CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

3. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

4. NATURE AND CHARECTERISTICS OF LEADERSHIP

5. FUNCTIONS OF A LEADER

6. LEADERSHIP APPROACHES

7. LEADERSHIP STYLES

8. TIPS FOR IMPROVING LEADERSHIP

9. CONCLUSION

10.BIBILIOGRAPHY

11. SUMMARY
 LEADERSHIP SKILLS

INTRODUCTION:

“At the age of seven, a young boy and his family were forced out of their home. The boy
had to work to support his family. At the age of nine, his mother passed away. When he
grew up, the young man was keen to go to law school, but had no education.

At 22, he lost his job as a store clerk. At 23, he ran for state legislature and lost. The same
year, he went into business. It failed, leaving him with a debt that took him 17 years to
repay. At 27, he had a nervous breakdown.

Two years later, he tried for the post of speaker in his state legislature. He lost. At 31, he
was defeated in his attempt to become an elector. By 35, he had been defeated twice
while running for Congress. Finally, he did manage to secure a brief term in Congress,
but at 39 he lost his re-election bid.

At 41, his four-year-old son died. At 42, he was rejected as a prospective land officer. At
45, he ran for the Senate and lost. Two years later, he lost the vice presidential
nomination. At 49, he ran for Senate and lost again.

At 51, he was elected the President of the United States of America.

The man in question: Abraham Lincoln.”

Leadership has been a term, which has been written about, researched, and discussed very
much for a long time. Throughout history it has been recognized that the success or
failure of a war, political movement, business or games can be largely attributed to
leadership. We often talk about the success of a political movement or the loss of a team
in cricket game due to good or absence of leadership. It is known to exist and to have a
tremendous influence on human performance. But its inner working or its specific
dimensions have not been very clearly brought out. Hence a clear definition of the term
has not been given any authority.

DEFINITION:

According to Koontz and o’ Donnell “it is the art of including the subordinates to
accomplish their assignments with zeal and confidence. Zeal reflects ardour, earnestness
and intensity in execution of work; confidence reflects experience and technical ability.”
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

TITLE: LEADERSHIP VIRTUSO

ONE-LINE OBJECTIVE: To know about the various leadership

approaches and styles and to improve leadership skills
 Objectives of the study

♦ To know about the nature, characteristics and functions of a leader

♦ To know about the various leadership theories
♦ To know about the various leadership skills
♦ Improving leadership skills
 NATURE AND CHARECTERISTICS OF LEADERSHIP:

1. co-existence with follower ship:

It is natural that a leader cannot exist without followers existing. A leader

exercises authority over the group, and it should be willingly accepted by his
followers. If not, that is if authority is not voluntarily accepted or if it is imposed
on a group it is not leading but domination. Leadership is not conferred or ordered
but is one to be earned. A leader commands the respect, loyalty, and confidence
on the part of his followers.

2. Responsibility:

In his capacity as a leader a person is expected to assume full responsibility in all

situations. Since he is to act as a guide, he is required to assist and encourage the
weak, influence and control the strong and generally help the entire group to
perform their tasks and attain their objectives as a whole group with an effective
team work. In doing this, he must steer the group clear of all difficulties. In short
he has to assume responsibility for all actions of the group.

3. Understanding nature:

Another important characteristic feature of leadership is its nature to understand

the feelings and problems of the group as a whole as well as the individuals.
Besides a guide a leader is looked upon as a friend and a philosopher. Hence a
leader should strive to satisfy the personal and social needs of his followers,
which is very much expected by them.

4. Precedence:

Effective leadership sets itself as an example for the followers. Since the leader
influences the behavior and the activities of the followers he should be endowed
with the technical competence and personality traits. He should also be well
aware of his own preferences and limitations to impress upon his followers.
Technical knowledge and personality helps him in granting confidence,
conviction and self awareness leading to faith and determination to pursue a
course of action successfully to its end. Unless the leader is certain and positive
of the results he cannot inspire others in following him.

5. Situation:

Leadership patterns changes according to the type of group and the situation in
which the group is operating. It is not something which is followed abstractly
without consideration to the people and the environment. Their education,
experience and training levels only determine the pattern of leadership, along with
tradition of the company, nature of operations, conditions in which operations are
carried out etc., which have considerable influence on the role to be adopted by
the leader in different situations.
 FUNCTIONS OF LEADERSHIP:

1. Motivate and guide:

Performance of human beings tends to be at its peak only if their motivation is at
a higher level. Leadership provides the motivation and assistance in
accomplishment of group goals. By motivating, leadership elevates men’s vision
and goals to higher performance. Leadership helps, inspires, guides and directs
group members in order to obtain the best of their abilities. It acts as an
integrating force without which the team spirit is destroyed.

2. Assists social system:

In present days individual tend to depend more on the group ability than
individual ability for achievement of their goals in life. Hence the society in
general depends upon leadership. Group efficiency in its turn depends upon
leadership. Every group looks upon the leader as he provides the group and
identity of interest, imagination foresight, enthusiasm and initiative. Leadership
exhibits an imitable code of conduct and responsibility, prescribes a high standard
of performance and stresses the importance of respect for the individual.
Unsatisfactory performance of individuals in any organization can be attributed
primarily to lack of leadership.

3. Enlists co-operation:
By a mutual process of understanding, the leader not only influences the
subordinate but also gets influenced by their problems and feelings. Through his
skills of sympathetic contacts, careful listening and correct diagnosis their
confidence is won which paves way for their voluntary co-operation.

4. Performances:
Through proper motivational techniques and guidance understanding subordinates
and securing their co-operation leadership creates a climate for performance, by
enabling the followers to apply their full capabilities for work accomplishment
and obtaining their unselfish support. The extent to which the leader understands
and uses these techniques the more effective he is likely to be in getting things
done.
 LEADERSHIP THEORY:

Due to the importance of leadership of all kinds of group action, too many numbers of
theories have been propounded from out of voluminous research done over a long period
of time. The various approaches to the theory of leadership are the trait approach,
behavioral approach, situational approach.

Trait approach:

Scientific analysis of leadership basically was started by concentrating on the

leaders themselves. In this, importance was given to the characteristics or the
traits that made a person good leader.

Keith davis has summarized four of the major traits which might have an impact
on successful organizational leadership. They are:

Intelligence: Research has shown that generally a leader has higher intelligence
that the average intelligence of the followers. However the leader cannot be
exceedingly much more intelligent than his followers

Social maturity and breath: Leaders tend to be emotionally stable and mature and
to have broad interests and activities. They have an assured, respectful self
concept

Inner motivation and achievement drives: Leaders have relatively intense

motivational drives of the achievement type. The strive for intrinsic than extrinsic
rewards.

Human relations attitude: Successful leaders recognize the worth and dignity of
their followers and are able to emphasize with them. According to research
studies leaders possess consideration and are employee centered rather than
production centered.

Behavioral approach:

This deals with behaviour patterns of the leader than their personal traits. Emphasis is
given to what the leaders do rather than what they are perceived to be

The behavioral patterns could broadly be classified as

1. Autocratic
2. Participative or supportive
3. Instrumental or instrumental supportive]
 An autocratic leader is one who commands and expects compliance. He is dogmatic
and positive and leads by his ability to withhold or give rewards and punishments.

The participative or supportive leadership behaviour is based on the assumption that

people essentially want to participate, want to accomplish and will work well if
general supervision is employed and where they are allowed to use there own
initiative and support is given while accomplishing their task.

Instrumental behaviour of leadership emphasizes the leaders role as a manager in the

rational aspects of management namely planning, organizing, controlling etc.

Situation approach:

Stagdill and his associates through their research in the 50’s came out with a new
approach. It was based on the premise that leadership is strongly affected by the
situation from which the leader emerges and in which he operates. According to
their research findings the leadership ability was heavily affected by such
situational factors like their job, the organizational environment in which they
operated history of the enterprise, community in which the organization operates
psychological climate of the group their characteristics, group member
personalities and cultural influences and so on.

Hence according to this approach leadership effectiveness depends upon the

various elements in the group environment. A manager might do well in his role
as a leader if he applies his knowledge to the realities of the group reporting to
him and in doing so taking into account the underlying motivation of the people
and his ability to satisfy them in the interest of attaining the enterprise goals.
 LEADERSHIP STYLES:

The absence of a clear definition for leadership resulted in search of a way to

establish the nature of leadership. Lots of research efforts have been involved in
bringing out the nature and characteristics of leadership.

1. Ohio state leadership studies:

The Bureau of Business Research at Ohio State University started research on
studies of leadership in 1945. From the analysis two important dimensions were
figuring continually. They were consideration and initiating structure.

Consideration factor meant that a friendly, trusting, respectful and warm

relationship existed between the superior and the subordinates studied.

Initiating structure meant that the leader organized and defined the relationship
between him and the subordinates by which he defined the role he expected each
subordinate to assume and established well defined patterns of organization,
channels of communication and ways of getting jobs done.

The two dimensional approach reduced a gap between the task orientation of the
scientific management movement and the human relations emphasis which had
taken from the human relations emphasis which had taken form at that time

2. University of Michigan Research Studies:

This university initiated research in 1947 to determine the principles which

contribute both to the productivity of the group and to the satisfaction that the
group members derive from their participation. In this study a systematic
measurement was made of the perceptions and attitudes of supervisors and
workers.

Likerts four systems of management leadership style

The Michigan university study was continued and further refined through
extensive research by Rensis Likert. On the basis he proposes four basic systems
or styles of organizational leadership.

The systems of 1 and 2 leaders are more autocratic in nature with the 1 very
severe and 2 some what considerate. System 3 manager is some what
consultative in nature. He allows is subordinates to participate in discussion but
retains the ultimate right to make decisions. But the system 4 leader is an
absolute democrat giving total participation and deciding on the basis of
consensus.
Thousands of superiors and managers were contacted through questionnaire as a
back up study. This confirmed their theory that high producing concerns were
under system 3 or 4 leaders and low producing concerns were under system 1 or 2
leaders.
Likert went further to make refinements to this mode whereby he wanted to
establish the variables that affected the relationship between leadership and
performance in an organization. These variables are divided into three broad
classes. They are

a) Casual variables: these are the independent variables that determine the
course of development and results of an organization. Only those
variables which can be controlled by the management come under this
category.

Intervening variables: these represent the internal climate of the organization.

These variables have a say on or affect inter personal relations, communication
and decision making in the organization.

b) End result variables: these are the dependent variables leading to the
outcome in the organization. They are productivity, costs, service, profits
etc.

According to Likert there is no direct cause-effect relationship between a casual

variable and an end-result variable. But one criticism on Likert’s work has been
his over dependence on his scale (the 4 systems) and the questionnaire. Another
point of objection is the observation that system 4 is always better than system 1
for management and leadership. As it has been under situations approach this
might not always be the case. The effectiveness of leadership changes invariably
in different situations.

3. Fielder’s contingency model of leadership:

Fred fielder is the proponent of the situational theory whereby he claimed that
there is no inherently good or bad leadership but the effectiveness of leadership or
otherwise was a matter of situational factors. In his research he used a novel
method for measurement of leadership effectiveness. He tried to indicate scores
by measuring the Assumed Similarity between Opposites (ASO) and Least
Preferred Coworker (LPC)
On the basis of these scores he classified leadership styles into two.
a) The Human Relations or Lenient style:
In this the manager do not exhibit great difference between the most and the least
preferred coworker or he gives a very unfavorable report of the least preferred
coworker
 b) Task-directed or hard nosed style:
In this the scores are such that the leader exhibits a great difference between the
most and the least preferred coworker or he gives a very unfavorable report of the
least preferred coworker

Though, critics have been against the over dependence of the model on LPC
scores and questionnaire method, as a result reliability has been questioned by
many. In spite of this even now further developments have been made to this
model to serve as an important basis for human resource management. It is only
based on the situational approach that Fielder suggest that better results could be
obtained by engineering positions so as to fit managers than that of the traditional
way of selecting the manager and training and developing him to fit the job.
Hence it is now almost accepted that Fielder has made a very important break
through in the study of leadership effectiveness.

Path- goal leadership theory:

This style even though was formulated originally by researchers at the University
of Michigan; it was developed later by Martin Evans and Robert House
independently. The distinct feature of this theory is that it recognizes the positive
relationship between leadership and motivation.

The types or styles of leadership according to House are;

a) Directive leadership:
Subordinate know exactly what is expected of them and specific directions are
given by the leader. There is no participation by subordinates.
b) Supportive leadership:
Self explanatory the leader is friendly and approachable and shows a genuine
human concern for subordinates
c) Participative leadership
This leader asks for and uses suggestions from subordinates but still makes the
decisions.
d) Achievement oriented leadership
This leader sets challenging goals for subordinates and show confidence in them
to attain these goals and perform well.

4. Reddins three dimensional model:

The Ohio state studies and Blake and Mounton made use of two aspects to explain
leader behaviour namely the concern for people and concern for production or
relationship orientation and task orientation. According to Reddin, effectiveness
of leadership is highly related to using an appropriate style depending upon the
situational factors. He takes the four basic leadership styles by combining the two
basic behaviour factors namely
a) High task and low relation, dedicated
b) High task and high relation, integrated
c) High relation and low task the related
d) Low task and low relation separated
 These four styles may be effective or ineffective depending upon the situation.
Reddin stresses that the leader should have an adoptive style that leads to
effectiveness. In fact he identified the type of style which would be effective or
ineffective, by naming them separately. Listed below are the basic styles and their
corresponding effective or ineffective styles.

BASIC STYLE EFFECTIVE STYLE INEFFECTIVE STYLE

Dedicated Benevolent autocrat Autocrat
Integrated Executive Compromise
Related Developer Missionary
Separated Bureaucrat Deserter
 Improving Leadership Skills
There are several strategies found useful in the art of successful leadership and
supervision.

Self Esteem
When you make someone feel important, you gain their willingness to work for you.

Here are some techniques to improve self esteem:

• Ask their advice. Even though you may feel you have the answers to a problem,
ask for their help. This makes the employee feel that you think their opinion is
worth considering.
• Remember the name of the person you are dealing with, and use it often in your
conversation. Remember the most important thing to a person is their name.
• Discuss subjects; but do not argue about them. Arguing infers that you think the
other person is wrong, therefore bringing the person down, and hurting their self
esteem.
• Sincerely compliment them occasionally. You can surely find something to praise
someone about.
• Be more willing to listen than to talk. Pay close attention, and show interest in
what they are saying.
• Be interested in the person. Keep people well informed on all matters that may
concern them.
• Show respect for a person's knowledge by repeating a remark of theirs that will
reflect favorably on them.

Become a Good Listener

Generally people do not know how to be good listeners. People usually only remember
about half of the information they are told. Below are some points on becoming a good
listener.

• Be ready to listen. Stay alert in your posture and in your facial expression.
• Try to avoid distractions.
• Eliminate bias in your thoughts about a person; otherwise you will never
comprehend what they are saying.
• To ward off boredom, try to stay ahead of the speaker by anticipating what she
may say next.
• Try to group thoughts or points to make it easier to remember.
• Look for key words in what the person is saying. It makes recalling the
conversation easier.
Planning
Planning is one of the key management tools. Certainly all of our companies have short,
and long range plans. Through planning, we decide a course of action to achieve goals
and accomplish objectives. Planning prepares us for how to perform in the event certain
things happen.

• Planning requires getting facts and data. The more information you can gather
together, the better equipped you will be to make decisions.
• Policies and procedures are either originated or examined and brought up-to-date
when planning.
• Objectives are also reviewed when a planning process is implemented.
• Planning helps to unify an organization by getting others involved.
• Change is accepted more easily when the plans are known throughout the
organization.
• Planning brings attention to dangers or pitfalls. If the planning is thorough,
disadvantage as well as advantages will be uncovered.
• Decision making skills of the staff can be strengthened, through proper planning.

Motivating
People at all levels must feel they are needed. You cannot motivate a person if they do not
feel essential to the process.

Ways to make a person feel needed:

• Keep them informed.

• Challenge a person, thus allowing them to grow.
• Make them feel proud of the job they are doing.
• Praise the person. Let them know they are doing a good job.
• Learn what people want from their jobs. Individual or team recognition, routine
tasks or constant challenges...know someone's likes and dislikes in order to be
able to motivate them.
• Recognition is more important to some people than salary. People want to be
given credit for a job well done.
• Make mention of special accomplishments of an employee (or even their family)
even if it is an accomplishment outside of work.

Communication is the key to motivating. Listening is an important factor.

• People like to know what is going on, and what to expect.

• Keep them informed.
• Have regular meetings to exchange thoughts and take the opportunity to advise
them of what is going on around the company, with customers and in the industry.

Show enthusiasm about your work and that will help to set a work ethic thus
motivating others.
Set goals for those you supervise. Also, help them achieve the goals by giving them the
opportunity to get things done. Do not set unrealistic goals.

Disciplining
The art of dealing with people when they fail to do their job or they behave abnormally.
The better you know an individual, the better job you can do of disciplining him. With
some people, you need to be firm, or even demanding. Others, just a hint of a suggestion
for change is all that is necessary. Here are a few strategies on making one of the most
distasteful acts of supervision a little more palatable:

• Try to discuss the situation as soon as possible after the incident. That way, the
situation is fresh on everyone's mind.
• Usually, time only makes matters appear worse.
• Talk to the individual in private. Try not to let other people see or hear you.
• Don't embarrass the person
• Try to be friendly, and listen to the person tell their side of the story first.
• Weigh and decide the facts before you constructively discipline.
• Do not nag or harp on the subject over and over again. This will only cause
irritation.
• Do not argue.
• Control your emotions and try to control the other persons'.
• Try to have the person see the seriousness of the situation, and why they should
change their attitude or performance.
• Attempt to determine the reaction to your discipline.
• See if the individual feels they are being treated fairly.
• Try to get a commitment from them to do better in the future.

Delegating
A skill that really requires disciplining yourself that will in turn allow you to supervise
better.

How to make your job easier.

• Could much of the work that you do be done by those you supervise?
• Do you frequently find yourself overloaded with detail work?
• Are you taking more and more work home with you at night?
• Are you working longer hours?
• Are those important jobs you are asked to do getting done just in time or a day or
two late?
• Is too much of your time being spent on unimportant jobs?
• Have the things that you do become routine in nature?

If the answer to most of these questions is "yes," then maybe you have not yet adopted
one of the KEY skills of managing, the art of delegation. This is particularly important if
you have hopes of moving up in the organization. Your skill in delegating could be a
major factor in deciding whether you can handle greater responsibilities and a greater job.
A SUCCESSFUL LEADER gets things done through others.

• Do not fall into the pitfalls of being fearful of delegation.

• Unwillingness to delegate may be a psychological problem involving fear.

Unfounded reasons for this are:

• That credit for the job being done will go to someone else.
• That it will become known that others know more about a particular job than you
do.
• That someone may do the job better that you have been doing.

Remember it is to your credit and it exhibits confidence in your skills as a supervisor

to place competent people around you. Delegation is a requisite of good supervision. It
supports trust and confidence in those you supervise and enables them to handle the tasks
that will free you to do more important work.

• Make it known that you are now doing more top level decision making and
possibly researching new techniques and ideas to better the operation.
• Effective delegating requires proper planning and thought, and also proper
follow-up.

Here are some suggestions for making delegation successful:

1. Understand the purpose of delegating. You have three basic objectives in

delegating:
a. Get the job done.
b. Free yourself for other work.
c. Have your "team" benefit by learning and experiencing what you have
been doing.
2. Decide specifically what you can delegate. Generally delegate as much of your
work as possible. Do yourself only what no one else can do.
3. Recognize that subordinates will make mistakes. Make sure they understand what
they are to do. Be willing to take blame for mistakes that may be made.
4. Clarify what you are delegating. Agree on what the task is and how much "power"
you are delegating to them to perform a particular job. Also, let others know of
the arrangements so that proper cooperation will be extended to get the job done.
5. Most important, follow-up. Remember that although you have delegated
responsibility and empowered others to get the job done, you still have the final
accountability for the job. Ask your team for progress reports or discuss with them
from time to time.
Empowerment
This newer strategy may in-fact be the culmination of all the points above. Simply put,
empowerment is delegation taken a step farther. In delegation, the supervisor is not only
accountable for the results, but also assumes some responsibility since in most cases the
delegated tasks most often are the job of the supervisor. Empowerment is the total,
unmistakable passing on of responsibility to a person or team to accomplish a job or
perform a process. As coach or supervisor, you maintain accountability for the overall
outcome or results of the process.

Empowerment brings with it a challenge for the organization to provide state-of-the-art

systems, education, tools and most importantly support to the team for maximum
performance. Applying empowerment frequently shifts ownership of a function or
process from a traditional supervisor to a group, and with that ownership transfer; pride,
job satisfaction, motivation and creativity develop.
 CONCLUSION

The role of leadership and supervision in Indian business is gaining increasing

recognition.

A leader who loses contact with her team or group will fail. Therefore, it is important for
any leader to remember that he must maintain close contact with the group if he is to
function as a coach or supervisor. Many leaders fail not because of limitations on their
own general ability; but, on their inability to delegate, listen, plan, motivate, discipline,
and empower.
 BIBILIOGRAPHY

1. Diploma in personnel management(Annamalai university)-organizational

behaviour and leadership styles
2. www.businessballs.com
3. www.whitestag.org
4. Principles of management-S.P.Gupta
5. Harvard business review- the discipline of teams
 Summary

• Remember, you can be a great influence on the initiative and drive of those you
coach or supervise.
• Be enthusiastic and continually look for ways to maintain morale, build
confidence, and motivate.
• Be a good listener. Talking about a situation or a problem expands communication
so that understanding is improved.
• Do a good job of planning and scheduling. Keep your team informed so they will
understand their role in the organization and will tend not to be confused.
• Keep people busy. Generally, people would like to have too much to do than not
enough to do. They lose self esteem if they are not kept busy, and then
productivity falls off dramatically.
• Try to solve problems promptly. Letting bad situations go tends to only make
them worse.
• Give people a chance to do their work without "annoying" them. Leave them
alone unless they need you for something, and let them work.
• Provide the tools, environment and most importantly support for your team to
perform at its peak.
• Show your human side. Demonstrate that you care about someone by visiting
them when they are in the hospital or on extended sick leave. Wish someone a
happy birthday. Remember their employment anniversary.
• Be fair. Do not favor people. Praise them when it is due and constructively
criticize when it is due.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We express our sincere thanks to Dr. K. Nirmala Prasad, principal of M.O.P. Vaishnav
College for Women, Autonomous, Chennai-34, for giving us an opportunity for doing the
presentation skill project.

I take this opportunity of thanking our Presentation Skill Faculty Ms. Bonnika
Saraswathi.K, M.B.A., M.A., PG Diploma, Lecturer in Management and also our Head
of Department Ms. Malarvizhi, M.A., M.Com, M.Phil, and our Faculty Advisor
Ms. R.A. Rabika Begum, M.Com, M.Phil, .