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Achieving Leadership Qualities
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In today’s world, having the qualities of a leader is very important, whatever profession you are in. This is because, in most professions, at some time or the other, you will be required to lead a team to achieve a goal. Leading a team of people almost always requires leadership skills.
People sometimes wonder whether a leader is born or made. Some individuals appear to become leaders on their own, apparently without any outside help, while many others do not become effective leaders even after consistent efforts. This naturally makes some people wonder whether the only way to become a leader is to be born a leader!
Most thinkers on leadership however, do not consider it to be so. While some individuals might get start cultivating the habits of a leader from a very early age, deliberately or sub-consciously, many others acquire the qualities of leadership through experience and practice.
This section of Billion Dollar Questions dwells on the aspect of achieving the qualities of a leader, and provides inputs and web resources for the same.
This page – like all the other pages at BillDoll.com, The Billion Dollar Questions Site - is a work-in-progress and stuff will get added regularly.
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Content Derived from Wikipedia Article on Leadership
Terminology, usage and conceptual scope
House defines "leadership" organizationally and narrowly as "the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members" (House, R. J. 2004: page 15). Compare the discussions on group leadership and ad hoc leadership below. One can also characterize leadership by the period of the authority, as in "During the 1940s Russia was under Stalinist leadership". In formal hierarchies the term can also serve to describe the position or relationships which allow and legitimize the exercising of what one might term "leadership behavior".
In some languages the term for a leader and the term for the principle of leadership have very different meanings. Furthermore, note the different connotations of a synonym of the word "leader" adopted from the German: the word Führer, and its accompanying ideas on the Führerprinzip.
In would-be controlling groups such as the military, political parties, ruling élites, and other belief-based enterprises like religions or businesses, the idea of leadership can become a Holy Grail and people can come to expect transformational change stemming from the leader; such entities may encourage their followers and believers to worship leadership, to respect it, and to strive (whether realistically or not) to become proficient in it. Ideally, one cannot buy or sell leadership in the military (or elsewhere); instead, leaders must ratify their position of command in the hearts and minds of their soldiers in order to obtain the best from them. Followers in such a situation may become uncritically obedient. Personal strategies that one can use to guard against the unrealistic expectations associated with belief in leaders include:
maintaining a questioning and skeptical attitude bolstering confidence in one's own decision-making abilities
Categories and types of leadership
One can categorize the exercise of leadership as either actual or potential:
actual - giving guidance or direction, as in the phrase "the emperor has provided satisfactory leadership". potential - the capacity or ability to lead, as in the phrase "she could have exercised effective leadership"; or in the concept "born to lead".
In both cases, as a result of the constancy of change some people detect within the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the act of learning appears fundamental to certain types of leading and leadership. When learning and leadership coalesce, one could characterize this as "learnership".
Leadership can have a formal aspect (as in most political or business leadership) or an informal one (as in most friendships). Speaking of "leadership" (the abstract term) rather than of "leading" (the action) usually implies that the entities doing the leading have some "leadership skills" or competencies. Several types of entities may provide or exhibit leadership, actual or potential, including:
a person in a position or office of authority, such as a President or a chairperson
a person in a position or office associated with expertise, skill, or experience, such as a team leader, a ship's captain, a chief engineer, a chief, or a parent
a group or person in the vanguard of some trend or movement, as in fashion trend-setters
a group of respected people, (called a "reference group" by sociologists) such as business commentators or union spokespersons
a product that influences other product offerings in a competitive marketplace
Leadership can come from an individual, a collective group of leaders, or even from the disincarnate — if not mystical — characteristics of a celebrity figurehead (compare hero). Yet other usages have a "leadership" which does little active leading, but to which followers show great (often traditional) respect (compare the courtesy title reverend). Followers often endow the leader with status or prestige. Aside from the prestige-role sometimes granted to inspirational leaders, a more mundane usage of the word "leadership" can designate current front-runners that exercise influence over competitors, for example, a corporation or a product can hold a position of "market leadership" without any implication of permanence or of merited respect. (See also price leadership.) Note that the ability to influence others does form an integral part of the "leadership" of some but not all front-runners. A front-runner in a sprint may "lead" the race, but does not have a position of "leadership" if he does not have the potential to influence others in some way. Thus one can make an important distinction between "being in the lead" and the process of leadership. Leadership implies a relationship of power — the power to guide others.
The psychology of leadership
Analyzing the inspirational leader (one who can instill passion and direction into a group of individuals) requires an understanding of how the psychology of a group can affect the members of the group.
Different approaches to group dynamics (for example: Arthur F Carmazzi's ideas on “directive communication”; and Sigal Barsade's theory of “the ripple effect”, see leadership as a product of awareness and command of the reactions and influences of a group on the emotions of the individual.
According to Arthur F Carmazzi, leadership does not involve changing the mindset of the group, but the cultivation of an environment that brings out the best (inspires) the individuals in that group… Each individual has various environments that bring out different facets from their own identity, and emotionally charged perceptions drive each facet within each environment. To lead, Carmazzi says, one must build a platform through education and awareness where individuals fill each others needs. Leaders accomplish this by knowing why people may react favorably to a situation in environment A, but get frustrated or disillusioned in environment B.
When leaders change their actions in accordance with their awareness of what those actions really mean, they affect the emotional and perceptive affects on a group. By taking control of the “standard” reactions to the actions of the group, a leader can in effect change the psychology of the group and change the culture of an organization.
Leadership cycles
If a group or an organization wants or expects identifiable leadership, it will require processes for appointing/acquiring and replacing leaders.
Traditional closed groups rely on bloodlines or seniority to select leaders and/or leadership candidates: monarchies, tribal chiefdoms, oligarchies and aristocratic societies rely on (and often define their institutions by) such methods.
Competence or perceived competence provides a possible basis for selecting leadership elites from a broader pool of potential talent. Political lobbying may prove necessary in electoral systems, but immediately demonstrated skill and character may secure leadership in smaller groups such as gangs.
Many organizations and groups aim to identify, foster and promote what they see as leadership potential or ability - especially among younger members of society. See for example the Scouting movement. For a specific environment, see leadership development.
The issues of succession planning or of legitimation become important at times when leadership (particularly individual leadership) might or must change due to term-expiry, accident or senescence.
Symbolism of leadership
Various symbolic attributes — often varying according to the cultural milieu — mark out authority-figures and help make them seem special and revered. For examples and discussion, see symbols of leadership.
Leadership as a vanguard
Sometimes followership can occur without intentional leadership. Despite (or because of) its mythical origin, the image of swarms of lemmings which follow the first lemming off a cliff appears frequently in characterizing followers. The animal kingdom also provides the actual model of the bellwether function in a mob of sheep. And human society also offers many examples of emulation. The fashion industry, for example, depends on it. Fashion marketers design clothing for celebrities, then offer less expensive variations/imitations for those who emulate the celebrities.
Unintentional leadership can also occur from more pro-active forms followership. For example, in organizations which punish both leadership inaction and mistakes, and in which a predicament has no good solution, a common tendency involves declaring oneself a follower of someone else — metaphorically passing the buck.
Another example of followership without intentional leadership comes with the market leadership of a pioneering company, or the price leadership of a monopolist. Other companies will emulate a successful strategy, product, or price, but originators may certainly not desire this — in fact they often do all they can legally do to prevent such direct competition.
The term "leadership" sometimes applies (confusingly) to a winning position in a race. One can speak of a front-runner in a sprint or of the "leader" in an election or poll as in a position of leadership. But such "leadership" does not involve any influence processes, and the "leader" will have followers who may not willingly choose to function as followers. Once again: one can make an important distinction between "in the lead" and the process of leadership. Once again, leadership implies a relationship of power - the power to guide others.
Leading from the front, in a military sense, may imply foolhardiness and unnecessary self-exposure to danger: these do not necessarily make for successful long-term leadership strategies.
Scope of leadership
One can govern oneself, or one can govern the whole earth. In between, we may find leaders who operate primarily within:
families bands tribes states and nations empires
Intertwined with such categories, and overlapping them, we find (for example) religious leaders (potentially with their own internal hierarchies), work-place leaders (executives, officers, senior/upper managers, middle managers, staff-managers, line-managers, team-leaders, supervisors ...) and leaders of voluntary associations.
Some anthropological ideas envisage a widespread (but by no means universal) pattern of progression in the organisation of society in ever-larger groups, with the needs and practices of leadership changing accordingly. Thus simple dispute resolution may become legalistic dispensation of justice before developing into proactive legislative activity. Some leadership careers parallel this sort of progression: today's school-board chairperson may become tomorrow's city councillor, then take in (say) a mayordom before graduating to nation-wide politics. Compare the cursus honorum in ancient Rome.
Support-structures for leadership
Though advocates of the "big man" school of visionary leadership would have us believe that charisma and personality alone can work miracles, most leaders operate within a structure of supporters and executive agents who carry out and monitor the expressed or filtered-down will of the leader. This undercutting of the importance of leadership may serve as a reminder of the existence of the follower: compare followership. A more or less formal bureaucracy (in the Weberian sense) can throw up a colorless nonentity as an entirely effective leader: this phenomenon may occur (for example) in a politburo environment. Bureaucratic organizations can also raise incompetent people to levels of leadership (see Peter Principle).
In modern dynamic environments formal bureaucratic organizations have started to become less common because of their inability to deal with fast-changing circumstances. Most modern business organizations (and some government departments) encourage what they see as "leadership skills" and reward identified potential leaders with promotions. According to B. Nanus, the forces that shape today's leading-edge organizations and their implications provide the key to visionary leadership[citation needed]. To underline his point we can examine the success-story of Bill Gates: in brief he built Microsoft from the start as a twenty-first-century organization, and he allegedly runs it with a highly-developed sense of visionary leadership.
In a potential down-side to this sort of development, a big-picture grand-vision leader may foster another sort of hierarchy: a fetish of leadership amongst subordinate sub-leaders, encouraged to seize resources for their own sub-empires and to apply to the supreme leader only for ultimate arbitration.
Some leaders build coalitions and alliances: political parties abound with this type of leader. Still others depend on rapport with the masses: they labor on the shop-floor or stand in the front-line of battle, leading by example.
Determining what makes "effective leadership"
In comparing various leadership styles in many cultures, academic studies have examined the patterns in which leadership emerges and then fades, sometimes by natural succession according to established rules and sometimes by the imposition of brute force.
The simplest way to measure the effectiveness of leadership involves evaluating the size of the following that the leader can muster. By this standard, Adolf Hitler became a very effective leader for a period — even if through delusional promises and coercive techniques. [6] However, this approach may measure power rather than leadership. To measure leadership more specifically, one may assess the extent of influence on the followers, that is, the amount of leading. This may involve testing the results of leadership activities against a goal, vision, or objective.
James MacGregor Burns introduced a normative element: an effective Burnsian leader will unite followers in a shared vision that will improve an organization and society at large. Burns calls leadership that delivers "true" value, integrity, and trust transformational leadership. He distinguishes such leadership from "mere" transactional leadership that builds power by doing whatever will get more followers. [7] But problems arise in quantifying the transformational quality of leadership - evaluation of that quality seems more difficult to quantify than merely counting the followers that the straw man of transactional leadership James MacGregor Burns has set as a primary standard for effectiveness. Thus transformational leadership requires an evaluation of quality, independent of the market demand that exhibits in the number of followers.
Current assessments of transformational and transactional leadership commonly make use of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), developed by Bass and Avolio in 1990 and revised in 1995. It measures five dimensions of transformational leadership:
idealized influence - attributions idealized influence - behaviors inspirational motivation individualized consideration intellectual stimulation
The three dimensions of transactional leadership measured by the MLQ[citation needed] cover:
contingent reward management by exception (active) management by exception (passive)
The functional leadership model conceives leadership as a set of behaviours that helps a group perform a task, reach their goal, or perform their function. In this model, effective leaders encourage functional behaviors and discourage dysfunctional ones.
In the path-goal model of leadership, developed jointly by Martin Evans and Robert House and based on the "Expectancy Theory of Motivation", a leader has the function of clearing the path toward the goal(s) of the group, by meeting the needs of subordinates.
Some commentators use the metaphor of an orchestral conductor to describe the quality of the leadership process. An effective leader resembles an orchestra conductor in some ways. He/she has to somehow get a group of potentially diverse and talented people - many of whom have strong personalities - to work together toward a common output. Will the conductor harness and blend all the gifts his or her players possess? Will the players accept the degree of creative expression they have? Will the audience enjoy the sound they make? The conductor may have a clear determining influence on all of these questions.
Suggested qualities of leadership
Studies of leadership have suggested qualities that people often associate with leadership. They include:
Guiding others through modeling (in the sense of providing a role model) and through willingness to serve others first (compare followership) Talent and technical/specific skill at some task at hand Initiative and entrepreneurial drive Charismatic inspiration - attractiveness to others and the ability to leverage this esteem to motivate others Preoccupation with a role - a dedication that consumes much of leaders' life - service to a cause A clear sense of purpose (or mission) - clear goals - focus - commitment Results-orientation - directing every action towards a mission - prioritizing activities to spend time where results most accrue Optimism - very few pessimists become leaders Rejection of determinism - belief in one's ability to "make a difference" Ability to encourage and nurture those that report to them - delegate in such a way as people will grow Role models - leaders may adopt a persona that encapsulates their mission and lead by example Self-knowledge (in non-bureaucratic structures) Self-awareness - the ability to "lead" (as it were) one's own self prior to leading other selves similarly With regards to people and to projects, the ability to choose winners - recognizing that, unlike with skills, one cannot (in general) teach attitude. Note that "picking winners" ("choosing winners") carries implications of gamblers' luck as well as of the capacity to take risks, but "true" leaders, like gamblers but unlike "false" leaders, base their decisions on realistic insight (and usually on many other factors partially derived from "real" wisdom). Understanding what others say, rather than listening to how they say things - this could partly sum this quality up as "walking in someone else's shoes" (to use a common cliché).
The approach of listing leadership qualities, often termed "trait theory", assumes certain traits or characteristics will tend to lead to effective leadership. Although trait theory has an intuitive appeal, difficulties may arise in proving its tenets, and opponents frequently challenge this approach. The "strongest" versions of trait theory see these "leadership characteristics" as innate, and accordingly labels some people as "born leaders" due to their psychological makeup. On this reading of the theory, leadership development involves identifying and measuring leadership qualities, screening potential leaders from non-leaders, then training those with potential.
David McClelland, a Harvard-based researcher in the psychology of power and achievement, saw leadership skills, not so much as a set of traits, but as a pattern of motives. He claimed that successful leaders will tend to have a high need for power, a low need for affiliation, and a high level of what he called activity inhibition (one might call it self-control).
Situational leadership theory offers an alternative approach. It proceeds from the assumption that different situations call for different characteristics. According to this group of theories, no single optimal psychographic profile of a leader exists. The situational leadership model of Hersey and Blanchard, for example, suggest four leadership-styles and four levels of follower-development. For effectiveness, the model posits that the leadership-style must match the appropriate level of followership-development. In this model, leadership behaviour becomes a function not only of the characteristics of the leader, but of the characteristics of followers as well. Other situational leadership models introduce a variety of situational variables. These determinants include:
the nature of the task (structured or routine) organizational policies, climate, and culture the preferences of the leader's superiors the expectations of peers the reciprocal responses of followers
The contingency model of Vroom and Yetton uses other situational variables, including:
the nature of the problem the requirements for accuracy the acceptance of an initiative time-constraints cost constraints
However one determines leadership behaviour, one can categorize it into various leadership styles. Many ways of doing this exist. For example, the Managerial Grid Model, a behavioral leadership-model developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton in 1964, suggests five different leadership styles, based on leaders' strength of concern for people and their concern for goal achievement.
Kurt Lewin, Ronald Lipitt, and R. K. White identified three leadership styles: authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire, based on the amount of influence and power exercised by the leader.
The Fiedler contingency model bases the leader’s effectiveness on what Fred Fiedler called situational contingency. This results from the interaction of leadership style and situational favourableness (later called "situational control").
Leadership "styles" (per House and Podsakoff)
In 1994 House and Podsakoff attempted to summarize the behaviors and approaches of "outstanding leaders" that they obtained from some more modern theories and research findings. These leadership behaviors and approaches do not constitute specific styles, but cumulatively they probably[citation needed] characterize the most effective style of today's leaders/managers. The listed leadership "styles" cover:
Vision. Outstanding leaders articulate an ideological vision congruent with the deeply-held values of followers, a vision that describes a better future to which the followers have an alleged moral right.
Passion and self-sacrifice. Leaders display a passion for, and have a strong conviction of, what they regard as the moral correctness of their vision. They engage in outstanding or extraordinary behavior and make extraordinary self-sacrifices in the interest of their vision and mission.
Confidence, determination, and persistence. Outstanding leaders display a high degree of faith in themselves and in the attainment of the vision they articulate. Theoretically, such leaders need to have a very high degree of self-confidence and moral conviction because their mission usually challenges the status quo and, therefore, may offend those who have a stake in preserving the established order.
Image-building. House and Podsakoff regard outstanding leaders as self-conscious about their own image. They recognize the desirability of followers perceiving them as competent, credible, and trustworthy.
Role-modeling. Leader-image-building sets the stage for effective role-modeling because followers identify with the values of role models whom they perceived in positive terms.
External representation. Outstanding leaders act as spokespersons for their respective organizations and symbolically represent those organizations to external constituencies.
Expectations of and confidence in followers. Outstanding leaders communicate expectations of high performance from their followers and strong confidence in their followers’ ability to meet such expectations.
Selective motive-arousal. Outstanding leaders selectively arouse those motives of followers that the outstanding leaders see as of special relevance to the successful accomplishment of the vision and mission.
Frame alignment. To persuade followers to accept and implement change, outstanding leaders engage in "frame alignment". This refers to the linkage of individual and leader interpretive orientations such that some set of followers’ interests, values, and beliefs, as well as the leader’s activities, goals, and ideology, becomes congruent and complementary.
Inspirational communication. Outstanding leaders often, but not always, communicate their message in an inspirational manner using vivid stories, slogans, symbols, and ceremonies.
Even though these ten leadership behaviors and approaches do not really equate to specific styles, evidence has started to accumulate[citation needed] that a leader’s style can make a difference. Style becomes the key to the formulation and implementation of strategy[citation needed] and plays an important role in work-group members’ activity and in team citizenship. Little doubt exists that the way (style) in which leaders influence work-group members can make a difference in their own and their people’s performance[citation needed].
(Adopted from: Robert House and Philip M. Podsakoff, "Leadership Effectiveness: Past Perspectives and Future Directions for Research" in Jerald Greenberg (ed.), Organizational Behavior: The State of the Science, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ., 1994, pp [citation needed] .)
Leadership and vision
Many definitions of leadership involve an element of vision — except in cases of involuntary leadership and often in cases of traditional leadership. A vision provides direction to the influence process. A leader (or group of leaders) can have one or more visions of the future to aid them to move a group successfully towards this goal. A vision, for effectiveness, should allegedly:
appear as a simple, yet vibrant, image in the mind of the leader describe a future state, credible and preferable to the present state act as a bridge between the current state and a future optimum state appear desirable enough to energize followers succeed in speaking to followers at an emotional or spiritual level (logical appeals by themselves seldom muster a following)
For leadership to occur, according to this theory, some people ("leaders") must communicate the vision to others ("followers") in such a way that the followers adopt the vision as their own. Leaders must not just see the vision themselves, they must have the ability to get others to see it also. Numerous techniques aid in this process, including: narratives, metaphors, symbolic actions, leading by example, incentives, and penalties.
Stacey (1992) has suggested that the emphasis on vision puts an unrealistic burden on the leader. Such emphasis appears to perpetuate the myth that an organization must depend on a single, uncommonly talented individual to decide what to do. Stacey claims that this fosters a culture of dependency and conformity in which followers take no pro-active incentives and do not think independently.
Leadership's relation with management
Some commentators link leadership closely with the idea of management. Some regard the two as synonymous, and others consider management a subset of leadership: see http://www.leadership501.com/node/4/leadership-vs-management . If one accepts this premise, one can view leadership as:
centralized or decentralized broad or focused decision-oriented or morale-centred intrinsic or derived from some authority
Any of the bipolar labels traditionally ascribed to management style could also apply to leadership style. Hersey and Blanchard use this approach: they claim that management merely consists of leadership applied to business situations; or in other words: management forms a sub-set of the broader process of leadership. They put it this way: "Leadership occurs any time one attempts to influence the behavior of an individual or group, regardless of the reason. . . . Management is a kind of leadership in which the achievement of organizational goals is paramount." (Hersey, P. and Blanchard, K. : 1982 : page 3)
However, a clear distinction between management and leadership may nevertheless prove useful. This would allow for a reciprocal relationship between leadership and management, implying that an effective manager should possess leadership skills, and an effective leader should demonstrate management skills. One clear distinction could provide the following definition:
Management involves power by position. Leadership involves power by influence.
Abraham Zaleznik (1977), for example, delineated differences between leadership and management. He saw leaders as inspiring visionaries, concerned about substance; while managers he views as planners who have concerns with process. Warren Bennis (1989) further explicated a dichotomy between managers and leaders. He drew twelve distinctions between the two groups:
Managers administer, leaders innovate Managers ask how and when, leaders ask what and why Managers focus on systems, leaders focus on people Managers do things right, leaders do the right things Managers maintain, leaders develop Managers rely on control, leaders inspire trust Managers have a short-term perspective, leaders have a longer-term perspective Managers accept the status-quo, leaders challenge the status-quo Managers have an eye on the bottom line, leaders have an eye on the horizon Managers imitate, leaders originate Managers emulate the classic good soldier, leaders are their own person Managers copy, leaders show originality
Paul Birch (1999) also sees a distinction between leadership and management. He observed that, as a broad generalization, managers concerned themselves with tasks while leaders concerned themselves with people. Birch does not suggest that leaders do not focus on "the task." Indeed, the things that characterise a great leader include the fact that they achieve. The difference lies in the leader realising that the achievement of the task comes about through the goodwill and support of others, while the manager may not.
This goodwill and support originates in the leader seeing people as people, not as another resource for deployment in support of "the task". The manager often has the role of organizing resources to get something done. People form one of these resources, and many of the worst managers treat people as just another interchangeable item. A leader has the role of causing others to follow a path he/she has laid out or a vision he/she has articulated in order to achieve a task. Often, people see the task as subordinate to the vision. For instance, an organization might have the overall task of generating profit, but a good leader may see profit as a by-product that flows from whatever aspect of their vision differentiates their company from the competition.
Leadership does not only manifest itself as purely a business phenomenon. Many people can think of an inspiring leader they have encountered who has nothing whatever to do with business: a politician, an officer in the armed forces, a Scout or Guide leader, a teacher, etc. Similarly, management does not occur only as a purely business phenomenon. Again, we can think of examples of people that we have met who fill the management niche in non-business organisations. Non-business organizations should find it easier to articulate a non-money-driven inspiring vision that will support true leadership. However, often this does not occur.
Differences in the mix of leadership and management can define various management styles. Some management styles tend to de-emphasize leadership. Included in this group one could include participatory management, democratic management, and collaborative management styles. Other management styles, such as authoritarian management, micro-management, and top-down management, depend more on a leader to provide direction. Note, however, that just because an organisation has no single leader giving it direction, does not mean it necessarily has weak leadership. In many cases group leadership (multiple leaders) can prove effective. Having a single leader (as in dictatorship) allows for quick and decisive decision-making when needed as well as when not needed. Group decision-making sometimes earns the derisive label "committee-itis" because of the longer times required to make decisions, but group leadership can bring more expertise, experience, and perspectives through a democratic process.
Patricia Pitcher (1994) has challenged the bifurcation into leaders and managers. She used a factor analysis technique on data collected over 8 years, and concluded that three types of leaders exist, each with very different psychological profiles. She characterises one group as imaginative, inspiring, visionary, entrepreneurial, intuitive, daring, and emotional, and calls them "artists". In a second grouping she places "craftsmen" as well-balanced, steady, reasonable, sensible, predictable, and trustworthy. Finally she identifies "technocrats" as cerebral, detail-oriented, fastidious, uncompromising, and hard-headed. She speculates that no one profile offers a preferred leadership style. She claims that if we want to build, we should find an "artist leader"; if we want to solidify our position, we should find a "craftsman leader"; and if we have an ugly job that needs to get done (like downsizing), we should find a "technocratic leader." Pitcher also observed that a balanced leader exhibiting all three sets of traits occurs extremely rarely: she found none in her study.
Leadership by a group
In contrast to individual leadership, some organizations have adopted group leadership. In this situation, more than one person provides direction to the group as a whole. Some organizations have taken this approach in hopes of increasing creativity, reducing costs, or downsizing. Others may see the traditional leadership of a boss as costing too much in team performance. In some situations, the maintenance of the boss becomes too expensive - either by draining the resources of the group as a whole, or by impeding the creativity within the team, even unintentionally.
A common example of group leadership involves cross-functional teams. A team of people with diverse skills and from all parts of an organization assembles to lead a project. A team structure can involve sharing power equally on all issues, but more commonly uses rotating leadership. The team member(s) best able to handle any given phase of the project become(s) the temporary leader(s).
For example, the Orpheus orchestra has performed for over thirty years without a conductor -- that is, without a sole leader. As a team of over 25 members, it has drawn discriminating audiences, and has produced over 60 recordings for Deutsche Grammophon in successful competition with other world-class orchestras.
Rather than an autocratic or charismatic conductor deciding the overall conception of a work and then dictating how each individual is to perform the individual tasks, the Orpheus team generally selects a different "core group" for each piece of music. The core group provides leadership in working out the details of the piece, and presents their ideas to the whole team. Members of the whole team then participate in refining the final conception, rehearsal, and product, including checking from various places in the auditorium how the sound balances and verifying the quality of the final recording.
At times the entire Orpheus team may follow a single leader, but whom the team follows rotates from task to task, depending on the capabilities of its members.
The orchestra has developed seminars and training sessions for adapting the Orpheus Process to business.
Co-leadership
As a compromise between individual leadership and an open group, leadership structures of two or three people or entities occur commonly. Ancient Rome preferred two consuls to a single king, and the Roman Empire grew to accommodate two Emperors - those of the East and of the West - simultaneously. The Middle Ages saw leadership divided between the secular and spiritual realms - between Emperor and Pope. Some groups - often left-wing or Green in orientation - employ a co-leader structure today.
Triumvirates have long served to balance leadership ambitions - notably in Rome in the first century BC, but also as recently as in the Soviet Union troikas of the 20th century. Compare the separation of powers (legislative, judicial and executive) formalised (for example) in the constitution of the United States of America.
Leader relationships with followers
Greiner’s study of the language of U.S. Presidents examined the relationship between leader and followers and observed that changes have taken place in the presidential use of words that define the leader and the community as one. Modern US presidents have an observed tendency to make more use of inclusive words like we, us and our in their inaugural speeches. The use of inclusive words may suggest an effort by these democratically selected leaders to make the community work together to solve problems collectively. (See ERIC document ED468083 [10])
Specific theories of leadership
Giorgio Agamben
In State of Exception (2005), Agamben reads Carl Schmitt's theory of sovereignty in the light of Walter Benjamin. Agamben traces Schmitt's definition of sovereignty as the power to decide the state of exception to the Roman concept of auctoritas - the power to declare justitium. In chapter 6 §8, Agamben writes:
"It is significative that modern specialists were so enclined to admit that auctoritas was inherent to the living person of the pater or the princeps. What was evidently an ideology or a fictio aiming to be the groundwork of auctoritas ' preeminence or, at least, specific rank compared to potestas thus became a figure of right's immanence to life. (...) Although it is evident that there can't be an eternal human type that would incarnate itself each time in Augustus, Napoleon, Hitler, but only more or less similar mechanisms {"dispositif", a term often used by Foucault} - the state of exception, justitium, the auctoritas principis, the Führertum - put in use in more or less different circumstances, in the 1930s - overall, but not only - in Germany, the power that Weber had defined as "charismatic" is related to the concept of auctoritas and elaborated in a Führertum doctrine as the original and personal power of a leader. In 1933, in a short article intending to define the fundamental concepts of national-socialism, Schmitt defines the Führung principal by the "root identity between the leader and his entourage" {"identité de souche entre le chef et son entourage"} (we shall note the use of Weberian concepts)." [10]
James MacGregor Burns
James MacGregor Burns (1978, p. 2) wrote that a study of the definition of the word leadership revealed 130 definitions. However, several generally-accepted variations on the definition appear in the management and leadership literature.
Burns concluded by presenting five characteristics of leadership, namely:
Leadership is collective (p. 452). James Burns regards the notion of one-person leadership as “a contradiction in terms”, because both leaders and followers must exist. Also, an organization may have multiple leaders all acting in consort with one another.
Leadership is dissension (p. 453). Burns claims that leadership coexists with dissent. Indeed, much of the growth of any organization centers on the management/leadership of dissent – except in times of war.
Leadership is causative (p. 454). True Burnsian leadership affects the motives of individuals and groups of peoples and alters the course of the organizational history. It causes positive change.
Leadership is morally purposeful (p. 455). Burns sees leadership as goal-oriented, with leaders and followers pointing the way to some future state of the organization with plans about how those goals might be met.
Transforming leadership is elevating (p. 455). Engagement between leaders and followers takes place on a moral – but not a moralistic - plane, as both leaders and followers rise to live more principled lives.
Ronald Heifetz
Ronald Heifetz (Heifetz 1994) described the difference between a descriptive view and a prescriptive view of leadership. A descriptive view describes leadership and how it occurs, and a prescriptive view suggests how it should occur. The notion of "adaptive work" forms a central concept of Heifetz’s prescriptive view. Heifetz pointed out (p. 37) that people fail to adapt to new and unsettling situations through six avoidance mechanisms:
blaming others finding scapegoats (to the extent that this differs from blaming) externalizing the enemy denying that a problem exists jumping to conclusions finding a distracting issue
In a prescriptive view, the leader would squarely face the problem and avoid the six surface-level solutions of the non-leader. A true leader would help a community face reality and deal with the issues: finding solutions where none previously existed. Using the 1950s television character, the Lone Ranger, as an example, we see the Ranger in a weekly episode, moving from frontier town to frontier town, discovering problems wherever he goes, fixing the problems and riding off into the sunset. In this metaphor, the Ranger fixes the symptom, but not the problem. A Lone Ranger non-leader would catch fish to feed the poor while a true leader would teach the poor how to catch fish and would motivate them to do so. The true leader finds a way to help the community engage the problem and collectively find a solution. For more detail, see Heifetz, R. (1994). Leadership without easy answers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
George Terry
George Terry (Terry, G. 1960) has defined leadership as: "the activity of influencing people to strive willingly for group objectives". If we define leadership simply as "influencing others to some purpose" and we define followership as "becoming influenced by others to accept (willingly or un willingly) some purpose", then leadership and followership emerge as two sides of the same coin. In this scenario, leadership - whether successful or not - has not occurred until at least one follower joins in. Likewise, no followership exists without someone or something (not necessarily a leader) to follow. However, in this latter case, a "leader" need not exercise deliberate or even conscious leadership - that is, followers can follow someone who is not trying to lead. Some see "unconscious leadership" as a dubious concept, however. Many, using a different definition of leadership, would claim that it does not classify as leadership at all - simply because no deliberate intention to lead exists. Unconscious "leading by example" (as the phrase has it) may nevertheless exemplify such "leadership".
Robert Blake and Jane Mouton
Rachel K. McKee and Bruce Carlson's book The power to change ©1999 (ISBN 0-9679981-0-7) describes "The Leadership Grid" or the "9,9 Style" of leadership developed by Drs. Robert Blake and Jane Mouton in 1964. The theory/model allows the comparison of leadership styles.
Conscious Leadership
Dr. James Farr (1918 - 2000) argued not for any one "correct leadership style" but for the style that each situation requires. Great leaders require the use of nearly every leadership style: one must apply the correct style to meet the situation. Farr terms this "Conscious Leadership".
"Conscious Leadership" consists of the art and science of leading change from a self-aware perspective, with clarity of purpose and an acute insight into others' perspectives and state of mind. This fully-aware state uniquely allows leaders to properly inspire motivation in others and to choose the most appropriate course of action both to solve pressing problems and to effectively achieve long-term organizational goals.
Futurist John Renesch has written extensively on conscious leadership, which he advocates for everyone — not only those in positions of authority or holding designated titles. As he wrote in early 2001:
Conscious leaders don't tolerate conditions or processes where people feel the need to compromise their values — to "sell their souls" for the task at hand. Conscious leadership includes conscious discernment, a principle that demands performance, integrity, competence and a noncalloused form of spiritual toughness. The conscious leader does not sit with his or her head in the clouds, dreaming of utopian schemes and professing New Age idealism. The conscious leader walks in the spiritual and physical domains concurrently, remaining simultaneously grounded and comfortable in both.
Renesch also writes about "The Conscious Organization" which he defines as "one which continually examines itself, committed to becoming as conscious as it can. In other words, it has very low tolerance for unconsciousness. It possesses the collective will to be vigilant, the collective commitment to continuous evolution, and the collective courage to act."
Alternatives to leadership
Within groups, alternatives to the cult of leadership include using decision-making structures such as co-operative ventures, collegiality, consensus, anarchism and applied democracy. One can down play the ubiquitous idea of leadership by using structures such as information clearing houses or stressing functions such as administration. Note the different implications and connotations of the two phrases "coalition of the willing" and "US-led coalition". The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which practises a form of distributed leadership, provides a textbook example of alternative leadership.
Related Terms Charisma Max Weber's Charismatic authority Functional leadership model Ideal leadership Model Leadership development Leadership Intelligence Managerial grid model Path-goal model Situational leadership theory Social skills, Intercultural competence
Reference
Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies - Using U.S. presidents as case studies, the center goes through five ways of defining leadership, and lists the nine traits of effective, good leaders. leadertoleader.org - Non-profit foundation established by [Peter Drucker] to spread leadership and management principles. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership
End of Wikipedia content
Reference
Great Business Leaders of the 20th Century
Samuel M. Walton Wal-Mart Walter E. Disney Walt Disney William H. Gates III Microsoft Henry Ford Ford Motor John P. Morgan J.P. Morgan Chase Alfred P. Sloan Jr. General Motors John F. Welch Jr. General Electric Raymond A. Kroc McDonald's William R. Hewlett Hewlett-Packard David Packard Hewlett-Packard Andrew S. Grove Intel Milton S. Hershey The Hershey Co. John D. Rockefeller Sr. Standard Oil Thomas J. Watson Jr. IBM Henry R. Luce Time-Life Publications Will K. Kellogg Kellogg Warren E. Buffett Berkshire Hathaway Harland Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken William C. Procter Procter & Gamble Thomas J. Watson Sr. IBM Asa G. Candler Coca-Cola Estee Lauder Estee Lauder Henry J. Heinz H.J. Heinz Daniel F. Gerber Jr. Gerber Products James L. Kraft Kraft Foods Steven P. Jobs Apple Computer John T. Dorrance Campbell Soup Leon L. Bean LL Bean William Levitt Levitt & Sons Howard Schultz Starbucks Michael Dell Dell Computer Robert W. Johnson Jr. Johnson & Johnson James E. Casey United Parcel Service Herbert D. Kelleher Southwest Airlines George Eastman Eastman Kodak Philip H. Knight Nike James O. McKinsey McKinsey & Co. Charles R. Schwab Charles Schwab Frederick W. Smith Federal Express William Wrigley Jr. Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. Gordon E. Moore Intel Robert (Ted) E. Turner Turner Broadcasting J. Willard Marriott Jr. Marriott Int'l. James E. Burke Johnson & Johnson David Sarnoff RCA William E. Boeing Boeing Walter A. Haas Sr. Levi Strauss Henry J. Kaiser Kaiser Industries Walter A. Haas Jr. Levi Strauss Clarence Birdseye Bird's Eye Foods
List of Great Military Leaders
Abercromby, Ralph Alaric The Goth Alcibiades Alexander the Great Alexander, Harold Rupert Alfred The Great Allenby, Edmund Henry H. Arnold, Henry H. (Hap) Attila the Hun Babur, Zahiruddin Muhammad Bayezid I Belisarius Berthier, Louis Alexandre Bolivar, Simon Bonaparte, Napoleon Boru, Brian Bradley, Omar Nelson Brooke, Alan Francis (Alanbrooke) Bruce, Robert the Burgoyne, John Caesar, Julius Campbell, Colin Canute Carnot, Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Charlemagne (Charles the Great) Charles XII Chiang Kai-shek Chief Joseph Churchill, John (Duke of Marlborough) Churchill, Winston S. Clovis of the Franks Cochrane, Thomas Comte de Saxe, Hermann-Maurice Constantine The Great Cortés, Hernando Cromwell, Oliver Cyrus the Great Dayan, Moshe De Bourbon, Louis II de Gribeauval, Jean Baptiste Vaquette de San Martin, Jose de Toledo, Fernando Alvarez de Turenne, Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne De Vauban, Sebastien Le Prestre deConde, Louis II de Bourbon, Prince Dewey, George Doenitz, Karl Douhet, Giulio Drake, Francis Edward I Edward The Black Prince Eisenhower, Dwight David El Cid Eugene of Savoy Farragut, David Glasgow Fernadez Gonzalo de Cordoba Fisher, John Arbuthnot Foch, Ferdinand Frederick II (The Great) Fuller, John Frederick Charles Garibaldi, Giuseppe Geronimo Giap, Vo Nguyen Grant, Ulysses Simpson Greene, Nathanael Guderian, Heinz Gustavus Adolphus II Halsey, William, Jr. Hannibal Heihachiro Togo Hitler, Adolf Houston, Sam Il Sung, Kim Jackson, Thomas "Stonewall" Joan of Arc Jomini, Antoine Henri Kaishek, Chiang Kemal, Mustafa (Attaturk) Khalid ibn al-Walid Khan, Genghis Khan, Kublai Kitchener, Horatio Herbert Konev, Ivan Stepanovich Lee, "Lighthorse" Harry Lee, Robert Edward Leo III, The Isaurian Louverture, Toussaint MacArthur, Arthur MacArthur, Douglas Mahan, Alfred Thayer Marshall, George Catlett Martel, Charles Maurice of Nassau Mehmed II, The Conqueror Montgomery, Bernard Law Musashi, Miyamoto Napoleon I Nelson, Horatio Ney, Michel Nimitz, Chester William Nobunaga, Oda Otto The Great Patton, George S., Jr. Pershing, John Joseph Petain, Henri Philippe Peter the Great Philip II Piao, Lin Pizzrro, Francisco Pompey The Great Puller, Lewis B. (Chesty) Richard I (the Lion-Hearted) Roberts, Frederick Sleigh Rommel, Erwin Saladin Schwarzkopg, H. Norman Scipio Africanus Scipio, Publius Cornelius Scott, Winfield Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban Selim I Shaka Zulu Sherman, William T. Smith, Oliver P. Stephen The Great Student, Kurt Suleiman I Suleyman I, The Magnificent Surov, Alexander Vasilevich Suvoruv, Aleksander Tamerlane Themistocles Thomas Cochrane Timur Tito Togo, Heihachiro Torstensson, Lennart Tzu, Sun von Blucher, Gebhard Leberecht von Clausewitz, Karl von Hindenburg, Paul von Mannerheim, Carl Gustav Emil von Moltke, Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Tilly, Johann Tserclaes von Tromp, Maarten von Wallenstein, Albrecht Walker, Walton H. Wallace, William Washington, George Wellesley, Arthur (First Duke of Wellington) William the Conqueror Wolfe, James Wolseley, Garnet Joseph Xenophon Yamamoto, Isoruku Zedong, Mao Zhukov, Georgi Konstantinovich Ziyad, Tariq Ibn Zizka, Jan
List of Great Political Leaders
Constantine the Great Charlemagne Queen Elizabeth I Oliver Cromwell Benjamin Franklin Catherine the Great George Washington Thomas Jefferson Abraham Lincoln Susan B. Anthony Winston Churchill Franklin D. Roosevelt John F. Kennedy Mahatma Gandhi Martin Luther King
Great Religious Leaders
Abraham Moses Lao Tzu Buddha Confucius Jesus Christ The Apostle Paul Saint Augustine Mohammad Thomas Aquinas Martin Luther John Calvin Joseph Smith
Leadership Glossary
Numbers in brackets indicate chapter reference. A - Achievement motivation, Assertiveness, Attributions, Attribution theory, Autocratic leader
B - Bandwagon technique, Behavior modification, Behavior shaping, Blemish
C - Casual time orientation, Centrality, Charisma, Coalition, Coercive power, Cognitive factors, Cognitive resource theory, Collectivisim, Commitment, Compliance, Concern for others, Concert building, Congruence, Conjunctive communication, Consensus leader, Consideration of others, Consultative leader, Contingency approach to leadership, Cooperation theory, Crisis leadership, Creativity, Cultural sensitivity
D – Debasement, Delegation, Democratic leader, Disjunctive communication, Diversity training, Domains of impact, Double-loop learning, Drive
E - Effective leader, Emotional intelligence, Emotional stability, Employee network group, Empowerment, Ethics, Executive coach (or business coach), Expectancy, Expectancy theory, Experience of flow, Expert power, Expertise approach
F – Farsightedness, Feedback-intensive development program, Flexibility, Forced-association technique, Formality
G – Game, Goal, Groupthink
H - Hands-on leader, High tolerance for frustration
I – Individualism, Influence, Informality, Information power, Initiating structure, Innovation, Insight, Instrumentality, Integrity, Internal locus of control
K - Knowledge management (KM)
L - Lateral thinking, Leader-member exchange model (LMX), Leadership, Leadership diversity, Leadership effectiveness, Leadership Grid, Leadership pipeline, Leadership polarity, Leadership style, Leadership succession, Leading by example, Lead user, Learning organization, Legitimate power, Linguistic style, Long-term orientation
M – Machiavellians, Management by anecdote, Materialism, Mentor, Micromanagement, Morals, Multicultural leader, Multicultural organization, Multicultural worker, Multifunctional managerial development
N - Normative decision model
O - Open-book management, Organizational creativity, Organizational politics, Outcome
P - Participative leader, Partnership, Path-goal theory, Personal magnetism, Personal power, Personalized charismatic, Persuade package, Pet-peeve technique, Power, Power distance, Prestige power, Pygmalion effect
R – Readiness, Referent power, Relationship behavior, Resistance, Resource dependence perspective, Reward power
S - Self-awareness, Self-discipline, Self-efficacy, Servant leader, Shadowing, Short-term orientation, Silent treatment, Single-loop learning, Situational leadership model, Socialized charismatic, Social loafing, Social responsibility, Stewardship theory, Strategic contingency theory, Strategic leadership, Strategic management, Strategic planning, Strategy, Substitutes for leadership, Supportive communication, SWOT analysis
T - Task behavior, Team, Teamwork, Territorial games, Total quality management (TQM), Tough question, Traditional mental set, Transformational leader, Trust
U - Uncertainty avoidance, Universal theory of leadership, Upward appeal, Urgent time organization
V – Valence, Vertical thinking, Virtual office, Virtuous cycle, Vision
W – Whistleblower, Will to lead, Win-win approach to conflict resolution, Work ethic
General Reference
Web Portals
The following portals provide resources on research, directory, search engine / search engines, yellow pages, classifieds
AOL, Yahoo, Google, eBay, YouTube, Yahoo Groups, Wikipedia, CNN, Time, Forbes, Fortune, BBC
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