Functional Leadership: When Every Member Leads….!!

The team is an indispensable component of the modern organization, and there is a need for leaders throughout the team. In fact, the need for “leaders at all levels” is one of the 12 critical issues identified in the Global Human Capital Trends survey published in 2014 by Deloitte University Press.

It is important to understand what makes it possible for a leader to have significant influence, and what are the things that leaders do that make the most difference. All sorts of organizations have faced the crucial issue of finding good leaders. This is why, so much effort is put into training people to channel their ability to lead and take charge.

21st century leaders face the challenges of meeting demands of global fluency and flexibility, building the ability to innovate and inspire others to perform and acquiring new levels of understanding of rapidly changing technologies and new disciplines and fields. A key part of the solution to face these demands is by developing leadership pipelines at every level. Every individual member in a team needs to be equipped with

The critical skills needed to succeed, by coping and being able to lead in the most uncertain situations.

The book Collaborative Intelligence: Using Teams to Solve Hard Problems examines what the most effective leaders of teams do. The authors suggest that about 60% of the success can be attributed to the basic conditions the leader puts in place when the team is setup. The next 30% is attributed to how the leader who puts the team together, breathes life into the team. The final 10% depends on how well the leader coaches the team along the way.

A functional leadership style has the following characteristics:

• Priority is given to primary needs
• Focus on actions
• Result-oriented
• Flexible leadership role
• Clear understanding of individual responsibilities
• Organized and well-structured
• Ensuring every member feels sufficiently appreciated
• Ability to control every situation
• Behaviour that can be emulated
• Providing appropriate guidance

Adopting a functional approach to leadership allows every individual involved with the team to exercise leadership, take initiative and accomplish whatever is required in order for the team to do well, strengthen the performance conditions, and get problems solved. The best performing organizations are the ones with a broad and deep leadership teams.