Analysis of Leadership Thesis

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Leadership-scenario analysis

The case study on which this analysis will predominantly be founded is on the management of a teenage prison. Medway Secure Training Center (MSTC) was managed by G4S at the time of the expose of the mistreatment that the teenage offenders held therein. The undercover footage that was captured over a number of days within the center by an individual who posed as a trainee depicts gross cases of teenage physical and psychological torture as had never been seen before in the outside world. The video footage depicts the G4S staff charged with taking care of the teenage offenders mishandling the teenagers unnecessarily even with no or little provocation. The training session captured in the video clearly gives the guidelines on how the teenagers who might turn rogue should be retrained without use of excessive force. The training gives a detailed and professional way of handling the teenagers in a manner that is safe for both the officers and the teenagers. The things an officer can do and those he has to completely avoid. However, the scenario changes when the officers get to the holding areas where they work. The rules do not tend to matter in any way and the use of excessive force seems to be the order of the operations therein.

Of greatest concern and noteworthy is the physical harm that the officers inflict on the teenagers without caring if they would result into permanent injuries or not. The officers are seen to unnecessarily want to restrain the teenagers even in situations where the use of physical force was not necessary at all. Worse still, one team leader is seen to intentionally inflict pain on an already injured finger of a youth as a means of torture and control. The officers are seen to psychologically torture the teenagers through verbal abuses and scare tactics like punching the wall to intimidate the youth. The officers are also seen not to be worried about the ills they perpetuate within the institution. As a matter of fact, they are seen to conjure lies in several instances and even go ahead to record those lies as the detail in the reports. The officers are seen to confess that they care more for the report that would make them retain the contract to operate the center than the conditions of the teenagers who are supposed to be rehabilitated. They write reports that are in line with the favorable requirements to maintain the funding. The teenagers are left in their rooms after the harsh interaction with the officers mentally and physically exhausted, angry and with sentiments of revenge.

In line with administration and leadership, the happenings within the center as discussed above are seen not to be a one off event, but ingrained into the organizational culture and each person seems to be comfortable with the trend. The duty operations manager is in charge of the center but there seem to be little indicating that he actually takes charge of the activities. It is either he had grown complacent of the ills happens without his attention. The team leaders display violent trends and inconsiderate attacks on the teenagers, yet the team members, like the undercover G4S, need to learn from them. The new custody officers are nurtured into the trend and they are told what to write in the daily report and not to truthfully report the incidents as they happened. This is an organizational culture that raised anger and fury of the nation when it was aired by the BBC (Hammond R., 2017).

In a rejoinder, the Medway improvement board recognized the challenges that were aired by the video footage and also agreed that the activities of the custody officers were wrong, a fact that saw several of them suspended. There were also various loopholes that this board came into agreement about and sought ways through which to improve them. Before they came up with their recommendations and report, they significantly engaged many stakeholders, including past and present teenagers in the center.

Situational analysis

The central concern of this analysis henceforth will be to look at the role of leadership and how good leadership would help in shaping the future of the MSTC. Of particular interest herein, is the transformational leadership and the role of effective communication in the achievement of the transformational leadership agenda within a setting like the MSTC where there are different categories of recipients of communication like the teenagers and the duty officers as well as the team leaders.


Transformational leadership

This is one of the most renowned leadership approaches within the corporate world and one that has gained wide acceptance across the globe. Its main approach is an empowering perspective that mainly banks on motivation and the resulting commitment by the members of a given team under the leader. Basically, leadership as opposed to management is concerned with fostering change. The effective leader is a change agent while a manager is concerned with the preservation of the status quo. Eldership is also seen as a collective or group process and hence cannot be left to an individual to undertake. This is one thing that MSTC needed urgently, so that the staff members and the officers may take ownership of the process and become responsible for the outcome of the entire rehabilitation process under a capable leader. Leadership should be concerned with fostering change, it needs to be value based and should be a team process. This is what essentially defines what transformational leadership is according to Astin A. & Astin H., (2001).

A transformative leader is focused on developing a vision that appeals to the values and ideals of the followers and communicating the same to them. This could have been the missing ingredient in MSTC since the officers never seemed to know or follow the primary vision of the management which is to transform the lives of the young offenders entrusted into their hands and make it better for the future. Instead, they broke their spirits even further.

Under a transformative leader, he will aim at creating a sense of loyalty, trust and fairness among the people he is leading. The MSTC urgently needs these values to be inculcated among the officers and among the teenagers serving their time. The officers need to trust each other and make the teenagers trust them too. They need to trust their team leaders and the officer in charge of the center, at the same time they need to be trustworthy. The transformative leader would have the aim of reforming the attitude of the people working under him and in effect increase the performance or the output of the team. The MSTC officers needed to badly transform their attitude towards their work and towards the teenagers in order to help change their lives for a better future. Here, the transformational leader who would take over MSTC would be on a continued quality improvement model individual.

There are characteristics that a transformational leader has as follows; he must have significant influence and in this manner act as a role model who practices whet he believes in and what he teaches others and expects from others. He should also be one who has inspirational motivation in that he encourages and motivates others. To do this, he should be one who can articulate the shared organizational vision I a manner that the employees can find meaning and also commit to working together towards achieving the organizational values. The transformational leader also has individualized consideration in that he is able to gibe person-centered care and can personalize the interactions he has with the employees as he encourages and appreciates the efforts of each individual towards the performance of the organization. He is a person who has intellectual stimulation in that he fosters creativity and innovation among the employees trough giving them challenges and elimination of barriers for the employees towards engaging in quality improvement activities. When MSTC gets a leader with these above characteristics, then it is certain that the vices that are experienced within the center will be effectively dealt with as the leader will help the employees buy into his ideals and vision and in effect implement them towards making the center change the already compromised name.

In the case study herein, the transformational leadership will be essential in ensuring the management and the running of the center….....

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