Northouse (2016) explained directive behaviors clarify, often with one-way communication, what is to be done, how it is to be done, and who is responsible for doing it (p. 94). I exhibit directive behaviors in two ways, currently training a new hire to perform specific roles I do, which are more investigative, and as a training coordinator.
The situational leadership model reminds us to treat each follower differently based on the goal at hand (Northouse, 2016, p. 99). I find it difficult to train 1 new employee, after successfully training 2, when all 3 started at the same time. I define the successful training of the 2 employees by their willingness to learn outside of the standard training forums, presenting new ideas, offering to simply work distribution, staying focused on one topic, then inquiring about things that seem ambiguous even to me, which unfortunately, I try to tackle to reduce the amount of ambiguity through training meetings. For example, finding inventory is not easy especially, when it didn’t arrive to its intended location. You have to know who to contact. For new hires to work unique situations and come out victorious without needing an outline of what to do, shows growth in development.
It’s difficult to understand why this one person, shows initiative only after asking what to do, and how to do it almost every time. In my opinion, this person is disillusioned about the degree of complexity of the work involved, commenting after about the ease of doing it after being told how to do it. This particular thought of why is a criticism of the situational model because research is unable to explain decrease in commitment, and for me, I personally believe the commitment was never there. The reason is because this particular person had limited choices to pick this job, due to internal conflicts from their last job. For example, this worker fails to take notes, and ask questions after explanation was provided from more than one person. My recommendation would be to transition this one employee to another team doing more routine work, and less investigative work.
As a training coordinator, I provide the latest information to team members such as, process changes and initiate team integration between different functional teams to make team members aware of task performed by other teams. The typical response from attendees is positive, attending when they can, open to new information and knowledge. I would say now about 40% (out of 20) of the team is made up of new members who started back 3 months ago.
When middle management leads a meeting, the style of leadership is authority-compliance grid aiming for results and sharing information they believe is critical to the performance of the team, with minimal human elements. Usually, meetings are comprised of company wide information, in my opinion, could be distributed through a memo or email.
My goal as a training coordinator is for middle management to support training meetings from a task relationship, stimulating participation to support team uniformity. Uniformity, in this context, is to increase team members familiarity with the structure mechanics of the enterprise system used program wide, in addition to referencing newly designed a work instructions. Manufacturing companies have a set of standard codes or instructions written that employees are expected to follow, much like a code of ethics but ,for executing functions, especially when personnel roles are hourly versus salary.
Currently, training meetings have shaped work instructions specifically designed for team members as a reference, to formalize and share in the future with the customer. As of today, I’m leading a working group to develop a handbook with less than 50 pages to highlight common processes.Unlike directive behaviors, supportive behaviors are centered around team member support valuing their inputs and development.
Supportive behaviors involve two-way communication and response that show social and emotional support to others (Northouse, 2016, p. 94). Supportive behavior, from my experience, stems from showing compassion for others, at work and at home. Working with people can be difficult in that you always deal with people on some emotional level.
A sign of frustration from a customer can provoke different reactions from different employees. My response to frustration has been to acknowledge what the employee has done, what they could still do and ways to inquire on how to improve in the future. At times, I succumb more into emotion, for instance on a recent call with a customer, complaining about the delivery times of product, that likely hasn’t been processed through the proper channels, my co-worker couldn’t speak on the matter anymore, due to the limited time they have known about the concern. I gave a words of encouragement to my co-worker that the customer is unaware of the background work involved and ignore the negative comments.
As a friend and child, I lean more towards supportive behavior to develop and maintain relationships with family and friends. I probe for details inspiring emotional conversation sharing my woes and listening to theirs, comforting one another. I engage with friends and family hearing their advice, choosing to adjust or not accordingly. For example, a family member quits her job with no other opportunities lined up, I would find a way to be supportive, even thought I won’t necessarily make the same move. The beauty of having a close network of friends and family, is that we share many things in common and tolerate the many differences that evolve our relationships. However, I can’t always act on supportive behavior as a friend or child. For example, consulting friends through disappointments in life (low self-esteem) by communicating opportunities to be satisfied such as, leaving the house demanding time away from the source of pain or heartache.
On a typical work day, I have control over day to day decisions with little management interaction, or involvement, unless I bring it to their attention or someone else. This supportive delegate environment has it’s strengths allowing those with high skill, experience and commitment to work at your own pace but it puts a strain on employees and management relationship. This weakens management interest in the type of work employees perform on a day to day basis. When issues involve management, management is not as familiar with the type of work each employee performs individually developing, evolve and retain talent. The art of delegation only goes so far, by experience as documented by Rohlander (1999) below. As a manager, you need to define the task you want to delegate and consider how much authority will be required to reach a desired goal (Rohlander, 1999, p.12). Then consider who will be the delegates (Rohlander, 1999, p.12). Once you have made your decision, announce the delegates’ new roles to their team members (Rohlander, 1999, p.12). The art of delegation works to the benefit of work given to managers but doesn’t work as smoothly as work comes from employees that require management support. For example, budget increases, risk employees identify in their day to day work the impact overall team goal.
Furthermore, there is lack of desire from management to evolve employee careers due to high turnover every year losing about 20% of the current team members instead, managers check attendance and with general understanding of the team primary functions, as minimal as just know who is one what sub teams. I find it troubling for managers to ask season employees, “what do you do?”, which screams to me poor authentic leadership after working in the same location for 2 years. A balance of directive and supportive behaviors is necessary to develop effective leaders coupled with developing authentic leadership and employee engagement.
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Rohlander, D. (1999). PEOPLE SKILLS: The art of delegation. Journal of Management in Engineering, 15(1), 12-13. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0742-597X(1999)15:1(12)
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