Ingredients of Effective Leadership Paper Example

The practices of leadership and management are essential in the success of both individuals and organizations. Leadership emerges as a complex and multi-faceted phenomenon. According to Algahtani (2014), the definition of leadership encompasses a behavior, a skill, an experience, a function of management, a position of authority as well as an influencing relationship. Ali (2012) defines leadership as an influencing process through which groups are able to achieve a common goal and advance a vision. The challenges of understanding the concepts revolve around the question on whether leadership is derived from the leader's personal traits, whether it depends on a position, and if it is purely a human phenomenon. Effective and positive leadership is a product of individual qualities, values, and progressive evaluation.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Though there are often overlaps in leadership and management, the two concepts are relatively distinct. Leadership and management have a unique set of activities and perform different functions. According to Northouse (2007), the management process sets particular objectives to be achieved through the efficient use of resources. Managers work to promote organization stability, exercise authority, and work towards goals accomplishment while leaders promote change, different approaches and strive to gain peoples commitment through understanding their beliefs (Lunenburg, 2011). Thus, leadership diverts from routine tasks to cope with emerging changes whereas management is regular and geared on routine complexities. While managers ordinarily focus on the structure and systems, leaders are interested in communication, motivation, and creating shared goals (Algahtani, 2014). This comparison contributes to the saying that while leaders focus on doing the right things, managers are concerned with doing things right. Lastly, in terms of outlook, leaders look outwards to articulate a vision on people while creating a future, compared to managers who look inwardly on things, to improve the present (Lunenburg, 2011). The similarity between managers and leaders is that both of them influence others using their particular powers in achieving specific goals (Algahtani, 2014). Consequently, while management functions have the potential to offer leadership, leaders activities can also support managing.

There are varying qualities that make a strong and effective leader. To begin with, an effective leader possesses the ability to create cooperation between diverse people through tact, diplomacy, and sociability traits (Ali, 2012). Judging from a personal experience, I conquer with this quality since I have experienced the frustration of working with highly talented teams and yet being unable to achieve set goals due to negative competition. As such, a good leader should act like an orchestra director, to bring a diverse group to harness their talents towards a common output. Further, another critical quality of an effective leader is the ability to inspire and motivate a team which as defined in transformational leadership (Ali, 2012). In this case, I believe that a great leader is able to clear the path of achieving the desired goal by checking that the follower's needs are met. Effective leaders show individualized considerations by tailoring their attention to each of their followers (Lopez, 2014). I felt motivated being under a supervisor who focuses on the people rather than the activities which I see as the objectification of the human capital that facilities all other factors of production. More so, an inspiring leader should use his or her intelligence and ability to stimulate the intellectual abilities of followers and increase creativity.

As a leader within a unit, I feel the values of trust and concern would make me feel empowered to be effective. Firstly, I believe that great leaders must have the capacity to earn the trust of their units and individual members. Hao and Yazdanifard (2015) observes that when individuals trust their leaders, they are bound together in a relationship that improves overall performance and commitment. Thus, to cause a transformational change in the unit, I underscore the significance of building trust through respect, reliability, and integrity. In so doing, employees would follow my lead to a particular path since they trust my actions and words. Secondly, since leadership focus on people, it is essential to exude genuine concern for them. Ali (2012) note that leadership is a relational behavior where tasks are performed through people. As a leader, I can demonstrate concern through kindness, equal treatment of my followers, and actively listening to their issues.

Effective leadership can be measured using unit performance and subordinate satisfaction. Unit performance in this focuses on the organization bottom line to include the sale units, the profit margins, and productivity levels (Oyinlade, 2008). In this case, since the end goal of effective leadership is supposed to be the achievement of organization goals, if the unit performance score sheet is low, then leadership may be lacking. However, the challenge to this method is that economic recession may be an intervening factor affecting economic performance. On the other hand, a superior may measure a leader's performance using a specific assessment instrument. In this case, the subordinates rate the leader on various domains such as administrative ability, communication prowess, and personal integrity (Oyinlade, 2008). The method is ideal since it encourages the participation of the followers though it has a limitation of being subjective.

Conclusion

Ultimately, effective leadership requires a particular set of qualities, a value system, and evaluation strategies. While leadership focuses on doing the right thing, management is about doing the right things. Managers are inward looking working towards promoting organization stability while leaders look outwardly to promote change. In comparison, both leadership and management aim's at achieving set goals through people. Effective leaders have the ability to encourage cooperation, inspire, and motivate teams. The values of trust and concern empower leaders to foster performance relationships in units. Continuously, it is possible to use unit performance and subordinate satisfaction to measure a leader's impact.

References

Algahtani, A. (2014). Are leadership and management different? A review. Journal of Management Policies and Practices, 2(3), 71-82.

Ali, A. (2012). Leadership and its influence in organizations: A review of intellections. International Journal of Learning and Development, 2(6), 73-85.

Hao, M. J., & Yazdanifard, R. (2015). How effective leadership can facilitate change in organizations through Improvement and Innovation. Global Journal of Management and Business Research.

Lopez, R. (2014). The relationship between leadership and management: Instructional approaches and its connections to organizational growth. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 6(1), 98-112.

Lunenburg, F. C. (2011). Leadership versus management: A key distinction-at least in theory. International Journal of Management, Business, and Administration, 14(1), 1-4.

Northouse, P. G. (2007). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Oyinlade, A. O. (2008). A method of assessing leadership effectiveness. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 19(1), 25-40.