Business and Management Research (Leadership topic) Coursework

Business and Management Research (Leadership topic) - Coursework Example According to several eminent authors around the world, leadership activity plays critical roles in initiating the actions of the organization, motivating the workforce, providing guidance to the team followers, building a proper working environment and also coordinating with the upper management in order to ensure smother work flow (Duke, 2009; Mackay, 2007; Harrell, 2008). This segment of the study will undertake a critical review of the article, â€Å"Combinative aspects of leadership style and the interaction between leadership behaviours† by Gian Casimir and Yong Ngee Keith Ng. This journal article was published in the year 2010 in Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 31 No. 6, and can be found in pages 501-517. The authors carried out this study for the principal purpose of testing an alternative standpoint of interaction, which is purely based on the technique or way leaders amalgamates various leadership behaviours (Casimir and Ng, 2009). The two principa l leadership behaviours considered by the authors are socio-emotional leadership and task oriented leadership. The subsequent section of the study will enumerate brief summary and review the findings of the paper. In addition, this paper will also critically review the study by Gian Casimir and Yong Ngee Keith Ng in the context of its weaknesses and strengths. Review and Summary of the Paper The study by Gian Casimir and Yong Ngee Keith Ng was about examining the interaction between socio-emotional leadership and task-oriented leadership. According to the authors, there were two major underlying principles for which the subject of study was opted. The first and most important reason was that these two leadership styles have always been the centre of attention when it came to test of interaction in the field of leadership literature. The second reason was that the authors identified that a number of day-to-day organizational leadership involve attitudes and behaviour that can be arti culated as task oriented behaviour or socio emotional behaviour (Luthans, Hodgetts and Rosenkrantz, 1988; Judge, Piccollo and Ilies 2004; Komaki, 1986). Lastly the topic of interaction is also considered to be significant (Blalock, 1965; Cronbach, 1987). In the meantime, it is also necessary to define the two leadership style being discussed here in the study. A proper definition will help in better understanding of the subject and will also help in reviewing and summarising the paper. Task oriented leadership is often deemed as multifaceted and encompass wide range of behavioural traits (Glass, 2010; B. Bass and R, Bass, 2009; Northouse, 2011). Some of the typical function of task oriented leadership is allocation of resources, assigning the particular job to the followers, emphasizing on the deadlines, to cross check whether the followers are actually following the rules and regulation and maintaining the decorum of the organization and pressurizing the followers to work hard towa rds the achievement of the goals (Delamater, 2006; Heinemann and Zeiss, 2002; Lussier and Achua, 2009). Therefore, from the perception of the authors, it is evident that one of the most vital features of a task oriented leader is pressurizing the followers to accomplish the task in timely manner by delegating the tasks as per the capabilities of the followers (Misumi, 1985). On the