THEORIES OF MANAGEMENT,

Theories of Management,



Theories of Management

Introduction

Throughout the history, leaders have always played crucial roles in wars, revolutions, demonstrations, protests and other important events. It is probably known by everyone that without a charismatic, ambitious and effective leader, who is able to attract the attention of people, to persuade and to make people follow them, none of these events would achieve any result. In the today's business world, nearly all of successful business organizations have be leaded by a powerful leader. In this essay, to help us understanding leadership critically; firstly, I will try to find out the definition of leadership, and discuss the differences between leaders and managers; then I will argue the leaders are born or made; at last the comparison of two leadership styles: autocratic and democratic style will be discussed.

Discussions

During the last few years, leadership has emerged as an important subject all over the world. This in fact is not just because of the substance of leadership in life, but also because leadership is a very complex process. Therefore, there are many theories which aim to recognize and analyses the concept of leadership. However, the great majority of these theories have both advantageous and disadvantages. As Stogdill, R.M. (1981) said: 'There are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept' (p.7).Now, what is the best or the perfect concept of leadership?The answer without any doubt is very difficult. However, we will try to move through the most widespread definitions around the world. First, according to Donald Clark (1997), 'Leadership is a complex process by which a person influences others to accomplish a mission, task, or objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent'. This definition of leadership based on the effect of a person on a group to achieve the organization goals. Yes, it is clear and simple; nonetheless, it is not complete. This in fact because Donald Clark believe that effective leaders are made not born, and thus he endeavoured to avoid the substance of the personal ability, individual skills and inborn factors for the leadership in his definition. Second, 'Leadership is the process of motivating other people to act in particular ways in order to achieve specific goals' (Hannagan, T 2002 pg.37). This definition is somewhat accepted but it is not perfect. This because motivation is one element of leadership and it is not the leadership as Hannagan defined. Stuart Palmer clearly highlighted the definition of leadership: ' Leadership is the ability to get work done with and through others, while at the same time winning their confidence, respect, loyalty and willing cooperation' (Palmer, S 2003). This is one of the best concepts of leadership. However, the only comment is that leadership play a great role not just to get work done, but also in order to achieve the organization goals as well as planning for the future and encouraging the employees to ...