Running head: Role of Leadership
Online essay writing service receive hundreds of requests on leadership topics, professional writers make each essay unique because of its outstanding approach. Leadership means different things to different people around the world, and different things in different situations. For example, it could relate to community leadership, religious leadership, political leadership, and leadership of campaigning groups.
Leadership is the process of offering guidance in an organization with an aim of achieving efficiency and a sense of direction amongst employees. In most organizations, the concept of teamwork is highly valued; its relevance is evident in respect to the associated benefits, furthermore this what customers exactly value for custom essay service. Effective leadership calls for self awareness, readiness to shed and cast away all those qualities which act as a barrier to ones work as well as to improve a leader’s communication with the staff. There are several leadership styles which different people adopt in the execution of their duties and responsibilities. Many people hold totally false and varied ideas and beliefs on effective leadership styles. Of the false interpretations held by people, the most common ones include, that leaders know everything and therefore theirs is the final word. That leadership is sacred and therefore it should be revered by all employees. That ones style of leadership is the best while all the rest of leaders’ are secondary. Finally many people view leadership as something which is inherited or resulting from genes and that if one is not born a leader, then they can not become one. Worth noting, for any written paper professional writers carefully considering several ideas for each custom essay order.
Contrary to the above, several factors play crucial roles in moulding one into a leader these include;Opportunites at ones exposure, the environment both social and office, ones traits, ones skills as well as professional training all go along way into determing what values they are likely to attach to the task of leadership. How successful or unsuccessful a leader turns out to be is highly determined by what leadership style they adapt and the assumptions they hold.
It is worthy noting that, no assumption in leadership or for that matter no style is superior to another but how suitable a style is to a certain management situation can lead to success or failure on the part of the leader. The assumption that leadership is sacred is misplaced in that; leadership can be learned and perfected. All that is required is for the individual to apply different management principles in accordance to the company law as well as to posses’ basic qualifications for the position. Experience plays a significant role in determing what kind of a leader one is likely to become. However, there is little significance of sacredness to leadership and therefore the assumption that leadership is sacred holds in limited situations. In other words, leadership should not be looked at as something out of reach but something that anyone can become as long they have they right attitude and mindset.
According to (Lewin, K., LIippit, R. and White, R.K. 1939), individuals choose and base their styles of leadership styles depending on a combination of the following: Beliefs, values, culture and norms of the organization as well as preference. According to (Lewin, K., LIippit, R. and White, R.K. 1939), the cultural back ground of a manager is a key determinant of what type of leader they end up becoming. According him, there are three different leadership styles;
- Autocratic Leadership style.
- Democratic leadership style
- Laissez faire leadership styles (Lewin, K., LIippit, R. and White, R.K. 1939).
Leadership styles.
A leadership style is defined as the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing an organization’s plans, and motivating the employees (Shonk, James, 1992).
Types of leadership styles.
- Authoritarian or autocratic style.
- Participative or democratic style.
- Delegative or the free reign style.
Autocratic approach. This is the type of style in which, a leader instructs employees of what is to be done without leaving a room for deliberations. It is criticized for being non participatory but if well utilized it is a source of effectiveness in work. Also known as authoritarian leadership, the leader exercises a lot of power over the subordinates because of his/her position to deny or give rewards. In this style managers view their workers as functionalists as opposed to participants and they tend to favor those workers who are submissive and given to taking instructions to the extent that they never question any orders from the bosses.
The leader does not encourage equal relationships with the workers that are they protect their authority by discouraging relationships amongst workers which they view as a threat to heir positions. In this style, the leader also tends shifts blame to workers and is not keen to take responsibility in cases of poor results. Other qualities of such leaders are that they tend also to be task oriented and be very strict in adherence to laid down procedures. Accordingly, autocratic leadership can be said to be unsuitable for team works since teams perform best in an environment of deliberations and open communication something that the autocratic leadership shuns.
Democratic approach. This is a consultitative approach in which the leader involves the employees in making decisions. Although the leader has the final authority for decision making, it is usually a participatory style. It is a kind of leadership very popular amongst employees. In this style, the power to govern and mange comes from the governed, elections are usually used to pick a team’s leader and for qualification to become a leader, one is gauged by his abilities and qualification. It is associated with high popularity level amongst employees.
Therefore democratic leadership functions best in terms of enhancing and boosting staff motivation and morale but it can easily run into problems if some workers decide to take advantage of the work environment to incite the rest or push for unrealistic changes.
Delegative approach. Also known as Laissez-Faire, it is a style whereby employees are decision makers. It is appropriate, when there are job situations needing analysis and therefore requiring employees to make contributions. It works well in cases when the leader has trust in the employees. In this style the leader’s role is more or less symbolic and it is characterized by very few rules.
Delegative leadership can hinder effectiveness in that, workers can become very demoralized, insecure less motivated and in efficient as a result of the missing guidance from the leader. The lack of clear cut directions is a common cause of chaos and therefore hinders achievement of team goals. However, this style is known to increase teams’ level of independence and freedom. This in some cases may contribute to increased efforts and output.
The ideal leadership style.
In practice, there is no a ‘fit all’ style and good leaders therefore are required to employ all the above three styles depending on what particular situations demand. For instance it is widely recommended that for new employees getting into the system, the authoritarian style works. The participative style is seen to be very efficient for teams whereby the leadership wishes to tap employees’ expertise in solving some problems. Finally the democratic style is applicable in situations requiring professional expertise and the assumption here is that every one knows what is expected of them and are responsible enough to function without coercion.
In deciding the right leadership style, (Shonk, James, 1992) suggested that a manager should always bear in mind the following; availability of time, organizational conflicts and the level of expertise amongst employees. If the above factors are borne in mind while choosing for a leadership style, managers and leaders will lead in an effective way and therefore cause organizations to record profitability as well as high morale amongst staff.
References
Lewin, K., LIippit, R. and White, R.K. (1939). Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created social climates. Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 271-301
Shonk, James H. (1992). Team-Based Organizations: Developing a Successful Team
Environment. Homewood, IL. Business One Irwin.
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