Leadership Models - Free eBook in PDF Format
 |
 |
|
 |
||
Book Description - ISBN 978-1-62620-779-3 (49 Pages)
This eBook describes the ten most popular contemporary leadership models. You can use these as inspiration and a potential toolkit from which you can develop your own leadership style based on your own personality, the task at hand and the team that you are leading.
Chapter 1 - Mintzberg's Management Roles
These cover ten tasks and responsibilities that a manager may need to perform. These are divided up into three categories: interpersonal, informational, and decisional. Interpersonal roles include: figurehead, leader and liaison. Informational roles include: Monitor, Disseminator and Spokesperson. Decisional roles include: entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator. Any given manager may be asked to complete a variety of tasks during a given day depending on what comes up and what problems need to be solved.
Chapter 2 - The 'Dysfunctions of a Team'
This model by Patrick Lencioni addresses some of the common problems that are found within teams. People working together toward a common goal is bound to lead to issues simply because every individual brings slightly different goals, aspirations, skills, and more to the table. While that is the great strength of a team, its diversity, it can also be its biggest weakness. Simply by understanding that these issues could exist within your team, you will be better prepared to identify and correct them as quickly as possible.
Chapter 3 - Birkinshaw's Four Dimensions of Management
This model highlights four dimensions that represent key management processes and practices. You can use it to help you to understand how best to manage the type of work that you're doing, and the values of your organization.
Chapter 4 - Waldroop and Butler's Six Problem Behaviors
This model aims to help managers by identifying six of these 'problem behaviors' along with their traits. When you see any of these six starting to become present in members of your team, taking quick action is the best option before their behavior becomes a detriment to the group as a whole.
Chapter 5 - Cog's Ladder
This model suggests there are five steps necessary for a small group of people to be able to work efficiently together. These stages are the polite stage, the why we're here stage, the power stage, the cooperation stage and the esprit stage. It is similar to Tuckman's Stages, another stage model of groups. Tuckman recognized 4 stages of team development: "Forming," "Storming," "Norming," and "Performing."
Chapter 6 - The Leader-Member Exchange Theory
This model looks at how your own personal opinions could end up limiting the opportunities that an individual has to succeed under your leadership. It is not particularly helpful in describing the specific leader behaviors that promote high-quality relationships as it only implies generalities about the need for leaders to show trust, respect, openness, autonomy and discretion.
Chapter 7 - Belbin's Team Roles
When looking at any team, it is quickly apparent that each member of the team adopts their own role in order to best contribute and use their skills in a way that is beneficial to the goals of the team as a whole. These roles usually develop naturally over time, depending on the makeup of the team and the specific task at hand. A good manager will observe the roles that are being filled on the team, and step in when necessary to balance out the composition of the group.
Chapter 8 - Benne and Sheats' Group Roles
This model recognizes 26 roles that are divided up into one of three categories - task roles, personal roles, and social roles. These role definitions are useful for looking at specific behaviors that occur within a group and evaluating it's current function and needs. They also provide a guide for team member development, as the more positive behaviors each person can display, the better able the whole group will be to respond to the demands put on it.
Chapter 9 - The Margerison-McCann Team Management Profile
This is a tool that organizations can use to help classify their employees in regard to what type of team member they are or will be. Using a set of 60 questions, this profile establishes some baseline information about each member of the team so that they can be placed into a specific spot on the Team Management Wheel. The more sections of the wheel that can be filled up by the members of a single team, the more complete that team will be.
Chapter 10 - The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model
This model states that when job demands are high and job resources/positives are low, then both stress and burnout increase. The effects of high job demands can be offset by increasing the positive aspects of the job. You can achieve this by identifying and promoting the job positives that act as a buffer between your team members and the demands of their roles. These can include: Mentoring or coaching, training and development, regular constructive feedback, and increased autonomy.
Well-written and Logically Organized
I feel that team leadership is one of the most important skills that a manager can possess, so I was excited to read this eBook and see what it could add to my current leadership skills. While I found more value in some parts than others, overall I was impressed with the content and feel that it would be beneficial to me going forward. If you are in a position of leadership and want to be constantly improving your abilities (and who doesn't), I recommend taking the time to read this short book.
Right off the bat, I liked the point that the book makes regarding being a leader that people choose to follow. So often, we are caught up with titles and positions within a company, and creating a hierarchy so that certain people are compelled to be led by others. While that sort of organization is inevitable to a degree, I prefer having team members that want to follow my lead because they genuinely believe in what I am doing, not because they have to. The best leadership comes from a more organic point of origin, and I was happy to see this book acknowledge that fact.
Throughout this book, the discussion is divided up into three team examples. I found this structure to be very helpful in digesting the information. Since there are so many different types of teams within any given business, I appreciated the fact that the book didn't just lump them all into one category. Of the three, only two really applied to what I needed (the Development and Steering teams), yet the inclusion of the other team in no way disrupted my enjoyment of the material.
I found the section on 'Early Leadership Styles' to be of note because of how it illustrated the fallacies that can be reached by evaluating leaders in a certain way. I won't get into the details of the theory, as you can read it if you are interested - but trust me when I say you will find it interesting. The concept that leaders should be evaluated more on what they actually do and less on the traits that they possess is intuitively logical, yet I don't think that many organizations operate in that manner. You might find yourself reevaluating others in your organization and trying to determine if they are the leaders you thought they might be.
Although the above parts of this eBook were interesting to me, the four types of leadership was by far the most useful portion of this document for me. I have always felt that a good leader needs to have different ways of leading depending on the situation and the individuals involved, and this book does a good job of highlight different options for approaching leadership. To be honest, many of the points are things that I had thought of before. However, the way that they are arranged and highlighted in reference to the team examples is what really makes the information useful.
If I had one complaint regarding this book it would be that I didn't get much from the Situational Leadership section. To me, that method is too much theory and 'business school' speak instead of actual real-world advice that can be readily put into use. Others might find that section informative, but I found myself just moving on to the next portion of the book.
With that said, don't hesitate to read this eBook, as I think you will gain a lot of useful information that can be put into practice if you are in a leadership role. The content is well-written, logically organized, and each to come back and consult when you need a refresher. I plan on using some of the advice in this book, and will have it bookmarked in my browser for future review as well.
Rashid Ida
Team Development and Different Leadership Styles - A great deal of research has been published on team building and team development. Even though most of this research is purely academic and has been performed in a research environment rather than in the workplace, some of it does contain value for a working manager.
Controlling or Eliminating the Worst Interruptions - Are you plagued by the destructive nature of interruptions? Then these four simple interruption screens could help you perform more efficiently. Your effectiveness and success depends on your ability to apply and implement such screens that enable you to be productive without alienating your customers, team members or colleagues.
