Human resources management final exam - Essay Example

In addition, leadership should provide the required information and resources for realising that vision, and balance and coordinate conflicting interests among members and stakeholders (leadership, 2010). Leaders, whilst shouldering responsibility for the entire group, should also motivate their following and ensure that they realise their objectives. They should also ensure continuity and momentum, permit change if warranted, and should be sufficiently ahead of the group (ME96 Leadership, n.d.).

A transactional leader ensures compliance, by providing incentives, threat of punishment, and appeal to the altruistic leanings of the group members or their sense of rationalism. On the other hand transformational leaders have to improve themselves, asses the leadership situation, and circumstances in which their followers reach beyond the extant requirements. Such leaders have to fully employ their followers, thereby fulfilling their higher necessities (Martin, 2006, p. 46). These leaders are strongly governed by their mission and enjoy a dedicated following.

Leadership is distinguished by being unidirectional, static and intrapersonal. What commences as a process of mutual influence amongst individuals culminates with the passage of time, mutual interaction and an array of contextual elements engenders a leadership identity that is fixed and lasting (De Rue and Ashford, 2010, p. 628). Managerial skill emerges from external sources, standards of an organisation and procedures. The policies of an organisation could constitute the justification for managerial decisions.

Leadership emerges from awareness or the leader’s ability to process information (Blank, 2001, p. 19). Leaders decide on the basis of what they consider to be significant and what demands attention. Leaders are not born, and there is no hereditary plan or inborn arrangement that creates a leader. History is replete with individuals who were termed leaders, as they were able to attract supporters (Blank, 2001, p. 8). The process of making others willing followers requires certain skills. Leadership is a skill that can be bettered through practice.

It can be improved by personal experience and the organised study of the relationships between people (Are leaders born or made? 2011). Leadership may be obtained and developed through intentional practice. Although leadership has considerable influence, there are other factors that affect organisational effectiveness. Some of these are investments, strategic planning, marketing and product development, secondary capacities, motivation and input (Larsson and Vinberg, 2010, p. 318). Good leaders necessarily possess risk forbearance, and the capacity to control others and increase the value of their surroundings.

They should also have sufficient courage to express themselves, and the capacity to accept rejection of their initiatives (McCrimmon, 2011). Question 2 Change Change in variegated forms is an inescapable truth of life. Individual concentrate on change and the adaptations required to deal with its effects. On occasion, individuals themselves effect change (How We Change, Stages of Change, n.d.). Change is the universal bedrock, which is especially true of enterprises that are actuated by market pressures.

Such business entities have to incorporate in their objectives, better quality, productivity and flexibility; uninterrupted innovation and the capacity to change, in order to provide an adequate response to market demands. Effective