8605-406 Developing Your Leadership Styles

Unit Overview

8605-406 Developing Your Leadership Styles is a unit within the ILM Level 4 module which helps to improve the ability of middle level managers to use their selected leadership skills and principles to influence the performance of the organisation. Being in positions of leadership management requires the individual to have the ability to influence and pursue a specific style of leadership that is aligned to their skillsets and focuses on achieving organisational goals and objectives.

This ensures that the leader is able to objectively impact the organisation performance as well as creating consistence in the leadership patterns that they develop hence contributing to success within the teams or areas that they lead within the organisation. 8605-406 Developing Your Leadership Styles is a unit focuses on helping the learners to achieve this sense of focus that helps them to identify different leadership theories and techniques and hence select the set appropriate for them.

This unit contributes in ensuring middle line leaders are able to impact the teams purposely by selecting the style that is convenient to the responsibilities that they are assigned within the organisation. The main aim and purpose of the unit is to develop own leadership style that helps to improvement the managerial performance of the individual as well as other overall organisation performance. The learners are also helped to understand the connection between leadership theories and performance of the human resource being led. The unit is covered in 10 hours of guided learning and contributes 4 credit values in the completion of the ILM Level 4 Module.

Suitability of the Unit

All stakeholders need to develop specific styles that they implement in achieving the tasks and responsibilities assigned to them within the organisation. 8605-406 Developing Your Leadership Styles is however designed to suit the needs of middle managers. Middle level managers require to understand the specific duties that they are required to play within the organisation setting and develop the necessary models of leadership to achieve this duties.

This unit suits the middle managers as it ensures they are able to select the model informed by their leadership skills and capabilities as well as provide them with the opportunity to grow and develop their skill range hence facilitate continuous improvement. However, the unit is not limited to middle managers, regional managers, departmental heads and top management can all use the information and skill provided within the unit to improve their performance in their areas of responsibilities.

Junior managers and team leaders are suited to the unit as it prepared them for higher levels of leadership within the organisation as well as provides them with information that they can implement in their current leadership position to ensure that their efficiency and productivity is improved.

Learning Outcomes

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

• Understand the impact of engagement with followers within the organisation on their leadership and management performance

• Assess personal leadership skills and styles suing provided diagnostic tools

• Assess the effectiveness of personal leadership styles within the organisational context and in their areas of responsibility

• Develop as self-assessment plan that evaluate its the implication of personal leadership styles to organisation

• Evaluate the impact that changes in various situations and contexts affects the efficiency of the leadership style adopted

• Evaluate the factors that influence the leadership effectiveness

• Assess leadership behavior based on the factors impacting leadership effectiveness

• Create a development plan of personal leadership style and effectiveness

• Identify specific benefits associated with implementing the created action plan

• Identify various approaches that can be used to evaluate and monitor the efficiency of the action plan

Key Learning Areas

8605-406 Developing Your Leadership Styles focuses on improving the understanding of contextual leadership. The learners are guided to build an understanding of the contributions that they can take within the organisation based on the leadership style that they adopt. Some of the key areas of learning that this unit focuses on include:

Leadership Styles

In this area of learning the learners are first introduced to the principle foundations of leadership including understanding the definition of leadership and the need for performance and engagement with followers within the organisation.

They are then guided to understand the different models and theories of leadership that can be implemented in the organisation such as emergent leadership, development of leadership thought, servant leadership and consultative leadership.

Tools Informing Leadership Behavior

Leadership styles are developed based on leadership behaviors. The learners are informed on approaches that effective leadership behaviors can be developed to ensure that the leadership styles that they build is aligned to organisational goals and objectives as well as the context within which they are managing. The learners are introduced to tools such as leadership profiling, MBI, FIRO, 16 PF, ISC and OCEAN which can inform the leadership behaviors.

Implication of Personal Leadership Behavior on Others

Middle level managers need to have situational awareness that helps them to understand the approaches that they can use to impact the people that they lead to achieve the desired responses or outcomes. This area of learning helps the leaders to conduct a situational analysis effectively to understand the skill sets and leadership approaches that are effective in specific situations.

Also ensure that their leadership abilities are significantly improved within the organisational content. It also helps to understand the implications of personal leadership styles in different contexts within the organisation as well as understands theories associated with motivation of the individuals that are being led or managed.

Personal Development

This area focuses on improving the ability of the leaders to develop positive trait that can be used to achieve the desired levels of managerial performance in their areas of responsibility. The learners are guided through the process of assessment and analysinga feedback to understand current behaviors, strengths and weakness. They are also helped to generate SMART goals that they should achieve in implementing an action plan to improve their performance as leaders.

Evaluation

On completing the unit, the learners are evaluated to determine accomplishment of learning goals and objectives. This process involves completing a written assessment that tests the retention of theoretical content that has been learned in the classroom, virtual or traditional. The learners are also tested for practical ability to apply the learned principles using case studies or simulated exercises.