Leadership - Outstanding Qualities of Leaders - Essay Example

? LEADERSHIP …………………. College/ ………….. …………. Introduction Leadership is an extremely high-valued commodity that most managers and academic people ask themselves what makes good leaders. People often get amazed at stories appearing in newspapers and other media about outstanding qualities of some leaders. Most successful leaders make tremendous changes in the community or group of people they represent and influence their subordinates in a way that they are greatly admired. This piece of research paper explains who are leaders and discusses the contemporary perspectives on leadership. Who is a Leader Though there are various different views and definitions about leader and leadership, to come to a specific consensus about who is a leader may be a difficult task. To be very simple, a leader is one who has leadership quality. A leader can either be a man or woman who has the ability to get other people to do what he likes them to do even if they don’t like to do it. As Howard Gardner noted, a leader is a person “who could get other people to what they don’t want to do and like it” (Parker and Begnaud , p. 3). A leader is expected to be able to create interaction between him and his followers involving a structuring or restructuring of the situation, perception and expectations of the his followers. When it comes to a bit broader view about leaders, they come in all different shapes and sizes. They may be young or old, men or women and regardless of caste, region, religion and so on. they are found in all different levels, like Church, Politics, Government, Business, House, Community and sports (Corcoran, p. 3). All different leaders at different levels possess more or less different qualities, like transformational, charismatic, situational etc. A leader is one who listens to his people, supports and encourages them to get them involved in decision making process as well as problem solving processes (Holbeche, p. 72). Based on this view, a leader is one who influences his subordinates or followers by supporting them and encouraging them so that they will be motivated to get involved in all the relevant decision making and problem solving activities. He not only listens to the concerns of his followers, but also suggests possible solutions and finds better ways to help them by solving their issues. A leader tries to get his people to follow him or her to a specific objective. A political leader has his own specific objectives or destination that he likes to motivate his people to move towards that destination. A business or political leader has thus certain objective and his activities or leadership attempts will be largely influenced by his intention to lead his people towards the ultimate goal. Contemporary perspectives on Leadership Leadership is basically a quality, necessarily an inborn quality according to some academic researchers and not so according to some others. Though there are various theoretical perspectives regarding leadership, trait theories are widely discussed and are considered to be highly important in contemporary business and political landscapes. In recent years, Warren Bennis contributed much to leadership studies and researches and has strongly disagreed with the concept that leadership is an inborn quality. In contemporary leadership literatures, Warren Bennis is perhaps the most widely discussed name. According to him, “leadership is the capacity to translate vision in to reality” (Corcoran, p. 3). Warren Bennis is the founding director of American Leadership Forum and he has authored more than 26 books in leadership and its very related functional areas. Leaders (1986) and On Becoming a Leader (1989) are some of his best-selling book about leadership (Thomas, p. 4). Warren Bennis tried to avoid the traditional view associated with leadership thinking and the concepts of trait-theories. He argued that leaders are not just born, but are made or created through training, developmental program and learning experiences. According to him, leaders are those people who do right things, but managers are those people who do things right (Thomas, 2006, p. 10- 12) A large number of academic researchers have highlighted importance of explaining leadership in relation to its basic types, namely transformational, charismatic, participative, situational and transactional. No matter whether researchers argue that a leader is made or he is born to be leader, their leadership quality can be any one of these five types. Charismatic leadership is a specific ability of the leader who has derived his leadership authority from some very unknown and god-given gift to him. The leadership ability of charismatic leaders seems to be quite divine (Sashkin, p. 56). Such leaders are highly successful in influencing their subordinates by making an emotional impact and zeal-lie appeal on subordinates because they appeal at both their hearts and minds (Daft, 2007). Transformational leadership is quite similar to Charismatic leadership except that they are distinguished by their own special ability to develop innovative vision, ideas and specific thoughts to bring changes in the organization or political system mainly by recognizing the needs and personal requirements of his subordinates (Daft and Lane, 2009). Transactional leadership has three significant and successive stages, they are, a) recognizing the need for renaissance in the organization, b) creating a new vision and c) then institutionalizing the change process (Wart, p. 74). Transformational leaders thus bring effective and successful change to the domain they represent. These leaders are very successful to influence their followers with their vision and then to get them converted to a reality. Transactional leadership is the ability of leaders by which they are able to clarify the roles and tasks-related requirements of the followers to provide sufficient rewards in order to meet their group needs and social requirements. Participative leaders are those who get involved in decision making and as they understand the issues of their followers more clearly they work with others and followers to accomplish a certain task of achieving the group goal. Situational leaders are those who act more appropriately according to the best situations (changingminds.org, 2010). Conclusion A leader is one who influences his subordinates and encourages them to do what he likes them to do. As a leader can largely influences his subordinates, he plays very significant roles in bringing changes to organizations or any other domains that the leader represents. This piece of research paper has detailed who is a leader and discussed contemporary perspectives on leadership, explaining different types of leadership and different perspectives on it. References Changingminds.org (2010), Leadership Styles, changingminds.org, Retrieved 19th April 2011 from http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/styles/leadership_styles.htm Corcoran, T, The Leadership Bus: How to Be a Truly Effective and Successful Leader, AuthorHouse, 2008 Daft, R. L (2007), The leadership experience, Fourth illustrated edition, Cengage Learning Daft, R. L and Lane, P (2009), Management, Illustrated Ninth edition, Cengage Learning Holbeche, L , Motivating people in lean organizations, Illustrated edition, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998 Parker, J.P and Begnaud, L.G, Developing creative leadership, Illustrated edition, Libraries Unlimited, 2004 Sashkin, M and Sashkin, M.G (2003), Leadership that matters: the critical factors for making a difference in people's lives and organizations' success, Berrett-Koehler Publishers Thomas M.A, Gurus on leadership, Illustrated Edition, Thorogood Publishing, 2006 Wart, M. E (2007), Leadership in public organizations: an introduction, M.E. Sharpe Read More