Leadership Concept and Nature of Leadership

Leadership is the process of influencing other towards the accomplishment of goals. It is the ability of a manager to induce subordinates to work with confidence and zeal. A key to effective leadership is helping followers to achieve their respective essentials goals as well as their maximum potentialities. Dynamic leader, therefore, should have the ability to awaken in other the desire to follow a common objective in a given situation. Leadership thus, is a function of the leader, the followers and other situational variables.

L = F(I, F, S)

Leadership does not flourish in vacuum. It always envisages followers. Further leadership envisages the idea of interpersonal influence.

The term "leadership" has been derived from the word "to lead". The word "to lead" has two meanings as 'to excel or to be in advance' and 'to guide, govern and command others or to head an organization'. Therefore, leadership is the process of influencing others towards the accomplishment of goals. It is the ability of a manager to induce staffs to work with confidence. In other words, leadership is the special quality of a person who can influence the other people. In other words, it is the ability to influence the people for accomplishment of the goal of an organization. Leadership is the ability to build up confidence and zeal among the people and to create the urge in them to lead. To be a successful leader, a manager must possess qualities of foresight, initiative, drive, self confidence, positive attitude and personal integrity.

A key to effective leadership is helping followers to achieve their respective essential goals as well as their maximum potentialities. Dynamic leaders, therefore, should have the ability to awaken in others, the desire to follow a common objective in a given situation. Leadership, thus, is a function of the leader, the followers and other situational variables. Without leadership no organization can run smoothly. A leader may or may not be manager, but a successful manager must be a leader. It means, every manager is a leader but every leader is not a manager. A manager must build up confidence in the subordinates and he must have influencing behavior, controlling power, organizing and convincing ability, trust worthy and positive attitude. A manager having positive attitude and formal authority can direct and guide his subordinates and command them by virtue of his personal power. But, as a leader, the manager can influence the work behavior by means of his leadership ability to get the cooperation of all members of the group without use of the force.

The following are some of the important definitions given by different experts.

"Leadership refers to the quality of behavior of the individual whereby they guide people on their activities in organized effort." – Chester Barnard

"Leadership is the ability to persuade others to seek defined objectives enthusiastically. It is the human factor which binds a group together and motivates it towards goals." – Keith Davis

"Managerial leadership is the process of directing and influencing the task related activities of group members." - Stoner

"Leadership is the ability of influencing people to survive willingly for mutual objectives." – George R. Terry

"Leadership may be defined as the ability to exert interpersonal influence by means of communication towards the achievement of a goal." – Koontz and O'Donnel

From the above definitions, leadership may be defined as a process of influencing group activity towards the achievement of certain goals. Thus, a leader is a person on a group who is capable of influencing the group work willingly. He guides and directs other people and provides purpose and effect to their efforts. Leadership can be an important modifier of behavior of people working in the organization. Effective leadership is necessary for inspiring the people to work for the accomplishment of given objectives. It provides a cohesive force, withholds the group, intact and develops a spirit of co-operation. Effective leadership is also essential for efficient direction of human efforts towards the predetermined goals.

Nature / Characteristics of Leadership 

Leadership has following characteristics: 

1. Leadership is the process of interpersonal influence by which leader influences the followers.
2. Leadership is a personal quality. Leadership is the ability to form a group of followers voluntarily without the use of coercion.
3. Leadership involves the sharing of interest between the leaders and has followers.
4. Leadership pre-supposes the existence of a group of followers.
5. Leadership is a continuous process of influencing behavior.
6. Leadership is not only influences the group but group also influence the leader. In a way, it is a reciprocal relationship.

Effectiveness of Leadership in an Organization

An effective leader represents the organization, initiates the action necessary to keep the organization dynamic and progressive, administers the organization and arranges for planning, organizing, directing and coordinating and interprets the organizational philosophy to internal and external groups in a satisfying manner. Similarly, effective leadership is the process of influencing the behavior and activities of an individual or group for achieving common goals. Effective leadership has following characteristics.

1. Common Goals

Leadership is the ability of influencing behavior of people to work willingly to achieve some common goal. Terry and Franklin states "Leadership is the activity of influencing people to strive willingly mutual objectives". Thus, leadership involves of community of interests between the leader and his followers.

2. Continuous Process

Leadership is a continuous process. A leader continuously makes efforts to influence behavior of his group members. He carries on this process by maintaining free flow of two-way communication with the entire group of his followers.

3. Personal Quality

Leadership is a personal quality of a person. It is a behavioral quality and ability to influence others towards accomplishing a goal.

4. Interpersonal Relations

Leadership involves interpersonal relationship between the leader and his group members. A leader influences his group members and at the same time, group members also influence the leader. Thus, a leader does not dominate the will of others but tries to relate the wills of many people to get them work as a team.

5. Shared Function

Leadership is a shared function. A good leader shares everything with his followers. He shares ideas, opinions, experience, credits, blames and soon with his followers. 

6. Dynamic Art

Leadership is a dynamic art. No particular style of leadership is effective in all situations. The effectiveness of leadership depends heavily on the situational variables. Therefore, art of leadership is exercised applied in accordance with the demands of the situations.

7. Influencing and Inspiring Process

Leadership is a process of influencing and inspiring others to work towards objectives. Influencing means regulating and changing behavior, attitudes and feelings of others. The means of influencing others include reward, coercion, expertise, reference and tradition. Leaders can also influence with rational faith, participation and persuasion.

8. Power

Leadership is based on power. A person holding power over others is a leader. By virtue of power, a person is in a position to influence behavior of his group members. A leader may derive power from 

(i) superior knowledge, information experience, or performance, 

(ii) formal authority 

(iii) charisma, and 

(iv) distinct personality characteristics.

Difference between Leadership and Management

Basis	Leadership	Management
Meaning	Leadership is the process and the art of influencing people to work willingly for achieving a goal.	Management is the process of setting things done through people.
Power and Authority	Leadership is based on power. The power may be derived from formal authority or from any other source.	Management is based on authority which is delegated to a managerial position by a person in superior position.
Relationship	There need not be a formal relationship between the leader and his followers.	There is a formal relationship between a manager and his sub-ordinates.
Structures	Leadership structures are more flexible, open, informal and dynamic than management.	Management is bound by organized formal structure.
Achievement of Goal	Leaders achieve goals by influencing and inspiring others.	Management is bound by organized formal structure.
Guidance	A leader guides his followers through a special kind of behavior.	Manager guides his subordinates through policies, plans, rules, procedures etc.
Education and Training	There is almost negligible arrangement for formal education and training for leadership.	There are many programs for formal education and training of management.
Dependence	Leadership does not depend on manager-ship. Hence, all leaders need not be good managers.	Manager-ship includes leadership. Hence, all managers need to be good leaders.

Difference between managers and leaders

Managers	Leaders
1. Who direct the work of employees and is responsible for results.	1. Who cope with changes.
2. A manager is appointed and after that get a position.	2. A leader emerges emergence depends a number of situational factors.
3. A manager seeks those objectives, which his subordinates do not regard as their own. Thus there is clash of objectives.	3. A leader generally seeks those objectives, which are the objectives of his subordinates. Thus, there is mutuality of objectives between leader and his followers.
4. Manage complexity through planning and budgeting i.e. setting goals, establishing steps to achieve them and then allocate resources to achieve them.	4. Sets a direction or vision of what the future might look like and then develop strategies to produce changes needed to achieve that vision or direction.
5. Ensure that employees reach their goal by controlling their behavior i.e. they monitor the result by means of reports and meetings and note derivations from the goals.	5. Requires 'motivating and inspiring teams of employees' taps their needs values and emotions.
6. Achieve their goals by 'organizing and staffing' creating an organizational structure and sets of jobs for accomplishing the plans requirements. Staffing the jobs with qualified employees communicating the goals and monitoring the progress.	6. Try to align employees who share their vision create teams who understand and share their vision.

You may also like this:

• Emerging Approaches to Leadership
• Price Leadership Model
• Behavioral Theories of Leadership
• Different Styles of Leadership
• A leader influences the behavior of followers towards goal achievement
• Main Focus of Traits Theories of Leadership
• Fiedler's Contingency Theory of Leadership

Contemporary Issues in Leadership

The following are the major and important contemporary issues in leadership.

Issue No. 1: Gender issue: Do males and females lead differently?

Gender issue is taken as a very important issue in the concept of leadership development. Traditional styles of leadership are changing day by day with the new practices and exercises in the field of leadership. Recently most of the studies reveal that the leadership and management styles of a male leader differ from his female counterpart. Normally, it is observed that male leaders accent and follow directive and analytical leadership styles where women follow participative and interactive approach for the effective leadership. The debate regarding who is the best in the leadership style is not yet over. Some researchers believe that women are more prone to the participative styles than their male counterparts. They are less status-oriented and have better interpersonal skills than men. Therefore, it is a big issue in the field of leadership that needs to be studied more in days to come.

Research has shown that regardless of gender, people will traits associated with leadership - such as intelligence, confidence and sociability - are more likely to be perceived as leaders. However, there is found some differences in leadership styles. For example, males tend to use a directive command and control style, while females tend to adopt a more democratic leadership style.

Issue No. 2: Is there a biological basis for leadership? 

There is increasing evidence indicating that leadership has biological roots. Two chemicals-serotonin and testosterone are found to have profound effect on becoming a leader. Increased levels of serotonin appear to improve sociability and control aggregation. Higher levels of testosterone increase competitive drive and they are found higher in the players like tennis. 

Issue No. 3: How does national culture affect the choice of leadership style?

National culture affects leadership style by way of the subordinate. Leaders cannot choose their styles at will. They are constrained by the cultural conditions that their subordinates have come to expect. For example, an autocratic style is compatible with high power distance and participation style is compatible with low power distance.

Issue No. 4: How is the current popularity of empowerment affecting the way managers lead?

Empowerment is putting employees in charge of what they do. The problem with the current empowerment movement is that it ignores the extent to which leadership can be shared and the conditions facilitating success of shared leadership. Because of factors such as downsizing, higher employee skills commitment of organizations to continuous training, implementation of total quality management programs and introduction of self-managed teams, there seems to be no doubt that an increasing number of situations call for a more empowering approach to leadership. 

Empowerment means giving employees the authority, skills and freedom to perform their tasks. Empowerment and shared leadership is not free from conditions. The success of effective leadership depends in the qualities of developing teams and its members. Today, leadership is taken as a very challenging job of a leader because of heavy competitions in the market. Different people and the teams of people have different attitudes and expectations from the leaders. It is very challenging or the leader for effective management on them. Therefore, the success of leadership is contingent upon team empowerment. For teams to be effective, managers must empower their members to make decisions.

Issue No. 5: Since leaders are not leaders until they have followers, what can managers do to make employees more effective followers?

Successful organizations need effective follower, who can follow effective and efficient leaders. Following are some qualities of effective followers:

• They manage themselves well. They can work independently and without close supervision.
• They build their competence and focus their efforts for maximum impact.
• They are committed to a purpose outside themselves.
• They are courageous, honest and credible. They are critical thinkers who knowledge and judgement can be trusted.

Issue No. 6: Is there a moral dimension to leadership?
Leadership is not value free. So we should look at the moral content of a leader’s goal and the means he/she uses to achieve those goals.

Issue No. 7: How important is Training for Leadership?

Another contemporary issue in the field of leadership is training for leadership. Different researches in the field of leadership highlighted the important of training for the effective leadership. Some researches reveal that leadership can be taught. People can learn communicating, empowering and visioning skills with the help of a trainer. What is important is the supportive culture of the management to provide such opportunities.

Issue No. 8: Team Leadership rather Group Management

Team leadership idea is recently developed idea in the field of management or leadership. The related issue is taken as a very essential matter in today's leaders. They are not trained to handle the change to teams. Time demands team work but most of our leaders are trained to manage groups. Different roles are necessary because teams are more interactive, conflicting and need open communication than groups.

You may also like this:

• Leadership Concept and Nature of Leadership
• Qualities of a successful Leaders
• Functions and Importance of Effective Leadership
• Emerging Approaches to Leadership
• Price Leadership Model
• Behavioral Theories of Leadership
• Different Styles of Leadership
• A leader influences the behavior of followers towards goal achievement
• Main Focus of Traits Theories of Leadership
• Fiedler's Contingency Theory of Leadership
• Traits Theory of Leadership

Main Focus of Traits Theories of Leadership

The trait theory of leadership states that there are certain identifiable qualities or characteristics that are unique to leaders and that good leader possess such qualities to some extent. The trait theories identifiable a long list of qualities which leader posses. The following list is only illustrative and not exhaustive. 

• Intelligence: Good leaders should be intelligent enough to understand the context and content of their position and function, to group the dynamics of environmental variables, both internal and external, which affect their activities and to have a goods perspective of the present and future dimensions of their organization. 
• Personality: This is not to be confused with physical appearance, though it is important. More than outward appearance, certain inner-personality qualities mark out goods leaders from others. Such qualities include emotional stability and maturity. Self-confidence, decisiveness, strong drive, optimum, purposefulness, discipline, skill in getting along with others, integrity in character and a tendency to be cooperative. These qualities tend to help leaders to organize and co-ordinate human effort, to guide and motivate people in talk situations, to make sound decisions, to achieve concrete results and goals, to organizational goals. 
• Other Qualities: A part from intelligence and personality attributes, good leaders also possess a few qualities like open mindedness, scientific spirit, social sensitively, ability to communicate, objectivity, an abiding interest in people, pragmatism and a sense of realism.

Main Focus of Behavioral Theories of Leadership  

According to the behavioral theories of leadership, leadership can be described in terms of what leaders do rather than what they are. In other words, leadership can be identified by reference to their behavior in relation to the followers. Behavioral theories have been presented mostly on the basis of research studies.

Behavioral theories differ from the trait theories in at least two ways. First, actual leader behaviors, not the personal traits are the main focus. Second, while most trait theories endeavored to distinguish between leader and non leaders, behavioral theories attempted to determine how different kinds of behavior affect the performance and satisfaction of the followers.

Emerging Approaches to Leadership

Leadership is a term that conjures up different images in different people while to some it means charisma, to other, it means power and authority. Leadership skills emerge out of spontaneity and contagion needs, spontaneity refers to the need for initiating a wide range of activities or creating opportunities for other with a view to influence people. In contracts, people with contagion needs are influenced by others and will develop leadership skills. In fact, effective leadership is the mixture of both needs.

Leadership thus, plays a crucial role in organizational dynamics. It fill many of the voids left in conventional organization design, allows for greater organizational flexibilities and responsiveness to environmental changes, provides a way to coordinate the effort of diverse groups within the organization, and facilitates organizational membership and personal needs satisfaction. It is the quality of managerial leadership that often differentiates effective from ineffective organizations. Therefore, rational leader should know different emerging approach of the leadership and also they should be aware of current issue in leadership.

There are different approaches emerging in the field of leadership. Some of them are:

1. Attribution theory of leadership: It deals with people trying to make sense out of cause-effect relationships. When something happens, they want to attributes it to something. This theory tells that leadership is merely an attribution that people make about other individuals. Effective leaders are generally considered consistent or unwavering in their decisions. 
2. Charismatic leadership theory: Followers make attributions of heroic or extraordinary abilities when they observe certain behaviors. Some examples of charismatic leaders are John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. Walt Disney, Ted Turner, Barack Obama etc. They are found to have extremely high confidence, dominance and strong convictions in his or her beliefs.
3. Transactional or transformational leadership: Transactional leaders guide or motive their followers in the direction of established goals and clarifying role and task requirements. Transactional leader, on the other hand, inspired followers to transcend their own self-interests for the good of the organization, and they are capable of having a profound and extraordinary effect on his or her followers. Transformational leadership is about leading, changing the organizations strategies and culture so that they have a better bit with the surrounding environment. They are change agents who energies employees and direct them to a new set of corporate values and behaviors.
4. Visionary leadership: The ability to create and articulate a realistic, credible, attractive vision of the future for an organization unit that grows out of and improves upon the present. This vision, if properly selected and implemented, is so energizing that leads to great success of the organization. A vision has clear and compelling imagery that offer an innovative way to improve, which recognizes and draws on traditions, and connects to action that people can take to realize change. Vision taps people’s emotions and energy, properly articulated a vision creates the enthusiasm that people have for sporting events and other leisure time activities, binging the energy and commitment to the workplace.