Behavior Based Theory: Application to Self

Of the behavioral models and theories we have discussed this week, the one that I find the most compelling is the Participatory leader. I think it provides a fairly reasonable middle ground between more task-oriented or authoritative leaders and more people-oriented or delegatory leaders. With participative leadership, there is a focus on the task at hand, but it still allows for some room to test out ideas from other members of the team. This ensures that the task gets completed in a timely manner, while still helping to build a relationship with the rest of the people you work with. I tend to compartmentalize, so to speak, when it comes to my work and leadership style. If there is something that needs to get done, I tend to be more authoritarian and task-oriented. I will tell my team specific instructions and make sure that everyone is doing exactly what I tell them. But, if there is time where things are a little slower, those are the times I take to work on growing positive relationships with my team members. I am task-oriented, and I am people-oriented, just never really at the same time. My goal as a leader is to have great relationships with the people I work with. However, I think it is important to make sure that all the work is getting done.

I would like to say that it would be very simple for me to apply a participative leadership style to my work, but this is not really the case. In my position as a Manager with the City of Vacaville Aquatics Department, this is a little challenging for a few reasons. The first is that a lot of the procedures we have in place are there by law for safety reasons, so they do not allow room for the team to give input on what they think would be a better way to complete a task would be. The second reason it would be hard to implement is a good majority of my team are teenagers, many of whom it is their first real job. So a lot of them really need specific instructions on what to do and how to do it.

I WOULD like to implement a participative leadership style in the future, but I think I w

ould have to work on it in a different setting where there was a little more room for trying new things. Overall, I think that the participative leadership style seems to be the most balanced of the theories and styles that we discussed this past week in our Behavior Based Theory unit.