LEADERSHIP AND

DECISION MAKING
Assignment 2: Leadership Observation and Interview

Course/Unit code Assignment Assignment Course/Unit name

number due date
BUSM4188 2 19/04/2019 Leadership and Decision Making
Student Name Student ID
Luong Vien Tai S3651323
Lecturer/Teacher’s name Tutor / Marker’s name (if applicable)
Hung Thanh Nguyen

leadership and decision making

Introduction

Leaders play a vital role to the success of the organization and in leading their followers to
achieve firm objectives. Within an organization, managing employees is often challenging
and to achieve organizational goals is way more difficult when employees feel unsatisfied,
not motivated and not willing to follow orders. To address this issue, leaders need to have
multiple skills, knowledge and experiences as well as able to articulate the future of the
organization. An effective leader always understands their leadership styles, traits and
behaviors and apply it precisely to different people, their employees are more likely to be
motivated and have better performance when working with leaders who implemented good
leadership style. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze a successful leader
through their leadership traits and behaviors, this was conducted through interviewing. In this
paper, three main parts will be shown which are observation, feedback and analysis in order
to see whether observation is correct when compared with feedback part and to see what
traits and behaviors determine an effective leader.

Observation

Mr. Luong Vinh Nam who is a director of Vinh Phat Company that manufacture woven bags
and outside laminated bags. He has more than 15 years of experience in this industry and
manage more than 100 employees. He is an effective leader because he has the ability to keep
the firm growing annually and able to manage lots of employees. After a few interactions and
several time spending hours with Mr. Nam in his office, I have carefully observed and
analyzed his actions and the way he communicated with employees in order to find out his
leadership traits and behaviors. The observation has come to the end and I have figured out
that there are certain leadership traits that suits with Mr. Nam.

Self-confidence

First of all, self-confidence is a leadership trait that I can easily perceive through the way he
manages his employees. The term self-confidence is positively related to effectiveness, in
order words, confident leaders when solving problems are more likely to gain support from
subordinates and superiors due to their optimism and extra efforts in completing tasks in
order to have a desirable outcome, moreover, a leader with self-confidence traits tend to set
high objectives for themselves, willing to take risk as well as set high expectations for their
workers (Yukl 2012). In addition, if there is high doubt in a leader decision making then there
would be less trust received from followers (Kirkpatrick and Locke 1991). Mr. Nam show his
self-confident traits by providing clear expectation for employees, make no doubt to his
decision and take risk in certain situations.

Energy level and stress tolerance

High energy level and stress tolerance is the second leadership trait that I have found in Mr.
Nam during the observation. This trait demonstrates the degree which a person able to work
under pressure, function in chaos, cope with long working hours and meet demands of
customers (Yukl 2012). In Mr. Nam business, manufacturing process of woven bags can
often when into problem such as technical or human resource problems, these factors can
lead to late delivery for customers. Consequently, Mr. Nam need to keep track on his
employee performance regularly and maintain machinery in order for the process to run
smoothly. By doing this, he will able to deliver the product on time to customers, in turn, the
whole process brings pressure to Mr. Nam. In addition to make the right decision, he has to
stay calm, focus and give decisive decision to subordinates.

Power motivation (personalized power orientation)

A power motivation can be known as need for power, where leaders enjoy using their power
to influence subordinates in the organization. People who are lacking this trait are not desired
to direct group activities and they often believe that using power over any individual is an
unethical thing to do. In this trait, there are two type of power orientations that can lead to
different outcomes which are personalized power orientation and socialized power orientation
(Yukl 2012). After several interaction with Mr. Nam, I can observe that he is in line with
personalized power orientation. According to Torelli and Shavitt (2010), “people with a
strong personalized power motive strive for self-centered goals of influencing and being
praised by others to advance their status”. Personalized power leaders are often trying to keep
their subordinates weak and all decision making is centralized in the leader, subordinates will
be rewarded for doing great and received punishments for making errors (Yukl 2012). In Mr.
Nam business daily routine, employees usually ask him on what to do next or how to solve a
particular problem. Every day, Mr. Nam is quite busy in managing employees and making
decisions to all problems. Hence, from my observation, I can see that Mr. Nam is centralized
in all decision makings.

Task-oriented leadership
On the leadership behavior side, I perceive Mr. Nam is a task-oriented leader. This kind of
leader is focused more on the organizational structure and perceived employees as tools to
achieve firm objectives without having much attention to their motivation (Li 2016; Mattison
2010). In addition, the task-oriented leadership was derived from leadership behaviors
models at Ohio State University and University of Michigan and this behavior include
“operational planning, clarifying task roles, monitoring operations and performance quality”,
in order words, task-oriented leaders are highly demanded to achieve high productivity and
high product quality (McDougal 2011). In Mr. Nam business, product delivering time is
extremely important, hence, he always plan properly beforehand to every order received and
set high expectation for his employees to complete tasks on time. One of the employees in
company said that Mr. Nam is extremely strict during the time of order received until it is
completed, he clarifies a clear path for employees to follow in order for the whole
manufacturing process to run smoothly with number of errors is minimized. These behaviors
in Mr. Nam are known as task-oriented leader.

Situational leadership theory

The situational leadership theory is developed from two theorists Hershey and Blanchard that
evolved from the combination of task-oriented and people-oriented leadership (McCleskey
2014). The leader in this theory need to be flexible to use different leadership styles that
match with the condition and there are four types of leadership styles that consists in the
model of situational theory are directing, coaching, supporting and delegating (Lynch 2015;
Kest 2006). Based on this theory, different sets of behaviors will be applied to different
employees and it requires leaders to engage in varying degrees with the follower. From my
observation, Mr. Nam provides high directives to new employees who are lack of knowledge
and skills and use other leadership styles like coaching, supporting and delegating to
employees who are more responsible to work and have the ability to deal with problems.

Feedback

Carry out an observation is insufficient to capture the complexities of leadership as its unable
to provide a clear picture of a leader traits and behaviors. Therefore, a face-to-face interview
is a productive tool that I have used to get Mr. Nam to describe his leadership characteristics,
traits and behaviors.

Honesty & integrity

The two term “Honesty” and “Integrity” are represented the trustworthiness between leader
and followers and honesty leaders always open with their followers and reliable in carrying
out responsibilities. There is a formula that usually follow by most leaders who have honesty
leadership trait, which is “I will do exactly what I say I will do when I say I will do it. If I
change my mind, I will tell you well in advance so you will not be harmed by my actions”
(Kirkpatrick and Locke 1991). When a leader follows this formula, their subordinates will
know that this leader is worth of their trust, in order words, it creates credibility in the leader.
In addition, a leader with lack of this trait tend to decrease trust from followers which would
results in poor working environment where employees are unsatisfied (Washington et al.
2006). Based on Mr. Nam feedback, he said that he always consistent and follow to what he
said, and he believes that honesty is a leadership trait that employee will be more likely to
follow when comparing with other traits because if leaders follow rules then their employees
are likely to follow and vice versa.

Power motivation (socialized power orientation)

After receiving feedback from Mr. Nam about his leadership traits, I can tell that my
observation was just looking from one point of view without actually know the way that Mr.
Nam uses his power to influence his employees, in order words, the actual orientation that
described by Mr. Nam is socialized power. Leaders with socialized power orientation instead
of using power to influence others, they use their power to build up organizational
commitment where employees feel more responsible, not all, they are more willing to take
advice from subordinates and less likely to be autocratic (Yukl 2012). Based on Mr. Nam
description, he described himself as old-fashioned with knowledge gained is outdated and
difference from the younger generation, hence, he always asks his employees questions in
term of high-tech and selling online. Mr. Nam has a long-range view as he understands that
his experiences is not enough to bring the firm to develop further because it requires
innovations from creative mind of the younger generation. Therefore, Mr. Nam will not use
his power from the top downwards, but instead inviting suggestions from subordinates.

Relation-oriented leadership

Relation-oriented leaders are more concerned to their subordinate’s satisfaction and want to
motivate them through supporting and recognizing individuals (Li 2016). This kind of leader
prefer more participatory decision-making style that helps create interaction between
subordinates in order to reduce stress and increase productivity (Yan and Yan 2013; Mattison
2010). On the other hand, relation-oriented leadership also focus on tasks, outcomes and firm
objectives which is the reason why my observation went into a wrong direction. Throughout
the interview, Mr. Nam described himself as a relation-oriented leader, he always listens to
his employees and willing to take suggestions from them as he knows that his knowledge is
limited. Moreover, he also supports employees with extra money for those who are suffering
with long-term liabilities in order for them to come to work instead of hiding from creditor.
Mr. Nam is care for his employees and this characteristic is known as a relation-oriented
leader, at the same time, he also set high demand to achieve the organizational outcomes and
come up with proper plan beforehand. Hence, there is some sense of task-oriented leadership
behavior that shows in Mr. Nam along with relation-oriented leadership.

Situational leadership theory

In Mr. Nam point of view, the use of leadership style is depended on the situation, he said
that manufacture woven bags require lots of skills in term of machine operation and
technique to produce high quality product. Therefore, Mr. Nam need to work alongside with
his employees in step by step to guide them on how to operate a machine correctly. Because
the weaving machine is quite complex and it requires flexibility of workers in dealing with
problems, hence, Mr. Nam is quite strict during the training program in order to avoid
mistakes. In contrast, for those have gained the skill in operating machinery, he applies in
supporting and delegating leadership styles to motivate them by allowing them to involve in
the decision-making, this is considered as two-way communication instead of one-way
communication like directing behavior (Hershey et al. 1979).

Power and influence tactics

o Expert power

An expert is someone who have a high-level knowledge in a particular subject and expert
power is the way that leaders use their knowledge to influence subordinates. Subordinates
will perceive leader is a reliable source of information, hence, they will listen and follow the
instruction without any doubts (Yukl 2012). Mr. Nam has experienced in manufacturing
woven bags for more than 15 years; therefore, his employees will listen and ask advice from
him in relation to this field as they trust what he said.

o Proactive influence tactic (exchange)

 The influence tactic that Mr. Nam used is exchange tactic which is offering something
value to his workers to motivate them, these benefits includes tangible rewards, information
advice and career support (Yukl 2012). He said that increases salary is the most effective way
to increase productivity in workplace and he will continue to use this tactic to help employees
more responsible.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we cannot fully understand a particular leadership traits, behaviors, styles and
tactics that they used in managing employees by just only through observation. After
interviewing Mr. Nam who is an effective leader, I know that honesty, power motivation,
situational leadership, expert power and exchange tactics are leadership traits, behaviors,
styles and tactics in combination can create an effective leader. Mr. Nam is a great example
for me to understand the complexities of leadership and I would develop these traits and
behaviors in the future in order to become an effective leader like Mr. Nam.
References
1. Fiaz, M., Su, Q., Ikram, A. & Saqib, A. 2017, "LEADERSHIP STYLES AND
EMPLOYEES’ MOTIVATION: PERSPECTIVE FROM AN EMERGING
ECONOMY", The Journal of Developing Areas, vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 143-156.
2. Hersey, P., Blanchard, K.H. & NATEMEYER, W.E. 1979, "Situational Leadership,
Perception, and the Impact of Power", Group & Organization Studies (pre-1986), vol.
4, no. 4, pp. 418.
3. Jenkins, E.Y. 2010, The effects of leader task -oriented behavior on employee
performance, Regent University.
4. Kest, R.T. 2006, "PRINCIPLES OF LEADERSHIP: LEADERSHIP
MANAGEMENT", Futurics, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 52-71.
5. Kirkpatrick, S.A. & Locke, E.A. 1991, "Leadership: Do Traits Matter?", The
Executive, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 48.
6. Li, Y. 2016, The Impact of Leadership Behavior on Employee Engagement, Lawrence
Technological University.

7. Lynch, B. 2015, "Partnering for performance in situational leadership: a person-

centred leadership approach", International Practice Development Journal, vol. 5.
8. Mattison, O.Y. 2010, The relationship of leadership styles and organizational
commitment among substance abuse counselors, University of Phoenix.

9. McCleskey, J.A. 2014, "Situational, Transformational, and Transactional Leadership

and Leadership Development", Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 4,
pp. 117-130.
10. McDougal, C.M. 2011, Task-oriented leadership and nonverbal immediacy: Effects
on productivity and satisfaction, Lamar University - Beaumont.

11. Torelli, C.J. & Shavitt, S. 2010, "Culture and concepts of power", Journal of
personality and social psychology, vol. 99, no. 4, pp. 703-723.
12. Washington, R.R., Sutton, C.D. & Feild, H.S. 2006, "Individual differences in servant
leadership: the roles of values and personality", Leadership & Organization
Development Journal, vol. 27, no. 8, pp. 700-716.

13. Yan, L. & Yan, J. 2013, "Leadership, organizational citizenship behavior, and
innovation in small business: an empirical study", Journal of Small Business and
Entrepreneurship, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 183-199.
 14. Yukl, G 2012, “Leadership in organizations”, 8th Edn, Pearson Education, England

Interview transcript

What do you think are the characteristics of a successful leader?

From my perspective, I think honesty is an essential characteristic because becoming a leader

is similar to a role model, therefore, employees will follow what you do such as showing up
on time, you do what you said, follow rules and do thing ethically. On the other hand, if you
are lazy, irresponsible and untrustworthy then your employees would be the same. Moreover,
you are more likely to lose trust if you are not honest, losing trust is easy but to build it back
is a lot more difficult. In addition, I also think power motivation is an important trait because
leaders need to use their power to influence employees in order for them to follow the task
assigned, however, use power in every situation is not an effective decision. Sometimes you
need to ask for employees help such as operating new systems, research for high-tech or
selling things online. As I am from the past generation therefore, I would not know all of
these stuffs

Can you tell me how can you cope with conflict happen in your workplace?

When there is problem occur within the workplace, I often look at problem from different
views before giving out solution. Moreover, I also ask my employees to see how they see this
problem and ask them “how would you solve this problem”, the whole point of doing this is I
want to get their ideas on how to solve the problem, at the same time, help them to gain
experience in dealing with the same problem in the future.

What are the ways that you use to support your employees?

The way that I use the most and also the most effective way to support my employees is
rewards. I give reward for those have put efforts in work and highly contributed to finish a
particular task, in reverse, I also give punishment to who have made errors several times and
unwilling to do the task given. In addition, I really understand some of my employees who
have to live in a situation with long-term liabilities and creditor is demanded for payment on
time which makes them to leave and hide. Hence, I often make a deal with them by
supporting them and tell them to show up to work regularly.

What situational leadership (directing, coaching, supporting, delegating) will you apply
to your employees?
It depends on the employee experiences as different employees are having different
knowledge, therefore, I need to observe them before choosing a leadership style to apply into
that person. But usually I will use directing behavior to treat new employees in providing
them direction and I will use other styles for employees who have experiences and work for a
long period.