Chapter 10 - Leadership
B-Com Part 2 Management Notes
http://karachiboardnotes.blogspot.com/Chapter 10 - Leadership
* Leadership
* Various theories of leadership
* Different styles of leadership
Q.1. What leadership means? What are its important characteristics? Why is their need of leadership also discussing its importance?
Meaning and Definition of Leadership
Simply stated, leadership is the process of influencing the behaviour of others towards the attainment of desired goal or purpose in given circumstances. Leadership is a tool to get the desired work done through employees or subordinates. Leadership is majorly explained on the basis of influence relationships and motivational considerations. One method of solving the problem of motivation is the effort to provide inspiring and effective leadership to the employees. The success of a manager is largely decided by the fact as to how much effective he is as a leader. Leadership is the ability to make people act the way the manager or leader wants. It is the process of influencing others to become what they are capable of becoming in the view of the leader. Leadership, in essence is carrying the people with the leader by their consent.
Different scholars have defined leadership in the following ways:
Rober Tannenbaum
Leadership is interpersonal influence, exercised in situations and directed, through the communication process, towards the attainment of goals.
George Terry
Leadership is the leadership in which one person or the leader influences others to work together willingly on related tasks to attain that which the leader desires.
Theo Haimann
Leadership can be defined as the process by which an executive imaginatively directs, guides and influences the work of others on choosing and attaining specified goals by medicating between the individual and the organisation in such a manner that both will obtain maximum satisfaction.
E.B. Reuter
Leadership is an ability to persuade or direct men without use of the prestige or power of formal office or external circumstances.
Weihrich and Koontz
Leadership is defined as influence that is the art or process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically inward the achievement of group goals.
Peter Drucker
Leadership is lifting of a man's vision to higher sights, the raising of a man's performance to a higher standard and the building of a man's personality beyond its normal limitation.
Characteristics Or Features of Leadership (Nature)
The important characteristics of leadership, which indicate its nature, may be described as follows:
1. Leadership is an influence process stimulating group members.
2. It is a relational concept in which two sides are included, influencing agent and the persons influenced. The first side is called leader the second side is called followers.
3. Leadership is a complex relationship which exists between the leader, the followers, the organisation, the social values and the economic and political condition. Each of these ingredients or factors has its own peculiarities which are the cause of the complexity of this relationship.
4. Leadership required aptitude and basic attitudes with regard to behaviour pattern, tolerance, human psychology and achievement.
5. Leadership depends on the properties of the situation and the persons to be led. In other words, these two factors especially affect the effectiveness of leadership. Generally, it is the function of the leader, the followers and other situational variables.
6. The leader's role and the degree of its acceptance by the group members, condition the leadership. In other words right person's right role proves him to be a good leader.
7. Th core of leadership is to motivate the employees by integrating their individual goals with those of the organisation.
8. A leader leads he does not push. It means that a leader takes his followers and their achievements to such a height where they do not believe to reach. When a leader leads, he serve also , i.e., he fully cars for the satisfaction of his followers.
9. Leadership appears to be more of an emotional than an intellectual or rational process, because its direct concern is with men whose both emotional and rational powers are to be stimulated or incited. Such powers can be had by means of dedication not only by use of knowledge. Leadership is a rational to the extent that is is goal directed.
10. Persons capable of exercising effective leadership in organisations are in critically short supply in relation to their tremendous demand.
11. Leadership is part of management, but not all for it.
12. Leadership is a nebulous, not fully clear accept even after so research done in this field. In other words, still there is no simple answer to the riddle.
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Q.2. Briefly describe various theories of leadership.
OR
Discuss different approaches to leadership.
OR
Explain the main theories of leadership.
OR
Differentiate between tratist and situationalist theories. Which of the two is near to the modern thinking?
OR
Enumerate the qualities of leadership.
Theories of Leadership
Leadership styles focus on the behaviour pattern exhibited by a leader during supervision of the subordinates. On the other hand, who will emerge an effective leader? Or how effective a leadership style will be? such questions are answered by leadership theories. Simply stated, theories focus on various approaches to successful leadership.
The theories of leadership may be classified into three categories, Trait theories, Behavioural theories and situational theories.
1. Tratist Leadership Theory
In its early stage, this theory was called great man theory of leadership, which says that leaders are born and not made. Ancient people thought that certain natural qualities of leadership exist in a person. Ultimately, the great man theory gave way to a more real theory the Trait approach.
Trait theory views leadership as a conglomerate (or a large set) of different traits or qualities. The great man theory believed that traits were inherited. Whereas, trait theory holds that traits are not always inborn but can be acquired through education, training and experience. Trait theory holds that leadership is largely a matter of personality, a function of specific traits. It suggests that there are certain unique qualities or traits clearly identifiable in leaders. The greater the degree of such traits possessed by a person the better and more successful will be proved as a leader. It further suggests that leaders differ from followers with respect to certain key traits and these traits remain unchanged across time. The trait theory attempts to isolate the attributes of successful and unsuccessful leader and using such a list of traits, it predicts the success of failure of persons as leaders. It is to be noted that these traits are not measurable.
Various thinkers have differed on the package of traits. Many studies of traits have been made. Ralph Stogdill found (1974) that various researchers have identified specific traits related to leadership ability as follows:
1. Physical Traits
Five in all, such as energy, appearance and height.
2. Intelligence and Ability Traits
Four in all, such as high level of intelligence and judgement.
3. Personality Traits
Sixteen in all, such adaptability, agressiveness, enthusiasm and self-confidence.
4. Task-Related Characteristics
Six in all, such as achievement drive, persistence and initiative
5. Social Characteristics
Nine in all, such as cooperativeness, interpersonal skills and administrative ability.
It may be noted that the discussion of the importance of traits still goes on. More recently (1991). Shelly Kirkpatrick and Edwin Locke have identified the following key leadership traits.
1. Drive
Including achievement, motivation, energy, ambition, initiative and tenacity (i.e. firmness).
2. Leadership Motivation
The aspiration to lead but not to seek power as such.
3. Self-Confidence
Including motional stability.
4. Cognitive Ability
The ability of knowing, including consciousness of things and judgement about them.
5. An Understanding of the Business
According to them, less clear is the impact of creativity, flexibility and charisma (i.e. strong personal charm to attract and influence) on the leadership effectiveness.
In general the study of leaders traits has not been a very fruitful approach to explaining effectiveness of leadership. Not all leaders possess all the traits and many followers (non-leaders) may possess most or all of them. Further, the trait theory does not indicate as to how much of any trait a person should have to be an effective leader. Also, most of these so-called traits are really patterns of behaviour. Furthermore, the list of traits is not uniform. Effective leadership is not a function of some traits only, situation also plays an important role in making someone a successful leader.
2. Behavioural Theories of Leadership
Dissatisfaction with the results of the trait approach has caused a significant change in the emphasis of leadership research and the focus shifted in the actual behaviour and actions of leaders from the traits or characteristics of leaders. Thus, Behavioural theories attempt to describe leadership in terms of what leaders do rather than what they are. According to Behavioural approach, leadership is the result of effective role behaviour. This approach hold that an effective leader is one who performs these acts which help the group to attain its goals.
The most popular models of leadership based on the behavioural appraoch may briefly be discussed as follows:
Likert's for systems of management. Rensis Likert has studied the patterns and styles of leaders and manager for three decades (1961). He has developed a continuum of our systems of management or leadership styles as follows:
1. System 1 Management
It is described as exploitative authoraitative. Its managers are higher autocratic have little trust in subordinates and motivate people through fear and punishment and only occasionally reward. They engage in downward communication and limit decision making to themselves.
2. System 2 Management
It is called benevolent - authoritative. Its managers have a patronizing confidence and trust in subordinates. They motivate with rewards and some fear and punishment. They permit some upward communication and solicit some ideas and opinions from subordinates. They allow some delegation of decision making but with close policy control.
3. System 3 Management
It is referred to as Consultative. Its managers have substantial but not complete confidence and trust in subordinates. They usually try to make use of subordinates ideas and opinions. They use reward for motivation with occasional punishment and some participation.
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Q.3. Briefly discuss various leadership styles and also refer to their advantages, disadvantages and conditions of use. Which is the best style in your opinion?
Leadership Styles
Simply stated, the term Leadership style refers to the pattern of behaviour, which a leader adopts in directing behaviour of the followers towards the attainment of organizational goals. From another viewpoint, leadership style is the position that a leader usually takes with regard to how much decision making freedom he allows to his followers to have. Similarly, the behaviour exhibited by a leader during supervision of his followers is known as leadership style. The nature and form of leadership style is affected by the following factors, existing circumstances, time period, personality of the leader, his experience, attitude and orientation, nature of followers, external environmental and so on. Most of the managers use several styles at one or the other point of time, but in which category a manager falls, is decided by the style that is mostly used by him. Basically and broadly, there are three important leadership styles as follows:
1. Autocratic Or Authoritarian Style
It is also known as directive style. It is basically treated as a traditional method of leadership. An autocratic leader centralize power and decision making in him and exercise complete control over the subordinates. He dominates and drives his group through coercion and command. He uses both positive and negative motivations, for example, reward, praise, fear of criticism or punishment. When he uses positive motivations that is called benevolent autocratic style and when he uses negative motivations that is known as dictatorial or oppressive autocratic style. The autocratic leader likes, Theory X-undemocratic thinking, he emphasizes work only.
The autocratic leder himself decides all policies. He gives orders to the subordinates and expects them to follow such orders completely without any grudge or question. Under this style, subordinate are thought to be inexperienced and wisdom less and therefore they are given no freedom - the autocratic leader decides the technicalities and modalities of the work and the course of action. Hence any one except the leader does not know the future action.
Autocratic style permits quick decision making provides strong motivation and satisfaction to the leader centralize power and dictates terms, yields positive results when great speed is required and needs less competent subordinates at lower levels. Its major disadvantages are, It leads to frustration, low morale and conflict among subordinates are induced to avoid responsibility, initiative and innovative behaviour. Full potential of subordinates and their creative ideas are not utilized. In the absence of the leader, organizational continuity is threatened because subordinate gets no opportunity for development.
This style may be appropriately used where subordinates are uneducated, unskilled, unwise, inexperienced, where the company endorses fear and punishment as accepted disciplinary techniques and where the leader prefers to be active and dominate to decision making.
2. Democratic Or Participative Styles
The democratic leader decentralizes power. He involves subordinates in the decision making. Decision are made in consultation and participation with the subordinates. The style emphasizes group-discussion and group decision making. The democratic leader like Theory Y-fairness, equity and human relation. He emphasizes both work and worker. The subordinates are encouraged to utilize their full talent potential and capacities and assume greater responsibilities. The democratic leader shares power with subordinates, delegate adequate authority to them, keeps them well informed about matters of their interest and concern and allow adequate freedom for thinking, discussing, expressing and making suggestions. He has faith in the subordinates and their wisdom, skills and capacities. He holds objective approach. Communication pattern is multi-dimensional.
The major advantages of this style are, It improves job satisfaction and moral, develops positive attitude, reduces resistance to change, generates self-motivation due to participative decision making and freedom of thought and impression, increases productivity and develops better subordinates.
The major disadvantages of this style are, It is time consuming and causes delays in decision making; may fail when the communication pattern and skill are not strong enough is not workable where subordinates do not want to take extra responsibility of sharing in decision making and becoming part of every decision decreases productivity in some cases especially when decisions are diluted to appease or please everybody.
Democratic style is more appropriate where subordinates are educated, skilled, wise, creative and enthusiastic, where the company endorses self-direction and self-control and rewards and involvement as prime means of motivation and control and where leader desires to hear subordinates before making decisions and to develop a strong and capable force of followers.
3. Free Rein Or Laissez-Faire Or Permissive Style
There are several forms of this style. For example, in some cases the subordinates are given a goal to achieve in their own way, whereas in some other cases they themselves decide their group goals. Infact, there is almost complete delegation of authority and the path leading to the goals is decided by the subordinates themselves. The leader behaves primarily as a member of the group and plays the role of a member only. He give his opinion or suggestion only when it is demanded from him. Under this style, the group members are educated and motivated by themselves, the leader is not required to educate but he acts, as a link primarily for arranging adequate resources needed for attaining the goals, for establishing contact between employees and the outside world, for collecting necessary information from external sources and for establishing coordination. The concept of management by exception promotes this type of style. Subordinates themselves plan, control, evaluate and decide.
The major advantages of this style are, It increases subordinates, freedom, develops their expression, compels them to work as group members, increases job satisfaction and moral, utilities subordinates potential to the maximum possible extent and promotes creativity or innovation.
The free-reign style is appropriate where subordinates themselves are well trained and highly knowledge about their tasks and unheisitatingly ready to assume extra responsibility, where the company has a wide and effective communication network acceptable to the subordinates and it endorses complete freedom and full involvement as means of motivation and control and where the leader is ready to compromise with the status in the group and is interested in delegating the whole authority to the subordinates. It is mostly used in circumstances where the leader feels him in a position to leave the alternative or selection fully on the group's choice.
Choosing a Leadership Style
Which leadership style is best or which to choose? Different scholar makes different suggestions in this regard. However, widely known for their effective management practices the Japanese favour participative leadership style. In actual practice it is difficult to hold my one style, is the best leadership style. As discussed above, each style has got its merits and demerits. Hence the choice of a style will depend upon several factors, such as suggested by Tannenbaum and Schmidt.
1. Forces in the Manager
Manager's value system, confidence in subordinates, own leadership inclination and feeling of security in an uncertain situation.
2. Forces in the Subordinates
Their need for independence, readiness to assume responsibility for decision making, tolerance, for ambiguity (or strangeness), interest in problem at hand, understanding and identification with the goals of the organisation, knowledge and experience to deal with the problem and learned expectatio of sharing in decision making process.
3. Forces in Situation
The type of organisation, group effectiveness, the complexity of the problem itself, pressure of time on the situation etc.
Effective manager should be expert enough to adapt or modify their leadership style as per the need of the moment. Sticking to one best considered style at all times in all situations with all people may not work well to be a good leader. Most suitable leadership style is that which fits with the situation the followers and the leader.
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