Leadership Defined

Leadership Defined

Introduction

The definition and role of Leadership in an organization

Most definitions of the term “leadership” either make references to the innate characteristics that form the personality of the leader or to specific actions and approaches that he takes. Essentially, these are simply descriptions of leadership, many of which will be elaborated later on in this text. In its essence, leadership is the “power to lead”. It refers to the ability of a person to lead a group of people and drive them towards the accomplishment of set goals and objectives, often through a pre-defined process (Northouse, 2010). Therefore, leadership is the process of transferring value standards to the employees of an organization, which they are then inclined to follow or adopt in order to perform their designated duties and accomplish assigned tasks.

Leadership is essentially built on the concept that an overwhelming majority of the man power that works in an organization is comprised of followers, so that they need guidance, nurturance and counseling in order to be able to complete their tasks. Therefore, the phenomenon of leadership thrives on the basic concept of duality in which “followership” is seen as its absolute opposite. As a result, while some men will have the amazing ability to lead, others will become devoted followers. Followership remains a major consideration among people whose responsibility it is to manage people and lead them towards set goals.

Discussion

It is true that the definition of the term leadership is largely molded according to the individual characteristics, attributes and personality traits of leaders. For instance, leadership describes a person who is endowed with the core competency to lead his followers (Giuliani & Kurson, 1998). In addition to this essential quality, leaders must also be visionaries who are able to channel their ideas and thought processes into effective strategies that direct the efforts of followers towards a common goal.

Whether the leader envisions essentially doubling the output capacity of the business, developing an innovative product to target a new market niche or pushing for higher sales volume, these objectives cannot be achieved without the presence of effective leaders who have the ability to direct the resources of the business towards the achievement of the objective.

The Four Functions of Leadership

While there is no denying the fact that leadership is a highly complex capability, the term leadership can be broadened to incorporate four critical functions - stretching, sharing, empowering and coaching. These four functions essentially form the foundation of leadership role within an organizational setup as they support and expand the main managerial competencies of the leader.

Stretching

Stretching refers to the ability of leaders to take risks and challenge the habits and behavioral patterns that exist within a team. The process revolves around the capacity of the leader to provide the teams with challenging situations and testing scenarios. The purpose of stretching is to motivate and drive the team towards enhancing their productive capacity so that they are able to go beyond their normal output capacity (Soder, 2001). Stretching is an essential prerequisite to ...