Who are called leaders?
- A leader is someone who inspires, passion and motivation in followers.
- A leader is someone with a vision and the path to realizing it.
- A leader is someone who ensures their team has support and tools to achieve their goals.
- Leadership transforms potential into reality.
- Some are “born leaders” and some are “made leaders”
- The success or failure of an organization depends upon its leadership.
The difference between managers and leaders
- A manager does the work right.
- A leader however, does the right work.
- All managers need not be good leaders, but all leaders need to be good managers.
Leadership Definitions
Leadership is the process of influencing line behaviour of others in the direction of a goal or more broadly, towards a vision of the future.
Wendell French
Leadership is influence, the art of the process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly towards the achievement of group goals.
Koontz and O’ Donnell
The characteristics of leadership
- Integrity
- Empathy
- Resilience
- Communication
- Accountability
- Innovation
- Inclusion
The 2 dimensions of management
- Economic or productivity-based: Concern for production
- Employee condition and morale based: Concern for people
Styles of leadership
There are primarily 4 styles of leadership which can be arranged in this format.
Theory “L”: Laissez-Faire aka Impoverished leadership
- Uninvolved “leave them alone” attitude
- Sees the main role of leadership as the passing of information from higher-ups down to subordinates
- Lets others make decisions
- Basically abdicates responsibility to the team or unit
- Ranks low on both concern for people and concern for production.
- Follows The Razor of the Non-Interventionist
- Result: Missing management, very low productivity
Theory “X”: Autocratic leadership
- Lacks flexibility
- Controlling and demanding
- Focused solely on productivity
- Low/non-existent focus on people
- Result: “My way or the highway”, Job stress in subordinates, low satisfaction and cause for forming unions
Theory “Y”: Benevolent aka democratic leadership
- Very people oriented, encouraging
- Organizes around people
- Can be paternalistic, a father figure
- Creates/strives towards a non-competitive atmosphere
- Result: Low achievement and people tend to leave
Theory “Z”: Team leadership
- Balances both production and people issues
- Builds a working team of employees
- Team approach: to involve subordinates
- Attitude: the organization is a vehicle to carry out plans
- Result: High productivity, cooperation, low turnover, high employee commitment
Theories of Leadership
Traditional Theories
Overview of all Traditional Theories of Leadership
Advanced Theories
- Contingency Theory of leadership
- Transactional Theory of leadership
- Transformational Theory of leadership
Factors on which leadership styles are dependent on
- Risk: Decision making and change initiatives
- Type of business: Creative or supply driven business
- How important change is: Change for change’s sake, or is it actually necessary?
- Organizational culture: Very embedded culture and difficult to change aspects of the business
- Nature of the task: Requires cooperation? Direction? Structure? All of these factors influence which type of leader is the most efficient in a given scenario.