Definition and Meaning of leadership

Leadership is the ability to influence individuals or groups toward the achievement of goals. Leadership, as a process, shapes the goals of a group or organization, motivates behavior toward the achievement of those goals, and helps define group or organizational culture. It is primarily a process of influence.

Concept of leadership
Leadership is the kind of responsibility, which aims at achieving particular ends, by utilizing available resources (human and material), to make organization cohesive and coherent. There are different views of leadership in this regards. According to the traditional view, there are certain traits and characteristic of leaders which distinguish leaders from non-leaders. Perhaps, recent research has shifted from traditional trait or personality theory to the situation theory, which says that the kind of situation in which leadership is exercised determine the leadership skills and characteristics; as for instance crisis situation, (it may be financial or security). Leaders are not born, but made. In order to become a good leader, one must have the experience, knowledge, will-power, patience, and most importantly the skill to convince others. The basis of a good leadership is strong character and selfless devotion to an organization. Leadership in your employees eyes is everything that you do, which effect the achievement of objectives and well being of employees and organization. Honorable leaders give mush importance to, what they are, what they know and what they do for an organization. To be trustworthy is important for all kinds of organized human groups, whether these are military, religion, nation, countries, or states, business and other kinds of organizations.

PRINCIPLES OF LEADERSHIP
Know yourself and seek self-improvement - In order to know yourself, you have to understand your attributes. Seeking self-improvement means continually strengthening your attributes. This can be accomplished through self-study, formal classes, reflection, and interacting with others. Be technically proficient - As a leader, you must know your job and have a solid familiarity with your employees' tasks.

 Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions - Search for ways to guide your organization to new heights. And when things go wrong, they always do sooner or later - do not blame others. Analyze the situation, take corrective action, and move on to the next challenge. Make sound and timely decisions - Use good problem solving, decision making, and planning tools. Set the example - Be a good role model for your employees. They must not only hear what they are expected to do, but also see. Keep your workers informed - Know how to communicate with not only them, but also seniors and other key people. Develop a sense of responsibility in your workers - Help to develop good character traits that will help them carry out their professional responsibilities. Ensure that tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished Communication is the key to this responsibility. Train as a team - Although many so called leaders call their organization, department, section, etc. a team; they are not really teams...they are just a group of people doing their jobs. Use the full capabilities of your organization - By developing a team spirit, you will be able to employ your organization, department, section, etc. to its fullest capabilities.

Types of leadership styles

Bureaucratic leadership Charismatic leadership Autocratic leadership Democratic leadership or participative leadership Laissez-faire leadership People-oriented leadership or relations-oriented leadership Servant leadership Task-oriented leadership

Transactional leadership Transformational leadership

The bureaucratic leader is very structured and follows the procedures as they have been established. This type of leadership has no space to explore new ways to solve problems and is usually slow paced to ensure adherence to the ladders stated by the company. Leaders ensure that all the steps have been followed prior to sending it to the next level of authority. Universities, hospitals, banks and government usually require this type of leader in their organizations to ensure quality, increase security and decrease corruption. Leaders that try to speed up the process will experience frustration and anxiety.

The charismatic leader leads by infusing energy and eagerness into their team members. This type of leader has to be committed to the organization for the long run. If the success of the division or project is attributed to the leader and not the team, charismatic leaders may become a risk for the company by deciding to resign for advanced opportunities. It takes the company time and hard work to gain the employees' confidence back with other type of leadership after they have committed themselves to the magnetism of a charismatic leader.

The autocratic leader is given the power to make decisions alone, having total authority. This leadership style is good for employees that need close supervision to perform certain tasks. Creative employees and team players resent this type of leadership, since they are unable to enhance processes or decision making, resulting in job dissatisfaction.

The democratic leader listens to the team's ideas and studies them, but will make the final decision. Team players contribute to the final decision thus increasing employee satisfaction and ownership, feeling their input was considered when the final decision was taken. When changes arises, this type of leadership helps the team assimilate the changes better and more rapidly than other styles, knowing they were consulted and contributed to the decision making process, minimizing resistance and intolerance. A shortcoming of this leadership style is that it has difficulty when decisions are needed in a short period of time or at the moment.

The laissez-faire ("let do") leader gives no continuous feedback or supervision because the employees are highly experienced and need little supervision to obtain the expected outcome. On the other hand, this type of style is also associated with leaders that dont lead at all, failing in supervising team members, resulting in lack of control and higher costs, bad service or failure to meet deadlines.

The people-oriented leader is the one that, in order to comply with effectiveness and efficiency, supports, trains and develops his personnel, increasing job satisfaction and genuine interest to do a good job.

The task-oriented leader focuses on the job, and concentrates on the specific tasks assigned to each employee to reach goal accomplishment. This leadership style suffers the same motivation issues as autocratic leadership, showing no involvement in the teams needs. It requires close supervision and control to achieve expected results.

The servant leader facilitates goal accomplishment by giving its team members what they need in order to be productive. This leader is an instrument employees use to reach the goal rather than a commanding voice that moves to change. This leadership style, in a manner similar to democratic leadership, tends to achieve the results in a slower time frame than other styles, although employee engagement is higher.

The transaction leader is given power to perform certain tasks and reward or punish for the teams performance. It gives the opportunity to the manager to lead the group and the group agrees to follow his lead to accomplish a predetermined goal in exchange for something else. Power is given to the leader to evaluate, correct and train subordinates when productivity is not up to the desired level and reward effectiveness when expected outcome is reached.

The transformation leader motivates its team to be effective and efficient. Communication is the base for goal achievement focusing the group in the final desired outcome or goal attainment. This leader is highly visible and uses chain of command to get the job done. Transformational leaders focus on the big picture, needing to be surrounded by people who take care of the details. The leader is always looking for ideas that move the organization to reach the companys vision.

The environment leader is the one who nurtures group or organizational environment to affect the emotional and psychological perception of an individuals place in that group or organization. An understanding and application of group psychology and dynamics is essential for this style to be effective. The leader uses organizational culture to inspire individuals and develop leaders at all levels. This leadership style relies on creating an education matrix where groups interactively learn the fundamental psychology of group

dynamics and culture from each other. The leader uses this psychology, and complementary language, to influence direction through the members of the inspired group to do what is required for the benefit of all.

LEADERSHIP THEORIES
There is a wide and ever growing variety of theories to explain the concept and practice of leadership. Most theories view leadership as grounded in one or more of the following three perspectives: leadership as a process or relationship, leadership as a combination of traits or personality characteristics, or leadership as certain behaviors or, as they are more commonly referred to, leadership skills. In virtually all of the more dominant theories there exist the notions that, at least to some degree, leadership is a process that involves influence with a group of people toward the realization of goals.

Trait Theory
This theory postulates that people are either born or not born with the qualities that predispose them to success in leadership roles. That is, that certain inherited qualities, such as personality and cognitive ability, are what underlie effective leadership. There have been hundreds of studies to determine the most important leadership traits, and while there is always going to be some disagreement, intelligence, sociability, and drive (aka determination) are consistently cited as key qualities.

Skills Theory
This theory states that learned knowledge and acquired skills/abilities are significant factors in the practice of effective leadership. Skills theory by no means disavows the connection between inherited traits and the capacity to be an effective leader it simply argues that learned skills, a developed style, and acquired knowledge, are the real keys to leadership performance. It is of course the belief that skills theory is true that warrants all the effort and resources devoted to leadership training and development

Situational Theory
This theory suggests that different situations require different styles of leadership. That is, to be effective in leadership requires the ability to adapt or adjust ones style to the circumstances of the situation. The primary factors that determine how to adapt are an assessment of the competence and commitment of a leaders followers. The assessment of these factors determines if a leader should use a more directive or supportive style.

Contingency Theory
This theory states that a leaders effectiveness is contingent on how well the leaders style matches a specific setting or situation. And how, you may ask, is this different from situational theory? In situational the focus is on adapting to the situation, whereas contingency states that effective leadership depends on the degree of fit between a leaders qualities and style and that of a specific situation or context.

Path-Goal Theory
This theory is about how leaders motivate followers to accomplish identified objectives. It postulates that effective leaders have the ability to improve the motivation of followers by clarifying the paths and removing obstacles to high performance and desired objectives. The underlying beliefs of path-goal theory (grounded in expectancy theory) are that people will be more focused and motivated if they believe they are capable of high performance, believe their effort will result in desired outcomes, and believe their work is worthwhile.

Transformational Theory
This theory states that leadership is the process by which a person engages with others and is able to create a connection that results in increased motivation and morality in both followers and leaders. It is often likened to the theory of charismatic leadership that espouses that leaders with certain qualities, such as confidence, extroversion, and clearly stated values, are best able to motivate followers. The key in transformational leadership is for the leader to be attentive to the needs and motives of followers in an attempt to help them reach their maximum potential. In addition, transformational leadership typically describes how leaders can initiate, develop, and implement important changes in an organization. This theory is often discussed in contrast with transactional leadership.

Transactional Theory
This is a theory that focuses on the exchanges that take place between leaders and followers. It is based in the notion that a leaders job is to create structures that make it abundantly clear what is expected of his/her followers and also the consequences (i.e.

rewards and punishments) for meeting or not meeting these expectations. This theory is often likened to the concept and practice of management and continues to be an extremely common component of many leadership models and organizational structures.

Servant Leadership Theory

This conceptualization of leadership reflects a philosophy that leaders should be servants first. It suggests that leaders must place the needs of followers, customers, and the community ahead of their own interests in order to be effective. The idea of servant leadership has a significant amount of popularity within leadership circles but it is difficult to describe it as a theory inasmuch as a set of beliefs and values that leaders are encouraged to embrace.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/kangfan/entry/trait_theory_

2. http://www.enotes.com/leadership-theories-studies-reference/leadershiptheories-studies 3. http://www.legacee.com/Info/Leadership/LeadershipStyles.html 4. http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_84.htm 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership