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LEADERSHIP
Concept of Leadership is very important in organizations because leaders are
the ones who make things
happen. Without leaders, an organization would find it difficult to get things
done. Leaders mostly help
others to learn – just as a coach would help players play instead of playing
himself. This lecture
introduces students to the concept of leadership and leadership effectiveness by
providing working
definitions and by emphasizing the cultural limitations of the concepts. It
presents several cultural
models that are used throughout the text to explain cross-cultural difference in
leadership. There is no
universally agreeable definition of leadership. Just go and type “leadership” on
Google and you can
find more than 186,000,000 different pages of reference on web. It involves
influencing attitudes,
behaviors, beliefs and feelings of people and believes to be an important topic.
Peter Drucker the guru of Management defines Leadership as “The only definition
of a leader is
someone who has followers." While John C Maxwell defines "leadership is
influence - nothing more,
nothing less." According to John W. Gardner Leadership is “the process of
persuasion and example by
which an individual (or leadership team) induces a group to take action that is
in accord with the
leader’s purpose, or the shared purposes of all.”
Remember Leadership is a process and not a position. This important process has
three important
components/ingredients. 1) Leader, 2) Followers and 3) Situation. These three
components play very
important role on the process of leadership.
Leaders are those persons who are able to influence others and who
possess managerial authority.
Leadership, then, is the ability to influence a group toward the
achievement of goals. Trust is the
foundation of leadership. Leaders develop an environment of trust where the
organizational members
tend to establish a follower-ship with the leader.
Who is a leader? A leader is defined as any person who influences
individuals and groups/teams
within an organization, helps them in the establishment of goals, and guides
them toward achievement
of those goals, thereby allowing them to be effective.
Characteristics of Successful Leaders Effective and successful leaders
have certain characteristics.
They are good communicators, they motivate others (team members), they are good
team builders,
solve problems of others and of organizations, they are good listeners and
resolve conflicts, anticipate
change and mange it within team and organizations, they encourage risk taking by
their team members
and also to promote the creativities.
If you study the life of successful leaders, you can find them a challenger of
the process, they inspire a
shared vision, enable others to act, they model the way by showing the path,
encourage the followers,
act as change agent and take followers to the destination.
Similarly, we also discussed leaders of corporate sector who created impression
in this world.
1. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft
2. Sam Walton, former CEO of Wal-Mart
3. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric
4. Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrysler
5. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple
6. Walter E. Disney Walt Disney
7. Henry Ford Ford Motor
8. William C. Procter Procter & Gamble
9. Asa G. Candler Coca-Cola
10. Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computer
11. Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel
12. Ted Turner, founder of CNN
13. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com
14. Phil Knight, CEO of Nike
15. Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM
16. Robert W. Johnson Jr. Johnson &
Johnson
Think of someone in your life whom you would consider as “Leader”. What are the
qualities of
character that this person has? I try to enlist few important characters that
person “leader” may have..
Are we born with these qualities or are they learned behaviors? To some degree
we have all of them --
some more so than others. We must choose and work to strengthen these qualities
in ourselves if we
are to be effective leaders.
Do we really need leaders? Consider how life would be different without
leadership in e.g. Families,
Education, Businesses, Service Associations, Teams, Countries and World.
Why Study Leadership?
_ Understanding
leadership helps organizations:
– To select the right people for
leadership positions
– To train people in leadership positions to
improve to improve their performance
_ Who benefits?
Leaders, followers, organizations and society as a whole.
• Honest, trustworthy
• Good role model
• Caring
• Committed
• Good listener
• Treats people with respect
• Positive, enthusiastic
• Risk taker
• Planner
• Decision Maker
• Consistent
• Open
• Accountable
• Transparent
• Responsible
• Sensitive
• Connected to the Community
• Knowledge
• Wisdom
• Social Skills |
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