Leadership is basically the skill and readiness to influence individuals in such a way that they voluntarily respond to instructions. This denotes that for any appropriate leadership-followership situation to exist there has to be some kind of willingness on the side of followers. To achieve this, society must not be concerned with results, but with what people feel and think.
The VABEs of People at Work
The VABEs are the Values, Assumptions, Beliefs, and Expectations that any individual is likely to have. From a broad perspective, these are to some extent conscious collections of what people think of like the way the world is or should be. At my place of work, different people have different VABEs depending on their roles. For instance, the VABES that my boss possesses is not necessarily similar to the ones my co-workers have. My boss’s VABEs include aspects like a strong work ethic, positive attitude, and adaptability. He also has a combination of toughness and fairness (Adair 2006, p. 33-9). On the other hand, the VABEs that my co-workers have include aspects like respect, excellence, as well as cooperation.
The Basic Values and Assumptions
In my view, our organization ought to be working at the third level of leadership. This is whereby the leadership is in serious recognition of the significance of dealing with people. For an appropriate organizational culture, the leadership really ought to understand what people are thinking and feeling. In essence, the behavior of employees is closely entangled with their thought as well as feelings. I, therefore, advocate for a proper organizational culture to be developed in our organization is such a way that the leadership understands the employees’ thoughts and feelings (Avery 2004, p. 142-7).
In this way, an organizational culture of excellence, as well as quality, is instilled. As a result, the management of the organization will not really have to worry about controlling the behaviors of employees whenever they are not there. Eventually, a win-win situation is created since both the management and the employees get fulfillment from their duties (Avery 2004, p. 142-7).
My Behavior as a Level One Leader
From a broad perspective, during the past week, I have been behaving more or less like a Level One leader. This is because I remember reading an article a few weeks ago, that dealt with the latest techniques that can be applied in leadership for the purpose of achieving good results from employees. As a result, I seriously attempted to implement the same ideas, just to see if I could get the very results (Robbins 2011, p. 34-9).
In this regard, I organized a training seminar for my juniors at work on ways of improving customer relations. Apparently, I must have been out of my mind since I failed to attend the seminar. My main focus was on finding ways of changing the behaviors of my juniors towards our clients. Unfortunately, I failed to examine what motivates them to improve the way they relate with our clients. I overlooked their thoughts, beliefs, as well as feelings. At the end of it all, nothing changed. My juniors still had the same old attitudes towards our clients.
How I Should Have Behaved as a Level Three Leader
As a Level Three Leader, I should have researched and understood what influences my juniors’ behaviors as well as their basic assumptions. Additionally, I ought to have recognized and clarified the VABEs because they affect the thoughts. These same thoughts eventually affect behaviors and this will go a long way in improving the way they relate with our clients. Additionally, I ought to have worked on creating a deep relationship between my juniors and the organization. In this way, they will be motivated to work better.
Retrieved from: James G. Clawson (2011). Level Three Leadership Fifth Edition.
Conclusion
For a long time, society has experienced a dominant kind of leadership, where the strong controlled the weak. However, this is undoubtedly not powerful at all. As a matter of fact, it may not even be leadership at all. To achieve effective leadership, society should seek to understand what people think, believe, and feel. In this way, followers will willingly respond and move in the right direction.