Lesson 6.

Leadership Function in Management

Learning Objectives:
At the end of this material, you should be able to, to wit:
1. Define the meaning of leadership in management;
2. Identify the nature of leadership; and

3. Elaborate the different styles of leadership.

I. Leadership

Leaders help themselves and others to do the right things. They set direction, build an inspiring
vision, and create something new. As well as providing direction, inspiration, and guidance, good
leaders exhibit courage, passion, confidence, commitment, and ambition. They nurture the
strengths and talents of their people and build teams committed to achieving common goals.

A leader's most important role is to provide clear and compelling direction. Leaders ensure that all
followers understand, embrace, and work toward achieving those objectives. And they provide
momentum, sharing and celebrating progress toward achieving company goals, setting new targets,
and providing needed resources.

Five Qualities of Effective Leaders

1. They are self-aware and prioritize personal development.
2. They focus on developing others.
3. They encourage strategic thinking, innovation, and action.
4. They are ethical and civic-minded.
5. They practice effective cross-cultural communication.

Leadership is about mapping out where you need to go to "win" as a team or an organization; and it
is dynamic, exciting, and inspiring.

Leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act toward achieving a common goal. In a
business setting, this can mean directing workers and colleagues with a strategy to meet the
company's needs.

Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the
achievement of a goal. Leadership stems from social influence, not authority or power. Leadership
is the process of persuasion or example by which an individual (or leadership team) induces a group
to pursue objectives held by the leader or shared by the leader and his or her followers."

Leadership is an important element of the directing function of management. Wherever, there is an

organized group of people working towards a common goal, some type of leadership becomes
essential. “The power of leadership is the power of integrating. The leader stimulates what is best in
us he unites and concentrates what we feel only gropingly and shatteringly. He is a person who gives
form to the uncoarctate energy in every man. The person who influences me most is not he who does
great Deeds, but he who makes me feel that I can do great deeds.” Marry Parker Follet.
Leadership is the ability to build up confidence and zeal among people and to create an urge in them
to be led. To be a successful leader, a manager must possess the qualities of foresight, drive,
initiative, self-confidence and personal integrity. Different situations may demand different types of
leadership.
II. Nature and Characteristics of Leadership
1. Leadership is a personal quality.
2. It exists only with followers. If there are no followers, there is no leadership.
3. It is the willingness of people to follow that makes person a leader.
4. Leadership is a process of influence. A leader must be able to influence the behaviour,
attitude and beliefs of his subordinates.
5. It exists only for the realization of common goals.
6. It involves readiness to accept complete responsibility in all situations.
7. Leadership is the function of stimulating the followers to strive willingly to attain
organizational objectives.
8. Leadership styles do change under different circumstances.
9. Leadership is neither bossism nor synonymous with; management.

III. Formal and informal Leaders

From the view point of official recognition from top management, leaders may be classified as formal
and informal leaders. A formal leader is one who is formally appointed or elected to direct and
control the activities of the subordinates. He is a person created by the formal structure, enjoys
organizational authority and is accountable to those who have elected him in a formal way. The
formal leader has a two-fold responsibility. On the one hand, he has to fulfil the demands of the
organization, while on the other he is also supposed to help, guide and direct his subordinates in
satisfying their needs and aspirations.

Informal leaders are not formally recognized. They derive authority from the people who are under
their influence. In any organization we can always find some persons who command respect and
who are approached to help, guide and protect the informal leaders have only one task to perform,
i.e., to help their followers in achieving their individual and group goals. Informal leaders are created
to satisfy those needs which are not satisfied by the formal leaders. An organization can make
effective use of informal leaders to strengthen the formal leadership.

IV. Leadership Styles

Autocratic leadership style: In this style of leadership, a leader has complete command and hold
over their employees/team. The team cannot put forward their views even if they are best for the
team or organizational interests. They cannot criticize or question the leader’s way of getting things
done. The leader himself gets the things done. The advantage of this style is that it leads to speedy
decision-making and greater productivity under leader’s supervision. Drawbacks of this leadership
style are that it leads to greater employee absenteeism and turnover. This leadership style works
only when the leader is the best in performing or when the job is monotonous, unskilled and routine
in nature or where the project is short-term and risky.

The Laissez Faire Leadership Style: Here, the leader totally trusts their employees/team to perform
the job themselves. He just concentrates on the intellectual/rational aspect of his work and does not
focus on the management aspect of his work. The team/employees are welcomed to share their
views and provide suggestions which are best for organizational interests. This leadership style
works only when the employees are skilled, loyal, experienced and intellectual.

Democratic/Participative leadership style: The leaders invite and encourage the team members
to play an important role in decision-making process, though the ultimate decision-making power
rests with the leader. The leader guides the employees on what to perform and how to perform, while
the employees communicate to the leader their experience and the suggestions if any. The
advantages of this leadership style are that it leads to satisfied, motivated and more skilled
employees. It leads to an optimistic work environment and also encourages creativity. This
leadership style has the only drawback that it is time-consuming.

Bureaucratic leadership: Here the leaders strictly adhere to the organizational rules and policies.
Also, they make sure that the employees/team also strictly follows the rules and procedures.
Promotions take place on the basis of employees’ ability to adhere to organizational rules. This
leadership style gradually develops over time. This leadership style is more suitable when safe
work conditions and quality are required. But this leadership style discourages creativity and does
not make employees self-contented. The behavioural theories of leadership focused on
discovering the constant relationship between leadership behaviours and the group performance,
the contemporary theories emphasized the significance of situational factors (such as stress level,
job structure, leader’s intelligence, followers’ traits, etc.) as well.