Introduction To Leadership Following And Communication Management Essay
Introduction to Leadership
Leadership is a very important interpersonal behavior that a managerial position employee or employer should have. What is leadership anyway? The definition of leadership is:
“Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.”
Northouse (2007, p3)
There are four main factors in leadership which will greatly affect the quality of an individual to be a leader:
As a leader, he must be able to gain the trust from the followers, as nobody else will determine whether the leader is successful or not. In order to gain trust from them, the leader must have a good understanding on who he is, what he know and what he can do. If he failed to be honest to himself, the followers will lack of confidence on him and left uninspired.
For a successful leader, he must do his work and know the nature of his every single follower. By doing this, he will be able to have a good understanding of the followers’ nature, needs, emotions and motivation, as the followers play an important role of getting the job done.
Always lead through two-way communication. Feedback will be useful when collecting data and information needed for making decisions. Besides, while receiving feedback or suggestions from the followers, the leader can know what the followers needs and problem. At the same time, it is also consider an act of concerning the welfare of the followers.
Every situation that a leader had faced before might be different with another. Therefore, whenever a new situation happens, a leader must observe carefully and use his judgment to decide the best way of solving the situation or else the problem will be still existing and causing more problems.
According to Weber (1947), “charisma is described as a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which s/he is set apart from the ordinary people and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically, exceptional power or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader.” Such leaders have a very charming, persuasive personality about them, whom are skilled at communicating with others and can be very convincing at times.
Many leaders are looked on as born naturally with charisma, but it does not mean it cannot be acquired. Charisma is often considered as to be a trait, an internal character which is acquired. However, charisma is an exception, as it is inborn in everyone but at different quantities. But this does not mean the level of inborn charisma is static throughout our lifetime. Developing other characters such as communication and social skills may further enhance one’s charisma levels. Charisma also depends on people perception. A person is only charismatic if people feel he or she is charismatic. So, charisma can be acquired.
Charisma is not a mandatory requirement to be an effective leader. Many world leaders today do not possess much of charisma, but nonetheless, remain as leaders of their nations. Other factors such as creativity and innovation can drive a leader towards effectiveness. Trust is another factor that can be forged between a leader and follower which leads to a more effective leadership, with the absence of any charisma. Charisma can be considered as an additional boost but not a requirement to become an effective leader as they may have other leadership qualities. Even without charisma, one can still be an effective leader.
Charismatic leadership is not the same as transformational leadership. Both of the leadership have a different concept from each other.
Charismatic leadership can be defined as people with a great confidence in themselves, having a clear vision of their actions and most importantly, they have their own individual charm, personality or influence over the society. Charismatic leaders are able to know the needs of their supporters. Therefore they can create a vision that will allow everyone to know future will be improved (Awan, 2010). Martin Luther King, Jr. is a good example of a charismatic leader. He is able to include a vision of colour blind society within the Americans’ value. He inspired the Americans to accept Afro-Americans in the country and give equal treatment to them.
On the other hand, transformational leadership is a leadership that helps subordinates to improve themselves and create a better vision for them so that they can become a leader as well. Transformational leaders focus more on motivations, inspirations and encouragements. Besides that, they have good communication skills which allow them to build good relationship with others (Kurnik, 2010). They also appreciate their subordinates’ efforts, ideas and contributions so that they will continue to work harder. One good example of a transformational leader is Abraham Lincoln. He is one of the greatest presidents of The United States. He had a vision for the country, which is develop the country into a successful country. Sometimes he visited his front line’s troops to encourage and motivate them so that they do not lose their spirit.
Transformational leadership and transactional leadership are both different types of leadership. In transformational leadership, subordinates are expected to achieve higher than their original goals. However, in transactional leadership, subordinates are motivated at a normal standard level. Transactional leaders also relate rewards that are desired by subordinates with the goals and achievements. Besides that, transactional leaders only provide necessary resources to their subordinates and clarify their expectations. They will only monitor their subordinates from aside but only involved when the performance’s standard is not met. Other than that, transformational leaders focused on the ends while transactional leaders negotiated over the means (Sir MacGregor Burns, 1978), which means transactional leaders focus on the whole process while transformational only focus on the achievements or results.
Culture is briefly described as the group norms, beliefs and values that makes an organizational unique and also, defines its nature of business. Organizational culture, referred as corporate culture in some organization is the system consisting of shared actions, formal rituals, procedures and protocol, values that develops in the organization to act as guidance on how the members should behave.
Strong culture refers to an organization that has a deeply shared value system and the norms and beliefs are followed by the members without fail. As a result, it leads to higher level of business performance. Being able to understand one another, they are able to synchronize, improving their efficiency and effectiveness without wasting the organization’s time and resources. In addition to that, a stable social system is developed and the need for bureaucratic controls is reduced.
Organizational culture would also impede the business progress of an organization, as Fons Trompenaars  stated that culture is the “way in which a group of people solves problems”. Thus, choices to solve the problems and how may vary as the cultures vary in different organizations. Rather, they would agree on other people’s idea but their own.
As stated by Bruce M. Tharp, there are four types of organizational cultures that impede business progress. They consist of control, compete, collaborate, and create.
Firstly, control or hierarchy culture is the rules and procedures that guide the members to perform their tasks and control their behavior. Strong culture would impede business progress, because members would not respond to any changes in the organization as they adapted to the shared value system. For example, members of the organization are always given extra time to prepare for incoming projects but the new rule (change) enforced states that the extra time is unnecessary and members have to start the projects as soon as they receive them.
Next is compete, otherwise referred to as market culture. Fierce competition from other organizations is also another factor, making it harder for the organization to achieve its goal and success in the market. The organization has to be both efficient and effective to provide a strong competition. However, strong culture impedes faster learning and improvement to the organization which could result in losing the business to competitors.
Moving on to collaborate, also known as clan culture is to describe the organization as a whole team. By coming together as a team to tackle problems, problems can be solved quickly. However, this would impede business progress by having the same point of views. There are no second or third opinions involved as the members would have the similar mindset and way of thinking. Therefore, the members would agree on the decision without thinking much from a different perspective or comparing opinions.
One of the last culture that impede business progress is create/adhocracy culture. Being flexible and innovative is also important in assuring the organization’s and business success, as well as being ahead of others. Creativity is also a part of the adhocracy culture. However, the strong culture of sharing the same values and beliefs would prove difficult for members to come up with fresh and innovative ideas. In addition to strong culture, members of the organization are not able to adapt and troubleshoot complex problems. In the end, strong culture impedes the progression of business.
Leadership is an essential value for managerial person, no matter in which area the person in. Therefore, one must do his best on setting a good example to the followers and trust their ability to complete their work, so the followers will be inspired and always give their best towards the leader or the organization. Even though that theory can understand and memorize easily, one must still put some effort on practicing on it as it cannot be obtained easily like a technical skills.
Furthermore, when a person has leadership lies within himself, the followers will believe and respect the decision made by the leader, and thus perform the work efficiently and effectively. In conclusion, the organization will be benefit and the employees will do their best all the time.Order Now