Leadership is one of the aspects that have been viewed in different angles and different people have had their own explanation of what leadership is. In my opinion, the definition that may be said to be right of what leadership is; is the one that points out all the aspects of a leader. Leaders are said to be rulers, inspiring individuals as a motivator as well as facilitating and guiding them as a mentor or coach. This is the definition of leaders in terms of what they do. Leadership is therefore the view of the future, aligning individuals with the vision set forward and inspiring them towards attaining the set objectives. Leadership can be differentiated from management which is the process of keeping a system of technology and individual running in a smooth way. There has been a continued argument on whether leaders are born or made but according to my observations, leaders may be made through learning and by referring to born leaders is just mythical. Other mythical views of leadership include that the leader must inspire fear in others, and uses force in ensuring individuals work towards the objectives. In reality, leadership involves ensuring the team is cohesive, leaders modify style in relations to situation and task, and dynamic leadership is redundant. Having looked at leadership in general, it would be of essence to further look at what constitutes leadership. Leadership is said to be an activity and not an attribute. Additionally, it is said to be put together by several participants, done a true leader, a dialogical art as well as a contemplative art and contemplative art.
As stated earlier, leadership can be differentiated from management. Leadership is the depiction of the future, aligning individuals’ with the set objectives and inspiring them towards attaining them while management is simply ensuring that a system of people and technology runs smoothly. Many tend to use these two terms interchangeably but there are several aspects that differentiate them. Management entails the allocation of work tasks, coordination via organization structure, and maintenance of the existing organizational arrangements. On the other hand, leadership entails energizing staff with a sense of commitment and direction, involves engaging minds and hearts, and establishing transforming organization. In my view, leadership is independent while proper management is dependent of leadership. My belief is that effective change in an organization can only be attained through change leadership and change management. Even though both are essential to bring change, it was found that successful transformation is almost 70-90 percent leadership and only 10-30 percent management. To have 100 percent change or transformation, both management and leadership ought to work hand in hand.
My plan is to study leadership into detail in order to have the knowledge of how I can employ the knowledge I got into transforming myself into a profound leader. My feeling on leadership is that it is an important aspect towards bringing change and success in organizations. I study this unit to attain knowledge on leadership which would play a big part in my transformation towards attaining leadership skills.
I believe in my view that leadership is not all about leading individuals towards attaining goals and objectives but it has to be done in a systematic manner in which the interest of others is looked upon. In my opinion, leadership involves different skills which will ensure that the leading exercise goes smoothly without there being difficult times between the leader and those led. Some of these virtues include;
Have a grand vision-a good leader ought to be clear and straight-forward.
A leader should be competent.
A leader has to give his people as much autonomy as possible.
A leader should say what they mean i.e. should be direct and not be submissive to what people want to hear.
Apart from the above stated virtues of a leader, there are other personal character traits that one has to have in order to make a good leader. These include self-confidence, honesty, intelligence, and appearance, knowledge, judgement, among others. There are also social characteristics that they should have including sociability, persistent in the face of obstacles, diplomacy, mobility, education, among others. In my view, a great leader is the one that would posses both the personal and social characteristics that have been identified above. To further understand the leadership concept, we ought to look at the behavioural approach of leaders. This includes the autocratic and democratic approach. Autocratic leadership is where the leader centralises authority and derive power from position, coercion, and control of rewards while democratic leadership is where the leader delegates authority to others, relies on subordinates’ knowledge for completion of task, encourages participation, and depends on subordinate respect for influence. In believe that the democratic way of leadership is more effective that the autocratic as it involves the team as a whole unlike in the case of autocratic leadership where power is centralised.
Individualised leadership is another aspect of leadership that can be employed in organizations. In this case, the leader develops a unique relationship with each subordinate, and this determines how the leader acts towards the member and how the member responds to the leader. My opinion is that embracing individualised leadership can play a big role in ensuring there is effective leadership in an organization. There are three different types of leadership roles. These include operational role, collaborative role, and advisory role. Under the operational role, we have vertical management position and we have an example of division president. Collaborative role on the other hand is inclusive of horizontal responsibilities and in we may put project managers under this. Advisory role involves providing guidance and support and in this case we have the human resources manager. In my view, the three roles of leadership act hand in hand to ensure there is effective leadership in an organization. The path goal theory is identified as an approach in leadership in which the leader’s main responsibility is increasing the motivation of the subordinates through clarification of behaviours that are necessary for task accomplishment and rewards. Leaders have several roles in the path goal model that they ought to achieve. These are categorized into two; path clarification and increase rewards. In the case of path clarification, leaders define what is to be done in order to attain the desired outcomes, they clarify the follower’s role and as such followers develop increased knowledge and confidence to accomplish outcomes. On the other hand, increase rewards entails the leader learning the followers need, matching followers needs to rewards if work outcomes are accomplished, and leader increases the value of work outcomes for follower. In my opinion, for a leader to attain proper leadership, they should implement the path goal model.
In my opinion, self identity or how one identifies himself is dependent on several factors. These factors are put into three categories which include the following; identity capital, identity formation, and identity performance. These three branches are essential in one defining their identity. Under identity capital, there are several aspects. These are the symbolic resources and materials that we use in defining who we are. They include time, race, gender, body, sex, culture, and life-history among others. Identity formation on the other hand is inclusive of the social processes that tend to shape an individual identity. This is inclusive of resistance, disciplined subjectivity, incorporation, subjective identity, and autonomy. Lastly, identity performance entails the actions and performance that define or transform identity and some of the aspects making up this branch include storytelling, performativity, identity politics and event. In my view, for one to identify who they are, all these three aspects ought to work hand in hand so as the identity of an individual can be deduced. Identity tends to influence organization and in the same way organizations influence individual. Work and leadership are interpreted by individuals through their personality. Working is one of the aspects that are seen to change individuals including leadership over time. The way one looks at himself tends to be different to the image that they portray to others and as such identity varies from one individual to another. In my view, ones identity is perceived differently by different people depending on how they ought to think of your identity. My future plans in regards to leadership is to have good understanding of what leadership is and the qualities that one needs to have in order to be a good leader. Attitudes are formed by individual and they may either be positive or negative. An attitude is said to be an evaluation of both the positive and negative aspects about people or events. Self concept is said to be attitude towards one self. It is said to be a collection of attitudes that we have in regards to ourselves inclusive of self-esteem. May either be positive self-concept where one has high self-esteem or negative self-concept where one has low self esteem. Charisma is an aspect that is influential in individual and may also be seen to be part of a trait for leaders. Charisma refers to “a fire that ignites followers” commitment and energy, producing results above and beyond the call of duty. Leaders who are charismatic tend to have the ability to motivate and inspire individuals to work extra hard. In my opinion, having charismatic leaders would play a huge part in the transformation of leadership in organizations. Charismatic leaders may be seen to have the following characteristics or traits; leading to deception, manipulation, and exploitation of leaders, personal power not positional power, can be self-serving, influences others based on personal qualities. Locus control is another aspect that I believe is of importance in leadership. This defines whether a person put primarily responsibility for what happens to them within themselves or from outside forces. These may be of two type’s i.e. high internal locus of control or high external locus of control. Under high internal locus of control, one believes that their actions significantly affect their behaviour. On the other hand, high external locus of control is in reflection that what happens is as a result of chance or outside events and people.
Power is considered to be the most important resource in overcoming conflicts. In many organizations, scarcity of resources and the arising of differences is the main cause of conflict. As such, conflict is considered to be central to the dynamics of the organization. In my opinion, effective power that is practiced through leadership can play a big part in resolving conflict within the organization. The rise of conflict in organizations is also the cause of the politics that always arise among the employees i.e. the politics that emerge in the organization. In my view, organizations become political due to the different views individuals have in regards to resolving conflicts that are as a result of scarcity of resources as stated earlier. This is so due to the fact that there would be several differences between individuals and groups in terms of preferences, beliefs, values, information, and perceptions of reality. A good leader would exercise their power towards removing these differences through persuasion and making individuals have a common perspective or view. As such, this brings us to the three dimensions of power which are seen to play part in leaders. These include decision making, non-decision making, and ideological power. We will discuss each separately in order to have proper understanding of what they are and how they tend to influence a leader.
Decision making is the dimension of power that entails the power of making decisions that other individuals have to follow. In this case, there several aspects involved;
Legitimate power-this is the case where one individual has the belief that another person has the right and ability to influence them.
Reward power-when one has the belief that another person will provide or withhold rewards.
Coercive power-when an individual has the belief that punishment may be imposed to them by another individual.
Referent power-this is the case that an individual finds another person attractive and want an association with them.
Expert power-when an individual has the belief that another person has the desired expertise and as such can share or withhold it.
Resource power-when one has the belief that another person has the desired resources and can share or withhold them.
The second dimension on the other hand puts focus on ways in which decisions are prevented on potential issues where there is a conflict of interest. The third dimension is said to be hidden unlike the first and second dimension. In this case, power is inclusive of the power to determine decisive socialization processes and as such the power to produce reality. In my opinion, the first dimension of power is seen to be highly in play in many organizations.
The panopticon is another model of power which is power based on surveillance i.e. people always have the thought that they may be observed even if they are not under observation. In my perspective, this is the efficient disciplinary apparatus which makes it possible for a single gaze to see everything constantly. Power is said to have difficulties and that means that it does not flow effortlessly. Power is always contested and as such it meets resistance. The resistance may either be oppositional or frictional. In my view, a good leader is the one who exercises their power for the benefit of all and handles resistance as a factor towards attaining success in order to prove those opposing the leadership wrong.
