Leadership and Employee Morale

Unit Five: Leadership and Employee Morale

Kaplan University

MT302 Organizational Behavior

May 23, 2011

Unit Five: Leadership and Employee Morale

The advice I would provide to leadership today is what you do as a leader will depend on who you are. I’ve read that there are five ways of being when in a manager or leadership position. First, be authentic. Be the same person in every circumstance. As a leader hold the same values in whatever you do. Second, be vulnerable. I personally struggle with this section, to being open with my doubts, fears and concerns about an idea and also being able to admit mistakes openly (Autry, 2001). Third, be accepting to others without judgment, just as they want to be accepted without the need for approval or disapproval (Autry, 2001). Fourth, be present and available as you respond to the problems, issues and challenges of team member’s employees and customers. Fifth, this is my favorite. Being useful one of the primary functions of a manager/leader is to make sure that people get resources they need to do the job.

In order to become a great leader you need to be able to challenge any process that comes your way as a manager/leader. Leadership knows no racial or religious bounds, no ethic or cultural borders (Kouzes and Posner, 1997). Those who lead others to greatness seek and accept challenge (Kouzes and Posner, 1997). Leaders are willing to take risk, to innovate and experiment in order to find new and better ways of doing things. As leaders we need to be able to inspire a shared vision; to have a desire to make something happen, to change the way things are, to create something that no one else has. A person with no constituents is not a leader and people will not follow until they accept a vision as their own (Kouzes and Posner, 1997). As a leader you should be able to enable others to act because leadership is a team effort. You cannot command commitment only inspire it. As a leader myself, I believe in...