Have you ever considered what is your definition of a leader? What is your current ability as a leader? What leadership abilities are required? How can we improve them?
A number of different theorists have given definitions of leadership. Some define it as " having and being seen to have the ability to influence, motivate and enable others to contribute towards the effectiveness and success of an organisation" ( Brodbeck, 2000) Others stress that leadership is a phenomenon and has nothing to do with hierarchy.
All of those definitions, however, have "influence" in common to achieve some sort of goal.
Leadership is a mysterious process.
The traits, abilities, behaviours or source of power determine how well a leader is able to influence others to accomplish their objectives. Power, authority, management, administration, control and supervision describe similar phenomena. This adds additional ambiguity to the definition of leadership.
There is as many definitions of leadership as the persons trying to define them. Most of them conclude, that it does involves a process of influence over people to guide, structure and facilitate activities and relationships in an organisation or group. The manners in which the influence is exerted, the purpose and outcome of the influence can vary. Most of the researches agree that it is a real phenomenon and it is important to an effectiveness of an organisation.
Leadership is often studied as a social pattern of relationships rather then a specialised role. Various leadership functions may be carried out by different people. It is a complex influence process that exists among members.
The influence
One interesting concept in the leadership definitions is the influence and its outcome. Some define it as an enthusiastic commitment to follow others as opposed to compliance to rules. Use of reward and punishment is not really leading and may involve an unethical use of power.
It is interesting, however, why a leader may be effective or ineffective in a given situation. Different influence methods can lead to the same or different outcomes. The ethical use of power is a true concern for the researches.
One viewpoint could be that leadership occurs only when people are influenced to do what is ethical and beneficial for the business and themselves. It does not include to gain personal benefits. That would be selfish. People do not want to follow selfish people. Actions motivated purely by the leaders personal needs not often result in benefits for the followers.
Emotions
The influence is a cognitive process. Emotions have been considered important as the basis for influence. Some even say that only the emotional aspects of leadership can account for an exceptional achievement of groups and organisations. Leaders are willing to sacrifice their selfish interests for the higher cause.
Leadership styles
Leaders can influence other people in an organisations directly or indirectly.
Direct leadership involves interacting with subordinates, by sending messages, memos, e-mails or text messages.
Indirect leadership exists when the message cascades down from the leader through other people. This can influence changes in attitudes, behaviours and values.
A top leader with ethical and supportive behaviour can influence all the people in an organisation.
Indirect leadership also can be exercised through, policy, programs and structural forms. Management systems often influence the attitudes. These can be used to increase control, cooperation and efficacy. These could be formal rules and procedures.
Shared values and beliefs of members also influence the organisational culture.
Leadership and management
There is an ongoing controversy about the concept of leadership and management. A person can be a leader without being a manager. These two, however, often overlap. Most researches conclude that the managerial success is highly depending on the leadership skills. Integrating those two can become a complex process.
One of the best definitions, I have come across id that the
" leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree on what needs to be done and how to do it and the process of facilitating individuals and collecting efforts to achieve shared objectives".
The leaders can influence the choice of objectives, motivation, trust, cooperation, allocation of resources, learning, support, formal structures as well as shared believes and values.
Leaders prepare to face future challenges. Rationale and emotions are an important part of the process. The focus is clearly on the process that leads to a successful outcomes.
Managers and bosses are expected to perform leadership roles.
Leadership effectiveness
The leadership effectiveness is often defined by its consequences in influencing others to attain shared goals. The objectives could be set as sales, net profit, profit margin, market share, return on investment, productivity or cost per unit of outcome.
People need to trust the leader and perceive them to be of high integrity. Leaders are improving the quality of work life, built self-confidence in followers, increase their skills and contributes to their self-development. Leaders enhance problem solving and decision making by the group.
Another measure of the leadership effectiveness is their own success. Being rapidly promoted to a position of high authority and able to achieve objectives can be one measure of good leadership.
The outcomes
Some outcomes of leadership are more immediate then others. Immediate outcomes may result in doing what the leader asks. Leader's training and coaching will improve peoples personal skills, inspire and increase motivation.
Leaders generally have both immediate and delayed effects. These may be consistent or inconsistent. Sometimes profits may be increased in a short run by eliminating costly activities that have delayed effects on profits such as equipment maintenance, research and development, investment in new technology and employee skills training. In a long term these activities will cut profits because the negative consequences slowly increase and eventually outweigh the benefits.
The effectiveness measure
Due to the complexity of measuring the leadership effectiveness, delayed influence and benefits it is a good idea to include various criteria to measure the effectiveness. These can broaden our perspective and enlarge the scope of inquiry.
To study the effectiveness of the leadership we often use surveys and questionnaires filled out by the leaders themselves or by the subordinates. They usually measure how much leader uses different types of behaviour and how it is related to employee satisfaction, task commitment and overall performance.
Some people use diaries and observations of the leaders. Case studies of famous leaders are often performed. Some use experiments to test what behaviours influence the effectiveness. We measure them before the training and intervention and after the intervention to verify on whether the desired change was achieved.
The types of variables that are generally relevant for understanding leadership are:
characteristics of leaders
characteristics of followers
characteristics of a situation
Leadership characteristics, however, have most often been associated with having the highest impact. We take into consideration the traits, behaviour, power-influence, the situation and the values. We look at leaders personalities, motives, attitudes and skills. These are often associated with tireless energy, penetrating intuition and irresistible persuasion powers.
Instead of focusing on the actual task, we look at the task behaviours: planning, explaining, monitoring, problem solving.
We must not forget, however, on the environment, culture of the organisation and the nature of work performed. The optimal pattern of leader behaviour will depend on aspects of the situation.
Ethical, authentic and spiritual leaders will influence others. They pursue an idealised vision and involve their shared values.
Dyadic processes
Studies also focus on the relationship of the leader with their subordinates. It i all about how the leader is influencing people to be more motivated and capable of accomplishing tasks. It includes the influence towards the attitudes, believes and behaviours.
Dyadic relationships evolve over time and take different forms. The focus is on the single relationship. Although some dyadic processes may be effective in individual relationships they may not be effective in group performance.
Group processes
Here, the focus is on the influence of the leaders on team performance. They include all members and not individual subordinate. It lies with organising of the work, how the work is performed and the extend to which the team members trust each other.
Organisational processes
We focus here on gathering and interpreting information about the organisational environment, defining treats and opportunities, developing strategy and gaining cooperation and support. Efficacy is increased by finding better ways of performing work, deciding how make use of the resources available. This may include designing of the business structure, authority relationships and coordinating operations. These are generally evidenced by the financial performance of the organisation.
Management practices and systems are taken into consideration here. We focus on the business structure, management of change, executive succession and the influence process between the top management and the rest of the organisation.
Leader-centred or follower-centred?
Another useful way to classify leadership is whether it is focusing on the deader or follower. The leader-centred concept focuses on skills and behaviour that contributes to its effectiveness. Empowerment and follower attributes are part of the opposite theory. Charisma and self-management of the groups combined may be the best approach here.
A typical pattern of behaviour for leaders might not always be the optimal one.
Summary
As we can conclude, leadership can be described in many different ways. The definitions vary in many respects. We evaluate, leadership, however in terms of the consequences.
Leadership is a skill that needs practicing.
It is a phenomenon that gains more and more interest from researches and academia.
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