Phat trien kha nang lanh dao MBA (bản dịch tiếng anh)

Development of leadership skills

TRAINING PROGRAM
GLOBAL ADVANCED MASTER OF BUSINESS
ADMINISTRATION

FINAL EXAM

DEVELOPMENT OF LEADERSHIP
SKILLS
Lecturer:

Professor Soren Kirchner
PhD.

Leaner:

Class

: GaMBA4.C165

HCM City – May/2012
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Development of leadership skills

TOPIC:

Individual assignment (Assay)
Choose one of the following issues

1. Theories of leadership
2. Analyze and compare between “leadership” and “management”
3. Styles of leadership
4. Qualities and skills of a leader
5. Authorization and empowerment
6. Methods of leadership skill development
To build an essay. It is better to choose a real problem to analyze the current state of
your organization

SOLUTION
TABLE OF CONTENT
I.

INTRODUCTION

II.

ANALYSIS

1. What are the authorization and empowerment?
2. Benefits of the empowerment
3. Barriers of the empowerment
4. Principles of the empowerment
5. Methods of the empowerment
6. Factors of successful empowerment
7. Some examples of effective empowerment.
III.

CONCLUSION

1. Summary
2. Recommendation
IV.REFERENCE:

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Development of leadership skills
I.

INTRODUCTION:

Successful maintenance in the business context is increasingly filled with
constant demands and the uncertainties to be a difficult task. Organizations can only
overcome this task if there is full cooperation and enthusiasm of staff
Typically, when we refer to the success of an organization, people think of
leaders. But really, the leader who decides vision, orientation, implementation of
such vision and orientation depends on a great effort of the staff
One of the major skills of leader is empowerment. The empowerment is the
transfer of powers and creation of independence so that staff may focus on working,
and they understand their contributions and promote their capacity itself The
empowerment is also a change in management perception: workflow management
is based on the final results, and does not depend on working hours as before.
It is realized that the Empowerment is an extremely effective instrument for
human development and organization, I have learned and studied to better
understand such empowerment so that my work is better and my life is also
comfortable.
II. ANALYSIS
1.

What are the authorization and empowerment?

a. The concept of the empowerment, authorization
In modern management system, the empowerment is an important content.
There are several concepts of the empowerment as follows:
- The empowerment means the transfer of powers to employees to encourage
them to participate more in decisions and activities that directly affect their work.
When empowered, they will have the opportunity to promote their initiatives, new
ideas, apply them at work efficiently and actively (1)
- The empowerment is to transfer the relevant units to decide accordingly,
increase the autonomy of the units in the overall management strategy. Thus, you
can enhance the sense of responsibility, inspire the creativity of subordinates, then
the your superiors can focus on studying the macro issues for the stable
development of the organization (2).

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Development of leadership skills
- The authorization is the transfer of certain powers to subordinates to
implement, the subordinates will be allowed to handle problems, make decisions
within their authority in charge, the manager and subordinate will be responsible
respectively. In other words, the manager assigns to subordinates to complete the
work which he does not perform directly, while the subordinates can fulfill (3).
2.

The benefits of the empowerment:

- The leader can assign the technical, professional and detailed works to
others, and then he will concentrate on more important things.

- The empowerment helps subordinates control the corresponding works,
consistent with talent training of managers n the company.
- The empowerment helps the leader detect capability and potential of
subordinates.
- The empowerment will enhance the capacity of subordinates, they will be
fun to work
- The empowerment drives the work to proceed smoothly, because every job
should be arranged and planned to work more flexibly.
3. The barriers of the empowerment
Although the empowerment has many benefits and inevitability, but also
faces difficulties from the leader and subordinates.
a. The leader often commits some major errors below:
- The leader believes that he is very brilliant, but his subordinates are
incompetent or in qualified to work, so he does not want to empower to them.
- The leader believes if the empowerment is used too much, it will affect his
position in the organization and enterprise.
- Great ambition of power, the leader thinks that the power will be greater, he
may be more capable than others, and he feels to be enhanced when people have to
ask his opinions.
- Urgent or important, even confidential affairs shall be directed by the
leader.
- The leader does not know how to empower, the working method is rigid,
lack of flexibility, he does not want to empower or not know how to delegate.
b. In terms of subordinates:
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Development of leadership skills
Sometimes the superior wants to empower, but the subordinate may returns
to the superior, this cause the "anti-separation of powers". The cause of this

condition may be:
- The subordinate does not want to be risky, or burden to take responsibility.
- The subordinate does not want to be criticized, or receive the empowerment
of the superior.
- The subordinate is lack of confidence, does not dare to get the
empowerment of the superior.
- The subordinate does not have enough references and sources of capital to
be raised.
- The subordinate is allowed to return the responsibility.
- The leader can not refuse the request of the subordinate, and receives the
power from his subordinates.
4.

The principles of the empowerment:

a) Estimation of capacity: depending on each job to choose people,
capabilities to empower. The workload should not exceed limits of subordinates to
accept and nature of the work must not be too difficult, so they must avoid to work
beyond their capacity.
b) Respect: The empowerment of subordinates should not be chores,
unimportant affairs, the subordinates will think that their superiors do not appreciate
them.
c) Similarity: it is required for the leader to assign the appropriate authority
for closest officers at work, because they understand the situation, professional
skills, able to perform effectively the authority as delegated
d) Clear definition of responsibility: It is an extremely important principle.
The manager must define clearly who is, and what their responsibilities, objectives
and powers are, they should be informed what they will assign on natural resources,
human resources, financial and material resources to help them handle problems at
work.

e) Responsibility: it is required to empower without doubt. The French
President Giac Si-rac said: "My solution is to authorize and trust, because, if you
use the human resources appropriately, among their decisions, up to 95% that you
will also do so if you stay in their position."
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Development of leadership skills
f)

Relationships: it is required to pay attention the following relationships:

the first one is a direct relationship between superiors and subordinates; the second
one is the consulting relationship horizontally to empower any specialist to advise
any issue; the third one is to empower to the secretary without any conflict of the
direct relationship; the fourth one is pay attention to the coordinative relationship
with the equal levels.
g) Action: Under the premise of relative stability, the empowerment may be
changed by actual requirements
h) Encouragement: Along with the empowerment, the manager should
encourage, and stimulate his subordinates, and also show their weaknesses to be
improved to develop actively promote their properties.
i) Classification: To facilitate the empowerment, and improve the work
performance, it is required for use to rely on order, type, softness, hardness of any
work, to establish the structure, and empowerment by classification.
j) Moderation: the empowerment must be moderate, the leaders will be too
busy if he rarely empowers to his subordinates, positiveness of the subordinates will
be impaired; the work will be confused if the leader often empowers to his
subordinates, thoughts of the subordinates may be chaotic, even not be controlled.
The empowerment must be sufficient so that the subordinates can fulfill absolutely,

the empowerment must not be unscrupulous.
5.

The methods of the empowerment:

- The empowerment is to ask the subordinates to do any task and make plans
for action, and create the necessary conditions, if the subordinates are flexible and
good at capacity, then this method may be used.
- The empowerment is not fully a method so that the subordinates may
understand the preliminary situation, provide options to the superior for
consideration and approval.
- The empowerment is flexible in the different operational periods, using
different forms of empowerment.
- The empowerment is bound after the job is assigned to two or more groups,
the groups are obliged to monitor each other to limit errors.
6.

The factors of successful empowerment:

6.1 Select any person to empower:
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Development of leadership skills
Orders of the leader must be followed, and executed seriously. This is the
first principle which the subordinates should comply with. Some subordinates’
attitude is not progressive if their opinions are not accepted, such subordinates
should not be empowered. So who should be empowered?
-

Empower to any person who knows their rights

The subordinates must know their powers, what they must not decide. If any
problem happens beyond the scope of their powers, then it is urgent to take opinions
of the superior. If any individual negotiates arbitrarily with the superior, it means to
disable the direct leader, this is taboo.
- Empower to any person who takes responsibility:
Some subordinates always provide many reasons to remove if they cause any
mistake. It is not necessary to empower to such individuals
-

Empower to any person who knows to control:

The subordinate should not rely on their leader, this will increase the burden
of such leader, and such individual are also very difficult to grow. It is required to
delegate to them if necessary at work. In situations are not beyond the power, he
must rely on his judgment to handle the job. This is a good officer who is desired by
the leader.
- Empower to any person who takes directly responsibility if the superior is
not present:
Some employees always forget their duties when their superior is absent. In
fact, the staff should take responsibility alternatively if his superior is not present.
Then it is required to report the occurrence and the processing to the superior after
she comes back. Or the employee shall record and report to the superior clearly.
- Empower to any person who may answer any question of his superior
whenever:
Many officers often ask their subordinates to respond to their superior, such
officers can not manage employees and jobs, and it is difficult for them to become
assistant of the leader
6.2. Empowerment replies on the competence of the subordinates:

The modern manager must know to distinguish the capacity and qualities of
his staff. In the world, the leader may not know how to manage, and talents are
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Development of leadership skills
always used; the human talent is important, but it is more increasingly important to
use.
So how to implement the management methods to put any talent in any
respective positions? First of all, if employees want to adapt in the certain limit;
they should actively act, develop, practice themselves at work, accumulate
experience. In addition, the positions can also be changed with the actual situation,
different times; different positions, and the capacity requirements are also different.
6.3. Public empowerment
The public empowerment will make the employees in other departments who
will be empower by the leader to avoid conflicts at work later, and incompliance
with orders. The public empowerment proves that the leader is respected understand
his responsibilities, then he will be more positive at work, they work more
efficiently.
6.4. Empowerment must be firmly grounded
The empowerment must be grounded, it is better to prepare any decision in
writing. Such method has the following advantages: firstly, if any person does not
obey, such documents can be used to prove; secondly; identify the scope of
empowerment, prevent abuse of the subordinates or the subordinates "resist the
empowerment"; thirdly, the leader should not handle any work which is assigned to
others.
6.5. Do not take back the power if the subordinate cause any mistake
If any task is empowered today, then it will be changed tomorrow, some
disadvantages can occur: firstly, if you do so, it means that you have empower
improperly; secondly, after recovery of the power, it is difficult for you to handle

any work, it is easy to rise to unwanted side effects; Thirdly, the subordinates are
easy to feel that they will not be reliable or trusted, even deceived. Thus, they may
be doubtful, resentful their superior naturally.
6.6. Accidental or intentional recovery of the power
This situation is rarely occurred. The empowerment is not essentially limited
to empower to others, psychologically, any reference also proves that you have
announced to recover your power as assigned.
6.7. The empowerment also exists the "forbidden zone"
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Development of leadership skills
The empowerment also exists the forbidden zones, the empowerment will be
used effectively when it is delegated properly. Typically, the "forbidden zones" is
entitled to approve plans for permanent development; and arrange the important
affairs; technical renovation and technical improvement orientation; determine the
legal legislations, organizational structure; decide the direction; monitor the status
of important activities; rewards, punishments in the relatively sensitive cases;
policies in issues relating to all aspects of operation ...The said powers shall be held
by the leader, if such powers are assigned to the subordinate, the superior is easy to
turn into "a puppet" and he is "nominal" only.
6.8

Promotion of strong points of the assignee

Each person should work in areas where they are skilled, master the skills in
such fields, the leader should pay attention to this issue. We often see: the director
of a computer software company is a software specialist; the director of an
advertising company is a leading figure in the field of advertising design, the
director of a music company can be a talented musician ... Thus, it is important for

the leader to pay attention to strong points to use the human resources.
6.9.

Avoidance of identical assignment

Large companies have a very wide range of business, the departments are
divided carefully, clear. When the general manager discovers that two departments
are making a plan for consumption, he should adjust quickly to avoid wasting
human and material and financial resources. Otherwise, the conflict between two
department will happen. So the job of coordinator is very important.

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Development of leadership skills
6.10. The leader shall be an example
Behavior, speech of the leader are the meaningful standards for their
employees, the leader should understand: if he can not make it, he should not ask
others to do.
"Three meters of the ice shall be frozen in many days", the leader desires that
his employees work well in the permanent period, because their habits and working
styles shall be formed gradually. If the leader is regularly late for work, lack of
concentration, he can not require is employees to work on time, submit reports
promptly. Thus, leadership by example will be an important method to succeed.
6.11 . The leader should state his opinions to his employees
The leader needs to promptly inform the objectives and strategies to all
relevant employees so that they always remember, at the same time, they are
reminded to try, it is important to help them understand their jobs, correct their
mistakes. But some leader may do this well. Conversely, if the employees do not
understand the objectives, work without specific purposes, then good results will

not be achieved. If we consider strictly, then the leaders must also bear
responsibility for his ineffective leadership.
6.12. Avoidance of improper empowerment:
- The empowerment is considered as a "shield" to deny responsibility: we
have to know if "the employee causes any damage, then the fault is borne by the
leader”, many leader wrongly perceive that works have been transferred to any
assignee, then they can keep in their mind, this is so risky.
- Arbitrary empowerment: the leader think that it is not necessary to rely on
the nature of the objective tasks at work, carefully check the actual capacity,
knowledge of assignees, or selection of assignees is derived from the parties within
the organization.
- Ambiguous empowerment: when the subordinate is empowered, the leader
does not make clear that what should be assigned to his subordinate ... This makes
the subordinates to guess the real intentions of the leader, then the work shall mot e
fulfilled effectively.
- Excessive empowerment: empowerment of the middle class to the
subordinate shall make the middle leader is inactive at work, destroy his sense of
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Development of leadership skills
responsibility, then his role will be “removed”. If this situation occurs, the leader
must adjust the structure and appoint, resign such employee to solve this problem.
Thus, empowerment can only be lower, not higher.
6.13Control of the empowerment:
- When the subordinates are empowered to work any task, the leader should
rely the requirements of such task to assign in order to specify the respective
responsibilities and benefits.
- It is required to assign the "content of task", do not interfere with the
specific way. When the subordinates are empowered, it is necessary to focus on its

content. It is not required to state how to fulfill such task so that the subordinates
can actively promote this.
- Establishment of credibility. If the subordinates do not want to receive the
work as assignee, they may not believe in their leader. Thus, the leader must
eliminate the doubt, fear of his subordinates, the subordinates’ achievements shall
be praised properly. It is required to take are the growth of the subordinates, this is
the duty of the leader.
- Appropriate inspection. The inspection may be applied to direct, motivate
and control. Level of such inspection shall be determined by both sides. One aspect
is the complexity of the tasks as assigned by the superior. Another one is the
capacity of the subordinates. The leader may adopt performance evaluation of his
subordinates, require them to report their progress, at the key moment, it is
necessary to discuss with them and find out how to control.
- The subordinated do not want to do the "tasteless" tasks, the leader should
state clearly the nature of the work, assign any hard work fairly so that they
understand that the work is not a game.
- Strong reduction of reverse empowerment. Any task should have done by
the subordinates, but it is assigned to the leader to fulfill. It is called as the reserve
empowerment because the subordinates do not want to be risky, they fear to be
criticized, lack of confidence or the leader does "not refuse" himself. The best way
to solve the reverse empowerment, it is necessary for the leader to discuss with his
subordinates carefully. If required, the leader should help his subordinates find out
measures to settle
6.14. Empowerment to newcomers:
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Development of leadership skills
Newcomers have just entered the organization, companies should not
emphasize strongly on their lack of experience, but boldly to assign the relatively

difficult task so that they are facilitated to show their capacity. At work, it shall be
quite natural to incur some problems, the leader should not blame them or hurt their
positivity and confidence at work, then they may be disappointed and tired, this is
not good for you and even themselves.
6.15. Assignment of hard works to experienced individuals:
The experienced employees will be interested in any task which they can
complete easily or they have done many times. You should assign works harder
than their capacity, the best way is to assign the work, should not specify in details.
Thus, they can feel the pressure of work and need to brainstorm, study to find out
how to complete the assigned works, if they succeed, they will increasingly feel
happy and satisfied with their good results.
6.16. Encouragement of the employees’ spirit:
How much works employees normally do every day repeatedly, but the
leader still have to let them know what they do mean, should always stimulate their
spirits.
6.

Some examples of effective empowerment:

Example 1: Ca-let-xon is confident to empower:
Nordic airline company has achieved the great success in improving the
whole system, because the chairman knew how to empower appropriately.
Firstly, the chairman Ca-let-xon wanted the company to become the punctual
airline company where in Europe; he went around to search, finally he found out
who he needed. He asked him: "We need how to do to become the most punctual
airline company in Europe? Could you help us achieve this goal. "
A few weeks later, he came to meet Ca-let-xon and replied:
"Do it, but it takes six months and costs about1.6 million USD."
"Very well, you say," Ca-let-xon was so glad because he planned to spend 5
times of such amount of money

That person was surprised by the fervor of Ca-let-xon, and then replied,
"Please wait for me at moment, I've taken people to report to you on how to do right
now."
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Development of leadership skills
About four and a half months later, he invited Ca-let-xon to see the results.
These figures demonstrated that Nordic Airline Company was the most unpunctual
airline in Europe, but that was not the only cause, especially, they saved 500
thousand dollars of 1.6 million dollars as spent. After that, Ca-let-xon said: "If I
gave you 2 million USD at that time and said you how to do ...", then you can guess
how the results will be.
Example 2: The methods of empowerment by Jack Welch
When Jack Welch took over at General Electric (GE) in 1981 and became
the youngest CEO in the history of the group, he pledged to turn GE into the
powerful company in the world. Welch was a strategic planner, business lecturer,
the symbol of the company, a administration theorist. If the leadership was an art,
then Welch was surely a master artist. By his unique style of leadership, in 20 years
of “governance”, he achieved the unprecedented achievements in the history of GE.
In his opinion, he was a leader, not a manager. The talented leader must be
"visionary" and able to lead his employees to achieve such vision with intensive
passion at work.. To do so, the leader should not manage his employees too tightly,
but turn them into real owners of the company by creating conditions for them to
participate in solving problems. Any employee may also reflect their ability of
leadership as long as they have creative ideas and can inspire and enthusiasm to
others. The leader should reduce his control so that his employee may control
themselves. Trust in the capacity of staff, assign task to them and provide the
necessary conditions to do the job. Then, their results would be better
III. CONCLUSION

The leader always does anything, he hope that everything will be successful
thanks to his efforts, and will be recognized by his superior, peers, subordinates.
Any leader wants that everything should be flexible, but the reality is not always as
desired.
Firstly, the strength of the leader does not allow to do so because time,
energy and ability of each person are limited, although they work at full capacity,
but in large and small matters of each department, there are those aspect which the
leader can not hold. Moreover, if the leader works hard, then he will be soon
exhausted and not able to work.
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Development of leadership skills
Secondly, the hand can not cover the whole sky; there are many people in the
company, if the leader does everything, what will other employee do?
Moreover, many people will be dissatisfied with the method of such leader,
they will feel that they are useless, tasteless. They will disappointed with their
leader, they state that their leader is a dictator, he would rather die and not empower
to others; they will be absent from work someday if their capacity is not shown.
In addition, some employees realize that their leader always pays attention to
all things, then they will be lazy, dependent, work inactively. More seriously, they
will lose the ability to think flexibly, or do not know how to solve any problem. The
departments are inactive and not, prevent their development
If the leader wants to reduce the pressure of work, but still cover all aspects,
then take time to investigate, find out the characteristics of each employee and rely
on their capacity to empower appropriately, develop their enthusiasm and capacity.
To do this, the leader can exploit the full potential of subordinates, assign
tasks appropriately to each person. Thus, they will be satisfied at work, no one may
complaint, the departments will try to work, are the methods to save his mind and
power ?

It is required to regulate the scientific, economic, social factors ... today, any
outstanding manager is also hard to understand all. A talented leader is not
necessary to be present in every task. Empowerment to subordinates is art "body
separation" of the leader. If the leader wants to succeed in his career, he can not be
busy all day with his job, then he can be stuck. Everything is suspended, and could
affect his subordinates adversely. He should to avoid small things, focus his energy
to resolve and consider the major tasks to become a good leader.

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IV. REFERENCE
1.

Potential capacity, 14 major factors should be understood by manager;

writer: Phuong Luoc; Labor 0 Social Publisher 2004
2.

Four methods of leadership, Vol. 2 Le thu – tri thu; writer: Hoa Nhan;

People’s Military Publisher; 2008
3.

Methods of using human resources, 100 classic references; writer Minh

Chau; Thanh Hoa Publisher 2004
4.

Methods of authorization and empowerment; writer Jane Smith; HCM

General Statistical Publisher 2008
5.

Textbook of Leadership Development Skills – Training Program in

Global Advanced Master of Business Administration – Griggs University 2009
6.

Websites: vietnamworks;

NOTES:
(1) Methods of authorization and empowerment; writer Jane Smith; HCM
General Statistical Publisher 2008; Page 7
(2) Four methods of leadership, Vol. 2 Le thu – tri thu; writer: Hoa Nhan;
People’s Military Publisher; 2008, page 760
(3) Potential capacity, 14 major factors should be understood by managers;
writer: Phuong Luoc; Labor - Social Publisher 2004; page 231

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