What does leadership mean to you?

Leadership is the act of influencing people behavior voluntarily towards the realization of organizational objectives. Leadership has the agenda of maintaining its relations with factions and motivating them to contribute to achieving organizational goals. To be in command create the need to explain the drivers of the business as well as convey business objectives. The attitude a leader has to an organization is based on the values one creates in the employees. These values in the presence of good leadership are to better the workplace for the employees.

Describe the behavior and actions implemented by someone you know that you classified as a good leader?

To illustrate the deeds of a good leader one may take observations from the case of businessman Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO General Electric (GE). To push GE to new heights, he made an indifferent approach of creating an environment of no boundary. His plan meant that everyone is open to brainstorm and come up with ideas. Mr. Welch promised and did listen to personal ideas from any employee of the organization. Everyone from the lowest cadre employees to senior managers had an opportunity to present what was on their mind to Jack Welch. Welch brought bureaucracy at GE to its heels. GE became very successful under Welch’s management as his team diligently trailed his lead. It is wise to note that Jack Welch held the helm at GE for two decades and enabled growth in revenue from 25 billion dollars to 130 billion dollars while GE’s profits grew from 1.5 billion dollars to 15 billion dollars. Welch’s management was revered such that upon retirement from GE he launched an online business school, Jack Welch Management Institute.

How can leaders motivate an employee to follow their goals and become important for any company?

Employee motivation is an essential aspect of the achievement of organizational and self-goals. Good leaders know this and thus must strive to facilitate resources and environment for the purpose. One such way is through providing an intellectual challenge. Taking a look at researchers, first stage researchers stirred by logical challenges show more productivity. Secondly, good leaders consent employees to follow their passion. Good leadership demands awareness of persons’ interests and skills. People are well matched to projects that grant them independence thereby lowering risks. Additionally, A leader who appreciates the audience of their employees stirs great motivation amongst them. Employees are highly attuned to the administration’s engagement with an attitude towards a plan. How a leader query the employees can move followers positively. Another manner to which good leaders motivate employees is by embracing the inevitability of failure. Good leadership is about decreasing fear of failure and constantly experimenting on the goal to absorb as much as possible. Furthermore, being a leader of integrity motivates the employees. Integrity portrays a message for the employees that when doing the right thing, one has nothing to be guilty

How can leaders facilitate the relationship among co-workers?

To facilitate good relations among co-workers, leaders need to delegate duties appropriately. Appropriate delegation of responsibilities creates satisfaction thereby minimizing conflicts.  Knowing when and how to delegate duties keeps a company productive. A good leader introduces change. Through inspiring and persuasion, a leader solves the issue of resistance to changes without creating discontent to the employees. The employees, thus, read from the same script and probability of conflict is reduced. Additionally, leaders ought to facilitate training for the employees. Training offers employees a chance to be competitive in their tasks. The competitiveness reduces over-reliance on one person who may create stress and result in unnecessary conflict. Besides, a leader should handle employee conflict. Handling such conflict and reaching a resolution puts the impression of being in control. The employees out of respect for the leader and what they seek to achieve set aside their differences and consolidate their effort to fulfill the goal.

Think of a time you perceived someone being a bad leader. Describe what happened?

An instance of lousy leadership is the case of Martin Winterkorn, former head of Volkswagen. During his administration, Volkswagen for an extended period won awards for producing eco-friendly diesel engine cars. It is presumed that their combustion of diesel was so efficient that only a small percentage of carbon was emitted from the vehicles. Volkswagen released adverts promoting their perceived low carbon emission vehicles. All this later was discovered were nothing but fabricated truth. It came to light that during Winterkorn’s helm as VW’s CEO, the company’s engineers installed software in the vehicles that manipulated emissions. VW was recognized for a ruthless philosophy under Winterkorn, in an ambition to rule the automobile world. At the moment it is presumed that VW has incurred fines to the tune of 45 billion dollars. The damage in VW’s reputation is noted to be the severest in its history. Besides, this scandal was not VW’s first as there lies a past of scandals. Mr. Martin Winterkorn made worse of his leadership by the fact that he ignored a warning letter from the board when the issue started to come to light. Instead of halting the production and purchases, Volkswagen continued with the daily processes.

How can a good leader affect employee performance, satisfaction, turnover, and deviant behavior?

A good leader affects employee performance positively. One such way, is through recognizing employee effort. Through the recognition of each employee’s effort in a project or in providing solution motivates one to increase their input. As such, the leader may offer to promote the employee to the next level or a supervisory role. More so, a good leader sets goals for the employees. Knowing that at the end one is to be held into account creates the need to be keen and fulfill one’s part. Employees will continue thus better their efforts for the success of the overall goal. Employee satisfaction has been known to lead to productive employees. Good leaders ensure employee satisfaction through better remuneration for their work. The remuneration may be in the form of better salaries, commissions or bonuses. An employee whose mind is free of stress thoughts shows great concentration at work. Conceptually, good leaders correct deviant behavior. Leaders take action when employees go against organizational rules. Such measures to control deviant among employees include; warning letters, suspensions, fines or contract termination. Employee turnover has been a significant factor affecting organizations. Good leaders know employee turnover significantly affects the achievement of organization goals and will do everything in their capacity to minimize it. Leaders do this by providing a conducive working environment for their employees. Conducive working environment include annual leave, provision of clean and fitting working place, training and better pay relevant with market rates.