Individual Perspective on Leadership

Recent developments in Leadership Studies focus less on the characteristics and behaviors of
leaders, and more focus on the developing, interactive, and localized interactions through which
we can influence others and create meaningful change. We need to understand the concept of
leader and leadership. First, we understand about the term of perceptive. A leader is an
individual person who is assigned or delegated to be the leader of a group, team, and
organization. Leadership is defined as ability to motivate, encourage a group to achieve set
goals, vision or strategy.
Since leadership is a process of influencing the group rather than leading it, it can involve more
than one person. In fact, it can involve all the members of the group or team. This means, that
although you may not be a designated leader, you may still be involved in influencing and
inspiring the group to meet its goals and thereby involved in the leadership process. In this
chapter we lay out some ways in which leadership has been thought to reside within the
individual. Now writer start with the assumption that personality can show leadership potential in
individual.
In past, many theories are given different types of traits by different authors but it is not possible
to find all type of personality traits in one single person. Personality does have a role to play in
influencing who becomes a leader, and who does not. personality traits in the form of
psychometric testing, an increasingly common part of managerial selection processes.
Psychometric tests are used by employers to assess intelligence, abilities, potential and
personality. It divided into two categories. First, there are preference-based tests which
acknowledge that individuals can choose from a range of possible ways of behaving, but which
seek to assess their preferred types of behavior within this range. These tests do not suggest that
there are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways of behaving, simply that individuals have preferences as to the
kind of behavior that feels ‘right’ for them. The second type of psychometric test aims to
measure an individual’s underlying personality traits. They developed the Eysenck Personality
Questionnaire (EPQ), which seeks to measure individuals across three dimensions: extraversion
(E); neuroticism (N); and psychoticism (P).
Big five personality factor test is also used to measure the personality. It includes openness to
experience (describes curiosity of world or some of its aspects, creativity, interest in innovations,
novelties), Conscientiousness (describing someone who is organized, determined, responsible
and reliable), Extraversion (reflect one’s level of comfort with relationships. Talkative.),
agreeableness (describing someone who is warm, cooperative, easily reaches compromises and is
trusting), and neuroticism (Negative emotional stability relates to people who get
angry/nervous/upset easily, irritated quickly, feel insecure, and lack confidence). Cattell's 16
Personality Factors test is also used to categorize people according to sixteen core factors.
Ladkin is assumed that personality traits can be identified, categorized, and measured accurately.
Haslam’s social identity approach demonstrated that employees’ attitudes to work, motivation,
and productivity are not solely the result of their individual personalities, but are affected by
group norms and regulated by other group members. Haslam’s citation of Mayo belief that the
behavior of an individual within the factory can be predicted before employment.
We want to locate the leadership quality in individual leader. So, we have to understand about
appropriate behavior and leadership style. We also need to understand that what kind of
behaviors we should look for when selecting the leaders of the future. McGregor formulated
Theory X and Theory Y suggesting two aspects of human behavior at work. Blake and
Mouton’s managerial grid is based on two behavioral dimensions. One is concern for people
and second is concern for results. Charismatic and transformational leadership style has been
discussed. Charismatic Leadership is a leadership approach that reins itself on the leader’s charm
and attraction which creates inspiration and devotion among the followers towards the leader.
Transformational Leadership is a leadership approach that causes a change in individuals and
social systems through a collective vision. charismatic leadership is characterized by a
‘constellation of behavioral components including:

 Articulating and striving to change the status quo.

Peter Senge argues that learning organizations require a new view of leadership. Learning must
take at all levels and through all relationships in the organization. Senge’s view was that the
leader’s task is to design the learning process. To accomplish this, he proposed three new
leadership styles:
The designer: In which the leader shapes the ‘policies, strategies and systems, which facilitate
the functioning of the organization itself.
The steward: In which the leader must take responsibility for guiding the vision shared by
members of an organization.
The teacher: In which the leader must empower others to acquire a better understanding of the
events, behavioral patterns, structures, and vision which make up their organizational reality.
Once again, it seems impossible that any one leader could exhibit all these tendencies. If we want
to make a leader, can be learnt traits, actions, behaviors, and styles by individuals who step into
leadership positions. Leaders needs to identify the areas in which they need training. leadership
traits and leadership styles, both the style and trait approaches make two tacit assumptions.
The first assumption is that, whether we talk about the style or the personality of a leader, trait
and style theories are normative approaches to leadership, which attempt to describe – or even
prescribe – the ‘best way’ to lead. The second assumption made by both style and trait theories is
that little attention is paid to followers in the practice of leadership.

Leadership identity is your presence in your work—and in the world. This is about your
physical and mental presence, your attitude, and your readiness to take on new challenges and
make an impact. It's how you “show up” every day and for every interaction. As Reicher et.
leadership is not a ‘zero sum game’ in which leaders are ‘agents’ and followers are passive
recipients of this agency. Rather, leadership emerges from the interrelationships between group
members, which give priority to the proposals suggested by prototypical group members, and
which construct a social reality through which some proposals for action are mobilized, and
some are rejected or foreclosed. Social identity theorists point out that leadership is not an
individual process but evolves out of group dynamics. For leadership to happen at all, however,
the social identity approach assumes the pre-existence of a shared sense of identity.
Alvesson argue that we cannot assume the self is fixed and stable, rather, maintaining a stable
sense of identity is a process in which we actively engage throughout everyday life. ‘Fixing’ our
identity by categorizing ourselves and others into social groups help to reduce anxiety about who
we are, where we belong, and how we should behave in the world. Our everyday choices such as
what to wear, what kind of music to listen to, or how to interact with others are part of this
‘identity work’.
Identity work, then, is the active process of constructing a self-identity which forms a
reasonably stable basis for engaging in social relationships. Identities are never fully secure, but
always in progress. Given the importance of work in many people’s lives, it is unsurprising that
job roles such as teacher, secretary, or even ‘leader’ is identifying categories which form part of
the basis for our identity works. Leaders need to continuously struggle to compete and
representation of who they are. The leader identity must be constantly striven for, and, being
constantly in progress, can never be fully achieved, and therefore is a source of continuing
anxiety. The constant need to verify oneself by aspiring to become a ‘better’ leader, or to better
demonstrate ‘leadership potential’, means that the leader identity acts as a form of organizational
control which seeks to normalize behavior among employees seeking to impress senior managers
and encourages self-regulation.