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After considering all of this week’s reading assignments and the exercises with upward and downward leadership, I can say with certainty that my organization is following “The typical vicious circle for leaders” on page 152 (Obolensky, 2010). This cycle has been happening in the organization since before I was hired back in the summer of 2008. During my first years of hire, I was told that this was the typical way of conducing business where: “Followers ask for advice (which demonstrates low skill to the leader) followed by the leader getting concerned. The leader then takes a more hands on approach followed by the follower’s confidence lowers. This then causes the follower to think he or she has to defer more to the leader, which turns to the follower asking for more advice demonstrating to the leader a low skill level” and the cycle once again continues (Obolensky, 2010).

Now that I have learned more with the MSLD program, I see that this is not the correct way for any organization or leader to conduct business. Handling or conducting business in this type of way just causes more confusion, employee exhaustion, and stress on everyone. Imagine if more than one leader was conducting business in this type of way. This type of leadership just causes the entire organization to act or react slow to changes in this new, faster, always changing business environment. This vicious cycle causes the leader to focus more on the small details of the organization rather than the bigger picture. Meaning, the leader now focuses on the details of each day-to-day tasks rather than on the overall completion of weekly and monthly tasks. For example, in my organization it would be leader focusing on the small cleaning details of the store rather than dealing with departmental issues such as machines breaking down, employee exhaustion or the next ordering of product. Overall, this will cause the organization to lose focus on what is happening around them (competition), on the organization’s strategy, goals, objectives, which in turn will cause the leaders of the organization to act slower and adapt later to the changing conditions of the environment. Ultimately, it can cause the organization its business.

Unfortunately, since I have not had much experience with management, I can only apply what I have learned in the MSLD program to the next organization. Therefore, creating a new cycle that would promote strong followership and even leadership at the lower levels in my past organization would require involvement from all levels of the organization. In my opinion, the best option that could start helping the organization by promoting followership and even leadership in lower levels would be the Level 5 Followership. The levels are as follow:

Level 1: Wait to be told – this is where individuals just sit back and wait to be told what to do next

Level 2: Ask to be told: - In this level, individuals go up to the leader and ask what to do next. (Both of these first levels are unacceptable)

Level 3: Seek approval for a recommendation – This is the level where individuals are unsure what to do and has an idea, but seeks approval from the leader before acting.

Level 4: Seek approval for action undertaken – In this level, individuals have taken action but are unsure if the action taken is the correct one and therefore, seek approval from the leader

Level 5: Gets on and informs in a routine way – This is the best level for any follower and leader to be working on. In this level, the follower informs the leader routinely the action taken (Obolensky, 2010).

Leaders within the organization must realize that the lowest acceptable level of followership should be level 3. If individuals are working in any other lower levels then the confidence of the individual should be built up over time in order to create the support needed for the next higher level of followership. In my opinion, in my organization followers lack some of the skills but majority of the employees lack the will. Since skill/will and Level 5 Followership go hand in hand, I believe that using Level 5 Followership will be most effective in order to build both skill/will and followership at the same time. Obolensky uses the following phrases in order to help leaders respond to a certain level of followership in hopes of building the trust, comfort, skill/will, knowledge, and in response the followership of the follower for the next level.

Possible responses to:

Level 1 – “Why did you not come and see me?” or “Ask me next time!”

Level 2 – “What would you suggest?” or “Go away and find out the options”

Level 3 – “Why are you asking?” or “Next time just do it and let me know!”

Level 4 – “Why are you telling me?” or “Next time just include it in the report/meeting” which builds to the Level 5 followership (Obolensky, 2010).

By leaders just starting out with these small simple steps, the entire organization can benefit from this now greater pool of knowledge that is educating and gaining at the same time. The biggest benefit for the organization is that these simple steps do not involve any financial backing. This will actually help the organization by being more effective with customers, which means more sales for the organization. The next biggest benefit that management will gain is the freer schedule of the supervisors, which means that supervisors will now be able to focus on departmental needs by keeping the strategy, goals and objectives of the organization in mind. Supervisors will now be more focused on the bigger picture of the organization.

Reference:

Obolensky, N. (2010). Complex adaptive leadership embracing paradox and uncertainty. Farnham, Surrey: Gower.