Organizational Behavior. Leadership and Self-Assessment

Self-Assessments / Skills Development Exercises and Experiences

My PLC (Fiedler & Chemers, 1984) score was 84, indicating that I am a relationship-motivated person. The highest score, in this case, being 6 for the ‘unpleasant’, ‘unfriendly’, and ‘relaxed’ categories, while there was the lowest score (3) for the ‘accepting’, ‘close’, ‘loyal’, ‘trustworthy’, and ‘inconsiderate’. The results for the type A behavior pattern indicates a person who has balanced type A & B. Am not always in a hurry, and with no list of things to achieve on a daily or weekly basis, with the behavior of doing several things at ago, I am a relaxed and an easy-going individual. For self-monitoring scores (Lennox & Wolfe, 1984) I got 65 which means I possess high self-monitoring. My statements are likely to always be true. A score of 28 was achieved in the Machiavellianism self-assessment (Christie & Geis, 1970) meaning that I have a less Machiavellitic person. This assessment reveals my strong feelings about dealing with and handling people which is an essential working skill such as relegating my responsibility at the workplace because of particular reasons. In addition, the self-assessment features test like having trust in people and dictating towards people at the workplace or being people-oriented.

My score on my attitude towards legitimate power reveals a strong disbelieve in the statement that many leaders lost the ability to influence their subordinates as a result of the removal of formal hierarchies and symbols of leadership and status, a leader must use all the power and status symbols provided in the organization to carry out his or her job, and that having no formal title and position within an organization may make the leader have difficulty in operation. In the category of reward power, I scored 15 points, revealing my stronger feeling of disagreement that a leader’s access to many resources is necessary to be able to reward subordinates to be effective, that cooperation with subordinates can best be obtained through rewarding them with resources, bonuses and raises, and that organizations need to allow usage of leaders formal evaluation of subordinates in decision-making. My opinion on the coercive power earned a score of 15 revealing a strong disagreement on the fact that the only thing that works at the workplace is threats and punitive action, that leaders who are reluctant to punish employees lose credibility and disagreement on the feeling of the need of preservation of leader’s ability to punish subordinates.

On referent power, I strongly disagree with the statement that it is essential to develop subordinate loyalty, that a leader’s ability to control and influence the subordinates is reduced by his being friends with them, and that having excellent interpersonal skills to subordinates is essential to effective leadership. I also strongly disagree with the feeling that a leader needs to take particular care to be perceived as an expert in his or her area, that the leader needs be an expert in the area he or she is leading to be effective, and disagree also to the statement that access to information is one of the keys to a leader’s influence. The results of the test also reveal that I am also a participative innovator and a good team leader which would enable me to initiate various personal projects as well as corporate ones and launch into new ideas. As a good team leader, I would be able to work with others in teamwork and be able to complete joint and group assignments.

Summary and application of leadership styles of Colleen Barrett of Southwest Airlines – Autocratic or People-Orientated

A single type of leadership in any existing environment may be difficult to find. A mix of the known types of leadership may be what is likely to find a time because of the complex nature of the employees and therefore forcing the leadership to align to demands. An autocratic leadership does rarely recognizes that the employees are an asset or that they can give useful ideas and may fail to concentrate on improving their career, talents, and abilities.

The leadership at Southwest Airlines focuses on improving the career, ability, and talents of employees through programs for leadership training. The managers and leaders of the company train the employees to use them to represent the company spirit. People-driven leadership is evident in Southwest Airlines. Barret has for example has exemplified the leadership style by personally developing people as she meets them and supports them morally, and mentoring people with interest in what she does or desires to learn. This is important because an effective company culture begins at the top. The CEO of the company which has had success for many yea