Leadership, Teambuilding, and Communication
Charmaine Roundtree
Organizational Behavior
Professor Bob Nolley
November 29, 2014

The main reason for this assignment is to present how leadership, teambuilding, and communication affect an organization. The organization that was researched for this paper is Wegmans. Also, this paper will look at traditional, contemporary, and emerging leadership theories in which I will describe the most appropriate leadership characteristics in terms of leadership style. Secondly, discussing the interpersonal forms of power, showing how these characteristics impact organizational performance. Additionally, organizational stressors will be examined to determine their likely impact on organizational performance as well as how they can be addressed. Finally, potential sources of conflict within the group or work team and communication barriers will also be discussed to show how they impact this organization.
Traditional, Contemporary, and Emerging Leadership Theories There are many different types of leadership styles from traditional, contemporary and emerging theories. As it stated in the text book, “Leadership in organizations is the process of guiding and directing the behavior of people in the work environment.” (Nelson and Quick pg.193). Traditional leadership is defined as a style where power is given to the leader. The traditional styles of leadership are autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire. An autocratic leader is considered to be an authoritarian. They possess the power to dictate their will on employees and will not hesitate to do so if needed. A manager that uses this leadership style does not consult or allow their employees to give any input in decision-making process. Employees that are not self-motivated, who need structure, and need direction and motivation will thrive under this leadership style. The democratic leadership style is much different from an autocratic leader is such ways as they will collaborate with their employees. A democratic leader gladly receives team input and promotes group discussion and decision making. They encourage employees to work without restriction with each other in a group setting and give them the decision-making power. One challenge a democratic leader has is not recognizing that should make some decision alone instead of giving that power to their employees. The laissez-faire leadership style imposes the hands-off approach. They give their employees the freedom to make decision without their participation. This approach allows employees to be more productive and effective within a job setting. The laissez-faire style gives employees confidence in their abilities to do their job and allows them to stay motivated and become more successful. The contemporary leadership style is when a leader uses their power to influence and motivate employees to achieve the goal that are set for them. Contemporary leadership styles are charismatic, transformational and transactional. “Transactional leadership style is based on an exchange of service for various kinds of rewards that the leader controls, at least in part” (Leithwood, pg. 8). A transactional leader has the ability to identify the rewards that will motivate their employees to achieve their goals. In comparison, transformational leadership is defined as “the collective action that transforming leadership generate empowers those who participate in the process” (Leithwood, pg. 10). A transformational leader has the ability to encourage and motivate their employees to performance at their highest level. However, a charismatic leader uses their personality and charm to have profound and remarkable effect on their followers. They are verbally expressive, and are able to communicate with their followers on a deep and emotional level. In accordance with Nelson and Quick,
“charismatic leadership falls to those who are chosen (are born with the