Table of Contents
-
1 Behavioral Theories of Leadership
- 1.1 Create a Set of Values and Beliefs
- 1.2 Reinforce Vision
- 1.3 Respect and Support
- 1.4 Become Role Model
- 1.5 Create a Climate of Trust
- 1.6 Convince Employees to Follow a Path
- 1.7 Provide Resources
- 1.8 Ensure Effective Communicate
- 1.9 Value Diversity of Their Workers
- 1.10 Give Recognition to Their Workers’ Successes
- 1.11 Encourage Creativity
- 1.12 Maintain a Sense of Humor
- 1.13 Create a Motivating Work Climate
- 1.14 Adapt Change Agent
- 1.15 Keep Their Eyes on Prospect
Behavioral Theories of Leadership
Effective leaders exhibit certain behaviors discussed below:
- Create a Set of Values and Beliefs
- Reinforce Vision
- Respect and Support
- Become Role Model
- Create a Climate of Trust
- Convince Employees to Follow a Path
- Provide Resources
- Ensure Effective Communicate
- Value Diversity of Their Workers
- Give Recognition to Their Workers’ Successes
- Encourage Creativity
- Maintain a Sense of Humor
- Create a Motivating Work Climate
- Adapt Change Agent
- Keep Their Eyes on Prospect
Create a Set of Values and Beliefs
For their employees, entrepreneurs should create a set of values and beliefs on which they founded their companies, and its vision is based on such values, and ensure that employees follow the same.
Reinforce Vision
Entrepreneurs not only define but constantly reinforce the vision of the firm and concentrate on communicating the firm’s vision to every employee.
Respect and Support
Entrepreneurs need to respect and support their employees not only to get respect but also to get their employees to be dedicated to work and make the employees a most valuable resource.
Become Role Model
Entrepreneurs should become role models by setting an example for their employees by transmitting a set of values and principles and demonstrating the importance of integrity for a leader’s effectiveness.
Create a Climate of Trust
Entrepreneurs should create a climate of trust in the organization by demonstrating integrity; open communication and following a consistent pattern of behavior so that the company can tackle the problem when encountered with a crisis.
Convince Employees to Follow a Path
Entrepreneurs should convince employees to follow a path so that employees’ efforts are directed towards achieving challenging goals and keep employees driving toward those goals.
Provide Resources
Entrepreneurs should provide the resources employees need to achieve their goals by not only providing the physical resources but also the necessary intangible resources such as training, coaching, and mentoring.
Ensure Effective Communicate
Entrepreneurs should ensure effective communication with their employees and encourage employees for their feedback by becoming effective listeners and promoting open communication.
Value Diversity of Their Workers
Entrepreneurs should value the diversity of their workers by channeling workers’ varied skills, abilities, backgrounds, and interests in the right direction of adapting innovation and maintaining a competitive edge.
Give Recognition to Their Workers’ Successes
Entrepreneurs should give recognition to their workers’ successes by celebrating and rewarding winners’ performance and do everything that encourages employees towards top performance.
Encourage Creativity
An entrepreneur should encourage creativity among their workers by expressing his/her willingness to accept failure as a natural part of innovation and creativity and consider it as a key to future success.
Maintain a Sense of Humor
Entrepreneurs should maintain a sense of humor to make the work interesting and exciting for everyone in the organization.
Create a Motivating Work Climate
An entrepreneur should create a motivating work climate by providing training and freedom to their employees to achieve the predetermined goals and maximum performance.
Adapt Change Agent
Entrepreneurs should adopt change agents when change is needed by making sure that with the change company should be willing to change their policies, procedures, and processes within their businesses so that the company moves in the right direction.
Keep Their Eyes on Prospect
Entrepreneur should keep their eyes on the prospect of business by remaining proactive and never expressing their satisfaction with present achievements and by focusing on building and maintaining sufficient momentum to carry their companies to the next benchmarks.
Entrepreneurs must clearly envisage the future of the business in the light of uncertainties and challenges by sharing repeatedly and forcefully vision for the firm with employees.
To be effective, a small business leader must perform a few vital tasks such as hiring the right employees and constantly improving their skills; building an organizational culture and structure that allow both workers and the company to reach their potential; motivating workers to higher levels of performance and develop a management succession plan for a smooth transition of leadership to the next generation of leadership.
Leading an organization, whatever its size, is one of the biggest challenges any manager faces. Yet, for an entrepreneur, leadership success is one of the key determinants of the company’s success (Thomas W. Zimmerer (2008).
