Benefits of Effective Leadership in 21st Century Organizations - Dissertation Example

There are several definitions for leadership that reflect different views of the researchers. In this respect, James C. Georges from ParTraining Corporation has said, “What is leadership? Remove for a moment the moral issues behind it, and there is only one definition: Leadership is the ability to obtain followers”. However, this definition was opposed by others as they do not consider leadership mere the ability to get followers; for them, it is the ability to achieve a position. Such things correlate leadership with rank, position, and title.

According to them a person who has achieved a status in the organization/society is a leader. In the real world, such a definition suffers from two major problems: a person who considers him/herself as a leader because of the status,/have to face the frustration of some of the followers. Again, there may be people who do not enjoy high status and thus they don’t even try to develop leadership qualities in them. Edwin H. Friedman explained that “leadership can be thought of as a capacity to define oneself to others in a way that clarifies and expands a vision of the future”.

As per this definition, leadership is not a position; rather it is a role to be played by the leader. It should be regardless of one’s education, experience, and position within the organization. A leader should act as a facilitator and assist the followers to achieve the common goal. There are several leaders who possess contradictory characteristics and leadership styles. One such example can be Adolf Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi. Both of them had very different leadership styles but no doubt they both were successful leaders.

Therefore, leadership can be of different types. On-time to time, researchers proposed several theories and explained different types of leadership as per these theories. Before explaining the different types of leadership styles, it is essential to discuss theories of leadership.