Leaders and Leadership in Education - Essay Example

Leadership Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Introduction Leadership is the process of guiding others to follow the leader towards achieving a certain goal or objectives. Leadership is important as there is no group of people which can achieve its goals and objectives without the influence of a leader. There are different situations which require different types of leadership. Not all types of leadership can be applied in the same situation. In this effect therefore, the factors to consider when applying leadership in different situations include the organizational culture, leadership traits and the personality traits (Boddy 2005). Many organizations have failed to achieve their set goals due to poor leadership style which make the processes and teamwork work ineffective in their operations. There are those who argue that leadership can be as a result of the situation while others argue that leadership does not depend on the situation but the skills an individual has to guide others. Both these situations will be discussed in this essay. In this regard, this essay will discuss the main characteristics of a leader and how these attributes contribute to successful achievement of an objective. This essay will further discuss the different types of leadership which can be applied in various situations. There have been many debates which argue differently about leadership. There are those who argue that leadership and leaders develop depending on the situation which needs leadership. There are situations which require leadership (Boas 2007). Not all organizations are prepared for various situations which can affect their operations. When these kinds of situations arise, a leader always emerges by providing skills which can help to calm the situation. For instance when there is a group of people who are working together and a situation rises which needs faster decision making like firebreak, there will always be an individual who will take control of the situation. He or she will guide other members to calm down the fire spread using necessary equipment which maybe around (Boas 2007). In this kind of situation, a leader emerges not necessarily the one empowered by the management but because of the personality and skill the individual becomes a leader therefore leadership depends on the situation not the appointment. There are also those who argue that leadership is achieved through training and development. These scholars argue that any individual to be able to lead others, he or she must have acquired the leadership skills through learning (Boddy 2005). They argue that without acquiring effective leadership skills through learning, an individual could not be able to lead others. For instance, in the case of fire outbreak, the fire might not be contained if there are no people with required skills. This implies that leaders of fire fighting must be called in to provide guidelines to the followers on how to contain the fire. In this case therefore, leadership skills are acquired through learning and not on the situation. Leadership qualities For a leader to successfully guide other people to achieve an objective, the leader should posses some skills which will enable him or her to coordinate the functions of the individuals effectively. Discussed below are the main characteristics of a good leader; The leader should be honest. This is the first quality which should be possessed by a leader so that the followers can be able to trust him or her. In order to be honest, the leader should be friendly to the followers and should be able to lead by example (Fullan & Stiegelbauer 1991). If for instance the leader wants to followers to report to work in time, the leader himself should be an example and report to work in time. The followers will be able to trust their leader and the leader should keep his word. In addition, the leader should be forward looking. A good leader should assess where the team or the organization is right now and where tit wants to go in future (Fullan & Stiegelbauer 1991). It is important for the leader to have a vision so that he or she will develop strategies which will solve any management issues that might arise in future. This will enable the organization to have solution to problems. The leader should also be able to possess competency skills. The competency of a leader should not be based on the position of the leader in the organization but the skills the leader has to offer advice to accomplish difficult tasks in the organization (Fullan & Stiegelbauer 1991). Competency skills include ability to notice any issue in the organization and provide skills to the followers in case of difficult situations. Moreover, a leader is expected to possess the inspiration trait. The leader in an organization should be able to inspire the followers by telling encouraging stories either using real life situations or legend stories (Leithwood et al 1999). Through story telling, the followers will be challenged and they could want to change their behavior for the better. Inspiration helps the employees to be satisfied with their work and develop new skills which will enable them to achieve their personal vision. Intelligence is another leadership trait which should be possessed by a leader. This implies that a leader should posse skills which will help to solve issues and manage the followers effectively. For instance, when there is a deadlock on how to accomplish a certain task, a leader should find ways to ensure there is progress because the followers expect their leader to be intelligent (Finigan 1999). Through continues learning which can either be formal or informal, the leader could develop intelligent skills to guide the followers. Finally, a leader is expected to have good communication skills. Without effective communication skills, there will be no any achievement that the leader will make (Finigan 1999). He or she should have good interpersonal skills like personality so that he will pass required information to the followers effectively. This will help to improve group communication since there will be no distortion of information. Types of leadership There are various types of leadership which can be applied in various situations. In the first place, there is Leissez-faire leadership. This is the leadership situation where a leader has little time to supervise the followers. The supervisor does not provide regular feedback to the followers because the followers are highly experienced and do not require much supervision (Warren 2003). The disadvantage of this kind of leadership is that it leads to low production and increased costs since there is less control on how the resources are used although it also improves the morale of the followers as they work for the organizational interests and not personal gain. There is also the autocratic style of leadership. This is the leadership style whereby the leaders make their own decisions without involving the followers (Warren 2003). It is more of dictatorship style of leadership since the followers can only implement decisions made by the leaders. This kind of leadership is most applicable where the followers require constant supervision. It helps to guide the employees who are lazy and entirely depend on the leaders for decisions. However on the other hand, this style of leadership lowers the morale of the followers since they are not consulted when making decisions for the organization. Participative is another style of leadership. This is the style of leadership where the followers are invited by the leader jointly to make decisions. The group members contribute to any decisions which are made for the organization (Heller 2002). This is the most common style of leadership which is applied in many organizations especially when implementing change. The followers feel part of the organization thus they can take part in implementing the change and they will also improve their productivity due to improved morale. Another style of leadership is the transactional style of leadership. With this kind of leadership, the leaders are assigned tasks which they then assign to their followers. The follower and the leader jointly agree on the goals and objectives to achieve at the end of the task and the protocol to follow (Heller 2002). There are rewards which are given to the followers if they achieve the set goals and objectives. There will also be punishment if the group fails to achieve the required standards. To improve the skills of the employees, the leaders can design a programme for training them which can be formal or informal. Finally, there is the transformational style of leadership. The leader depends on the resolutions made by the top management of the organization (Ginsberg & Murphy 2002). The executive communicates the goals and objectives of the organization which are then used by various leaders in the organization to develop their own goals and objectives. The work of transformational leaders is to implement the organizational goals. In this regard, there should be effective communication from top management as it helps the leaders to develop their sectional goals. The work is then delegated to the followers for implementation. Considering the various types of leadership, there are some comparisons which can be made. To start with, both styles of leadership help the leaders to organize their followers towards achieving their goals and objectives (Ginsberg & Murphy 2002). Despite the situations in which these types of leadership can be applied, they are applied to achieve certain goals and objectives which can help to improve the performance of an organization. Another comparison is that both leadership styles can be applied in organizational groups and teams (Covey 2000). Most groups which have succeeded in achieving their goals and objectives, they must have applied effective leadership styles. For instance, participative leadership style motivates the employees since they are part of the decision makers. The contrast between these leadership styles is the different situations in which they are applied. Leissez-faire leadership style is applied where the followers are highly experienced while participative leadership style is applied when there is need to include the followers in decision making. It is also applied when there is need to improve the performance of the employees. Finally, transactional leadership style is applied where there is need to improve the relationship between the leaders and the followers. They jointly work together to design the goals and objectives of their department or section of operations (Anderson 2002). Importance of leadership Leadership is important for the success of any organization. In the first place, leadership helps to ensure effective utilization of resources (Cole 2004). This is made achieved through monitoring how the followers use the resources. This helps to improve performance of the organization. Effective leadership also helps to improve communication within an organization (Cole 2004). This is where the leaders coordinate various tasks and activities in the organization towards achieving the common goal of the organization. Leaderships further helps to develop the skills of the followers (Cole 2004). This is in the context that when the followers are guided on how they can achieve their tasks better they can be able to improve their skills. This not only improves the productivity of the organization but also improves the skills of the employees hence leadership is important in any organization. Conclusion Leadership is the process of influencing other people to follow one’s guidelines. An individual who lead others is the follower while the people are led are the followers. It has been argued that leaders emerge depending on the situation while others argue that leaders are developed and acquire good leadership skills. The main leadership skills which a leader should posses include honest, good communication skills, intelligent, forward looking and have competency skills. The main leadership styles which are applied in various situations include the Leissez-faire leadership, participative leadership, transformational and transactional leadership style. These are the most common leadership styles which are applied in various situations. Leadership is important in an organization as it helps to ensure effective utilization of resources, provide guideline to followers when performing their tasks and improves communication in an organization. In this regard therefore, effective leadership should be applied at all levels of management so that the performance of an organization can be managed. References Anderson, G. L. (2002). A critique of the test for school leaders. Educational Leadership, Vol. 59, No. 8, pp. 67-75. Boddy, D. (2005). Management an Introduction. 3rd ed. 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Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open University Press. Warren, B. (2003). On Becoming a Leader: The Leadership Classic Paperback – April 2, Pearson Education Limited, London. Read More