Personal Philosophy of Leadership

Table of Contents

Philosophy of Leadership1

Definition of leadership1

Theories of leadership1

The Trait Approach to Leadership2

The Behavioral School2

The Contingency School of thought4

Dispersal Leadership4

Leadership and Management5

Similarities5

Differences6

Qualities and Characteristics of an effective leader7

Followers and their importance in the context of leadership8

Self as Leader8

Leadership Lessons9

Conclusion11

Personal Philosophy of Leadership

Definition of leadership

Leadership is one of the most important functions of management. Thus, a manager has to play this role for the effective working of the organization.

A number of writers have explained and elaborated the concept of leadership. Considering all these definitions into consideration, to me leadership could be defined as “Collaborating, communicating with a group and engaging them in the organizational objectives, in a trustworthy environment that leads to the realization of the organization's mission and vision in an effective manner.”

The influences to the definition include the surveillance of different environments, including both that of the organizations and the educational institutions. These observations have led to assert that a leader should be a motivated person who has the ability to let others follow him. He should serve as a role model for the followers, must have the communication skills and the understanding level that enable him to be considered as a trust righteous person.

Theories of leadership

The literature review on the topic of leadership brings to light the point that a number of theories were presented by theorists on this topic. The series of schools of thought ranges from the Great man and trait theories to the present transformational leadership. Thus, the theories can be divided into two heads: the early theories and the latest theories. The former tends to focus on characteristics of the victorious leaders, while the later ones focus on the role of followers and the circumstantial environment of the leadership.

The three fundamental theories are:

The Trait Approach to Leadership

It is a common practice in military and is based on the theory “Great Man”, and take into consideration the traits or characteristics of the prominent leaders. According to this theory, a number of traits has been identified, and if a person is equipped with them then he could be through proper training placed into the leadership positions. Although a number of these traits were identified in researches, the consistency among large of them was insignificant, making the theory a problematic and controversial one. There is a list of traits that appear more frequently than others. Stogdil (1974) provide the list of some key traits. These are:

The Behavioral School

The traits theory not only proved to be unconvincing, but a number of traits were difficult to be measured. This problem gave birth to the Behavioral School of thought_ the theories that are regularly practiced by the modern manager. They were based on the actual activities of the leaders rather than on their qualities.

Mc Gregory theories were the point that gives birth to the Behavioral School of thought. He proposed two theories in this regard. These are known as Theory X and Theory Y. He believed that the assumptions that a ...