Leadership and mentoring - Essay Example

? Leadership and mentoring assignment Table of contents Introduction 2. Literature review on leadership and mentoring 2 Definitions 2.2 Models 2.3 Benefits 2.4 Competences required 3. Personal skills on lead others – work 4. Conclusion References Appendix 1. Introduction The effects of leadership decisions on organizational growth are many. In fact, appropriate leadership practices can highly enhance the performance of a particular organization, an issue that needs to be taken into consideration when having to evaluate the role of leaders in establishing and promoting organizational strategies. In any case, leadership has been proved to be a critical concept for organizations operating in different industries. However, in most cases, the ability of leaders to promote effective strategies is doubted; failures in providing guidelines or making accurate provisions in regard to the potential needs of a specific plan seem to be common aspects of the leadership worldwide. Current study reviews the characteristics and the requirements of leadership as compared to mentoring. Reference is particularly made to the potential interaction between leadership and mentoring and the role of its of these concepts in the success of plans, either in the short or the long term. Both these concepts, leadership and mentorship, are explored in the context of the business environment. At the same time, the personal perceptions on leadership are presented. Using the example of leadership in work, the personal responses to the needs of such a role are described and explained. It is proved that leadership can highly affect the success of projects in all sectors; moreover, the personal experiences on leadership, as evaluated through an appropriate theoretical framework, lead to the following assumption: leadership and mentoring have a key role in the success of organizational plans. Moreover, the involvement of leadership and mentoring in the context of a business can be made clear in all parts of the business; in the workplace leadership is critical for the development of an effective relationship between the employee and the employer. In the long term, the success of leaders is necessarily evaluated by their competencies and experience, but also by their willingness to support all aspects of their organization’s activities without setting their own interest as a priority. 2. Literature review on leadership and mentoring 2.1 Definitions The development of leadership has been related to a series of different sectors; in fact, leadership has been involved in many social, economic and political activities. According to Daft and Lane (2008) the value of leadership as a social phenomenon has been identified quite early, even from the ancient times. However, it was just in ‘the twentieth century that scientific research on leadership first appeared’ (Daft and Lane 2008). A key characteristic of leadership is its complexity. More specifically, due to the high range of activities in which it is involved, leadership has been described using different criteria (Daft and Lane 2008). A common definition of leadership is the following one: leadership is ‘an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes and outcomes that reflect their shared purposes’ (Daft and Lane 2008, p.4). In other words, leadership is defined by the perceptions of leaders and followers, as these perceptions are likely to affect the style of the leaders but also the relationship between leaders and followers. The above definition has an important implication: no reference is made to the potential independency of leaders from their followers neither to the independency of the latter from the former. In other words, leaders and followers are considered as fully committed to the achievement of certain common goals, a fact that cannot be verified by the social and economic practice. In fact, many leaders tend to decide independently, without being influenced by the perceptions or the needs of their followers and vice versa. Independency is a key characteristic for a successful leader; lack of independency, when referring to leaders, implies the lack of control on key operational activities. Another important aspect of the definition of Daft and Lane (20080 on leadership is the following one: leaders and followers need to set change as a key priority; however, the particular target is not common to all leadership frameworks. Also, followers are usually like to oppose to changes, a fact that can lead to severe turbulences in the internal organizational environment. The performance of the firm in other sectors, such as the customers’ service department, should be periodically checked whether it is aligned with the firm’s objectives and values. It is only in this way that leadership, as described above, could contribute in the increase of organizational performance. The interaction between followers and the leader also denotes the following fact: leadership is highly depended on followers, which are people working in various organizational sectors. Followers are highly influenced by the decisions of their leader but only under the terms that they align their behaviour with the orders of their leader. Towards this direction, Daft and Lane (2008) stated that ‘leadership occurs among people; it is not something done to people’ (Daft and Lane 2008, p.5). At the same time, leadership could be defined as ‘a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal’ (Northouse 2001, p.3, in Harris 2002, p.376). Mentoring is a concept that it is broadly used instead of leadership. The specific concept is based on the following fact: there is a person, usually highly skilled, as in the case of the leader, who makes suggestions in regard to the transformation of an existing practice; the person that receives the particular pieces of information has the power to accept these suggestions or not (Garvey et al. 2008). The two concepts are often used alternatively, but this is a huge mistake since they are involved in different areas. Even the scope of each of the concepts is different. In mentoring, the mentor focuses on the improvement of the performance of the student/ person that the mentoring addresses (Cranwell-Ward et al. 2004). Still, mentoring offers certain benefits that leadership cannot provide; for example, it is only through mentoring that a student can improve his performance. If someone gives a command to the student to proceed to an activity, then the latter is expected to ignore it. 2.2 Models Northouse (2009) refers to two, key, descriptions of leadership; according to Northouse (2009) leadership can be described either as a process or as a trait; the characteristics of each of these perspectives of leadership are differentiated. More specifically, in the context of the trait theory, the leadership is ‘a property or set of properties possessed in varying degrees by different people’ (Northouse 2009, p.4). On the other hand, leadership can be also be a process; in this context, leadership ‘resides in the context of the interactions between leaders and followers’ (Northouse 2009, p.4). In first perspective of leadership, the trait theory, a leader is considered as a person who is gifted with skills that make him an exceptional leader. The process theory of leadership is based on a different view: leaders interact with followers; the latter have to follow the guidelines and the orders of leaders; however, they can also influence the decisions of leaders in regard to critical issues. Northouse (2009) refers to another important categorization of leadership; he explains that the leadership style can be distinguished into two major categories, depending the way in which work is assigned to leaders but also on the ability of leaders to intervene, more or less, in critical decisions. For example, the assigned leadership style emphasizes on the assignment to the leader of specific tasks (Northouse 2009). Moreover, there is the emergent leadership that focuses in covering specific organizational needs, which are, commonly, emergent (Northouse 2009, p.5). A common theoretical approach for explaining the role of leadership is the servant leadership theory; the above theory is based on the view that ‘a leader should primarily serve the interests of other and not his own’ (Carroll et al. 2011, p.234). The servant leadership theory does not refer to the obligation of leader to take initiatives, especially when having to face emergent problems. Therefore, the particular theory can be characterized as being out of the scope of leadership, at least in regard to the business-economic field. In specific social contexts, as for instance in voluntary organizations where the expectations of people from leaders are different the above theory could be possibly applied. On the other hand, Goldsmith (2003) notes that the establishment of specific modes of leadership for supporting the needs of groups or businesses in terms of leadership would not be an appropriate solution. It is explained that leadership should primarily focus on the promotion of the stakeholders’ interests (Goldsmith 2003). Then the interests of particular individuals should be served (Goldsmith 2003). The view of Goldsmith (2003) seems to be similar to the servant leadership theory, as presented above (Carroll et al. 2011). 2.3 Benefits Leadership is a key organizational context; however, the value of leadership in organizational growth is often under estimated. Even under these terms, leadership continues to offer a series of important benefits for firms of different characteristics. This fact is highlighted in the study of Daft and Lane (2008). The above researchers note that leadership can significantly help towards the improvement of communication and cooperation within the organization, depending of course on the strategies developed by the local leader (Daft and Lane 2008). In other words, leadership can benefit the organization but the nature and the level of these benefits are not standardized. In any case, it seems that the benefits of leadership can be differentiated, being influenced by the conditions in the external environment but also of the support provided to leader’s plans. At the same time, it has been argued that the benefits as also the outcomes of leadership are depended on the level at which the relationship between the leader and his followers is developed. The specific view is based on the ‘Leader-Member Exchange Theory’ (Daft and Lane 2008, p.54). The particular theory promotes the idea that the expected outcomes and benefits, as resulted by leadership, are closely related to the relationship between the leader and his followers. Other potential benefits of leadership would be the following: increase of corporate performance, increase of employee morale, improvement of the employer-employee relationship and limitation of resistance to organizational plans that promote change (Charan et al. 2011). An effective leadership framework could also help the organization to standardize its performance; since the risks involved in the firm’s daily operations would be decreased, it would be easier for the organization to seek for further growth, meaning that effective leadership can increase the firm’s competitiveness and reduce the market risks either in the short or the long term (Gill 2006). In any case, it seems that the benefits of leadership are clearer in the long term, compared to the short term; this phenomenon can be explained because of the following fact: when a leader enters a particular area he usually have limited time in order to identify and understand all aspects of the area involved. As a result, it is quite possible for the leader to fail to respond to the needs of the particular case immediately; in the long term the benefits of the intervention of the leader can be clear even if when the value of leader’s contribution in the stabilization of business performance is often ignored (Pittman 2009). From a similar point of view, Hughes and Beatty (2005) note that it is possible for a leader to spend significant time in order to become familiar with the trends and the challenges of a particular area; however, after becoming part of the particular unit/ area, the leader is able to investigate more effectively the aspects and the challenges of each particular problem. In other words, a leader is likely to become effective gradually; it is quite unlikely that a leader is quite successful at the moment that he enters a particular organization (Hughes and Beatty 2005). The specific issue is quite important in order to understand the criteria on which the performance of a leader in a particular area would be evaluated; instead of focusing on short – term effects, as revealed through the achievements of the leader within a particular area, emphasis should be rather given on the long term effects of the leader’s intervention. 2.4 Competences required The skills of leaders should be differentiated in according to the perceived role of leaders within a particular group. For example, if the trait theory of leadership is used as a basis for identifying the skills of a unique leaders, the skills required would be the following ones: autonomy, power of view, of stable view, not being influenced by the trends of the market or the economy, under the terms that all markets have periods of low an high performance. Moreover, the trait theory would lead to the assumption that an effective leader should be able to take initiatives and persuade its followers on the appropriateness of his decisions. If a leader’s skills are identified using the process theory, then the following assumptions would be made: in the context of the process theory, a leader needs to have high communication skills, being able to interact continuously with customers; he should also be patient enough, so that conflicts in the workplace are voided. In any case, in the literature, the approaches used for the evaluation of leaders’ skills are highly differentiated, a fact that seems to be related not only to the environment, i.e. the market, conditions, but also to the personal perceptions of the leader, meaning his personal thoughts and background. For example, reference can be made to the study of Daft and Lane (2008) who have promoted the Leader-Member Exchange Theory. According to the theory accepted, a leader can be considered as highly skilled either when he is able to manage crisis effectively or to communicate with his followers. 3. Personal skills on lead others – work The skills of a charismatic leader are analytically described in the study of Halpern and Lubar (2003). The above researchers note that the most important criterion for evaluating the value of a leader would be ‘the Leadership Presence’ (Halpern and Lubar 2003, p.9). The Leadership Presence is a concept based on the idea that a successful leader would have a series of characteristics. These characteristics should be categorized in four, major, categories; ‘a) being present, b) Reaching out, c) Expressiveness and d) Sefl-owning’ (Halpern and Lubar 2003, p.9). The being present framework refers to the necessity for the leader to be present in all major organizational decisions; the specific part of the Being Present model would also indicate the ability of the leader to take decisions with no delay; b) Reaching out: a leader needs to be able to communicate effectively followers, meaning the employees or followers (Halpern and Lubar 2003), c) Expressiveness; the particular element of the Leadership Presence framework, would be analyzed as follows: a leader should be able to express effectively, his feeling; in general the particular process can be used for emphasizing on the potentials of the leader to communicate effectively with his followers, meaning that the message of the leader to the follower would be transmitted effectively, d) the last part of the Leadership Presence model aims to highlight the need for the leader to have self-awareness and to be authentic. Using one of the theoretical frameworks presented above, I would describe and evaluate my potentials to lead others. More specifically, the process theory of leadership could be used for explaining the challenges that a leader is expected to face when entering the particular position. The process theory, as explained earlier, focuses on the continuous interaction between leaders and followers; in the same context, leaders can be influenced by followers and vice versa. In the traits theory, which is based on the view that leaders have unique characteristics that distinguish them from other people, such approach would not be applicable. Through my personal experience in leading others and using the above leadership theory, my skills in regard to leadership in the workplace can be characterized as important. Indeed, I’ve tried to follow the paradigm of previous department leaders, meaning especially as of the practices that are appropriate for handling critical issues in the specific sector. The particular practice, i.e. following the paradigm of someone else, is a key characteristic of the process theory on leadership. In other words, as of the above part, my performance in regard to leadership can be characterized as quite satisfactory. At the same time, using time-schedules and practices that are common in the workplace is proved to be quite effective plan. The traits theory, that promotes the alignment of our plans with the organizational culture, can result to important findings: the credibility of leadership as a method for promoting the interests of particular group of teams cannot be ignored. Still, the support provided by employees to the potentials projects is not standardized. 4. Conclusion The review of the literature published in regard to leadership and mentoring has led to the following assumption: leadership and mentoring are common aspect in today’s common market. However, their involvement in the development of social and economic relations can be highly differentiated. In most cases, leadership style reflects the culture of the organization. The alignment of leadership with other organizational elements could lead to the limitation of its value for promoting communication and cooperation, as already explained earlier. One of the most important characteristics of leadership seems to be the following one: leadership can help to promote integration and rapid growth within organizations in different sectors. Still the ability of leader to understand the needs of the organization and propose the appropriate solutions would be a prerequisite for the achievement of the above target. Moreover, leadership has been proved to be vulnerable to organizational turbulences; indeed, conflicts within the organization can result to delays in the promotion of plans introduced by leaders. For this reason, the ability of a leader to manage conflicts has been found to affect the performance of a leader in regard to the challenges of the organization’s internal and external environment. Similar findings have been identified in regard to mentoring. Mentoring, a concept that has many common elements with leadership, as for example the willingness to control and to provide appropriate support to followers has been proved to be a complex concept. However, mentoring serves a different need from leadership; emphasis is given on inspiring followers and not so much on offering to followers guidelines for developing particular tasks. It should be noted though that both leadership and mentoring are used for explaining the relationship between leaders and their followers, a relationship which is highly based on the willingness of followers to apply, strictly, the rules set by the leaders; in mentoring, the above trend is not so clear. The practical implications of mentoring have been explained by referring to the personal experiences in regard to leadership; emphasis is given on a particular area, the workplace. In the work environment, leadership can interact with the employment relationship. The development of an important HRM plan would be therefore depended on the ability of the leader to support equally employees at all levels. Using my personal skills I could respond effectively to the role of a leader, but under the following terms: the relationship between employees and managers would be measured, as possible. This means that employees in all organizational sectors would welcome the proposals of the manager, acting as leader. Such activities should be appropriately supported by the firm but also by the individual’s personal environment. References Cadwell, C. (2004) Leadership Skills for Managers. New York: AMACOM Division American Management Association. Carroll, A., and Buchholtz, A. (2011) Business & Society: Ethics, Sustainability, and Stakeholder Management. Belmont: Cengage Learning. Charan, R.,Drotter, S., and Noel, J. (2011) The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Cranwell-Ward, J., Bossons, P., and Gover, S. (2004) Mentoring: A Henley Review of Best Practice. Oxford: Palgrave Macmillan. Daft, R., and Lane, P. (2008) The Leadership Experience. Belmont: Cengage Learning. Garvey, B., Stokes, P., and Megginson, D. (2008) Coaching and Mentoring: Theory and Practice. London: SAGE Publications. Gill, R. (2006) Theory and Practice of Leadership. London: SAGE. Goldsmith, M. (2003) Global Leadership: The Next Generation. Upper Saddle River: FT Press. Halpern, B., and Lubar, K. (2003) Leadership Presence: Dramatic Techniques to Reach Out, Motivate, and Inspire. New York: Penguin. Harris, T. (2002) Applied Organizational Communication: Principles and Pragmatics for Future Practice. Oxon: Routledge. Hughes, R., and Beatty, K. (2005) Becoming A Strategic Leader: Your Role In Your Organization's Enduring Success. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Johansen, B., Johansen, R., and Ryan, J. (2012) Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World. California: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Marturano, A., and Gosling, J. (2007) Leadership: The Key Concepts. Routledge Key Guides. Oxon: Routledge. Northouse, P. (2009) Leadership: Theory and Practice. London: SAGE. Pittman, J. (2009) 21st Century Issues in America: An Introduction to Public Administration Theory and Practice. Bloomington: AuthorHouse. Leadership and mentoring Table of contents I. Introduction II. Review the relevant literature on leadership and mentoring III. Select and discuss an appropriate context, (e.g. work, university, social or sport), and, using at least one appropriate theoretical framework of skills and/or competences, assess your potential to lead OR mentor others. Sport - Own potential to lead others IV. Conclusion References I. Introduction The use of various approaches for explaining the success of leaders in the context of the modern market has been proved an appropriate strategy; indeed, the needs of organizations worldwide tend to change continuously, probably under the continuous increase of competition. Leadership needs also to be transformed and to adopt elements that can lead to the increase of its effectiveness. Traditionally, leaders have been considered as non-approachable, difficult to communicate and strict in regard to their guidelines. Through the decades, the profile of leaders has been changed. Today, a successful leader needs to be high skilled with excellent communication skills. Education, which has been considered as a unique characteristic of a successful leader is no more a criterion for judging the effectiveness of a leader. At the same time, the following problem seems to exist: the criteria used for the evaluation of leadership tend to change. In many cases, leaders are not aware of the demands of their role. Despite their position, that offers them the power to take critical decisions without the involvement of a third person, leaders often face difficulties in deciding on critical issues. The literature published in regard to leadership is, indicatively, presented in this paper. At the next level, leadership is compared to mentorship. The relationship of these two concepts and their common characteristics are analytically described below. Also, the personal view on leadership is provided. A particular sector has been chosen: sport. The role and the challenges of leadership in sport are presented using one of the most common frameworks of the leadership theory: the trait theory on leadership. One of the most important difficulties faced while developing this paper has been the following one: no standard approach seems to exist for explaining leadership. Actually, leadership, as a concept is quite wide, being offered for various interpretations. This issue should be appropriately addressed by theorists and researchers in the future. II. Review the relevant literature on leadership and mentoring When having to compare two concepts that are similar one another, then the following issue appears: these concepts may have certain common points; they may also have certain differences, but on which criteria the choice of the appropriate framework of these concepts should be based? Such issue exists in regard to leadership and mentoring. Both these concepts are used for indicating the involvement of a person in the provision of guidelines to another person. In the case of leadership, there is no choice for ignoring the orders of the leader. For the mentor, a different case exists. Indeed, a mentor is able to inspire his follower while a leader is not, at least not always, capable of achieving the specific target. In the literature, contradictory views have been developed regarding the superiority of leadership towards mentorship; the latter is often considered as similar to the former, even if in most cases the validity of this assumption cannot be verified. Through the years, the role of leadership has been changed. In general, the term leadership has been related mainly to the business sector, indicating the power of an individual to decide on all critical organizational issues. In other areas also, the use of the term has become common, for reflecting the superior position of an individual towards another. Furthermore, theorists who studied the particular subject have given different interpretations in regard to the priorities and the role of leadership. For example, ‘the cross-cultural leadership theorists’ (Marturano and Gosling 2007) focus on the importance of the alignment of leadership with the national culture. The above view can be characterized as justified, but not fully. Indeed, the full alignment of leadership style with national culture would be rather problematic, especially in organizations that operate globally. In these firms, rather efforts need to be made for aligning the firm’s strategies with local culture but without negatively affecting the firm’s brand name, which is usually closely related to the firm’s country of origin. Through another view, it has been noted that leadership is part of the human behaviour; this is the trait theory, which argues that the appropriateness of each person as a leader cannot be revealed during the late stages of his life. Rather, leadership is part of the person’s genes, i.e. part of his behaviour (Westerbeek and Smith 2005). The trait theory implies that ‘leadership cannot be taught’ (Westerbeek and Smith 2005, p.55). An opposite theory is the behaviour theory of leadership, which promotes the view that ‘leadership can be taught’ (Westerbeek and Smith 2005, p.55). Both these theories are based on the following fact: leadership is a concept that is involved in a person’s life when the person is well developed. Therefore, how the first or the second of the above theories can be verified? According to the trait theory, indications of a person’s leadership capabilities would be visible during the childhood. In practice, this is impossible to be checked since the entrance of a person in the workplace, where leadership skills are mostly revealed, takes place after the age of 18 years. As of the second theory also, the following problem seems to exist: how can the natural skills of a person in regard to leadership to be rejected? As proved in Biology, genes have the power to influence the behaviour of individuals. Thus, the behaviour theory also is not fully verified, as of its effectiveness in explaining the relationship between leadership and human behaviour. The value of leadership, at least in its current form, can be made clear by referring to the forms of leadership, as developed by theorists and researchers worldwide. These theories, or, else, models, are used each time that the decisions of a leader or his needs have to be evaluated. Different theories have been established for explaining leadership and its role. A critical example is the executive leadership theory. The specific theory emphasizes on the value of leadership for ‘designing and implementing strategy’ (Marturano et al. 2007). Leadership is often used in order to promote the capabilities of an organization. For example, firms that have highly skilled leaders, such as Virgin, have developed their brand name around their leader. On the other hand, the excessive dependency of an organization on its leader would not be accepted, due to the following reason: a leader is expected to keep the control of an organization for a particular period of time. After that period, the leader is expected to leave the organization. In case that the entire organization has been transformed according the ideas/ skills of the specific leader, then it will have a problem to stabilize its performance. Rather it is expected to face severe management and communication problems. For this reason, despite its value, leadership should not be over-estimated. Of course, its benefits cannot be ignored. Another aspect of the benefits of leadership is presented in the study of Sperry (2002); emphasis is given on leadership for the corporate effectiveness, which is related to leadership effectiveness. According to Sperry (2002) an effective leadership is able to retrieve solutions with no delay and take initiatives, if considered as necessary. Risks may not be avoided; still, the effective leader is able to identify the solution that is most appropriate (Sperry 2002). At the same time, an effective leader can benefit his organization in the following way: when a crisis appears, an effective leader is able to respond quickly and minimize the crisis’ negative effects. Moreover, the following issue should be explored: the benefits of the leadership are expected to last for a particular period of time; after this period, an alternative strategy should be available so that the risks involved are minimized. One of the key problems when examining the firm’s benefits from leadership is the following one: the criteria used for the evaluation of the success of a leader’s choice are not standard; they seem to change under the influence of the increased competition. Therefore, it is possible for an activity or a function that was the firm’s competitive advantage up to recently to be transformed to a weakness. An effective leader is able to develop strategies the benefits from which can last. Still, a problem would exist: how can the ability of the leader to secure a firm’s position to be identified in advance? In practice, such practice is not possible; the effects of a leader’s choices can become clear only after a particular period of time. In the meantime, the firm is exposed to the leader’s choices; keeping certain of the existing firms strategies intact, at least for a period of time can minimize the risks. In other words, the transition from the old to the new firm’s strategies should be gradual. The effective leader would be capable of appropriately incorporating the previous strategies in the new ones so that the firm’s brand name is not harmed. Hill and Jones (2009) present another form of leadership: the cost leadership. The particular theory argues that the priority of a firm’s leader should be the continuous and close control of his firm’s financial data; the financial structure of the organization as well as its financial performance. The specific theory could be criticized as of the following point: cost management cannot be the priority of a leader’s work. In fact, it would be preferable for the particular task to be assigned to other employees, dealing especially with the specific subject. However, the leader should check, periodically, the financial results of the organization in order to understand whether his strategies have been successful or not. Moreover, the cost management theory of leadership ignores another fact: leaders are not necessarily highly skilled in managing numbers. They are likely to be excellent communicators and quite competent in people management but their expertise in accounting or other similar field is not guaranteed. Therefore, the cost management theory could be applied only in combination with another theory, possibly the process theory for explaining the level of effectiveness of a particular leader. The understanding of the value of leadership requires the reference to its benefits. As highlighted also in the literature, leadership offers a series of benefits, under the terms that it successful. For example, a successful leader can secure the high integration of the organization, meaning the potential of the organization to keep its activities closely related so that risks are minimized while the firm is more capable to face unexpected crisis (Cole 2004). Leadership can also keep the employees’ morale high. Being aware that a highly skilled leader effectively controls their organization, employees are expected to perform well as possible so that organizational goals are achieved (Egner 2009). Therefore, leadership keeps the competitiveness of the organization at high levels. Moreover, an effective leader is able to identify early any potential threats against the firm’s operations, i.e. he is able to foresee the case of a severe crisis or of an unexpected change on the firm’s structure/ performance (Egner 2009). It should be also noted that a highly skilled leader is able to identify market areas that can significantly help towards the standardization of the organization’s performance (Johansen et al. 2012). This means that a leader can significantly help towards the increase of a firm’s position in the local or the global market. The benefits mentioned above can be achieved only if the leader is appropriately skilled. This means, in practice, that a successful leader should have a series of qualities, not necessarily traits but also qualities that have been acquired in the workplace (Cadwell 2004). One of the most important skills of leaders seems to be his ability to communicate (Moore and Sonsino 2003). The term communication in the above case is general, incorporating a wide range of skills, such as cognitive ability, management of emergent events, willingness to cooperate, understanding for the other people’s problems and so on (Adair 2010). The role of leadership, as explained above, can be quite complex. Moreover, a confusion can be often developed regarding the differentiation of leadership from other concepts, such as mentorship. According to Fletcher (2000) mentoring is ‘a term that reflects the potential of a one-to-one professional relationship that can simultaneously enhance practice’ (Fletcher 2000, p.1). Mentoring, as described above, is used mostly in the context of educational settings for showing ‘the provision of guidelines to students or trainees’ (Fletcher 2000, p.1). Mentoring, as described above is highly differentiated from leadership. The first can incorporate orders for specific action, while mentorship is based rather on the willingness of the receiver of the guidelines to follow them. Thus, mentoring is not compulsory, in terms of the guidelines given, while orders given in the context of leadership are compulsory and this is the major difference between the above two concepts. Moreover, mentorship, as of its benefits, focuses on the progress of the person that receives the guidelines. In leadership, the key goal is the growth of the organization that the leaders leads. III. Select and discuss an appropriate context, (e.g. work, university, social or sport), and, using at least one appropriate theoretical framework of skills and/or competences, assess your potential to lead OR mentor others. Sport - Own potential to lead others Sport is an area where leadership is quite important, as also in other sectors as indicated in the analysis developed above. Sport has been chosen for showing the value of leadership, as a framework for responding to the needs of a particular position. My personal experiences in sport are extensive; having participated as a volunteer in many athletic events, I have understood that in sport leadership is used not for increasing profitability but rather for improving communication and for increasing the morale of participants. However, in sport it is often difficult for leaders to impose their views. Athletes tend to act independently; the management of athletic events has been proved as an important experience for acquiring knowledge on the particular subject. In the specific case, the trait theory of leadership is used for showing my potentials to lead others. The trait theory, as explained earlier, can be used for explaining the ability of a leader to respond to the needs of his environment. The specific theory accepts, as noted earlier, that the leader is a charismatic person; in sport, the above view is reflected to the following fact: a leader who has successfully worked in other areas, may not be able to face the challenges of sport. Sport requires the experience of the leader on the particular field; also, in sport traditional approaches for promoting the decisions of leadership cannot be applied. For example, an athlete cannot be made to win by being warned that he would not be paid for his expenses during the event. In businesses, such case can exist. Under these terms, it could be noted that my leadership skills in sport have been proved verified since I was able to manage effectively the crisis involved; I’ve also managed to keep the morale of the athletes high, despite the problems of communication that in certain cases appeared and which are common in areas where competition is direct, such as in sport. My effectiveness in leading others has been based on leadership traits; at the next level, the long-term benefits of the particular project would be difficult to be measured in advance, especially since in sports the effectiveness of strategies and policies is usually proved after a long period of time, even if in certain cases immediate responses to effective leadership strategies can be also identified in sport. IV. Conclusion The efforts of leaders to respond to the needs of their role are often quite challenging. According to the literature published regarding this issue, leaders can be individuals with exceptional skills or they can just be able to communicate effectively. In both cases, leaders have to face various challenges. First, leaders may not be willing to follow the strategic goals set in a particular organization; the oppositions between leaders and their environment can result to delays of the projects initiated by leaders. It should be noted that leaders are not always capable of understanding the needs of their environment. One of the most important issues that a leader has to face is the appropriate allocation of tasks among the members of a group. This problem is particularly common within modern organizations. The specific problems, as analysed earlier, leads to the following assumption: even if leaders are able to impose their view, still they can often fail in managing employees appropriately. Failures in regard to other sectors of an organization can also appear. Leadership has become a concept quite difficult to be understood. In the past, leadership has been a term used for explaining the increased power of the leader towards its followers; because of his superiority a leader was able to impose his ideas. Today, a similar trend can be observed. Leadership is still related to power; the ability of leader to use this power wisely defines the success of a leadership style, even if risks or damages have not been avoided. As for mentorship, the specific concept is still widely used for justifying the intervention in particular areas, such as education, art and so on. Mentorship, as a concept, is totally different from leadership, an issue already discussed earlier. However, often the distinction between these two concepts is difficult since the terms of their use as also their needs are different. While leadership promotes the notion of power, as mentioned above, mentorship promotes the idea of control, even for the good of the follower. 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