Vision for Effective Leadership - Coursework Example

Evaluating leadership and leadership traits has been an ongoing challenge for many years. During the investigative process of understanding what makes a good leader or who has a good leadership style, we must ensure that we evaluate not only the good traits, but the bad or dark side traits as well. This paper will attempt to focus on the positive and negative sides of leadership and what influences or forces were amidst. I will also attempt to look at personality traits, leadership style, political and interoffice influences that would sharp and drive a leader towards the Dark side of leadership. Introduction Leaders are made not born. The desire and willpower of person helps him to become an effective and great leader. We should remember that leadership is an art and a science. To be a good leader one should always study their acts, education and experience and to have an effective leadership a person should always work on improving his skills. However, there are many theories and studies that define the art of effective leadership but it comes down to one thing finally which is that leadership comes from within a person and his desire to lead his followers in a proper manner. Therefore, let us now look at the definition of leadership as given by many. Leadership is the art of mobilizing others to work together towards an aspiration, a challenge that fulfils the needs of the people and the leader. Leadership is a method or course of action by which a person influences others to attain a purpose and directs the organization in a way that makes it more organized and consistent. Leaders carry on their work by applying leadership attributes such beliefs and value, character and ethics and finally knowledge and skills. Another thing to remember is that leadership is something that helps people attain their goals, it is not something that can be used to boss around people but some leaders do have this tendency which falls on their dark side, which we will discuss later in this paper. The model of leadership is to have a respectable and admirable character and to contribute selfless service for others. As we need air to survive, so does leadership needs its followers to be complete. The mission of the leader is only completed by its followers therefore a good leader should always work by concentrating on what they are in respect to beliefs and character, what they know which follows on the basis of job and human nature and finally what they do which includes implementing and providing direction to their followers. To be a successful in leadership one should remember that being a leader is like being an architect whose function is to analyze and design a path and a structure for the followers. Leaders need to create a broadly based aspiration. He or she should use these objectives to motivate and mobilize others. They should also enable others to work for these goals, create a proper solution and guide others to arrive at an intended change and finally the leaders have to make sure that the change made benefits or fulfils the needs of the people. We shall now discuss the dark side of leadership, its positive and negative effects and the influences that leads to this path. (Clark, 2007) Leadership influence: Positive As mentioned above leadership comes with the quality of the leader and one of the qualities is the behaviour pattern and personality. They are two types of personality traits, which are bright side and a dark side. Let us start by describing the bright side of leadership. In this type of trait, the personality of a leader is very cautious about his behaviour in and with the public. He wins the trust in a charismatic, strategic and out-spoken way while other leaders behave in a very tactful and humble manner. The follower or the people who seeks advice and guidance usually have a very high value and respect towards the leader and their behaviour pattern. As such, this type of behaviour pattern and personality proves to be successful trait towards the leader. On the other hand, if leader posses a dark side of personality his behaviour pattern becomes irritating, not productive and usually lacks the ability to lead and create proper plans and guidance towards the targeted objective. This type of behaviour usually comes into the picture when a leader is not maintaining his or her self-image in the public or an organization also when times are stressful or even when dealing with task completion, multitasking and dealing with tight schedule or in crisis. However, as times have changed so has leadership and with the complexity that we see nowadays it usually gives the opportunity or rise to the dark side traits. Some common dark side traits or behaviour are: excitable, dubious, cautious, reserved and mischievous. If a leader shows his dark traits often then it usually divides the group and breaks the team. There are few leaders that have learnt to control their dark traits while there are others who have not experienced the stress level for their dark traits to come out. (McIntosh, Rima and McIover,1997) Leadership influence: Negative Many a times a leader fails to reach to his or her target and also lacks the ability to guide others. Therefore, there has to be a reason that a person is compelled to have his dark side come out. Dark side usually refer to a person inner urge, compulsion motivation and dysfunction. These traits work as a shadow, which guides us. However, these types of shadow have a very unclear picture and also ambition. It is a desperation that needs to be approved, irrational fear, a need to be in constant power and to control every situation. It is a behavioural pattern that is always overpowering. The only time the dark negative side comes into play is when the leader becomes selfish and the target which they making other to achieve only fulfils their needs and not the others. A person’s personality trait gives rise to the dark side and leadership. People who experience dark leadership can be compulsive, where they only want to maintain an absolute order. The other type of leadership is narcissist, where a person world only revolves around him only and wants others to adjust accordingly. Then there are other types of leaders that are paranoid where they feel a sense of jealously, hostility and are also fearful. Lastly, some leaders are co-dependency where they have emotional and psychological disorder. We see that leaders who have negative leadership qualities behave domineering and superior to others. In an organization a negative leader thinks that by firing others, cutting their pay, or sending them home without any reason makes them feel great in front of others staff members. These types of leaders think that by scaring other will yield in higher productivity. However, these leaders fail to see that this type of activity leads in lower productivity. On the other in an organization we can see that people who work out of the negative are the bosses while other who works out of the positive are the true leaders. (Clark, 2007) Leadership Influence: Political Different type of structure requires different type of leaders. However, the people who are responsible of leading or guiding a nation and its people usually are taken over by its dark side. The power that comes with the position of being a political leader is usually accompanied by selfish and greedy needs. This type of trait demolishes the integrity of the political leader and also the people that have given their hope and faith to these types of leaders often start mistrusting them. However, many great leaders have led a group of people and also have influenced them with honour and dignity to give their lives for the nation. These people are true leaders and now we are enjoying the benefits of their work that is freedom. Since these days when the times are different many leader usually think about their needs rather than the peoples needs and that the complexity of leadership have showered itself in many political leaders and have their dark side take over them. As political leaders, have to face problems now and then and also face the media for their action, they are usually taken over by stress and that is why they tend to act differently which can portray their dark side. However, many leaders have learnt to control these stress levels and act in a humble and tactful manner in front of the public. (Hogan, and Winsborough, 2008) Leadership Influence: Interoffice Now let us talk about leadership qualities in an organization or office. As we know that leadership traits come from personal knowledge and experience and though they are negative and positive leadership qualities we should not forget that it is a tool for growth and development. In an office there is a Management and in that a leader is required. A manager usually takes the position of a leader for his subordinates. However, leadership and management are not same but they work together. A leader usually motivates while a manager direct its team but they can be both and to be a good manager he or she has to look from all different perspective. A manager should not let his dark side take over in his leadership attributes because if it does then his team members will have an entire different notion and will lack the interest of working under such leaders. As discussed above, usually to maintain his or her reputation as a strict leader a manger often takes steps that are entirely wrong and unnecessary such as firing or putting one of his team members down in front of others. A positive side of leadership in an organization means a better understanding between the superiors and the juniors and also a mutual trust because this reduces the burden of continuous supervision. On the other hand, a negative form leadership in a management is the lack of trust and failure to guide the team member towards the target goal which gives rise to disappoint level between the upper management and lower management. (Hogan, and Winsborough, 2008) One of the main goals of a leader in the management level is to maintain healthy organizational environment. It means a better communication between the different levels so as to solve problems effectively. A better training for newcomers so that they may perceive, think and feel in relation to the target which is to be achieved. An effective leader will shape the culture for its people in the organization. An effective leader will always think an organization as a tree and the members as its branches. A successful manager is only a successful leader when he understands the responsibilities that come with his role. A manger should always accept the change, as it is one of the most important thing in an organization as in todays ever changing world, management is dynamically challenged by а vast number of external, as well as, internal forces. A manager should prepare the necessary action required to achieve these changes and support responsibilities that come along. The culture of the organization defines its personality and each organization has different culture, which requires different type of leadership. Therefore, what we can say about effective leadership in an organization is that the mangers should not discipline its employees in a negative manner but should make sure that employees learn from their mistakes. A manger should involve its entire staff in some kind of activity and also show pride in the work of the subordinates. The most important factor is to work in a way that encourages others and they thrive for excellence. However, with so many types of changes and responsibilities the stress level of a manager usually goes up and here also sometime his dark side of leadership comes out and sometime it get out of control. In an organization there is always different type of job structure, which requires its leaders to behave in a certain manner to face the problems and the opportunities. This is brought about by the knowledge of the past and its present leaders and how they decide the success of the organization in various fields. They should plan strategies, meetings and presentation, market leadership, productivity, quality and reliability. (Victor, 2008) Leadership influence: Personality There are many kinds of influence that we see affect the qualities of a leader and his leadership. The main influence is however a person personality. As we know if someone has a good personality he can have the traits of a good leader. A leader is usually blessed with dominance behavioural trait A leader prefers to have his or hers say and explain rationally their decisions, while not imposing everything on others. Leaders may be of two basic natures, inflexible behaviour with dominant traits or friendly, humble, tactful yet respectable orientation. However, to motivate others as leaders there are certain things that a person should remember and certain action to perform. These do not come by themselves but is acquired by constant work and study. (Clark, 2007) On the other hand, when a person is thinking or deciding to respect someone as a leader, he or she does not think about your attributes but they rather examine what you do so they can come to know who you really are. They use this method to see whether you are respectable and trusted leader or just a selfish or just some one who misuses the power given to them as a leader. These types of leaders are usually not effective and people just obey them and not follow them. This type of leader just wants to be in good books with other senior leaders at the expense of others. The only way they can succeed is to maintain a good personality trait. People need to be guided by someone they respect and someone who have a plain sense of direction and to gain respect the leaders have to be ethical and a sense of directional is achieved by conveying a strong vision of the future. So we see that a person personality is one of the most important influences for his or her being a leader. If they are humble and friendly they will the trust and love of the people but if they are to dominant and strict with them are even if they are sometime selfish then they would not gain any respect from their team. Sometime followers of this type of leaders often lack the interest of achieving their goal and also loose interest on working towards excellence. Conclusion In the end we should understand that leadership in a learning process and we all have been leaders in our way at one point or the other in our lives. For example, parents are leader for their children who in turn look upon them for guidance. Teacher should learn to control their dark side and they are leader for a group of student who look upon them to gain knowledge. Leadership study is open to many different opinions and many studies have been conducted but no one has actually defined the term for a god leader. Without followers there is no leadership and often followers are neglected in the process of leadership. If a person keeps thinking about leadership then it helps him to become a good leader than what he is at present. That’s why it is said that a part of learning about leadership is to always think about it. We have discussed the various aspects and the influence that are the traits of leaders and their leadership, how one should behave in all the fields be it organization or political, personal or within a family. One should remember that if he wants to be a leader he should behave in a very tactful yet humble manner to gain the respect of his followers. If there are no followers then there is no point of leadership. It is the main ingredient of the whole process. A behavioural pattern should be maintained, that is of patience yet forceful, kind yet firm. There will be time when a leader will be urged to have dark side come out such high stress level or sometime just the fact of the hardship that comes across to achieve the target but in situation like this a person should try to control his dark side as much as he or she can. On the other hand, one should also remember that behaving negatively with his or her team members can have its repercussion. They will follow them but will not give the respect that you as a leader should deserve. In a family too, the family head is responsible for leading and guiding his family but if he does not respect the family members they too will just listen to the family head but will not give that respect. This is something that we see these days in families. (Clark, 2007) Dark side can be controlled if leaders are taught how to recognize the situation where dark side come into action. They should learn how to cope with stress and reduce the impact of counterproductive tendencies. (McIntosh, Rima and McIover, 1997) However, one should remember that the treatment of dark side is a long-term process and not something that can be solved in a day or two. Therefore, in this paper we have almost covered some aspect that leads a person to become dark leaders, however dark leadership has its benefits and tend to leave a positive impression on others and sometime it helps in teaching the person to win over the goal he or she is after but it should not get into ones head. References Clark, D. R (2007) Leadership Concept: Available at: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadcon.html (accessed on 8th September 2008) Hogan, R. and Winsborough, D. (2008) Leadership and dark side personality traits. Available at: www.swanngroup.co.nz/articles/Dark-Side-Personality-Leadership.pdf (accessed on 4th September 2008) McIntosh, G., Rima, S. D Sr. and McIover (1997), Overcoming the dark side of leadership. Available at: www.davidmays.org/BookNotes/McIOver.pdf (accessed on 4th September) Victor, Ron: (2008) An Effective Leadership and its functions: Article Available at: http://ezinearticles.com/?An-Effective-Leadership-and-Its-Functions&id=1298917 (accessed on 8th September 2008) Read More