It depends on who is answering. Team activity 2 has shown that every follower has their own perspective and what’s interesting is that the leaders of our hypothetical leader could have a completely opposite perspective. While reading about different leadership styles, I found an article in which Mishra et al. claims that “though micromanagement leadership style is considered as a negative way of handling people and has earned a bad reputation, it can yield better positive outcomes if it is exhibited in a right manner in right time”(2019, p. 2950). Of course, this claim is not that shocking once you consider the title of the article “Micromanagement: An Employers’ Perspective”.
Looking back on my teenage years and most of my 20’s, I have defined a great leader by what they don’t do, rather than what they do. This is likely due to me not having a clearly defined value system yet and working at the bottom of a social hierarchy, where leadership skills are practically non-existent. If I had to answer this question back then, I would have said my top 3 are:
- does not yell and swear at me
- does not micromanage
- does not threaten to fire me
After I graduated from university and entered the field of social work I noticed that transactional leadership was the norm for most entry-level positions. I was content with “the exchange of rewards contingent on performance”(Khan, 2017, p. 179) because it felt like an upgrade.
In the last 5 years, I had several managers within the same organization, whose style I would describe as a mixture of adaptive and distributed leadership. They were flexible and delegated most of the decision-making, which I loved from day one. My rankings in activity 2 is a reflection of that experience. Even though I had to compromise somewhat to come to a consensus within our team, our rankings still reflect my experience for the most part. I truly thought it does not get better than that.
Until I read about Value-Based Leadership, which lacks a precise definition but according to O’Toole “a true values-based leader is always to act on the behalf of one’s followers”(2008, p. 7). Now, this is the approach of a leader I would admire, but how realistic is it? Can leaders like this even exist? The needs of employees rarely align 100% with the needs of an organization, which begs the question – how long will a leader, who always acts on the behalf of followers, last in an organization if he constantly goes against its needs?
Khan, N. (2017). Adaptive or transactional leadership in current higher education: A brief comparison. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(3). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i3.3294
Mishra, N., Rajkumar, M., & Mishra, R. (2019). Micromanagement: An Employers’ Perspective. International Journal of Scientific & Technology, 8(10), 2949-2952. http://www.ijstr.org/final-print/oct2019/Micromanagement-An-Employers-Perspective.pdf
O’Toole, J. (2008). Notes Toward a Definition of Values-Based Leadership. The Journal of Value-Based Leadership, 1(1), 1-10. https://scholar.valpo.edu/jvbl/vol1/iss1/10/
Hi Denys,
Thanks for sharing your reflections on leadership – and your leadership journey. It took me back to my early days of work (and not always in a good way – when was yelling, ever okay?).
Your question about whether or not values-based leadership was even possible had me digging back into the article. In her post, Wendy talked about consistency being an attribute, and I wonder if this is a component/attribute that makes this approach possible. O’Toole talked about how Gandhi was consistent in his highest ideal and value – and he stuck to it even when it might have impeded other goals (such as independence). So if your followers know what your values are, and you consistently stick to them (or at least the ones you hold closest) then perhaps it is possible to be working in their best interests.