Leadership Skills (Topic in Instruction4) - Essay Example

Leadership Skills Part A: What is charismatic leadership? There are many forms of leadership, which have been used in the organizations and differentiated on the basis of the role played by individuals and their characteristic influences on the overall performance of the team. Notably, charismatic leadership is regarded as one of the mostly applied and successful leadership practices in the modern day business scenario (Griffin, 2010). This kind of leadership has been defined with reference to the word, ‘charisma’, which refers to a special quality of an individual to attract or influence others.

With the help of this characteristic, leaders have been observed to obtain the enthusiastic support from their subordinates. The level of power required to influence the subordinates is high for the charismatic leaders, as compared to other leaders which further signifies that these types of leaders make extensive use of their power and interpersonal skills. These leaders are often found to be successful in influencing the subordinates to adopt the similar characteristics, boosting the team members’ confidence through empowerment.

As per as the example of a charismatic leader is concerned, Donald Trump can be considered as an excellent illustration (Griffin, 2010). Stating precisely, charismatic leadership consists a total of three elements. At the onset, a charismatic leader should have the ability to envision and almost accurately forecast the future which further assists in setting a target along with the development of strategies for the achievement of the set goal(s). In this context, setting a goal and strategizing the achievement process can be regarded as the second element of charismatic leadership.

Ultimately, charismatic leaders need to possess the element of personal excitement which needs to be transformed to the subordinates to energize others, showing confidence on the subordinates (Griffin, 2010). Part B: Explain what is meant by the statement that charismatic leaders use active impression management with their followers to support their image. Provide and elaborate on one example.  Impression management is generally a tool used by the charismatic leaders to portray a good image of themselves in front of the followers to obtain the team’s support.

It is in this context that with the use of active impression management, charismatic leaders attempt to convince the followers to adopt the ethics and policies of the leader. Apparently, the notion of impression management within the characteristics of charismatic leaders depicts their brilliance to influence their followers and steer them with the identical beliefs and possessed by themselves (Sparks, Fournier-Bonilla, Levesque, Strong & Linberg, 2008). For example, Steve Jobs can be illustrated as one of the most famous charismatic leaders of the 21st century.

The founder of the global technology giant, Apple Inc, had the skill to envision future changes and take strategic measures accordingly which played a pivotal role in shaping the organizational success. Deciphering all the features of a charismatic leader, Steve Jobs has been noted to state or affirm his beliefs with immense confidence which used to be easily channelized within his followers. Hence, he obtained his followers’ enthusiastic support towards the achievement of the determined goals where his team members used to follow him determinately with identical vision and beliefs.

Undoubtedly, these leadership characteristics possessed by Steve Jobs assisted the organization to obtain such unmatched success, but the charismatic leader also had to witness challenges in succession planning owing to the restricted development of his team as a consequence of strong impression management (Razin & Kark, 2012). Part C: Why is charismatic leadership considered a double-edged sword that requires careful monitoring to avert abuse?  Charismatic leadership is often considered as a double edged sword that requires careful maintenance as it has been observed as capable of resulting in astounding positive outcomes along with severe negative complications.

From a managerial point of view, as such leaders tend to make the followers believe their vision and way of thinking as well as acting, the leadership qualities of the followers remain underdeveloped or marginalized. It has also been studied that followers of charismatic leaders are steered with extensive supervision from the leader at almost every level owing to which, adoption of change during the absence of the leader creates confusions and hurdles within the team as was witnessed in the case of Apple after the demise of Steve Jobs (Razin & Kark, 2012).

Furthermore, owing to the extensive dependence of the followers over the leaders’ convictions and future forecasts, in case the leader proves wrong, the entire scheme of operations is likely to result in a failure (Lussier & Achua, 2009). In its in this context that where on one hand, charismatic leaders can develop an organization such as Apple or even lead to national freedom, for example in the case of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela; on the other hand, the same leadership characteristics can result in the global threat of terrorism (e.g. Osama Bin Laden).

Therefore, it shall not be unjustified to state that charismatic leadership is indeed a double-edged sword. References Griffin, R. W. (2010). Management. Mason: Cengage Learning. Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2009). Leadership with Infotrac: Theory, Application, & Skill Development. Mason: Cengage Learning. Razin, M. A. & Kark, R. (2012). The Apple does not Fall Far from the Tree: Steve Jobs’ Leadership as Simultaneously Distant and Close. Exploring Distance, 241-273. Sparks, G. A., Fournier-Bonilla, S. D., Levesque, J.

, Strong, D. L., & Linberg, K. (2008, March). Charismatic leadership: an exploratory investigation of the techniques of influence. Retrieved from Capella University http://gradworks.umi.com/3297036.pdf