Leadership Challenges and Recommendations for Educational

Question: Discuss about theLeadership Challenges and Recommendations for Educational. Answer: Introduction Leadership is an important function of the management in an organization, but it is very tough to be a leader. Leadership continuously offers the challenges to the leader and their skills and abilities. These challenges help in rising to another level, to improve in the process and to show that as a leader you can complete something, which may be seen very hard and even impossible. This essay explains the different challenges, which a leader faces in todays business world. These challenges may be internal, external and others which can be arisen from the role of leadership. There are some recommendations for making improvement in the quality of leadership development programs. There are some ways, in which the leaders can survive and take the benefits from them. Finally, it comments on the use of recommendation to leadership development program for improving the challenges and limitations of approaches, which are used to develop thee leaders and leadership. Many studies indicated that it is very tough to lead an organization in todays business world. The people, leading organization, face some challenges constantly. For the leaders, it is not possible to imagine the situation where they dont have to manage the external challenges (Branson, 2008). At a workplace, issues like lack of funds and other required resources, resistance from the forces in the community and organization and other interpersonal issues in the organization. There may be some social, political and economic factors in the world can influence the organization as well. To some level, the measure of leaders is how well they can handle with the constant progression of crises and minor displeasures, which can pose challenge to the objective of leaders group. Apart from this, leaders face the challenges in dealing with the organizational functions. It is very difficult to develop managerial effectiveness and related skills, like; decision making, strategic thinking, effective time-management, efficiency in the work and prioritization. The major challenge in this process is leading an entire team, which includes various tasks like; team development, team building and management of team (Bolden Gosling, 2006). Specific threats include that how to introduce self-importance in a team, how to direct a team of many members. Motivating or inspiring other people is also a challenge in an organization. The leaders have to make sure that the people in organization are satisfied with their jobs and working smarter for attaining the collective objective of organization. When it comes to implement the change in the organizational processes, then guiding changes is the challenges of managing, leading and understanding the change. In order to convince the employees to accept the changes, the leaders have to implement various strategies. It includes knowing how to handle consequences of change, overcome change resistance and manage the reaction of employees towards the change. Moreover, the leaders may face the challenge in managing the internal stakeholders. The leaders need to manage the relationships among the people, image and politics (Boyatzis McKee, 2006). This includes having support and managing the different departments, individuals and teams. There are some internal challenges, which stem from within the leader himself. However, leadership provides leaders to show the best of them, but it also exposes their limitations. There are so many cases, where effective leaders have to overcome those challenges and limitations for communicating and following their vision to the team members. These barriers to leadership are impatience, insecurity, and lack of confidence, fear and intolerance (Dalakoura, 2010). Overcoming these barriers can transform an average leader into a great leader. Generally, it is very difficult for the people, who look at themselves as leaders, to accept that they may have some of the personality characteristics and traits, which affect their abilities and skills to achieve the objectives. According to some researchers, understanding that all of these challenges are common for senior and middle level manager can be helpful for both the leaders and the people, those indicted with the development (Groves, 200 7). Thus, it can be analyzed that every leader faces the challenges because it is not easy to perform the tasks through others to get the better results, which you need. Management of poor performance is one of the major challenges for every leader to face but then management of poor results. Apart from this, other challenges, which are faced by leaders in todays business environment, are to find out such people for the company, who have good knowledge and experience, have courage to handle all the situations and see the reality and develop new leaders. Nowadays, the organizations are becoming more technology oriented and technological changes are very fast. Thus, building the work force to adapt these changes is also a major challenge for a leader. If the leaders want to meet these above-mentioned challenges in the organization, they should try to change their way to think and understand about the leadership. A significant component of effective leadership is learning to accept the limitations in leaders themselves and they should accept the reality of those personality traits and work to improve them, so they dont find them in the way. As a leader, the people think that it is very difficult to build better relationship among employees or team members, but they should consider some points, like; they should a dynamic role in coaching, mentoring and improving other people. Sometimes, leaders think that they are senior and treat the team members like they are working for them. It demotivates the employees to perform their tasks effectively. In order to motivate them, the leaders can provide them challenging opportunities and promote them to top management and allow them to enhance their core competencies. They should support them by providing feedback and guidance. The leaders should think that leadership is not only ensuring that the employees have required office supplies and software. They must look at the social psychological needs of the employees and meet them. Just leading an organization is not the duty of leaders; they should ensure that the members of team have a clear objective, assistance and effectively communicate the information among the team and with the external stakeholders also. They should play the role, so the followers assume them as their role model and sounding board. Along with this, it is very necessary to involve as many members as possible in the decision making process and they are enthusiastic on their jobs. To meet with the challenges of leading in uncertain and complex times, there should be innovative leadership in the organization. The leaders require innovative leadership for themselves as they operate the organization in unpredictable and challenging conditions. They can create an atmosphere for innovation in the organizations. Innovative thinking, tools and systems are necessary for the health of organization and future sustainability. As a leader, you should make sure that all the employees in the group have common interests. If you are able to find those people, then you may have the solution to solving the issues and making it possible for group members to work together for a collective goal. Leaders are also human being as other people, so they come with the similar problems as others. As mentioned above, one of the major challenges in leading the organization is facing personal issues. Dealing with the personality traits and attitudes, which come in the way and working to improve or overcome them is significant if you want to lead the organization effectively in uncertain and complex situations. There are some major traits which effective leaders need to overcome, such as; insecurity, defensiveness, impatience and inability to be objective. To cope with the internal challenges, the leaders should listen to the ideas, thoughts and opinions of the people. They should give them opportunities to speak in the decision making process. It is very difficult to change the organizational leadership and framework (Hayton, 2015). The leaders should conduct the occasional meetings to make discussion about the vision and mission of the organization. As a leader, you must have the abi lity to identify the people, who are capable in the organization. Thus, sharing the duties and responsibilities with these capable human resources will make you more effective, efficient and establish strong leadership. The leader should be confident and pleased at the workplace. When the employees feel that their leader is stressed and insecure, then they become depressed and unconfident as well. In this situation, the focus of the team shifts from its objectives to the current depressed situation and this suffers the team work. Thus, if the leaders want to meet and overcome the challenges in the tough and uncertain times, they should change the view towards the leadership role (Rath, 2014). They should ensure that leadership is not only about leading the people but also establishing a harmonious and flexible working environment in the organization, so that employees can work with satisfaction and happiness. Conducting a leadership development program can help the top management in leading the organization effectively. It will help the leaders and potential leaders in developing essential skills and abilities of leadership role. Leadership development program scan expand the abilities of individuals to pursue the leadership role in the organizations (Gurdjian, Halbeisen Lane, 2014). Leadership roles include executing the strategy of company using building arrangement, appealing mindshare and improving others abilities. The program can be conducted by integrating various techniques, like; classroom style programs, 360 degree feedback, coaching, mentoring, business school coursework and reflective journaling (Kouzes Posner, 2006). Many organizations do not include the leadership development program in their strategic planning. They are not using this program in focusing on the challenges, which the leaders face in the modern business world. But the organization must understand that the future success of the organization depends on identifying and developing the abilities of future leaders. Sometimes, people in an organization are not able to develop this program effectively and with high quality, so they can implement some strategies and consider the recommendations to improve the quality of leadership development program (Goleman, Boyatzis McKee, 2013). To enhance the leadership program, the top management should look at the criteria, which they are using to recognize the future leaders and it should focus on that what they are doing to support employees development and how they are measuring and evaluating their performance and success. Implementing innovation and creativity can enhance the quality and effe ctiveness of this program. So, it is hereby recommended that the organization should set clearly defined leadership competencies and senior leaders should identify the required skills and abilities, which are required for execution of the organizational strategy (Gujral, 2012). Leadership development program should be focused on fortifying the ability of employees to deliver reliable and strong results, to become new experts and to gain the behavioral standards, which show the culture and values of a company. The major thing, which the organization can do for improving the quality of leadership development program, is create a leadership development plan and training. In this process, the leaders should collaborate with the top management on the plan, which is related to his/her individual development, authenticating the goals and probable barriers, which would hamper the success. Then, the organization can provides external and in-house workshops and training programs to teach the people about the fundamentals of leadership in organization by emphasizing on the core values of organization (Fairhurst Connaughton, 2014). The company should use the experimental training to increase the growth rate of success for converting the members into highly-functioning leaders. The program should provide the opportunities to the emerging leaders to enhance their proficiency, aptitude and assisting them to develop a level of leadership competence in the working environment. The above-mentioned recommendations will help the organization in addressing the limitations of approaches, which are used to develop both the leaders and leadership. These recommendations will help the organization in developing the leadership skills and abilities in the competitive working environment (Thomas, Pirtle Jessie, 2010). By implementing an effective leadership development plan, the senior leaders can provide coaching and mentoring to the potential leaders. The limitations of leadership approaches indicate that the leaders can motivate and lead the people, but they cannot give them passion and make them creative. Using these suggestions, they can develop their interests towards the vision and goals of organization. The leaders can improve their own skills through this type of program. It can assist in creating coaching culture in the organization (Dai Li, 2016). This coaching relationship can address the above-mentioned challenges, which are faced by the leader, but at the same time role models training skills to the senior leaders. This can allow the leaders to engage the staff and employees in more focused and aim driven talented discussions and enhanced performance chats resulting best talented individuals and groups. This leadership development program helps in developing the skills beyond general leadership and technical skills (Monarth, 2015). It can give an opportunity to the leader to understand, explore and become familiar with their emotive, behavioral and cognitive responses to the different situations. In Addition, this can address various issues like; conflict management, creating the value, effective communication, time management, improving problem solving skills, objective setting skills and establishing better relationships (Tsyganenko, 2014). To overcome the limitations of approaches, this development program can help the leaders in implementing the best suitable leadership style for the organization. There are various leadership styles, which have their own merits and demerits. This training can assist the senior leaders in developing their own leadership style, so their group members will give the best response. This training can help in improving the managing the effectiveness of the people, as the right leadership can enhance the productivity of the employees and leader (Gilley, McMillan Gilley, 2009). It is said that leadership is about understanding the individuals emotionally and this emotional intelligence is significant for the successful leadership. Thus, the successful implementation of leadership development program with high quality can sharpen the emotional skills in the people, leaders and managers. Enhancing the leadership development program can be helpful in addressing the limitation of approaches for d evelopment of leaders and leadership. Conclusion Thus, the life of todays leader is not very easy. Within the organizations, they have to lead and encourage a diversified group of people and improve effectiveness and efficiency and attain growth. Outside the organizations, they deal with the globalized and complex business environment. They have to comply and manage with the requirements and formalities of government. Leadership poses various challenges, which may be internal and external. These challenges generally arise in the phases of change and uncertainty. To overcome these situations, the organizations can implement a leadership development program, in which leadership skills and abilities can be enhanced and people can understand their leadership roles. They can come to know that how they can handle different and critical circumstances in the organization. If the organization employs some effective strategies to cope these external and internal challenges, then it can have successful and effective leader. References Branson, C. M. (2008). Achieving organisational change through values alignment.Journal of Educational Administration, 46 (3), 376395. Bolden, R., Gosling, J. (2006). Leadership competencies: time to change the tune?Leadership, 2 (2), 147163. Boyatzis, R. McKee, A. (2006). Inspiring Others through Resonant Leadership.Business Strategy Review, pp. 16-18. Dalakoura, A. (2010). Examining the effects of leadership development on firm performance. Journal of Leadership Studies, pp. 59-70. Dai, L. Li, J. (2016). The Integrated Design of Leadership Development. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 4, 127-132. Fairhurst, G. T., Connaughton, S. L. (2014). Leadership: A communicative perspective.Leadership,10(1), 7-35. Gilley, A., McMillan, H. S., Gilley, J. W. (2009). Organisational change and characteristics of leadership effectiveness.Journal of Leadership Organisational Studies, 16 (1), 3847. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., McKee, A. (2013).Primal leadership: Unleashing the power of emotional intelligence. Harvard Business Press. Gujral, G.S. (2012). Leadership Qualities for Effective Leaders. Vij Books India Pvt Ltd. Gurdjian, P., Halbeisen, T., Lane, K. (2014). Why leadership-development programs fail.McKinsey Quarterly,1, 121-126. Hayton, J. (2015). Leadership and Management Skills in SMEs.Warwick Business School. Groves, K.S. (2007),"Integrating leadership development and succession planning best practices", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 26 Iss 3 pp. 239-260. Kouzes, J. M., Posner, B. Z. (2006).The leadership challenge(Vol. 3). John Wiley Sons. Monarth, H. (2015). Evaluate Your Leadership Development Program. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/01/evaluate-your-leadership-development-program. Rath, T. (2014). Effective Leadership:Leadership Skills and Leadership Qualities Required to Lead Effectively. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Thomas, R.E., Pirtle, J. Jessie. (2010). Developing Leaders: An Analysis of efficacy of executive coaching. Leadership Organizational Management Journal, 3, pp. 106-112. Tsyganenko, M.V. (2014). The Effect of a Leadership Development Program on Behavioral and Financial Outcomes: Kazakhstani Experience. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 124, pp. 486-495.