Leadership

Introduction to the Notion of Leading

Graphics courtesy of The Scientific WorldOpens in new window There would be no disagreement that leadership skills are needed at every level of an organization, from creating and communicating an organization’s vision, strategies, and goals as well as executing on these plans and goals at the lower leadership’ levels. Leadership is important in public, private, and not-for-profit organizations.

The past few decades have demonstrated that leadership styles that were practical in traditional hierarchies and that relied on authoritarian controls are no longer appropriate in today’s dynamic world of organizations. Today’s organizational leaders have to practice different styles appropriate to more dynamic and complex situations. They have to increasingly inspire trust, gain credibility, and implement innovations through others while being adaptable and flexible.

What is Leadership?

In this literature, we first provide an answer to the question What is Leadership? and describe the difference between managing and leading.

The search for what makes a good (or effective) leader has been going on for centuries and, in spite of a myriad of studies, there are no conclusive answers. Although many definition exists, for our purposes,

Moreover, contemporary leaders are increasingly challenged to balance task and relationship (people) styles and to assume not only the roles of monitors and controllers, but also the roles of cheerleaders, orchestrators, conductors, coaches, mentors, and followers.

As an effective leader today and tomorrow, individuals at various levels of the organizations must recognize that concepts like empowerment,engagement, life-long learning, and excellence are important leadership factors.

Leadership continues to be a fascinating subject that impacts almost all of our experiences. Leadership is something that is both current and timeless. In one form or another, leadership, leaders, and leading have been central to human interaction since the dawn of society.

Effectiveness or excellence in leadership continues to require the ability to attract capable people, motivate them to put forth their best efforts which often means exceeding expectations, addressing a variety of issues, challenges and opportunities, and solving problems that may arise or even anticipating them in advance.

These clearly are difficult tasks, which help explain why effective leadership, leaders, and leading is rare and why those who exhibit it gain our respect. Those who can demonstrate flexibility and the ability to respond to ambiguous situations will most likely be effective in providing the leadership necessary for today’s ever changing organizational, world of work landscape, and diverse employees.

The ability to create and sustain flexible organizations that change with the demands of an increasingly complex market and environment continues to be a leadership challenge faced by all leaders and their organizations. How to accomplish this goal over time has been, and continues to be a critical challenge for those responsible for creating, leading, and reshaping organizations.

Walk into the leadership section of any bookshop and you will be bombarded by a whole host of different leadership ideas, strategies, and style manuals.

And why are there so many books on leadership, because no other factor is more important for work morale and job performance. There are millions of people who have experienced good and bad leaders so they know firsthand the importance of good leadership, and especially if they have worked for a leader who

• is tyrannical and cruel,
• is dishonest and unfair,
• makes mistakes and blames others,
• is selfish and rude,
• takes all the credit for work done by others, and
• cares only about self-preservation.

Unfortunately, all these examples are real, all these factors diminish employee’s lives at work, and none is necessary.

Today’s organizations can have the best people and financial or technical resources, and still not be successful if good leadership is missing. It is not human capital skills; it is not financial abundance; it is not technology; it is not tools or equipment; it is not facilities; it is not systems and procedures. It is good leadership and leaders.

Our definition of leadership, “the process of providing direction from a position of power to influence individuals or groups toward the attainment of common goals.”, underscores the broad impact that leaders have on organizationsOpens in new window.

So, what makes an effective leader?

The answer to this question is more complicated than one might think because leadership effectiveness is more than simply gaining commitment with their influence attempts.

In answering the question of what makes an effective leader someone could single out political history figures like CaesarOpens in new window or in other areas of life like Martin Luther King Jr.Opens in new window and Susan B. AnthonyOpens in new window or Winston ChurchillOpens in new window. One could focus on former CEOs like Jack WelchOpens in new window, or sports coaches or presidents as examples of iconic leaders? On what basis do you identify them as leaders? Achievement? Popularity? Their leadership style or the way they communicate?

Perhaps is it something intangible, like a leaders’ charisma? Societal norms and media influence have much to do with our perceptions about what makes an effective leader, and sometimes they create a false impression of leader emergence, which occurs when someone naturally becomes the leader of a leaderless group. As a result, we fall prey to stereotypes.

With so many conflicting impressions and opinions of what makes an effective leader, it is not surprising that endless studies and research continue to fail to agree on the actual constituents of leadership.

It has been suggested that leadership effectiveness entails considerations of the following three issues:

1. The content of the evaluation: What criteria are being used to assess effectiveness? Effectiveness depends on what the evaluator wants. For example, the content of effectiveness can entail criteria such as task performance, quality, sales, customer satisfactionOpens in new window, employee job satisfaction, turnover, or an overall evaluation of leadership effectiveness.
2. The level of the evaluation: At what level are the criteria being measured? Effectiveness can be measured at the individual, group, or organizational levels. Evaluations at different levels also can produce different conclusions. For example, sales performance may be a good measure of performance for one store location, but not across a geographic region.

3. The rater’s perspective: Who is doing the evaluations? Assessments of effective leadership can be made by different people or groups, and their view of leadership may vary and especially when one considers the use of 360-degree evaluations by many of today’s organizations. For example, a division manager may be perceived as effective by a direct report, but not by the entire work unit or their boss.

Despite numerous debates regarding the nature of leadership, there is a general view that today’s leaders are most likely to be critical thinkers who lead from a position of influence rather than power, and who use their decision-making, motivational, and communication skills to inspire others with their vision in order to generate individual, group, and organizational results.

There is agreement that effective leadership can produce astonishing results in terms of increasing an organization’s profits, maintaining a successful organization culture, motivating employees through good times and bad, increasing production levels, connecting with the community, and leading the charge on such things as sustainability.

What Is the Difference Between Managing and Leading?

In trying to answer the question “What is leadership?” it is natural to look at the relationship between leadership and management or leading and managing.

Although managementOpens in new window and leadership share some similarities, the two activities are not synonymous. Both managers and leaders work with people, set goals, and influence others in order to achieve those goals, but several distinctions separate the two functions.

Managers are mainly a product of industrialization in the 20th century, an era when large-scale production and manufacturing demanded the organizational skills necessary to plan, organize, staff, and control the operations. Of course, these skills are still highly relevant as mid- or lower-level leaders are charged with implementing the organization’s vision and strategy.

Leadership has been around far longer than management. History records the strategies by military leaders such as Alexander the Great (356–323 BC)Opens in new window and Attila the Hun (406–453 AD)Opens in new window.

There is an overlap between managers and leaders, however. For example, if a manager is running a project and setting goals for their team, then they are leading their team. Similarly, if a manager is a leader and they are engaged in the daily operations, then they are fulfilling management functions. In each case, both managers and leaders are leading from a position of influence.

Some say leadership is fundamentally a value-choosing, and thus a value-laden activity, whereas management is not.

Leaders are thought to do the right things, whereas managers are thought to do things right. Below are some other distinctions between managers and leaders:

While there is a belief that this general set of distinctions between leadership and management is essentially accurate and even useful, it is important to realize that like other things it can’t be generalized to all leader and management situations or experiences.

In reality, leadership and management are two overlapping functions even though some functions performed by leaders and managers may be unique, there is also an area of overlap.

In sum, first, good leaders are not necessarily good managers, and good managers, and good managers are not necessarily good leaders. Second, effective leadership requires effective managerial skills at some level.