1

Leadership and Your Career Paper

Leadership and Your Career

Lori Dooley
University of Phoenix
MGT 521 Management
Group ID: PA16MBA03
Dean Tripodes
April 25, 2016

Leadership and Your Career Paper

Leadership can be defined as a process by which one individual influences others toward
the attainment of group or organizational goals ("What Is Leadership?", 1996-2016). In
leadership, there are four leadership theories used. They include task-oriented behavior,
relationship-oriented behavior, passive behavior, and transformational behavior. With my
personality and work method, I feel that task oriented leadership is best for me. Task-oriented
leadership is more of behavioral approaches were the leader focuses on the task that needs to be
performed to meet individual goals. According to Kinicki "The primary purpose of taskoriented leadership behaviors is to ensure that people, equipment, and other resources are used
in an efficient way to accomplish the mission of a group or organization."
Effective task management can vary in different areas of a task. These tasks include
status, time, assignments, priority and reoccurrence. Communications are efficient when it leads
to shared understanding and communication skills these skills are critical in determining
whether a message will be recalled and embraced. To be an effective leader, there has to be
interaction and communicate with associates. Communication will create trust, respect, and
commitment to the leader and team members. An effective leader, knows how to reach the team
by having open communication which allows team members to feel comfortable with their
leader creating an open door environment for concerns to be address. This also allows for open
communication to discuss aspirations and future career goals with the company.
As with any leadership style task oriented leadership has both strengths and weaknesses.
These strengths are clarity of purpose and precise task definitions, communicating where they
want the task to take their associates and also the organization. Task-oriented leaders organize
task and ensure group member understand their each role within the team. This type of
leadership style is well suited to structured work environments, such as law enforcement and

Leadership and Your Career Paper

manufacturing assembly lines, in which repeating well-defined processes usually results in

consistently high levels of productivity and quality ("The Strengths & Weaknesses Of A TaskOriented Leadership Style", 2016).
Weaknesses of a task-oriented leader are fear of breaking the rules, which could lead to
the fear of taking a risk or stepping out of the box. This could result in the demoralization of the
team and associates finding attractive opportunities elsewhere due to the lack of creativity and
innovation. A task orientated leader must ensure that even though they are focused on the task
they need to encourage creativity and seize opportunities for calculated risk in certain situations.
An example of task-oriented leadership would be Project managers, especially those who
are building ships or skyscrapers must be task oriented to manage vendors connected to bills of
material and all of the detailed project timelines ("What Is Task-Oriented Leadership? Keeping
Detailed Projects On Schedule", 2016). Task-oriented leadership styles require step by step
planning, defining structures for the department, setting goals, prioritizing specific outcomes and
implementing schedules.
In my current role as an AP/AR Specialist, it is important to stay on task and meet each
deadline: therefore, this is why I am a task oriented leader. I am the type of leader that makes
sure that the team meets deadlines by the due date on or before the appointed date. Although
there are only two on the team, I try to motivate my team to want to meet these deadlines
monthly and encourage open communication and feedback on how to meet those deadlines.
Along with open communication, I also encourage my team to work together as a team.
According to "Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams" (2015), "teams have grown
considerably over the past ten years and technologies help companies extend participation on a
project to an even greater number of people." My current role along with my associate's roles are

Leadership and Your Career Paper

very deadline driven, so it is imperative to stay on track and meet a deadline to ensure we as a
company does not miss it. By missing a deadline or missing a due date in my department, it can
cause the inability to purchase inventory product or supplies to make the product. By missing a
deadline, it can affect our sales, which in turn will effect accounts payable and receivables. Also
missing a bill due date can result in termination of services for a branch, electricity being shut
off, or the branch not having any water. In conducting research for these papers, I can see my
associates may get burn out due to the day to day rush to meet all of these daily and monthly
deadlines. As a task-oriented leader, I rarely break the rules; I stick to the routine and try not to
deviate from it. When reading this chapter, I can see a lot of things that I am doing right. I have
an open communication policy with my team, and recently the team has expressed that they are
becoming bored because they have been doing the same job for such a long period of time.
Since having this conversation I have deviated from this same routine every day and I have
changed the responsibility for each team member. By having the team crossed trained, we are
still meeting our deadlines. I have also created monthly potluck meetings. By having the
potlucks, it has created a time for us to relax and step away from the day to day rush to meet a
deadline. By making some of the changes, it has allowed my team to grow and get to know one
another better than before. While meeting the international, east coast and west coast deadlines,
there is little time to talk and get to know fellow team members unless collaborating with them
on a task. By getting to know each team member it has allowed the team to work on different
weakest and has enabled them to grow in different areas Not all departments agrees with my
way of being a task-oriented leader, but I believe it works the best my department. We all have
different ways of learning, communicating and leading, and it is imperative to notice that in a
leadership role.

Leadership and Your Career Paper

In conclusion, we have seen that a task-oriented leader is one that never breaks the rules
or deviates from the norm. As every leadership style, there are pros and cons. We saw that a
positive aspect of task-orientation leadership was communication. Communication is essential in
any leadership role but especially with a leadership style that does not break the rules the
majority of the time. I have realized through this paper that although I am very task oriented it is
ok to break the rules sometimes and encourage creativity for my team.

Leadership and Your Career Paper

References
Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams. (2015). Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2007/11/eightways-to-build-collaborative-teams
The Strengths & Weaknesses of a Task-Oriented Leadership Style. (2016). Retrieved from
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/strengths-weaknesses-taskoriented-leadership-style37835.html
What is Leadership?. (1996-2016). Retrieved from
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_41.htm
What is Task-Oriented Leadership? Keeping Detailed Projects on Schedule. (2016). Retrieved
from http://online.stu.edu/task-oriented-leadership/#history