TITLE: LEADERSHIP AND IMPORTANT ROLE IN THE ORGANISATION
1). INTRODUCTION
· MEANING OF LEADERSHIP
· CONCEPTS
· NATURE OF LEADERSHIP
2) LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1) STYLES OF LEADERSHIP
2.2) PURPOSE OF LEADERSHIP
2.3) PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF DIRECTING A TEAM
3) CONCLUSION
· Leader…………….
REFERENCES
1) INTRODUCTION
According to Wright & Taylor (1994), Leadership is an activity which influenced the Behaviour, beliefs and feelings of other group members in an intended direction. Influence may take place at a distance without any personal interaction between the people concerned .Leader can acquisitive the interpersonal skills through practice with feedback and guidance. According to Vecchio (1997) view Leadership is a sense-making heuristic to account for organizational performance and is important primarily for its symbolic role in organizations. Zaccaro (2001) said “Leadership is a process of giving purpose to collective effort, and causing willing effort to be expended to achieve purpose”
"Leadership is the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organization..."[www.3]
"Leadership is the ability of developing and communicating a vision to a group of people that will make that vision true" [www.3].
1.1) Nature of Leadership
Olmsyead (2000) said Leadership is exercised by individuals who occupy positions of authority. Leadership is a tool for achieving desired results. Leadership is a relationship between Leader and follower. Leadership in organization entails the enactment of multiple roles (Zaccaro 2001). On other hand Vecchio (1997), Leadership is different from management; Leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action. Each has its own function and characteristics activities.
Leadership plays an important role in the organization, so should know how many kinds of leadership styles are there, how each style effect the organization and knowing what are the purposes of leadership in the organization and should know what are the practical aspects consider for directing a team.
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2) LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1) Leadership Styles
The role of leadership in management is largely determined by the organizational culture of the company. It has been argued that managers' beliefs, values and assumptions are of critical importance to the overall style of leadership that they adopt.
Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people [www.1]. There are three styles of leadership
- Authoritarian or autocratic
- Participative or democratic
- Delegative or Free Reign or Laissez faire ([www.1],[www.2], Lewin (1939))
[www.2]
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a) The Autocrat
Autocrat leader dominates team-members to achieve a singular objective. Team-members required continual pressure and direction from the leader in order to get things done. Authoritarian approach is not a good way to get the best performance from a team. Some situations may call for urgent action, and in these cases an autocratic style of leadership may be best [www.1]. Lewin (1939) said leader takes decisions without consulting with others.
b) The Democrat
Democratic leader makes decisions by consulting his team and maintained control of the group. The democratic leader allows his team to decide how the task will be tackled and who will perform which task. A good democratic leader encourages participation and delegates wisely, but never loses sight of the fact that he bears the crucial responsibility of leadership [www.1]. According to Lewin (1939) democratic leadership involves the leader including one or more employees in on the decision making process .Tannenbaum and Coch (1958) argued that a Participative Leader, rather than taking autocratic decisions seeks to involve other people in the process, possibly including subordinates, peers, superiors and other stakeholders. Often, however, as it is within the managers' him to give or deny control to his or her subordinates, most participative activity is within the immediate team. Influencing others vary on the manager's preferences and beliefs.
| <> | Highly participative > | ||||
| Autocratic decision by leader | Leader proposes decision, listens to feedback, then decides | Team proposes decision, leader has final decision | Joint decision with team as equals | Full delegation of decision to team | |
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c) The Laissez-Faire Manager
Leader is having little control, direction and motivation over his group, leaving them to sort out their roles and tackle their work, without participating in the process. The Laissez-Faire technique is usually appropriate when leading a team of highly motivated and skilled people, who have produced excellent work in the past.
NOTE: Also known as lais…sez faire (or lais…ser faire) this means the non interference in the affairs of others. [French : laissez, second person pl. imperative of laisser, to let, allow + faire, to do.] (www.1).
2.2) Purpose of Leadership
Leadership is involves making employees into group and being accountable, responsible for focusing and motivating to achieve goals.
A leader should:
- provide continuity and momentum
- be flexible in allowing changes of direction
Ideally, a leader should be a few steps ahead of their team, but not too far for the team to be able to understand and follow them.
b. Different Ideas of Leadership
a) Skills Needed
Leaders must have a wide range of skills, techniques and strategies. These include:
- Planning
- Communication skills
- Organization
- Awareness of the wider environment in which the team operates.
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b) Different Ideas of Leadership
Leadership should be concentrated in one person or distributed among members of the team. Leader was appointed by more senior levels of management or elected by the group. This technique relies on the assumption that one single person has all the strengths required. Leader should have multi skills when he has to work in different areas, to build good relation with the team and to eliminate the problem of isolated from his group. The leader should be flexible to delegate responsibility for individual tasks [www.1].
2.3) Practical Aspects of Directing Teams
When directing a small team it is important to structure the tasks to be performed. Goals should be easily understood by everyone and tasks broken down so that goals appear achievable.
a. Break down The Task
b. Goal Analysis
a. Break down the task.
The task should be define in to a steps, so the task become tangible and for finishing next task it will be clear. The brick wall approach will usually result in the task not being accomplished.
1. The brick-wall approach 2.Broken down-steps
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b. Goal analysis
Leader set the goals for team or project to improve communications amongst the team and to remove ambiguity. There are 5 steps
· Write down the goal
- Without editing or judging- describe the goal
- Sort
- State each action or result obtained from 3
- Test the statements [www.1].
Olmsyead (2000) said directing the team is critical tests of leadership skills because it is a growing and shifting relationship between the two people. According to Olmsyead (2000) directing the team is motivating the subordinates
Motivation means
"cause (person) to act in a particular way; stimulate interest of (person in activity)."
Motivation can be the amount of effort an individual is willing to put into their work. A lack of motivation reduced the group's effectiveness and possibly leading to the demotivation of others.
Major influences in the Motivation of people
- Achievement
- Recognition
- Responsibility
- Career advancement [www.1].
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The effective leader should think and act about his own Leadership style, strengths, and development needs. Team leader should make the individuals, feel proud to be part of the team then people will work harder and achieve more. Goals of the organization achieved or not depended on how effective the Leader was. So leadership play important role in the organization. Leadership is the heart and soul of organizations, and quality communication is the avenue by which leaders clarify their visions and foster participative management within organizations, no matter which approach best describes their leadership styles. Quality leadership can be exercised only through quality communication at all levels-upper, middle, lower – in organizations. If quality communication is in place, the organization will achieve delighted customers, empowered employees, higher revenues, and lower costs.
REFERENCES
Coch, L and French,J.R.P.(1948) ‘Overcoming Resistance to Change’, Human Relations, Volume 1, pp512-532.Hiebert, M and Klatt, B.(2001)The Encyclopedia of Leadership; A Practical guide to popular Leadership Theories and Techniques.
Lewin,k.,Liippit,R.and White,R.k.(1939),’Patterns of aggressive Behaviour in Experimentally created Social Climates’, Journal of Social Psychology, Volume 10, pp271-301.
Olmsyead J.A.(2000) Executive Leadership; Building World-class Organizations.
Tannenbaum, A.S. and Schmitt,W.H.(1958), ‘How to choose a Leadership Pattern’, Harvard Business Review,Volume 36, March/April, pp95-101.
Vecchio R.P.(1997) Leadership; Understanding the Dyanamics of power and Influence in Organizations; Notre Dame Press,
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Wright P.L. and Taylor D.S.(1994) Improving Leadership Performance; Interpersonal Skills for effective Leadership; 2nd ed.Hertfordshire, Prentice Hall International Ltd.
www.1:www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/MENG/ME96/index.html?http://oldeee.see.ed.ac.uk/~gera rd/MENG/ME96/index.html[1] ,Accessed by Gopi Krishna. M on 3rd May 2008.
www.2:www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadstl.html[2], Accessed by Gopi Krishna. M on 5th May 2008.
www.3:www.bealeader.net/leadership-definitions.php [3], Accessed by Gopi Krishna. M on 5th May 2008.
Zaccaro S.J.(2001) The Nature of Executive Leadership; A conceptual and Empirical Analysis of Success; Washington, American Psychological Association
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