3. Analysing the Leadership Moment

This moment was worth exploring as it shows the universality of leadership in today’s world. This is especially prevalent when different individuals work together and differences emerge, a good leader is crucial for a team to perform on task. The moment explored displayed how an ineffective leader could adversely impact the morals of the team and the possibility of an emerging leader amongst the followers in dire circumstances.

This moment is a ‘leadership’ moment as Janice assumed the role of leadership seeing that Alex failed to be an effective leader.

As Alex’s followers, it felt exhausting to keep up with the pace due to his lack of time management. It feels unfair that as a leader, Alex was credited for the things his followers have done despite his lack of commitment.

Ethical leadership involves treating its followers with respect and dignity, demonstrating sense trustworthiness to gain support from the followers in achieving to be people-oriented and serve the greater good. Alex did not exercise unethical behaviours but certainly did not perform ethical leadership, as he was neither people nor task oriented since he was only concerned about his self-serving interests.

As contributing to the event was a voluntary act, it affected how Alex prioritised it to be of less importance since it will not hold any adverse effects on him should he perform badly and the main committee would not be able to hold anything against him.

It is vital to match leadership style based on individual context as things evolves over time and leaders are challenged to constantly attain visions understanding how different context such as culture of organization may require a different leading style.

I would have acted like how Janice responded by stepping up as a leader if the team remained silent about it. The incompetency of Alex calls for the need of someone else to step up and reverse the situation and I would take the initiative should no one else wanted to assume the risks and responsibility. The best way I can perform well as a good follower is to have courage to challenge the authority when the leader does not act in our best interest. Thus, taking a leap of faith to make a difference would be most appropriate.

Leadership and ethics is universal and it helps us to evaluate the leaders around us. Indeed, anyone can be a leader presented an opportunity, but to determine how to be a good one requires certain outstanding traits and behaviours to differentiate one from another in order to be influential to the followers.

I believe it is important to determine the right mix of behaviour towards handling task and people to be a good leader. As illustrated in the Ohio State Studies, a good leader may possess a mix of consideration and initiation characteristics in shaping his behaviour. In this case, Alex possessed none, as opposed to Janice who not only inspired us to propel forward to perform the tasks effectively and also motivated us.