Understanding Leadership

Leadership is a process of effective influence, which maximizes the efforts of the people, towards the achievement of a goal. Leaders might be of many different kinds and we can say that each field of our existence in a civil society demands specific leaders. It involves guiding the team towards the target and communicating it to the people. Then inspiring, motivating and empowering them to achieve organisational goals. According to James Macgregor Burns, Leadership is “the reciprocal process of mobilizing by persons with certain motives and values, various economic, political and other resources in a context of competition and conflict, in order to realize goals independently or mutually held by both leaders and followers” (James Macgregor Burns, Leadership. New York: Harper & Row, 1978, p. 425). Developing Leadership qualities requires anyone to know his/her positives and negatives and a continuous effort to develop his/her skills, attitude, and knowledge. Business leaders are required to possess a different qualities than those of political and community leaders. Successful business leaders have often demonstrated the following qualities;

• Reliability, positive attitude and pro-activeness

• a clear knowledge & understanding of organisational goals and problems

• a constant endeavour towards meeting defined targets

• an ability to effectively communicate organisational goals

• commitment to their team and to their organisation

• effectiveness in planning and developing strategies

• the ability to adapt and engage with the views and needs of other team members

• an ability to inspire workforce

• commitment to the prosperity of the stakeholders

• honesty, straightforwardness openness within the team

A leader sho...

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... Leaders give certain assignments to perform and accordingly rewards or punishes to team members based on performance results. Teams of newer employees will appreciate having their expectations laid out before them, but if you’re highly transactional, it might stress them out. Seniors employees might also feel the same way, as well.

Recognizing your dominant leadership style is a good place to start in understanding what kind of leader you are. Knowing about other leadership styles, and using them when necessary, is the next step in your leadership evolution. Current theology promotes the idea of using more than one leadership style in the workplace to develop your staff and draw out their very best efforts. In so doing, you will find they draw out the very best in you, too.

Works Cited

James Macgregor Burns, Leadership. New York: Harper & Row, 1978