Leadership

What is Leadership?

DEFINITION: : Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal.

The key elements of this definition include:

• Leadership stems from social influence, not from authority or power
• Leadership requires members, and that implies that they do not need to be 'direct reports'
• There is no defined combination of personality traits, attributes, or even a title for effective leadership
• Many approaches or paths, tailored to the circumstance, can lead to effective leadership
• It includes a goal, not influence with no intended outcome

Kevin Kruse, a contributor on Forbes.com and a renowned author on employee engagement addresses the common misconceptions of leadership in the following points:

Leadership has nothing to do with seniority or one’s position in the hierarchy of a company. Too many talk about a company’s leadership referring to the senior most executives in the organization. They are just that, senior executives. Leadership does not automatically happen when you reach a certain pay grade. Hopefully you find it there, but there are no guarantees.

Leadership has nothing to do with titles. Similar to the point above, just because you have a C-level title, does not automatically make you a “leader.” You do not need a title to lead. In fact, you can be a leader in your place of worship, your neighborhood, in your family, all without having a title.

Leadership has nothing to do with personal attributes. Say the word “leader” and most people thing of a domineering, take-charge charismatic individual. We often think of icons from history like General Patton or President Lincoln. But leadership is not an adjective. We do not need extroverted charismatic traits to practice leadership. And those with charisma do not automatically lead.

Leadership is not management.  This is the big one. Leadership and management are not synonymous.  You have 15 people in your downline and P&L responsibility? Good for you, hopefully you are a good manager. Good management is needed. Managers need to plan, measure, monitor, coordinate, solve, hire, fire, and so many other things. Typically, managers manage things. Leaders lead people.

9 Common Leadership Styles

1. Autocratic Leadership - A leader exerts high levels of power over his or her employees or team members. People within the team are given few opportunities for making suggestions, even if these would be in the team's or organization's interest. For some routine and unskilled jobs, however, this style can remain effective where the advantages of control outweigh the disadvantages.

2. Bureaucratic Leadership - Bureaucratic leaders "work by the book", ensuring that their staff follow procedures exactly. This is a very appropriate style for work involving serious safety risks (such as working with machinery, with toxic substances or at heights) or where large sums of money are involved (such as cash-handling).

3. Charismatic Leadership - A charismatic leadership style can appear similar to a transformational leadership style, in that the leader injects huge doses of enthusiasm into his or her team, and is very energetic in driving others forward.

4. Democratic Leadership or Participative Leadership - Although a democratic leader will make the final decision, he or she invites other members of the team to contribute to the decision-making process. As participation takes time, this style can lead to things happening more slowly than an autocratic approach, but often the end result is better. It can be most suitable where team working is essential, and quality is more important than speed to market or productivity.

5. Laissez-faire Leadership - This French phrase means "let them do" and is used to describe a leader who leaves his or her colleagues to get on with their work. It can be effective if the leader monitors what is being achieved and communicates this back to his or her team regularly. Most often, laissez-faire leadership works for teams in which the individuals are very experienced and skilled self-starters. 

6. People-Oriented Leadership or Relations-Oriented Leadership - This style of leadership is the opposite of task-oriented leadership: the leader is totally focused on organizing, supporting and developing the people in the leader's team. A participative style, it tends to lead to good teamwork and creative collaboration.

7. Task-oriented Leadership - A highly task-oriented leader focuses only on getting the job done, and can be quite autocratic. He or she will actively define the work and the roles required, put structures in place, plan, organize and monitor.

8. Transactional Leadership - This style of leadership starts with the premise that team members agree to obey their leader totally when they take a job on: the transaction is (usually) that the organization pays the team members, in return for their effort and compliance. 

9. Transformational Leadership - A person with this leadership style is a true leader who inspires his or her team with a shared vision of the future. Transformational leaders are highly visible, and spend a lot of time communicating. They do not necessarily lead from the front, as they tend to delegate responsibility amongst their teams. While their enthusiasm is often infectious, they can need to be supported by "detail people".

Source: Vector Study