ELECTRONIC MEDIA MANAGEMENT

(BRO543)

LEADERSHIP

Leadership is broadly defined as a social influence process that inspires people to pursue goals that benefit the organization.

There are three primary leader-centred approaches to leadership.

The earliest approach was the trait focus, which is based on the assumption that some people are born with certain physical characteristics, aspects of personality, and attitudes.

The second approach is the behaviour focus, which examines what effective leaders do rather than what effective leaders are.

The power focus is the ability to marshal human, informational, or material resources to get something done.

Leaders have two primary types of power; position and personal.

From their position in an organization, they have legitimate, coercive, reward, and information power.

Personal power is derived from the interpersonal relationship between leaders and their followers, including expert and referent power.

Self-leadership is a paradigm founded on creating an organization of leaders who are ready to lead themselves.

Leadership substitutes are variable such as individual, task, and organizational characteristics that tend to outweigh the leader’s ability to influence subordinates.

According to the situational leadership model, effective leader behaviour depends on the match between leader style and subordinate readiness.

 

The four leader styles are telling, selling, participating, and delegating.

Empowerment is the delegation of power or authority by those higher in the organizational structure to those at lower levels of the organization or the sharing of power with them.

It includes holding people accountable for their decisions.

Successful empowerment means that everyone understands his/her role in the organization and has the proper training, motivation, and guidance to make good decisions.

Transformational leadership refers to leadership that influences employees to achieve more than was originally expected or thought possible.

This is most successful when the leader understands the vision of the organization and can articulate it to the employees.

In addition, transformational leaders are able to generate feelings of trust, admiration, and loyalty, and to tap deep values and respect from followers.

Consequently, followers are motivated to achieve more than was originally expected and view their work as more important and as more self-congruent.

This motivation is created when the leader makes subordinates more aware of the importance and values of task outcomes, helps them think beyond their own self-interest to the needs of the work teams and the organization, and activates higher-order needs such as creative expression and self-actualization.

Transformational leaders do not accept the status quo.

They recognize the need to revitalize their organizations and challenge standard operating procedures; they institutionalize change by replacing old technical and political networks with new ones.

In other words, transformational leaders transform things from what could be to what is by generating excitement.

Four primary dimensions of transformational leadership include idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration.

Each dimension involves specific behaviours by the leader that in turn inspire follower behaviour.

Through the literature on transformational leadership focuses on CEOs and top-level managers, transformational leadership involves the actions of individuals at all levels, not just those at the top.

Transformational leaders influence followers through value internalization and self-engagement with work.

They motivate by activating the higher needs of followers, appealing to their moral ideas, and empowering them.

Emotional intelligence (EI) focuses on human and interpersonal skills of a manager.

The two components are personal competence and social competence.

Personal competence refers to the ability to understand your own feelings and emotions and their impact, to understand your strengths and weaknesses, and the ability to manage those feelings effectively.

Social competence is the ability to understand what others are feeling, to work effectively with others, to understand what people think and feel and to know how to persuade and motivate them, and to resolve conflicts and forge cooperation.

Research shows that both men and women can be effective and charismatic leader but they approach their leadership positions differently.

With ever-increasing globalization and change, leaders will be challenged to manage relationships more than in the past.

This will include the ability to interact effectively with diversity of partners and other businesses and within the larger context of differing cultures.

For “global” leaders, they will have to change in order to survive.

They have to embark on programs of extensive change that must be accomplished in short periods of time.

Such transformations require a new set of leadership guidelines for a new era business leaders.

 

Emerging economic, social, and cultural pressures demand that leaders find better ways to align their leadership vision, core values, and everyday actions to produce desired results in all aspects of their lives, not just work.

It is clear that the successful leader will be one who promotes leadership development and encourages workers to assume his/her role as leader, must be innovative and creative, practice continuous learning, have values especially integrity, have a personal vision, be in charge of their own careers, motivate from within, plan, communicate, and seek harmonious relationships with stakeholders, employees and costumers.

GENDER DIFFERENCES

Gender differences can result in barriers and lead to distorted communication and misunderstandings between men and women. Because males and females are often treated differently from childhood, they tend to develop different perspectives, attitudes about life, and communication styles.

Historically, stereotypical assumptions about the differing communication styles of males and females have stimulated discrimination against female Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or General Manager (GM).

In recent years, however, more realistic images of how professional men and women behave and communicate have replaced the old stereotypes.

Communication barriers can be explained in part by differences in conversation styles.

Research shows that women and men listen differently.

Women tend to speak and hear a language of connections and intimacy, whereas men tend to speak and hear a language of status and independence.

Women are more likely to hear emotions and to communicate empathy.

Women’s oral communication also differs from men’s in significant ways.

Women are more likely to use qualifiers, phrases such as “I think...” or “It seems to me...”

Generally, women tend to end statements with an upward inflection that makes statements sound like questions.

Female voices are generally higher and softer than male voices.

This makes it easy for men to overpower women’s voices, and men commonly interrupt women or overlap their speech.

Although a wide range of gender differences can exist in verbal communication, nonverbal differences are even more striking.

Men lean back and sit in an open-leg position that takes up considerable space, thereby communicating higher status and a greater sense of control over their environment.

Women use much more eye contact than men, yet avert their gaze more often, especially when communicating with a man or someone of higher status.

Women smile more frequently and are generally better at conveying and interpreting emotions.

[WAWH;2012/FKPM,UiTMSHAHALAM]