There might be different opinions regarding whether an efficient leader is considerate towards his or her group members’ opinion in decision-making. Some people might argue that for the effectiveness of a group, the leader should be decisive regardless of the group members’ opinions. However, I firmly believe that consideration of the group members’ feeling about whether they are participating in making decision is crucial factor in the leader’s efficiency for the two reasons: it can not only make a quick decision but also increase the loyalty of members to the group.
To start with, considerate leader for their members’ feeling about their participation in decision making can reduce the time the decision-making takes. This is largely because someone who have opposition to a majority opinion are likely to accept it if his or her opinion is paid attention by a leader. Thus, the leader who listens carefully to a minority opinion can save time to make a decision in a group. To illustrate this point, when I was fifth grade at high school, my teacher asked my class to suggest a song which would be used as a cheer song for the soccer games at school. I suggested my favorite song “Energy” which is made by Korean hip-hop group Epic-High, but the most of the classmates was in opposition to my opinion. However, my teacher praised me for the suggestion, so I could easily accept others’ choice with pleasure.
In addition, group members can be faithful to their group when they feel their opinions are acknowledged by the leader. This is because people tend to do their best when they feel they get credits from the leader group. Thus, they can show their loyalty for their group in the way such as self-sacrifice, responsibility, sense of ownership. For instance, Daehan, the CEO of Minkook Associates, an architectural company at Seoul, had always encouraged his workers– from old timers to entry level employees to suggest his employees’ opinion. Regardless of acceptance of their suggestion, every employee of the company felt sense of ownership, eventually leading themselves to work voluntarily at night, or even on Saturday and Sunday. This indicates that how important the consideration of their employees' participation is for leaders to induce the workers to feel they are real members of the group.
In brief, the considerate leader can save time for decision-making and encourage the members to work with more responsibility. All in all, efficiency of a group comes from the leader’s ability to listen attentively to members’ opinion. |