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.
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 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.
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.
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