Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Theories of leadership philosophy
Leadership theories compared
Leadership theories compared
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Power is the capacity or the ability for one to influence the behaviors of others in any given organization. In a business setting, those in control of the organization will always give instructions and directives to those in lower ranks when running of the business. Power is always accompanied with authority, control or even commands. Leadership is the process where by a person influences others to achieve certain objective and goals of a business and then guides the firm in a way that makes it more unified and comprehensible. Leaders directly affect the performance of any firm and good leaders are born and not made. There are leadership styles and leadership theories which are very vital in leadership of the organizations for they affect its success. For the success of business to be achieved there needs to be a group of experts and consultants in leadership for they will effectively and efficiently run the business as expected. …show more content…
Some situations may work in one of the business may actually fail to work in others situations. Each situation demands the best leadership styles to be employed in the firm. There are various business styles which need to be applied in different business situations. The situation in a business is normally having a greater effect on a leader actions which he or she takes as opposed to the personal traits possessed. This is due to the fact that, while personalities may have an inspiring firmness over a period of time, they have slight reliability across business situations. This makes some scholars to argue that process theory of leadership is better than the trait theory of leadership. In most cases, power in the business is misused and this leads to negative impacts to the business and those
You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink is a proverb I have heard since I was young. Leadership is the skill of influencing people to accomplish goals (Huber, 2014). In today’s world with policy and technological changes the leaders must use their leadership skills to not only get the horse to the water, have him drink, but also do it with a smile an invite others to join him. Leaders use a variety of styles to accomplish their goals. I will discuss the leadership style that I utilize most often, how my style relates to leadership theories and the work type environment it is most useful in.
The situational leadership theory states that leaders use different styles and strategies depending on the situation. There are two models that support this theory. The Fiedler’s Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness states that an “effective leadership occurs only when there is an ideal match between the leader’s style and the group’s work situation” (pg
Leadership has been defined in different ways, a definitaion of leadership that would be most commonly accepted would be “the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organization…”(House et al., 1999, p. 184 as cited in Yukl, 2013, p. 19). After a comprehensive review of different leadership literature, Stogdill (1974, p. 259, as cited in Yukl, 2013, p. 18) concluded that “There are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept." Leadership can be viewed from two different angles one is shared influence process and other as a specialized role. Researcher who view leadership as a specialized role consider attributes as a factor in selecting a designated leader. On the contrast, theorist who emphasises on influence process considers “Leadership” as a social process or a pattern of relationship.
Leadership is definitely about power and an effective leader is able to utilize both types of powers rather than relying on one or the other. Formal power can be used by leadership to remove obstacles or roadblocks faced by employees and to make both hard and easy decisions regarding the organization. Inspiration, influence, trust, and loyalty are all elements that create a high performing and content staff and all these elements are related to the use of informal power. It is important for an effective leader to create a balance between both kinds of power in order to effectively motivate and influence their staff using power.
Leadership is all about having the right amount of heart and determination to help make a difference in someone’s life. It takes certain qualities to be considered a good leader. A leader should want to help inspire others to make a change and to be the best that they can be. A true leader does not need to feel powerful, instead they empower those around them. Throughout my life I have come across various leaders who have made an impact on my life. It takes a very special person to inspire and touch people’s lives. Leadership is so much deeper than having power and bossing people around.
I find this to be very accurate, both in relation to my Leadership Assessment Quiz and Power Orientation test results as well as my own personal stance on leadership and power. Power is defined as “a person, group, or nation having great influence or control over others,” (Moore, 1996, p. 837), whereas leadership is seen as the ability of one who leads or inspires. The notable difference between the two, being “control” and “inspire.”
Leadership is a process of influence in which a person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a goal or a specific task. Leadership has nothing to do with seniority or one’s position, with titles, personal attributes but rather a leader is someone who has followers, has the capacity to transform a vision into reality.
There are lots of definitions and interpretations for the term LEADERSHIP. One is “A relationship through which one person influences the behaviour or actions of other people” (Mullins, L.J. 2002, Management and Organisational Behaviour, 6th Edition, FT Publishing, p904). Another popular definition would be, “the process of influencing an organization or groups within an organization in its efforts towards achieving a goal” (Johnson, Scholes & Whittington, 2005, Exploring Corporate Strategy, 7th Edition, FT Prentice Hall, p.519)
Leadership styles as have been described by many authors are meant to ensure smooth process flow within an organization for actualization of targeted results. Some of these styles have more strengths than weaknesses while others are weaker but the peculiarity of the organization is what matters the most.
Leadership is “the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals” (book).
Leadership is the ability to inspire confidence, support and trust among the people who need to achieve organizational goals. (Chan & Maubourgne 1992) It invariably requires using power to influence the thoughts and actions of other people in order to create new approaches and imagine new areas to explore. This definition has emphasized on influencing people to achieve set goals. In other words, we can say, the objective of leadership is achieving goals, meanwhile, the application is influencing other people to motivate the energy and stimulate the potential towards the goals.
The situational theory of leadership is based on the characteristics of the organizational followers and determining the appropriate leadership behavior. The theory has four standard specialist styles, organizing, supporting, educating, and entrusting. The style associated changes in perspective of the task and behaviors of the followers or employees. “The situational leadership theory suggests the difference between the successful and unsuccessful of the four leadership styles is the appropriateness of the leader's behavior to the particular situation in which it is used” (Waller, D, 1989) or the ability of the leader to change based on the needs of the follower or employee. The situational theory evaluates the aficionados by ability, duty, and advancement the pioneer changes the activity style to support the follower's ability to achieve the various leveled targets.
Many organization have structures level of leadership. The person in leadership transforms the employees by inspiring them to follow the vision set by the organization. How do great leaders do this? By the use of power and authority. Leaders influence other with use of power. Authority gives the leader the right exert this power. Both leadership and authority is linked to power but in order to operate effectively; the use of power must be understood.
According to Shockley and Zalabak (2009) "Leadership is a process of guiding individuals, groups, and entire organization in establishing goals and sustaining action to support goals.Leadership is like mapping out where you need to go to win". A Leader is a person who has a strong personality and who has an ability to manage people and work. He is also the person who is able to direct people .Usually a leaders has a lot of attributes that
According to Wart (2013), this theory states that leaders can succeed in instituting changes in structure, procedure, ethos, technology, or production (557-558). From this, we can gather that some people are better at being leaders during a transitional part of a company. When a company is going through changes either through infrastructure, how they operate or adapting to technological changes, there has to be someone in charge in order to keep order and structure during these times. This might be a chaotic time period for the company and without a strong leader at the helm, it can go bad really quickly. An example of this could be when the internet was starting to take off in the United States. During this change in technology companies had to quickly adapt and change how they operated. No longer would they just be local or get the word of mouth about their products through the news or word of mouth. Now they had new venues to spread the word and sell their products. Several studies have been done over the past few years on leaders under this theory and the results show that they share some characteristics that are not often found under other theories. Some of these theories include according to Wart(2013), energy, determination, vision, and risk taking (558). This is interesting because our world is constantly changing and people need to adapt or risk being irrelevant. Also without having the energy or drive a company can falter and lose customers. It is why leaders should always strive and continue to try new things, reach new heights, and never being satisfied with their current