Are Some Forms of Leadership More Effective than Others - Essay Example

4) Are some forms of leadership more effective than others? Justify your answer Leadership is concerned with influencing other people in the organization to accomplish a process or a task. It entails itself with directing an organization in that it becomes more coherent as well as cohesive. Leadership style can therefore be described as an approach in the line of providing direction. It includes motivation in the sheer sense of the word. There are various leadership styles that exist in management nonetheless.

They include authoritarian or autocratic, participative or democratic, delegative as well as free reign leadership. (Newstrom, 1997) The basic difference between a leader and a manager is within their working domains. They are basically doing the same job of managing people but in slightly different capacities. Whereas the leader looks at forming instructions of his own which he will forward to the middle management, the middle line managers basically aim to ‘manage’ people in the real sense of the word.

This means that managers have a duty of understanding the deep rooted values of the organization and the same cannot be compromised no matter what happens. These need to be aligned in a proper fashion with the activities and tasks of the team that the manager is heading. It would be fair to comment that the managers have a lot going for them and it is their will and determination to bring out the best from the whole team and indeed the entire process that they are working upon. (Ibrahim, 1996) There are occasions when a manager has to take up the leadership role as well.

This could include his team building tactics, getting the work done out from individuals who might have pretty different backgrounds and diverse educational capabilities, smoothening of the whole process of business management within several units spread across the company’s horizon, motivating the employees and being accountable for their tasks and activities, living up to the values of the organization. (Heath, 1994) But a leader would stick to his already formed principles and would not stray from the set course of action.

He would have to demonstrate his oneness in decisions and actions that he undertakes and there would be no compromise on this aspect all said and done. A leader must remain proactive in all his decisions while a manager can articulate and change his decisions from time to time in order to suit the need of the workers and the employees working under him for a set task or objective. The role of a manager is one that evolves over a period of time and the pivotal thing here is to fathom that this is something which requires a balanced head on the shoulders and more than anything else a clear vision, deep insight into the relevant knowledge circles and expertise to back them all up.

The manager focuses on the strong points that the employees have learned from their past colleagues and best case examples are also something that they can touch upon in the long run. (Day, 2004) On the flip side of the coin, leading is quite interpersonal in nature. It is not just the manager in an organization that is supposed to lead. It can even exist between employees. It has to do with mutual influence. All these are normally based on different theories and assumptions. Any style that is incorporated in management can be based on combination of preferences, values and beliefs.

Organizational culture also plays a big role in influencing the leadership style used by management. (Minter, 2000) Leadership style used by management plays a big role in affecting the success of the organization. A leader has to clearly understand the different types of leadership styles and their impacts on the organization. Good leadership always includes incorporation of all the leadership styles. Bad leadership just sticks to one style. Leadership qualities are neither inborn nor inherent but they have to be developed with the passage of time and thus one needs to understand the fact that it requires strenuous exercise and a certain set of power that is needed by the people who have the will to make it big within the related domains.

Indeed the leadership qualities require of a person to give his best shot within the group no matter how hard and trying the circumstances turn out to be at the end. A formal organization takes into account the role of leadership at the top and the manner in which this leadership is basically carried about, both in the interests of the people within the company as well as the company itself so that the end result is one on which everyone solemnly agree, that is to make the company thrive from a revenue-generating angle and image building aspect in the long run.

(Kotter, 2000) Thus it is significant that the top management has a sense of inculcating the subject of working within teams rather than being as a lonely player in different projects, thus leading to an end result which is a clear manifestation of the people with their respective efforts and dedication levels that are exceeding what were expected of them in the first place. Top management needs to understand its due role here and consult with all and sundry as to how the employees need to work hand in hand in the form of teams and bring about the best result possible.

The informal structure of an organization lays the foundation for the formal hierarchy, as people are more easily able to relate to each other as well as to the company for which they are working day in day out. (Guarrero, 1998) Managing people and organizations requires a great deal of perseverance and this does not come about in an overnight fashion. There is a great deal of hard work and commitment that is put into the whole machinery that one knows as organization before the output could be extracted in benefiting proportions.

Lastly, what has been discussed within the length of this paper holds true for a number of different organizations around the world more so because every organization or business entity requires astute leadership capacities to exist within their ranks and thus the end result is one which is there for the taking for one and all. (Maundy, 2001) Thus some forms of leadership are truly more effective than the other ones because these manifest the actual basis of growth within their pertinent roles and the benefits that the organizations derive all this while is something to write home about.

The organizations can look up to these leaders when there are issues which need sound leadership capacities at the helm and thus leadership which has astuteness within its ranks will eventually come out as the winner in such instances. (Hall, 2002) In the end, it is important to ascertain that the mileage a leader gets is indeed in proportion to what his vision is. If he thinks from a very defensive mindset, there are more chances that he and his group might not succeed in the long run and thus the aspect of sustainability crops up for all the wrong reasons.

This sustainability could only be attained if leadership understands and analyzes its due role in the related contexts and goes about doing things the attacking way. This will put the organization in nice stead of things which will come within the future as well as shape up the processes that may so arise within the coming times. All said and done, the role of leaders will continue to become stronger by the day since visionary skills and decision making abilities are not available in every employee that an organization hires.

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