Leadership in management - Essay Example

From ancient times, most people were of opinions that leaders are born with inherited traits. Some traits were thought to be particularly suited to leadership and people who made good leaders possessed a right or sufficient combination of these traits. Thus, all the early research on leadership was based on the psychological focus of the day, which was of people having inherited characteristics or traits. Attention was thus put on discovering these traits, often by studying successful leaders, but with the underlying assumption that if other people could also be found with these traits, then they, too, could also become great leaders. Opposed to this trait theory of leadership, evolved a system of understanding called the behavioural theories of leadership. Behavioural theories of leadership are based upon the idea that great leaders are made, not born. Rooted in behaviourism, this leadership theory focuses on the actions of leaders, not on mental qualities or internal states. According to this theory, people can learn to become leaders through teaching and observation. Conditioning occurs through interaction with the environment. According to behaviourism, behaviour can be studied in a systematic and observable manner with no consideration of internal mental states. Behavioral theories of leadership do not seek inborn traits or capabilities. Rather, they look at what leaders actually do. If success can be defined in terms of describable actions, then it should be relatively easy for other people to act in the same way. This is easier to teach and learn then to adopt the more ephemeral traits or capabilities. Thus, Behavioral leadership is a big leap from Trait Theory, in that it assumes that leadership capability can be learned, rather than being inherent. This opens the floodgates to leadership development, as opposed to simple psychometric assessment that sorts those with leadership potential from those who will never have the chance. A behavioral theory is relatively easy to develop, as you simply assess both leadership success and the actions of leaders. With a large enough study, you can then correlate statistically significant behaviors with success. You can also identify behaviors that contribute to failure, thus adding a second layer of understanding A wave of researchers argued that it is the leaders behaviours that predicts success. They point out that during and after World War II, American scientists began to push the idea that everything could be scientifically explained and predicted, including human behaviour. As a result, the 1940s saw lots of research being conducted in American companies focusing on making employees more productive and managers more effective. Since the psychological stream held that behaviours are primarily learned aided them, they propounded the idea that "leaders are made, not born." Significant studies that were conducted at some of Americas most prestigious research universities during this time are still referred to in todays leadership literature. The Michigan Research Design with the efforts of Likert and his team identified two distinct styles of leadership that they referred to as "job-centered" and "employee-centered." They interviewed leaders followers and also used questionnaires with followers. Their design defined job-centred leaders as those who believe that employees are just a means to an ends (production of the product, profit) and that the best way to get them to do what we want is to closely supervise them and use rewards and coercion to communicate with them. These sorts of leaders, they inferred, used the legitimate/position power as the basis of influencing employees. The other form of leadership they focussed on was one that was based on employees. They defined these leaders as those who held that it is necessary to create a supportive work environment in order for workers to be successful in helping the company meet its goals. These leaders, they emphasised, were concerned with giving employees opportunities for advancement, growth, and for meeting their achievement needs. The leaders viewed employees as part of the team and believed that in order for the company to be successful, the individuals who work there must feel successful too. The Michigan studies did not find that one was better than the other was nor did they recommend one set of behaviours over the other. The researchers of the Ohio State University did another important research on behavioural leadership. The OSU researchers developed a written questionnaire, the Leadership Opinion Questionnaire (LOQ) to scientifically measure leaders behaviours on two scales. The LOQ is still available and is widely used by companies in the hiring process and in professional development of managers who are already in the company. The instrument was administered to leaders supervisors, subordinates, and the leader. The entire research was based on two sets of behaviours: Initiating structure and consideration. During the first process, they looked at leadership behaviours that are focused on getting the job done including the use of job descriptions that clearly tell employees what is expected of them and how they should do their jobs. Here, the onus was on the organisational charts that told the employees where they fit into the big picture. Interestingly, these issues are very similar to Michigans "job-centred" skills. The other process of consideration involved in understanding leadership behaviours that focus on interacting with their followers/employees in a way that encourages friendship, mutual trust, warmth, and rapport between the leader and followers. These issues are similar to Michigans findings on "employee-centred" skills. The original recommendations from the Ohio State study indicated that leaders should be high on both initiating structure and consideration in order to be effective. Later researchers who tried to replicate the study had mixed results and recommendations, including one study that was done at International Harvester where supervisors who used more initiating structure skills were rated higher with their supervisors and lower by their employees. Because the models focused on only two sets of behaviours, most researchers were not confident that this was sufficient to predict good leadership or to teach good leadership behaviours to emerging leaders. One major concern was that hugely important to the business community involves not only being able to identify and train good leaders, but also the need to identify specific performance indicators such as the leaders ability to positively affect production, profits, efficiency, and job satisfaction of their employees. The recommendations from these studies did not have enough conclusive recommendations to accomplish those goals. The search continued . . . The Leadership Grid by Blake and Mouton is very similar to the Michigan and OSU studies, except it does make a specific recommendation for the "best style of leadership." The leaders leadership style/behaviours are plotted on a grid that has labels as to their style. The names range from "country club manager" to "production pusher." The "best" style, according to Blake & Mouton, is the "team builder." With these ideas of behavioural leadership in mind, let us try to analyse the great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, India’s ‘Father of the Nation’. As the chief architect of the nations independence movement, Gandhi no doubt led, or fathered, the country to emancipation from British rule. Indeed, in no other country was the association between the freedom struggle and one man so close as it was in India, and in shaping all the principal moments of the movement. From the struggle in Champaran to the non-cooperation movement of 1920-22, the civil disobedience movement, the Salt Satyagraha, and the Quit India Movement, Gandhi was to have the authorial and decisive voice. It is under the Mahatmas guidance that the movement, unique among anti-colonial struggles in the Third World, remained largely non-violent, and it is largely on Gandhis account that the movement was bound to a certain ethical conception of political and public life. It is Gandhis vision that was supposed to have inspired Nehru, purportedly his successor, and that led, among other sources of political wisdom, to the formulation of fundamental rights for all Indian citizens, and safeguards for minorities, in the new constitution. So what were the qualities which the Mahatma had? Mahatma Gandhi strove constantly and on the whole successfully to develop and express the best facets of his character. Patience and endurance, love of truth, intuition, calmness, loyalty and faith and an unruffled state of mind are some of the virtues which were characteristic of Gandhi, or at least to which he aspired. Let us begin with a closer analysis of some of these qualities beginning with "love of truth". Gandhis own formulation of the meaning of Satyagraha, one of the foundation stones of his philosophy, is significant: Satyagraha is the strength that is born out of a love of truth and non-violence. The title of his autobiography, The Story of my Experiments with Truth is no less typical. Gandhi took his desire for truth to extremes in his daily life. In his published writing he spoke with utter frankness of sexual experiences and conducts normally considered too intimate to divulge in public. Nothing was too sacred or intimate. He revealed, for instance, that once, while he was sitting at his fathers deathbed, he was overwhelmed by physical desire for his wife. He could not resist and left the others to watch over his father, who died while Gandhi was with his wife. He never forgave himself for this fact. Gandhi dealt with other areas of his private life with the same insistence on openness, a fact that made him a great exponent of the theory of behavioural leadership. In fact, he eventually organized his life in such a way that privacy had no place. His aim was to do away with hypocrisy and prudery. He was oblivious to the aesthetic sensitivities of others: after every meal he would immediately begin cleaning his dentures at the table. There are many details in Gandhis life, which serve to illustrate his uncompromising efforts to eliminate pretence. We could posit that, in these cases, an essential quality of Gandhis life was to inspire people by setting an example himself. One of the most outstanding characteristics of his later life was his complete fearlessness, his insistence on the idea that leaders must possess the integrity of thought and action. Neither physical violence, imprisonment, nor any threat to his personal welfare could deflect him from his path. Once he had plotted a course, he stuck to it in order to achieve a goal. It is interesting to note that Gandhi acquired his fearlessness only in later life, a fact that reiterates the fact that leadership is acquired. His youth, when his mental body was not fully developed, was plagued by fear: fear of ghosts, of thieves, of snakes. It is said that even wild horses could not drag him out at night! Leaders are particularly sensitive to the gigantic thought form of fear which mankind has built, and Gandhi learnt it in his course of being a nation builder. Even in his personal life, we find Gandhi transcending into a leader very similar to the lines of behavioural leadership. Gandhi and his wife Kasturbai were married when they were thirteen, and later in life, with his usual love of honesty, he spoke frankly about his insatiable sexual appetite. In his adolescence Gandhi was no stranger to jealousy either. Often he would not allow his young wife to go out into the street alone. As he grew older, Gandhi gradually achieved control over his physical flaws. For example, as a young man Gandhi recognised in himself a desire for popularity. He was afraid of not being taken seriously; the thought that people might laugh at him was a constant nightmare. As a boy he was shy; he usually ran straight home after school and hardly dared speak to anyone. When he was a law student in London he had still not freed himself from this second ray weakness, strengthened by the sixth ray tendency to need the approval of others. Gandhi particularly did not want to be seen as a backward Indian peasant. He therefore dressed with the utmost care a top hat, pin-striped trousers and spats, a walking stick with silver knob were his safeguards against ridicule. His lack of self-confidence and fear of making a fool of himself in public, prevented him, on his return to India, from working effectively as a lawyer. The first time he was called upon to defend a client he was struck with such stage fright that he was unable to enter the law courts and was obliged to ask a colleague to stand in for him. Once Gandhi had rid himself of timidity, his powerful sixth ray mental body swung him to the other extreme indifference to either praise or condemnation. An example of this, again, is how he dressed in later life. Whatever the occasion, Gandhi always wore the white shirt which he had woven himself and which caused Churchill to refer disapprovingly to that half-naked fakir. On his visits to England neither the cold nor pouring rain could make Gandhi wear anything else but his open sandals and his thin shirt. Even an interview with the King did not tempt him into wearing something more in keeping with protocol. "How could you?" a journalist asked him. "The King had enough clothes for both of us," he replied affably. Gandhis development (from timid young person with very little self-confidence to fearless, self-assured man) began during his years in South Africa (1891-1914) where he became the heart and soul of the struggle of Indian immigrants for reasonable citizens rights. During this time he lost every trace of the fearfulness which so marked his youth. The fearlessness of leadership when fighting for his ideals, combined with ability of being able to endure suffering with patience, had a large role to play in making Bapu, as he is affectionately called, what he was. This capacity was an essential part of Gandhis philosophy of non-violence. It is worth interjecting at this point a quotation from The Externalisation of the Hierarchy (Lucis Press) in which the Master Djwhal Khul indicates unequivocally Hierarchys attitude to Gandhis policies of pacifism at the time of the Second World War. Writing in 1942, the Master DK outlines the three main positions vis-à-vis the war: the democratic position, the totalitarian approach and, thirdly the appeasement and the pacifist attitudes idealistic and impractical and finding their focus today in the attitude of Gandhi. He brings into clear perspective the uncompromising, fanatical attitude which is non-realistic and which will willingly sacrifice lives, nations and the future of humanity in order to attain its object. If Gandhi were to succeed in his objective now, it would precipitate civil war in India, bring about a slaughtering of countless thousands, and permit Germany to join hands with Japan across Asia, with the appalling probability of a totalitarian victory. Gandhis premise was that it is possible to force an opponent to a change of heart and to evoke compassion by patiently enduring suffering. All these aspects are highlighted in one of the most gripping scenes in Richard Attenboroughs fascinating film epic, Gandhi. Though beaten mercilessly the little civil rights leader persists in throwing the notorious pass-books (identity papers which the South African authorities require all non-whites to carry) into the fire. Imbibed intuition, a distinguishing quality a leader as according to behavioural leadership, was another of his characteristics. When no logical and immediate solution to the many complex political problems with which he was faced presented itself, Gandhi would always wait until his inner voice proffered a solution. To be sure, there is a great difference between this and the delusion of many aspirants and disciples who believe that they are constantly being guided, usually by a Master at the very least. Gandhis intuition was of a different, more reliable nature and proved him right time and time again, even where friends and supporters had serious doubts. Gandhi intuitively knew exactly what response he could evoke through his hunger strikes, for instance, and by which simple, non-violent means he could most confuse the British authorities in India. Thus, we find that Gandhi again fits the bill of a leader who could take challenges and rely upon himself and his capabilities. Although circumstances eventually permitted no other course than the partition of India, Gandhi opposed it to the last. His intuition told him that the creation of an independent Pakistan would not solve the conflict between Hindu and Muslim, but would be giving in to the evils of separativeness and religious fanaticism. Countless thousands of deaths and the largest migration of peoples ever were the consequences of the partitioning of India, and led even those who had at first opposed Gandhi to complain that Bapu (father) had been right all along although no-one had been able to suggest an alternative solution. Loyalty is another important characteristic of behavioural leadership. In Gandhi’s case, it was expressed, for instance, in his attitude towards the British Empire and its peoples. In spite of all his objections to British rule over India, the Mahatma never permitted himself a single act of disloyalty. During the war years he prevented India from taking advantage of the weakening of the British Empire, just as earlier on in South Africa he had postponed demonstrations by the Indians so that the regime which he opposed could deal with strikes of their own railway staff. His outstanding leadership qualities were aided by the virtues of devotion and one-pointedness. More than once this produced the interesting result of two virtues strengthening each other to the point of instability. Here are some examples by way of an illustration. For a long period in his life Gandhi believed it necessary to wrestle with his powerful sex drive. At the age of thirty seven, he made a vow of brahmacharya and imposed on those around him the same degree of self control. In his South African ashram, Tolstoy-farm, boys and girls had to bathe together in the spring and at night everyone slept on an open veranda, boys and girls close together. Predictably, Gandhis advocacy of self-control was not practised as enthusiastically by everyone in the community; not everyone is a Gandhi. His reaction when things went wrong was no example of understanding, tolerance or wisdom: he personally cut off all the hair of a girl who, with enthusiastic cooperation of two boys, had preferred sexual experiment to Gandhis injunction. Nor can it be said that he was not prone to over-react when he came to realise the injustice of the Hindu caste system In 1920 he had described it as "fundamental, natural and essential". Only two years later, he allowed his youngest son Devadas to marry a girl (Devadas had begged his fathers permission to marry her for years) from another caste. Until then Gandhi had viewed love matches as less valid than marriages arranged by the parents. This narrow-minded (sixth ray) attitude could not last long in a man of Gandhis calibre, a man who was constantly reaching for perfection. In 1932 he declared that the Hindu religion does not forbid mixed marriages or prohibit different castes from eating together. From then on Gandhi would attend only mixed marriages. He dealt a coup de grace to his earlier ideas by eventually permitting only mixed marriages in his ashram, Sevagashram his definition of mixed in this case being that one partner should be a harijan or untouchable. An untouchable is officially designated as not belonging to any of the four main castes and therefore condemned to a most humiliating existence. Behavioural leaders are distinguished by their simplicity. Gandhis life increasingly became a remarkable example of this. He spoke simply; he lived simply; he reduced complex matters to essentials; he used simple but effective methods of political pressure and so reached the hearts of the humblest people. Some of the things that Gandhi did not do in life, also tell us about his leadership qualities. Although he could have had any political position in his country he never attempted to acquire formal power, perhaps because he did not have the first ray of Will or Power in his make-up. He preferred to leave the actual governing to his friend Jawaharlal Nehru. His tenacious battle for Indian independence over a period of several decades demonstrates how his personality had learned to conquer every expression of impatience and short-sighted timing. Gandhis ability to express his ideals physically can be attributed to his third ray physical body. It explains his ability for unceasing work and perhaps also his changeability. He could suddenly lay aside an issue for long periods of time and address himself with equal intensity to something completely different. It is true that this analysis could give a somewhat critical impression where certain of Gandhis relative shortcomings are emphasized. These shortcomings, however, are of no importance whatsoever in comparison with the exceptional qualities he displayed. It is in the contrast between his phenomenal achievements and his much less important failings that the interaction of Gandhis behavioural leadership can be seen most clearly. As stated before, Mahatma Gandhi possessed all the particular virtues behavioural leadership and he also made the virtues to be acquired his own to an admirable degree (virtues of love, compassion, unselfishness, energy). Of the typical vices (callousness, indifference to others, immersion in study) he did not have a trace. Almost the same applies in the case of his mental body: devotion, tenderness and intuition to name but a few were virtues that he liberally manifested. He struggled with some of the vices of leadership, as we have seen. His stage of evolutionary advancement made it possible for him to overcome the defects of stage with the qualities of another. Sectarianism, division and forming of factions, which are all vices of the sixth ray, would not stand a chance against the inclusive, all-embracing understanding that is the higher expression of the second ray. It was manifested through his indefatigable attempts to move Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and Christians to be tolerant towards one another. As Gandhi famously said: Joy lies in the fight in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in the victory itself. As Louis Ficher beautifully describes: Gandhi was an Indian. He belonged to the world. References "Leadership." In Libraries in the 90s: What the Leaders Expect, ed. D.E. Riggs and G. AL. Sabine, 102-130. New York: Horrocks, 1988. Evans, G. Edward. "Leadership in Management." In Management Techniques for Librarians, 2d ed., 199-210. New York: Academic Press, 1983. Moran, Barbara B. "Gender Differences in Leadership." Library Trends 40 (Winter 1992): 475-491. Tannenbaum, Robert and Warren H. Schmidt. 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