Universally effective and desirable leadership attributes - Essay Example

? UNIVERSALLY EFFECTIVE AND DESIRABLE LEADERSHIP ATTRIBUTES FIRST SECOND SCHOOL AFFILIATION Overview Leadership traits studyhas quite a long and questionable record. Research may show that having some traits on their own will not always constitute success in leadership. However, there is proof that efficient leaders exhibit some key aspects that are diverse from those in other people. Essential leadership characteristics include: leadership inspiration (feeling the need to lead but not by searching for power/leadership forcefully), drive, self-confidence (this accounts for emotional stability as a leader), integrity and honesty, knowledge, and intellectual ability. There is little proof that versatility, creativeness and charisma are traits that should be exhibited by leaders. Our belief is that the important leadership traits always come in handy in enabling a leader to acquire skills necessary for coming up with a desired achievable vision and taking the necessary measures in the implementation of the vision. Introduction This is a paper that is interested in highlighting the effectiveness and desirability of leadership traits universally with regard to being an international leader. I will show, in this paper on universal effectiveness and desirable leadership attributes that are constituted and exhibited by an international leader, illustration and some examples of the traits that an international leader should exhibit. Leadership has been described by some as the procedure of public influence that one individual can solicit the help and assistance of other people in a bid to successfully perform and conclude a prevalent task (Bass, 2008). Another common definition of leadership is that it is a process in which a particular person influences a group of people for the achievement of a common vision (Northouse, 2007, p3). A leader is that said to be the person in charge of the group accomplishing the task. He is the one with the ability to his influence and other traits while commanding a group for the accomplishment of the desired task. Concepts of leadership In accordance to Bass, the concept of leadership declares that there exist three primary approaches to describe how individuals are initiated to leadership (Bass, 1990, pp. 20). The approach depicted in the first two describes the leadership growth for some individuals. One of the concepts of leadership is that a person may rise to the occasion when an important event or a looming crisis occurs making the individual to behave like a leader and exhibit some of the important traits necessary for leadership. An example of such a leader is Nelson Mandela. He grew up in South Africa a normal person like any other but due to the invasion of South Africa by colonialist he rose to the occasion to fight for the independence of his people and this made him recognised as a hero. This is called the great events concept. The other trait is referred to as the Trait concept (Schwartz 2010). This is the concept that says that some individual traits will act as a natural guide to people that will lead them leadership tasks/roles. The third concept is the process or transformational leadership concept. It states that leadership traits can be learnt and thus people have the ability to become leaders by choice. Global leadership The interdisciplinary research of the key components that leaders of the future in all areas of the personal expertise should obtain to successfully get familiar themselves with the emotional, physical, regional, anthropological, geopolitical and sociological results of globalization is referred to as global leadership (Hayes, 2011). Global leadership takes place when a person or a group of people get around collaborative initiatives of distinct stakeholders through ecological sophistication towards a perspective by utilizing a global attitude. As an effect of styles, that start at colonialism and get perpetuated by the increase in press channels, advancement that come to being due to interconnection on networks using internet and other personal networks depending on levels of computer compatibility, a variety of important new issues face mankind that are made up of but not restricted to individual enterprise towards serenity, important changes in geopolitical paradigms, and international business. The skills and understanding it will take those who are considered leaders to efficiently get around humankind through these improvements have been jointly collected around the trend of globalization. A global leader can thus be said to be a leader who has been accepted globally and identified to possess leadership skills and have actually been seen to use these characters in events that arise at a global level. As I have said about global leadership that it starts with colonialism and gets propagated through media devices thus you will actually notice that most leaders that are recognized at a global level are mainly fighters of colonialism or those fighting for some form of independence (Kim et al. 1994). An example of a global leader who was identified /recognized due to the events of colonialism in his country was Nelson Mandela. A leader should be at the forefront of the task at hand and this is exactly what Mandela did. He spear headed the fight against colonialism from the front line and was even jailed for this for more than twenty years and even in prison he never looked back but he continued to wage war against his captors who were the colonisers of his country. For those who had never recognized him as a leader, there doubts were confirmed when he was released by his captors and he went forward to lead his people/country, South Africa, to independence and he rose to become the first president of South Africa. Significant concerns in the international business setting that are responsible for differences in leadership competencies and requirements. There are various issues that have continued to create a difference in leadership requirements and competencies in the various parts of this world. The first issue is that there are different cultures spread out in the world. These cultures constitute ethnicities, customs and religion. Every distinct culture has got its own way of doing things and hence this variation in the cultural group will also be evident in leadership (Johnson et al., 2006). Another issue is that each region or state in the world has got its own administrative policies that have set guidelines on what competence a leader should exhibit. This will obviously cause variation in the person considered a leader from one region to another. The variation in economic levels in each region and state is another factor that constitute to there being a difference in leadership requirements and competencies. Regions where there is need for economic stability will need a highly competent leader and there will be very strict requirements needed in order to lead in such an environment (Cox and Cooper 2008). There is also variation in the poverty levels that in turn translate to hardships meaning that education levels are variant. Variation in education means that there is variation in the degrees of leadership competence. Intelligence will often be a factor that will lead to consideration as being a competent leader. There is a kind of difference between the requirements and competence that a leader in the domestic level should exhibit and the traits that amount to competence in an international/global leader. Objectives of this report The main objective of this paper is to come up and identify all the traits that a good leader should exhibit. After this I will come up with arguments and evidence that will help show among these traits which are the ones that are required in an international leader and how effective and desirable are these traits at a universal level. Leadership attributes Nelson Mandela is a good example of a global leader. Mandela’s childhood is not publicized and hence it is difficult to tell which particular concept of leadership that he exhibited. One thing is for sure though, He either was a leader born with the traits necessary for leadership or he is an individual who realised he had leadership skills and traits after rising to the occasion and events created by the colonialists. He is a leader who not only got national recognition but international recognition as a hero and a leader. This article is interested in seeing how effective and desirable the leadership traits possessed by well recognized global leaders are to the world. I will start by identifying all the necessary traits that should be in a domestic leader and compare this with traits that should be exhibited by an international leader. Domestic leadership is a process in which an individual or a set of individuals use their influence on other people generally with the same culture, same geographical location, same economic level, or/and under similar administrative policies in a bid to accomplish a common task. Just as the word domestic suggests, this is leadership that has a limit in its diversity. Domestic leaders are found in counties, states and in regions where there are no significant variations in political, economic, geographical and cultural elements and thus a similar policy from the leader will work efficiently. Global/international leadership is now a hybrid of domestic leadership and requires quite skilled leaders for its success. Global leadership is a process in which an individual or set of individuals have the right requirements needed to foster their influence on people with: diverse cultures or cross-cultures; diverse economic levels and the currency in use; varying geographical locations and hence there is differences in the time zone among the regions; and lastly they have to make do with varying political and administrative policies across the globe and make considerations to each policy they enact in accordance to these variations (Hayes, 2011). This shows that for an individual to be considered a global leader, he will require more competence and desirable requirements than what is needed to make a great leader. A domestic leader can make do with the basic characteristics of a leader but this cannot be said to be true in the case of global leadership. There are some key attributes that leaders in both domestic leadership and global leadership have in similar as leaders. These similarities are the basic characteristics/traits that each leader is born with or learns during his growth and takes it upon themselves to be a leader. There are ten main attributes that a person must possess to make a great leader. The first is the trait of being humble. A leader should not be someone who views himself as being superior to the people under him. He should actually a servant from their heart and a commander through actions. The other trait is that a great leader should possess team building traits. This is a person who is not selfish with his knowledge and thus passes it on to others in the team to enable them be team leaders too. A leader should work towards uplifting the morale of those in the team and motivate them to work towards achieving success of a particular goal. Anther similar trait in all leaders is that of being a visionary. A leader should have a purpose and thus he should come up with a vision and he should regularly communicate it and even make allowance for others to come up with their visions that will help oversee the accomplishment of the main business vision. The leader should thus be willing to offer his encouragement to others so as to push them to greatness. The other trait is on the ability to execute. What this means is that a leader should be able to turn his idea and vision into actions. In doing this he should be able to put inspiration to others so that they can offer their best at all times in the execution of ideas. A good leader should also be a good listener (Yukl, 1989). He should listen to the viewpoints of the team and this way he might end up grasping a better method of going around things than the one he had in mind. This will also help him get to know the various needs of his people. The other trait is that a great leader should also be an effective communicator. A person who is straightforward and does not go in rounds when explaining something. He should be a person who is open to communication so that he connects with the employees. They should not hold back when talking about challenging issues. One major trait of a great leader is the ability to undertake risks. The leader should not feel afraid to implement his ideas using a new method in fear of failure or repercussions. He should be willing to undertake the initiative confidently and use new strategies that prove effective to achieve his vision. A great leader should also surround him/herself with other great leaders. This promotes the increased development in the leadership traits a leader portrays. A great leader should also follow the guidelines set by the organisation when making decisions aimed at achieving a vision. The last evident trait in leaders is that of accountability. A leader should not be afraid to be held accountable for performance of the business and neither should he be afraid of holding another person accountable for their actions (Hopster, 2010). The previous paragraph bears all the similarities in the traits that are found in a leader in a domestic leadership environment and a leader in a global/international leadership setting. The difference is brought out due to the diversity in global leadership. A leader in global leadership needs more than these traits for them to be recognised as a global leader who is competent enough to drive a global business towards achievement of their vision (Boyatzis, 1982). Global/international leaders are people who impact significant positive transformation in organisations by creating communities through the building of trust and the organisational structures arrangement and procedures in a scope including several cross-boundary stakeholders, several sources of exterior cross-boundary power, and several cultures under cultural complexity (Chhokar et al., 2007), temporal, and geographical conditions. Global leadership in a business is not about conducting business abroad but it is about managing a business that is integrated across borders where you encounter diverse economic, legal, cultural and regulatory systems (PSI limited, 2009). Global leadership begins with knowing the knowledge across any given nation's society: its demographics, social components, and institutions. This knowledge must go towards business related problems such as economic structures, legal framework and regulatory components (Grove, 2005). In global leadership, a leader must portray a global mind-set when implementing policies unlike in domestic leadership. This is because he might come up with a policy that is bound to achieving success towards accomplishment of the business vision but the policies being enacted are banned in some of the regions legal systems and hence the policy will not work in all the regions the enterprise is based in. Another factor is that a strategy hoping to increase the customer base may end up doing the opposite in some of the regions or it might end up with the company making huge loses. Let’s say that they agree to reduce price of the products in all branches using the same percentage. This will certainly prove a bad idea because each country has different taxation schemes and thus the price in the countries with high taxation rates will bring in low profits or even loses. A global mind-set will work this out by putting into consideration all rates of taxation in all the regions the enterprise is in operation. The economic structure is also variant from one state to another. By this I want to mean that each state will have different number of domestic enterprises offering the substitute goods to what the global enterprise is offering. Hence there are variant levels /degrees of competition. There is also varying tastes and preferences among people of different cultures (Ronen et al, 1985). The strategy that global leadership should come up with should hence put into consideration the market structures and the cultural differences (Schwartz, 1999). An example is that you cannot force a particular dress code say to the Islam community hence if you are an enterprise dealing in clothing, as a global leader you should put this in mind so as to succeed in the Islam community. Another factor that domestic leadership does not have to put in mind but is a necessity in global leadership is the geography of a location (Hofstede & Hofstede 1967-2009). Different geographical conditions will mean a difference in the climatic conditions and topography. Hence this will mean that resources needed are also accessible differently in all locations. . This will also imply that there will be a difference in the time zones and time is one important resource that each successful business keeps into consideration. Operation time will hence not correspond and thus a global leader will have to know how and at what time to convey messages to his teams across the globe. These are factors that a global leader has to put into consideration (Inglehart, 1997). A global leader should have the ability to see the differences in the different ways that a region/states operates then he should make connections to these ways, example try to learn about the culture. The leader should hence adjust his mind-set based on what he connected with and hence make the necessary changes while integrating his policies with the region. The leader should then make effort to localize his strategy by involving all the teams in the region (Hofstede, 2005). Transformational leadership is all about a leader motivating others to realise a vision that will impact positively to the followers (Bass, 1994). This is all what great leadership is about. Transformational leadership is well suited with domestic leadership. Shared leadership is whereby individual team members lead each other (Bergman, J. Z. et al., 2012, pp 17). This is suitable in global leadership due to the diversity in the globe hence each team member may have a specialty in a certain region. Conclusion Global leadership is different in perspective from domestic leadership in that a leader in global leadership has to have a global mind-set on top of the attributes of a good leader that will help him enact strategies that will help realise the overall enterprise vision. We have also seen that a global leader should be able to adapt to varying situations that present themselves. References Bass, B. 1990. From transactional to transformational leadership: learning to share the vision. Organizational Dynamics, 18, (3). Winter. Bass, B. M., & Bass, R. 2008. The Bass Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research and Managerial Applications. London: Free Press. ISBN 978-0743215527 Bass, B.M. and Avolio, B.J. 1994. Improving Organizational Effectiveness through Transformational Leadership. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Bergman, J. Z. et al. 2012. The shared leadership process in decision-making teams. The Journal of Social Psychology, 152, 1, 17-42. PMID 22308759 Boyatzis, R.E. 1982. 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Modernization and Post-Modernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997. Chhokar, J.S. et al. 2007. Culture and Leadership across the World: The GLOBE Book of In-Depth Studies of 25 Societies. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Kim et al. 1994. Individualism and Collectivism: Theory, Methods, and Applications. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Northouse, G. 2007. Leadership theory and practice. 3rd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage Publications. PSI limited. 2009. Global Leadership: Different From Domestic Leadership. Pp 1-2. Available at: [Accessed 2 November 2013] Ronen, S. and Shenkar, O. 1985. Clustering Countries on Attitudinal Dimensions: A Review and Synthesis. Academy of Management Review, Vol: 10(3), 435-454. Schwartz, S.H. 1999. A Theory of Cultural Values and Some Implications for Work. Applied Psychology, Vol: 48(1), 23-47. Schwartz, S. H. 2010. Beyond Individualism/Collectivism: New Cultural Dimensions of Values. In U. Yukl, G.A. 1989. Leadership in Organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Chapter 9. Read More