Leadership

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 547.

Leadership is needed at all levels in an organization. It is likely, however, that the leadership qualities required by a supervisor or manager are not the same as those required by the chief executive of a company. It is, therefore, difficult to define leadership satisfactorily.

A typical definition is that the leader 'provides direction and influences others to achieve common goals'. This is true in the case of supervisors and managers, but is it a good definition of the leader of an organization? A chief executive must indeed give 'direction' but he must do much more than that. He has to create 'a sense of excitement' in the organization, and convince staff that he knows where the business is going. In addition he must be a focus for their aspirations. As Peter Drucker, the American writer, says, 'Leadership is the lifting of a man's vision to higher sights, the raising of a man's performance to a higher standard, the building of a man's personality beyond its normal limitations'.

When psychologists and other researchers first studied leadership, they tried to find out if leaders had special personal qualities or skills. They asked the question: Were there specific traits which made leaders different from other people ? The results of their research were disappointing. In time it became clear that there was not a set of qualities distinguishing leaders from non leaders. Some studies had suggested, for example, that leaders were more intelligent, more self-confident, had better judgment etc. than other people. But, it was pointed out , many people with these traits do not become leaders. And many leaders do not have such traits!