Leadership Concepts - Essay Example

Leadership Concepts Leadership is a concept that receives much talk globally, and has generated a sequence of literature particularly in the field of management (Bass and Stogdill, 1990). There is no uniformity or rather a common definition of leadership. This paper aims at looking at the various ways in which leadership has been defined, examining the various key concepts of leadership and some theories of leadership. In addition, the paper goes ahead to evaluate the role and effectiveness of transformational and transactional styles of leadership. The paper concludes with a list of several recommendations aimed at improving the current leadership skills. Leadership Concepts Excellent leaders have always been associated with a continuous process of learning and not as a result of birth. If one has the desire and the will to become a leader, then an effective leader can come out of the person in question. According to Kidder (1995), it takes not only training to become a good team leader, but it also takes education, experience and a long period of self-dedicated time to study leadership as a skill. For the workforce or juniors to be inspired, an effective leadership has to be, has to know, and has to do a number of things. These things are not achieved while resting on a laurel, instead, they are achieved via continued learning and dedicated study so as to improve the current and already acquired skills as well as learn new skills. This paper aims at looking at the key concepts of leadership; the influence of power on the followers, and evaluate the effectiveness of both transformational and transactional leadership in an organization. Many have defined leadership in various ways. According to Goleman (2000), leadership is a process where a person influences an assembly of other persons with the aim of achieving a common goal. Another definition, put forward by Dwight Eisenhower, “Leadership is the ability to decide what is to be done, and then getting others to do it” (Larson, 1968). Another definition of leadership comes from Cleeton and Mason (1934), that “Leadership indicates the ability to influence men and secure results through emotional appeals rather than through the exercise of authority.” The key concept as of these definitions is the ability of the person to organize their followers and point them towards achieving a common goal. The difference depends on a number of aspects and the nature of the subjects. For instance, a corporative executive may seek opinion democratically from the subordinates and develop a stratagem to arrive at a common goal. Key Concepts of Leadership In many organizations, numerous personnel are promoted to higher ranks as a result of their hard work. According to Goleman (2000), this is the first mistake companies make. As this paper reports, leadership is a quality that is associated with a number of key concepts. i. Humbleness – arrogance always come to practice during insecure moments, acting as a cover-up. There is no employee who will ever want to see a leader who is remote and haranguing. Instead, they would enjoy working with a leader who is humble and treats them with respect. ii. A good leader will always recognize and appreciate their juniors in the wake of a good performance. This has a huge impact on the motivation of the employees, which later yields productive results. iii. One should be a servant. Direct all the efforts towards work and ensure that the juniors have no obstacles that hinder their performance and that they are in possession of all the required tools to accomplish their tasks. iv. A good leader should be visionary in that they can help the juniors to see a better future and excite them on how to get to it. v. Confronting – many classify the word confrontation as a dirty word, but still, one can be confronted positively so as to get others on the right track in a rather gentle way. Confrontation can also be useful in identifying and eliminating from the team ineffective members and those with negative attitudes. vi. Positivity – a good leader should never show any signs of defeat. They should remain positive and determined regardless of the situation at hand. During the 20th century, the portion interested in leadership grew with several leadership theories coming into existence (Hellelbein, Goldsmith and Beckhar, n.d). Many of them focused on the principal differences between a leader and their followers with other variables such as skills kept in mind. A number of theories exist to explain leadership: trait, behavioral, situational contingency, participative, transactional and transformational theories. Trait Theories These theories take the assumption that certain qualities and traits are inherited by people to make them good leaders. With trait theories, particular personality or behavioral characteristics are common among leaders. Being the oldest approach, it banked on the kind of traits that differentiate great persons from the rest of the crowd (Kidder, 1995). Recent studies have helped to identify a number of traits that help to bolster leadership with most of them being identified as predictors to outcomes. These traits include; Integrity Maturity of emotion Flexibility Social intelligence and cognitive ability Orientation towards achievement Self-confidence Tolerance to stress The social motivation power Ability to persevere According to this model, a leader in the society is to hold the above named skills or traits. Other theories that pop up in this field talk of when a crisis occurs or during a function and someone rises to the occasion unlashing the amazing leadership qualities in a regular person. This theory is called the Great Events Theory (Roby, 1961). In other cases, people usually choose to become leaders and engage themselves in learning leadership skills. This type of leadership is referred to as Transformational or Process Leadership Theory (Roby, 1961). Today, many around the globe vote in favor of this theory and this forms part of this paper’s base. In any modern setting, people always want to be lead or be under the guidance of those they have respect for with a sense of direction that is clear. Being ethical is the key to one gaining respect and a sense of direction is gained by communicating a strong and suitable vision for the better future. When one is to learn from another, he/she should not observe attributes, but rather what you do, to know who you are exactly. In this way, one can use these findings to verify whether the person is a quality leader with honorable manners and can be trusted, or they are mere leaders with self-serving ambitions and misuse of authority to gain favor in the eyes of their superiors and be promoted. It has been known that self-serving leaders are meant to be obeyed and not followed. These types of leaders have always succeeded due to the good image they present to their superiors at the cost of their juniors. Researchers have argued that good leadership is based on respectable character and self-sacrificing to the organization. Respected leaders focus on (Kantor, 1995): What they are (be) i.e. their characters and beliefs What they know, i.e. things like jobs, tasks, duties, and their nature. What they do, i.e. implementation, motivation, and directing. According to a study conducted by Hay Group, it was found that; Trust and self-confidence was most reliable employee satisfaction predictor in an organization’s top leadership. Effective communication was essential in winning the trust and confidence of the team or followers. These occurred in three critical areas; i. Helping employees to understand the business strategy of the organization. ii. Help employees realize their contribution towards achieving key business objectives. iii. Sharing of information on the status of the employee department and the overall company in comparison to the objectives of the organization. In essence, a good leader must be trustworthy with the ability to pass a vision of where the company is headed. Earlier, we saw transformational and transactional leadership to be among the theories of leadership. Transactional leadership is associated with successful jobs while transformational leadership and successful jobs depend more related with the satisfaction of one’s career. In addition, research reveals that regression analysis depends on both transformational and transactional styles of leadership in comparison to satisfaction of career. Adopting either of the two is a huge success in an organization for they are considered to be predicating variables as they help predicting the satisfaction of the subordinates. Contrary to this, in some cases both cannot provide maximum satisfaction to the juniors. Kouzes and Posner (1993) reveal that followers are happy with the group reward dimension transactional leaders take and the individualistic consideration taken by transformational leaders. According to Mahoney (1997), the behaviors of transformational leadership are a key contributor to exploratory innovation. On the other hand, transactional leadership behaviors favor the improvement and extension of the current knowledge. These behaviors are usually associated with innovation that is exploitative. In some cases, the predicting variable was found to be affected by transformational behavior while in other cases, transactional behavior affected it significantly. The reason why transactional leaders have significant influence on their followers is because transactional leadership provides higher assurance and organizational identity compared to transformational leadership. Kantor (1995) reveals that transformational leadership had the upper hand in terms of influencing the performance and innovation of the followers as compared to transactional leadership. In addition, transformational leadership was closely associated with cohesiveness of the team, effectiveness of the work unit and the organizational learning in comparison to transactional leadership. Transformational leaders of an organization help in the organization accepting the aspect of change particularly about acceptance and acquisition of technology (OToole, 1996). Transformational leaders will be inclined towards having higher agreements regarding organizational strategic goals. They help their employees voluntarily and help to prevent problems that are work related thus enhancing job satisfaction. This results in a more committed work force with less intentions of turnover (OToole, 1996). Figure1: Research Model In many organizational settings, transformational leadership is favored as it has strong relationship with performance of sales and the identity of the organization than the behaviors of transactional leadership. In addition, at both individual and organizational levels, the creativity was greatly affected by transformational leadership as compared to transactional leadership. Factors of Leadership Leadership is associated with four major factors. They include; leader, follower, situation and communication. i. The Leader A good leader is one with a clear self understanding of who they are, what they know and what they can do. One important aspect to consider is that a successful leader is determined by the followers. If the followers have no confidence in their leader, it results in their discouragement. A successful leader will want to convince his/her followers not for own or superior benefits, that you deserve to be followed. Followers Not all people go by one leadership style, for instance, the supervision protocol for a new recruit or employee is not same to that of an experienced regular employee (Specialists, 2008). An employee with less motivation needs a diverse method from that of a motivated employee. A good leader should have a better understanding of his/her followers, and to do this, one should have a suitable understanding of humans and their nature, know the be’s, know’s and do’s of their employees. Communication The most type of communication used in leadership models is nonverbal (Roby, 1961). A suitable example is when a leader leads as a good example to the others and communicates or sends a strong message to their followers that you would not assign them duties you cannot do. The mode of communication employed either builds or hurts the relationship between the leader and the follower. Situation The mode in which a leader reacts to a situation is critical. What works in a given circumstance will not necessarily work in a different situation (Wren, 995). One must use their judgment to decide or chose the best option and the style of leadership to be employed in each given situation. A suitable example is when confrontation of a worker for improper behavior is too early or too late, too weak or too ruthless, thus rendering the results ineffective. As a leader, the best leadership strategy would be the transformational leadership strategy as it gives room for the development who has achieved praise through experience having learnt the traits of through a long period of leadership spells. In this way, the leader gets to learn new aspects of leadership. Functions of Leadership i. Balance the resources and capabilities of the group with the demands of the environment. ii. To bring about analogy of goals among the members iii. Ensure that the required information is available whenever needed. iv. Generate a group that can put together ideas and reach to suitable problem solution. Recommendations In order to improve the leadership skills displayed here, an action plan has been established that lists a number of recommendations for effective leadership. They include; Educating employees on leadership practices Conduct presentations to exhibit leadership skills among executive managers in the organization. Organize conferences on leadership. Establish a temporary residency in each company to evaluate the culture and leadership skills in each facility and make recommendations to improve them. Conclusion Leadership styles determine a lot in an organization. A suitable example is presented by Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, who uses affilitative style by harmony and emotional bonds creation between employees (Specialists, 2008). In other cases, he uses a coercive leadership style and demands immediate results, for instance, employees acquiring or complying with legal regulations. Alternatively, he employs a more democratic method by building consensus via participation. In addition, he also serves as an example in demanding excellence and induction of a sense of self-control and self-direction in employees. It has been observed that Welch often practices coaching leadership style in the hunt to developing future leaders (Specialists, 2008). As we have seen, leadership styles are many. The type of style chosen by the leader determines the success of the leader. This means that the key to successful leadership is for one to determine the situation in which to implement a certain type of leadership. References Bass, B. M., & Stogdill, R. M. (1990). Bass & Stogdills handbook of leadership theory, research, and managerial applications. New York: Free Press. Cleeton, G. U., & Mason, C. W. (1934). Executive ability - its discovery and development. In B. M. Bass (Ed.), Bass & Stogdills handbook of leadership theory, research, and managerial applications. New York: The Free Press. Goleman, D. (2000). Leadership that gets results. Harvard Business Review, 78(2), 12. Hellelbein, M. Goldsmith, R., & Beckhard (n.d). The leader of the future: new visions, strategies, and practices for the next era. San Francisco: Josey-Bass. Kantor, R. M. (1995). World class: Thriving locally in the global economy. In F. Kidder, R. M. (1995). 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Improving school leadership: Case studies on system leadership: Case studies on system leadership. Pont Beatriz, Hopkins David & Nusche (Eds). OECD Publishing. Wren, J. T. (1995). The leaders companion: Insights on leadership through the ages. New York: Free Press. Read More