Leadership Skills in Practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Leadership Skills in Practice - Essay Example Leadership theories are diverse in their nature explaining and establishing different view points on the problem of leadership skills and effective management. Following Boehnke and Bontis (2001) the transforming leader recognizes an existing need for a potential follower, but then moves forward seeking to arouse and satisfy higher needs (in terms of Maslow's need hierarchy) to engage the full person of the follower. The followers themselves may be converted into leaders. The main disadvantage is that the transforming leader is seen as a benevolent father who remains friendly and treats the employee as a child and a less experienced person(Barker 2001). The leader provides a model of integrity and fairness with people as well as being one who set clear and high standards of performance (Segriovanni & Glickman 2006). Other characteristics less frequently mentioned include: seeking others' highest good, treating others with dignity, showing respect for others and genuine interest in th em. A transformational leader can be seen to be firm and to reprimand when necessary, to give autonomy to followers, to encourage self-development of followers, to be participative, to be willing to teach followers, and to mix easily socially with followers (Armandi et al 2003). The advantages of participative (democratic) leadership are that it allows greater independence to employees and values individual culture and uniqueness of everyone. Good administration is the hallmark of good management and the proper and efficient use of resources. Managers become leaders when their personality and character, their knowledge and functional skills of leadership are recognized and accepted by the others involved. The main disadvantage is absence of strong power and influence upon employees. Situational leadership allows organizations to overcome current problems and respond effectively to coming changes. Leadership may be exercised from any direction in the space, or any value location, depending upon the dynamic constellation of the pattern of unification polarization in the group at a particular time, thus, depending upon one's value system, leadership at a given time may be malevolent as well as benevolent. Servant leadership is marked by great responsibility to wards society and his follows, the organization and customer. A person may be appointed or elected as leader with the expectation that he or she will lead in a particular direction or directions of behavior and value realization, but may find that to hold leadership under changing conditions of polarization and unification, he or she must deviate from the expected directions, at times even need to controvert them (Hoyle and Wilmore 2002). In contrast to other theories, servant leader does not respond effectively to economic and social changes limited by social responsibility and ethical issues. All the theories mentioned above, transformational and participative (democratic), servant and situational leadership, can be effectively used Tesco and its management. The effective leader for Tesco stores as the kind of

The Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union Assignment

The Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union - Assignment Example In the EU farmers are guaranteed a certain price by their government. This is achieved mainly through the use of buffer stocks. These refer to the previous season’s stocks that were not absorbed by the market hence stored by the governments for future eventualities in the market prices. The government buys excess stock in the market to maintain a certain price if there is over supply and releases extra produce to the market to keep the prices at the agreed rate in case of shortage pushing the prices up (Swinbank, & Tranter, 2004). Whenever there is an overwhelming supply of farm products on the market, the excess supply tends to push down the average prices of the produce leading to reduced profits for the farmers or even end up making losses. The E.U sets quotas for such products so as to protect farmers from these problems. The dairy sector is one such agricultural sector that has set quotas imposed on it by the E.U. A quota is represented on the graph by a vertical supply curve at the time the quota is binding. The response of the producers to changes in prices is asymmetrical. Supply will reduce in response to fall in prices and this is represented by the left side of the quota. On the other side ,the right side, when the price rises the farmers are prevented from raising production making the supply curve to become inelastic in nature. (www.economicsonline.co.uk) The elasticity of the demand curve will determine if the farmers will benefit from the production quota. The farmers will be at a benefitting position after the quota if the curve is inelastic around the initial set price. When a market economy is restricted, the quota that is set on production always leads to quota rents. This can be depicted as the a+b in the graphic representation. They are referred to as rents because the farmers get an extra return of Pd. If the farmers manage to sell or lease their quota rights, it gives a capital value to the quota which is equal to the discounted