Fundamentals of Leadership

Module Code	BMO0273
Module Title	Fundamental of Leadership
Assessment type	Individual Assignment
Academic Year	2021/22 Block 5&6
Module Leader	Dr. Syed Abidur Rahman
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Word Count (2524)

Introduction

Leadership is the art of motivating, influencing, and guiding a group of people or followers to act toward achieving a common goal. Good leader helps themselves and others in a team to do the right thing. This report will be prepared on the Fundamentals of leadership and will include different concepts related to leadership. The report will discuss the different approaches and theories to leadership such as the great man theory, theory X and Y, democratic leadership, authoritarian theory, and Laissez-faire theory, and how they will be helpful to the leaders. The report will also discuss the importance of communication in leadership and what will be the ways adopted by a leader in leading a virtual team and the problems that will be faced by the leader in managing a virtual team. The report will also discuss the different theories of motivation and how it is will be used by the leaders. The report will also discuss how the leader manages diversity in the workplace. The report will also discuss emotional intelligence and its leadership role.

Leadership is a significant management function that helps in directing a company’s resources for improving efficiency and in achieving the goals of the company. An effective leader motivates, guide, and provide clarity to others to help them in achieving their very best performance. This is the reason an effective leader is important in a company and there are many different approaches to leadership. There are different approaches of leadership includes Great Man theory, theory X and Y and more.

Great Man Theory, according to this theory of leadership, great leaders are born they are not trained or made. Some individuals are born with certain characteristics and these characteristics are different in natural-born leaders as compared to others. These characteristics help them to lead people and achieve the goals of the company (Rastogi et al., 2019). Great leaders possess the characteristics such as judgment, charm, courage, intelligence, persuasion, aggressiveness, etc. These characteristics cannot be learned, individuals generally possess them at their birth. These types of characteristics are in the family gene and they are passed on from generation to generation. One of the examples of the great man theory is Adolf Hitler, his actions were politically significant. There are other examples such as Mother Teresa, and Coco Chanel who have changed the course of history in their way.

In Theory X and Theory Y, theory X suggests that some leaders have a pessimistic view of their followers and they assume that followers do not like to work and are naturally unmotivated about working. The followers avoid responsibility and need constant direction from their leader to perform their jobs role. Leaders need to control them and be forced to perform & deliver work. These types of followers do not have any ambition so incentives and rewards do not work for them. Theory X can be used in a situation where it’s new starters who need guidance or in a situation where there is a need to control a crisis (Bans-Akutey & Tiimub, 2021).

But it is the opposite in the case of Theory Y, according to this theory leader have an optimistic approach towards their followers, and the leaders who use Theory Y in their leadership focus use a decentralised and participative management style. Using this approach helps in a trust-based relationship and a more collaborative attitude between a leader and their followers. Using this theory, leader delegate responsibilities to their followers and leaders encourage them to develop their skills and they are providing them with suggestions for improvements. The leader encourages open communication between them and does not control their followers. This style of leadership assumes that followers are happy to work on their own and are self-motivated. Application of Theory Y is suitable in those companies where they have a flatter structure and even the lower-level employees are also involved in decision-making and have responsibility.

Authoritarian is a leadership style, in which all the decisions are taken by the leaders and very little input is from the followers. The decisions are made based on the leader's choices and ideas and rarely accept advice from followers. In this leadership, communication flows from the top level to the lower level. But this type of leadership can be effective for the company as it provides a clear chain of command and allows for quick decision making. An example of authoritarian leadership is Kim Jong-un, Richard Nixon.

Democratic is a type leadership which also known as participative leadership where the followers take active participation in the decision-making process. Under this leadership, everyone is allowed to participate and share their ideas (?nce, 2018). Besides this, a democratic leader is there to guide and control. One of the best examples of a company that uses democratic leadership is Google. It is considered one of the best leadership styles.

Laissez-faire is a leadership approachUnder this leadership, leaders are hand-off and allow their followers to make the decisions. In this leaders provide all training and support to their followers but decisions have to be taken by them (Fiaz et al., 2017). This leadership requires trust from their followers and an example of this type of leadership is Steve Jobs.

Communication skills play a significant role as it is at the heart of leadership and to be an effective leader one must possess the skills as it helps to develop a better understanding between them. If a leader possesses good communication skills it becomes easy to express ideas and share information with the followers so that they can use them. Effective communication is based on two components such as content and delivery. A leader should focus on three elements while communicating with the followers as Tone, speed & rhythm as it will help the leaders in making them understand and influence. The information that is delivered non-verbally by the leaders is with the help of body language, and expressions (Bucata & Rizescu, 2017).

Due to many reasons such as Globalisation, competition, change in the market, and technological advancement there is an increase in the use of virtual teams in the business. It is a group of people who work interdependently to achieve a common goal with the help of technology. There are various benefits that a virtual team provides to the company as well as the business. It allows the business to hire talent from different countries and bring together experts from across the globe to work on a project. The result of a virtual team is an increase in productivity and higher profits for the company. Besides this, the biggest advantage to the company is that this approach is cost savings (Liao, 2017).

But managing a virtual team can be difficult for a leader if there is a lack of trust, collaboration, and more conflicts. Leadership challenges are amplified due to the lack of presence of these three components (Ford et al., 2017). It is important for a leader who is managing a virtual team to have a presence of the three C’s among the followers. The three C’s includes communication, coordination, and collaboration. These three C’s act as pillars that helps in creating a strong foundation for the virtual team to unite and perform their best. The communication between the team can be improved with the help of using Skype because humans trust more when they see body language and expressions during communication and can adopt reducing the use of email. For coordination, a leader can take help from project management software and other different collaborative tools to improve collaboration between the team members. This can be done by implementing the practice of updating the progress of project management software and this is to be performed by everyone. This will help in reducing the number of duplicate work and no one will be left out of the loop. For managing a virtual team the leaders need to keep giving regular updates to the team members. For developing and creating collaboration among and within team members, a leader should use the approach of getting feedback from their followers. This will help in developing a sense of belongings among the followers and motivates them to give their best.

One of the most important functions of a leader is to motivate their followers to give their best by exerting an extraordinary level of effort. Different theories of motivation can be used by a leader to motivate their followers and influence them to perform their best. The need theory of motivation states that a person focuses on fulfilling the five basic needs that include physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualisation. If they are satisfied then it motivates them to perform their best. A leader should try to focus on these five components and try to help their followers to meet them and this will motivate them. These needs are in hierarchical order and it is suggested that lower-level needs must be met before the higher-level needs of an individual. The other theory of motivation is reinforcement theory which claims that motivation is based on the “law of effect”, it suggests that behaviours are selected by their consequences such as the behaviour of an individual with positive consequences is repeated and behaviour with negative consequences is not repeated. According to this theory, individual behaviours can be changed through the help of rewards and punishments. Another theory of motivation is the Expectancy theory, this theory states that individual motivation is high when they are aware of the fact of what they have to do to get the reward. According to Herzberg’s two-factor theory, a leader can motivate followers by providing them with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation can be said to be a behaviour that is driven by internal rewards and includes recognition, career advancement, responsibility, and achievement. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation involves completing a task because of some outside causes such as avoiding punishments and includes job security, working conditions, supervision, and company policies (Lee & Hidayat, 2018). Motivation is an important aspect and every leader should perform this function as it will help the followers to achieve their goals and indirectly the goal of the company. If an individual is motivated, then it means the individual is satisfied with the job. If the employees are satisfied it reduces the chances of employee turnover which is great for the company. Motivation also helps in improving the efficiency of the employees and helps in developing a friendly relationship between the leader and the followers.

Managing diversity means acknowledging the difference of people working in the company and recognising these differences as valuable. This will help the company in preventing discrimination and promoting inclusiveness in the work environment. Managing diversity in the work environment can be a challenge for leaders. But these challenges can be mitigated by making an effort to encourage a more heterogeneous environment in the workplace by promoting a culture of tolerance, open communication between leaders and their followers, and creating conflict management strategies in the workplace to address the issue that may arise. For leadership to manage diversity in the workplace effectively, a leader needs to understand how their backgrounds, behaviour, and beliefs can affect their decision-making in a diverse environment (Ashikali et al., 2021).

Emotional intelligence is the ability of an individual to understand and manages their own emotions, and recognises & influences the emotion of people around them. There are majorly four components of emotional intelligence that include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management (Issah, 2018).

Self-awareness helps the leaders in understanding their emotions and the effect of their emotions on them as well as on the team performance. One way to assess self-awareness is by completing 360-degree feedback where the evaluation of performance is done and then it is matched against the opinion of the boss, peers, and others. Self-management is the ability of a leader to manage their emotions in unfavourable and stressful situations and maintain a positive attitude. Leader who lacks self-management faces problem during a difficult times and fail in handling their team. Social awareness describes the ability of a leader to recognise the emotion of their followers and others. Leaders who are good at social awareness practice empathy in the work environment. Empathy helps them in understand their followers feeling and perspectives and this enables them to communicate and collaborate effectively with their followers. Relationship management refers to the ability of a leader to influence, mentor their followers and resolve their conflict effectively. All the components of emotional intelligence are equally important as the leaders set the tone of the organisation. If leaders lack emotional intelligence, then the company has to face various consequences and this will affect the performance of the company.

Lack of emotional intelligence restrains a leader’s ability to communicate and collaborate effectively with followers. Lack of emotional intelligence also affects the performance of the leader as they face problem in resolving conflict, make difficult decisions for the betterment of the followers or company, and fails in adapting to the changes in a business environment. Leaders who nurture emotional intelligence and display it in their performance become better leader than one who does not. Emotional intelligence provides various benefits to the leaders as well as for the company. Effective application of emotional intelligence leads to an increase in employee engagement and a decrease in employee turnover. Emotional intelligence helps leaders in collaborative communication with their followers and others. This enables them to understand their followers in a better way and build a positive relationship with them. Stress in the workplace is unavoidable but leaders with emotional intelligence handle the situation effectively and help in better working under pressure. Emotional intelligence helps in improving the empathy of Leaders that result in a better understanding of their follower emotions and feelings. High Emotional intelligence in leaders helps them in staying self-motivated even during the hard times in the company. If a leader is self-motivated then only he can influence others to remain motivated and give their best performance. Emotionally intelligent leaders create a safe environment where the employees of the company feel safe and comfortable. These enable them to take a risk, suggest ideas, and voice their opinion in the work environment. All this contributes towards better performance of employees and therefore achieving the company’s goal. The report has mentioned different approaches to leadership and the effect of each leadership. Different leaders use different approaches based on a situation in their leadership to influence their followers to achieve their goals.

Conclusion

After studying this essay, it can be summarised that leaders play a significant role in the success of the company’s goal. Without effective leadership, a company has to face various difficulties and fails in achieving its objective of the company. So, effective leaders are required for achieving the company’s goal. The report has mentioned different approaches to leadership and the effect of each leadership. Different leaders use different approaches based on a situation in their leadership to influence their followers to achieve their goals. Communication is equally important in leadership and a good leader possesses good communication skills. Effective communication helps in developing a relationship between leader and their followers. A leader uses different motivation theories to motivate their followers.

References

Ashikali, T., Groeneveld, S., & Kuipers, B. (2021). The role of inclusive leadership in supporting an inclusive climate in diverse public sector teams. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 41(3), 497-519. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0734371X19899722

Bans-Akutey, A., & Tiimub, B. M. (2021). The Effect of Leadership Styles on the Dynamics of a Group. Academia Letters, 2. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anita-Bans-Akutey/publication/353347467_The_Effect_of_Leadership_Styles_on_the_Dynamics_of_a_Group/links/60f6b0999541032c6d5104cc/The-Effect-of-Leadership-Styles-on-the-Dynamics-of-a-Group.pdf

Bucata, G., & Rizescu, A. M. (2017). The role of communication in enhancing work effectiveness of an organization. Land Forces Academy Review, 22(1), 49. https://www.armyacademy.ro/reviste/rev1_2017/Bucata.pdf

Fiaz, M., Su, Q., Ikram, A., & Saqib, A. (2017). LEADERSHIP STYLES AND EMPLOYEES’MOTIVATION: PERSPECTIVE FROM AN EMERGING ECONOMY. The Journal of Developing Areas, 51(4), 143-156. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amir-Ikram/publication/317884652_Leadership_styles_and_employees'_motivation_Perspective_from_an_emerging_economy/links/5b1961f7aca272021ceef447/Leadership-styles-and-employees-motivation-Perspective-from-an-emerging-economy.pdf

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Issah, M. (2018). Change leadership: The role of emotional intelligence. Sage Open, 8(3), 2158244018800910. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244018800910

Lee, C. W., & Hidayat, N. (2018). The influence of transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation to employee performance. Advances in Management and Applied Economics, 8(2), 1-12. http://www.scienpress.com/Upload/AMAE%2FVol%208_2_1.pdf

Liao, C. (2017). Leadership in virtual teams: A multilevel perspective. Human Resource Management Review, 27(4), 648-659. https://www.academia.edu/download/51794476/2017_Liao_2017_HRMR.pdf

Rastogi, L., Yazdifar, H., Alam, A., Eskandari, R., & Bahloul, M. A. (2019). A review of the relationship between leadership style and innovation: insights and directions for future research. Journal for Global Business Advancement, 12(5), 625-647. http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/33397/1/JGBA%20-%20A%20Review%20of%20The%20Relationship%20Between%20Leadership%20Style%20and%20Innovation.pdf