Definition
Leadership is an important aspect of managing. The ability to lead effectively is one of the keys to being an effective manager. The essence of the leadership is followership in other words, it is the willingness of people to follow that makes a person a leader.
Leadership is defined as influence, the art or process of influencing people so that they will strife towards the achievement of group goals. It is the art of inspiring surbodinates to perform their duties willingly, competently and enthusiastically. To lead is to guide conduct, direct and precede. Leaders act to help a group achieve objectives with the maximum application of its capabilities. They do not stand behind; they place themselves before a group as they facilitate progress and inspire the groups to accomplish organizational goals like a choirmaster or orchestra leader.
All human groups have a leader, such diverse organizations as street gangs, political parties and business organizations generally have someone who is either appointed or who emerges as a leader. The leader should possess the ability to understand the divers motivating forces, the ability to inspire and the ability to act and develop a climate capable of arousing motivation.
Leadership Theories.
1. The trait approach to leadership: The earliest approach to leadership was based on traits possessed by leaders. These includes agressive self assurance, intelligence, initiative, a drive for achievement or power, appearance, interpersonal skills, administrative ability, imagination, a certain upbringing and education and the ability to rise above a situation and analyse it objectively (The helicopter factor)
Under this approach, it is generally believed that leaders are born and not made although this has lost much of its acceptability now. The trait approach has not been very much accepted since all leaders do not possess all the traits and many non- leaders may possess most or all of them. Also, the trait approach gives no guide as to how much of any trait a leader should have.
Nevertheless, there appears to be some correlation between certain traits and leadership effectiveness.
2. The situational approach: Under this approach, it is generally believed that leaders are products of given situations. Examples abound in history on leaders who emerged out of given situations. These include Hitler and the second world war, President F.D. Roosevelt and the china revolution. Studies have revealed that effective leadership depends on response to environmental factors such as the history of the enterprise, the community, the psychology of the group, personalities, culture and the timing for decisions. This approach has much relevance to managerial practise.
3. Fielder’s contingency approach: Fred Fielder has found that success of a leader is not based on personality traits alone. Other factors, particularly that of a situational nature (kind of organization, nature of task, characteristics of the people being managed) also determine how effective a manager will be in leading.
In the Fielder’s model, three major factors that influence a leader’s style are:
a). Position Power: Derived from organizational authority. The more position a manager has, the easier it is for him to induce people to follow him.
b). Task Structure: the clarity with which tasks are defined. When tasks are vague, the manager has more difficulty in measuring performance and holding people than when jobs are clearly defined.
c). Leader-Member relations: The degree to which surbodinates trust, have confidence in, and are loyal to the leader.
Fielder postulated two styles of leadership which are:
a). Task oriented: Task oriented managers are primarily interested in work objectives being achieved satisfactorily.
b). People oriented: People oriented managers are mainly interested in building cooperative, harmonious working environments and in developing successful interpersonal relationships. Fielder;s research led to the development of a contingency theory of leadership. This theory states that group’s performance will be contingent upon the appropriate matching of leadership styles and the degree of favourableness of the situation for the leader .
In unfavourable situations, the highly task oriented leader will be the most effective. That is when position power and task structure are very unclear and leader-member relations are poor, the situation is highly unfavourable and the most effective leader will be the one who is task oriented. Likewise, where position power is very high, task structure very clear and leader- member relations very good (a very favourable situation . The task oriented leader will be the most effective. However where the situation is only moderately unfavourable or favourable . The people oriented leader would be the most effective.
4. Rensis Likert’s Style
Rensis Likert developed four systems for classifying leaders. According to him, leadership is a continuum ranging from a highly dictatorial to exceptionally participative styles. These are:
a) Exploitative- Authoritative: Leaders in this class are autocratic, they do not seek the opinions of surbodinates but make major decisions independently. They motivate through fear and punishment.
b) Benevolent- Authoritative: These managers have a condescending confidence and trust in surbodinates, motivate with reward and some fear of punishment. Some permit upward communication, solicit some ideas and opinion from surbodinates and allow some delegation of decision making but with close control.
c) Consultative: This type of leaders have considerable confidence in their surbodinates. They delegate extensively, encourage surbodinates to make recommendations and rely on rewards more than punishments to motivate.
d) Participative: Leaders using this style intentionally seek to involve members of the group in decision making process. They liberally delegate authority and use rewards, not punishment to motivate.
Likert is an advocate of system four (4), although in practice, most leaders fall in- between the autocratic and participative classification.
5. Argyris’s Immaturity – Maturity Continuum: Chris Argyris maintains that employees tend to place their own needs ahead of the organization’s welfare. He argues that, to the extent that this occurs, conflict, apathy and discord result. For managers to lead effectively and for surbodinates to develop greater interest in the goals of the enterprise, people should be provided with a climate in which they can mature.
6. Robert Blake and Jane Mouton’s Managerial grid.: The managerial grid developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton often play a part in organisations development and leadership. The Grid is a devise for assessing the orientations of managers to the work of the organization and the people who are expected to perfor the work. Five styles of leadership have been identified as shown below.
It is assumed that all organizations endorse and work towards the 9.9 point on the grid. The Blake – Mouton Grid is a convenient way to classify leadership styles.
Factors that affect leadership effectiveness
a) Organizational size
b) Interaction of group members
c) Personalities of group members
d) Congruence of goals.
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