LEADERSHIP

Principle of Management: Leadership



Principle of Management: Leadership

Introduction

The concept of leadership is so closely associated with management, that the two terms are used synonymously by the people for decades. However, the two words have significantly different roles, from the perspective of organizational working environment. Management refers to the positions in organization that set the missions, goals and objectives which must be met by the members of the organization, while leadership refers to the ways in which the management motivates its team members and employees to achieve those goals. Hence, leaders are persons that motivate the team members to achieve the organizational goals and objectives effectively and efficiently. Great leadership and efficient leaders are the critical requirements for successful management.

This essay describes the importance of effective leadership in an organization, and the various leadership styles that have been in practice for many past decades. In order to be a successful leader, it is essential to determine one's suitable leadership style, as leadership style helps the leader in setting the directions and goals of his team. We also discuss the characteristics of leaders following different styles of leadership.

Discussion

More simply, the management and leadership can be differentiated by looking at the main roles of a manager and a leader. The managers are responsible for administration, while the leaders are responsible for innovation. The managers are responsible for controlling the resources of the organization and utilizing the tool that could guide the leader's innovation. Managers usually do not develop new ideas, while the leaders do so (Bennis, 1989). The major focus of the manager is the organizational systems and structures, while the leaders focus on the people. The managers have to devise strategies for controlling the organization and its people, while the objective of leaders is to build trust among the team members.

Leadership remains an important organizational aspect because there is always a requirement of someone to lead and facilitate the group, even in the most democratic organizational cultures. Leadership is always there in every area of our lives; there are teachers who lead us for instructions, managers who lead the businesses, artists lead the ideas, and politicians lead nations, and caretaker lead for supervising the supportive services. All these leaders try to execute leadership activities in a manner that benefit both the team members, as well as the leaders themselves.

Before commencing discussion on the styles of leadership, we discuss the main qualities a leader must have.

Characteristics of a Successful Leader

For accomplishing successful leadership in an organization, the leader must possess exceptional qualities, which helps him to lead the team in a reasonable manner. We discuss some of them below:

The leader must be able to understand the fact that it is necessary to understand the abilities of others. Most leaders think that as they are assigned the leadership responsibilities, so they have the best abilities in the group; however this may not be true completely. Although it is a fact that a leader is chosen depending on his/her abilities or ...