How to Become an Effective Leader - Essay Example

?“Even without ‘great inherited talent’, a person could still become an effective leader”. Yes or No? Explain. Good leaders are made not born. If onehas the aspiration and determination, one can become an effective leader. Good leaders develop through a continuous process of self-evaluation, learning, training, and experience (Jago, 1982). One can be an effective leader even without the inherited talent. Leadership ability generally consists of learned skills that are developed throughout a leader’s career. The Great Man Theory, also known as Trait Theory, suggests that specific innate traits are assumed to distinguish effective leaders from other people (Fleishman, Zaccaro, & Mumford 1991). This is contested by Andersen (2006) who wrote that traits alone are not enough for effective leadership and they are only prerequisite. Traits only provide people with the potential for leadership. Goleman (2008) hypothesized that great leaders are naturally inclined to show interest in others and bring about positive feelings from these people. This then allows a strong show of support. He further mentioned that learning and practice on desirable leadership style can lead to enhanced performance of a potential leader. Thus, the Great Man Theory only explains a part of a successful leader. There are various factors that influence the development of a good leader (Goleman 2008). Cawthon (1996) stated that most important leadership capabilities and proficiencies can be learned and people can be educated along these as long as there is desire to learn and there are no apparent obstacles to learning such as a learning disorder. When studying the several circumstances that play an important role in the lives of the great leaders, it seems hard to believe that only inherent traits contributed to their success. There are too many variables that are considered to make effective leaders. The possession of certain inherent traits does not guarantee the success of leadership. Additionally, any leadership style can be successful as long as it recognizes the path to success. Strong leadership capability goes further than genetic inheritance. House and Mitchell (1974) proposed that successful leaders have the capacity to persuade and motivate others to willingly increase their efforts to contribute to the organisation. They further stated that this can be achieved through a leader’s inimitable focus toward fulfilling the needs of their associates by providing the needed training, supervision and support. These motivate followers toward higher levels of performance. Researchers often take on the assumption that leadership comes inherently with individuals, that some of them .possess a set of inherent traits that enable them to be recognized as great leaders. For many years, this assumption led social scientists to focus only on these traits. However, because of inconsistency in the results research, the trait theory was discarded in favor of the theory that leadership development does not espouse inherent leadership traits but only leadership styles or behaviors that may be developed and changed completely from one setting to another. There is also the notion that a person who is a leader in one setting may be a follower in another in the same way that traits which are practical in one situation may not be helpful in others. Thus, leaders are not born with any specific traits that determine effective leadership (Howard & Wilson, 1982). Even without inherent traits, a person can be an effective leader as long as he can adapt to the unique demands of ever changing organisations. According to Howard and Wilson (1982), leaders must have the aspiration to lead. In order to be effective, a person must want to lead. However, even if a person has the ability and education to lead but has no enthusiasm, success will most likely not be achieved. History has presented the crucial roles that leaders and leadership play in the success of an organisation – these can be in the context of business ventures, educational settings and other alliances of different people working toward the same objectives. Bennis (1991) emphasized that when an organisation shares a common vision, employees have a better perception of their roles and are likely to adhere to commands from a leader engaged in resourceful venture. Effective leaders with a vision are able to attract dedication and encourage people to conform to high standards of excellence (Bennis 1991). There are different leadership behaviors and approaches for boosting leadership effectiveness. The Contingency Theory of Leadership Effectiveness stresses that the effectiveness of a leader is determined by his ability to fit in his leadership style to a specific situation (Fidler 1967). He used this theory to evaluate the impact of training and experience on leadership efficiency. Northouse (2007) definition of leadership is “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal”. (p. 3) Leaders accomplish this process by applying leadership knowledge and skills. Leaders need to create an efficient organisation where action is emphasized rather than theory. This strengthens the notion that most aspects of leadership can be learned and the only inherent trait that is required for effective leadership is ambition. Where power was used to be the main element to effective leadership, it is now considered that vision, commitment, communication and shared decision making are the foundation of effective leadership. The ability to lead a group or organisation through challenging, varying and exceptional conditions requires a personality structure that is both is comparatively and open to change. Stability refers to the capability to endure pressure long enough to evaluate the situation while openness to change is the ability to accept new behaviors or approaches when the existing ones are no longer feasible (Pratch & Jacobowitz, 1997). People want to be led by those they esteemed and have a sense of direction which can be attained by having a vision of what will happen in the future. In choosing a leader, people do not think about the attributes but rather observe what the leader does so that they would know who he really is. People use these observations to tell if the leader is honorable and can be trusted or just somebody who uses his authority to gain power. Thus, one foundation of effective leadership is respectable and selfless service to the organisation he leads (Lamb & Mckee 2004). The two most important components of effective leadership are trust and confidence as well as effective communication. Trust and confidence are measures of employee satisfaction in an organisation. Effective communication is a means to attain trust and confidence. In short, a leader must be trustworthy to enable him to impart the vision of where the organisation is set to go (Lamb & Mckee 2004). The path to effective leadership that is common to successful leaders can be achieved by developing a process where improvements are most needed, where one is capable of motivating people by sharing a common vision, providing tools and methods that will provide solutions to problems, serving as an example in showing how things can be done and sharing the credit to all people within the organisations who have equally devoted contribution for the success of a task (Kouzes & Posner, 1987). All requisites for these leader behaviors may be developed. References Andersen, J. A. (2006). Leadership, personality and effectiveness. The Journal of Socio-Economics, vol. 35, pp. 1078-1091. Bennis, W. (1991). Learning some basic truisms about leadership. Phi Kappa Phi Journal, Winter, pp. 12-15. Cawthon, D. (1996). Leadership: The great man theory revisited. Business Horizons, 39, pp. 1-4. Fiedler, F. E. (1967). A theory of leadership effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. Fleishman, E.A., Zaccaro, S.J., & Mumford, M.D. (1991). Individual differences and leadership: An overview. Leadership Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 237-243. Goleman, D., & Boyatzis, R. (2008). Social intelligence and the biology of leadership. Harvard Business Review, vol. 86, no. 9, pp. 74-81. House, R.J. and Mitchell, T.R. (1974). Path-goal theory of leadership. Contemporary Business, vol. 3, Fall, pp. 81- 98. Howard, A. & Wilson, J. (1982). Leadership in a declining work ethic. California Management Review, pp. 33-46. Jago, A. G. (1982). Leadership: Perspectives in theory and research. Management Science, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 315-336. Kouzes, J.M. & Posner, B.Z. (1987). The leadership challenge. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. Lamb, L. F., McKee, K. B. (2004). Applied public relations: Cases in stakeholder management. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Routledge. Northouse, G. (2007). Leadership theory and practice. (3rd ed.) Sage Publications, Inc, Thousand Oaks, London. Pratch, L. & Jacobowitz, J. (1997). The psychology of leadership in rapidly changing conditions: A structural psychological approach. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, vol. 123, no. 2, pp. 169-198. Read More