly glorifies traditionally masculine traits. While I do
think that the LMX approach models some of what we all see daily, I take issue with the approach’s
acceptance of there being an out-group that cannot or will not be motivated. The theory gives some
insight into how to move members from the out group to the in group, but that movement across the
two groups is literally what leadership is about, influencing others to do things that you need done.
Leaving people in the out-group means that the leader has essentially failed, and they are okay with
that.

A personal experience
In my organization we have to prepare monthly status report on our readiness, training status, and our
operational concerns for our higher headquarters. These status reports take time and effort to plan,
gather data for, build the presentation, and present it before submission. The civilian contractor who
manages these reports for us does a good job in getting everything done, but doesn’t truly understand
why the “why” of each part or the details of the decision behind why updates or changes are being
made.

Traditionally, I have used the behavioral approach to manage task and relationships differently. I used
one set of tactics to get after the completion of the task and another to manage the relational aspects of
the products building and timeline. Attacking the problem with two differing sets of skills works for me
ad we get things done with decent efficiency.

This week I attempted to use the adaptive leadership approach to identify what parts of the briefing
process were technical problems (setting the schedule, producing slides, sending them to our
headquarters for submission, etc.) and which were adaptive problems (knowing why the leadership’s
concerns were different month to month, what operational concerns caused our training statistics to
change or reprioritize, etc.). Through this conversation I was able to reframe his thinking of the brief and
we spent some time going over what changes needed to be made and why, primarily with me using
Socratic questioning to help him get to a better understanding. The preparation for this product begins
again in two weeks, so I will be able to see how much he retained and we can once again jump into the
production process and tackle those adaptive problems together, hopefully building his confidence and
the quality of the product at the same time.

What stands out to you?

Looking at the New York Times list of highest paid chiefs a few things stood out to me, but one was more
apparent that the rest: almost all were men and almost all where white (Highest paid chiefs, 2014).
Taking nothing away from white men, but they only made up roughly 31 percent of the U.S. population
at the time of the list’s posting (Henderson, 2014). The breakdown of the demographics of the list show
that there is likely some bias in the rise of these leaders possibly going all the way back to grade school.
Very few people will argue that they aren’t qualified for their position, but the argument is asking if
there are other demographics who would also be qualified if not for bias they possibly occurred on their
rise through the ranks.

Henderson, Nia-Malika. (2014, October 8). White men are 31 percent of the American population. They
hold 65 percent of all elected offices. The Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/10/08/65-percent-of-all-american-elected-
officials-are-white-men/

Highest-Paid Chiefs in 2014. (2015, May 16). The New York Times. Retrieved October 06, 2020 from
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/14/business/executive-compensation.html

Northouse, Peter. G. (2019). Leadership: Theory and practice (8th ed.). SAGE.