Management and leadership development - Essay Example

From these definitions, it can be gathered that the primary traits of leadership includes development of a vision and aligning it with the personal interests of the followers. However, Hughes and Beatty (2011) argued that present scenario leadership includes motivation, strength, empowering, understanding the pros and cons, decision making and implementations. The scope leadership has magnified with the changes in the needs of the people and organizations. The theme statement of the essay reflected above signifies the changes in the leadership process in context of developing participative and democratic leadership.

This statement will be analysed on the basis of corporate leadership, this essay will focus on the leadership of former CEO of American Automobile Company Ford, Alan Mulally, to examine the statement of Mahatma Gandhi. Adair (2010) noted that application of traditional leadership processes and theories have reduced in the business operations because of the complex influence of external forces and changes in the governing factors of business. Burkholder (2009) mentioned that as organisations have shifted their focus on profit generation to sustainable growth and development, the process of managing the internal functions and external relations have also changed.

Davis (2011) highlighted beginning from the personality era of leadership, the traits of being a successful leader has changed regularly. For instance, during the Great Man Period, reformers believed that following the characters and traits of successful leaders can build the character of a potential leader. However, Edd (2011) criticised that the traits of leaders differ along with the situations and their vision and hence the personality leadership concepts were not a sustainable solution. The first form of participative leadership was developed with the influential era of leadership where