How to Become a Good Leader - Essay Example

How to become a good leader? Who is a leader? A leader is a person who can exercise influence. A leader is a person who has the ability to navigate his team through the hiccups of change. He is a person who finds a hidden opportunity in every setback. A leader is a person who constantly influences the people around him and others to achieve their objectives. Every person at a position in a hierarchy is not necessarily a leader. Leadership is a process of influencing, facilitating performances and providing directions to the unit. Leaders are part of the hierarchal system but every person in the hierarchal system is not a leader. A lot of researches have been done to understand the definition and essence of leadership, to identify the differences between the managers and the leaders. Management of organizational behavior defines leaders as the "Men and women who saw the need for action, believed in what they were doing, inspired others and, in spite of incredible odds, changed the world." (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson, 1). Many theories and meanings of leaders and leadership have been developed throughout the world. All these theories have not been providing with same results however they do agree on certain grounds. All the theories agree that a leader has a clear set of goals and is capable of setting examples. He is a person with strong beliefs and vision for the future. A leader bravely voices his opinions and takes actions on his beliefs and passions. Leadership is a quality or ability that a person possesses to influence and guide others. There are various theories that define and explain leadership. The major ones are the Trait theory, Behavioral theory, Contingency theory and the Transformational theory. The Traits theory identifies certain traits or behavior in a person. This theory believes that human are born with the traits of becoming a leader. The theory suggests that if a person posses the specified traits he is a leader. The Behavioral theory suggests that leaders have a specific behavior towards their followers and that makes them distinct from others. This theory specifies the style and the behavior of the leaders. The contingency theory acts as the critic of the above theories and specifies that the styles and the traits of the individuals can be different in different dynamic situations. This theory suggests that the leaders are defined by their activities and abilities. The characteristics or the behaviors cannot be defined or specified. The transformational theory stresses on the effective interaction of the leaders with their subordinates or coworkers. This theory measures the degree to which the leader is able to control and influence his surroundings in an unfavorable situation. (Define leadership-Understanding it for your career growth). Leadership and its importance: Leadership is not a quality possessed by only few individuals every human being is a leader in some respect. Leadership requires constant practice frequent adaptations and reflections. “Leadership is an ongoing developmental process.” (Posner & Kouzes). The key skill of a leader is to inspire, a successful leader inspire s his vision of the positive future into the visions of his coworkers. A leader pumps in possibilities of hope into the environment of the organization. He shares his visions with everyone and inspires others. The key in this mutual relationship is trust, it is very important for the people to trust their leader’s visions. The people must believe in the possibilities explained by the leader to create a shared vision. However the trust on the leaders vision can only be developed and gained, people would trust the visions of the leader only if he himself has strong convictions for his vision. This would help in creating a belief in the words of the leader. Leaders inspire the ideas of team work and collaboration. A leader is perceived to be an agent of change in a sensitive environment. Leaders are required in all fields and areas. Though most firms have a hierarchal system with managers at each level, it is very important for the organizations to have leaders to inspire and motivate the workers of the system. The ability to implement strategies is very important in an organization. In these turbulent times when there is a fierce competition in the market it is very important for the firms to develop and sustain a competitive advantage over the other firms in the market. To optimize the core competencies the firm requires a strategic implementation of the policies and the recommendations in the organization. The market demands constant restructuring of the entire set up for achieving the organizational goals. Not too many people or the workers are comfortable with the changing and reengineering procedures. To pull out people from their comfort zones requires a skills and lot of motivation. This skill and motivation is possessed by a leader. He is the only person who can motivate the employees under unfavorable conditions and turbulent times. A leader evaluates the organizational and labor capabilities to integrate efficiency with a healthy working environment. The leader would inspire the workers to adjust with the changing environments. Leaders and managers should conquer obstructions if they hope to realize a new policy productively. (Smith) Leaders help in creating healthy organizational structures. They help in building trust and sustain teamwork, which further helps the firms to manage the internal conflicts of nature within the diverse environments. The leaders can directly help the workers in dealing with ambiguity and increase their quality and productivity. The leaders often act as mentors to the workers and coach them for strategic thinking. Leadership makes a difference at every step and level. “Invest in leadership today to sustain your success for tomorrow and beyond.” (Leaderships in organizations) Key attributes of a successful leader: Understanding of the leadership attributes is very important for every person as one grows in terms of his career. Every person influences his or her immediate environment in some form or other. The learning of the leadership attributes comes in handy to every individual who is a part of an organizational structure. “Effective performance happens rarely by chance.” (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson, 1) Leadership management in the organizations is becoming increasingly challenging. With the advent of globalization and frenetic injections of technology in the organizational structure the pace of change has doubled. There is a constant requirement of motivation and out of the box vision to face these challenges. Effective leaders are the people who energize the environments amidst of the tremendous social, political and economic changes in the organization. They would influence the environments so as to draw focus on the action and implementation of the strategies in the organization. Effective leaders must be able to understand, adjust and communicate the needs of the change and reconstruction within the organization. This is the only way in which the organization would able to meet the needs of the rapidly changing environments of the market. The leaders have to very flexible as the globalization is intensifying the personal and organizational demands. Everyone in the system is subject to the rigors of the global competition. The leader must be ready to unlearn and relearn so as to adjust with the turbulent scenarios. The leader acts as a navigator for the team and the organization in the times of distress. (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson, 3-6). A leader must be able to synthesize and evaluate the capabilities of employees and use it in the application of duties among them so as to draw the maximum potential from each of them. This would also increase employee satisfaction and automatically increase the productivity and efficiency. The leaders should be able to overcome obstacles in implementation of the change. They should be capable of attaining the objectives of injecting efficiency resulting in sustainable growth, both at the personal and professional level of the employees. A charismatic leader is a one who has complete confidence in his ability and judgment. He should have a vision and should be able to communicate his vision to others he should be able to influence others for improvement. He should act as a motivating force within the team members by understanding the needs and the capabilities of his followers. The leaders should be able to make realistic assessments of the environment of the organization to bring out the best possible way of dealing with the changes. Their charisma should be able to instill feelings of pride and self respect among the members. He should be able to communicate the expectations of the organization to the employees in a positive and encouraging manner. He should come across as an intellectual person with rational and careful problem solving skills. The leader is a mentor and a guide to the employees and should give personal attention to each of them. He should treat each employee individually by providing coaching and guidance according to their needs and conditions. The organizational structure sets up system of hierarchal structure for the effective functioning of the organization. The managers are responsible to facilitate smooth running of the business activities. However in the organizational structure the managers can not always act as the leaders and thus fail to motivate the workers and give rise to dissatisfaction among the employees. The managers ensure that the organizations are controlled and disciplined but they fail to ensure that the employees function optimally. Balancing and controlling human activities, especially in the case of large organizations is a pretty difficult job. It requires self motivation and inspiration among the employees to function optimally. The role of a leader in the organization comes into picture in this scenario. A leader acts as a guide to the employees by diagnosing the reason of their dissatisfaction and poor performances, he creates a environment which is motivating by listening to them and coaching and counseling them. He identifies the causes of dissatisfaction and communicates them to the management if required. He selects appropriate strategies to manage the employees and deal with their grievances. This procedure of handling the human resources by resolving the confrontations helps to empower the employees, providing a boost to their efficiencies. The leaders have their own way or approach towards things they speak their mind and are fearless individuals who are constantly aware of the developments and changes in the market. “Good leadership entails the ability to articulate a vision, align the peoples talents and efforts of the companys direction and keeping them focused on the set vision by motivating and inspiring them.” (Smith). The leaders help the employees to create a vision for the company and further help the organization by aligning people to achieve the targets and the goals of the company effectively. The leader does so by forming teams and sharing their visions to influence the workers. Leaders are responsible for organizing and bringing in meaningful and successful changes in the organizational structure. Therefore we can conclude that leading and influencing requires three general skills or competencies: Diagnosing: understanding the situation you are trying to influence Adapting: altering your behavior and the other resources you have available to meet the eventuality of the situation Communicating: interacting with others in a way that people can easily understand and accept. Challenges in leadership: Leaders are responsible for influencing the behavior of the people. Influencing the behavior of others is a full-time responsibility that must be practiced on a continuous basis. This is a task of huge responsibility therefore the Leaders must learn to understand and focus on desired results. Leadership demands practice, reflection and constant adaptation. It is an ongoing developmental process which requires constant updating. Leadership requires the person to enable others to act and encourage their hearts. Leaders should be capable of showing the value and importance of something by performing the act themselves. It is important as a leader to remember, “Don’t ask for someone to do something you are not willing to do yourself.” (Posner & Kouzes, 3). Creating a vision in others is very difficult if the leader is not able to communicate and articulate the vision and the mission of his inspirational acts. He must have the capability of inspiring the employees to imagine a future which is bright and positive; this act of sharing one’s vision requires a lot of trust. The employees have to believe that the leader’s words and visions are authentic. Developing trust requires development of personal bonds and relationship. The leader being the source of inspiration among a huge number of employees has to work hard to achieve this personal bonding with each of the employee. Different people have different views about the future and the organization, sharing one vision and bringing the views of all the employees to a common platform requires a lot of expression and enthusiasm. It is very important for the leader to listen to the views of all the participants and make sure that the employees do not feel that the visions and ideas are being imposed on them. The leader is responsible for bringing in changes in the system so he should make sure that he must always be prepared to face a change and should not be “caught “off guard” when the wave of change comes along.” (Posner & Kouzes, 4). The nature and the tasks of the leader change with every scenario. A leader cannot keep on doing the same task over and over again. He needs to change and adopt himself with every new challenge he faces. He has to encourage groups to take challenges and risks. He needs to generate the feeling of success within the employees. However the challenges faced are not so convenient, sometimes the result could be a failure also. The leader must be ready to face these failures and should know to pull out his team from the glooms of the failure. His job is to encourage the employees to forget failures and take up new challenges which are not that easy to be done. It’s the part of the leaders challenge to make sure that the workers are skilled enough to take up the challenges. Though the development of the technical skills is not in the capacity of the leader he has to motivate the workers for the training programs. For encouraging people to work efficiently the leader has to make sure that the efforts of the employees have been recognized by the management. The leader acts as a bridge between the authorities of the organization and the employees. “A leader must be competent, competent to guide toward the future.” (Posner & Kouzes, 7) Conclusion: Leaders are needed in an organization, to influence people to behave in a more efficient way. Working with a good leader is a prime reason for an employee to be loyal to the organization. Leaders have a broad range of job descriptions. The leaders need to be forward-looking to inspire others to join their vision. Their enthusiasm should be authentic and inspiring. A leader is well aware of the inner workings of the organization. He should be able to stimulate others to develop a goal for the organization. The leader faces many challenges in his workings; he needs to be dynamic as the real life situations are never static. Leaders have a basic job of dealing with the behaviors of the people. Understanding and mentoring behaviors is not an easy job as the behavioral science deal in probabilities, there are no given set of rules for handling a particular behavior. Leadership provides a common language to help in solving performance problems and achieving outstanding results. A leader is capable of motivating and reinforcing visions in his subjects. He can nurture people to draw out their full potentials. Leadership qualities are developed in a person by his experiences in life. A leader is a person who learns important lessons from his life experiences and shares them with others to create constant breakthroughs and innovations. Works Cited Posner, Barry & Kouzes, James. The leadership challenge. EDU 8722. Available at; http://www.marjorieayasse.net/internship/supervision/the_leadership_challenge.pdf (Accessed on June 12, 2010) Hersey, Paul, Blanchard H. Kenneth. & Johnson E. Dewey. Management of organizational behavior. (8th edition). Prentice Hall. New Jersey. (2001). Define leadership-Understanding it for your career growth.. Career success for newbies. Com. Available at: http://www.career-success-for-newbies.com/define-leadership.html (Accessed on June 12, 2010) Leaderships in organizations. Russell consulting inc. (2009). Available at: http://www.russellconsultinginc.com/docs/Leadership.htm (Accessed on June 12, 2010) Smith, Robert. Strategies That Organizational Managers and Leaders Can Use to Create and Maintain a Healthy. Articleclick.com. (2010). Available at: http://www.articleclick.com/Article/Strategies-That-Organizational-Managers-and-Leaders-Can-Use-to-Create-and-Maintain-a-Healthy/997166 (Accessed on June 12, 2010) Read More