Introduction :
Leadership, what is leadership? It certainly plays a very important part in our live, everywhere we go, we would eventually to lead or lead by some other people. The definitions of the leadership role vary widely. Some definitions of leadership are based on leader characteristics, some on leader behaviours, still others on outcomes or end results. The general agreement exists that “someone is needed to serve as the agent for guiding and encouraging people to work together.1”. So is leadership really just about influencing the behaviour of others? It is a very difficult question, as leadership has often been described as the art, skill or process of influencing people to work towards the achievement of group, Leadership as a concept is a widely researched concept in an organizational context. From an organizational viewpoint, leadership is vital because it has a very powerful influence on individual and group behaviour.
Leadership is both a process and a property. As a process, leadership involves the use of non coercive influence. As a property, leadership is the set of characteristics attributed to someone who is perceived to use influence successfully. Leadership and Management: Leadership and management are related but not the same. Organizations need both management and leadership if they are to be effective. While leadership is necessary to create and direct change and to help the organization get through tough times, management is necessary to achieve coordination and systematic results. It can also be constrained by the internal system of influence like political influence and environmental contingencies faced by the organization.
The self selection process of persons would tend to work along with organizational selection to limit the range of abilities and behaviors in a given organizational role. It has been frequently presumed that leadership style or behavior is an independent variable that can be produced with proper selection and training. The leader is embedded in a social system, which constrains behavior. Pressures to conform to the expectations of peers, subordinates, and superiors are all relevant in determining actual behavior.
While management without leadership controls all the resources required to maintain the status quo and to ensure that things happen as per established plans, and here we can take the example of the referee who manages a game but does not provide leadership. The referees part is therefore of controlling the resources only to make sure that the rules of the game are followed and that status quo remains in order. On the other hand, leadership combined with management sets a new direction and manages the resources to achieve goals. We can take the example of a newly elected Prime Minister or President who sets sup new directions for a group that manages .
It could be said that there are two extremes to the leadership continuum – on one end would be the harsh and brutal aristocrat while on the other end is a caring, considerate and supportive leader. While there are some leaders who can be identified with just one of these, some manage to adapt themselves based on the situation. However, the success or failure of any of these approaches to leadership depends to a large extent on the organization setting being dealt with. Certain leaders in certain settings can make the difference between enormous success and overwhelming failure. On the other hand, the excessive emphasis on the lower performing employees may have de-motivated the high performing group, and hence led to a deterioration of their performance. Suggested changes in Savita’s behavior She should not try to go overboard with the employee oriented approach and should be moderate in her approach. If she changes her approach slowly but steadily, the employees would be more receptive to her efforts and perceive it as a genuine effort to take their ideas and suggestions into account. The participatory approach towards the lower performing employees would help them to raise.
The role of the first-line manager is ‘to get things done through other people’ but the only way to lead people to carry out a task is to give them the desire to do it, by influencing, by persuading them to reach common goals, by motivating them! A manager or supervisor who possesses those abilities is a leader. Leadership and motivation are two skills essential in any organisation but are not the easiest! Many reaches have been undertaken about those topics and several theories have been developed. MOTIVATION a.Definition The concept of motivation is usually used in organisational contexts. -Motivation is the set of processes that stimulate, guide and sustain human behaviour towards accomplishing some goals. people in particular direction, whereas management describes how the organization can get there. In practice, however, the most effective managers are also leaders. c. The roles of the leader It is obvious that the most important thing in every organization is the profit, which is essential for the survival of the organization, but also the aim goal of every employer (to make as many benefits as possible, to make money!) Profit is the common goal of all the members within the organization, consciously or intentionally. In order to achieve this common goal, every organization needs managers, leaders and of course employees.
Contrary to popular thinking, the term “leadership” is comparetively recent addition to the English language. In fact the word did not come into common usage until the late 19th Century. Although the words “lead” and “leader” have a much longer history, they usually referred only to authority figures. The birth and evolution of the idea of “leadership” focuses on a much more complex concept that reaches beyond the single leader. In fact, contemporary definitions most often reject the idea that leadership revolves around the leader’s ability, behaviors, styles or charisma. Today, scholars discuss the basic nature of leadership in terms of the “interaction” among the people involved in the process: both leaders and followers.