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This is a Clilstore unit. You can link all words to dictionaries.

LEADERSHIP AND PROBLEM SOLVING

SKILL: MAKE DECISIONS

 

TITLE: LEADERSHIP AND PROBLEM SOLVING  

 

SUBTITLE: 



EQF LEVEL: 2

 

Keywords 

 

  1. Interaction
  2. Common goals
  3. Decisions 
  4. Speed
  5. Reports
  6. Creativity

 

Introduction 

By the end of this unit you will know the difference between the two main types of leadership, and understand their influence in situations where the group is called upon to solve a problem. 

Content 

What is leadership? 

An influencing process, aimed at building consensus on what needs to be done and how to do it; it involves the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts in order to achieve shared goals. 

The purpose of leadership is to influence the behavior of individuals to pursue common goals that are different from those of the individual. It is a phenomenon that emerges from the interaction of a group working together. 

We can distinguish two styles of leadership, different and opposite in terms of mode of interaction and function. 

In directive leadership, there is one key figure, the leader, who is often described as charismatic, strong, and able to engage and guide employees. The leader sets tasks, policies, procedures, and rules. They  take control of situations and use peremptory and directive communication. Power, responsibility and all decisions are centralized on them  as group members are not allowed any influence on decision making and there is no attention to their personal needs. For this reason, there are often tensions within the group. 

On the opposite side is participatory leadership. The focus shifts to leadership as a group process that must take into account the situation and the people. 

This style emphasizes the goal to be achieved, its understanding and sharing, and facilitating the work of the group. It maximizes the effectiveness of the group in terms of productivity and satisfaction related to the achievement of results, experienced by all as relevant. It is relationship-oriented and focuses on providing emotional and motivational support. 

The goal is to increase each person's awareness of their own value and importance, and to facilitate interaction with other group members. According to this concept, every member of a group can make constructive contributions.

In practice, there is no one style of leadership that is better than the other; you have to pay attention to the context, the activities and the objective to be pursued. 

…is the one that offers the best guarantee when it comes to moving quickly from decisions to actions, it proves useful in contexts where speed and efficiency are considered important in the execution of a task ,such as emergency situations.  

In some contexts, directive leadership may be more useful because it provides speed and efficiency. Emergency situations for example, often require quick decision-making and efficient action to solve an impending or critical problem.  

Participative leadership may prove more useful, however, in those contexts where, in order to achieve a goal, processes require the development of creativity and transformation of ideas. One of the benefits of participative leadership we can see in problem solving. 

Problem solving is a complex mental act, where modes of information processing, data evaluation and judgment making, action planning and anticipation of consequences converge. 

Group problem solving is a desirable work technique in any environment because the potential of individuals to solve problems can be amplified by the contribution of the group

But let us take a closer look at what the group contributes to a problem solving process. Why is it preferable to sustain the chaos generated by several "conflicting" minds instead of following a single voice? 

First of all, more people means more resources; mental resources in terms of perspectives to the problem, but also operational resources. More people can bring into play different perspectives and varied options that can be used creatively. 

A second contribution is the ability of the group to support more extreme processes. On the one hand, concentration increases, but so does the stimulation of divergent thinking, ending with greater involvement in decision making. 

The benefits of developing problem solving skills within the work group on the one hand benefits, therefore, the work itself and the solution of any critical situations; on the other, if the problem solving process is shared and distributed in the group and therefore supported by a shared leadership, it helps to organize the group itself, making it more cohesive and giving voice and space to each … (missing noun), exploiting the strengths of the individual and encouraging a climate of psychological safety. The latter is considered a key element in enabling groups to perform at their best. In a safe environment, where communication is open and comparisons are encouraged, people will feel more involved and more likely to take responsibility and risks and develop creative thinking.

 

Language point: Personal Pronouns

 

Substituting the personal pronouns He slash She (He/She) with They in 

                      speaking and writing. 

 

Three or four decades ago, writing he slash (/) she was the norm and was not considered much of a problem when writing and speaking. The pronoun ‘he’ was used because the masculine form was dominant. Then, we lived the years of seeking political correctness and gender equity, and the personal pronoun ‘he’ became more often ‘he or she’ or ‘he/she’ until we realized that reading paragraph after paragraph of he/slash/she quickly became very tedious. If we wanted to remain gender-neutral, we needed to avoid ‘he’ or ‘she’ and the option most readily available to us was ‘they,’ which is a gender-neutral pronoun, but plural.This is now considered correct when writing and speaking in English. 

 

Let us consider the following examples that have been taken from the text above:-

 

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