individual memo of leadership

8/13/2019 Individual Memo of Leadership

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INDIVIDUAL MEMO:

Introduction:

Leadership is in a form of a dimension which shows if the leader is either a member of a group and

thus he or she belongs to a part of the teams task cycle (call it internal) or the leader is not a

member of the group and controls day to day activities from outside the organisation (call it

external) (Frederick, 2009). Talking about leadership, we look into two most important types of

leaders that are responsible for changes that happen in the company and how they are tackled very

efficiently (Frederick, 2009). Internal leadership or it is also called as formal leadership are leaders

who are formally assigned and are members of a group. Such types of leaders are generally called as

team leaders or project managers (Frederick, 2009). Such leaders have responsibilities which are

shared among team members (Frederick, 2009). The other type of leadership is external leadership

and they are formally assigned leaders who are chosen from outside a group and are not members(Frederick, 2009). They are leaders who do not perform teams day to day tasks. Such types of

leaders are generally called as team sponsors or advisors (Frederick, 2009). Such type of leadership is

when individuals from outside the group come to the organisation when the team have critical

needs. They are referred in general to as team mentors or champions (Frederick, 2009). When

compared with an internal leader who has been with the organisation for a long time will be better

than the leader from the external source. So in this analysis, I have analysed the advantages of

leaders from the internal source by referring from various journals and other sources. Though the

leader from the external source may bring new ideas, the leader from internal source will be a team

player and with ideas from experience that were more suited to the organisation.

Summary:

First of all, to incorporate an external hire or leader it takes a lot of effort and hard to deal with than

what an internal leader can do especially when dealing in a management position (Mellish, 2012).

But it can also be the other way around. Management is all about knowing how to communicate

efficiently in the organisation (Mellish, 2012). Internal leaders have the advantage in a native

perspective which greatly increases their efficiency (Mellish, 2012). Another advantage that can be

considered is that it makes it easy to gather information from employees or gain feedback, by a

person who has been in the organisation for a long time (Mellish, 2012). The information collected

by an internal leader is far more detailed on an employees success and failures than the information

collected by an external leader (Mellish, 2012). But using an external leader would bring about new

ideas into the organisation than a qualified internal leader (Mellish,2012). Organisations should also

focus on improving their ability to greater talents externally (Mellish, 2012). From a case study, there

was one such organisation that were heavily influenced by an article which stated that 50% of

training being done within organisations have helped for the betterment of the organisation. The

organisation realised that they have not done any training or brought changes. They then decided to

have coaching within the organisation. Thousands of leaders were being trained based on the skills

they had and this had a major impact on the organisation leading to success. This also brought downthe cost and effort to bring in external change leaders (Mellish, 2012).


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The leader from within the organisation is far better than those from external source for the

following reasons as Mr.Goleman uses the following to show internal leaders are more influential

than external leaders.

Coaching:

This method that is being used on developing individuals and this is to show them how to make

improvements on their performance and to also help them to reach their goals and the goals of the

organisation (Alan, 2012). Coaching works best for the employees who are willing to show some

initiative and to grow more by learning and bringing in professional development, the internal leader

knows what is best for his team (Goleman, 2012).

Affiliative:

This kind of style accentuates the importance of team work and this helps in creating harmony in a

group and this in turn helps in connecting people to each other (Alan, 2012). This kind of approach is

particularly valued when the leader wants to strengthen the team harmony, increase morale and to

improve communication or to repair broken trust that might have occurred in the organisation (Alan,

2012). This can be achieved by an internal leader as he is from within the organisation.

Democratic:

The internal team leader uses this kind of style that draws in the knowledge and skills of people

working in the organisation and this creates a group commitment to the resulting goals (Alan, 2012).

It is said to work best when the direction which the organisation takes be unclear and that the leader

needs to tap in all the collective wisdom acquired of the group (Alan, 2012). This type of method

might seem strange but it has been working well in many organisations.

Pacesetting:

The internal leader sets high standards for a better performance in the organisation by setting

himself up as a dependable example (Alan, 2012). He or focuses more on doing things better and

faster and so. This is setting the pace for employees to work hard and accomplish (Alan, 2012).

Commanding:

The external leader will use what is called a military leadership. The probably more often used by

this leader but it is least often effective (Alan, 2012). This type of method rarely involves praising aperson and also frequently employs criticism (Alan, 2012). This undercuts morale and job satisfaction

of employees (Alan, 2012). The external leader will use this to establish a firm stand in the

organisation and used in their system of operations (Alan, 2012). Mr. Goleman says that it can be

only effective when there is a crisis being faced and there is an urgent turnaround required.

External leaders will initially perform very badly than the workers who are entering the job from

within the organisation and they have higher exit rates (Matthew, 2011). Even if thats the case,

external leaders are being paid more and they have more of strong observable indicators of ability

when they are measured in terms of experience and education (Matthew, 2011). When looking on

the negative side of an internal change leader, they may be too busy to implement another skill and

activity (Rock, 2004). Coaching needs skill and takes years to master it (Rock, 2004). When it comes


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to an external leader, he would have more experience in handling the issues in the company. It is

statistically proven and it is evident that it took as much as three years for external leaders to

achieve performance levels in the organisation (Gerry, 2012). Also the fact that external leaders

were paid about 15% which is more than what is being paid to internal leaders and thus making

them more expensive (Gerry, 2012). Another study has proven that external change agents were

more likely to use the traditional Organisation Development values and these were associated with

more of human procession interventions (Thomas, 1990). Internal leaders focused more on techno

structural interventions and that they used more of an extensive programme evaluation which

brings about improvement and success in the company (Thomas, 1990). Some of the problems that

were being faced by internal leaders in an organisation were as follows. When a member in selected

form within a group for the position of an internal leader, it tends to cause issues for the other

members and it causes them to express lower satisfaction overall and also the voluntary efforts are

lowered for non-rewarded participation to follow up changes that are newly brought up in the

organisation (Jeffrey, 1975). The unstructured group in the organisation have rated internal leaders

to be more positive than external leaders which received a negative response when a study wasconducted (Peter, 2006).

Conclusion:

Internal coaching definitely helps make a difference. It is all based on how the coaching is designed

and implemented to make sure of the organisations vision and change strategies that help (Rock,

2004). Research results have shown that internal coaching given by internal change leaders makes

more of a significant impact on the candidates with improvement on retention, productivity and

performance (Rock, 2004). There are good competency levels of internal change leaders and this

makes them more efficient. Internally motivated leaders motivate their employees to match up with

their own internal burning up desire to bring out innovators in every employee (Glenn, 2011). This

helps employees to become more critical in their thinking (Glenn, 2011). They start to be more

aware of their own employee brand and to be in alignment of the organisations goals (Glenn,

2011). External leaders have their own advantages but internal leaders make it more advantageous

and have brought success to many organisations.

References:


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2012. http://www.hci.org/blog/should-leadership-hiring-only-be-done-internally (accessed Sep 26,

2012)

Bidwell, Matthew. "Paying More to Get Less The Effects of External Hiring versus Internal

Mobility."Administrative Science Quarterly56, no. 3 (September 2011): 369-407.

http://asq.sagepub.com/content/56/3/369.abstract (accessed Sep 26, 2012)

Case, Thomas L. et al. "Internal and External Change Agents." Leadership & Organization

Development Journal11, no. 1 (1990): 4-15.

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Crispin, Gerry. "Opinion Which Are More Valuable: Internally or Externally Sourced

Candidates?" Paying More to Get Less: The Effects of External Hiring versus Internal Mobility(April

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sourced-candidates/ (accessed Sep 25, 2012)

Daum, Jeffrey W. "Organizational Behavior and Human Performance". Internal promotion - A

psychological asset or debit? A study of the effects of leader origin13, no. 3 (June 1975): 404-413.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0030507375900598 (accessed Sep 27, 2012)

Kilmann, Peter R, and Wayne Sotile. "The effects of structured and unstructured leader roles on

internal and external group participants."Journal of Clinical Psychology 32, no.4 (21 February, 2006):

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JCLP2270320427%3E3.0.CO;2-E/abstract (accessed Sep 28, 2012)

Llopis, Glenn "Is Your Organization's Leadership Internally or Externally Motivated?" Forbes

Magazine 5 Jul. 2011. 26 Sep. 32

Morgeson, Frederick P. "Leadership in Teams: A Functional Approach to Understanding Leadership

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Murray, Alan. "Leadership Styles." The Wall Street Journal Guide to Management(2012):

http://guides.wsj.com/management/developing-a-leadership-style/how-to-develop-a-leadership-

style/ (accessed Sep 27, 2012)

Rock, David and Ruth Donde. Driving Change With Internal Coaching Programs. Sydney, Results

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individual memo of leadership

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