Leadership - Characteristics, Qualities and Likert's Management Style
[For both CBCS Pattern and NEP 2023 Pattern]
Hey Guys’ Welcome to Dynamic Tutorials and Services.
In this post I
have given a brief explanation of Leadership
– Meaning, Styles, Characteristics and Theories. These notes are useful B.Com 3rd
Semester Students under CBCS Pattern. Some of the topics are not yet included
in these notes which will be added very soon.
Just scroll down
through this post and all your queries relating to Management Principles and
Applications will be solved.
This Chapter is Included in both CBCS and NEP 2023 Pattern.
- In NEP 2023 Pattern, this chapter is covered under Business Organisation and Management (BOM) 1st Sem
- In CBCS Pattern, this chapter is covered under both Business organisation and Management (BOM) 1st Sem and Management Principles and Applications (MPA) 3rd Sem
Refer Subject wise Important Questions and Plan Your Studies Accordingly
- Business Organisation and Management Important Questions (BOM) 1st SEM NEP 2023
- Business Organisation and Management Important Questions (BOM) 1st SEM CBCS
- Management Principles and Applications Important Questions (MPA) 3rd SEM CBCS
|
Table of
Contents |
|
1.
Meaning of Leadership 2.
Nature and Characteristics of Leadership 3.
Leadership Styles 4.
Qualities of a Good Leader 5.
Significance of Leadership 6.
Theories of Leadership a) Trait Theory b) The Behavioural Theory c) The Situational Theories d) The Follower Theory e) Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid (VVI) f) House’s Path Goal Theory |
Introduction to Leadership
Leadership
is the ability to build up confidence and deal among people and to create an
urge in them to be led. To be a successful leader, a manager must possess the
qualities of foresight, drive, initiative, self-confidence and personal
integrity. Different situations may demand different types of leadership.
Leadership
means influencing the behaviour of the people at work towards realizing the
specified goals. It is the ability to use non-coercive (no force) influence on
the motivation, activities and goals (MAG) of others in order to achieve the
objectives of the organisation.
Koontz and 0' Donnel “Leadership is the ability of a manager to induce
subordinates to work with confidence and zeal”.
George
R Terry “Leadership is the activity of influencing people to strive willingly
for group objectives”.
Nature and
Characteristics of Leadership:
An analysis of the definitions
cited above reveals the following important characteristics of leadership.
a)
Leadership is a personal quality.
b)
It exists only with followers. If there are no
followers, there is no leadership?
c)
It is the willingness of people to follow that
makes a person a leader.
d)
Leadership is a process of influence. A leader
must be able to influence the behaviour, attitude and beliefs of his
subordinates.
e)
It exists only for the realization of common
goals.
f)
It involves readiness to accept complete
responsibility in all situations.
g)
Leadership is the function of stimulating the
followers to strive willingly to attain organisational objectives.
h)
Leadership styles do change under different
circumstances.
i)
Leadership is neither bossism nor synonymous
with management.
Leadership
Styles or Types of Leaders
1.
Autocratic or Authoritarian Style
leader: An autocratic also known as
authoritarian style of leadership implies wielding absolute power. Under this
style, the leader expects complete obedience from his subordinates and all
decision-making power is centralized in the leader. No suggestions or
initiative from subordinates is entertained. The leader forces the subordinates
to obey him without questioning. An autocratic leader is, in fact, no leader.
He is merely the formal head of the organisation and is generally disliked by
the subordinates who feel comfortable to depend completely on the leader.
Advantages:
a)
Reduced stress due to increased control
b)
A more productive group ‘while the leader is
watching’
c)
Improved logistics of operations
d)
Faster decision making
Disadvantages:
a) Short-termistic approach to management.
b) Manager perceived as having poor leadership skills
c) Increased workload for the manager
d) People dislike being ordered around
e) Teams become dependent upon their leader
2.
Laissez-faire or Free-rein Style Leader: Under this type of leadership, maximum freedom is allowed to
subordinates. They are given free hand in deciding their own policies and
methods and to make independent decisions. The leader provides help only when
required by his subordinates otherwise he does not interfere in their work. The
style of leadership creates self-confidence in the workers and provides them an
opportunity to develop their talents. But it may not work under all situations
with all the workers, may bring problems of indiscipline. Such leadership can
be employed with success where workers are competent, sincere and
self-disciplined.
Advantages:
a) No work
for the leader
b) Frustration
may force others into leadership roles
c) Allows the
visionary worker the opportunity to do what they want, free from interference
d) Empowers
the group
Disadvantages:
a)
It makes employees feel insecure at the
unavailability of a manager.
b)
The manager cannot provide regular feedback to
let employees know how well they are doing.
c)
Managers are unable to thank employees for
their good work.
d)
The manager doesn’t understand his or her
responsibilities and is hoping the employees can cover for him or her.
3.
Democratic or Participative Style
leader: The democratic or participative style
of leadership implies compromise between the two extremes of autocratic and
laissez-fair style of leadership. Under this style, the supervisor acts
according to the mutual consent and the decisions reached after consulting the
subordinates. Subordinates are encouraged to make suggestions and take
initiative. It provides necessary motivation to the workers by ensuring their
participation and acceptance of work methods. Mutual trust and confidence is
also created resulting in job satisfaction and improved morale of workers. It
reduces the number of complaints, employee's grievances, industrial unrest and
strikes. But this style of leadership may sometimes cause delay in decisions
and lead to indiscipline in workers.
Advantages
a)
Positive work environment
b)
Successful initiatives
c)
Creative thinking
d)
Reduction of friction and office politics
e)
Reduced employee turnover
Disadvantages:
a)
Takes long time to take decisions
b)
Danger of pseudo participation
c)
Like the other styles, the democratic style is
not always appropriate. It is most successful
d)
when used with highly skilled or experienced
employees or when implementing operational changes or resolving individual or
group problems.
4.
Paternalistic
Style leader: This style of leadership is based upon sentiments and emotions of
people. A paternalistic leader is like a father to these subordinates. He looks
after the subordinates like a father looks after his family. He helps guides
and protects all of his subordinates but under him no one grows. The
subordinates become dependent upon the leader.
Qualities of a Good Leader
1.
Patience: Patience is the capacity to face
difficult situations, hardships or inconvenience without making a single
complaint. A good leader must show patience while waiting for expected results,
facing difficult situations and taking important decisions. He must avoid
taking hasty decisions and actions.
2.
Good Personality: A good personality is a combination of
physical, mental and social qualities. Good personality helps a leader to
influence his followers. Attractive physique and good manners add an advantage
to the leader's personality.
3.
Self-confidence: A good leader must have self confidence. This
quality is necessary for facing challenging situations and for solving problems
easily and effectively.
4.
Human Skills: A good leader must have essential social and
human skills. That is, he must understand people. This quality is necessary for
dealing with different types of persons and social groups.
5. Judgment skills: A good
leader should be able to examine problems in right perspective. His judgment
and decision making abilities should be superior to others. He should be able
to form opinions and judge based on facts and not be prejudiced
6. Communication skills: A good
leader should be able to communicate the goals and procedures of the
organisation clearly, precisely and effectively to the subordinates. Only then
will it be possible for him to convince, persuade and stimulate subordinates to
action.
7. Listening skills: People tend
to avoid a leader who does not listen. Hence a good leader in one who can
listen to other peoples problems. He should be able to create a culture whereby
people can be frank with him and give him information and also give him
feedback about himself, which can help him to improve himself.
8.
Inspiring skills: A good leader should be able to inspire people to deal with the “why”
question. He should not just command and control but be able to lead the people
and get them involved to work together as a team.
9.
Administrative Skills: A good leader must have an administrative
ability. This means, he must be able to get the work done through his
followers. He must know how to plan, organize and control the work of his
followers.
10.
Discipline: A good leader must be a disciplined person.
This means he must have respect for the rule and regulations of the organisation.
This is because his followers will follow his example.
11.
Initiative: A good leader must always take an initiative.
This means he should do the right thing at the right time without being told by
others. He must be able to construct and implement his own plan.
12.
Intelligence: A good leader must be smart and intelligent.
That is, he should have a good educational background and sound technical
knowledge. He should be more intelligent than his followers. If not, his
followers will not respect him. This will have a bad effect on his performance.
13.
Innovative: A good
leader must have an art of innovation. That is, he must have a good imagination
and visualization skills. He must develop new ideas and tactics to solve
problems. He must combine the new ideas with the old ideas.
********************************Also Read:
Unit 4:********************************Also Read:********************************
Significance of Leadership
The importance of leadership are as follows:
1. It improves motivation and morale: Through dynamic leadership managers can improve motivation and morale of their subordinates. A good leader influences the behaviour of an individual in such a manner that he voluntarily works towards the achievement of enterprise goals.
2. It acts as a motive power to group efforts: Leadership serves as a motive power to group efforts. It leads the group to a higher level of performance through its persistent efforts and impact. On human relations.
3. It acts as an aid of authority: The use of authority alone cannot always bring the desired results. Leadership acts as an aid to authority by influencing, inspiring, and initiating action.
4. It is needed at all levels of management: Leadership plays a pivotal role at all levels of management because in the absence of effective leadership no management can achieve the desired results.
5. It rectifies the imperfectness of the formal organizational relationships: No organizational structure can provide all types of relationships and people with common interest may work beyond the confines of formal relationships. Such informal relationships are more effective in controlling and regulating the behaviour of the subordinates. Effective leadership uses these informal relationships to accomplish the enterprise goals.
6. It provides the basis of co-operations: Effective leadership increases the understanding between the subordinates and the management and promotes co-operation among them.
Theories of Leadership
The Trait Theory: This
approach represents the earliest notions of leadership and until up to three
decades ago this approach was very popular. According to this theory, there are
certain personal qualities and traits which are essential to be a successful
leader. The advocates of this theory are of the opinion that persons who are
leaders are psychologically better adjusted to display better judgement and to
engage themselves in social activities. Ordway
Tead has given a list of ten
qualities.
a)
physical and nervous energy
b)
a sense of purpose and direction
c)
enthusiasm
d)
friendliness and affection
e)
integrity
f)
technical mastery
g)
decisiveness
h)
intelligence
i)
teaching skill
j)
faith
According to Hill,
"Courage, self-confidence, morale qualities, self sacrifice, paternalism,
fairness, initiative, decisiveness, dignity and knowledge of man are all
essential qualities of a leader."
Stogdill classified the leadership qualities under
six heads: capacity, achievement, responsibility, participation, status and
situation.
But the trait
theory has many shortcomings, and has been generally criticized on the
following grounds:
1.
Various studies
prove that the trait theory cannot hold good for all sets of circumstances.
2.
The list of trait
is not uniform and different authors have give lists of different traits.
3.
It fails to take
into account the influence of other factors on leadership.
4.
The theory fails to
indicate the comparative importance of different traits.
5.
There are many
persons who have been outstanding leaders in business although they have been
humourless, narrow-minded, unjust and authoritarian. In the same manner, there
have been many persons who were not good leaders although they had traits as
specified for leaders.
The Behavioural Theory: The short comings of the trait theory led
to a significant change in the emphasis of leadership approach. This sift in
emphasis began to focus an attention on the actual behaviour and actions of
leaders as against personal qualities or traits of leaders. According to his
approach, leadership involves an interpersonal relationship between a leader
and subordinates in which the behaviour of the leader towards the subordinates constitutes the most critical element. The
good behaviour of the leader raises the morale, builds up confidence and spirit
among the team members and the lack of good behaviour will discard him as a
leader.
But the behavioural theories also suffer from
certain limitations, e.g., what constitutes the most effective style of
leadership behaviour? Moreover, a particular behaviour or action of a leader
may be effective at one point of time while the same may be ineffective a some
other point of time and in some other circumstances.
The Situational Theories: The situational theories emphasise not on
personal qualities or traits of a leader, but upon the situation in which he
operates. The advocates of this approach believe that leadership is greatly
affected by a situation and maintain that leadership pattern is the product of
situation at a particular time. A good leader is one who moulds himself
according to the needs of a given situation.
The situational theory of leadership suffers from
the drawback that it fails to consider the fact that in the complex process of
leadership, individual qualities and traits of the leader also play an
important role. In the words of Thomas Gordon, "Situationist have
overlooked the possibility that some traits influence their possessors to
attain leadership success and some others increase the chances of their
becoming leaders.
The Follower Theory: The shortcomings of the Trait Theory, the
Behavioural Theory, and the Situational Theory influenced certain researchers
to focus their attention on the followers. According to this theory the essence
of leadership is follower ship and it is the willingness of people to follow
that makes a person a leader. The members of a group tend to follow only those
whom they recognize as providing means for achieving their personal desires,
wants and needs.
Like all other theories, the Follower Theory also sounds well but it also represents only one sided view. The best ting will be to integrate the various theories to study leadership pattern. To conclude, we can say that effective leadership depends on the traits of the leader, situation and the type of the followers.
Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid
(VVI)
The
treatment of task orientation and people orientation as two independent
dimensions was a major step in leadership studies. Many of the leadership
studies conducted in the 1950s at the University of Michigan and the Ohio State
University focused on these two dimensions
Building on the work of the
researchers at these Universities, Robert Blake and Jane Mouton (1960s)
proposed a graphic portrayal of leadership styles through a managerial
grid (sometimes called leadership grid). The grid depicted two
dimensions of leader behavior, concern for people (accommodating
people’s needs and giving them priority) on y-axis and concern for
production (keeping tight schedules) on x-axis, with each dimension
ranging from low (1) to high (9), thus creating 81 different positions in which
the leader’s style may fall. (See figure 1).
The five
resulting leadership styles are as follows:
1.
Impoverished Management (1,
1): Managers with this approach are low on both the dimensions and
exercise minimum effort to get the work done from subordinates. The leader has
low concern for employee satisfaction and work deadlines and as a result
disharmony and disorganization prevail within the organization. The leaders are
termed ineffective wherein their action is merely aimed at preserving job and
seniority.
2.
Task management (9, 1): Also
called dictatorial or perish style. Here leaders are more concerned about
production and have less concern for people. The style is based on theory X of
McGregor. The employees’ needs are not taken care of and they are simply a
means to an end. The leader believes that efficiency can result only through
proper organization of work systems and through elimination of people wherever
possible. Such a style can definitely increase the output of organization in
short run but due to the strict policies and procedures, high labour turnover
is inevitable.
3.
Middle-of-the-Road (5, 5): This
is basically a compromising style wherein the leader tries to maintain a
balance between goals of company and the needs of people. The leader does not
push the boundaries of achievement resulting in average performance for
organization. Here neither employee nor production needs are fully met.
4.
Country Club (1, 9): This is a
collegial style characterized by low task and high people orientation where the
leader gives thoughtful attention to the needs of people thus providing them
with a friendly and comfortable environment. The leader feels that such a
treatment with employees will lead to self-motivation and will find people
working hard on their own. However, a low focus on tasks can hamper production
and lead to questionable results.
5.
Team Management (9,
9): Characterized by high people and task focus, the style is based on the
theory Y of McGregor and has been termed as most effective style according to
Blake and Mouton. The leader feels that empowerment, commitment, trust, and
respect are the key elements in creating a team atmosphere which will
automatically result in high employee satisfaction and production.
Advantages
of Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid
The Managerial or Leadership Grid is
used to help managers analyze their own leadership styles through a technique
known as grid training. This is done by administering a questionnaire that
helps managers identify how they stand with respect to their concern for
production and people. The training is aimed at basically helping leaders reach
to the ideal state of 9, 9.
Limitations
of Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid
The model ignores the importance of
internal and external limits, matter and scenario. Also, there are some more
aspects of leadership that can be covered but are not.
House’s Path Goal Theory
The theory was developed by Robert House and has its roots in the
expectancy theory of motivation. The theory is based on the premise that an
employee’s perception of expectancies between his effort and performance is
greatly affected by a leader’s behaviour.
The leaders help group members in attaining rewards by clarifying
the paths to goals and removing obstacles to performance. They do so by
providing the information, support, and other resources which are required by
employees to complete the task.
House’s theory advocates servant leadership. As per servant
leadership theory, leadership is not viewed as a position of power. Rather,
leaders act as coaches and facilitators to their subordinates.
According to House’s path-goal theory, a leader’s effectiveness depends on several employee and environmental contingent factors and certain leadership styles. All these are explained in the figure 1 below:
The four leadership styles are:
1. Directive: Here the leader provides guidelines, lets
subordinates know what is expected of them, sets performance standards for
them, and controls behaviour when performance standards are not met. He/She
makes judicious use of rewards and disciplinary action. The style is the same
as task-oriented one.
2. Supportive: The leader is friendly towards subordinates
and displays personal concern for their needs, welfare, and well-being. This
style is the same as people-oriented leadership.
3. Participative: The leader believes in group
decision-making and shares information with subordinates. He/She consults his
subordinates on important decisions related to work, task goals, and paths to
resolve goals.
4. Achievement-oriented: The leader sets challenging goals
and encourages employees to reach their peak performance.
The leader believes that employees are responsible enough to
accomplish challenging goals. This is the same as goal-setting theory.
According to the theory, these leadership styles are not mutually exclusive
and leaders are capable of selecting more than one kind of a style suited for a
particular situation.
Contingencies
The theory states that each of these styles will be effective in
some situations but not in others. It further states that the relationship between
a leader’s style and effectiveness is dependent on the following variables:
1. Employee characteristics: These include factors such as
employees’ needs, locus of control, experience, perceived ability,
satisfaction, willingness to leave the organization, and anxiety. For example,
if followers are high inability, a directive style of leadership may be
unnecessary; instead a supportive approach may be preferable.
2. Characteristics of work environment: These include factors
such as task structure and team dynamics that are outside the control of the
employee. For example, for employees performing simple and routine tasks, a
supportive style is much effective than a directive one. Similarly, the
participative style works much better for non-routine tasks than routine ones.
When team cohesiveness is low, a supportive leadership style must be used whereas in a situation where performance-oriented team norms exist, a directive style or possibly an achievement-oriented style works better. Leaders should apply directive style to counteract team norms that oppose the team’s formal objectives.
Post a Comment
Kindly give your valuable feedback to improve this website.