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 traditiona...