SHAILESH SAPKOTA | KATHMANDU | 2020-10-29 | 9:10PM

Leadership is a skill of motivating a group of followers towards the achievement of specific goals. In a business setting, leadership helps to enhance the personal, social, and professional growth of the employee. Effective leadership can express and communicate the vision, and target of the organization to the employee (Khan, Nawaz, & Khan, 2016). Therefore, successful leaders are those that inspire and can encourage others towards the share aspiration.

There are different types of leadership characteristics that we experienced in the history of mankind. It is truly an ability to put together the right traits, characteristics, and ability to communicate the path to their followers. There are also different principles and styles of leadership that had been in practice. In the context of business, leadership is directly associated with performance. If an appointed leader cannot fulfill the objective and doesn’t meet the profit expectations they may be terminated by the board (Surji, 2015). Achieving all these skills and techniques can provide us with effective leadership ability.

Leadership qualities:

Leadership definition is being changed according to the demand of time. Previously, there was the popularity of the traditional type of leadership. In this approach, leaders were considered effective because of their personality, traits, and behavior. It is an interpersonal influence attended through the communication process. Successful leaders are those that successfully collaborate to achieve common goals. Leadership qualities revolve around these concepts. The quality in leadership is the ability a leader should possess to effectively lead an organization or group of people. Often, these qualities depend upon the intrinsic and extrinsic behavior of the leader. Quality in leadership is discussed mostly on the concept of total quality management (TQM). The leadership quality depends on strategic leadership, visionary leadership, integral leadership, fostering innovation, empowerment, and teamwork. Among the different styles of leadership, transformational leadership has the highest quality to lead the organization effectively. It is because leaders following transformational leadership are influencers, trust creators, communicators, initiators, and developers.

As leading an organization, I have been able to practice transformational leadership. Some of the qualities that can be reflected in me are:

1. Vision and Purpose: According to Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, “Business leaders should create a vision and relentlessly drive others to achieve it”. To run the organization smoothly, it should be future driven. Being a leader, I know that it is important to visualize the future for not only me but also for the welfare of employees and organizations. It is important to set the direction and be able to see the bigger picture. I believe that a leader should go above and beyond expectations to achieve the vision and purpose of the organization.
2. Honesty and Integrity: I believe that successful effective leadership can be derived from honesty and integrity. It is a leader’s responsibility to maintain honesty in the organization. Influencing others with high positive moral and honest behavior can be done with honesty and integrity in leadership. I believe that a leader should lead the organization with honesty and integrity to build credibility, create a trustworthy atmosphere, for the commitment of success, and to prepare themselves ahead of future challenges.
3. Decision-making capabilities: It is one of the vital qualities of effective leadership. It is important to make the right decisions on time. Being a leader, it is my responsibility to make a decision and make a stand by it. Mostly, in our organization, I have a responsibility to make direct decisions regarding the operation of the business. But, if we need to spend a high amount of money on assets or in marketing, it is compulsory to consult the board first. Fluctuating decisions might show that leadership is immature. So, a leader needs to take a timely and right decision.
4. Accountability: A good leader should not only be accountable for his decision but for his sub-ordinates too. According to Arnold H Glasow, a US businessman, “leaders are those that take little more than the share of the blame and little less than the share of credit”. To be efficient it is necessary to pat the back of sub-ordinates if mistakes occur. It is also necessary to back them up and make them realize the mistake and move on.
5. Empathy and Emotional Intelligence: A leader should have influencing characteristics to be efficient. To make a person liable to the leader they should focus by connecting emotionally. Being an emotionally intelligent being, I have been able to understand the feeling of the employee. In my experience, employee sometimes feels low and emotionally affected due to their family and other external affairs. It is important to understand their feeling and act accordingly to keep them motivated and aspiring.

Except for these qualities, a leader needs to understand and act according to the scenarios.

Visions and values:

Visions define the ambition and future orientation of an organization. The organization creates their vision statement that directs the board and employee to innovate, commit, and motivate all in one perspective. A vision statement will be effective only if it has qualities like strategic, brief, widely accepted, and motivating. Some of the most significant attributes of effective vision statements are clarity, stability, brevity, future orientation, inspirational, abstract, and challenging (Kantabutra, 2008). Visions also play an important role in personal life, with a forward and positive vision one can be future-orientated. The visions should always be in line with the personal values of the leader.

Role of ethics in effective leadership:

Effective leadership focuses on achieving organizational vision. It helps in setting the organizational culture and values. Leadership is all about inspiring followers and motivate them. Effective leadership comes with making timely decisions, leading by examples, problem solver, believer, accountable, trustworthy, effective communication, confident, and innovation. This all can be achieved if the leader has ethics in themselves.

Ethical leadership demonstrates the ability to look towards common welfare that is acceptable. It can help to establish a positive organizational environment. Leaders that lead by example influence others to maintain a positive working environment. Ethical leadership can also manage employee behavior and conduct so that they can work in a team with harmony. When leaders carry a positive ethical attitude the organizational atmosphere automatically tends towards the philosophy of leaders.  Some of the important role of ethics in leadership includes:

• Shows justices.
• Builds community,
• Serves others.
• Manifests Honesty.
• Respect others.

Leadership style:

Leadership has a long history and has seen changes in its approach. We have seen different types of leadership styles in human history. The first-ever study on leadership style was conducted by Kurt Lewin in 1939. The major leadership styles can be categorized as:

a. Autocratic/Authoritative: In this style of leadership one man that leads takes control over all the decisions with little input from their sub-ordinates. They make choices based on their judgments and accept decisions rarely. Some of the primary characteristics of autocratic leadership styles are:

• Leaders make their own decision.
• Dictates sub-ordinates according to their working methods.
• Creates a high organizational structure and a rigid environment.
• Establish non-flexible rules.

b. Democratic/participative leadership: With democratic leadership, sub-ordinates voices are heard by the leaders. Leaders also include the idea and perspective of others. Everyone in a team is allowed to participate and discuss the issue. Yet leaders take the decision authority, the view of sub-ordinates is also considered. Some of the characteristics of democratic leadership styles are:

• Team members are encouraged to share their ideas and opinions.
• Team members feel more participatory.
• Creativity and out-of-box thinking are encouraged and rewarded.

c. Delegate or Laissez-faire leadership: In this style, the sub-ordinates are allowed to take decisions on behave of the group leader. This type of leadership has both cons and pros and should be used according to the business. We can see the Laissez-faire leadership model used in the IT business. The characteristics of Laissez-faire leadership styles are:

• Sub-ordinates have complete freedom to make decisions.
• Group members are encouraged to solve problems on their own.
• The main objective of leaders will be to provide resources.
• Little guidance from leaders.

References

Cherry, K. (2018, January 08). What’s Your Leadership Style? Retrieved June 23, 2020, from verywellmind.com: https://www.verywellmind.com/whats-your-leadership-style-3866929?quizResult=705ec57c

Fowlie, J., & Wood, M. (2009, January). Journal of European Industrial Training. The Emotional Impact of Leaders’ Behaviours, 33(6), 1. Retrieved June 23, 2020, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234608863_The_Emotional_Impact_of_Leaders’_Behaviours

Kantabutra, S. (2008). The Journal of Applied Business Research. What Do We Know About Vision?, 24(2), 1-10. Retrieved May 20, 2020, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282715988_What_Do_We_Know_About_Vision

Khan, Z. A., Nawaz, A., & Khan, I. D. (2016). Journal of Resources Development and Management. Leadership Theories and Styles: A Literature Review, 16, 1-6. Retrieved June 04, 2020, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293885908_Leadership_Theories_and_Styles_A_Literature_Review

Manning, G., & Curtis, K. (2014). The art of leadership,. New York: McGraw Hill. Retrieved 2020

Stringfellow, A. (2012, August 31). Building team. 5 Strategies for Managing Workplace Conflicts, 1. Retrieved June 23, 2020, from https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/business/trends-and-insights/articles/5-strategies-for-managing-workplace-conflicts/

Surji, K. (2015, January). Leadership ability. Understanding Leadership and Factors that Influence Leaders’ Effectiveness, 1-5. Retrieved June 19, 2020, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313636384_Understanding_Leadership_and_Factors_that_Influence_Leaders’_Effectiveness

Urbancova, H., Cermakova, H., & Vostrovská, H. (2016, January).  Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis. Diversity Management in the Workplace, 64(3), 1083-1092. Retrieved June 23, 2020, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304813364_Diversity_Management_in_the_Workplace

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