Three Major Approaches Of Leadership Theory Management Essay

In this project we are discussed the relationship between strategic management and leadership. We also discussed in these assignments leadership styles and their impact on strategic decisions. Leaders required to those leadership style which is appropriate for them, their section, their subordinates and the business they work for. The situations leaders need varying leadership styles based on a specific task, the worker being managed and the leaders personality. The Purpose of this report to identify the different leadership styles which would help in understanding how to manage the team in the company and main focus will be on what kind of leadership style adopted by organization to run their business. It has been demonstrated in the report that what kind of different qualities required by the different levels of authority. So that there should be no misunderstanding who report to who and who is responsible for what. Criticism is done to show, if company could use another leadership style, what they are using now would be more beneficial in achieving their objectives. Manager is the person who is having quality to get the things done through others. It means that Manager is responsible for achieving the targets. Focus is given on what kind of managerial skill practised in the company for smooth running of concern.

Introduction:-

Leadership culture is defined by the collective action of formal and informal leaders acting together in the help of organizational goals that ultimately marks the difference. When we speak about the leadership it is the both leaders themselves and the relationship among them, the skills and behavior of the leaders are required to execute the organization strategy and make the most wanted culture. The collective leadership capabilities of the leaders acting together in the groups and across the boundaries to implement strategies. (William and Michael, 2011.)

Generating the effort and commitment to work towards objectives is central to managing any human activity. People use the term ‘effective leader’ to denote someone who brings innovation, moves an activity out of trouble into success, makes a worthwhile difference. They see opportunities to do new things, take initiatives, and inspire people.

“The most effective leaders will be people who use their energies to accomplish desired results. Leadership will focus on action and implementation”. Katz and Kahn (1948).

In the process of leadership three main skills such as technical, human and conceptual are necessary.

Technical skill: – perform the specific tasks capability to use information, methods, technique and tools are essential and get from experience, education and training.

Human skills: – human skills are the capability and results in working with and through individuals. Human skills include accepting of motivation and purpose of effective leadership.

Conceptual skills: – conceptual skills provide skills to understand the complexities on the whole organization. Through Conceptual knowledge leaders act to according to the objectives of the total business rather than only on the basis of the goals and needs have direct team.

There are three major approaches of leadership theory. They are:-

Historical approach

Classical approach

Contemporary approach

Trait theory: – Trait theory of leadership provides the skills to identify qualities which helpful when leading with others and jointly, these appear as a universal leadership style. Example includes understanding, fierceness, good decision making. Trait theories assume that leaders contribute to number of ordinary individually traits and features and that leadership emerges from this traits.a trait is relatively stable aspect of an individual’s personality that influences behavior in a particular direction. Many people have tried to identify the personal characteristics associated with effective leaders. According to trait theory every person will be born with some traits. Trait theory says that every leader will have certain traits that make them more suited to leadership than others. A person would have these traits from birth which will be his characteristics which makes him more suitable to be leaders than others. Traits are the distinguishing personal characteristics of a leader, such as intelligence, values, self confidence and appearance

Behavior theory:-according to behavior theory leaders are made not born. This theory is completely against the traits theory. Traits theory says that leadership qualities come from birth where as the classical leadership style like the behavioral theory says that they come from practice and not from birth. It says that leadership is defined, hence any person can learn those qualities required to be leader and can successfully lead when there is need for it. Leadership qualities can be adopted by looking at others. Perhaps any leader can adopt the correct behavior with appropriate training.

Contingency theory:-contingency approach a model of leadership that describes the relational ship between leadership styles and specific organizational situations. An early, extensive effort to combine leadership style and organizational situation into a comprehensive theory of leadership was made by Fiedler and his associates. Contingency theory is a refinement of the situational viewpoint and focuses on identifying the situational variables which best predict the most appropriate or effective leadership style to fit the particular circumstances.

Transactional approach: – James Burnes (1978) distinguish between transactional and transformational leaders. A transactional leader is one who treats leadership as an exchange, giving followers what they want if they do what the leader desires. And a transformational leader is a leader who treats leadership as a matter of motivation and commitment, inspiring flowerers by appealing to higher ideals and moral values. The leader, who holds power and control over his or her employees or followers, provides incentives for follower to do what the leader wants. Hence, transactional leadership simply involves an exchange that leads to desired outcomes and transformational leadership motivates us to do more than we originally expected to do.

Participative theory:-participative theory says that whatever the decision or whenever the decision is need to be made, involve everyone who is attached to that. Don’t take decision solely. Reason is when everyone come together to take the decision they feel involved in it. In participative type of leadership people are more committed because they are involved in decision making. The drawback of this style would be it can confuse a leader as which course of action to be taken as there are more ideas. This can be time consuming because more people are involved decisions cannot be made quickly.

Impact of managerial styles on organizational effectiveness

Performance of an organization is depending upon the leadership styles which are used in that organization. Leadership style has a significant relation with organizational performance. Leadership styles put a positive and negative effect on the performance of organization depends upon the style of leadership. Leadership style of administrative supervisors put a positive effect on the performance of organization. Performance of workers will be influenced by the leadership style of a leader. It also indicates that performance of organization is also influenced by the style of leadership. Organizational performance decided by leadership style that subordinates need to know, and give feedbacks and suggestions to execution. In this course a leader can know the requirements of the subordinates and subordinate can know the demands and requirements of their role at the same time. Subordinates get their rewards when they make organizational requested performance under the leadership style of executives. This is shown by research that leadership style put positive effect on the performance of the organization. Therefore leadership style should be correctly and carefully used to motivate and guide the subordinates. There are basically three types of leaders

1: Autocratic leaders. These are the leaders who do not consult their team when they make any decision.

2: Democratic leaders. These types of leaders make decisions with the input of other group members. This style of leadership is important when team agreement matters.

3: Laissez-fair leaders. These types of leaders allow the group members to make most of the decisions. They mostly do not interfere in most of the decisions. This type of leadership works when team is highly motivated and capable.

Kotter (1990) distinguishes between the terms leadership and management – while stressing that organizations need both, and that one person will often provide both. Good management as brining order and consistency to an activity- through task of planning, organizing and controlling. Individuals whom people recognize as leaders have created change. Good leadership is that which moves people to a place in which they and those who depend on them are genuinely better off ,and when it does so without trampling on the rights of others.leadrs succeed by establishing direction and strategy, communicating it to those whose corporation is needed and motivating and inspiring people. Managing and leading are closely related, but differ in their primary functions- the one of create order, the other to create change. Organization needs both if they are to prosper. A manager may or may not be an effective leader. A leader ability to influence others may be based on a verity of factors others than his or her formal authority or position.

Warren Bennis, a highly regarded leadership scholar, differentiated the extremes of Management and leadership in number of provocative ways:-

The managers administrates, the leader innovates.

The manager in a copy, the leaders an original.

The manager maintains, the leader develop.

The manager focuses on systems and structure. The focuses on the people.

The managers relies on control, the leader inspires trust.

The manager has a short range view, leader has a long perspective.

The manager asks how and when, leader asks what and why.

The manager has an eye on the bottom line; the leader has his eye on the horizon.

The manager imitates, the leader originates.

The manager accepts the status quo, the leader challenges it.

Manager do things right, leaders do the right things.

For the success leader also needs to good leadership skills .strategic leader provide a positive and professional atmosphere because they are efficiently planning and controlling the individuals and processes. Leader can produce equal attitudes in their team worker. Strategic long term decisions involve the direction of the business. If the plan and decisions are right, the business will grow and succeed. But if a business makes pure decisions, it may fail. Effective management requires an understanding of how the processes are applied and how they can be used. Management is more art than science in that managers constantly have to use their judgment and expertise. Management is the process of achieving pre-set aims and objectives through the work of others; a manager role is to:-

Devise strategies and policies which will server future growth and development.

Control and co-ordinate a mix of available resources-people, money, materials,-so as to earn a profit or to run the organization cost effectively.

Interpret and respond to changes in economic, social and technological trends, so as to keep the organization sharp and competitive.

Develop new entrants into the organization, so as to ensure its long term survival and success.

Promote interpersonal communication and telephone communication systems to that the organization benefits from an open exchange of information and ideas.

Effective management depends entirely on mix of:

The manager personality and what style fits it best.

The kind of people and tasks to be managed.

The culture and benefits of the organization and the social, economic backdrop at the time.

Management has to stay on their toes and use all their skills and competencies to benefits the organization and its stakeholder-employers, customers, investors, the community and so forth. According to Edward Elgar “There is music in the air, music all around us, said composer.”The tune heard most often by today’s managers may be the constant ring of a cell phone tying them to the organization .managers can become a leader who set the pace for an organization and lead people in a different kind of performance.

Leaders also find the off-key notes, bring people together and inspire them to act in ways that accomplish the organizations vision. Understanding people, communicating, building team work and inspiring others are the essentials of effective organizational leadership. By developing leadership skills in understanding human behavior, communication, teamwork and motivation, managers can boost an organization’s chance of hitting all the right notes.

In the organization management and leadership are both important. successful managers have to be leaders, too, because there are distinctive qualities associated with management and leadership that provide different strengths for the organization, as show in the diagram:

Leader and managers qualities:-

Leader qualities

Manager qualities

SOUL

MIND

visionary

Rational

passionate

Consulting

creative

Persistent

flexible

Problem-solving

inspiring

Tough-minded

innovative

Analytical

courageous

Structured

imaginative

Deliberate

experimental

authoritative

Initiates change

Stabilizing

Personal power

Position power

As shown in the diagram, leadership and management are different sets of skills and qualities which normally overlap within a particular person. Every individual has more of one set of qualities than the other, but ideally a manager builds up a balance of both manager and leader qualities. A main difference between management and leadership is that management promotes stability, order and problem solving within the existing organizational structure and systems. Leadership promotes and vision, creativity and change. In other words “a manager takes care of where you are; leaders take you to new place.”James E.Colvard, (July 2003) leadership means questioning the status qua so that out of use, uncreative, or publicly careless norms can be changed to meet new challenges. Leadership cannot replace management; it should be in addition to management .good leadership is required to facilitate the business meet current commitments,while good leadership is needed to move the organization into the future. Richard L.Daft (2005).

DRAWBACKS OF LEADERSHIP THEORY FOLLOWED

The theory they had adopted in their organisation is based on assumption that leaders invest their time in educating the positive skills in the workers to perform the assigned work. Transformational leaders invest their time in building trust and convincing followers to believe in a shared vision. But Organization want instant result by forcing the leader but it’s a time consuming process to get result from followers so it’s a time consuming process can provide result instantly. In Transformational style organisation has to depend upon the leader behaviour if the leader is not intelligent and lack of inspirational communication skills and lack of experience not able to motivate the workers and organisation have to suffer.(Disadvantages of Transformational leadership)

Conclusion;-

In this assignment it is concluded that organizational leaders build some traits in their employees like trust, respect, fairness, teamwork and results that create a lasting impact. They put the employee should remain in the assigned work long enough to make his or her contributions clear. It clears that mainly organization had adopted Transformational Leadership style. Different qualities of different level had been discussed like, win with diversity they can hire employees from different cultures this benefits them in knowing what is liked by different cultures and although it would be helpful in getting new ideas for improvement in their process. It had been shown that Transformational leaders invest their time in building trust and convincing followers to believe in a shared vision. But Organization want instant result by forcing the leader but it’s a time consuming process to get result from followers so it’s a time consuming process can provide result instantly. Man Mangers can raise their skill level by listening to others rather than speaking their own. This the only way which help the manager in finding what’s going on in organization. To overcome the change lectures provided to every employee to understand the new method for production .So that they all put their efforts together to achieve the goals of the organization efficiency, effectively and without any wastage. To improve the company performance Manager’s should treat their employees equally without any partiality when the change is implemented. If they don’t then employees resist change and for that wrong behaviour of the managers Organization have to suffer. According to situation leaders can use of different leadership style.