Introduction to Management and Leadership

Leadership

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Introduction to Management and Leadership

Abstract

Leadership defines the ability of a person to lead other people or an organization, to achieve specified goals and meet expectations. The leaders who can deliver achievement and power leadership for their organization can motivate its employees positively. To be great leaders and provide effective leadership, they must first know each role that they need to follow.

Leadership: characteristics, styles and typologies

The leader is one who has the formal authority of a manager making it more credible and showing himself able to influence others and to mobilize a group of people around a given vision. The leader cannot be stored in a single rigidly section especially as there is no fixed leadership style. Although there is no definitive list of essential characteristics for a leader, the most frequently mentioned qualities in the leaders of effectiveness, specific studies include the dynamism, the desire to manage, honesty and integrity, insurance, intelligence, and professional skills.

Many researchers have tried to determine leadership styles, studying the behavior of some individuals identified as leaders. They have concluded that there are three types of leadership styles:

Autocratic: The authoritarian leader takes own decisions and gives guidance to its employees, he/she imposes his/her working methods and limit employee's participation.

Democratic: the Democratic leader inspires, supports discussions and the dialogue between group's members. He/she delegates his/her authority and intervenes as an expert for guidance.

Non-intrusive: he/she lets his/her employees free to make decisions that seem relevant, and he/she takes a minimum of initiatives and suggestions. A good leader is one who adopts the popular style; he/she provides both superior performance and productivity regarding quantity and quality and full integration of staff.

The power of a leader

Being a leader involves influencing others, he/she must have the capacity to act on the beliefs, values, attitudes, behavior or performance of one or more employees to achieve a goal. His/her power reflects a natural ability to influence due to his/her strong personality and admiration that can inspire others.

There are two types of skills:

Formal or hierarchical power: It is the power that a person has by his/her pattern of behavior and abilities to give the opportunity to influence on other positions in the hierarchy.

Personal power: It bases on the personality of the leader, his/her skills, and his/her character traits and reward his/her employees.

Comparative analysis and critical styles between modern/traditional leadership

Leadership styles divide into two traditional and modern approaches.

Traditional methods include three theories that are simultaneously different and complementary. The leader personality traits that distinguish a leader of another leader not to give the best result, these features can be summarized six in number: strength, desire to lead, honesty and integrity, insurance, intelligence and personal jurisdiction.

Based only on personal criteria, the leader neglects the qualities of these employees. The next theory seeks to resolve, we talk about the theory of behavior that allow for more relevant and direct implications to distinguish between efficient and ineffective leaders.

The most important is the identification of the three leadership styles discussed by Lewin (Hurd & Barcelona & Meldrum, 2008): the autocratic style, the Democratic or participative style and the interventionist style mid explain previously. To be a good leader must be used for every situation the right style, it depends on the nature of the employees. Some like to participate, and others like to run without acting.

I take the example of Black Sheep (Matthews, 2012), they developed the managerial grid that affects two dimensions. The first is the orientation towards employees, the second oriented towards the achievement of spots, its strength lies in the integrative style since it correlates the interests of workers and those of the productivity. It is the most practical model of this school.

The third class completes the process of adapting to both internal and external factors is the most relevant and most efficient school because it puts many variables interacting what can call: the contingency theories. It has a particular interest in an environmental factor.

Fiedler (Lussier, & Achua, 2015) is one of the theorists of this school based on the original style of leadership as an essential element to success. He identified three variables: the relationship between the leader and his/her collaborators, structuring spots towards employees through some instructions to make the place quite easy and understandable and the perception of the hierarchical position. It indicates two types of styles: a functional style oriented towards the achievement of spots and transformational form oriented on the interest of staff.

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