Leadership: meaning and the factors affecting it

Meaning of leadership

Leadership is getting individuals and groups to pursue shared goals because they want to, not merely because they are told to. A leader provides direction, inspires confidence and secures cooperation, using both formal authority and personal qualities. Leadership is a continuous process; it involves a leader, followers and a situation; it depends on followers' willing acceptance; and it aims at shared goals. Its importance lies in initiating action, motivating people, building morale, managing change and developing people.

Leadership effectiveness does not depend on the leader alone. How a leader behaves also depends on who is being led, what has to be done and where: the same person leads differently in a crisis and in calm, with experts and with trainees.

Factors affecting leadership

A. The leader

1. Personal traits and qualities: intelligence, self-confidence, integrity, emotional stability, initiative, decisiveness, empathy and communication skill.
2. Knowledge and competence: technical, human and conceptual skills that earn followers' respect.
3. Values and assumptions about people: leaders who trust people (Theory Y) lead differently from those who do not (Theory X).
4. Experience and style: past successes and habitual ways of behaving.
5. Power base: formal authority, expertise, ability to reward, and personal attraction.

B. The followers

6. Skills, knowledge and experience of followers: capable followers can be given more freedom.
7. Their needs, expectations and motivation: what they want from the job.
8. Readiness to accept responsibility and need for independence.
9. Attitudes and acceptance of the leader: leadership exists only if followers accept it.
10. Group cohesion and norms.

C. The situation

11. Nature of the task: routine or complex, structured or unstructured.
12. Time pressure and urgency.
13. Organisational culture, structure and policies: centralised, rule-bound organisations limit participative leadership.
14. Size of the group and physical dispersion.
15. External environment: stability, crises, competition and technology.
16. Position power and the support the leader receives from higher management.
17. Resources available: money, people, equipment and time; a leader with thin resources must rely more on persuasion and priorities than on rewards.

D. Communication and relationships

17. Leader–follower relations: trust, respect and mutual understanding.
18. Quality of communication between leader and followers.

Example. A capable engineer promoted to lead a team of experienced designers succeeds by consulting them and giving them freedom; the same engineer leading new apprentices in a factory crisis must give clear, firm instructions. The leader is the same; the followers and the situation differ.

Conclusion

Leadership is a function of the leader, the followers and the situation. An effective leader understands these factors and adapts his or her behaviour to them. The same leader can succeed in one setting and fail in another: a manager who is at her best turning round a failing branch may find the slow, steady work of running a settled one far less suited to her style.