For any group to be successful, a strong leadership structure must be in place. In my life I am thankful to have an amazing leader who serves as my inspiration to be a successful leader. Much of what I have learned about leadership stems from her and has only been strengthened in this class. With this paper it is my goal to discuss strategies on how we can be successful in our endeavors as leaders. One of the key ingredients of a good leader is the ability to motivate others. If an employee is not motivated to do their job and is not properly engaged, production of the group will struggle. There are many different theories regarding how to motivate employees. Hershey, Blanchard and Johnson indicate “People have many needs, all of which we try …show more content…
This style works best with someone who is both willing and able. With this style a more hands-off approach is taken, this gives the employee the ability to work with some level of autonomy towards the goals of their team. Some of the appropriate leader behaviors listed include listening to updates from the employee, resisting the urge to overload them with responsibilities, encourage them to work with autonomy, delegate activities, encourage freedom for risk taking, monitor activities, remain accessible and focus on the big picture. The times that this would be effective would be an employee that has been in their position long enough that they are proficient and highly motivated and willing to do the work necessary. It is important to have a clear understanding of all the styles of leadership and when one is better than another. Not every style is appropriate for every situation, the ability and willingness level should be understood before deciding on a style. Regardless of the style of leadership being used, there are many different tactics used by successful leaders. One of the articles I read in researching this paper discuss the leadership tactics identified by William Cohen. These are: direction, persuasion, negotiation, involvement, indirection, enlistment, redirection, and repudiation. Reading the article, there are several of the tactics that line up well with some of the leadership styles mentioned above. For example, the involvement tactic would pair well with a selling type of leadership as this encourages leader interaction. The article