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Flexible Leadership Approach to Individual Employees

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Flexibility is an important trait in leadership because it allows a leader to respond to

various situations by recognizing what needs to happen and executing the required actions.

Flexible leadership demands that the leader can rightly interpret a specific situation, come up

with the right response to it, and then execute this response to bring positive changes to the

situation. This trait is important for every leader due to the dynamic workplace where

changes require attention and ways to solve arising issues that may threaten the achievement

of set goals. The leader must be willing to alter their leadership style whenever possible to

impact organizational performance when dealing with others in the company, including

employees. Employees in an organization include people from different backgrounds with

unique personality traits, motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. Using a rigid leadership

style for these unique individuals and the situations they encounter in the workplace might

not be the best way to help them achieve organizational goals. Flexible leadership is

necessary when interacting with individual employees and their unique traits because it can

help them improve their performance at work, make them feel included despite their cultural

backgrounds, and increase their capacity to innovate in the organization.

Flexible leadership is essential when dealing with individual employees to boost their

performance at work. Since employees have different strengths, weaknesses, and experience,

flexible leadership allows a leader to notice what a specific employee in a department is good

at and assign them new tasks that align with this observation thus motivating them to perform

(Yukl and Mahsud, 2010). Assigning employees tasks based on their skills and experience

helps to boost their performance because they feel valued and this meets their needs in the

organization. For example, an employee may be deliberate about improving their skills on the

job and increasing their competence. A flexible leader should be in a position to notice this

and assign this employee tasks relevant to their growing skills, thus motivating them to

improve their performance. Such a leader will also be keen to find out the resources and
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support the employees need to adequately perform their tasks (Yukl and Mahsud, 2010). The

opportunity to get more involved in solving problems at the workplace or realizing new ways

to achieve the organization’s goals due to the flexible leadership that identifies the

employees’ skills allows these individuals to feel seen and increases their job satisfaction

which positively impacts their performance.

Flexibility is also important when managing employees from different cultural

backgrounds. As the world is becoming more interconnected, it is common for organizations

to hire employees from different cultural backgrounds or even set up in a foreign country.

Leaders in such organizations need to develop the appropriate leadership skills that allow

them to thrive in a multicultural workplace while embracing the cultural diversity of the

employees. Flexible leadership becomes necessary when communicating with employees

from different cultures, with the leader required to have the cultural intelligence that informs

their communication styles to fit the cultural norms and needs of the team (ET Special, 2023).

The leader’s effort to reach out and communicate with the employees at an individual level

based on their cultural norms and helping to make them feel accommodated allows for the

creation of an inclusive work environment that honours the multicultural organization. The

employees will feel valued because the leader includes empathy and active listening, thus

encouraging them to collaborate with others in helping to achieve the organization’s goals.

When employees from different cultural backgrounds feel unseen due to a lack of flexibility

by the leader, there is the potential for conflict to arise or other misunderstandings that hinder

performance. Flexible leadership is keen on solving the issues that may lead to conflict due to

communication breakdown while acknowledging the cultural context to help in averting

crises. A flexible leader should have the cultural intelligence to learn which communication

styles work with the employees and how to solve conflicts, leading to satisfied and motivated

employees who contribute to the set goals.

Lastly, a leader needs to be flexible in their approach to employees because it helps to

foster innovation that helps the organization stand out from its competitors. Leaders who

practice flexible leadership allow employees with skills in different areas or even from other

departments to communicate and collaborate, leading to innovations that can improve how

the organization works and also help it gain a competitive edge. Flexible leaders are skilled in

coordination in this case where they encourage skilled employees to reach out across

departments or even facilitate their meetings whenever the leader sees the innovation

potential (Kalogiannidis et al., 2022). A flexible leader understands that once they see

collaboration efforts from the employees, rigid behaviour such as the lack of support or

restricting contact with employees from other departments can limit innovation and

discourage individuals from attempting in the future. The leader needs to acknowledge that

the innovation process benefits the whole organization and efforts by employees to innovate

do not take away from their work but rather increase their commitment to the company

(Kalogiannidis et al., 2022). Therefore, it is up to the leader to contribute to a culture that

makes it conducive for employees geared toward innovation to thrive and come up with the

solutions that the company needs.

Flexible leadership is an important leadership trait when interacting with individual

employees. These people come from different backgrounds and have unique traits that help

them succeed in their roles at the organization. It becomes necessary for the leader to

discover these unique traits, skills, and experiences of the employees and align his leadership

approach to suit what the employees have. Flexible leadership includes the ability of this

leader to notice the unique traits of the employees and choose the right approach that will

help them thrive in the organization. This leadership approach can help to improve the

performance of talented employees, increase the commitment of employees from cross-

cultural backgrounds, and also foster innovation in curious employees who seek collaboration
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with others. It is therefore important for leaders to be flexible in their interactions with

employees to make them feel comfortable in the company and contribute to its success.
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Reference List

ET Special. (2023) September 18). ‘Global leadership and Cross-Cultural Management:

Navigating Diversity Across Borders’, The Economic Times, 18 September. Available

at: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/mid-career/global-leadership-and-

cross-cultural-management-navigating-diversity-across-borders/articleshow/

103475813.cms?from=mdr (Accessed: 17 March 2024).

Kalogiannidis, S., Chatzitheodoridis, F., Giannarakis, G. and Mavrommati, A. (2022)

‘Business Organizations’ Flexibility as an Innovation Tool: Factors Affecting

Flexibility in Organizations’, Journal of Logistics Informatics and Service Science,

9(4), pp.259-312.

Yukl, G. and Mahsud, R. (2010) ‘Why flexible and adaptive leadership is essential’,

Consulting Psychology Journal: practice and research, 62(2), pp.81-93.