Essay on 3 Major Areas of Leadership

The study of effective leadership skills in a multicultural environment is paramount importance for the success of an organization. This is because of most businesses, today, operate in business environments that are becoming more diverse. As such, it is imperative for all business owners to acquire the knowledge of managing a multicultural workforce. The purpose of this research will be to demonstrate how different leadership models can be employed by organizational leaders to effectively manage the operations of workers from a diverse cultural background. The essay will explain the Leader-Trait Model of leadership, which is a personal framework that can be employed for optimizing an organizational leaders performance in the management of multicultural personnel. The essay will also relate the Leader-Trait Model to three major of leadership, which include multiculturalism, teamwork, and psychology in leadership.

Personal Leadership Model

The proposed personal leadership Leader-Trait Model will be termed as the Leader-Trait Model. The Leader-Trait Model is primarily focused on the study of the personnels habitual behavioral patterns, thoughts as well as emotions. The core personality traits that will be brought out by the leadership Leader-Trait Model include the leaders self-assurance, decisiveness and the maturity in leadership. Additionally, the leadership skills that I possess include the supervising ability, imitativeness, management intelligence, confidence, positive attitude and effective communication skills. These skills enhance the Leader-Trait Model in that they portray the fundamental qualities that a leader managing a multicultural team of workers must possess for an optimum organizational performance.

Furthermore, after adopting the Leader-Trait Model, as a group leader, I will attain appropriate decision-making skills. Such skills will be characterized by traits such as fairness and values-based traits. In fairness, I will ensure that all decisions made are just and not oppressive to some staff members due to their unique cultural backgrounds. Also, under the value-based traits, I will ensure that I uphold the groups shared core values, which are also used by the other personnel in the group.

Moreover, the Leader-Trait Model will seek to achieve an improvement in the way in which leaders manage an organization's multicultural personnel. This is during the functioning of such workers in an organization. Additionally, by using the Leader-Trait Model organization and groups will be in a position to promote the productivity of workers from diverse cultural backgrounds. This is through the adoption of effective traits, abilities, and attitude by organizational and group leaders in managing culturally-diverse personnel. Moreover, if the Leader-Trait Model were to be adopted, the organization or group using the Leader-Trait Model would have an all-inclusive culture among all its stakeholders.

Additionally, the adoption of the Leader-Trait Model will aid in the attainment of the ethical culture in the organization. This is because it will help leaders in the attainment of appropriate traits and behaviors that can be easily followed by the personnel in an organization or group (Shriberg & Shriberg 2010). Also, leadership, particularly senior leadership, is imperative for the attainment of an ideal organizations culture (Shriberg & Shriberg 2010). This is because senior leaders are responsible for creating systems as well as structures that define how the staff members work in a group or organization (Shriberg & Shriberg 2010).

In such a culture, there would be excellent between leaders and workers and between the workers themselves. This would, in turn, promote the rate of work performance in an organization or group and a timely and successful attainment of the preset goals and responsibilities. Moreover, this Leader-Trait Model is different from other models that already exists today because it acknowledges the importance of adopting essential traits, attitudes, and behaviors when managing a multicultural team of personnel. Also, the Leader-Trait Model focuses on the importance of studying multiculturalism, teamwork and workers individual behavior aspects by leaders functioning in a multicultural environment.

Such functions make the Leader-Trait Model distinctive in comparison to other models focused on the management of multicultural workers. Personally, I will employ the Leader-Trait Model for the management of a multicultural-constituting group. This is by adopting essential traits and behaviors of interacting with the group members from culturally diverse backgrounds. Consequently, through the adoption of the Leader-Trait Model, I will be in a position to lobby for teamwork among the group members, which will be essential for the successful attainment of the organizations goals and objectives. Ultimately, I will employ the Leader-Trait Model essentials to learn the behavior of the multicultural group members, in order to understand them and adopt essential management approaches. Additionally, such approaches will promote the attainment of a culture of multicultural inclusiveness among all the group members.

Comparison of the Leader-Trait Model with Other Primary Areas of Leadership

Multiculturalism

The Leader-Trait Model is also similar to the demands of multiculturalism, as a key area in organizational leadership. This is because multiculturalism understands that the approaches to effective leadership that should be adopted by a good leader should be dependent on the staffs confluence of cultures as well as subcultures (Dietz 2009). Furthermore, today, in the contemporary global world, multiculturalism outlines that multicultural leadership must combine practices, values as well as influences of culture politely and productively (Shriberg & Shriberg 2010). Just like the model, multiculturalism requires an astute leader to be aware of the various contexts, assumptions as well as situations that revolve around a culturally diverse taskforce.

Also, similar to the model, multicultural leaders working in a multicultural organization must also elevate their ability to appreciate the differences of staff at the workplace (Shriberg & Shriberg 2010). At the same time, they should learn how to adopt employees inclusive approaches. This is by adopting traits that are considered universal among most cultures such as politeness, honor, respect, kindness, as well as the ability to accept others. The Leader-Trait Model also resembles the multiculturalism concept in leadership through the two functions that a good manager should practice. First, the multicultural leader must learn to declare similarities instead of differences. Second, a multicultural leader must learn to accept and implement inclusiveness in a culturally diverse organization.

Teamwork

The Leader-Trait Model also poses a close relation to the concept of teamwork in a multicultural environment. In such a case, teamwork is characterized an effective and efficient collaboration of efforts among an organizations personnel from diverse cultural backgrounds (Burns 2014; Gibbs 2015). The Leader-Trait Model advocates for an organizational setting where the personnel interacts with each other in implementing essential efforts that are focused on accomplishing the desired organizational goals. Such efforts should be encouraged by a leader working in a cultural-diverse organization so as to promote the constructive atmosphere for all the stakeholders involved.

Moreover, the model, just like in teamwork concept of leadership, advocates for multicultural leaders to secure a solid understanding of the key concerns related to their multicultural workforce. Consequently, this will make such leaders more effective in executing their management roles in their organizations. Also, the Leader-Trait Model encourages multicultural personnel to work collaboratively with each other in an effort to understand the strengths as well as weaknesses of every staff member. In such a case, essential measures to promote the strengths of staffs can be taken, and strategies to mitigate the weaknesses can be developed.

Psychology

Furthermore, the models focus is in line with the provisions of psychology in leadership. The term psychology denotes to the study of human behavior as well as mind through embracing all aspects of a persons conscious as well as unconscious personal experiences as well as thoughts (Coon & Mitterer 2015). In leadership, the knowledge of personnels psychology is of paramount importance to the organization. In a business organization, leaders should attempt to study the behavior of staff members in an organization.

This helps the leader in securing knowledge of the attitude of each personnel towards work in the organization. According to the model, which is also similar to the provisions of psychology in leadership, learning the behavior of staff members promotes the relationship between leaders and staff. Subsequently, this aids in securing a conducive environment where the multicultural staff can function optimally with the primary focus on fulfilling the organizations needs.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the focus of this research was to develop a personal leadership model that can be employed for optimizing an organizational leaders performance in the management of multicultural personnel. In this case, the personal model developed is the Leader-Trait Model of leadership, which is a model that focuses on the reinforcement of a leaders attitude and behavior when managing staff from culturally diverse backgrounds. Additionally, from the research, it is evident that the Leader-Trait Model of leadership has a close relationship to three other areas of leadership, which include multiculturalism, teamwork, and psychology in leadership. Ultimately, adopting the model would aid an organizational leader to secure essential decision-making skills, which are characterized by fairness and values-based aspects.

References

Burns, M. G., 2014. Port Management and Operations. Illustrated ed. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Coon, D. & Mitterer, J. O., 2015. Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior. 14 ed. New York: Cengage Learning.

Dietz, G., 2009. Multiculturalism, Interculturality, and Diversity in Education. Munster: Waxmann Verlag.

Gibbs, P., 2015. Transdisciplinary Professional Learning and Practice. Illustrated ed. New York: Springer.

Shriberg, A. & Shriberg, D., 2010. Practicing Leadership Principles and Applications, 4th Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons.