Relative Leader Member Exchanges †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Relative Leader Member Exchanges. Answer: Introduction: The aim of the assignment is to conduct critical analysis of a leader who is a role model to improve my leadership qualities and effectiveness. The assignment is divided into three stages. The first stage points out the qualities of a leader and ways she can use her leadership skills. The paper takes into account the branch manager of the logistics company I am employed as a junior manager. The first section is the observation section and discusses the leadership styles of the branch manager. It then delves into how she uses influence and power to lead her subordinates. The second stage contains the time line to describe this process of observing the manager. This is followed an interview of her to gain deeper insight of her leadership styles. The branch manager in the interview also reveals about the challenges she faces a leader and the importance of power to hold ones position in an organisation. The last stage contains self-reflection of mine about the leadership styles I would a pply when I gain promotion to a leaders position like the branch manager. It also contains a recommendation for the branch manager. The branch manager of the logistic company I work in is an employee who is often regarded as successful and effective leader. I report to her as a trainee manager and have the opportunity to interact with her on regular basis. Regular observations of her style of working and leading the branch reveals her leadership traits and behaviour. She influences her subordinates and uses Hawthorne effect to lead and motivate them. The branch manager holds a vintage of working for more than five years in the logistic company and has the experience of working in two other organisations. She currently holds the position of an assistant vice president in the logistic company and holds positive professional relationship with several other top officials. She uses her position and power to influence her subordinates (Vann, Coleman and Simpson 2014). The branch manager of the branch of the logistics company I am posted in uses influence both within and outside the organisations to secure business. She has years of experience of working in the logistics industry and knows how logistics industry works. She possess several leadership qualities like focus, confidence, integrity, passion for her profession, analytical power, decision making power, knowledge about the market and most importantly strong communication skills(Clarke 2013). She has exercised and displayed these leadership qualities of her on several occasion and has earned recognition from the apex management multiple times. Use of influence within the company: She uses her influences to make the employees including the junior work efficiently. She at first holds a meeting every morning with her subordinates to decide the productivity parameters she expects them to achieve for the day. The productivity parameters include the number of new customers each employee should meet and number of follow up appointments the employees should attend. Then she would ask her subordinates the estimated number of appointments meetings and which are likely to earn new customers who would use the logistics facility of the company. She would then analyse the business and the cash inflow these new customers can earn for the company(Epitropaki and Martin 2013). The branch manager would then ask the employees including the junior employees whether they have any difficulty in convincing any particular customer. If the employee in question happens to be a junior employee, she would ensure that a senior employee accompanies the junior employee for the appointment. If the employee happens to be a senior or if a customer is not agreeing to use the logistics facility of the company even after several appointments, she personally accompanies the employees on the next appointment. This support and concern for the employees and their performances reveals her focus and passion for business generation as a branch manager(DuBrin 2015). The branch manager has excellent communication and persuasive skills which she to influence the behaviour of her subordinate employees. She would keep on reminding the employees working under her that the apex management watches their performances and behaviour. She on regular basis make the employees realise that their high performances would bring about their own promotions, job satisfaction and career growth. She would hold personal meetings with poorly performing employees and advice them how to improve their performances(Northouse 2015). The branch manager keeps a watch over the performances of every employee working under her and congratulates high performing employees with rewards and recognition certificates. She would warn employees who show unprofessional and casual attitude towards their work. These actions of her reveal several leadership qualities. They reveal her concern for her followers and their performances. These actions of her reveal her motivation and performance analysing power. It can be said that these qualities of her have great influences on the employees at the branch(Daft 2014). Her continuous supervision encouraged employees to achieve high level of performances by acquiring new customers, maintaining healthy relationship with the existing customers. The outcome of her influence as a branch leader was that the employees succeeded in acquiring a huge client base that used the logistics facilities of the company which generated outstanding revenues for branch and the company as a whole. It is worth mentioning that some of the customers acquired and maintained under the leadership of the branch manager are multinational companies who uses the logistics facilities of the company and generates huge revenue on regular basis (Bernab-Moreno et al. 2015). Use of influence on the customers: The branch manager uses her excellent influential leadership powers to win customers from even bigger logistics companies. She first uses her tremendous communication and persuasive skills to win customers. She addresses and treats the new customers as if they were existing customers. She at first speaks to the customers, asks important questions and their business requirements to analyse their nature of logistics requirements(Tanriverdi and Uysal 2015). For example, if the customer happened to be a leading soft drink selling company, she would ask questions relating to the volume of inventory (bottles of soft drinks) they normally deliver per lot and the locations they send the inventory to. She then analyses the business needs of the customers based on their answers. She highlights before them the advantages of working with the company and the facilities, which the company can provide its customers. She would often compare between the facilities of the logistics companies to its co mpetitors to highlight the competitive advantage of the former. This aggressive influential process of acquiring clients of hers often succeeds in wining new customers for the logistics company(Dagger and Danaher 2014). I on a previous occasion interviewed her assistant and he too said that the branch manager uses her influence to win over customers to contribute to the companys clientele and business generation. The branch manager often uses her position to lead her subordinates to ensure steady generation of business and continuous inflow of revenue. The logistics company has two broad divisions, the operating offices which generate revenue and do all the back office operations and the logistics department which maintains the warehouses and logistics vehicles. The operating offices direct the logistics department to provide warehouses or logistics transport facilities to the customers and ensures the clients get superior logistics facilities. The sales staffs of the branch meet the clients at regular intervals to know about their complaints and new requirements(Pennings et al. 2014). They intimate their branch heads and the logistics department heads about the complaints and new requirements of the customers. Our branch manager keeps a strict vigil on the requirements and the complaints of the customers. She ensures that their requirements are met and the complaints are resolved, if possibl e. This aggressive use of position to ensure customer satisfaction helps the company to maintain long term business relationships with big customers and generate continue revenue by providing logistics services to them(Gupta, Gautam and Khare 2015). The branch manager as one of the vice presidents of the company uses her power to ensure that the customers of the branch get prompt logistics services at best rates. She uses her power to influence the human resource department and a few senior managers to approve absorption of four competent outsource employees into the payroll of the company. The branch uses her position to highlight the high performances of the employees at the branch before the management. This ensures that the employee get recognitions and promotion to higher posts which bring them job satisfaction and career(Treem and Leonardi 2013). This effective and supportive leadership of the branch manager motivate the subordinate employees to attain high degree of business performance. It is this influence and power of hers that has made the branch the highest revenue and business earner branch(Fleming and Spicer 2014). Our branch uses her power of a vice president in her personal life to gain advantageous deals at hotels and restaurants. She is married and her husband is a lawyer. She used her position of a vice president to gain work life balance like availing herself paid vacations. She went to exotic tourist locations and stayed at five star hotels. She used her power to get the accounts department reimburse her all the personal expenses. She on one occasion used the companys logistics trucks to shift her home by paying minimum charges(Northouse 2015). The timeline of observing, interviewing and reflecting regarding the branch managers leadership skills spans over three years before the writing started. The observation spanned over three years since I joined the organisation. The interview of her took place a month ago and continued for two hours. It revealed the complexities of leadership roles and positions. The interview and the observation laid me to think the leadership qualities she possesses that make her a good leader. Hawthorne effect: Hawthorne effect or the observer effect refers to the response of individuals when they are under observation of senior employees. The theory gets its name of the place Hawthorne where Elton Mayo, the proposer of the theory conducted researches on employees to study their responses when they are under observation of superior employees. The theory tells that when employees are subjected to supervision of senior employees and senior managers, they improve their performances to get recognitions for the improvements in their performances(McCambridge, Witton and Elbourne 2014). Hawthorne effect can be observed in all organisations like logistics organisations where employees try to attain high levels of performances to achieve promotions and appraisals, which lead to their career development. The branch manager uses Hawthorne effect to ensure high performances among her employees. She makes them realise that their performances are continuously being watched by the apex management and the senior managers(Leurent et al. 2016). This emphasis on the need to maintain continuous level of high performances makes employees eligible for promotions. I got an opportunity to interview the branch manager, Mrs.... during the Know Your Leader event. There she revealed several aspects of her leadership activities like her leadership styles and challenges she faces as a leader. The branch manager told that according to her leadership is about leading subordinates and motivating them even during tough situations. She told the responsibilities of a leader to understand the position of her subordinate and see into the fact whether the subordinates requires any guidance or mentoring or not. She revealed that she follows a combination of various leadership styles while leading her subordinates. She told that when she holds the morning meeting, she encourages her subordinates to participate in the decision making at the morning meeting. She at that time follows participative leadership style in order to ensure that all the staff members contribute towards making strategies to generate business. When she assesses our performances at the end o f the day or a month, she assumes autocratic leadership style and gives us commands. This revealed several qualities of the branch manager as a leader. Her leadership qualities consist of decision-making power, analytical power, motivational power and focus. When asked about the complexities she faces as a leader, the branch manager replied that leadership is a very complex process because it involves decision-making. She revealed that at times she has to decide to expose the poor performances of the subordinates from the cluster head or to hide those performances and get hit by the cluster head. She revealed that as a leadership she thinks it important to motivate and provide mental support to her subordinates even when they are performing badly. A leader in her position, according to her should know to when to reprimand and when to support a subordinate. The branch manager revealed that leaders have to face several challenges while execting their duties and responsibilities as leaders. She told that there are several factors in the organisations like politics, pressure from seniors and peer pressure leads to the challenges a leader faces. The told that when she started her career as an executive, she had faced challenges from her seniors who would try to demean her motivation. She however told that she has received a lot of support from her peer employees and her immediate bosses. She told that an employee in order to rise in her career should perform well and accept challenges as opportunities. The branch manager told that the employees should gain support from the superior employees and the employees at the same level of hierarchy to achieve promotion and appraisal at the initial stage. She further revealed that the employees in the later stages gain power and use it to influence their colleagues. She revealed that use of power and influence in the later stage help employees to gain promotions and other job facilities. She quipped that power and influence are also instrumental in achieving career growth and stability. They help employees to counteract the impact of the pressure created by other employees. Third stage: Self reflection and recommendations: I learnt several aspects of leadership by observing and feedback of my role model, the branch manager. I can recommend that my own leadership quality can be improved by applying her leadership styles. I have observed that the branch manager uses influence and power to conduct her duties as a branch manager successfully. I have observed that she uses her influence both within and outside the organisation. She uses her influence to make her subordinates perform well. I can opine that her influential position encouraged all the employees of my branch to work harder to generate business. She holds morning meetings to decide on the business to be generated for a day and divide it among us, the employees working under her. Upon reflecting I can point out that while leading us she combines various styles of leadership. She assigns our daily targets individually without asking for our opinion in an authoritative manner. When she asks for our feedback while forming the business generation str ategy, she encourages us to participate. Here I can point out she followed participative leadership style to lead us. I can also point out from my observation that as a leader the branch manager has excellent understanding about the needs of the customers, which she combines with her influential position to acquire customers. She treats even new customers as existing customers, which helps in optimising their decision to work to the logistics company. Upon reflecting on my leadership skills, I feel that I require improving my own leadership skills. I feel that I would combine several leadership theories and practices to better by leadership effectiveness and qualities. Leadership styles and practices to be applied by me: I would follow democratic leadership style and encourage my subordinates to participate in the decision making process. This would make them feel more responsible and encourage them to perform highly. I would also use strategic leadership style and help the upper management to communicate its expectation from subordinates more clearly. I would emphasis on creating a positive environment in the organisation so that the employees feel more motivated to perform higher. The next leadership style I would use is Hawthorne effect like the branch manager. I would make the employees working under me realise that their performances are being continuously watched by the senior managers and me. Upon evaluation of all the three leadership styles I feel that the democratic style will help me to gain participation of the all the employees in decision-making. Hence following this style will encourage the employees to express their innovative selling techniques. Upon evaluating the necessity of strat egic leadership style I can point out that this style will instrumental in bringing about positive changes in the attitudes of the employees which would ultimately transform into their high performances. Hawthorne effect as per my evaluation would keep the employees alert about the continuous supervision of the senior manager over them. It would help them to keep a track on their individual performances. Thus in my opinion combining these three styles of leadership would help me to gain their participation in business acquisition strategy making on one hand and make them achieve their own performances. This would ultimately transform into the high performance of the branch as a whole and help the branch employees to achieve promotions from the senior management. This would also help me to get promotion since high performances of my subordinates would prove my effective leadership qualities before the upper management. Recommendations: The previous discussions about the use of power by the branch manager show that she uses her power to make the accounts department pay her personal bills. It is my recommendation to the branch manager that she should not use her power to have her personal bills paid because it affects the financial resources available to the company. Conclusion: I have arrived at the conclusion that leadership qualities like focus and communication skills help the leaders in the organisation to lead their subordinates. I have also learnt that use of influence and power are inseparable components of leadership activities carried out by employees holding high positions like that of a branch manager. I have also learnt that successful leaders in their initial phases have to face lot of challenges in order to reach high position. I would like to conclude by stating that successful leaders combine various leadership styles in order to lead their followers. References: Bernab-Moreno, J., Tejeda-Lorente, A., Porcel, C., Fujita, H. and Herrera-Viedma, E., 2015. CARESOME: a system to enrich marketing customers acquisition and retention campaigns using social media information.Knowledge-Based Systems,80, pp.163-179. Clarke, S., 2013. Safety leadership: A meta?analytic review of transformational and transactional leadership styles as antecedents of safety behaviours.Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology,86(1), pp.22-49. Daft, R.L., 2014.The leadership experience. Cengage Learning. Dagger, T.S. and Danaher, P.J., 2014. Comparing the effect of store remodeling on new and existing customers.Journal of Marketing,78(3), pp.62-80. DuBrin, A.J., 2015.Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Nelson Education. Epitropaki, O. and Martin, R., 2013. Transformationaltransactional leadership and upward influence: The role of relative leadermember exchanges (RLMX) and perceived organizational support (POS).The Leadership Quarterly,24(2), pp.299-315. Fleming, P. and Spicer, A., 2014. Power in management and organization science.Academy of Management Annals,8(1), pp.237-298. Gupta, R.K., Gautam, J.N. and Khare, V.P., 2015. Awareness and use of social media applications among library staff of power sector organizations.Annals of Library and Information Studies (ALIS),61(4), pp.320-331. Leurent, B., Reyburn, H., Mbakilwa, H. and Schellenberg, D., 2016. Monitoring patient care through health facility exit interviews: an assessment of the Hawthorne effect in a trial of adherence to malaria treatment guidelines in Tanzania.BMC infectious diseases,16(1), p.59. McCambridge, J., Witton, J. and Elbourne, D.R., 2014. Systematic review of the Hawthorne effect: new concepts are needed to study research participation effects.Journal of clinical epidemiology,67(3), pp.267-277. Northouse, P.G., 2015.Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications. Northouse, P.G., 2015.Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications. Pennings, J.M., Hickson, D.J., Hinings, C.R., Lee, C.A. and Schneck, R.E., 2014. Uncertainty and Power in Organizations. A Strategic Contingencies' Model of Sub-Unit Functioning.Mens en maatschappij,44(5), pp.418-433. Tanriverdi, H. and Uysal, V.B., 2015. When IT capabilities are not scale-free in merger and acquisition integrations: how do capital markets react to IT capability asymmetries between acquirer and target?.European Journal of Information Systems,24(2), pp.145-158. Treem, J.W. and Leonardi, P.M., 2013. Social media use in organizations: Exploring the affordances of visibility, editability, persistence, and association.Annals of the International Communication Association,36(1), pp.143-189. Vann, B.A., Coleman, A.N. and Simpson, J.A., 2014. Development of the Vannsimpco leadership survey: a delineation of hybrid leadership styles.Swiss Business School Journal of Applied Business Research,3, pp.28-38.