Leadership, Teamwork, and Communication Competence

Leadership can be defined as the ability to guide others toward a common interest as a form of influence.  Leaders exhibit task and relational oriented behaviors. Followers of a leader and customers are most satisfied when they see their leaders exhibit these two roles. A conceptualization of leadership that is comprised of task and relational behaviors  is however considered as the styles approach of leadership. Employee's satisfaction is an area of interest by business and communication scholars since satisfaction is basically related into job performance. Organizational communication satisfaction involves an individual satisfaction with various types of communication in an organization. However the organization member's communication satisfaction primarily depends on the information that they get.     

The changes in markets and technology, lead ultimately to changes in corporate management.

The high speed at which these changes occur, confronts the executive with huge challenges both of a strategic and personal nature. In future, corporate executives will need to have at their disposal an integrated and comprehensive knowledge of the corporation. They will need to develop an

Understanding of global strategies, local sales and marketing concepts and culturally adjusted ma-

Management principals. Achieving this will demand innovative competencies and team leadership. Leadership is a challenging role one has to undertake since it involves risk taking and maximum surveillance of the employees in the cooperate perspective. For one to be leader one has to be competent and skillful for instance an employee who is to be promoted into management role has to have demonstrated high experience and competence in his or her field of practice. A good leader is the one who gets thing done by the team he or she leads and can be identified through individual value characteristic point of view (Ridgeway, 1993).

Leaders should have good leadership qualities like: as leader you should be a thinker, think critically on how to evaluate data that you have, look into problems and solve them analytically, innovate through creativity, make good decisions and also make judgment even under uncertainty. As a leader you should be a manager, that is, you must manage time, meetings and debates, projects and preferences, funds and budgets, workers and disseminating information. Communication is another key aspect of a leader. He is supposed to be good in writing, presenting, public speaking, listening carefully, clarifying a point, giving feedback and also receiving feedback. Developing team work can not be left out. He should be in a position to understand group development, foster team building, utilize diversity, celebrate success with his members, handle team changes and plan for the output.

It is important to know an individual's values. Although Values strongly influence a person's perception, attitudes and ultimately the behavior; Knowledge of an individual's value system can provide insight into his/her leadership capabilities. Leaders should be a person who has: Effective communication and listening skills. Good communication skills help in good leadership since frequent communication with the employees. A leader has to communicate effectively and persuasively to get things done. For instance their may be conflict and to resolve it persuasive communication and good listening skill is the most appropriate tool to be used. A good communication and listening skill is also a tool of learning like in conferences where learning is mainly done through oral communication and good listening skill. Effective communication mainly involves: issuing of questionnaires and checks to employees. Questionnaires help in reflecting leadership performance, team conflict needed adjustments and getting required feedback in the leader's field of practice.  Holding of effective meetings,

Effective meetings are a good tool of problem solving and enhancers of good team work relationship. Meetings help in decision making, morale building, and correction of mistakes which may have resulted to failures, recognition of performing employees, and goal settings among others. Understand his or her role: A leader has to understand his or her role which is building commitment, relationships and facilitating interactions that result in outstanding performance.

With each management promotion, the management tasks increase in comparison with technical or content-related assignments if the issue is guiding the team, department or even the company as a whole to success. As such, technical competence is progressively becoming less important than leadership competence.

When one has learned that a promotion was the result of a high level of technical competence, then it is hard to accept that other skills are now more decisive for success. One must recognize that recognized that technical competence is no substitute for leadership. Beside technical competence, the competence of a leader is comprised of the following important factors which are; management competence, communication competence, conflict competence and culture sensitivity.

A leader has to develop leadership skills which are help leaders to become stronger and more confident. This can be done through; definition of leadership(difference to management)-tasks and roles of leaders, leadership styles and their influences to the organizational/team-different management methods and techniques-cooperative or directive leadership(pro/con)-resonant coaching includes different styles, leadership skills as; -active listening and effective communicating-problem-solving, communication in difficult situations-holding effectively appraisal/feedback interview-managing a goal-planning session or meeting-using effective meeting skills-delegating and managing tasks-motivating and developing your staff. Also leadership questions and checks for reflecting on management and leadership qualities, looking on conflict and conflict styles, employees morale and gain recognition, management of stress and work satisfaction

The team should also have management skills. The focus I first concentrated on team performance. The primary aim is to develop a differentiated diagnosis of the performance capabilities. Various performance parameters of the team adopted are more like: qualification profiles, relationship network, and balance in the team triangle, factors of effective meetings and different phases of team development.

The second focus is on the question of what makes the difference in team leadership. This however is addressed with regard to leadership competence; it shows you which value concepts facilitate achievement of team leadership, how work preferences influence the team leader's work relating to their management personality, how changes in the team work can be directed and resolved, diagonization and integration of culture into leadership strategy. Managers of today cannot copy the managers of the past since today their roles are more challenging. There are changes which are more complex, more frequent and more rapid than ever before. Their roles can be defined into three areas: communizing the territory which is concerned on the purpose , vision and goals of the organization to key constituencies and also outlining disadvantages and opportunities, building commitment and relationships and also facilitating interactions that come after an over thrilling performance, through other efforts and owns effort they produce  results and outcomes. Therefore to become an excellent leader, roles and responsibilities of managers require a great understanding which leads to leadership competences.

Success is however not an n act but an attitude of the performer. An interactive leadership seminar that focuses on developing leadership competences that helps in exploring attitude and expanding values. This however depends on the individual demand of the partakers and t5he competence focused on this program includes bringing forward the following competences. The competence of leading employees which deals with the examples of the boss rule, giving orientation and providing a learning culture, being in a position of a coworker coach and knowing the team dynamics dialogue and conflicts. The competence of entrepreneurship which focuses on; outcomes future and innovation, ability to make decisions, motivation and demoralization. Competence of personal authority. This looks on the stability integrity, radiation and courage among the team members and also the consciousness of own rules. The competence of relationship which focuses on the capacity for teamwork and networking, how to negotiate whenever there is need, cooperation and good communication skills. The competence for change. This on the other hand looks on the know how of the changing processes and culture, the different types of conflict, conflict moderation and how to handle with resistance.

The link between leadership competent and competent communication has however got limited attention by scholars in business and in communication. Communication shapes ones perception as leader and it can further be divided into the leader's messages and how they are presented. Messages sent by leaders are said to have both effective and cognitive strategies. When leaders effectively communicate their vision they win the confidence of the team in communication satisfaction. Leadership is enacted through communication in such a way that it contains a relational and task competent. In addition if leaders communicate effectively the followers experience greater satisfaction.

Competent individuals must not only achieve their goals but also do so accordingly. Communication competence can be associated with the elements of motivation, skill behavior and effectiveness. Competent interactions on the other hand can be termed as away of interpersonal influence in which one is faced with the job of fulfilling communicative functions and goals while maintaining conversational and interpersonal norms. It can also be argued as a way of displaying competence in areas such as listening and negotiating. Leaders of today are required to lead by negotiations due to employees changing their work where they are experienced and are educated on. Leaders have to persuade these workers to follow their vision and to do so they require communicating effectively. On the same issues leaders and supervisors need to respond to information in good time, actively listen to other people point of view, communicate well into all levels of the organization and also make use of communication channel which people are comfortable with (Scamti, 2001).

Every department has to know the basic  concepts of interpersonal relations, customer service, and communication, the importance of upholding policies and decisions, and when to make exceptions, tools for resolving conflict4,treat others with respect, fairness, and consistency, Seek, give, and accept constructive feedback from coworkers, supervisors, and users. Resolve conflict in a positive and productive manner, and judge when situations should be referred to a supervisor, write clearly, logically, and concisely. They must also select the most appropriate medium for communicating, based on the language, communication styles, and needs of diverse receivers. Listen effectively and transmit information accurately and understandably. Use approachable and welcoming behavior with all users. Anticipate and maintain awareness of users' needs and wants in order to provide or improve services. (Wageman, 1997)

However it is good for any leader to his or her weaknesses and try and work on them rather than forcing the so written good qualities of a good leader. One should use his attitude, strength and develop working strategies to overcome weaknesses. Communication and teamwork competence are the key values for one to develop his qualities.