Functional leadership

Functional leadership

Leadership goes hand in hand with motivation,it is rare to find an effective leader who does not motivate others. Functional leadership training was first developed at the Royal Military Academy,Sandhurst as part of a programme introducing young officers to the responsibilities of leadership. But to fit the activities of industry and commerce,it was renamed Action-Centred leadership. Action-Centred leadership was basically the same as the functional leadership although the practical excercises and case studies where changed.

Instead of asking what good leaders are,a functional approach asks what they have accomplished,the advantage of this approach to leadership is that it is result oriented in the sense that it judges performance of leaders based on the results expected of good leaders,that means responsibility is on the leader to ensure results conform to plans because it does not criticise the people themselves but the one who leads them.

Functional leadership analysis also serves as a useful framework for understanding essentially different types of leaders,ie leaders with different traits and behaviours. This is so because actions by leaders are examined based on the purpose or function they serve.

FUNCTIONAL LEADERSHIP THEORY

This theory argues that the leader's main job is to see that whatever is necessary to group needs is taken care of; thus a leader can be said to have done their jobs well when they have contributed to group effectiveness and cohesion. (Fleishman et al., Hackman & Wageman,2005; Hackman & Walton,1986).

The fundamental functions of a leader are:

Direction: A leader directs his followers and chooses a path to follow,he describes their mission and goals and they channel more of their energy into ensuring that they achieve this goals.

Motivation: A leader has to find a way to convince people to have that desire or willingness to do something .Motivation is when people find work and its goals rewarding; they generally prefer team and goal oriented behaviour to non goal oriented behaviour.

Guidance: Leaders give advice of information aimed at resolving a problem or difficulty,they get information about progress and how to improve it.

Functional leadership theory model concentrates on how leadership occurs ,rather than focusing on who does the leading. It defines the types of behaviours that guide an organization and then looks at how those behaviours occur.

Functional Leadership Model:

Here,leadership is not centralised but distributed,it is not a question of who,but how,because people at all levels can participate in guiding the organization. In organizations,it is normal that decisions are made every time and opinions are formed. Functional leadership model does not look at who made the decisions but how this decisions are made. By focusing on the function of leadership,it is easier to see the thing or events that are influencing the organization even if the input ie coming from informal and unlikely source.

The functional theory of leadership places greater emphasis on how an organization or task is being led rather than who has been formally assigned a leadership role. To be effective, the group must clearly establish and understand the task,delegate responsibilities,identify resources and establish accountabilities and evaluate progress.

Functional Approach to Leadership

The functional approach to Leadership is based on the notion that there would be in any given group three area's of need. These needs are the task needs,team needs and individual needs. The task need is a prerequisite for the existence of the group, the team need is a structured approach in order to deal with the task at hand and individual needs are the needs of the individual that make up the team.

THE TASK

In a task,the supervisor's function can be put into six simple points:

• Defining the task: There is a need to identify and define the task at hand,this can also be termed as assessing the situation. Here there is a systematic review of the overall needs of the task from financial to logistic to human resource needs.

• Making a plan: Plans are formed based on the assessment above to carry out tasks successfully. Because they have assessed the situation to the best of their ability with the information available,they will also be able to make decisions about the level and quantity of resources that would be required.

• Controlling quality: here,project management skills kicks in,there needs to be struck a balance between the urgency or not of the task and the speed to which it would be completed.

• Checking performance against plan.: Also known in strategic management terms as controlling.variances are checked if any between the actual results and the preset objectives. There is close and careful monitoring of the progress of an operation so that developing difficulties can be speedily determined.

• Adjusting the plan: due to new developments of forces outside the control of the organization,plans might need to be reviewed to conform with the current issues at hand.

Team maintenance functions.

Tasks are accomplished by group efforts,and so for better coordination of activities,the following are part of the team maintenance needs

• Setting standards: The standards to be set must be clear and unambiguous and strictly adhered to. The leader should also ensure he strictly follows the rules so that he leads by example.

• Maintaining Discipline:They should be an inbuilt sense of discipline generated by healthy motivation. This would come from a shared sense of purpose and a positive attitude from management with a firm but consistent framework.

Building team spirits should be worked on and team building activities should be developed.

Individual functions.

individual functions include

• Attending to personal problem
• Praising individuals

• Giving status
• Recognising and using abilities.