Where Does Leadership Come From - Essay Example

Leadership of the Where Does Leadership Come From? Leadership is one of the most important considerations for smooth running of any organizational or social system. Leadership may be defined as an attribute that has the power of influencing the social entities and thereby directing the society as a whole for accomplishing a common task. In the organizational context, leadership aims to inspire all the entities associates with the business to design their functioning in such a way that all such factors together can accomplish organizational objectives. Effectiveness of organizational leadership can be evaluated from its capability to identify the core business objective of the organization and driving all the business aspects towards achieving such objectives. However, before evaluating the effectiveness of leadership, it is important to analyze the origin of leadership. According to Adeniyi & Adeniyi (2010), there is no definite conscience regarding the origin of leadership. It is considered to be a conceptual framework, prevailing in the societal environment that is involuntarily understood across the social and organizational cultures. As the origination of leadership is said to be unknown, in order to obtain an explicit idea about leadership and its foundation, individuals have to rely on the notions and viewpoint of the eminent researchers. Such secondary sources of information regarding the origin of leadership can be accessible from various standard and internationally recognized books and journals. Methodical study of such information will provide clarity regarding the evolution of social and organizational leadership. Considering the evolution of leadership, a large number of theories and practices have been developed over a period of time in order to establish the underpinning rationale of such concepts. Mumford (2006) has identified that in Sanskrit literature, the theories of ten types of leadership was mentioned. Characteristics of such different types leadership depends upon specific sets of dissimilar traits that distinguishes one leadership characteristics from another. King, Johnson & Vugt (2009) are of the opinion that the basis of such characteristics the researchers had developed trait theory of leadership which indicates that a successful leader can be identified by showing his interests, capabilities, and personality traits. In general, in order to become a successful manager, a person must possess certain traits such that the person must be high achievement oriented and should be self-confident so that he can motivate his team in order to drive it towards achieving a pre-determined goal. Such leaders should be trustworthy and reliable so that the follower can share their problems and difficulties without any hesitation. However, such theory of leadership suffers from multiple drawbacks. For instance, the theory appears to be judgmental and such judgments are based on certain pre- specified and narrow parameters. Moreover, from the researchers’ standpoint, all successful leaders cannot inherit identical traits. It depends upon the situations that influence different leaders to react differently. Therefore, the existence of this long-established theory has been nullified in this era of rapid innovation and technological progression. Based on the drawbacks of trait theory, McGuire & Rhodes (2009) highlighted the relevance of contingency theory of leadership. According to this theory, human beings are bound to react differently depending upon different situational aspects. Therefore, it is not justified to develop any theory on leadership based on any single optimal psychographic profile of the leader. Rather than the intrinsic characteristics of the leader, situational theory emphasized on the complexities of the situation and capabilities of the leader to overcome the situation. From this analysis, it is evident that such leadership involves high degree of contingencies as it is never pre-determined that how a leader will react and make strategies to conquer the situation. From the above analysis, it can be manifested that, during the phase of initiation, the concept of leadership had evolved in a transactional for where the main aim of the leaders was to supervise, administer and control the organizational behavior and all the attributes associated with it. The main focus of transactional leadership was to drive the internal stakeholders of an organization in a specific way so that they can achieve the long- established organizational goals. However, as change is an inevitable phenomenon in the business environment, rather than following a pre-determined business objective, it becomes important for the leaders to identify the changing environment, innovation and technological progression and accordingly formulate business strategies, complying with the dynamism with the business organization. Therefore, the transactional form of leadership gradually became irrelevant in the organizational context and transformational leadership style attained more recognition. Transformational leadership aims to identify the contingencies and changing requirements in the business environment and accordingly formulates visionary objectives that the organization should accomplish through continuous learning, knowledge management and through applying such knowledge in the organizational processes. All these theory indicates the apparent origination of leadership and its characteristically transformation over a period of time. 2. How Does Leadership Affect The Organization Behavior? Leadership is an important aspect of organizational behavior. Therefore, as per the view of Nohria and Khurana (2010), it tends to influence various attributes of organizational behavior to a great extend. A good leadership aims to enrich the organization and its functioning through its positive inputs whereas practicing bad leadership severely affects all the may push the organization towards destruction. More specifically, Morrill (2007) has identified that organizational behavior may be defined as the way the individuals and groups react within an organizational framework. As the behavioral approach of individual entities associated with the organization is reflected in the core business of the organization, leadership plays a crucial role in driving the whole organizational system towards achieving the organizational objective. According to Morgan, (2009), an organizational system encompasses a large number of attributes such as organizational culture, learning and motivation, organizational change and management of associated stress with it, conflict management and managing power and group dynamics, performance management and many more. Therefore, in absence of effective leadership, it will not be possible for any management to administer and control such well- diverse and wide spread operations of the organization. Considering cultural aspects, Merrit (2008) has viewed organizational culture from two distinct perspectives. An organization can infuse the variables prevailing in the societal environment in which it is operating. From this viewpoint, all organizations operating in the same environment must possess identical cultural norms. Another view indicates that, an organization tends to create and practice the cultural norms and preferences that are distinct to that organization only. In both the cases, the role of leadership is indispensible. The first perspective is structured on the belief that the environment constitutes of all variables, some of which may not be relevant or appropriate for a particular organization. Concentrating on Morgan’s (2009) standpoint, a good leader tends to select those cultural aspects from the environment which will be the most appropriate for the organization and which will bring excellence for the organization through ensuring its long term sustainability. Considering the second perspective, McKee, Boyatzis and Johnston (2008) are also of the opinion that it requires involvement of considerably efficient and talented leaders whose visionary brilliance is capable of assuming all possible considerations that an organization may encounter in future and accordingly build a strong organizational culture, the foundation of which will enable all employees to protect themselves and the organization as a whole from any upcoming contradictions. Brooks (2009) has mentioned in his studies that a good leader strives to create provisions for continuous learning and innovation which is inevitable for a firm to survive in the competitive business environment. Such practices tend to enrich the skills and competencies of the leaders which in turn accelerate the growth of the organization. However, the inefficiency of leadership can be witnessed when the leaders completely forgoes the importance of learning within the organization. The research of Allen (2009) also shows that a good leader largely emphasized on team work and motivates the employees in such a manner that they become a very good team player over a period of time. The culture of team work and involvement of employees in decision making process tends to originate a sense of ownership among the employees which in turn influences them to extend their capacity and maximize their productivity in order to ensure organizational effectiveness. However, if the leader becomes incapable of instituting all such factors in the organization, the organizational activities are affected to a great extent, hindering its possibility of future growth. McKee, Boyatzis and Johnston (2008), throughout the lifecycle of an organization, it is bound to experience various technological, structural and process oriented changes. However, it is also foreseeable from the employees that they will restrict themselves from accepting the changes. It is the expertise of the leader to highlight the positive aspects to the employees so that they can understand the benefits arising out of it. The leader’s initiative to sustain the change process and managing organizational conflict through creating a condition of shared mindset definitely enhances the organizational effectiveness. Examining all such notions, Adair (2010) has summarized the influence of leadership on organizational behavior as, the leaders tends to enhance the value proposition of the organization through directing the employees towards achieving its strategic objectives. At the same time, leaders also concentrate on enhancing the competencies, flexibilities and motivational level of the employees so that they can adapt the best practices very swiftly and can leverage their creativity and production capacity in order to achieve the organizational goals. Therefore, contribution of a proficient leader in establishing organizational effectiveness is beyond any measurement. However, inefficiency of leaders proves to be harmful for the organization to the same extent. 3. How Communication Affects Leadership? Communication is the most important aspect of leadership. Following the transformational leadership theory, Powell and DiMaggio (2012) have stated in their research that in order to ascertain organizational effectiveness and transformation of processes into the modernized way, the leaders should play a crucial role in establishing strong connection among the employees and inspiring them to exploit their full potential, without deviating from their ethical and moral standards. In order to achieve that, communication is considered to be the most effective weapon for the leaders, relying upon which they can motivate the employees to deliver their best. In fact, Greenwood and Hinings (2012) have witnessed that in order to acquire maximum benefits from the external stakeholders of an organization such as distributors and suppliers, strong bargaining power of the organizational leaders is inevitable, which is also a part of communication process. According to Champoux (2010), an efficient leader must possesses straight forward and powerful communication skills in order to make the employees righty understand the strategic objective taken by the management of the organization. Sound communication with the employees also the influence the employees to aspire for individual goals of personality and skill development. Therefore, using communication as a strategy, in turn leaders tend to accomplish the visionary goal of the organization only. Casey (2002) has identified that following the participative leadership theory, a good leader is supposed to encourage the employees across departments to interact with each other and participate jointly in the decision making process. Interactive communication demands equal contribution from each employee. As the process strengthens relationship across departments and hierarchical levels through attaining input from every organizational entity, such communication in turn tends to provide the organizational culture a better shape as well. Barry (2000) is of the opinion that strong communication strategy of leaders creates a culture of teamwork. Collaboration of employees, irrespective of hierarchical differences generates better problem solving as well as decision making capacities within the organization. In fact, according to Johnson and Vugt (2009), powerful communication of leaders tends to enhance organizational productivity because clarity in the flow of communication eliminates or minimizes the scope of destructive conflict in the organizational context. However, such communication provides the employees a platform for constructive conflicts or arguments that leads to originate all possible alternatives in a decision making process. In this way, the management gets an opportunity to identify and implement the best solution for the organizational situation. Clear flow of communication between leader and followers builds the trust factor and huge reliance on both the parties in the organizational framework. King, Johnson and Vugt (2009) are also of the opinion that in this contemporary era of complex business practices, especially after globalization, it has become important for the organizations to expand their operations beyond their home country. Such activities have necessitated the firms to create virtual teams in different part of the globe. As the duties and responsibilities are strategically dependent on the other group, it is the capability of the modern day leaders to efficiently coordinate among the sub groups of the organization and ensure uninterrupted flow of organizational activities for accomplishing the targeted work at the right time. Moreover, McGuire & Rhodes (2009) has rightly specified that as a result of such global expansion of organizations, cultural assimilation has become a very prominent practice in all the multinational organization. Naturally, function of the leaders in implementing business in the host country appears to be very difficult. However, the leaders attempt to nullify such difficulties through effective utilization of their power of communication. Based on the communication skills of the leaders, the organization become able to easily adapt the cultural differences. It also help the organization to win confidence of the local resources through including the local human resource in the organizational processes and establishing partnership with the local suppliers and other stakeholders. In this way, strong communication power of the leaders enhances the goodwill of the organization in the global platform and strengthens its long term sustainability. According to Kelly (2004), the major challenge the contemporary global leaders are experiencing is regarding building trust and long term relationship with the stakeholders. His research on how to establish optimum relationship with stakeholders has revealed that in most of the organizations that has leaders who can communicate firmly and inherits a committed communications policy has been successful in gaining confidence over stakeholders. Such strong and comprehensive communication of leaders also strengthens the bargaining power of the organization while dealing with such third party service providers. To be more specific, in this era of global competition the stakeholders witness multiple business options among which they tend to choose that organization which can add value to the stakeholders’ business. For instance, in case of a supplier, at the time of initiating business, leader tends to clearly communicate the terms and conditions of work with regard to the time delivery of materials and receiving payments etc. In fact, it is the responsibility of the leader only to monitor whether the organization is deviating from the initial stipulations and take corrective actions while needed. Maintaining such standard and ethical business practices, based on the foundation of communication skills of leaders definitely bring excellence to the organization (Kelly, 2004). 4. How Leadership Effects The Work Motivation Of The Employees? Another challenging role of leaders is to keep the motivation level of employees constant and to boost their inspiration from time to time so that the flow of organization activities remains stable. As per the viewpoint of Day (2014), motivational leadership approach is considered to the best and most effective leadership style for the modern- day organizations. Contemporary business world is characterized by rapid technological changes and disrupting technologies. This leadership style tends to influence the employees and workers in such a way that it becomes easier for the organization to introduce and implement the latest strategies and technologies and make these acceptable to the workers. Brooks (2009) has mentioned in this context that the source of such motivational leadership can be attributed by the effort of the leaders to establish an environment of trust and long-term security within the organization. Moreover, such leaders should also lead from a strong ethical ground and should be able to define objectives that will create value and synergy for both the organization and employees. Trust on the leader and his visionary excellence motivates the employees to follow the pathway shown by the leaders with a belief that the system will not only bring efficiency for the organization but will also enhance personal aspirations of the employees. McGuire & Rhodes (2009) have identified certain traits, possession of which enables the leaders to successfully motivate the employees towards achieving the overall effectiveness in the organizational framework. First, the leaders are expected to be enough self-motivated and confident regarding the organizational process change so than they can effectively communicate the change and motivate the employees to accept the changing system for their own good. Moreover, as in the case of motivational leadership, the employees are experienced to follow the leaders’ words blindly, without evaluating the justification behind it, the leaders should have to be trustworthy and genuine, having the mentality to put priority to the employees’ concern. According to McGuire & Rhodes (2009), noticing all such characteristics in the leader, the employees also gains confidence regarding the authenticity of the leader and feels motivated to follow the stipulations initiated by him. Following the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need theory, Armstrong (2009) has surfaced the concept that most of the individuals at workplace strive to raise their respective organizational positions, once their basic needs from the current positions are satisfied. For example, if a worker has already satisfied its physiological and social needs from the benefits he is drawing from the organization at present, he will definitely drive for achieving the needs of self- esteem. Armstrong (2009) is of the opinion that the leaders should identify those workers with such need for progression in life and motivate them through communicating the road to success and creating the provision for relevant training programs. In this way, the employees will feel confident and drive to fulfill their organizational as well as personal objectives. Similarly, the growth need, stipulated by the eminent behavioral scientist Alderfer in his ERG Theory appeared to be relevant to Morrill (2007). From the outlook of Morrill (2007) as well the leaders must attempt to identify the need for achievement, affiliation and power as specified in the McClelland’s Theory of Needs among the employees and facilitate them with all the knowledge and equipments so that they do not deviate from their core needs and continue to strive for achieving these needs. In fact, these researchers are also in belief that even if the leaders cannot indentify employees with certain needs, it is the responsibility of the leader to infuse the need for development among the employees and motivate them to achieve the targets. Past records have shown that such passive process of motivation has enabled the leaders to experience enormous success of employees which in turn has aided the organization to enjoy long term efficiency to a large extend (Armstrong, 2009). Fundamentally, Day (2014) has segregated the influence of leadership in motivating employees for sustaining organizational effectiveness into two aspects. The first aspect emphasizes on motivating the intrinsic factor of the leaders and the employees as well. The intrinsic motivation comes from evaluating the capability and potential of the individuals for taking challenging projects in organizational context and lives up to the challenge efficiently. Once the leader has been able to identify his core competencies and of his team as well through evaluating such competencies in terms of the acquired project, he tends to motivate the employees regarding their ability of accomplish the project. Similarly, evaluating certain intrinsic factors such as the ability to take control over a specific situation and living up to the competition through cooperation of all the team members gives the leaders an insight regarding the actual capability of the organization. Understanding this, the leaders can motivate the employees further to extend their capabilities in order to enhance the organizational effectiveness. Considering the second aspect i.e. extrinsic factors, Day (2014) have stipulated that the leaders should aim to identify what the external factors are such as the tangible and intangible benefits that attract the employees the most and accordingly associate that factor with their respective organizational goals. In this way, the employees will be motivated to achieve the objective and accordingly the organizational objectives will also be satisfied. Considering the present scenario, King, Johnson and Vugt (2009) have put the evidence of increasing practices by the leaders to put certain motivational aspects in front of employees and influence them to accomplish the assigned task in order to achieve that particular aspect. This strategy has been proved to be one of the most successful strategies for motivating employees for accomplishing the work within the specified time period, without compromising on the quality aspect. Adeniyi & Adeniyi (2010) have specified in this regard, leaders, in order to exercise this strategy for motivation, are required to identify the factors that can appear to be motivational for the workers. For instance, monetary or non- monetary incentives act as a motivational factor for employees whereas for other group of employees, additional benefits such as reduction in working hours, better safety measurements, frequency of taking break during working hours, extended holidays are considered as motivational factors. Therefore, according to Adeniyi & Adeniyi (2010), while assigning task to the employees, the leaders also associate the benefits that they are subject to achieve in accomplishing the task successfully, taking into consideration the stipulated timeframe and quality standards. Outcome of such initiatives of the leaders in motivating employees has shown that the employees have given their best efforts to complete the task delegated to them, which in turn has yielded maximum productivity to the organization. Summary Leadership is the most important aspect for smoothing running of the organization. It is the effectiveness of the leaders the drive the organization towards long term success and protects it from the challenges and hindrances that the organization experiences in the path of progression. Though the origination of leadership and the skills associated with it is yet to discover, many researchers possess many opinion regarding it. For instance, earlier it was believed that the leaders are born with certain skills and tends to exercise such skills with an aim to establishing organizational effectiveness. The other notions consider that leadership is a situational factor and efficiency is established by experiencing the capability of the leader to react positively in a crisis- driven situation. However, rather than investigating on the source of leadership, thorough analysis of the role of leadership in an organizational framework has shown that organizational growth is impossible without involvement of efficient leaders. Leaders, through their excellent skills and abilities of managing the flow of communication and level of motivation and employees tends to eliminate the scope for failure and conflict from the workplace and institutes long term sustainability. Leadership also strives to establish organizational changes through communicating the positive aspects of change to the employees and creating every provision of them so that they can easily cope up with the process of organizational changes. Considering the high level of complexities in the contemporary business environment, it can be inferred that no organization could have sustained in this competitive global business environment without association of competent leadership. References Adair, J. (2010). Strategic Leadership: How to Think and Plan Strategically and Provide Direction. London: Kogan Page. Adeniyi, M. A. & Adeniyi, J. A. (2010). Effective Leadership Management. Bloomington: AuthorHouse. Allen, D. (2009). Leadership and Teamwork Essays. London: McGraw-Hill Education. Armstrong, M. (2009). A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. London: Kogan Page. Barry, J. (2000). Organization and Management: A Critical Text. Boston: Cengage Learning EMEA. Brooks, I. (2009). Organizational behaviour. Individuals, group and organization. London: Pearson education. Casey, C. (2002). Critical Analysis of Organizations: Theory, Practice, Revitalization. London: SAGE. Champoux, J. E. (2010). Organizational Behavior: Integrating Individuals, Groups, and Organizations. London: Routledge. Day, D. (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Leadership and Organizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Greenwood, R. and Hinings, C. R. (2012). Understanding Radical Organizational Changes, Bringing Together The Ole and The New Institutionalization. The Academy of Management Review, 21(4), 1022-1054. Kelly, J. (2004). Corporate Leadership: Reflections of a CEO and CEO Advisor. Science Direct, 37(5), 389–398. King, A. J., Johnson, D. D. P. and Vugt, M. V. (2009). The Origins and Evolution of Leadership. Current Biology, 19(19), 912-915. McGuire, J. B. & Rhodes, G. (2009). Transforming Your Leadership Culture. New York: John Wiley & Sons. McKee, A., Boyatzis, R. and Johnston, F. (2008). Becoming a Resonant Leader. Boston, MA: Gotham Books. Merrit, E. A. (2008). Strategic Leadership: Essential Concepts. London: Aventine Press Morgan, A., (2009). Strategic leadership managing the firm in a turbulent world. New York: Wiley & Sons. Morrill, R. L. (2007). Strategic leadership: integrating strategy and leadership in colleges and universities. London: Greenwood Publishing Group. Mumford, E. (2006). The Origins of Leadership. American Journal of Sociology, 12(2), 216-240. Nohria, N. and Khurana, R. (2010). Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practise. Harvard: Harvard Business Press. Powell, W. W. and DiMaggio, P. J. (2012). The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. 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