Managing high performance work teams and leadership effectivenessjob Essay

Managing high performance work teams and leadership effectivenessjob satisfaction - Essay Example Leadership is a critical part in the field of management. The consequences of poor leadership in an organization would include increase costs, damage to relationships and loss of trust. It is therefore imperative to have an effective leader in an organization to achieve goals and attain success. Effective leadership separates the successful organization from failed companies . But what is effective leadership Defining leadership is very complex. There exists a lot of meaning for leadership, along with theories and models to describe them. Leadership is the process of influencing others to accomplish an objective and the manner of guiding an organization to become consistent and unified (Briner et al 1996). Leadership capitalizes on individual strengths to fulfill the roles of the position. Effective leaders perform in a proactive manner. They also maintain a balance between the internal and external forces at play in the organization. Effective leaders today are very different from leaders from the past. The time has passed and the environment has changed. Today, leaders must have the capacity and capability to lead complex organization in a global setting and proportion. The trend for leaders now is to demonstrate visionary thinking with the ability to execute the vision. He must hold the highest standards of ethics. He should develop other people in different levels, while understanding the business as a whole and building influential relationships with customers and stakeholders. Pioneers of effective leaderships includes Peter Drucker. He searches for answers on what makes an executive most effective. To be effective means that leaders must manage their time, focus on people's contributions to create results, build on strengths, set priorities and make effective decisions (Drucker, 1967). Stephen Covey (1992), a leadership guru, provided insights into facing daily challenges by employing the concept of principle-centered leadership. Jim Collins (2001), a business consultant, defined the five level leadership hierarchy. These are: Level 1-Highly Capable Individual; Level 2-Contributing Team Member; Level 3-Competent Manager; Level 4: Effective Executive; and Level 5-The Leader. Peter Senge (1990) points out the need for an organization not only to adapt to a changing environment, but also to go beyond adapting to a generative learning approach that allows for growth. Building an organization where people are continually expanding their capabilities to shape their future is the key responsibility for leadership. He identified the need to have a learning organization. Margaret Wheatley (1992) looked at how new discoveries in quantum physics, chaos theory, and biology challenged our way of thinking about organizations. She showed that the old models of leadership, such as hero-leader or leader as individual, stands in the way of the organization's innovativeness and effectiveness. She predicted that the ultimate destination of an organization is the realization that teams are capable of being self-managed where the idea of leadership may be different. High performance teams are a product of the learning organization concept and the idea of self-managed teams. This team can work on its own. Senge and Wheatley innovated the new concept of team-based leadership. High performance teams are created with a mission that have developed their own set of norms or rules, which is written as a team charter. The team members have clearly designated