Effective Leadership is as much about Followers as it is About Leaders

Effective Leadership is as much about Followers as it is About Leaders

Leadership

Leadership is defined as the role of leading an organization or group of people or the ability of leading people towards a common goal. It involves establishment of a clear vision, communicating it with others/followers in order that they'll follow it, communicating the methods, knowledge, and information for realizing that vision, and balancing and coordinating the clashes of interests of all stakeholders or members or followers. Leadership is also defined as getting others to listen and follow or getting group of people to do things one person wants them to do.

A leader is defined as someone who takes initiatives in crisis times, and is capable of thinking and acting in a creative way in difficult circumstances. Leadership is different from management, leadership can't be instructed, though it might be enhanced and learned through mentoring or coaching. One of the great examples of leadership skills in modern world is the owner of Microsoft, Bill Gates who, in spite of failures in early stages, with persistent innovation and passion has driven the company and the industry of software to great accomplishments.

According to Mullins (2013, p.366) leadership is “an essential part of management where the leadership is co-ordinating the activities of people and guiding their efforts towards the goals and objectives of the organization.”

According to Gibson, Ivancevich, and Donelly (1985, p.362) leadership is “an effort for convincing the followers' activities through the process of communication and for achieving some goals or a goal.”

CIPD (2012) explains that leadership is not just about executives and their skills or their team within the organization but also about many people who happen to be leaders in some point of their lives.

Leadership vs. Management

Leadership and management are two different things. Many people believes that there is no significant difference in management and keadership. But Bennis and Nanus (1985, p.21) and Buchanan and Huczynski (2010) differentiated leaders from managers. They explain that manager is one who does things right, efficiently, whereas leader is one who does the right thing, effectively.

Many people often mix up the leaders and managers interchangeably. The people at the top level of the organization are considered as leaders and the people under that level are considered as managers and rest of the employees. Leaders will not be found necessarily within the organization's hierarchical structure. Leadership takes place at different levels and we can manifest it in multiple ways (Mullins, 2013).

Kotter (2013) defines manager as the person who budget and plan, measure performance, structure jobs, help produce services or products and solve problems according to organizational planning. And defines leaders as the person who persuades followers to understand and follow their vision, motivates them and creates positive change.

However, Mintzberg (1977) argued that management and leadership are two concepts that overlap each other (figure 1) and a manager cannot be effective without having some leadership characteristics. However, most organizations are lacking one ...