Leadership: A Comprehensive Analysis

Leadership and Management

Question 1

1-What is involved in being a successful leader?

Ans.

The leader is someone who manages their team, motivates their team, and help the organization in achieving goal. The leadership skill is the process of increasing efforts, social influence and make efforts to achieve the target of the organization. A successful leader is someone who takes authority and responsibility for their mistake and team. The successful leader knows how to use authority and power properly without overpowering employees. The skills of a successful leader are that they work efficiently, in established way, and productive in decision making. The successful leader escalates the importance of cheering and supporting employees while understanding company structure and the need to follow the rules and regulations.

In order to evaluate the characteristics of a successful leader as an individual, in a context and in relation there will be description of this. With the help of theories like Katz’s three skills approach, Path goal theory and transformational leadership the points of leader will be highlighted further.

Figure 1: Three skills approach

Source: Author, 2021.

According to Katz, it is recognized that there are three skillsets for a successful leader: conceptual skills, technical skills, and interpersonal skills. Technical skill includes skills and knowledge, most important at middle and lower management and ability to use relevant technologies and tools. Human skill includes people skills, important at all three-management level and knowing own’s opinion as well as of others. Conceptual skills are most significant at middle and top management stages, skill to work with ideas and thoughts, and very significant in planned preparation and vision formation (Stewart, et. al., 2017).

As per the theory propounded by Robert, its behaviour is contingent on the inspiration, performance, and satisfaction of their employee. The leader's job is to view and guide labours to select the best track to reach equally their goals as well as the company’s goals. The leaders will involve diverse types of leadership performance based on the request and nature of the situation.

Transformational leadership focuses on transform and change of employment. The transformational leadership is the ability to get employees to improve, lead, and want to develop.

The successful leader has the vision of control with steering their product around opportunity. They know how to make the employee work hard toward achieving their goal and target. The leader learns their skill of leadership traits and sharpened with practice and time. The successful full leader has a total of eleven traits.

1. Self-managing – Self-managing means make a goal and become responsible for their goal and activities are done by them. If a person cannot manage him/her self then it is difficult for them to manage the team. The successful leader regulates emotions, time, attention, and awareness of the weakness and strengths. The leader has potential sources of giving guidance to others and motivation to others. Success full leaders manage stress and balance their professional and personal lives. The self-discipline and control in action is the main point of leader.

2. Acting strategically- Open thinking and thinking for the future is important for a leader, so the successful leader has to develop their strategies and techniques so that he/she can easily gather the opportunities and can easily tackle the risk and challenges. The successful leader has the ability to think strategically by providing and maintain a positive viewpoint, develop a curiosity and interest in the environment of the company environment, leader always tries to gather new opportunities and think about the company operations and condition so that company can work on future planning (Cote, 2017).

3. Effective communicator – The successful leader has the ability to talk and listen to everyone. They are good communicators and help employees to know the specific task and explain to the team about the organizational target and goal. A successful leader needs to communicate with others by call, email, and social media. They involve people in goal and communication so that employees make a proper effort in archiving those goals.

4. Being responsible and accountable- The successful leader knows the responsibility of him/her self. The use of authority and power is the right way so that employees can do work without pressure. A successful leader can take responsibility for their and team mistake.

5. Setting a clear goal and achieve them – The successful leader can make and develop the goal of the organization and specific employee so that every employee can work on achieving the team. The proper excitement is needed in a leader to motivate others. The process of making and developing goals is key for an organization and the desire to achieve them is a true spirit found in the leader.

6. Vision for the future – Successful leaders have the ability to think about the future and make a clear vision for the employee. The future vision of an organization is to help and inspire the organization. The future vision helps in understanding the plan and strategy for continuous change (Cote, 2017).

7. Managing complexity – Effective leaders have to ability to solve difficult task make a fast decision. The learning of this skill help organization in minimizing the risk and mitigate the risk. The rapid decision-making help organization to make the change and develop their strategy in a complex and difficult task.

8. Fostering innovation and creativity – The leader has the ability to courage and take the risk for innovation. The innovation help organization to get the opportunity and growth. Creativity helps in solving the problem and helps to achieve a different destination.

9. Team building and promoting teamwork- The successful leader is believing in building the team and leading a diverse and unique group of people. Team building is the process of developing employees and provide them proper guidance for achieving the goal.

10. Creating lasting relationship – The good leader is built a long-lasting relation with the customer. The build a long-lasting relation with the employee make then built a strong team.

11. Learning agility – The successful leader has a good ability to achieve change in the surrounding and environment of the organization. The ability to learn different skill help organization and leader to critical think, social intelligence, emotional intelligence, and accepting of risk and motivate employee (Cote, 2017).

Figure 2: The successful full leader has a total of eleven traits.

Source: Author, 2021.

Question 2

Can good leadership be developed, and if so, how?

Ans.

Yes, good leadership can be developed, the good leader is developed by work for the vision and transforming the organization from success to failure. Leadership can be developed by values, courage, and encouragement. Leadership is about the things like good leader always create the vision for the future and make sure that everyone sees it. Vision is hard to describe but not impossible for so leaders always develop a road map and strategy for the future. The next part is leader-built alignment. A leader motivates an employee and helps the organization to achieve the target. Successful leaders achieve alignment by charisma, rational argument, loyalty, and rousing speeches. The last one is the deployment. A leader takes resources and determines how to achieve the future vision. This helps in creating the planned direction.

When a successful leader translated into developing vision, and build alignment, it becomes touchable and tangible for the employee. The leadership can be developed by practice discipline means a leader have to be in disciple or develop leadership skill, learn to follow means a successful leader has no problem soft control to other employees when suitable. It means if leader value and respect other than other employees can also do the same. A good leader always inspires others and motivates others for achieving the goal. The skill of keep learning help in learning sharpens the mind and helps in learning new things. A good leader must be a discerning listener it means the leader has to listen to other employees' feedback, ideas, and suggestions and make sure that they build a bond between them (Rudolph, et. al., 2018).

Leadership theory

Big five personality –

According to this theory, the five big traits are described that include openness, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion. The leadership characteristics are described as openness include imagination, conscientiousness include goal-directed behaviour, extraversion include sociability, agreeableness include affection and trust and neuroticism include moodiness and instability. These characteristics can be developed in the leader. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google has developed his leadership skill.

Situational Approach –

According to Hersey and Blanchard, this theory includes four leadership styles that include directing, supporting, coaching, and delegating. The support includes low directive behaviour and high supportive behaviour. Coaching includes high supportive and directive behaviour. Delegating including low directive and supportive behaviour and directing include low supportive and high directive behaviour. By learning these styles leader can be developed like Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsico as she built all these styles of leadership in her.

Servant leadership –

This theory includes leadership philosophy in which employee interacts with others they can be fellow and management capacity. The aim is to achieve authority as compared to power. The principles include foresight, awareness, listening, empathy, and listening (Holt, et. al., 2018). As per this concept leadership can be built even in employees. Considering the example of Sunder Pichai, CEO of Google has developed the skill of leadership as he has a feeling to make others successful.

Figure 3: Leadership theory

Source: Author, 2021.

Question 3.

What distinguishes leadership from management?

Management – Management is controlling and directing a group of people or company to reach the goal. Management deploys and manipulates technological resources, human resources, natural resources, and financial resources. Management helps in process of achieving the target by leading, planning, controlling, and leading the financial resources, information resources, and physical resources of the company in an efficient and effective manner. It includes the maintenance, development, and allocation of resources to achieve business targets. Management includes carrying and developing out the management process. Management is a technique used by the organization for managing and dealing with the different age groups for achieving a common target. Management includes five M like method, money, men, machine, and material (Dykha, et. al., 2020).

Managers use management processes that include organizing, staffing, planning, leading and directing, and coordinating and controlling.

Leadership – Leadership is the art of motivating and guiding employees to achieve a common goal. Leadership is a process of working with employees and colleagues with the proper plan and strategy to meet the need of the company and achieve the goal. The organization needs proper leadership which helps in achieving the goal. A leader is a person who improves employees and moves the organization toward a better goal and vision. A leader is someone who works for the organization's growth and development purpose. The leader provides the right path for achieving goals and targets.

Leadership is a lesson to be trained, but superiority is influenced by only few persons. A leader is someone who is followed by a large group of people as motivation. Leadership always needs a good vision of thinking and directing individuals to work together. The leader is responsible for the team or group work. For the achievement of many objectives or goals, employees and workers are divided into different teams and the organization assigned them a task which they must achieve within the given period. The leader must guide them and develop a strategy for them to achieve the goal. The leadership skill which helps them in becoming a successful leader is acting with integrity which includes inspiring others by showing trust and show great integrity. Demonstrating competence which includes confidence which helps the leader enjoys the field. Prioritizing relationship which includes the develop a relationship other employee, director, client, and another co-worker. Supporting and motivating other which include a focus on professional relationships which include being aware of values, goal, and desires. Delegating tasks that include teamwork and which do not require a personal skill. Encouraging innovation and thinking creatively which include innovation done for the team which helps in finding new solutions for the problem. Speaking vision which includes sharing the vision with other and inspire other the achieving goal (Ivanov, et. al., 2021).

Example –

Management- Michael stone is the chief executive of the BHP group in the UK. He currently has a big team and 6 offices across the world and another member across different areas and oversees different activities. He is the one who charges for the management activities in the company, he has to develop a monthly calendar for the events and appointments set by the department. He had to do a meeting with the team and monitor the progress of the team and controlling part of management activities.

Leadership- Starbucks is famous for the exceptional treatment of employees, offer insurance to part-time workers. In the late 90s, three employees were murder in a robbery in a store. Instead of calling legal action or press the leader, Schultz spent the week with the employee and their families. This shows true leadership by the heal them and helped them in the closet to the trade and heal those who are closet to disaster.

Question 4

What have you personally learned about leadership from your own experiences, on this course, and elsewhere?

As I am a lorry driver and I am my boss, the experience about leadership is very good. For me, leadership is all about managing things, employees, teams and guiding them according to strategy. As I am my boss under me, I manage my things and team in a way that, everyone feels good and works in an efficient manner. I lead as a manager in my work where I manages and gives the task to everyone which they have to complete in the given time. The coordination between the team is the main strategy for me in my work. This helps me in making my work faster and inefficient manner. The leadership approach I used here is coaching and supporting in which I support them by using strategy and guide them in which they can work and perform better. In my university, I am a class representative and manage my class and make sure that no one will create a problem. As a class representative, I manage the class in project assignments, projects, and activities. The approach I was using is right because the coaching approach is always based on teaching and guiding the team so that they work in a proper manner and inefficiency. Using this approach, I can guide and motivate the team in a good manner and work as a good leader for my team.

The theory I used here is trait theory in which leadership states that positive natural qualities tend to create a great leader. The personality trait theory shows the good and positive relationship between personality traits and effective leadership like conscientiousness, intelligence, self-efficacy, extroversion, and openness to experience. I have these qualities of leadership which help my inability to support and ability to mobilize things toward the given task and shared vision. The trait theory is preferring because it allows me in the set of skills, capabilities, motives, behaviour in social relationships, and the dimension of personality. In leadership traits, the four groups are divided like personality, interpersonal attributes, demographic, and task competence. As a good leader, I fit into the personality group because skills like adaptability, comfort, and dispositional tendencies like values and motives are linked with effective leadership. As a Lory driver, I use this approach in supporting and develop a strategy for completing my task. By good leader, the work environment and employees are getting effect as by

Employees get the effect by the good leader in a manner that employee gain starts gaining work efficiency, mitigate work pressure, increase ability and skills, develop critical thinking skill, become a problem solver and make coordination with another member. The leader effect is good for the employee as he/she makes employee easy and clear about the things and leader clears the path for an employee in achieving the goal. The work environment is effect by a good leader as it helps work station development and increases the chance of growth. The work environment becomes good and effective. By taking regular feedback from the employees and create performance better and exceed a set standard. The leader set the agenda, lead, manage, prioritize work, and delegate. A good leader has a sense of purpose, vision, inspiration, and mentorship for employees (Dorathy and Amadi, 2020).

I personally learn from the experience is become a good leader is effective for both the employees and the workplace. Having the ability of good leadership is a great skill for the person and they can help in many areas of life. The activities like managing things, problem-solving skills, increase coordination and manage a large team or group. I learned great skills and it helps in performing activities in university and my future job.

I learned in this module is leadership and management skill which help me become a good leader and manager. This module helps me become a successful leader and which theories suit or fit me. It teaches me a different type of leadership style in which I fit into the coaching leadership style. My opinion is changing after this module as leadership and management by developing my skill and ability to become a good leader and manager. The ability of work and managing task is developed by me which help in the present as well as future jobs and activities. The leadership perspective helps me in making decisions and responding in a good manner. The concept of leadership is changed as this helps me in every area of life and helps me perform work (Liu, et. al., 2020).

Reference

Cote, R., 2017. Vision of effective leadership. International Journal of Business Administration, 8(6), pp.1-10. https://www.academia.edu/download/57898223/Leadership_in_Aviation.pdf

Dorathy, I. and AMADI, M.A., 2020. ROLE OF INITIATIVE IN INSTITUTIONAL LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT. http://www.ijilpm.com.ng/assets/vol.%2C-2(3)-edu---amadi.pdf

Dykha, M., Cheban, Y., Bilyk, O.I., Siryk, Z.O., Khytra, O. and Dudnyk, A., 2020. Management of Corporate Social Activity in the Organization. International Journal of Management, 11(5). http://elar.khnu.km.ua/jspui/bitstream/123456789/9381/1/IJM_11_05_010.pdf

Gordon, C., Management and leadership–a brief overview. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cameron_Gordon2/publication/339200231_Title_Management_and_leadership_-a_brief_overview/links/5e4390b5458515072d933bb2/Title-Management-and-leadership-a-brief-overview.pdf

Holt, S., Hall, A. and Gilley, A., 2018. Essential components of leadership development programs. Journal of Managerial Issues, 30(2), pp.214-153. https://search.proquest.com/openview/e5c7b3892ad423135507b251a6c463da/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=32030&casa_token=z3JakoVwDHAAAAAA:hJAb7RN8gDXlSHPCnaMm93Aqu7RZrvrSH6LbSDKwdoaAg53Y-wNSlxmjdByZ7ck_V2nfyxsZKEgI3w

Ivanov, S., McFadden, M. and Anyu, J.N., 2021. EXAMINING AND COMPARING GOOD AND BAD LEADERS BASED ON KEY LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTICS: A LEADERSHIP CASE STUDY. International Journal of Organizational Innovation, 13(3). https://www.ijoi-online.org/attachments/article/294/1137%20Final.pdf

Liu, Z., Venkatesh, S., Murphy, S.E. and Riggio, R.E., 2020. Leader development across the lifespan: A dynamic experiences-grounded approach. The Leadership Quarterly, p.101382. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zhengguang_Liu6/publication/338985549_Leader_development_across_the_lifespan_A_dynamic_experiences-grounded_approach/links/5e4a0c00458515072da45b30/Leader-development-across-the-lifespan-A-dynamic-experiences-grounded-approach.pdf

Rudolph, C.W., Rauvola, R.S. and Zacher, H., 2018. Leadership and generations at work: A critical review. The Leadership Quarterly, 29(1), pp.44-57. https://command.columbusstate.edu/docs/readingassignments/auxiliaryreadinglists/generational_leadership.pdf

Stewart, G.L., Astrove, S.L., Reeves, C.J., Crawford, E.R. and Solimeo, S.L., 2017. Those with the most find it hardest to share: Exploring leader resistance to the implementation of team-based empowerment. Academy of Management Journal, 60(6), pp.2266-2293. https://collected.jcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=fac_bib_2017