This is a response to Kunal’s original post found here:
Thank you, Kunal, for your post and sharing your insights into Strategic Leadership Competencies. Kunal has highlighted some very important leadership principles that I would also employ at my own personal workplace such as Active Leadership and Clarifying Assumptions and Priorities. However, there is one paragraph that I found interesting where I want to challenge Kumal to reconsider. Kumal states in the post:
“Personal competency might not work as it involves self-management (Ungerer, M., Ungerer, G., & Herholdt, J., 2016). I believe self-management would not work in our organization. As it involves prioritizing time in thinking about managing oneself and it doesn’t involve practicing such competencies as taking a team in the account and thinking about others while working as a team would be much better for the growth of the organization.”
When I read this statement, I see Kunal has concluded building personal competency will not work because it involves self-management and that is not compatible with the organization. While I understand the challenges that it comes with self-management, I would like to share why it is important for staff to build the capacity for self-management and how a strategic leader can assist with staff on achieving personal competence through self-management.
Ungerer, M., Ungerer, G., & Herholdt, J. (2016) suggests Personal Management is essentially the same as self-management and self-regulation, where the individual is responsible for his or her own livelihood, daily tasks, deciding what to do, how to do it, and when and where (pg. 366). When putting this in a business or organizational context, this can be interpreted as self-development, where an individual is seeking and using feedback, setting development goals, engaging in developmental activities, and tracking progress on one’s own. (London, M., & Smither, J. W., 1999). With the nature of work constantly changing and organization structure becoming more complex, individuals must continuously adapt to new technology and performance standards. This can only be done if the individual practices self-management and self-development.
In reality, this is very difficult to do by an individual. The truth is if everyone can self-manage themselves well, then everything will be completed and execute perfectly. When I worked as an Environmental Health Officer (EHO), I know first-hand of the challenges of self-management. EHO’s is typically assigned a work area within a community where it may have upwards of three-hundred facilities that require regular inspections and audits. While there are certain guidelines and direction as to how the workload is to be handled, all EHO’s are responsible for setting their own schedules and determine which places require inspections and at which frequency. In addition to regular inspections, EHO’s are also responsible for following up on complaints from the public and other emergency response situations such as a fire in a restaurant. The freedom of the ability to create your own work schedule is considered a great work environment by many EHO’s. However, the caveat this freedom is some EHO’s would lack the motivation to do the work. This example illustrates the challenges of self-management. While we can say self-management just does not work for EHO’s, there are strategies where the leader can implement to motivate individuals to be effective in self-management: using intrinsic motivation and having accountability.
When people are asked about the reason for doing their job, many will answer “money” and this is true for many people. The fact is we need money to live and for our enjoyment. Money or financial rewards are extrinsic motivators and while it is a necessity for employees to work, it is rarely the motivation for employees to strive for achievement. On the other hand, Intrinsic motivation is derived from the sheer joy of performing an act. Intrinsic motivation energizes an individual, and these energies can be directed towards the improvement and innovation of a system (Ungerer et al., 2016, pg. 382). Employees who are intrinsically motivated naturally enjoys their work and strive to do well, which will greatly benefit the organization. An effective leader of the organization can motivate employees intrinsically with the following strategies:
- Create Empowering Work Environments. This includes fostering an environment in which everyone is individually self-managing and can interact directly with everyone else in the system. Empowerment is also allowing the sharing of information and knowledge so employees can contribute to organizational performance, rewarding them based on organizational performance, and giving them the authority to make decisions that affect important outcomes (London & Smither, 1999).
- Allow Continuous Learning. Organizations that establish continuous learning cultures provide training, and they reward the use of new skills and knowledge on the job. This will enhance employees’ awareness of the need for, and value of, acquiring knowledge, skills, and abilities (London & Smither, 1999).
- Effective Feedback. Effective feedback focuses the employee’s attention on the task and highlighting specific behaviours that needed to be done differently. General feedback, even when it was meant to be motivational (e.g., “You’re doing great, keep up the good work”), tended not to be effective (London & Smither, 1999).
After creating an environment which allows employees to be intrinsically motivated, the strategic leader must hold them accountable as well. People who have a high level of accountability will take initiative to ensure the success of a project, provide early warning of potential problems, and take action to resolve a problem even when it is not their fault (Lepsinger, 2010). I would suggest using the following methods to increase accountability: Clarifying actions and expectation, Agreeing on due dates for deliverables, and Establishing checkpoints. For example, the leadership from my organization have various accountability systems to ensure EHO’s are on the right track. EHO’s have quarterly meetings with their direct supervisors to address any issues or concerns and inspection targets are set at the beginning of the year to assist with workload balance and allow monitoring of performance.
References:
Lepsinger, R. (2010). Closing the execution gap: How great leaders and their companies get results. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
London, M., & Smither, J. W. (1999). Empowered self-development and continuous learning. Human Resource Management, 38(1), 3. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/loginurl=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=13641396&site=eds-live
Ungerer, M., Ungerer, G., & Herholdt, J. (2016). Navigating strategic possibilities: strategy formulation and execution practices to flourish. Randburg: KR Publishing.
Together with the whole thing which seems to be building throughout this specific subject matter, all your viewpoints are somewhat refreshing. However, I appologize, but I do not give credence to your whole idea, all be it exhilarating none the less. It would seem to everyone that your remarks are actually not completely justified and in actuality you are generally yourself not really wholly certain of the assertion. In any case I did take pleasure in reading it.
The next time I read a blog, Hopefully it doesn’t fail me just as much as this particular one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read through, nonetheless I truly thought you would have something helpful to say. All I hear is a bunch of moaning about something that you can fix if you weren’t too busy seeking attention.