Leadership-Qualities of an Effective Leader - Literature review Example

Note: You will find the PowerPoint presentation in the drafts/references section. Just send me a message if you need anything. Thanks! LEADERSHIP (Qualities of an Effective Leader) TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Contents 2 1. INTRODUCTION Leadership is defined in many ways and subject of scholarly debate for many years . These include issues concerning the characteristics of a good leader, the role of charisma and personality traits in leadership, theories of nature or gifted leaders and learned leaderships, elements of interpersonal influence, and the contradictory findings of different studies in leadership. Similarly, the emergence of various leadership styles led to various arguments including which style is more effective and applicable in certain situation. The following sections discusses the various definition of leadership, the role of interpersonal influence in acquiring followers’ trust, the relationship between personality, situational factors, and leadership style, and qualities of an effective leader. Moreover, it also present an analysis of theories, arguments, and result of studies discussed in the previous sections, and concluding statements summarising the most important points presented in this report. 2. LEADERSHIP DEFINITION There are various definitions of leadership and most of them point to the strong link between the person who lead and the organisation . For instance, definition of leadership in the 1920s according to include the ability to impress followers and acquire their loyalty, obedience, respect, and cooperation. In the 1930s, leadership is considered a process where people are organised and move in a direction specified by their leader. Several decades later, leadership becomes the ability to persuade others using prestige and power, discretionary influence in the 1970s, the ability to inspire in the 1980s, and an act that influence relationship in the 1990s. However, the definition provided by Tannenbaum (1961) as cited in seems more realistic as it suggest that leadership is “interpersonal influence” directed and exercised through communication in order to achieve a certain goal This interpersonal influence means that a leader build relationship with people in order to build trust, support, and cooperation . 3. INTERPERSONAL INFLUENCE As a leader to acquire trust commonly uses interpersonal influence, support, and cooperation of people thus may be considered a person’s power to persuade and influence the behaviour and attitudes of others. According to , leaders often use a number of interpersonal influence tactics such as the following: Rational persuasion – the ability of a person to use facts, data, and logical arguments to persuade others . Example: A manager who has sufficient knowledge and expertise on specific issue is more likely to persuade his employees to follow his direction. Goodwill – the ability to create favourable impression by showing respect, consideration, fairness, and trust of others . Example: A manager who is fair, respectful and considerate to his employees’ is more likely to be supported, as people tend to follow those they like and make them feel good about themselves. Rule of reciprocity – the ability to influence others through exchange of benefits and favours . Example: A manager who often gives favours to his employees such as free use of company resources, emotionally supportive, and understanding of employees’ shortcomings is likely to receive favours from employees in the form of support and loyalty. Develop network of allies – the ability to make friends with people who can help him accomplish his goals . Example: A manager who talks to employees outside formal meetings in order to understand their needs and concerns, and explain his point of view is likely to have loyal followers who would voluntarily assist and give their full support. Direct and personal request – the ability to make clear and well-defined proposal . Example: A manager who expresses exactly what he wants will often receive support because clear proposal allow employees to consider other options and accept if there is no better alternative. Use of authority – the ability to get things done using a leader’s formal authority . Example: If all the above did not work, then a manager can use his authority or get the support of top management to make his employees move in the proper direction. Reward and punishment – the ability to recognise and reward good work and punish those who fail and demonstrating undesirable behaviour . Example: A manager who often acknowledges his employee’s hard work, loyalty, perseverance, innovativeness, and rewards them from time to time is likely to gain employees support. Similarly, punishing undesirable behaviour in the spirit of justice will likely to earn respect and support from employees. 4. PERSONALITY, SITUATIONAL FACTORS, and LEADERSHIP STYLE Personality is characteristics of a person that include consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions . Leadership style on the other hand varies depending on their personality and situational factors . According to , a style of a leader is not necessarily better than the other. Example: An autocratic leadership style may better in emergencies but it may not be appropriate in stress-free condition where most people seek a participative leader . Laissez-faire leaders – these are leaders that provide no feedback and little and no supervision . Example: Founding father of America and former U.S President Thomas Jefferson who popularised the phrase “That government is best which governs least” or the less government, the better principle . Authoritarian leaders – these leaders tend to reserve all authority and responsibility. The assign people to clearly defined tasks and often characterised by downward flow (leader to follower only) . Example: Adolf Hitler who imposed an unconditional law and death sentence to Nazi Germany from 1933to 1945. Transformational leaders – sometimes called charismatic leaders with idealised influence on their followers. Their personality traits include self-confidence, good communication and personal styles . Example: Former President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Mahatma Gandhi of India, Fidel Castro of Cuba, and others Transactional leaders – they are leaders who use reward and punishment to direct their followers, boost motivation, morale, and productivity. Their personal traits include strict adherence to moral standards and rules, strong sense of responsibility, and inflexibility . Example: Coaches of athletic teams, Charles de Gaulle of France, Senator Joseph McCarthy of the United States, and so on. Situational leaders – these leaders matches their style to the situation. Their leadership style is often characterised by directing, coaching, supporting, and delegation of work . Example: U.S. General George Patton (war strategy in WW II) and former U.S. President George Bush (response to 9/11 attacks) who are known for assessing and basing their decisions and actions on the situation at hand. 5. QUALITIES OF AN EFFECTIVE LEADER According to , although there is a link between leadership and personality traits, this relationship is not strong enough to assume that a particular personality often result to an effective leader. On the other hand, some author argues that traits and disposition significantly contribute to leadership effectiveness. These include the theory that leaders were born or by nature have traits that enable them to become successful leaders, the theory of nurture where leadership skills and behaviour are assumed learned, and the view that effectiveness of a leader is dependent on situational factors as shown in the figures below . Figure 1- The nurture theory Figure 2- The situational factors theory However, studies of effective leaders suggest that most effective leaders have personality of openness, sociable, and motivation to manage . Example: A manager who often express their true feelings, straightforward, non-secretive, friendly and enjoy companionship, and always willing to receive ideas from others. Others studies noted the influence of individual behaviour and practices in increasing leadership effectiveness . Example: A manager who initiate a facilitative work structure, provide resources, express consideration and responsive to employees grievances, and apply a system of reward and punishment. Although there seems so many so many qualities required to become an effective leader, some studies shows that charisma (gifted leader), heroism (willing to make sacrifices above and beyond the call of duty), popularity, and natural ability to command loyalty and respect from people are the most important because such qualities have significant positive effects on people . Example: Charisma can create an atmosphere of excitement, energy, optimism, vision, inspiration, and motivation . As opposed to charisma and heroism, Walter Kiechel as cited in , suggest that successful leaders are those who are emotional available to followers, open and honest in expressing their feelings, willing to develop their leadership skills further, and exhibit diversity of perspectives and interpersonal styles . However, acquiring these qualities does not necessary make a person an effective leader because according to , situational factors can significantly affect leadership effectiveness as well as leadership style. For this reason, a good leader should be flexible and possess some basic characteristics and competencies such as the following: Enthusiasm Example: Managers who actively communicate with other people and provide resources to get things done. Confidence Example: Managers who believed in themselves and to the viability of the organisation’s goals and objectives. Toughness Example: Managers who are flexible but demands respect and high quality of work from employees. Integrity Example: Managers who are true to themselves, honest, and with unblemished reputation. Warmth Example: Managers who build personal relationships by being considerate and caring to his or her employees. Humility Example: Managers who is willing to take the blame, reasonable, modest in all aspect of leadership. Similarly, a leader should the following key competencies : Adaptive capacity or flexibility Ability to engage others in shared meanings Compelling voice and integrity As shown below, study of requirements for leadership behaviour in industrial setting ranked 10 top requirements based on the findings that good leaders are those that provide the right environment for people to perform well with less supervision. Table 1- Top 10 required leadership behaviour in industrial setting Rank Factors 1 Shows enthusiasm 2 Supports other people 3 Recognises individual effort 4 Listens to individual ideas and problems 5 Provides direction 6 Demonstrates personal integrity 7 Practices what he preaches 8 Encourages teamwork 9 Actively encourages feedback 10 Develops other people 6. ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS Analysis of theories, arguments, and results of studies in leadership effectiveness discussed earlier, leadership is a complex human quality. This is because good leadership is more than just exercising authority over people but leading effectively using combined personality traits, leadership behaviour and competencies, flexibility in style, and continuous development of leadership skills. These in essence are interpersonal influence and a person’s power to influence the attitude and behaviour of others. For this reason, it can be safely assume that effective leadership is determined by the strength of interpersonal influence and leader’s application of appropriate leadership style in every situation. Moreover, charisma and heroic tendencies are undoubtedly a leadership advantage because emotional availability, openness and honesty, willingness to develop leadership skills, diversity in perspective and interpersonal styles are characteristics and competencies of good leaders as shown in Table 1. 7. CONCLUSION Leadership is defined differently mainly because leaders in reality do possess different qualities. However, the common assumption of an effective leader is one that has the ability to impress and acquire loyalty, respect, obedience, and cooperation of his or her followers. These abilities are in essence interpersonal influence or a set of favourable characteristics and competencies responsible for increasing leadership effectiveness. In general good leadership can be achieved through combination of charisma, heroism, personality traits, favourable leadership behaviour and competencies, flexibility in styles, and continuous development of leadership skills. 8. REFERENCES Adams, D. L. (2007). Personality Type and Leadership Approach, Capella University Andersen, J. A. 2006. Leadership, personality and effectiveness. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 35, 1078-1091. Armstrong, M. & Stephens, T. (2005). A Handbook of Management and Leadership: A Guide to Managing for Results, Kogan Page Burns, L. R., Bradley, E. H., Weiner, B. J., Shortell, S. M. & Kaluzny, A. D. (2012). Shortell and Kaluzny's Healthcare Management: Organization Design and Behavior, Delmar Cengage Learning Cassidy, C. & Kreitner, R. (2009). Supervision: Setting People Up for Success: Setting People Up for Success, South-Western Cengage Learning Ciulla, J. B. (2004). Ethics, the Heart of Leadership, Praeger Daft, R., Daft, R. L., Kendrick, M. & Vershinina, N. (2010). Management, Cengage Learning Exantus, R. (2012). Pastoral Burnout and Leadership Styles: Factors Contributing to Stress and Ministerial Turnover, AuthorHouse Harvard_Business_School (2005). Becoming an Effective Leader, Harvard Business School Press HTC (1997). Building Interpersonal Influence, Human Resource Development Press.US Kraemer, R. H., Newell, C. & Prindle, D. F. (2007). Essentials of Texas Politics, Thomson Wadsworth Moyles, J. (2006). Effective Leadership And Management In The Early Years, McGraw-Hill Companies,Incorporated Mynhardt, J. (2009). South African Supplement to Social Psychology 3e, Pearson.South Africa Scutchfield, F. D. & Keck, C. W. (2003). Principles of Public Health Practice, Thomson/Delmar Learning  Read More