8316-507 Becoming an Effective Leader

Unit Overview

8316-507 Becoming an Effective Leader is a unit within the ILM Level 6 module that focuses on improving the ability of the leaders to effectively influence their areas of responsibility. Leaders have a responsibility to ensure they coordinate activities within the organisation to achieve the set goals and objectives. This involves being able to effectively utilise assigned resources to achieve organisational goals and objectives. The leaders need to have the necessary skills and capabilities to influence other people in achieving the desired goals and objectives. Additionally, the unit helps the leaders to develop leadership styles that contribute towards meeting the organisational goals and objectives. This involves aligning the leadership behaviors and styles to the needs of the organisation to ensure they contribute to creating the desired behaviors aligned with organisational procedures and policies.

The unit focuses on improving the performance of the leaders in their respective areas of leadership and responsibility. The unit is aimed at providing the learners with an understanding of the various approaches that they can use to improve their performance from the leadership perspective. It improves their ability to effectively influence the stakeholders and resources to ensure that they efficiently and conveniently achieve the organisational goals. The unit is taught in 25 hours of guided learning and contributes 5 credit values towards the completion of the ILM Level 6 module.

Suitability of the Unit

Leaders should develop effectively to ensure that they positively contribute to organisational activities and processes. This involves ensuring that they become effective leaders by establishing leadership styles and behaviors that are aligned to the organisational goals and objectives. Leaders must understand different theories and modules that facilitate succeeding in different leadership duties and responsibilities. The process of developing into effective leaders included a better understanding of the organisational context, including both the internal and external customers of the organisation, understanding the policies and procedures that have been established within the working context, and understanding their personal performance as leaders within this organisation. As such, 8316-507 Becoming an Effective Leader is a critical unit for all leaders within the organisation as it provides them with the theoretical models that they can implement to improve their performance in different areas of responsibility.

The unit is designed for different stakeholders within the workplace. Middle managers are the main target of the content of this unit as it helps them to understand the approaches that they can use to improve their performance as leaders. It also improves the process of transition to achieve higher levels of performance in their areas of responsibility by facilitating improved performance. However, the unit is effective for other leaders within t eh workplace as it helps them to effectively assess themselves and improve their performance as leaders within the workplace. It ensures that they understand their weaknesses and strengths and implement development approaches that increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the leaders.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the unit, the learners should be able to:

• Review personal ability to fulfill key responsibilities for leadership roles

• Review personal ability to meet the stakeholder expectations and needs within the organisation

• Evaluate ability to use a repertoire of leadership styles in different situations with different people to ensure that they achieve the desired leadership goals and objectives

• Employ theories of emotional intelligence to review the effect of emotions on personal performance and the performance of others

• review personal ability to create direction and communicate effectively with others as well as motivate, delegate, and empower others

Key Learning Areas

8316-507 Becoming an Effective Leader focuses on understanding the different roles of leaders and the process of improving on achieving these roles and responsibilities. The main areas of learning include:

Leadership Theories and Styles

This area of learning focuses on ensuring that the learner understands different leadership styles and techniques that they can use within the workplace. Learners are introduced to leadership styles, including the authoritative, autocratic, laissez-faire, and other leadership styles that are applicable within the organisational setting. The learners are also guided to understand the leadership style that they can apply in the context of their organisations to facilitate the achievement of the desired goals and objectives.

Emotional Intelligence

This area of learning focuses on improving the understanding of the leaders on critical factors and issues that include the impact of emotion on performance. The area of learning also helps them to understand the approaches that they can use to influence others by focusing on their emotions and addressing barriers that could arise from emotions to impact the performance of the individuals. Lastly, the learners are guided to understand different principles and theories of emotional intelligence that they apply in improving their understanding of others within the workplace. Learners must be able to understand how they can influence the performance of others using a selected theory of emotional intelligence to ensure they derive the desired influence and motivation towards specific goals and objectives.

Improving Leadership Performance

This area of learning is critical in improving the ability of the leaders to influence others. It helps them to understand the theoretical models that they can use to impact the performance of other stakeholders within the organisational setting. The area of learning helps to understand approaches that the learners can use to ensure that they meet their needs and obligations to other stakeholders, including the employees, customers, and shareholders within the workplace. Additionally, the leaders are guided to understand approaches to improve communication with others and provide procedures and practices that are applied within their areas of responsibility.

Wrap Up

The process of learning in this unit involves both virtual approaches and classroom setting through lectures. The learners are required to complete a written assessment upon completion of the learning process in the unit. The written assessment evaluates the ability to accomplish learning goals and objectives within the workplace. The assessor can also use supervised practice and simulated exercises to determine the ability of the learner to use the content that they have learned within a practical setting.