Signature Assignment – Leader Interview and Synthesis

Interview a leader in your organization or another organization.

Obtain a signed

consent form

from the interviewee.

Include the following questions in your interview. You must include the interviewee’s responses, citing the responses as a personal communication per the APA manual. You can add additional questions of your own if you choose.

• What can leaders do to inspire teams to perform at their best?
• What challenges do you face in maximizing team performance? What do you do to alleviate these challenges?
• What are the top 5 leadership skills for successfully building and leading teams?
• How do excellent leaders develop followership?
• What are some important decision-making strategies that leaders might use? Which of these strategies do you feel is most effective and why?
• What are some ethical concerns faced by leaders? How might you deal with these ethical concerns?

Write a 350- to 500-word synthesized discussion on team leadership based on this week’s readings and your interview.

Include a minimum of 3 peer-reviewed resources. You may use your textbook or the selected resources from the

University Library

. Do not limit yourself to the selected resources as the University Library has a wealth of peer-reviewed sources for your research.

Format your paper according to APA guidelines using the

APA Paper Template

. 

Include APA-formatted in-text citations and a title page. Please look at examples of how to format a personal communication (for your direct quotes and paraphrases from the interview). Since personal communications are not published works, they should not be listed in the References.

Include your signed consent form as an appendix. Call Tech Support if you do not know how to paste this to your paper. You should have one document to upload (your paper with the consent form pasted on the page after the References).

Submit your paper.

Resources: 

APA Paper Template
• Scholarly Writing Guidelines 
• Doctoral Writing Resources
• CDS Central

Running head: LEADER INTERVIEW 6

LEADER INTERVIEW 3

Leader Interview

Marvin R. Campbell

University of Phoenix

Presentation of Interview

This conversation takes place with D. Greenhouse, president, of a mid-sized snack foods corporation. This account will be from an owner and president’s perspective in running daily operations. The experience and skills are of one owner’s perspective and may or may not apply to similar industries.

Leadership Style

One might ask what leadership style is. Each leadership style has their own nuances and similarities. Winston and Patterson (2006) defined leadership as: A leader is one who influences followers who have diverse gifts, abilities, and skills and focuses the followers on the organization’s mission and objectives. Meindl, Ehrlich, and Dukerich (1985) refer to leadership as a leadership performance dismissing other factors that might be of influence.

 

Research Questions

The research questions that were asked of my company’s president during this interview were:

· What can leaders do to inspire teams to perform at their best?

· What challenges do you face in maximizing team performance? What do you do to alleviate these challenges?

· What are the top 5 leadership skills for successfully building and leading teams?

· How do excellent leaders develop followership?

· What are some important decision-making strategies that leaders might use? Which of these strategies do you feel is most effective and why?

· What are some ethical concerns faced by leaders? How might you deal with these ethical concerns?

Discussion of the Questions

D. Greenhouse (personal communications, March 5, 2020) responded to the research questions with his experiences. In response to research question one. Leadership should pay people what they are worth, do not punish for failure, and do not micro-manage your employees. Ultimately, treat your staff with respect and trust in what they are doing for you and the company.

Going on to research question two, the discussion lead in the following direction. Some of the challenges that I have experienced are building trust, delegation of important tasks, and not to have meetings to have meetings. Some of the things that have worked for me have been to trust your leaders are making wise decisions and not wasting their co-workers time. One of the hardest things as an owner has been to let others make the important decisions concerning the business and its future. It has been my practice if you trust your employees, they will in turn trust you to lead them.

Responding to research question three, leadership building and teams. Five of the skills that have worked for me over the years are: communications, commitment, bringing on new staff with relevant work experience, trust, and did I say trust. Followership of leaders can take on a wide variety of points for each leader.

Followership is different for each leader and each industry. What seems to work for me, and my company are to trust, trust, and trust your employees. You need inspire your people to contribute in many ways. Something as simple as a suggestion box or having them sit with another department. Many things come of even this simple task. You develop comradery and you have someone asking questions that does not know that part of the business. Besides trust, the most important thing is to give your people the recognition that they have earned. Something as simply as mentioning them in a newsletter, or a weekly email update about the company.

Some important decision-making strategies that leaders invoke are acknowledging what works for you, checks and balances at all levels, and in-trust in your people. Each one of these are very important for a small business such as ours. To me probably trusting in your employees to do the right thing and to speak up when they see something that does not look right.

Ethical concerns of leaders are numerous, and each leader faces their own dilemmas. As you are aware that fully trusting someone that is working in your best interest is challenging. Like yourself, Marvin, bringing you on has been a long drawn out process of us trusting your skills and your communications. I know that some leaders struggle with micromanaging their people. But I do not have the time or energy to manage everything that is happening in every communication with our company. I hold you accountable for your actions. Financially for example, I trust you and our outside auditors to accurately report on the numbers and report on ligation that we might be faced with. I employee a series of checks and balances to get to my comfort level with any concerns.

Improvements

What three improvements do you feel will enhance or develop your leadership? That is a great question. Communications to your employees is vastly understated in every company, ours is no exception. Ethical concerns are always a concern of any leadership: did you make the right choice with them, are there enough checks and balances, and finally to come up with new ways to inspire us.

Summary

I would like to thank you Mr. Greenhouse for taking time out of your busy schedule to sit with me and offer your views on leadership. We have discussed several questions of the universities about leadership. Leadership’s good and bad, and ways that you believe will improve your leadership.

References

Northouse, P. G. Interactive: Leadership: Theory and Practice Interactive eBook. [University of Phoenix]. Retrieved from https://phoenix.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781544325194/

Schyns, B., & Bligh, M. C. (2007). Introduction to the Special Issue on the Romance of Leadership. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 56(4), 501–504. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2007.00301.x

Winston, B. E., & Patterson, K. (2006). An integrative definition of leadership. International Journal of Leadership Studies, I, 6–66.

 

Running head: Week 5 – Signature Assignment 6

Leader Interview and Synthesis

. 3

Leader Interview and Synthesis

Marlene Jean Charles

02/25/2020

University of Phoenix

What can leaders do to inspire teams to perform at their best?

Leadership is a person’s ability to guide and lead a group of individuals towards a shared goal. Leadership deals with inspiring people, motivating people, and generating followers. Great leaders adopt many leadership skills and styles to manage an organization or a group of individuals. There are traditional leadership styles like the autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire leadership; however, the healthcare industry demand for contemporary leadership styles. Healthcare is a complex industry that is constantly changing, and contemporary leaders emerged as a result of the modification. Modern leadership styles consist of charismatic, transactional, transformational, servant, shared, and relational leadership. The most utilized contemporary style that I have used to lead my subordinates is servant leadership. The paper will briefly define each of the contemporary leadership styles, and I will provide a series of events in my professional life of my servant leadership. I will also show how versatile the servant leadership style is to one’s personal life. Lastly, I will describe how a servant leader can change the working culture of an organization.

A transforming leader is a leader who has an elevating effect on its followers. Such leader shapes the followers’ behavior by increasing the followers’ motivation and morality through interactions. The leader engaged it followers by sharing the same motives, ideas, and goals. Goertzen (2017) states “Transformational leaders can achieve making followers aware of the importance outcomes, induce followers to transcend personal interest for the sake of the team, and move followers towards higher-order needs” (p. 84).

Servant Leader at Aurora Health Care

Aurora Health Care is an organization that strives to provide the best care for patients. We make sure that our patients are satisfied with our services, we look at the patient satisfaction ranking. The organization uses Press Ganey for health care consultation. Press Ganey is a health care consulting company that provides measurement, performance analytics, and strategic advisory solutions (Press Ganey, 2017). Our patient experiences scores are published monthly, and it provides the organization with a trend analysis of patient experiences. As a servant leader in the organization, I strive to provide innovative ideas to keep our patient satisfaction scores up. My clinic established a Vision Care Team that consists of thirteen members who meet monthly to discuss future goals for the clinic. As a liaison for Aurora SMART team, a patient experience team for the greater Milwaukee North are and Sheboygan area, I provide updates and plan of actions to improve our score overall.

I inspire my co-worker by doing the work first. I show them that slight changes in our attitudes make a huge difference to our patients. Every Monday, I go to each department to change our positive quotes flyers to engage the employees in positive thinking and also to provide patients with something to reflect on while waiting in the lobby area. Since the launched of the positive quotes, many employees and patients have shared positives quotes with each other. I have employees who would email me positive quotes. The quotes are submitted to the Vision Care Team, and the team decides which quotes to post up for each month.

While I aspire others to be positive, I also focus on what makes keeps the department scores up and what causes the scores to decrease. Each month, I meet with people from the department who have the lowest scores in the clinic, and we go over how to improve the scores. In one of the departments that I’ve met with, the employees mentioned that patients are bored of sitting in the lobby. I offered if a television in the waiting room will help improve patient’s mood. Since the television was installed, there has been positive feedback from patients and the staff in the department.

Many know me as a Pollyanna, and I serve my co-workers so that they can believe that it is worth the effort to strive to be good caregivers. There are a few colleagues that I work closely with to help develop leadership. I notice that they had the ability but needed someone to guide them and nurture their skills. I feel if, given the opportunity to take on leadership roles, my co-workers will blossom into great leaders.

Servant Leader at Home

Leadership styles are not only present in the workplace but can be found in all aspect. I am a servant leader at home to my siblings. While listening to my sibling worries and complaints, I empower them to be a leader. As the head of the household, I provide emotional support, financial support, and spiritual support for my family. I help foster positive attributes for my sibling and inspire them to become leaders in the community too.

What challenges do you face in maximizing team performance? What do you do to alleviate these challenges?

Communication is key to any and every relationship we have in our lives whether it comes to communicating with family members, coworkers, employees, and bosses. You do not communicate that same with all these different groups of people. First-time employees have to learn this mostly the hard way. When you are a first-time employee you are just starting in the workforce and must learn how to communicate with you coworkers and boss differently than you would say your sibling and parents. As a result of this things have got to be discussed sometimes the hard way and that is why it would be helpful for an employer to know the best practice when navigating these challenges of communications. The first thing an employer should know is communication and behavioral issues to expect form first time employees. An explanation of the communication and behavioral issues. Then, they should know the best strategy for dealing with their first-time employees. Finally, the best methods of communication with these first-time employees.

Communication and Behavior Issues

Communication is very important when hiring young adults in their first job. Centralized management systems often intimidate new employees who have a fear of being given direction. The premise of the hierarchical management system is sensible, but it often hinders effective communication if certain precautionary measures are not met. An example of measures that should be taken by leadership includes clearly outlining objectives and goals to new employees. This measure will reduce the dependence that new employees have on management because the employee will know what the company’s expectations are for his or her job function. Clarity is also a crucial component of effective communication. The lack of clarity in communication by a leader can cause negative impacts in the workplace. Clarity is needed to ensure that new employees understand what their daily tasks consists of which will reduce the effect they have on the rest of the team. For starters, it is hard to keep “firsters” in the first place, so communication and trust must be built from the beginning. Without communication, there is bound to be some tensions and apathy within the workforce. Other issues that may occur from lack of communication is a lack of trust, an unhappy work environment, reactive thinking, and overall fear amongst the workers.

What are the top 5 leadership skills for successfully building and leading teams?

According to Greenleaf, “the great leader is seen as servant first, and that simple fact is the key to his greatness” (Wren, 1995, p. 19). Servant leadership is focused on building a strong leader-follower relationship. This model is less about power and more about the greater good. Situational leadership takes a deeper look at the leader-follower relationship to include the development levels of followers and readiness levels of leaders. Finally, building upon situational leadership is the model of transformational leadership. This model calls for leaders to work in collaboration with followers, to identify areas in need of change. The following 5 leadership skills for successfully are:

Ability to Lead
This skill refers to how clearly a leader sees his or her vision, shares it with employees, and inspires them to support that vision. The ability to lead also entails how well a leader can motivate employees in order to get the desired business results. For example, each employee should understand how his or her job contributes to the company’s overarching goal.

Effective Communication
All great leaders are good communicators. They must understand how to get a point across, describe the company vision to their employees, make sure daily tasks are getting done, facilitate office conversations, and know when it’s the right time or the wrong time for a meeting.

Relationship Building
Creating and fostering relationships with both employees and clients is one of the marks of a leader who is truly dedicated to his or her position and company. It takes an investment of time, emotion, and effort to maintain business relationships, and this isn’t overlooked by your team members or customers. These relationships will help inspire your team to work harder, possibly even going beyond their job responsibilities.

Perceptive of Team Needs
In addition to having important leadership skills, managers must make sure their teams also have the skills they need to succeed.

Trustworthiness
The most trusted leaders display integrity and honesty, gaining the trust and respect of their employees and clients. Being trustworthy will increase your team members’ commitment to their goals and inspire their best efforts.

How do excellent leaders develop followership?

A great leader is not restricted to one leadership styles. Instead, a leader possesses many leadership styles and often incorporates the different styles to make one’s leadership effective. There are informal and formal leaders, and the differences are its title and how people perceive them. In an organization where there are established leaders, the subordinates are obligated to comply with the leader’s directions. However, in the community, many leaders lead people but do not hold any titles. The interactions between the leaders and followers are different and so is the leader and follower exchange. The servant leadership style will represent an informal leader in the community, and the transformational leadership style will represent a formal leader in a healthcare setting. We will look at how the leader and followers in each leadership philosophies interact along with identifying the similarities and differences of each leadership styles.

Grayson and Speckhart (2006) states the roles of the follower are like the leader and are slightly different in the initial stages of a project. The leader “provides direction in the form of scope, objective, expectations, limitations and guidelines” (Grayson and Speckhart, 2006, p. 3). The followers ensure their understanding by asking questions and contributing to the project. Once the project reaches the middle, the interactions between the follower and leader becomes similar and is often the part where work occurs. The followers during this stage move on to leadership by offering their ideas and suggestions. The interactions of the leader and follower diverge at the final stages of a project. The follower’s followership minimizes, and the leadership goes back to providing a roadmap for the follower again.

What are some important decision-making strategies that leaders might use? Which of these strategies do you feel is most effective and why?

Dominance and social sensitivity leadership traits have personality, mood, and style that influence activities in military, educational, and religious organizations (Wren, 1995). Understanding why Hitler and Gandhi adopted different behavioral approaches in management is critical. The behavioral approaches observed in this study were autocratic and democratic styles. Analyzing the differences in traits and styles of the contemporary view leads to ideas for personal leadership development. Adolf Hitler was as an autocratic leader. Armies followed him. Gandhi was a democratic leader. Hindus followed him. Both men had an impact on historical contemporary views. Both men influenced followers.

Hitler’s’ and Gandhi’s’ leadership approaches are considered in the analysis since contemporary views analyze leadership characteristics, styles, and behaviors. Adolf Hitler had a direct, cold personality. His behavior was selfish, which caused him to initiate structure (Wren, 1995). He was a powerful military commander and a German politician. He used autocrative style as a dictator. Dictatorship is when a leader controls all activities and decisions. This once made traditional leadership style negative. Current theory contingency approaches understand the effects of a task- oriented behavior. Low control situations required Hitler’s’ direct autocratic leadership. The autocratic leadership approach in the context of moderate control situations creates conflict, low emotion, and punishment. The situational characteristics that apply to Hitler are autocratic decisions are less time consuming and efficient. In theory, Hitler should have consulted with subordinates. He used direct and delegating decision styles. Gandhi had an indirect, friendly, concerned, and warm personality. His traits caused his behavior to be considerate. He was a kind, simple, wise man who influenced social movements in India. He used democratic style and lead civil rights protest. Democratic style is when a leader has a positive influence on participation and majority rule. This makes traditional leadership style positively impact businesses. Current theory contingency approaches know the positive impact of transformational leadership during moderate control situations. Consideration is needed to solve moral problems in context of moderate controls. Gandhi used participative, group-oriented, consulting decision styles when support was lacking. Gandhi’s’ consideration had a good effect on his followers suffering from lack of growth.

What are some ethical concerns faced by leaders? How might you deal with these ethical concerns?

An effective leadership plan will include strategies for personal growth and professional improvement and will enhance the possibility of achievement through dialogue and discussion (Lloyd-Walker et al. 2011). To be effective, leaders must understand the mission of their organization, and must have a clear vision of the place they intend to lead their followers. The effective leader will also embrace actionable and measurable goals, and carefully execute a plan to achieve these targets (Leonard & Leonard, 1999). In times of uncertainty and change, the thoughtful leader will demonstrate flexibility and adapt to changing conditions by developing a plan for success without losing sight of the vision. The need for such flexibility is becoming increasingly important in the healthcare industry as reform continues to restructure traditional models of care (Holmes, 2010). However, the effective leader will develop an effective plan to create opportunity out of change which will also serve to balance flexibility and avoid compromise of the vision and mission of the organization. The effective leader will appreciate the need for change but will also demonstrate care through preparation and execution of a carefully drafted and disciplined plan of action (Holmes, 2010).

Impact of Servant Leader in an Organization

I feel that a servant leadership will foster a positive working culture where each caregiver cooperates to complete the goals. A health care setting is intricate, and it takes many people working together. For example, when its patient checks into an appointment, it is not only the doctor that provided the care. The initial contact the patient have is with the receptionist or patient service representatives. They are often the front line and makes sure patient’s information is accurate before the nurse or medical assistant prep the patient for an evaluation by the doctor. The servant leadership model will maximize performance for Aurora Health Care because it is people oriented. The servant leadership attitudes create a ripple effect. When a positive experience is given to others, others pass it on. It empowers people to be honest and supportive and can protect employees from depending on a reward and penalty system to perform well.

Conclusion

There are many leadership styles utilized in the health care settings and at different levels of management. I feel that a servant leadership style is best suited for leaders who fall into the middle category of the Directorate. Middle management tends to interact more with caregivers and patients. It gives leaders in this category many opportunities to build rapport with employees and foster growth. However, in upper management, one may find that there is a dominant leadership style or a preferred style like transactional. Leadership is not restricted to work but is applicable in one’s personal live as well. Whichever leadership styles that one chooses it will always make an impact in wherever one uses.

References

Burch, T. C., & Guarana, C. L. (2014). The Comparative Influences of Transformational Leadership and Leader-Member Exchange on Follower Engagement. Journal of Leadership Studies, 8(3), 6-25. doi:10.1002/jls.21334

Grayson, D., & Speckhart, R. (2006). The Leader-Follower Relationship: Practitioner Observations. Journal of Leadership Studies Retrieved from

http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/lao/issue_6/pdf/grayson_speckhart

Greenleaf, R. K. (1970). The servant as leader. Cambridge, Mass: Center for Applied Studies.

Goertsen, B.J. (2017). Contemporary theories of leadership. Retrieved from http://samples.jbpub.com/9780763781507/81507_CH06_Printer

Goldsmith, M. (2010). Sharing leadership to maximize talent. Retrieved from

https://hbr.org/2010/05/sharing-leadership-to-maximize

Howell, J. M., & Hall-Merenda, K. E. (1999). The Ties That Bind: The Impact of Leader-Member Exchange, Transformational and Transactional Leadership, and Distance on Predicting Follower Performance. Journal Of Applied Psychology, 84(5), 680-694.

Komives, S., Lucas, N., and McMahon, T. (1998). Exploring leadership for college students what want to make a difference. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (68-72).

Press Ganey. (2017). Press Ganey. Retrieved from http://www.pressganey.com/

Spahr, P. (2014). What is charismatic leadership? Leading through personal conviction. Retrieved from http://online.stu.edu/charismatic-leadership/

Spahr, P. (2014). What is transactional leadership? How structure leads to results. Retrieved from http://online.stu.edu/transactional-leadership/

Wren, J. T. (1995). The leader’s companion: Insights on leadership through the ages. New York, NY: The Free Press.

Wk 5 – Signature Assignment – Leader Interview and Synthesis [due Mon]

Rubric Details

Maximum Score

200 points

·

Interview Responses

2

5% of total grade

Accomplished

Interview responses are included and are properly cited as personal communication per the APA manual. All responses are recorded completely and clearly. All required questions are answered thoroughly.

90 – 100%

Emerging

Interview responses are included and are cited as personal communication per the APA manual, though some errors may be present in formatting. Responses are partially recorded, though they may not be clear to the reader. Most of the required questions are answered.

70 – 89%

Beginning

Interview responses are included, but they are not cited as personal communication per the APA manual. Responses are minimally recorded, and they leave the reader with many unanswered questions. Some of the required questions are answered.

50 – 69%

Not Evident

Interview responses are not included.

0 – 0%

·

Synthesized Discussion

30% of total grade

Accomplished

The synthesized discussion clearly and fully demonstrates a connection between team leadership based on the readings and team leadership based on the interview questions.

90 – 100%

Emerging

The synthesized discussion partially demonstrates a connection between team leadership based on the readings and team leadership based on the interview questions.

70 – 89%

Beginning

The synthesized discussion minimally demonstrates a connection between team leadership based on the readings and team leadership based on the interview questions.

50 – 69%

Not Evident

A synthesized discussion is not included.

0 – 0%
·

Support from Peer-Reviewed Resources

25% of total grade

Accomplished

At least three peer-reviewed resources are used to support the assertions identified. Peer-reviewed resources fully support assertions by fully integrating relevant evidence from quality sources related to the discipline.

90 – 100%

Emerging

Less than three peer-reviewed resources are used to support the assertions identified. Peer-reviewed resources partially support assertions by integrating relevant evidence from quality sources related to the discipline.

70 – 89%

Beginning

Less than three peer-reviewed resources are used to support the assertions identified. Peer-reviewed resources minimally support assertions by integrating evidence from quality sources, though the evidence may not be relevant.

50 – 69%

Not Evident

No peer-reviewed resources are used to support the assertions.

0 – 0%
·

Mechanics

10% of total grade

Accomplished

Rare occurrences of mechanical errors do not detract from the content.

90 – 100%

Emerging

Occasional occurrences of mechanical convention errors may detract from the content.

70 – 89%

Beginning

Frequent occurrences of mechanical convention errors detract from the content.

50 – 69%

Not Evident

Mechanical convention errors are so numerous the paper is illegible.

0 – 0%
·

APA Formatting

5% of total grade

Accomplished

Correct APA notation for all sources.

90 – 100%

Emerging

Partially correct APA notations with some errors in standardized formatting criteria/guidelines.

70 – 89%

Beginning

Incorrect APA notation for all sources.

50 – 69%

Not Evident

APA notation for sources is not included.

0 – 0%
·

Signed Consent Form

5% of total grade

Accomplished

Signed consent form is present, fully complete, and is included as an appendix.