Leadership Behaviours

Describe appropriate actions to enhance own leadership behaviour in the context of the particular leadership model. After completing two different leadership self-assessment forms and getting a team member to give me feedback on my leadership I have each time had a result showing me with strong motivation to lead. I was glad to see that the feedback I had from a team member gave me the same result that I had received myself. Within my team I believe I fit into the Adair’s Action Centred Leadership Model. From the feedback I received from team members this would confirm my thoughts. My team members felt strongly that I give clear and direct instructions on the job to be done but are always available for support and allocate the work to each person’s abilities and knowledge. I feel this works well in my current situation as we are a very small team, and I have the most knowledge of the tasks to be done at present. My knowledge of the tasks has come from being in a situation where I was left to continue with the work and my line manager would come to me for information/data when the required it.

Although this gave me a sense of responsibility and confidence in what I was doing, it was difficult to get a problem resolved when the leader was not involved in the work and had less knowledge of the tasks than myself. I often felt that this could have been improved with more regular meetings or briefings on the work load and tasks. When problems arose I would have felt confident that I had someone to discuss them with and could take actions when needed. From this experience I felt strongly that to be a better leader you needed to be much closer to your staff more available when problems or queries arose. One area that I felt I needed to action form Adair’s model was to ensure the communication between the group was improved. With only a small number of staff and a new member joining recently there is sometimes a lack of communication of tasks that are being completed. The team member felt strongly that I have been able to recognise and use individual abilities to improve the results our team are producing.

I do feel that it is important to develop each individual in the team so that they all have at least a basic knowledge or know who on each of the procedures and it doesn’t end up with each person having a speciality in one area and not being able to pick up other tasks if needed. Often we are required to give quick responses or urgent reports and at these times I need to be able to know I can get the results quickly and they will also be accurate. From working in a model where the team feel secure and are happy with the lead I am able to when the time arises take control and get a task completed in a very structured and timely manner. As these instances aren’t very common the team are contented to work in the way for a short period of time.

From discussing Adair’s model with the team and Tannenbaum & Schmidt’s Leadership Continuum the team agree that when the tasks need an Autocratic leader it works wells as they do not have the same experience and knowledge of the work as I have had and so sometimes lack the confidence if making the correct decisions, it is very rare that we work in this way and we all agreed that the team wouldn’t work well as we all need to be able to discuss our work and tasks with each other due to the different levels of knowledge and experience. If we continued to work in this way they would find it hard to ask for advice or discuss any problems.