Text 2. Leadership styles.
Leadership styles can be classified on the basis of how leaders use their authority. The three basic styles are described as autocratic, democratic and free-rein leader.
The autocratic leader is defined as one who commands and expects compliance, who is dogmatic and positive, and who leads by the ability to withhold or give rewards and punishment.
The democratic, or participative, leader consults with subordinates on proposed actions and decisions and encourages participation from them. This type of leader is seen as ranging from the person who does not take action without subordinates’ concurrence to the one who makes decisions but consults with subordinates before doing so.
The third type of leader uses his or her power very little, if at all, giving subordinates a high degree of independence, or free rein, in their operations. Such leaders depend largely on subordinates to set their own goals and the means of achieving them, and they see their role as one of aiding the operations of followers by giving them necessary information and acting as a contact with the group’s external environment.
Text 3. Effective Leadership
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, they will say: we did it ourselves.” - Lao Tzu
Leadership Defined
“Leadership is influencing people to get things done to a standard and quality above their norm and doing it willingly.”
As an element in social interaction, leadership is a complex activity involving:
1. a process of influence
2. actors who are both leaders and followers
3. a range of possible outcomes - the achievement of goals, but also the commitment of individuals to such goals, the enhancement of group cohesion and the reinforcement of change of organizational culture.
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What is Leadership? Three simple one-line answers |
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1. The easy answer: leadership is getting people to do things they have never thought of doing, do not believe are possible or that they do not want to do. 2. The leadership in organizations answer: leadership is the action of committing employees to contribute their best to the purpose of the organization. 3. The complex (and more accurate) answer: you only know leadership by its consequences - from the fact that individuals or a group of people start to behave in a particular way as result of the actions of someone else. |
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Three Levels of Leadership in Organizations |
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Text 3. Characteristics of an Effective Leader |
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Gives direction, sets an example, and shares risks or hardship on an equal footing
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Wins respect without courting popularity
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Leads by example; practices what he or she preaches
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Listens with understanding; willing to discuss and solve problems; open to ideas; gives time to listen
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Supports and helps; backs you up; is on your side; remembers your problem
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Uses team approach; helps group reach better decisions; facilitates cooperation
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Avoids close supervision; does not overboss; does not dictate or rule by the book
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Delegates authority; trusts group; relies on their judgment; permits group decision; has faith in the creativity of others
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Communicates openly and honestly; tells you what he thinks; you can trust what he says
Brings out best in his men; has common touch with the work
Effective Leadership as a Source of Competitive Business Advantage
Leadership is imperative for molding a group of people into a team, shaping them into a force that serves as a competitive business advantage. Leaders know how to make people function in a collaborative fashion, and how to motivate them to excel their performance. Leaders also know how to balance the individual team member’s quest with the goal of producing synergy - an outcome that exceeds the sum of individual inputs. Leaders require that their team members forego the quest for personal best in concert with the team effort.
Text 4 Role, Task, Responsibility, and Source of Power of a Leader
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The role of a leader is to create followers.
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The task of a leader is to bring about constructive and necessary change.
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The responsibility of a leader is to bring about the change in a way that is responsive to the true and long-term needs of all stakeholders.
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The greatest source of power available to a leader is the trust that derives from faithfully serving followers.
Learning to Lead
Effective leaders recognize that what they know is very little in comparison to what they still need to learn. To be more proficient in pursuing and achieving objectives, you should be open to new ideas, insights, and revelations that can lead to better ways to accomplishing goals. This continuous learning process can be exercised, in particular, through engaging yourself in a constant dialogue with your peers, advisers, consultants, team members, suppliers, customers, and competitors.
Leading others is not simply a matter of style, or following some how-to guides or recipes. Ineffectiveness of leaders seldom results from a lack of know-how or how-to, nor is it typically due to inadequate managerial skills. Leadership is even not about creating a great vision. It is about creating conditions under which all your followers can perform independently and effectively toward a common objective.
James O’Tool, a noted management theorist proposes a new vision of leadership in the business world - a values-based leadership that is not only fair and just, but also highly effective in today’s complex organizations. It is based on:
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your ideas and values;
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your understanding of the differing and conflicting needs of your followers;
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your ability to energize followers to pursue a better goal that they had thought possible;
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your skills in creating a values-based umbrella large enough to accommodate the various interests of followers, but focused enough to direct all their energies in pursuit of a common good.
Building Better Leaders through Attributes
Leadership attributes are the inner or personal qualities that constitute effective leadership. These attributes include a large array of characteristics such as values, character, motives, habits, traits, motives, style, behaviors, and skills.
Results-based Leadership
What is missing in most leadership-related writings and teachings is the lack of attention to results. Most of them focus on organizational capabilities - such as adaptability, agility, mission-directed, or values-based - or on leadership competencies - such as vision, character, trust, and other exemplary attributes, competencies and capabilities. All well and good, but what is seriously missing is the connection between these critical capabilities and results1. And this is what results-based leadership is all about: how organizational capabilities and leadership competencies lead to and are connected to desired results.
Coaching - a Vital Skill for Leaders
The new breed of leaders recognizes that autocracy no longer works, yet that employee empowerment alone is not enough. The skills of coaching have lately been rediscovered by more effective organizations and teams. You cannot be a leader without followers, and you have to delegate appropriately. The leader is best placed to enhance the performance and learning abilities, on the job, of colleagues. Coaching aims to enhance these abilities. “It involves providing feedback, but it also uses other techniques such as motivation, effective questioning and consciously matching your management style to the coachee’s readiness to undertake a particular task”.
Text 5 .Super-Leadership - Leading Others to Lead Themselves
Super-leaders help each of their followers to develop into an effective self-leader by providing them with the behavioral and cognitive skills necessary to exercise self-leadership. “Super-leaders establish values, model, encourage, reward, and in many other ways foster self-leadership in individuals, teams, and wider organizational cultures”.5
An important measure of a leader’s own success is the success of his or her followers. The strength of a leader is measured by the ability to facilitate the self-leadership of others. The first critical step towards this goal is to master self leadership. If leaders want to lead somebody, they must first lead themselves.
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Key Benefits of Super-Leadership |
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Why Super-Leadership? Super-leadership is a new form of leadership for the era of knowledge-based enterprises distinguished by flat organizational structures and employee empowerment. A super-leader is one who leads others to lead themselves through designing and implementing the system that allows and teaches employees to be self-leaders. “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers”
Empowered Self-Leadership The best organizations have a theory and practice of leadership that subscribes to and promotes the concept that leadership exists at all levels within the organization. “Everyone provides leadership for those responsibilities that have been assigned to them. For the highest performing organizations, even the lowest-ranked staff within an organization must assume leadership and attention to detail for their responsibilities in a manner similar to the most senior and powerful”. With super-leadership, followers are treated - and become - self-leaders. |
Text 6. The Difference between Managing and Leading
“Understanding people will help you make the shift from managing to leading a business.”
Leaders are the heart of business. The essence of leadership means inspiring a group to come together to common goal. Leaders motivate, console and work with people to keep them bonded and eager to move forward. That means setting a direction, communicating it to everyone who will listen (and probably many who won’t) and keeping people inspired when times get tough.
Managers are the brains of the business. They establish systems, create rules and operating procedures, and put in incentive programs and the like. Management, however, is about the business, not the people; the people are important as a way of getting the job done.
Most business executives and owners have a mix of management and leadership skills. Both skill sets are necessary to run a successful business. Leadership skills provide the direction, while management skills provide the systems that let a company grow with success.
Unless you have the luxury of hiring managers and concentrating solely on leadership, you‘ll still be managing. But now, you must also lead. And, in many ways, your leading – which produces no tangible results – is more important than your managing.
Only the top executives can set direction in a company. Setting direction is different from setting goals. A goal is concentrate and measurable. “We must sell 10 widgets by next Tuesday” Direction is broader. Leaders set direction with a vision, a mission and operating principles that embody the company’s direction and values.
For instance, a mission statement for the imaginary “Personal Assistant Inc.” company might sound like this: “We free people from life’s drudgery, freeing them to live a life of doing only things they do best”. This mission doesn’t give measurable goals, but rather points to an overall direction – it gets people exited and moving in one direction. A Personal Assistants employee wouldn’t suddenly decide to diversify into heavy farm machinery; it doesn’t fit the mission. Yet the mission is broad enough that the company can create a rich set of offerings over many decades.
Specific projects and products may come and go, but the mission gives the company an enduring direction.
As a business owner, you need to know your business direction. It might be broad, sweeping and world-shattering. Or it might be smaller and local. But your job is to set the direction for everyone around you and communicate it well.
People sometimes forget a company direction in the heat of excitement over a new ideas or market development that happens once or twice, it’s not a problem. But too many diversions can cause a company to lose focus and end up serving many different customers, none of them well.
Your job is to bring people back to the company direction gently and consistently and always challenge them to evaluate ideas and decisions with respect to the decision. If Personal Assistant proposes asking clients to give 24-hour notice when they have a project, the leader simply asks: “Does this help us free clients from drudgery or make more for them?” The team can then decide (or even ask customers) whether the suggestion aligns with the mission.
Keep in mind that people easily lose sight of the big picture when they get caught up in life’s daily details. As leader, you must know how to bring them back and make sure they know the way.
There’s much more to a business leader’s job, but you’ll start off on the right foot by developing a direction, aligning your organization behind the common goal and bringing them back when they stray.
Setting direction sounds easy, but it requires vigilance and work. And you’re the only one who can do it. Pointing the way and rallying the troops forward are two primary responsibilities of a successful leader.
Text 7. How to be a Successful Leader.
All good leaders have this in common, positive self-esteem. It is vital to your success as a business person and a human being. You must feel about yourself to accomplish great things and have control over your life.
1. Goals are the means to use to-reach your dreams. Do not make your goals unrealistic.
2. Use small successes to generate lager ones.
3. Keep pushing yourself to allow you to reach your full potential. There is a price to pay to be successful, and that price is hard work. Do not be afraid of it.
4. Being positive is an attitude that can be controlled by you.
5. Surround yourself with positive people and block out all negative ones you come in contact with.
6. Good habits should be second nature.
7. Make sure that every day you are in control. Be focused and don’t put things off until tomorrow. It can be a bad habit.
8. Communicating is a powerful force, and that doesn’t mean you should be doing all the talking. You must listen.
9. How you relate to people in your business is extremely important. Treat them with respect.
10. A good leader will learn from others. Do not allow your ego stop you from seeking advice from people that have been there before you. Learn from their mistakes.
11. Pressure and stress are two different animals. Pressure makes a person more focused. Stress robs you of it and harms your performance.
12. Anyone can be great for a short time, but to be successful over the duration of your life, you must be persistent. The essence of persistence is not to quit. Take this word out of your vocabulary.
13. How you handle adversity is a sign of your maturity. Do not be afraid of it, meet it head on and take immediate action, because it won’t go away by itself.
14. If you fail, accept it. You learn by failure and you’ll be better prepared and wiser the next time around.
15. Keep striving for excellence.
Text 8 . Leadership and organizational values
“Organizational values” is an over used and perhaps an abused term in companies across the world. You find a well decorated and eye catching board carrying values statement or credo statement in every executive’s room and at many prominent places in a company. Why are values so important and how are they useful for the organization?