团队领导能力

Becoming a team leader

Table of contents

1.0 Introduction (2)

2.0 Definition of leadership (2)

3.0 Key elements of effective leadership (3)

4.0 Conclusion (8)

References (9)

1.0 Introduction

This paper is to going to discuss how to become a successful team leader. For work team, leader plays an extremely important role. Normally, effective leader always is based on four dimensions, which respectively are the development of motivating vision or goal, effective actions to lead a team to work, creation of team cohesiveness, as well as attention to employees (Scouller, 2011). Effective team leader can offer effective guidance and instruction for other employees in the team to complete expected goal (Strang & Kuhnert, 2009) In addition to this, effective leaders always can make their best of their talents and inner qualities to motivate other employees to work with higher performance, and thereby reaching satisfactory results. Undoubtedly, a successful leader not only should process some essential qualities such as outstanding charisma and outstanding self awareness and so on, but also should master some effective ability and skills such as communication ability, organizing ability, management skills and so on. In order to help an individual to be a successful leader in work team, many previous scholars researched on the essential elements of an effective leader. Based on this background, this paper will focuses on discussing some key elements of effective leadership by trait theory of leadership and drawing on my personal experiences. 2.0 Definition of leadership

In terms of leadership, there also still is not a uniform definition. Different scholars have defined leadership based on different perspectives. According to the definition proposed by Ginkel and Knippenberg (2012), leadership means that the person leading must be able to inspire others to follow. In addition to this, Knippenberg (2011) defined that leadership the influence one exerts, either overtly or covertly, to encourage others to strive to reach objectives. According to these definitions, leadership could be considered as a kind of ability owned by leader to motivate employees to accomplish expected goals. Wang et al (2011) highlighted that leadership is a behavioral process in which a leader perform right behavior to lead a team to work with higher working performance. According to this definition, a successful leader always can engage in rights behaviors to lead a team to work hard in order to achieve expected goals. Strang and Kuhnert (2009) definition leadership as leader’s ability to provide effective direction, guidance and instructions to fellow workers to accomplish job

tasks in order to achieve some common goals.

For a work team or an organization, effective leader plays an extremely important role because effective leader can lead a team or an organization to accomplish some relevant job effectively and thereby increasing team working performance and achieving positive organizational performance. However, to be a successful leader is not very easy. Normally, a successful leader often must process some essential elements such as good communication ability and effective motivational skills and so on. For this, it is vital for individuals to pay more attention to develop some essential elements of effective leadership in order to make themselves to be successful leaders in a team.

3.0 Key elements of effective leadership

Effective leadership is vital for any organizations because it could help an organization to reach further development and success. Normally, in order to become a successful leader, some essential elements should be met. For this, this section is going to discuss some key elements of effective leadership by using trait theory of leadership

Trait theory of leadership is a typical theoretical model that is widely used to illustrate some essential characteristics of leaders (Derue et al, 2011). According to the trait theory of leadership, the essential element of effective leadership could be embodied in the following aspects (Colbert et al, 2014). The first element is achievement drive. Normally, successful leaders always will have higher ambition and initiative to achieve higher achievement (Colbert et al, 2014). Under this condition, successfully leaders will try their best to perform relevant job tasks with higher performance in order to achieve their expectation for achievement. Take Steve Jobs as an example, he created Apple Computer, Inc in 1976, and achieved huge success in the following years. However, Steve Jobs did not content with the status quo. He has higher ambition to achieve more higher achievement. Driven by his desire for higher achievement, he led Apple Inc to innovative continuously. Depending on his efforts, Apple Inc eventually become the largest information technology firm around the world. Undoubtedly, Steve Jobs was so successfully because he has higher achievement drive. Thus, achievement drive is one of the key elements of effective leadership.

The second element of effective leadership is leadership motivation, which describes that a leader have strong desire to lead their fellow employees to achieve expected goals. It is suggested that a successful leader often lead his or her fellow employees to work hard in order to achieve expected goals (Strang & Kuhnert, 2009). Take Angela Ahrendts who is CEO of Burberry as an example, in the workplace, he always works with its fellow employees together. In the workplace, he often will provide effective guidance and instructions to fellow workers to accomplish job tasks. Depending on his effective leadership motivation, he has successful led his work team to achieve outstanding achievements and has rated as a successful leader. From this point of view, it can be found that a successful leader should has powerful leadership motivation.

The third element of effective leadership is honesty and integrity. A successful leader always can crate inspiring organizational culture to increase team cohesiveness based on honesty and integrity. Normally, excellent leaders are trustworthy and reliable (Joseph et al, 2015). In the workplace, their fellow employees often will consider that their leaders tell the truth and provide right guidance for them to perform relevant job tasks with higher performance. In this case, the fellow employees often will believe them and follow their lead because their leaders are leading them to do right things. As a result, the team cohesiveness will be increased significantly, and thus leading to the achievement of expected goals. In turn, if a leader engages in some behaviors without honesty and integrity, the leaders will not be trusted by his or her subordinates (Bauman, 2013). As a result, the leader will fail in leading the work team to complete job task smoothly and to achieve expected goals as the subordinates no longer believe the leader.

Take my previous experience as an example, I worked with others classmates to complete a group assignment. To ensure the group assignment to be completed smoothly, we has selected a team member as group leader to lead other members to perform relevant job tasks. Before we carry out our group assignment, our leader need to be responsible for developing specific action plan and jobs allocation. He told all members that he will complete the action plan and job arrangement after three days. But three days later we hold a group meeting to discuss relevant job details. But, unfortunately, our leader hidden the fact that he did not develop the

detail action plan and job arrangement. He told all group members that he forgot to bring the detail action plan and job arrangement for the meeting. He said that he will send the detail action plan and job arrangement to other members’ email accounts next day. H owever, we did received any email from our leader about the detail action plan and job arrangement. Consequently, we approached him directly in the classroom for the purpose of obtaining the detail action plan and job arrangement. But, unfortunately, he told us that he did not complete. After then, all members no longer believed in him, and decided to change group leader. Undoubtedly, our group lead is an unsuccessful leader as he was trustworthy and reliable. Thus, a successful leader also should process the trait of honesty and integrity.

The fourth element of effective leadership is self-confidence. Normally, successful leaders often are confident of themselves. In the workplace, successful leaders always are very confident that they have ability to lead a team to perform relevant job task smoothly and to achieve expected goals (Girdauskiene & Eyvazzade, 2015). Their confidence also will influence their fellow workers to work hard because their confidence will form a huge force to encourage the fellow employees to accomplish relevant jobs so as to reach expected goal. Additionally, they also are not afraid of failure because they are confident that they will achieve success through their efforts no matter how many difficulties faced by them. Due to their confidences, the successful leaders always can lead a team to overcome difficulties and then achieve success.

Take Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the founders of Apple company, as examples, they created Apple Company in 1976. Although they led the company to achieve success at the beginning. However, during the later years, they faced the danger of investment failure due to the shortages of funds. Many peers commented that this new setting up company will go out of business. In face of such awful moment, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak did not give up their idea to produce personal computers. They believed that they have ability to address the difficulty faced by them, and were confident that their business will succeed in the near future. For this, they actively sought for investors to invest their company. Through their tireless efforts and their self-confidences, they obtained the fund investment from multimillionaire Mike Markkula. As a result, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak successfully addressed the

difficulty faced by them and led their company to achieve glorious achievements. Until now, Apple company has become the largest information technology company worldwide. Undoubtedly, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were so successful thanks to their confidence. Based on this perspective, it can be found that self-confidence also is a key element of effective leadership.

The final element of effective leadership is cognitive ability. According to Wai & Rindermann (2015), cognitive ability is an individual’s ability to make right judgment on real situation and to think and reason in order to seek for the best solution or to generate ideas to respond to the real situation. Normally, a successful leader often owns good ability to making good judgment and have strong analysis ability to perform relevant ideas (Imboden, 2014). For leaders, they often will face many opportunities and threats when they lead a team to achieve organizational goals. For this, whether leader can effectively judge the opportunities and threats faced by them directly determine the effectiveness of their leadership. In many case, successful leaders often can make right judgments according to real situations and then make right decisions to respond to the real situations. Depending on effective cognitive ability, a leader can lead work team to achieve success. In turn, if a leader has not good cognitive ability, the leader often cannot make right judgment and strategies decision, let alone leading work team to achieve success. For this, cognitive ability also is a key element that determines the effectiveness of leadership.

Take Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group Holding Limited, as an example, he realized that online shopping will become a new consumption trend in China as internet rapid develops and is widely used by people. He judged that online shopping will bring a good business opportunity to develop his business. By making this judgment, Jack Ma began to develop Alibaba website in 1999. On April 15, 1999, Alibaba website was put into normal operation. after more than ten years of development, Jack Ma led Alibaba Group Holding Limited to achieve huge in both Chinese market and international markets. To a large extent, Jack Ma’s success also benefits from his cognitive ability because he made the right judgment on the development of E-business in today’s society. Based on this point of view, it can be fou nd that the good cognitive ability also is a key element of effective leadership.

Normally, the elements of effective leadership are various. Drawing on my personal experience of playing a team leader role, effective leadership also should meet the key essential elements. The first element is effective communication is one of the most important element of effective leadership. According to Ibrahim (2015), communication is an important quality of a successful leader. Normally, as a leader, he or she often need to communicate with others. Under this condition, whether a leader can conduct effective communication will determine the effectiveness of leadership (Ibrahim, 2015). Take my personal experience as an example, when I take part in a group assignment. In my group assignment, I was appointed as group leader. In order to lead my group to accomplish our assignment smoothly, I realized the importance of communication. For this, I decided to hold a meeting per a week. In the meeting, each employees were required to report their work progress and tell some problems faced by them when they perform their perspective jobs. Based on the problems identified, I organized my team members to conduct relevant discussion in order to find out the best solution to address the problems faced by us. Through effective communication, each members can share their idea with others. Additionally, the effective communication between team members also helps to address all kinds of problems faced by us. Due to effective communication, I eventually led my group to complete the group assignment smoothly. Therefore, effective communication is essential for effective leadership.

Another element is employee motivation and empower. In a team, leader plays an important role in encouraging subordinate employees to work hard in order to achieve expected goal. To reach this, leader should conduct effective employee motivation and empower. Undoubtedly, any individual has goals and expectations in team. Under this condition, successful leader also will enlarge employee empower and conduct employee motivation in order to help them to achieve their goal by performing relevant job task with higher performance. Through employee motivation and empower, leader can increase employees’ satisfaction towards their job, and then could effectively encourage them to their best to accomplish their job tasks. Thus, employee motivation and empower is important element of effective leadership.

4.0 Conclusion

In summary, this report has discussed some key elements of effective leadership based on relevant trait theory of leadership and my personal experience. In this report, the author argued that achievement drive, leadership motivation, honesty and integrity, self-confidence, cognitive ability, communication ability as well as employee motivation and empower are key elements of effective leadership. Thus, to be a successful team leaders, these key elements should be developed and mastered.

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