Effective Leadership
Posted on April 04, 2024 by Martin Hahn, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
Leadership means setting the direction and inspiring and influencing others to work willingly toward achieving a firm’s objectives.
Throughout the ages, Chinese emperors, Egyptian pharaohs, and Indian chiefs must have wondered, “Why are some people more effective leaders than others?”
Yet only in the last seventy years or so have behavioral scientists addressed this question. In brief, experts’ current thinking is that effective leadership reflects a balance of (1) a leader’s traits and skills and (2) a leader’s styles or behaviors, (3) combined in a way that best fits the followers and is most appropriate for the situation at hand. Essentially, effective leadership depends on who a person is in terms of their traits and skills, how the person behaves, and the appropriateness of the two given the situation the leader is facing. Followers’ perceptions of the leader and their willingness to let the leader influence them further influence leadership effectiveness. No one can be a leader without followers, and only the followers determine whether someone will lead them.
Defining Leadership
Leadership means setting the direction and inspiring and influencing others to work willingly toward achieving a firm’s objectives. Leadership can have both positive and negative effects in organizations. At its best, leadership inspires and motivates employees to work hard toward organizational objectives and helps the organization succeed. At its worst, leadership can reduce the performance of individual employees as well as the entire organization, and even result in unethical behavior and an organization’s demise.
Are Leadership and Management the Same?
Leadership and management are not the same. Leadership experts Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus put it this way: “Management controls, arranges, does things right; leadership unleashes energy, sets the vision so we do the right thing.”
Ideally, all managers should be leaders, too (after all, managers plan, organize, lead, and control). Realistically, however, not all managers are leaders. You can probably think of someone, perhaps a former boss, whom you would not describe as being a leader despite his or her managerial authority. Conversely, you can probably also think of someone you would consider a leader, although he or she didn’t have formal authority. Managers establish and implement procedures, processes, and practices that
help the firm function smoothly and are responsible for goal attainment. Because of their position in the organization, managers have formal authority to reward and punish while ensuring that what employees do is consistent with the organization’s rules and regulations. Leaders can influence the behaviors of others without using rewards or punishment. Leaders help clarify their subordinates’ goals and the paths or methods through which they can pursue and achieve those goals, and help them understand their role in implementing those goals.
Because leadership can help all managers to be more effective, all managers should ideally have excellent leadership skills. The reality is that everyone in an organization, from the CEO to the entry-level employee, can and should exhibit leadership. The leadership displayed by a store employee who inspires her coworkers to provide better customer service and the leadership shown by a warehouse supervisor who inspires subordinates to work more safely both have positive consequences for the firm. And leadership does matter and this is confirmed by a Hewitt Associates study found that companies with more rigorous leadership development programs tend to outperform their competitors. Successful organizations and leaders develop leadership skills in all of their employees, encouraging employees to set a positive example for their coworkers and continually work toward the accomplishment of the firm’s goals.
