Concept of Leadership

Leadership is the process by which an individual influences another individual or a group of individuals. It is encouraging others to do work effectively of their own will. Leadership can also be said as an art of guiding others towards the direction of achieving organizational goals.

Leadership is also a relationship between a leader and her/his followers. A leader is a person who is part of a group and influences the behavior of the followers to attain organizational objectives. Followers are those who willfully agree on the direction and guidance of the leader with inspiration and motivation. Thus, leadership can be regarded as the ability of a leader to induce followers to perform tasks effectively towards achieving group or organizational objectives.

Key Definitions

Defined By	Definition
Chester Bernard	“Leadership refer to the quality of behavior of the individual whereby theyguide people on their activities in an organized effort”
George R. Terry	“Leadership is the ability to influence people to survive willingly for mutual objectives”
Kootz and O’Donnel	“Leadership may be defined as the ability to exert interpersonal influence by means of communication towards the achievement of a goal”
Keith Davis	“Leadership is the ability to persuade others to seek defined objectives enthusiastically. It is the human factor which binds a group together and motivates it towards goals”

From the above discussion and definitions:

• Leadership as interpersonal influence and person to personal relationship in a group or organization.
• It is an art and process of influencing people so that they work motivated and willfully to achieve organizational or group goals.
• It is a goal-oriented relationship between a leader and her/his follower.
• Leadership is the art of a leader to influence followers through a systematic process to induce motivation of followers and make her/him work dedicatedly to achieve goals.

Characteristics of Leadership

Some of the key characteristics of leadership have been outlined as below:

1. Leadership is performed in a group or team in a particular situation
2. Leadership is a dynamic and continuous process as it should cope with changes as well as it goes on continuously
3. It consists of a leader and follower
4. Only that person who has a separate identity and can maintain such identity can perform leadership
5. Leadership involves directing, guiding and influencing the behavior of individuals and groups to ensure future behavior and actions are modified in the right direction
6. Leadership is sharing of knowledge and interest between a leader and her/his followers
7. Leadership implies the pursuit of common goals in the interest of individuals and groups as a whole
8. Leadership involves performing tasks together by leader and followers to achieve pre-determined goals

Principles of Leadership

Leadership is the art and skill of influencing a group in systematic manner for the accomplishment of organizational objectives. Thus, it is crucial for overall management and operation of any organization. Hence, it is guided by some principles. Some of the principles of leadership have been discussed below:

• Principle of Applying Best Suited Leadership Style
• Principle of Focus on Goal and Its Accomplishment
• Principle of Treating Followers as Valuable
• Principle of Listening and Analyzing
• Principle of Team Building and Development
• Principle of Admitting Mistakes and Acknowledging Success
• Principle of Subordinating Personal Matters for Organizational Matters
• Principle of Innovation and Change
• Principle of Creating Pool of Future Leaders

Functions of Leadership

Leadership is concerned with inspiring and influencing individuals or groups to work willfully to achieve goals. But the function of leadership is not limited to this. There are other functions of leadership also. Such functions are mentioned below:

1. Determine Organizational Goal: Leadership is concerned with determining the organizational goal. The leader determines such goals and related strategies, policies, procedures and tasks to be done to achieve such goals. The detail of the goal and how it will be achieved is communicated to subordinates so that they can act correctly in direction of such goal achievement.
2. Develop Team Work: Leadership is about developing teamwork. The leader is responsible to formulate, manage, motivate and inspire the team. While developing such a team the leader should consider the knowledge, skills and abilities of team members and group dynamics making the environment to work easy, stress-free and convenient.
3. Provide Guidance: During work, an employee may face different problems. Such problems could be technical or operational or emotional. A leader must guide her/his subordinates to solve such problems tactfully and smartly.
4. Time Management: Leadership has a high priority for time management. A leader must ensure all the works are done in time. He/she must check whether or not any delay might occur in the timely accomplishments of determining targets. If there is a possibility of delay in the completion of tasks, proper guidance or instructions should be given by the leader. With this, the leader ensures effective time management and attainment of goals in time.
5. Co-Ordination: Co-ordination is another function of leadership. A leader cannot do anything alone. He/she require the support of all his team members. Similarly, there should be a right and adequate engagement of other resources too. All this can be ensured through effective coordination to be initiated by the leader.
6. Good Human Relation: Leadership is a human relationship between leaders and followers. A leader should have sufficient human skills to maintain a good, friendly and unbiased relationship with her/his followers. The followers should also be loyal and dedicated to the work. This ensures good human relations.
7. Proper Use of Power: Leadership is about the proper use of power. While exercising power, the leader must be careful and use it properly depending upon the situation. The leader should use reward power, coercive/expert power, formal or informal power and corrective power to identify which situation needs what power to influence and inspire subordinates.
8. Ensure Effectiveness of Group Effort: Different factors play a key role in determining group effort. A good reward system, proper delegation of authority, participation in decision making etc. are some such key factors. A leader should maintain a good balance of these factors to ensure the effectiveness of group effort.
9. Use of Managerial Skills: Leadership is a managerial function requiring different skills. A leader must have different managerial skills such as human relations, analytical skills, technical know-how, conflict management techniques, crisis handling etc. A leader should possess such managerial skills to make subordinates work better and efficiently to achieve organizational objectives.

Importance of Leadership

Leadership is the process of influencing people towards the accomplishment of definite goals or objectives. Better influenced people can work better, efficiently and purposefully. That’s why it is an important function of management. The importance of leadership has been mentioned below:

1. Helps in Setting Goals:

Leadership is all about guiding to set goals. Such goal-setting depends upon the qualities, competence and abilities of the leader. A leader guides in setting such goals for individuals or groups and influences subordinates towards the accomplishment of such set goals. While setting such goals, different factors like resource availability, organizational hierarchy, time horizon, individual or group skills etc. are highly considered and coordinated.

• Develops Team Sprit:

Leadership helps in the development of team spirit among group members in a group. It induces a sense of collectivism replacing a sense of individualism. In an organization, there are people with different interests and goals. Leadership facilitates subordinating such individual goals and interests with organizational goals or objectives. Leadership develops team spirit by resolving any form of conflict and promoting group harmony by restoring equilibrium among group members.

• Acts as Representative:

Leadership is the way through which the leader acts as a representative of the group. She/he acts as a guardian to the group members. The leader represents the group inside and outside the organization. The leader is someone who represents the team and guides the team effort towards the accomplishment of the group objectives.

• The motivation of Employees:

The influence and stimulation through leadership act as motivation to employees. A leader motivates employees with both monetary and non-monetary rewards to employees through her/his leadership skills. Such reward and compensation motivate employees to perform better for the attainment of the group or organizational goals.

• Provides Right Guidance:

Leadership provides the right guidance to subordinates or group members. Guidance here means instructions regarding what, how, when and which way the subordinates must work to achieve goals effectively and efficiently. Right guidance from the right leadership can only ensure the accomplishment of goals in the right way at right time.

• Helps in Co-ordination:

Leadership coordinates personal interest and organizational goals. It also ensures proper linkage between systems, processes and hierarchies within the organization. Leadership facilitates the establishment and development of mechanisms and frameworks for effective coordination in an organization.

• Efficiency and Effectiveness:

Leadership influences the behavior and activity of subordinates. If such influence is positive, these subordinates are highly motivated. Motivated employees work better. Such better work or increases the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the organization.

Different Leadership Styles

Leadership style is the way a leader leads his/her team or group of followers. It refers to the way a leader manages and makes people work. There are different leadership styles used by the leader in an organization. These leadership styles have been explained below:

1. Democratic Leadership Style: In this type of leadership style, the leader asks for input from each member. The final decision is taken by the leader after hearing from each member. Employees participation is ensured in this style of leadership. This is one of the most effective styles as it seeks inputs from all the employees who are directly concerned with the issue. This is a participative leadership style where the employees of a lower level are valued and they provide their crucial input at the time of decision making. For example, in a board meeting of a bank, the advice of each member is taken and the chairman finally takes a decision.
2. Autocratic Leadership Style: This is exactly the opposite style to the democratic leadership style. The leader decides on his own without taking inputs from any employee. This is a style in which followers are neither consulted nor considered. The followers are expected only to follow the decision of the leader. Followers have no option other than to follow the decision without asking any questions. They cannot ask questions due to fear in organizational culture, fear of job loss, or salary reduction. For example, a manager of a firm changes work shifts of employees without consulting them and they can do nothing other than coming to work as per newly decided shifts by the manager.
3. Laissez-Faire Leadership Style: “Laissez Faire” is a French word that means “Let them do”. So this is a style where employees or group members are allowed to work freely. This is a leadership style in which the leader distributes all his power to employees and asks them to do the work free handedly on their own to achieve the organizational goal. The employees should not wait for instructions from the leader to do a particular work. This method aims for employee empowerment. The leader has high trust in the decision-making ability of employees. However, there is a chance of employees taking a decision that suits them personally rather than the organization as a whole.
4. Transformational Leadership Style: In this type of leadership style, an employee is given a list of goals along with the deadline to complete them. Once the goal is achieved within time, the leader pushes the goals for more. This pushing of goals continues on and on. In such a style, the goals are initially easy for employees and later on become challenging. This is a style asking for employees to work outside of their comfort zone. This is a highly recommended style of leadership as it pushes employee performance out of the comfort zone and motivates their work above their potential. This style is good for employees as they grow and advance way above their believed performance level by themselves.
5. Transactional Leadership Style: This is a reward-based motivating style of leadership. Under this leadership style, the leader sets roles, responsibilities snd standards of work. The leader has a reward or inventive plan for performances above the standards. Employees priorly know about these standards and incentives. Hence they are highly motivated to work above standards to get incentives or rewards. Employees are left free to work. The leader intervenes only if the job standards are not met.

Essential Qualities of a Good Leader

A leader possesses distinct qualities that make him/her different than others. These qualities are traits that distinguish a leader from a follower. The essential qualities of a good leader have been mentioned below:

Personal Qualities

1. Vision: A good leader has a clear vision for the organization. The leader has a well-defined idea of where the organization should be in terms of sales, profit, competition, technology, finance and human resource.
2. Energy: During work, huge continuous effort is required. At times, the work has to be performed day and night with very little or no rest. Hence, a good leader should have the energy to put such heavy effort for such a long time.
3. Intelligence: A good leader must have knowledge, wisdom and logical reasoning power. The leader should be intelligent enough to identify, analyze and solve problems smartly and tactfully.
4. Maturity: A leader has to be mature in terms of knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes and behavior. The leader must possess confidence and competence to make rational decisions calmly with no anger and anxiety.
5. Fairness: A leader should be fair to all. He/she should be free from subjective biases and never act on the basis of nepotism and favoritism. The leader should be capable enough to stand firm in favor of truth, reality and correctness.
6. Emotional Stability: A leader must be emotionally stable. No decisions should be taken in excitement, jealousy, temper, prejudice and hurry. Decisions should be made calmly and stably despite the adversities of the situation.
7. Empathy: A leader should not think of his/her value and decisions as all for the team. There should be respect for the opinion, views and participation of others. Emotions, intelligence, behaviors and logic of others should be dealt with respectfully.
8. Moral Characters: A leader should have moral characters also. High moral ethics should be exemplary to others. This helps in earning more respect and honor from others.
9. Sense of Responsibility: A leader should have a sense of responsibility for his/her work as well as the performance of the team. In this regard, the leader takes full accountability and responsibility for both the good or bad performances of the team.
10. Flexibility: A leader should not be rigid. He/she should be flexible enough to change personally or professionally on the basis of the need of leadership situation. This is the quality of adapting or adjusting through change.

Managerial Qualities

1. Communication Skills: A leader should have excellent communication skills. Such skill is required to communicate performance standards, guidelines and directions, orders and performance feedback in written or oral form.
2. Organizing Ability: A good leader should have sufficient organizing skills, This is concerned with organizing man, machines, methods, money and materials and put them into effective utilization to ensure achievement of organizational goals.
3. Human Relations Skills: A leader should understand human and human relations aspects. Thus, the managerial functions should be set, performed, managed and controlled through human, human behavior and human relations aspects.
4. Technical Skills: A good leader should have the knowledge and know-how of technical aspects of different subject matters. This enables a leader to get the job done through others effectively.
5. Power of Judgement: A leader has to judge on several issues and aspects of an organization. Thus, the leader should have the power of judgment at right time in the right manner rationally and logically.
6. Motivating Skills: No employee can work better and efficiently without motivation. Such motivation could be in monetary terms or non-monetary terms. Hence, a good leader should have motivating skills to influence employees to more efficiently through the satisfaction of different needs of the employees.

Role of Leadership/Leader

Leadership has a different role to play in an organization or a group. It consists of different functions performed by leadership to ensure organizational goals are achieved through the right track of the action.

The role of leadership/leader has been explained below:

1. Role of Goal Setting:

The first and foremost role of leadership is goal setting. A leader sets a goal for an individual employee, a group and the organization. A leader has a key role in making necessary subordination of individual interest with the organizational goal. The goal is set as per the need of the organization driven by the availability, mobility and utility of both human and non-human resources in the organization.

• Role of Influencer:

Leadership is the process and art of influencing the behavior of employees in the organization. Such influence of leader determines the focus, intensity and integrity of employee behavior towards completion of work and accomplishment of goals. The positivity or negativity of such influence holds a key in employee’s act, react and direct towards pre-determined objectives.

• Role of Motivator:

Leadership uses different tools for influencing the behavior of employees. Such influence is done through different incentives. This could be in the form of financial incentives or non-financial incentives. Financial incentives include salary, wages, allowances, bonuses etc. Similarly, non-financial incentives include a promotion, appraising words of mouth, participation in decision making, delegation of authority, job rotation, job enrichment etc. Both these forms of incentives motivate employees for better, efficient and effective performance.

• Role of Resource Mobilizer:

The leader has to mobilize available resources inthe best possible way ensuring a synergistic effect. This includes effective utilization of manpower, material, machine, money and methods efficiently and effectively. Organizational goals can be achieved only if such resources are allocated and mobilized through competent leadership.

• Role of Supervisor:

Another role of leadership is the role of the supervisor. Every leader is the immediate and nearest supervisor of subordinates. He/she can directly observe task and the way it is being done by subordinates. With such observation, proper guidance and instruction are provided to them regarding the right way such activities are to be done. Such supervisory role of leadership ensures everything is on the right track so as to attain desired results or goals.

• Role of Decision Maker:

Decision-making is another crucial role performed by leadership or leader. A decision regarding employee posting, resource allocation, strategies to be followed, organizational vision and mission, organizational design, financial arrangements etc. are all taken by the leader. Similarly, decisions regarding the optimum course of action and needed corrective actions are also taken by the leader.

• Role of Coordinator:

Leadership ensures coordination of individual goals of employees and organizational goals. A leader has to perform the role of coordinating different organizational levels, hierarchies, departments, units, systems and processes. Such coordination is also to be established while managing, utilizing and mobilizing internal and external resources of the organization.

• Role of Communicator:

A leader has to be a communicator too. He/she should communicate with internal and external stakeholders of the organization. Different job-related information is to be communicated to subordinates and superiors. Similarly, organizational performance results have to be communicated to external parties to the organization also. All such information is presented to others under the role of the communicator of a leader.