Leadership (Task oriented and People oriented) Essay

Leadership (Task oriented and People oriented) - Essay Example People-oriented leadership is quite different from task-oriented leadership, involving a focus on interpersonal relationship development between leader and subordinates. There is an emphasis on team-building and facilitating an open system of communications in order to motivate employees. People-oriented leadership works to create positive psychological or sociological connections with employees, a type of transformational leadership, with much more human resources-based policies and practices designed to gain commitment and ensure that there is no resistance to change. Having defined both task-oriented and people-oriented leadership styles, there are several circumstances where each would be applicable. Task-oriented leadership would be most relevant within an organization where there are strict quality standards and performance expectations. For instance, Toyota, a leader in quality, would be concerned with compliance to specific rules and regulations associated with production and achievement of quality outputs. A task-oriented leader would develop rigorous schedules in order to produce quality results. In this type of production environment, there would be established important quality expectations that are expected to be met, creating a system of rewards or punishments for failing to produce quality products along the production system. The task-oriented leader at a company such as Toyota would have strict deadlines in place to ensure timely delivery of quality products and then working to monitor and evaluate whether the employees have met with delivery and performance expectations. A people-oriented leader would be relevant within an organization where service delivery is highly important for ensuring business profitability. This people-oriented leader would begin emphasizing training importance and working as a coach to help individuals in the organization become self-actualized, the achievement of their maximum potential. It is about building a positiv e organizational culture where focus is placed on building self-confidence, better inter-organizational relationships, and where social belonging is an important part of building a team necessary to carry out positive customer service models. To develop this type of culture, the manager must be visible throughout the organization, role model positive behaviors related to service delivery, and open effective and regular lines of communication for shared decision-making (Fairholm 26). Task-oriented leadership is also found outside of the workplace, such as in academics when students are granted opportunities to coordinate and lead a team of study or in special academic projects. Many universities establish strict deadlines by which a team is expected to return a positive end result after collaborating with one another. A task-oriented leader would develop specific job roles required to achieve a group project, such as delegating research efforts, conducting market research, and the ac tual writing of the project to different members. It would then become a step-by-step process with clearly defined roles and then establishing a system by which to monitor and control activities to ensure maximum productivity. People-oriented leadership is also relevant outside of the workplace and an appropriate example of this would be when working as a grief counselor at the local charity. Individual staff members