Leadership Failure - Free Paper Sample

Introduction

Undoubtedly, leadership failure is inevitable in virtually every workplace; in my previous work set up, a severe challenge emerged within the organization's top management. Although the issue seemed more of a personal conflict, the main challenge emanated from the aspect of leadership and disagreement between two distinct departments that held and believed in different working philosophies and strategies. Ideally, the fact that the two managers had distinct methods and strategies of work illustrated the rift in leadership and its overall effect on aggravating the organization's problem. Furthermore, the two leaders acknowledged the leadership challenge that existed within the organization but still held different views on how to solve it.

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Failing Business Mission

The first manager's failure was widely associated with his ignorance of failing to state the organization's business mission correctly. The mission acts as the moral compass of all the employees within the company. He also preferred running the business from various locations, ignoring the organization's headquarters, leaving the impression that profits were more important to the business than proper management of the organization.

The second manager’s failure resulted from his decision to ignore the other department's manager's presence during the promotion of the employee since he promoted them without engaging him in any discussion. Moreover, the idea of promoting employees based on excellent performance over a considerable length of time creates an assumption in a leadership approach where an employee's outstanding performance is directly linked to managerial success. It is critical to comprehend that most of the employees he promoted had achieved success due to their individual actions. Hence, the manager assumed that if an employee performed well personally, they might be able to do so at the team level. However, the entire practice is a leadership failure since a significant fraction of the promoted employees ended up not solving the various conflicts that arose within their teams.

Analysis Through the Lens of Leadership Theory

Ideally, leaders to illustrate multiple aspects of characters in an attempt to display a distinctive pattern of behavior according to the nature of the situation being faced (Bratton, 2020). In my previous encounter, the cause of leadership failure can be linked to the battle of authenticity within the two department leaders since all of them tend to carry out task parallelly without consulting one another. It is clear that both of the managers were trying to stress their legitimacy of leadership to the employees.

Through the lens of leadership theory, leadership failure in my previous work can be scrutinized in various ways. According to transformational leadership theory, leaders are supposed to work together with leaders from multiple departments, employees, and other stakeholders within the organization to bring about teamwork and enhance the organization's chances of realizing its objectives and goals through the shared values (Cote, 2017). However, in my previous work environment, the managers observed no teamwork and often arrived at decisions without any employee engagement or other critical stakeholders. Nonetheless, the leaders failed to clearly state the organization’s mission and vision to the employees leading to the employees working blindly without any target in mind (Sahu et al., 2018).

The team leadership theory also advocates for leaders to be open-minded and display great ability in managing the employees or other team members. Contrastingly, the leaders in my previous workplace expressed no understanding of this particular theory based on their actions. For instance, one of the mangers preferred working in another environment rather than with the employees (Mango, 2018). Consequently, the employees were able to figure out that the company was only concerned with making profits and not how the employees performed or executed their duty. The manager's failure to remain open-minded and display the capability of effectively handling the employees through leading by example posed a threat to the company as most of the employees developed reluctancy.

Nonetheless, the authentic leadership theory suggests that for effective teamwork to take place, leaders must ensure honest and respectful relationships through ethical foundation and legitimacy formation. However, the two leaders in my previous organization disregarded the relationship between then and observed no ethical foundation while performing their duties (Sahu et al., 2018). Although the two managers were aware of the existing tension between them, they failed to engage each other in constructive meetings, thus unable to develop workable solutions. In most cases, one manager promotes employees without consulting the partner with the aim of gaining more authenticity from the employees.

Conclusion

The organization and particularly the managers can correct the leadership failure by ensuring proper coordination between them, the employees, and other stakeholders (Covelli & Mason, 2017). The leaders should also practice supportive leadership, engage each other in their tasks, and listen to the varied opinions. Consistent expression of support from the two leaders will greatly redefine the nature of employees' behavior while simultaneously creating a platform for the team to stay motivated.ConclusionIn conclusion, leadership failures are unavoidable in workplaces, particularly in those organizations with two-tier management. In most cases, the leaders tend to display different philosophies and leadership strategies, resulting in leadership wrangles and eventually failure in leadership. For instance, in my previous work environment, the managers from distinct departments failure to achieve teamwork due to leadership failure. Analysis through the lens of leadership theory suggests that the leaders did not observe some critical concepts like those entailed in transformative leadership theory, authentic leadership theory, and leadership theory. It was also clear that several actions, like the leaders exercising proper coordination in their duties, would greatly help solve leadership failure.

References

Bratton, J. (Ed.). (2020). Organizational leadership. SAGE Publications Limited.

Cote, R. (2017). A comparison of leadership theories in an organizational environment. International Journal of Business Administration, 8(5), 28-35. doi: 10.5430/ijba. v8n5p28

Covelli, B. J., & Mason, I. (2017). Linking theory to practice: Authentic leadership. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 16(3), 1-10. Retrieved on September 13, 2020, from
https://search.proquest.com/openview

Mango, E. (2018). Rethinking leadership theories. Open Journal of Leadership, 7(01), 57. Retrieved on September 13, 2020, from
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sahu, S., Pathardikar, A., & Kumar, A. (2018). Transformational leadership and turnover. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.
https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-12-2014-0243.