The Effects of Differentiated Leadership in Groups

 

Part I: Summary of the Research Study

Differentiated leadership is an issue that has a great effect on the performance of groups, the behaviour of a leader within the group determines the success or failure of goal achievement of the group. This study tries to understand the effect that differentiated leadership has on group performance and the potential managerial cost of this type of leadership. Group focused transformational leadership is a model that is used in the study to help show the importance of leaders working with every member within the group without focusing on individuals (Wu et al., 2010).  

This study develops and tests a group level model that involves group and also distinct fixated leadership, through the use of a three phased review data from seventy work clusters in eight corporations within the United States (Wu et al., 2010). The groups include departments in retailing, marketing, customer care, accounting, product management, human resource and also engineering.

The results of this research indicate that segregated leadership within groups does diminish the efficiency of the group by creation of variance in identification of leaders and self-efficacy of the members. Leadership as indicated in the study as a communal asset, leaders behave correspondingly towards diverse associates and the associates react depending on their insight of the leadership conduct.  The results also indicate that the best group leadership style is group fixated leadership because it enables group documentation and cooperative effectiveness. For instance, a leader can wholly inspire group work by communicating the group as whole and also by providing group based rewards (Wu et al., 2010). This helps to instil the concept of share perceptions and beliefs within the group and hence unity within the group. All this positively contribute to the effectiveness of the group and hence organizational goal achievement.

The results of this study suggest that group leaders should be conscious of the fact that handling members as distinct individuals and adoption of distinguished leadership can consequence in loss of group efficiency. The variance in self-efficacy of the members lowers group worth and so leaders should use contingency standpoint when they are trying to reunite the pressures between group focused and individual focused management.

Part II: Key Learning Points in the Research Study

1. Leadership behaviour is a key motivation within group work
2. Leaders should treat all members equally to enhance group efficiency
3. Group members appreciate a leader that is not biased
4. Inspirational motivation is one of the best strategy to motivate members in a group
5. In order for collective vision to be achieved the effort of all employees should be considered

Part III: Eight Important Statements within the Research Study

1. Leaders affect groups by directly linking leadership with performance at the group level (Wu et al., 2010). Leaders are the motivators that direct whether goals of the group will be achieved depending on their leadership behaviours (Hoffner, 2018). Members in a group look up to their leader for guidance and if a leader displays some weakness or biasness, the members disregard his or her skills. A group where the leader is not trusted has a higher risk of the goals of the group not getting achieved (Chiu et al., 2018).
2. Transformational leadership behaviors inspire followers to pursue higher-order goals and to exert extraordinary effort (Wu et al., 2010). This statement is true, a transformational leader encourages and inspires the workers to innovate and also create change in a manner that helps the company to grow. A transformational leader leads by example and by doing so sets a strong sense of corporate culture that is followed by the other workers (Avolio & Yammarino, 2013). There is no micro-managing in transformational form of leadership. The employees are trusted to make the right decisions in their job roles, and hence motivating them to be creative in finding solutions to any problems they are faced with as they work (Buil et al., 2019). Employees get trained to become transformational leaders through this sense of mentorship.
3. Differentiated leadership may dampen group effectiveness (Wu et al., 2010). This statement is true. Leadership is an important element in any organization, the type of leader that is selected determines the success of an organization (Bormann & Diebig, 2018). An effective leader within a team is one that understands the importance of setting the right tone for the members. A leader should understand that every member within the team is important and therefore avoid any form of biasness. Guidance on how to conduct tasks should be offered to all members, because ignoring some members may demotivate them and cause them not to be effective in their work (Hoffner, 2018). A leader should create an environment of cooperation between the members by monitoring them as a group, and not individually to ensure that they work together to achieve team objectives instead of fulfilling only the individual goals. A leader that exhibits fairness and integrity in dealing with the group members serves as a role model and motivates the members to follow his lead.
4. Group-focused leadership leads to shared perceptions and beliefs about group identification and collective efficacy (Wu et al., 2010). The main aim of having a team is to ensure that a common goal within an organization is effectively achieved. A team is created by putting several individuals in a task, these people are expected to work together to achieve this common goal (Ceschi et al., 2014). The team leader is expected to ensure that the common goal is achieved by the team, which is only possible if the team is motivated as a group. A leadership where the leader treats the team as one is effective as it helps the team to commit to each other and help each other out to achieve the set goal (Chiu et al., 2018). The leader should ensure that each member understands the value of the team’s mission and vision. Ensuring that they understand their roles and responsibilities are all tied together to enhance the potential of the team.
5. Differentiated leadership promotes within-group divergence on leader identification and self-efficacy (Wu et al., 2010). Differentiated leadership is when a leader focuses on individuals within the group, to motivate them and guide them on how to conduct various tasks. Members of a group always expect the leader to work with them as a group and when their expectations are not fulfilled, they become demotivated and loose trust on their leader. A group where the members do not trust their leader cannot be successful because these members will never listen to the guidance of this leader (Ceschi et al., 2014). These members always feel like the leader is biased and not worth following, this cause the team spirit to be broken and the team becomes inefficient.
6. Group identification influences group members’ shared belief in their group’s collective capability of integrating available resources for successful group task performance (Wu et al., 2010). People within a group are brought together by a common goal; this is one thing that a group leader should understand. With this understanding, a group leader should hence come up with goals that can be achieved as a group (Chiu et al., 2018). For the goals of the group to be achieved, the motivation tactics employed should be group influenced. The standards and values that direct group behaviour should be employed to help in refining team growth and enactment. Open lines of communication, early conflict resolvement and high level of respect among the members can all help to achieve the goals of the group (Ceschi et al., 2014). High accomplishing teams actually converse and come to an agreement on their working rules, morals that are discussed and agreed upon by all the members.
7. One important function of social identity is self-enhancement (Wu et al., 2010). Self enhancement is all about motivating oneself to become a better person, it is the motive to create the view that one is a talented and also a skilled individual irrespective of reality (Sedikides et al., 2018). The construction of this self-favouring narratives help to uphold an ideal state of positive reactions and they also add to the development and protection of emotional welfares. Self enhancement can greatly help in achievement of group goals, by the members claiming as much good as they can from their strengths and achievements, they are motivated to work hard and accomplish group objectives (Sedikides et al., 2018).
8. Efficacy perceptions influence both group performance and group viability (Wu et al., 2010). People with high efficacy have a tendency of setting higher goals for instance they increase performance standards and their output quality is also high. This people develop actual task linked tactics meaning they have improved problem resolving strategies and implementation tactics (Bormann & Diebig, 2018). This group of people also understand their strengths and they select appropriate tasks and hence enhance their performance. These same criteria apply in groups, where the groups that have people with higher efficacy experience positive in group effect (Chiu et al., 2018). Appropriate tasks are selected and high group goals are set all which enhance the performance of the group.

Part IV: Critical Analysis of the Research Study

This article is effective in that it helps to explain the negative effects that differentiated leadership has on group work. The title of the article is simple and very easy for everyone to understand; the abstract gives a clear summary of what the article is all about. The language that is used throughout the article is easy; the authors’ choice of word is effective in that it makes the article to be easily understood. All the key phrases and words relating to this study are clearly defined and explained in relation to the theme of this study, helping to make it very easy for one to understand the study.

The article is well structured beginning from the introduction where the issue of group leadership is discussed with some explanation on why this topic is an important topic of research in this study. To help explain the negative effects that differentiated leadership has on group work, the article concentrates on transformational leadership that focuses on improving the capacity of workers by focusing on their capacities, needs and affective states. The choice to focus on transformational leadership is one of the limitations to this study because there is no other form of leadership that could it could be compared to within the study. Other future studies should consider comparing transformational leader in regard to the effects of differentiated leadership, with other leadership types like transactional leadership.

Group differentiation has negative effects and it causes the group to be insufficient. This fact has clearly been illustrated by the article through the use of a well-structured methodology, where workers from different sectors help to illustrate how group differentiation affects their work motivation. The methodology used for this study is sufficient because for one the workers used as the study sample are from diverse industries and they are workers from all the departments, which helps to enhance generalization of the findings. The choice of using past studies and at the same time conduct a fresh study was very efficient as it helped to prove the credibility of those past studies. The study uses independent performance ratings that have constructive connections with the independent data; however it would have been more appropriate and effective if objective group effectiveness measures were used.

The literature used to support the arguments in this study is all peer reviewed journals and thus helping the results of this study to be very reliable. The articles are not limited to the year of publication and this helps to understand the concept of differentiated leadership in a wider view from what has happened in the past industrial societies to what is happening today.

The findings of this study indicate that differentiated group leadership is wrong and it has negative impacts on the group.  The study also indicate that there are scenarios when individualized leadership maybe applied, but a leader requires to be intelligent in order to understand the situations when this is required without compromising the effectiveness of the group (Wu et al., 2010). Group focused leadership is demonstrated to be the most effective method in helping motivate group work. The findings of this study are important most especially for the managerial sector; it helps managers to understand the importance of treating all members within a group work equally to help in goal achievement. As this article indicates, leaders should be well trained so that they understand circumstances in which customized leadership is important and how it should be applied without distressing the efficacy of the group (Wu et al., 2010).

Part V: EAU Leadership Culture and Application of Group Focused Transformational Leadership

United Arab Emirates is one of the nations that is known for its success, what is surprising is the fact that all this success has been achieved in less than four decades and it is all attributed to its leadership styles (Sowmya et al., 2018). In EAU, leadership revolves around the constitution and the rulers within its constituents. The choice of leadership in each of the constitution has played a very important role in motivating the success of this country. The visionary leadership style of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan has fostered the growth and development of the UAE and it is what has guided leadership within all sectors be it private or public (Hanan, 2016). The leadership style in UAE is directive and paternalistic, the leaders are expected to give clear instructions to the members, who are in-turn expected to follow them to the letter. A leader that does not give clear instruction is perceived to be weak and to have poor management skills. This type of leadership leads to poor relationships between the leader and the other workers because the leaders at times are so harsh with the other members (Sowmya et al., 2018).

 This type of leadership within most EAU organizations leads to lack of initiative because the employees do not have an input into the dealings of the organizations. The employees that come up with a different idea and do more than what is expected of them for the good of the organization are perceived to be disobedient to their leader. The concept of transformational leadership as discussed in the article can greatly help to change the idea of group leadership within EAU. Leaders in EAU should understand the importance of allowing employees to give their views on the growth of the organization. Employees within an organization are more motivated if they are given a chance to contribute in the organizational decision making process. An employee given a certain task to handle works hard to learn everything there is to that task and this means that he or she is in a better position to make sound judgements. This is as compared to the manager who is overlooking the whole project and managing all the members within that project.

Businesses around UAE are normally family based, meaning that the main leaders within this business are family members. In most cases the employees are the family relatives most especially those who are not doing well in life (Hanan, 2016). This factor greatly affects the leadership style within the organizations, where the employees work in fear because their main interest is keeping their job. They follow the lead of their leader blindly even when most of these leaders do not have the right managerial skills to lead, because they fear disrespecting them. A group focused transformational leadership would best work within EAU because it is a multicultural nation. There are very many foreigners working in EAU, which gives the country the advantage of diverse cultural labor (Sowmya et al., 2018). By adopting a group focused transformational form of leadership, organizations in EAU can gain great insights from the foreign workers, helping EAU to economically grow and become even more economically diversified.

Part VI: Recommendations to EAU Business Field Decision Makers

EAU is a country that will continue to grow economically decades to come. More businesses will continue to be opened within the country and hence attracting more foreign workers to come to EAU. The decision makers in EAU business field need to understand that the most important HR strategy that can help in the success of a business is leadership. A leader is the one that can help to accomplish tasks, keep groups focused and help to ensure the success of an organization. The efficiency of a leader is all dependent on his leadership style, the world today is changing and employees prefer working with leaders that motivate their growth. Employees can be motivates within an organization by offering them an opportunity to take part in the decision making process.

The best leadership style that allows employees to grow is transformational leadership, this leadership style entrusts the employees on making the right judgement in various organizational decisions. By doing this, the employees are prompted to work hard and act appropriately because they understand that they have a responsibility of making the right judgements for the success of the organization. Proper leadership training programs should be incorporated in EAU, to help train the leaders on the importance of respecting all employees as the most important people that help ensure the success of their organizations. Policies should be implemented to motivate business leaders to adopt group focused transformational leadership style within all EAU organizations both in the private and the public sectors. Adopting a group focused transformational form of leadership will help EAU as a multicultural nation to grow to higher economic heights, and it will encourage other Arabic nations to follow this type of leadership.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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