Friendship for Good Leadership

Leadership is in many times mistaken by some leaders for something bigger than what it should be. Many leaders are far distanced from their employees in social relationship and this has greatly and negatively impacted on performance and compromised service delivery and quality of output. Leadership can be described as the process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. According to Alan Keith of Genentech, Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen. However, a number of leaders take leadership to seek respect and self-gratification. They want themselves exulted by those under them not for what they have done for their institutions and organizations but just for the seat they occupy. It is visibly ironical and should be ridiculed by the average human kind. The result that comes with a leader is what should make his subordinates respect them for they will have justified beyond doubt that they qualify to occupy the seat they occupy. Such bossy leaders make life complicated for their employees. They regard themselves as more important than those they lead and they forget to remember as Achebe said, “Those whose palm kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble.” Such leaders ignore the fact that friendship between the boss and the subordinate directly relates to performance and employee motivation. Some employers think that employee motivation largely depends on the pay but high pay is relative, for what one employee calls high pay may not be it for the other employee. But one big thing that works on employee motivation even perhaps more than the pay is the good relationship with their employers. The employee like any other person wants to feel important, appreciated, acknowledged and feels that they are loved at their work place. Friendship in this case should not be misinterpreted in other sense. The leader only relates well with those he/she leads for purposes of result attainment and creating a good working environment for the employees and himself. Teachers and psychologists know the power of friendship with their students and or those they want to help out of a complicated situation respectively. When a student likes and or loves a given teacher, the former will endeavour to avoid any misconduct that may spoil the good relationship. Such students try to be active in class; they are punctual, smart and exemplary. Personally, my high school literature teacher was my great friend. He pampered me, said good of me… and in return I worked hard to impress him besides the desire to pass exams. I subsequently passed literature with a distinction and later studied literature for my B.A. This is the extent to which good relationship can impact in a school environment; the same is always true even at the work place. My first job as a Director of Studies in a Secondary School was just the same. I enjoyed very good relationship with my boss and this, I believe greatly impacted on my performance. To make my point clear, I got about three job offers that were more paying but I hesitated to resign my job where I enjoyed good boss-subordinate relationship until I convinced my boss that I needed to change the job with clear reasons than just high pay. Up and until now, I enjoy good relations with my first boss and am looked at as a partner in the school’s management issues. B. F. Skinner, the father of Behavioral theory of leadership developed the concept of positive reinforcement which he says occurs when a positive stimulus is presented in response to a behavior, increasing the likelihood of that behavior in the future. The following is an example of how positive reinforcement can be used in a business setting. Assume praise is a positive reinforcement for a particular employee. The employee does not show up to work on time every day. The manager of this employee decides to praise this employee for showing up on time every day the employee actually shows up to work on time. As a result the employee comes to work on time more often because the employee likes to be praised. In this example, praise (the stimulus) is a positive reinforcement for this employee because the employee arrives at work on time (behavior) more frequently after being praised for showing up to work on time. Thus the use of positive reinforcement is a successful and growing technique used by leaders to motivate and attain desired behaviors from subordinates. This is simple psychology that employers should tryout. Empirical research covering the last 20 years suggests that reinforcement theory has a 17 percent increase in performance. Additionally, many reinforcement techniques such as the use of praise are inexpensive, providing higher performance for lower costs. Robert House (1971), the proponent of the Path-goal theory of leadership says that the essence of the theory is the ‘meta proposition that leaders, to be effective, engage in behaviors that compliment subordinates’ environments and abilities in a manner that compensates for deficiencies and is instrumental to subordinate satisfaction and individual and work unit performance. For example, expressions of positive moods by leaders signal that leaders deem progress towards goal to be good. The group members respond to those signals cognitively and behaviorally in ways that are reflected in the group processes. Thus group members (employees) with leaders in positive mood experience more positive mood than do group members (employees) with leaders in a negative mood because the leaders transmit their moods to the employees through the mechanism of emotional contagion. It is therefore important that leaders know how to harmonize performance with employee satisfaction for performance comes from the employee. Just like the example of a lactating cow. It will not produce the same liters of milk when under terror or fear as it produces when cuddled and under a terror-free environment. As institutions and organizations strive to achieve their set goals and targets, it is important that the employers value their employees much more than they do. Much as employees want a better pay, the work mood and relationship with the boss at the work place matters a lot. However, the employees also should prove to the employers that they are worth to be appreciated and that the good relationship is two way. The employer has to have a reason to be friends with you, the employer from your performance, your conduct, active involvement in the issues of the organization. The employee needs to show that they are part of the organization they work for. intarepaul@yahoo.com