Paper Example on Traits Employees Look For From Their Leaders

Introduction

An employee is looking for a manager that is an effective leader. Employees want leadership from their managers in areas such as growth, motivation, and guidance(Gorden, 1988). Employees want leaders who develop themselves and others, making it safe to share their ideas, try new things, make mistakes, learn from them and improve,". Major qualities that motivate and inspires employees from their bosses includes;Encourages improvement- An employee is looking for an inspiring leader, who help and encourage him or her improve. An inspirational leader should support and encourage employee improve on their work.

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• Gives appreciation and praise - An employee is interested in a leader who appreciates and praise his or her work. A great leader should appreciate and praise their employees' work. However, this will motivate the employees and continuously keep improving on their work.
• Recognizes improvement - An employee is happy with a leader who recognizes his or her performance improvement at work. An excellent boss should appreciate and acknowledge an improvement of his employees' performance. He or she should be to point out at individuals whose performance has increased. This will motivate such individuals and will encourage others to follow in their footsteps.
• A good leader should allow their employees to save their face - Employees appreciate leaders who give them a chance and time to make up for their mistakes instead of embarrassing them when they make mistakes.
• A good leader should acknowledge his or her shortcomings before criticizing - Employees are with bosses who recognize their shortfalls rather than criticizing others.

Ensuring that bosses give workers the support they need is important for them to maintain high productivity for their workers (Gorden, 1988). Supportive behaviors from bosses to their employees' increases their intention to stay and improve on their work. Workers are more interested and satisfied with their jobs when their bosses are trustworthy, true to their beliefs and honest.

The personality of leaders affects how their teams perform. Employees most of the times will look the style that their leaders follow and they tend to emulate. A successful leader is supposed to grow in the organization. He is supposed to develop step by step so that when he is in the leadership position, he can understand how his juniors are working and the challenges that they face in those positions. They look upon their leaders on various issues such as;

Performance

Employees in most cases mimic how the managers are undertaking their tasks. Leaders should ensure that their work is done in real-time to the best of their ability. When they do this, they usually infuse the whole workplace with this mindset. Most of the employees whether they are hardworking or not, they often incorporate in their subconscious mind the manager's work ethic into the way they will be doing things. Take an example of the operational manager in a bank who is tasked to clear the cheques and also solve some customers issues, when the juniors find despite the tight schedule of the manager he is still clearing all the cheques in real-time, they also imitate him and work to the best of their ability to finish all the tasks before the close of business.

Communication

Managers should ensure that they maintain constant communication with the employees. Failing to communicate with them sends a signal to the employees that communication is not important in the workplace. Encouraging dialogue enables the employees to talk about the difficulties that they are facing in real-time and hence there is a convenience in the whole system since the problems are solved as soon as they are realized. Lack of communication in the workplace leads to the employees missing the deadlines, or the task is completed in the wrong manner. Effective communication involves the managers communicating their thoughts to the employees from time to time.

Attitude

In a company, you are likely to find employees who have a positive or negative attitude. Attitude is infectious in the workplace, and most employees will follow the attitude of their co-workers and especially their seniors. When the seniors have a positive attitude, the workers will also perform well in their tasks with minimal or no supervision. If the leaders are negative towards the job, the employees also tend to be cynical in the work they are doing leading to carelessness. Negative managers make it difficult for the worker to grow since their style of management does not encourage positive thinking and also encouragement.

To be an effective leader, motivating the employees is an essential part of the management. You need to inspire the employes into achieving their goals and vision. Having more academic papers in management and psychology is necessary when assuming leadership roles. Some experience from a previous task is crucial as you can use it together with some motivational theories to get the results that you want.

Hertzberg's two-factor theory usually consider two factors which are motivation and hygiene. Motivational factor usually involves the leader giving the employees recognition for reasonable efforts, enjoying the work and also developing a career path. The hygiene factor is the one that includes the salary, other benefits, and relationships with other staff. Managers should ensure that the two elements are always applied in the workplace. It can be done by ensuring that the salaries and other benefits are reviewed regularly and also building workshops and having different ways of recognizing good performance.

According to the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the basic needs of the employees which include the psychological well being, self-esteem and also the feeling of belonging should be satisfied first (Halepota, 2005). Most managers ignore this, but it is crucial to enable the employees to perform as expected. Employees need to feel they are in the right place. It is the role of the manager to ensure that the employees live harmoniously and they can appreciate their differences.

Leaders should be careful while making decisions in the workplace to make the decisions which are to the best interest of the organization and also the ones that will not demotivate the employees (Couzin, Krause, Franks & Levin, 2005). Effective leaders can lead their teams in one direction. Communication is done in the right manner, and in case there is a conflict you should listen to both sides before making decisions. No one should be condemned unheard. Leaders should ensure that the employees know the direction which the organization is heading. They communicate the vision, mission, and objectives from time to time (Gorden, Infante, and Graham, 1988). Effective leaders know pretty well that they cannot make it alone and they need to support each other with the employees as a team. They advise the employees to ensure that the emotional well being is taken care of so that they can perform well.

For one to be able to live well either as a Citizen, employee or even an effective manager. One should learn how to live with people well. You should accept that we all make mistakes at one time or another. When you find someone on the wrong, It is good to correct him than just to criticize. Leaders take mistakes positively as a learning point. A mistake done today if fixed in the right manner it is not likely to recur tomorrow.

Every day is a learning opportunity. Whether you are a leader or an employee, you should not assume you know all. You should always take the time to learn when you get a chance to do so. Leaders should organize meetings, team buildings and conferences where the staff share on the progress so far and what needs to be done for improvement. One should also agree to be corrected, even if you are a leader you should accept any form of correction. Following these guidelines and the objectives of the organization are something that should be emulated by everyone whether senior or junior. Objectives are what leads an organization and deviating from this can cause the leader to fail in his mission.

Leaders should adopt a system of continuous improvement in their organization and also in their managing skills (Fiedler & Garcia, 1987). Addition of knowledge in the form of education is essential. An effective leader leads by example. He should have a positive attitude towards his duties. A positive attitude of a leader is infectious to those who surround him. Managers should be approachable. They should not instill fear on the employees such that they fear to ask for guidance. Leaders should be available whenever the staff needs guidance. To be an effective leader, they need to use the employees also in management roles. When you are close to the employee, you are likely to know them more.

Innovative

Great leaders are frequently creative and innovative in their decision making towards solving organizational problems. They incorporate new ideas that would significantly propel the company to ney success. According to Steve Jobs, he stated that innovation and creativity, which is the ability for leaders to generate new ideas substantially, separate great masters from followers. Creating new products, production methods, and processing strategies give companies a competitive advantage. Most employees are inspired to work hard to achieve the organizational goals when they observe organizational managers advocating for creative thinking to propel decision making to meet the market competition (Couzin et al. 2005). Through constant flexibility and change on the organizational structure, company leaders make their institutions to stand out, command and dominate their respective industry. Moreover, innovative leaders also attract creative and talented employees, as they become role models within the organization, helping employees to device various methods within or without the stipulate rules to achieve the goals and objectives. It opens doors to new opportunities as creativity and innovation allow accumulation of unique ideas that attract employees to the company's products and services. With a creative and innovative leader, employees would feel free to initiate new techniques to solve problems as the innovative process frequently involve errors, which such leader will be able to understand and forgive. Therefore, innovative and creativity attribute is essential characteristics that leaders should obtain to facilitate peaceful and prosperous organizational development.

Accountable

Further, great leaders are accountable for the daily activities within the organization. Accountability is an individual's responsibility, and duty within the company allocated to facilitate the achievement of goals. Good leaders ensure accountability through frequent self-assessment and employees assessment to ascertain the proper progression of the organization. For instance, good leaders are frequently responsible for the success and failure of the company, taking into account the weaknesses and strengths without blaming the employees for the organizational setbacks but rather devising methods to improve (Couzin et al. 2005). Accountability allows the leaders to demonstrate ownership and take the initiative towards doing the right thing that would elevate the company towards success. It enables the employees to establish a constructive relationship with the employers, facilitate cooperation and coordination before any decision making that would significantly influence the future of the organization. Irrespective of the size, structure, field or location of an organization, initiating accountability in the leadership and inspiring the same among employees promote healthy operational relation that allows the company to provide satisfactory goods and services to t...