The Subject of Leadership - Example

Leadership Name Course Institution Date Introduction I must say that it is very difficult to discuss the subject of leadership effectively. Regardless of the setting and the objectives, leadership is too dynamic to be discussed exhaustively. Various authors have come up with varying approaches to the subject of leadership. There is still much that has not been covered effectively. This author has made an attempt towards the same direction. He has discussed some of the critical aspects of leadership in its various forms. He exploits a wealth of resources that have been researched by other writers on the subject. At the end of it is a comprehensive approach to the subject of leadership from the information he has gathered. The intention of this report is to dissect the information and the claims made by the author regarding the subject of leadership. The approach of this paper is a critical review and analysis in view of getting a more realistic way of looking at the issue of leadership. Author’s Assertions Definition of Leadership The author of this article bases on various sources in defining leadership. The definition of leadership is deeply rooted in the attaining of organizational results through others. Therefore, according to the author leadership deals with achieving the results of the organization efficiently through others (Hotgetts 1992, p. 76). This in setting of the organization implies those people working with the leader. This may include the team members or general subordinates. According to the author, no leader achieves results through their own efforts alone. If that happens, then leadership loses the whole meaning. Who is led? In explaining who is led in relation to leadership, the author uses two perspectives. One of the perspectives is that of psychology. From a psychology perspective, the person who is led is viewed from a group setting. That is to mean that it is the members and the leader who are connected together through leadership. In such a group setting, the author asserts that members of the group must all have a common goal. Therefore, from the psychology perspective the person who is led is from a group. At the same time, the person is led towards the realization and achievement of common goals. The other perspective that the author has used to explain the person who is led is from a management perspective. According to the author, organizations are not based on common goals. The main focus of goals is to put down strategies in place in order to achieve specific goals. These goals are determined by the owners of these organizations. The members of such organizations do not necessarily hold the same goals. To lead and to manage The two terms are much related, but according to this author, there is a very big difference. Leadership is viewed as an interpersonal relationship that is practised in various situations and is channelled through communication. That what makes a good leader is the desire to leader. This is what shapes one into that position that makes them quite effective as leaders in their various positions. The level of success of a leader is therefore determined by the way in which all this factors are put together. The author has presented a number of reasons that people adopt when they want to clinch leadership positions. From what the author has written, the selfish ambitions that lead many into leadership is what leads to their failure as leaders. In understanding much about leadership, the author explains the various settings that are used to define the leader. This includes the role a leader plays in a group and the responsibilities that the leader is expected to delegate to other members of the group. That while in a group there is only one leader, the duties and responsibilities of the leader can be easily shared amongst individual members. Through all these, the leader will have to be assessed on the basis of how the entire organization succeeds (Farkas & Wetlaufer 1996, p. 115). That means a non-performing entity is considered to be having bad leadership. Therefore, the view of the author is that successful leadership must only be measured on the basis of the success of the goals of the organization. Personality and leadership At this point, the author is trying to establish if indeed there is a relationship between the personality of the leader and their subsequent leadership prowess. There have been different assertions in relation to the relationship existing between the two variables above. There are assertions that relates to the relationship between leadership and intelligence. The author points to the study undertaken by the classical sometimes back. It is believed that in in general, leaders are more intelligent than the people they lead. Nevertheless, the classical are quick to point to the fact that intelligence is not by any means a determiner. This is because the relationship that existed when the research was carried out was very slim. From the survey that was carried out, it was very difficult to conclude on the specific trait that is associated with leadership. Leaders are unique in various ways and this is very important in analysing how these leaders are able to perform in such varying environment (Skinner 1974, p. 80). The author also makes it very clear that it is not possible to isolate specific group of traits and claim that they are the determinants of good leadership. At the same time, the author is very keen to point out one thing; that in as much as this personality certain traits cannot be specifically pinned to leadership, these traits cannot be separated from leadership. That is to mean that in as much as researchers could not establish a strong correlation between the traits and leadership, lack of these traits made it almost impossible for the leader. The author has expressed reliance on the contemporary research. Some researchers are said to have already established a strong relationship between the leader and cognitive abilities. Another factor that was highlighted by the contemporary researchers was conscientiousness. They came to find out that 31% of the determinants of leadership were traits. On the other hand, 61% was made of other factors apart from traits. This opens up some interesting discussions of the main contributor factor to determining leaders. Another area that has been researched is the area of personality and transformational leadership. They established that personality traits and cognitive abilities of somebody varied greatly. Different researchers have been carried out studies on the balance between the cognitive and personality abilities. The issue has been dealt with for a very long time but yet no concrete evidence has been presented in favour of either of the sides of the discussion. They have tried by all means to establish to the various correlation analysis. In most of the specific factors that have been analysed, it has been established that the correlation is not strong enough to justify the existence of a relationship. Personality and effectiveness In this section, the author seeks to establish how the personality traits affect the discharge of duties by the leader. A number of examples have been used differently with the aim of finding out if actually there is a trend to go by. In assessing this, the author points out to goal attainment as one of the tools that has been used to assess the relationship between the leader and some specific traits. In this particular case, the performance of the leader is weighed on various grounds. This can either be individual performance or group performance. In relation to the same, the author also brings out the other tricky part of the discussion. This part deals with the relationship that exists between high performance and effectiveness. From the author’s perspective, it is very possible to achieve very high performance while at the expense of the level of effectiveness. That is to say that achieving high results may take place even the level of utilization of resources is very poor. Personality and behaviour Behaviour of the leader has some consequences on the performance of individual members. At the same time the same time, these behaviours have a way in which they are likely to affect the overall performance of the organization. There are many theories that have been formulated to provide some information concerning the relationship between the leader’s behaviour and their overall personality. The author borrows some information from most of these theories to explain the manner in which personality is viewed. Most of the theories postulated point to the fact that there is such a close relationship between personality and behaviour of the leader. My Analysis It is quite interesting in the manner through which the author brings out his arguments concerning leadership. In as much as my analysis may differ a bit on some of the approaches used, there are things that we completely conquer. This approach is aimed at digging deeper into some of the theories in order to assess some of the assertions that have been made by the author. At the end of it, a better understanding of the subject will have been gained. This is also done with the understanding that leadership cannot be fully exhausted. There are a number of aspects that he has dealt with in an in-depth manner. More specifically, there incidences where he gets empirical studies that have been used to proof a certain point. The definition given by the author sounds quite befitting in all manner of ways. Many have tried to go around explaining leadership, but the explanation provided by the author in this case is sufficient. The main parameters, according to me, are the ability to influence (Stogdill 1948, p. 43). This is the main tool that people use to gauge a leader. A leader must possess the ability to influence people as a fundamental requirement. The main reason for this is from the understanding that a leader is chosen over other people to lead them towards a certain direction. Unless the leader is good enough to mobilize the people for such tasks, it will be very difficult for him to achieve anything. The ability to influence implies that the leader has some command that in one way can reduce the kind of revolt from members. Therefore, the author has shared significant information that Contingency theory According to this theory, the effectiveness of a leader is majorly determined by the setting in which the leader is in. This implies that the traits of the leader will bear fruits in the organization depending on the surrounding circumstances. One of the circumstances that would determine how successful a leader can be is the type of followers (Fiedler 1967, p. 143). The responsibility of leading people is made easier if the people being led are very cooperative. In other words, the cooperation that is shown to the leader will cause the leader to exercise his leadership authority. This is a psychological stimulation in my own view. The situations around the leader have the ability to cause him to be pragmatic in a number of ways. Through pragmatism, the leaders’ unique way of managing people and resources will be revealed (Ryckman 1985, p. 68). At the same time, the situation in which the leader is determines which of his character traits of his will be very effective. For instance, if it is a crisis, it may test the leader’s problem solving abilities. The leader has a role of establishing profitable working relationship with the support staff in order to ensure that there are ties that will enable him take charge of the work of the responsibilities under him. Behavioural theory The argument behind this theory is whether leaders are made or are born. Proponents of this theory believe that leaders are made and not born. The main area of concern of this theory is that leader’s behaviour is responsible for shaping their skills and expertise as applied in relation to leadership. I strongly believe in the theoretical position of this theory. There are many reasons why I believe that behaviour greatly influence leadership. There are very few leaders in the current generation that have successfully managed such dynamic society without training and some other requirements. Leaders ought to be endowed with information regarding certain entities and things in advance. This is meant to put the leader ahead of the people he is leading. People can actually learn to become good leaders (Skinner 1974, p. 82). People do not need to give up with leadership roles just because they were not born leaders. The same argument is supported by Skinner, the great classical psychologist. Skinner drives this understanding from the experiments he carried out on how human beings can be easily be transformed. In his experiments, Skinner established how it was easy to condition an animal to respond in a certain situations due to stimulation. According to Skinner (1974, p. 78), the will of a person is not considered much as it is the environment when it comes to conditioning. That is to imply that the effect that an environment can have on an individual in relation to the development of certain behaviours is much stronger than the will of the person. Therefore, this is the reason Skinner and other proponents of behavioural theory believe that the environment can be a very crucial to determining the qualities and traits of the leader (Skinner 1974, p. 85). This stand may be quite different from what the author has discussed in the in his article. According to the article, the relationship between the leader’s behaviour does not hold empirically. He claims that in as much one can successfully establish some relationship between a trait and the leader; these in most cases are discovered that the correlation between them is very weak. A weak correlation implies that there is no sufficient information to justify a relationship between two various. Therefore, what the author was meaning that behaviour cannot be scientifically proven to be a determiner of an individual’s leadership abilities. This is in contrary to what Skinner highlights. Personality The author has provided some grounding information about the relationship between the personality traits and leadership. Nevertheless, we can explore more specific approaches that have been used to explain the relationship that individual traits have with leadership. Some of the main contributions in relation to this subject include great philosophers. The two philosophers who made huge impact in the understanding of leadership are Plato and Aristotle. The main point at the centre of their discussion was whether leadership is in-borne or is cultivated by the environment (Ekvall & Ryhammar 1998, p. 128). Aristotle was for the fact that leaders are born and therefore what the environment impacts is less meaningful. On the other hand, Plato stood on the grounds that leaders are made. Another contributor on the same subject was Machiavelli. According to him, the character that gives one the ability to mobilize others towards the same direction is what makes a leader. According to him, the end justifies the means and there is another way around it. He believes that it does not matter the procedure leaders use to achieve. As long as they are able to direct the occurrence of a situation, they are good leaders (Skinner 1974, p. 88). Another perspective in understanding the issue of leadership is called heredity genius. This theory explains the fact that leaders are chosen by God Himself. Therefore, leadership is simply given from God and no one can take it away. Conclusion The subject of leadership is surely a wide area. There are very many theories that have been postulated in relation to this subject. For this reason alone, the subject cannot be discussed exhaustively. The subject touches on the heart of every organization. The success or failure of any organization is directly related to the quality of leadership being offered. This is because the leader gives guidelines in relation to all matters pertaining the running of the organization. This is what this case study focused upon. The leadership theories that have been applied in the management of different entities have been at the centre of this case study. The effectiveness of these theories is dependent on the personalities of the leader References: Eitzen, D.S.,Yetman, N.R., 1972, Managerial change. Longevity and organizational effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly 17, 1–16. Ekvall, G., Ryhammar, L 1998, Leadership style, social climate and organizational outcomes: a study of a Swedish university college. 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