Free «Leadership Grid» Essay Sample

The scores of my self-assessment has shown that my leadership style is Middle-of-the-Road Management. The self-assessment of my leadership style implies that I have a rather low range of concern for results and moderately high range of concern for people. Accordingly, I have higher “concern for people” than my “concern for results”. The results of the test did not surprise me, as I know how much I care about others. In my childhood, I always worried about how other children treated me. I would rather yield to my opponents in the game than put our friendship at risk. At school, it was almost the same. I would rather spend time helping my classmates to complete the task rather than do it by myself. As a result, I was often late with my homework. I knew I should have been more concentrated on my work, but I could not refuse to help my friends. I was always concerned for people, and I still am. Therefore, I entirely agree with my current position on the Leadership Grid. It confirms that I have more concern for people than for results. I think my leadership style is Middle-of-the-Road Management.

The advantages of my leadership style include the following: I know how to be a compromiser; I am attentive to the needs of my colleagues or/and employees; I know how to avoid conflicts and can balance the levels of production and interpersonal relationships. Besides, I can successfully build organizational commitment and trust, providing my employees with good working conditions and social relations. My style might be particularly effective from a leadership standpoint because I am closer to democratic leadership than to an authoritarian one. It means I will never demand blind obedience from my employees. I will always be open to discussion and new ideas from the people I lead. To tell the truth, I do not accept giving orders to people, but I enjoy cooperation and compromising. Therefore, I consider me leadership style as an effective one.

On the other hand, I am aware that my leadership style may cause some challenges to others. I may underestimate the importance of achievement of organizational tasks. I may be inattentive to policy decisions, new product development and process issues. Sometimes, I may remain indifferent to sales volume. Besides, mediocre performance may be equated to the average performance. Therefore, the full potential of the organization may not be realized. With all that, I may put under the threat the goals that the organization is seeking to accomplish. I may let down the organization in the long run. Still, I believe that I can improve my performance as a leader. For that, I should write down the current organizational tasks every month and check if I am following them. I should review my attitude to the management process. I could change my style to some degree in order to pay more attention to results.

I think, my style would be particularly well suited for those types of organizations where encouraging and supportive leader is needed. The best contexts for me would be those where stuff relationships have a profound impact on their productivity and task accomplishment. For example, I would be well suited for multilevel marketing companies. Whether it is selling cosmetics or goods for everyday life, multilevel marketing companies focus on recruitment over sales. In such organizations, salespersons at the top of the pyramid recruit other salespeople as their employees. All the same, they are partners, so they have to have good relationships for the sake of successful cooperation. Meanwhile, here, my concern for people will not affect my concern for results as we work independently. Another kind of context suitable for me is charity organizations, where I would concentrate on building good relationships within the entire community. I would seek to build organizational trust among employees and people we would help. I see many opportunities of fulfilling my Middle-of-the-Road Management potential in such context.

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I might be concerned with this self-assessment regarding my leadership style from a careerist point of view. Even when I think that I am a good leader and good manager, other people may not agree with me. Nevertheless, self-knowledge is the first step to self-perfection. I think that the best managers possess good understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses. Understanding my strong and weak sides, I would be able to respond to the leadership challenges better. However, the opposite is true, as well. Not admitting my flaws, I would not be able to work on them and improve. This self-assessment has revealed that I should change my attitude to results. It is a useful tool in directing a person intending to become a leader in the future. Other sources may not be as effective as understanding a personal leadership style is. The point is that subordinates may never tell one about his flaws and mistakes. On the other hand, we do not always listen to our coworkers even when they tell the truth. It is better to determine and fight the disadvantages of the character earlier than to receive complaints from our supervisors in the future. The managerial grid is a perfect tool to facilitate one to assess his or her styles. It is a good practice to constantly appraise one’s own skills and improve them.