Naavandi Leadership Style Analysis

Leadership vs. Management
Lindsey Urbaszewski
LL509: Leadership Theories, Practices, and Context

As many of my peers have addressed in our weekly discussion, the true definition of leadership can be complicated to identify. There are a variety of definitions that address a different characteristic of leadership. Nahavandi defines a leader as “any person who influences individuals and groups within an organization, helps them establish goals, and guides them toward achievement of those goals, thereby allowing them to be effective” (2015, pg.3). This demonstrates that leaders are always thinking about the well-being of the people within their organizations, not just the deadlines and what they want to accomplish for themselves.
It never occurred to me to evaluate if these individuals possessed managerial skills, leadership skills, or a blend of both. As I look back on my experiences, I recognize my current supervisor as a true leader based on the definition of leadership I previously stated. Appropriately named, her professional title is, Team Leader. Nahavandi (2015) describes “effectiveness as the successful implementation of change in an organization” (pg. 4). My supervisor demonstrates effective leadership is many ways. She continuously influences my team members and I to set the highest level of customer service that we can. Often, she provides us with tips that will make our conversations with students effective. This ultimately helps my team to reach their enrollment goal for a given semester. In Fred Fielder’s Contingency Model, his theory states that leadership effectiveness can be attributed to the performance of the group. When group members are performing well, leaders are identified as effective (Nahavandi 2015). I believe that this is the case with my supervisor because without a cohesive group mindset, it would be impossible to achieve our goals. She also has a great habit of putting the other team members before herself. As Nahavandi states, “leadership is about others” (2015, pg.3). In addition, this gives our team an advantage when we need to reach out for help. She is charismatic,
Relating back to Welbourne’s Leadership Pulse Report (2010), she states “today is not a time when HR can afford to do anything that slows down an organization” (2010, pg. 9). I understand the definitions of leadership and management that I discussed may not be completely accurate. The words I used may not portray what every other individual thinks. I am comforted by the words in Reading 8 of Wren (1995) that “there is no single ‘correct’ definition” of leadership (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 1993, pg. 42). These ideas are simply the ones that I rely on and believe in when explaining what it takes to make an organization successful. The charismatic communication of a leader accompanied by hard-hitting maintenance of order in an organization is necessary to keep things running smoothly. Recent research explains that a major aspect of leadership is being able to “manage the emotions of group members” (Nahavandi, 2015, pg. 13). Organizations need management of emotions just as much as they need guidance and suggestions to accomplish their goals, whether they are short term or in the future. The two concepts are not necessarily one in the same, but they must work together to make an organization’s work flow processes