Leadership and Supervision in Social Work

Leadership & Social Work Author’s Name: _____________________________ Institutional Affiliation: ________________________________ Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u 1. Introduction PAGEREF _Toc14935974 \h 32. Discussion PAGEREF _Toc14935975 \h 42.1 Challenges and Tensions in Social Work Environment PAGEREF _Toc14935976 \h 42.1.1 Low morale. PAGEREF _Toc14935977 \h 42.1.2 Cultural disparities. PAGEREF _Toc14935978 \h 42.1.3 Gender diversity. PAGEREF _Toc14935979 \h 52.1.4 Ethical issues of the challenges. PAGEREF _Toc14935980 \h 62.2 Leadership Method to Supervise Social Work PAGEREF _Toc14935981 \h 62.2.1 Situational leadership. PAGEREF _Toc14935982 \h 62.2.2 Ethical and legal obligations – Responding through situational leadership. PAGEREF _Toc14935983 \h 72.2.3 Accountability as a leader. PAGEREF _Toc14935984 \h 72.2.4 Consequences of failure. PAGEREF _Toc14935985 \h 82.3 Comparing with Transformational Leadership PAGEREF _Toc14935986 \h 92.3.1 Discussing transformational leadership. PAGEREF _Toc14935987 \h 92.3.2 Why situational leadership a preference? PAGEREF _Toc14935988 \h 92.3.3 Benefits and drawbacks of transformational leadership. PAGEREF _Toc14935989 \h 102.3.4 Benefits and drawbacks of situational leadership. PAGEREF _Toc14935990 \h 112.4 Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc14935991 \h 113. Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc14935992 \h 12References PAGEREF _Toc14935993 \h 14 Leadership & Social Work 1. Introduction Organisations today are highly dependent on the quality of leadership and supervision demonstrated by authorised personnel significantly. Supervision in social work plays a key role to increase efficacy in results and accomplish goals for society wellbeing subsequently. Without quality supervision, it is difficult for social work organisations to deliver benefits that are devised for optimising the outcomes of a society at a broader scale (Tsui, 2004). Over the decades, organisations made efforts to integrate leadership in supervision. Approaches such as democratic leadership were used prominently to encourage the human-orientation in the decision-making and enhancement of results, accomplished through best practices simultaneously (Gastil, 1994). However, the changing dynamics, emerging challenges and constant evolvement of leadership roles have created contemporary variants of leadership that could supervise the social exchange in organisations more effectively. Today, leadership styles such as transformational, transaction, participatory, and situational are popularly followed by individuals that supervise the socially working organisations evidently. Leadership in organisations serve as a backbone to inspire people at a broader scope. Unlike traditional supervisors, leaders are considered more responsive, participative, and agents of nurturing knowledge sharing culture in an organisation, which serve as the channels to sustainability in healthy results (Yukl, 2010). Through traditional supervision in the existing epoch, it is difficult for a social work corporation to deliver desired results while maintaining a balance between quality-orientation and human-orientation in approaches. Hence, leadership supervision in social work is more important for organisations rather monitoring activities from traditional perspectives. The core objective of this paper is to investigate the importance of leadership for responding to the emerging challenges in social work. The paper would identify a few challenges that are widely present in the social work organisations before selecting, discussing, and comparing a suitable leadership approach. Finally, the paper would conclude by providing strategic recommendations for the social work future based on the overall investigation. 2. Discussion 2.1 Challenges and Tensions in Social Work Environment 2.1.1 Low morale. Low morale aspects in social work are a primary concern for the organisations while regulating functions at the national or international spectrums. Social workers are found more depressed and hold weaker prospects about the future career growth regardless of a constant emergence in problems. The major gap lies in the leading supervision, which strengthens the low morale among social workers significantly (Rauktis & Koeske, 1994). The absence of leadership fails in developing healthy prospects for social workers and raise sustainability issues subsequently. Suitable leadership approaches would work as a response measure of the low morale among social workers. Historically, social work did not receive the desired glorification, which other career domains enjoy at a broader scale. The leadership in other domains are found stronger and progressive while social work remains a secondary or alternate consideration, which fails in generating adequate optimism from the workers (Rauktis & Koeske, 1994). In this context, it is important to integrate leadership while focusing on quality supervision significantly. 2.1.2 Cultural disparities. Similarly, the absence of cultural competence in social work is another challenging facet that requires effective leadership supervision as a response measure. In the academic literature, cultural disparities exist while discussing the exchange of healthcare and social care in a certain societal setting. It is argued that unbiased supervision and adequate training provisions are the gaps in strengthening cultural competence while regulating social work (Page, 2003). Cultural competency in social work requires leadership as an advocate to embed social justice in activities. Social work supervision through leadership would serve as an anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive practice that could optimise the outcomes remarkably. Unfortunately, inadequate leadership in social work supervision creates inevitable gaps while embracing different cultures (Page, 2003). As a result, positive outcomes of social activities remain restricted for a certain group of people, which is unethical and biased in the social work literature. Hence, leadership integration is necessarily required by social work corporations in order to enhance the potential outcomes for people. 2.1.3 Gender diversity. On the contrary, gender diversity is another considerable challenge for social work corporations operating in the modern era. Gender diversity in top management remains a question for both social and commercial organisations. However, commercial entities made remarkable improvements over the decades to address the challenge by encouraging women to participate as C-Suite members. Unfortunately, the gap remains evident in the social work organisations constantly since leadership integration is absent while activities are supervised (Bojica, Jimenez, Nava & Fuentes-Fuentes, 2018). Gender diversity refers to the inclusion of women in the top management teams (TMTs). Through gender diversity, women receive rights of making an equal contribution in the decision-making, which strengthens the dimensions of strategic outcomes significantly. However, majority social work corporations still lack diversity while defining the outlay TMTs since contemporary aspects are not embraced due to weak or no leadership (Bojica, Jimenez, Nava & Fuentes-Fuentes, 2018). Hence, quality supervisory through leadership would aid social work corporations to integrate diversity and optimise the decision-making outcomes while devising TMTs evidently. 2.1.4 Ethical issues of the challenges. The existence of discussed challenges in social work corporations triggers the ethical dangers in supervision. Ignorance of various aspects by social organisations, such as diversity and cultural acceptance, while regulating operations is highly unethical for the societal wellbeing. Due to ignorance of specified challenges, it is arguable that social work supervision is promoting biases and other adversities in a formalised manner (Dewane, 2000). The discussed challenges are also considered ethical failures of leadership in social corporations concurrently. It is an embedded duty of a leader to monitor equality and presence of unbiased provisions while devising benefits for society. Since majority of challenges are promoting prejudices in decisions, leaders are held accountable strategically and tactically by the regulatory authorities that promise societal wellbeing through such settings (Price, 2004). Hence, a suitable leadership approach is required to address the challenges and enhance the overall supervision scenario for the social organisations that operate at a national or international spectrum. 2.2 Leadership Method to Supervise Social Work 2.2.1 Situational leadership. In the year 1969, Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard proposed the situational leadership approach as a model to maintain a balance between task-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviours among leaders during the administration of people and operations collectively. Theoretically, situational leadership refers to the adjustment of behaviour or style according to the development fit of people in an organisation. Based on the situation, such leaders adopt a suitable approach to inspire people in accomplishing mutual objectives for the organisation holistically (Thompson & Glaso, 2018). Hersey and Blanchard characterised situational leadership style into four dimensions, namely telling (S1), selling (S2), participating (S3) and delegating (S4). The characterisation is based on the segmentation of employees or followers that exist in an organisation in general. According to the model, no one style is considered fit for managing a dynamic talent base in an organisation. Leaders should remain flexible to respond to various situations based on the provided styles while administrating the people and resources collectively (Thompson & Glaso, 2018). 2.2.2 Ethical and legal obligations – Responding through situational leadership. Arguably, leaders do have moral and legal obligations, regardless of the adapted approach and organisational setting. From an ethical perspective, it is the accountability of a leader to serve justice while managing people and resources. For instance, it is identified that diversity and cultural acceptance in social work are the core challenges experienced until today. A leader, particularly situational in the context, has an ethical obligation to ensure the inclusion of cultural differences and gender variations while making decisions related to the distribution of social benefits (Oduol & Cornforth, 2019). On the contrary, leaders are legally bound while managing people and resources for achieving objectives, particularly in a social work context. Since leaders enjoy authorisation and power in supporting the organisation, it is equally important to integrate regulatory aspects to avoid consequences simultaneously (Smith, Rohr & Panton, 2018). For instance, a leader should abide by the Disability Act 2006 while promoting diversity and inclusion in the organisation, particularly social work supervision as the focused context. 2.2.3 Accountability as a leader. Theoretically, the ideology of accountability is beyond the acti...