Leadership
Leadership has played an important role in the human history since earliest times. The historians have glorified heroes in battle and valued the importance of their deeds for the future generations.
The role of politicians, statesmen and emperors in the development of empires, territories and nations has received considerable attention in the imperial history. In modern society there is emphasis on leadership and to earn an online Leadership degree is considered a great starting point, since there is continual search for men with leadership qualities.
WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?
It is really difficult to attempt a definition of leadership or in other words it is difficult to define what makes certain persons leaders. Leadership is often regarded as the important modifier of organizational behaviour. It is regarded as primarily personal in character as being founded upon individual pre-eminence or accomplishment in a particular field of behaviour. Thus, superior strength, superior tact, superior intelligence, superior knowledge, superior will power any or all of these may be the means to the attainment of leadership. No one may deny that these personal qualities do pay dividends but leadership is not all personal pre-eminence. It is something more than that and that something more is the essence of leadership. It is the capacity to set new goals to hold forth new and loftier expectations for the group and to show the group its noble potentialities that make man a leader.
Difference Between Power and Leadership
•Power is the capacity of a person to practice some type of power over another person. Then again, authority is the capacity to make a dream, propel individuals to move in the direction of accomplishing the vision, instructing and constructing the group that will pioneer the fruition of the vision and dealing with the end conveyance of the vision.
•Credibility is required in authority yet not a need in power.
•Power is inferred structure a place of power. Administration is an individual property.
•Power is commonly controlling and strong in causing supporters to pursue directions. Administration includes rousing the subordinates to finish assignments.
•Leadership requires control so as to be compelling. Be that as it may, control does not rely upon administration. One can have control yet not be a pioneer. In any case, all pioneers require some type of intensity so as to effectively motivate subordinates.
•The kinds of intensity incorporate coercive, genuine, master, referent and reward. The principle sorts of administration incorporate imperious, popularity based, transformational, monarchical and lassies-fair
Pigor says authority is an idea connected to the character to portray the circumstance when a character is so put in the condition that it coordinates the inclination and understanding and controls others in quest for a typical reason. As indicated by Allen authority is the movement of influencing individuals to participate in the accomplishment of a typical goal. Terry characterizes it as the action of affecting individuals to endeavour energetically for shared targets.
Initiative dependably includes endeavours with respect to a pioneer to influence the conduct of a devotee or supporters in a circumstance. Power isn’t proportionate with impact or with starting change in someone else’s conduct without respect to the circumstance wherein it happens. Another conceived new-born child can impact and change the conduct of his folks yet this impact isn’t equal with power in the family.
LEADERSHIP AND HEADSHIP
Leadership is not necessarily headship. Gibb has noted that there is almost general agreement in the literature of the last few years that leadership is to be distinguished by definition from domination or headship. Headship means a position in the official hierarchy.
A person who is the head of an organization may not have any influence over the members. He may be a head without an influence. But as he gains influence, he becomes a leader because leadership basically involves the capacity to influence.
Qualities of Leadership
Administration indicates a common personal conduct standard between the pioneer and his devotees. Authority is a two way undertaking. The adherents impact the conduct of the pioneer in as much as the pioneer impacts their conduct.
The idea of administration can be seen uniquely with regards to devotees. Without devotees there can be no pioneer. Authority includes the component of willing and intentional acquiescence by the adherents. Initiative depends on collaboration and altruism. Sheer danger and power can’t keep up one a pioneer for long. Administration is explicit to a particular circumstance.
The Nature of Leadership
There are two essential approaches to manage activity traitist and situationist. In the early event’s position was considered to start from the individual attributes of the pioneer and lacking thought was given to the dedication of the get-together structure and condition. The early examinations focused on explicit characteristics to complexity pioneers and non-pioneers.
Gibb remarked that the pioneer credits are as for a specific social condition and are not shown in constrainment. He demonstrated out that tries find a dependable case of characteristics that depict pioneers had failed and said that the qualities of power are any or those character traits that in a particular condition make it doable for an individual either to add to achievement of a social occasion objective or to be seen as doing in that capacity by other get-together individuals.The person who transforms into a pioneer beats others in specific attributes required by the target in the particular situation. He creates organization is both a component of these two affiliations.
The situationalist approach to manage specialist gives a remedial to the traitist approach which saw pioneers as especially overwhelming individuals who may lead in whatever condition or time they may get themselves. This approach emphasizes that expert is express to a specific situation. It is a technique for continuing appeared by individuals in differentiating degrees in different conditions. A pioneer in one get-together isn’t generally a trailblazer in another. A trailblazer in the class may not be a pioneer in the play region. In spite of the way that activity may be considered as lead express to a given situation yet it doesn’t infer that there is no accord of characteristics dependent on which certain individuals may be assessed pioneers.
Carter saw that if expert is totally unequivocal to a given situation, by then it can’t be a subject of coherent examination and hypothesis. Pioneer is in a general sense a bit of a social occasion and activity is status and employment in that get-together. Plainly expert can happen just in association with different people. It’s not possible for anyone to be a pioneer without any other individual. The associations which the pioneer bears to various individuals are status and occupation associations. He is a bit of the social affair structure and everything considered he continues relating relationship with various people from the get-together. These associations describe his activity in the social affair. Exactly when specialist is viewed as a status in a social event structure and an occupation portrayed by equivalent relations with others in the particular structure it is direct why there can’t be a theory of qualities typical for pioneers.
Functions of Leadership
There is no unanimity of opinion as to what the functions of the leadership are. This is because detailing of functions depends on one’s general concept of leadership. Leadership functions are related to goal achievement and to the maintenance and strengthening of the group. Functions in the former category, instrumental to achieving the goals of the group include making suggestions for action, evaluating movement towards the goal, preventing activities irrelevant to the goal and offering effective solutions for goal achievement.
Functions in the second category include encouraging the members, releasing tension that builds up and giving everyone a chance to express himself. The main functions of leadership are to contribute to the achievement of the group goal and to help hold the group together. The leader by himself alone cannot achieve the group goal and help it maintain its solidarity and strength.
Leadership is not the activity of an individual alone. In a large-scale organization, it becomes a collective activity for no single individual can meet the tremendous demands of working out the whole organization. This has led to the view that leadership like power is dispersed throughout the organization. No one person has all the leadership functions. The functions of an organization are divided and each individual in his respective position provides leadership in so far as he contributes to the attainment of the group goal and the maintenance of the group cohesiveness. The leadership is provided at several levels in the hierarchy but at the same time individual leadership is important. The leader is the symbolic spokesman, the coordinator supreme, the important participant in decisions as to goals, the primary change content and the example to the organization.
Why a Person Assumes Leadership
Whether a person will assume leadership in a group or not depends upon the reward-cost outcomes expected by him and by his followers. The rewards of leadership are two-fold first are the satisfactions to be gained from successful accomplishment of the tasks. Second are the rewards gained from leadership activity in itself. These include satisfaction of needs for achievement and dominance as well as other social –emotional needs. Persons who assume leadership incur a number of costs. They have to spend their time and energy. Besides they bear strains, anxiety, rebuffs, loss of status and blame in case of failure.
He also faces the cost of losing the friendship of the members who may be adversely affected in their position and prestige by his having assumed the leadership. He also risks his popularity. He also faces the cost of loneliness since he is often avoided because of his power and because he may also incur hostility. Among the rewards of the followers is the goal achievement.
The followers follow the leader because they recognize that without leadership the goals of the group would not be achieved. Secondly by following the leader the followers escape the burden of making decisions to meet particular situations facing the group. Thirdly the followers escape the anxiety over the risk of failure and blame when the failure occurs. As to who will assume leadership depends on the rewards and costs arising out of the inter-play between the demands of the situation and the characteristics of the individuals. Those who have the required skills to a high degree can respond at low cost. Varying characteristics of the group members affect their reward cost outcomes differently in different situations.
Types of leadership
various undertakings have been made to portray pioneers. As demonstrated by H.T Mazumdar there are three sorts of power – standard, bureaucratic and engaging. The standard pioneer gets his capacity through the ordinary status credited to him. Along these lines the Brahmin is the standard pioneer of Hindu society. The bureaucratic pioneer gets his position and power through task from choice or from course of action. The attractive pioneer makes his own one of a kind power. He may be a get-together boss, a religious head, a social head or a dynamic boss.
Bogardus has referenced the going with sorts of power. Quick and circumlocutory authority. Social, official and mental organization, factional and legitimate initiative. Prophets, blessed individuals, authorities and supervisor. Dictatorial, charming, caring and dominant part rule specialist. The three most essential sorts of pioneers today are the chief, the ace and instigator. With the extension of state activity and political controls the force of government organization has colossally extended. The confounded mechanical and military structures can’t work without the ace. The instigator in time of grave financial slightness and expansive strain about the future political solicitation acknowledge a huge activity in mass society, for instance, our own.
Leadership Techniques
There are three sorts of initiative system tyrant, law based and laissez-faire. Under the dictator method the pioneer decides the approach techniques and exercises in the gathering. Under the vote-based strategy the pioneer supports interest by individuals in choosing gathering matters and carries on in an inviting accommodating way to the individuals giving specialized help and proposing elective systems. In the free enterprise strategy, the pioneer permits total opportunity for choices and action downplaying his own drive and recommendations.
Authoritarian leadership induced greater dependency on the leader, marked inter-member irritability and aggressiveness, low frequencies of suggestions for group action and group policy, dissatisfaction group activities and high quantity but low quality of productivity. Under laissez-faire leadership the group showed little dependency on the leader. Democratic leadership also produced low dependency on the leader. There is no denying the fact that the democratic technique is a human relation approach which is in keeping with democratic values. It increases independence for all group members and hence increases their morale. But it cannot be applied fully. The advantage of democratic leadership depends upon the demands of the situation, the distribution of skills within the group and the group’s expectations as well as other factors. Gibb notes it is common in our culture at the present time to place negative values on authoritarian leadership. Much of this attitude seems to be due to a prolonged period of ideological opposition to cultures authoritarian organized.
The tendency is to think of authoritarianism in its most extreme form of headship and denounce all forms of individual authority over others. Studies of group action reveal that in certain circumstances authoritarian leadership is highly valued. Under certain situations an authoritarian form of leadership may be more effective. Such situations may of those where the group is faced with a need for emergency action. The leadership techniques have to be related to the attitudes of the membership to the particular form of relation among the members including the leader and functions as a part of the group structure. These are to be reality oriented. Gibb writes it is important that we recognize authoritarianism and democracy as poles of a continuum neither of which is wholly good or wholly bad, but which represent extremes of variable leadership techniques that should be adapted to all the elements of the situation, culture, personality, content, structural, inter-relations and task.