A Theory of Terrorist Leadership and its Consequences for Leadership Targeting

Leadership is a facet of management. It is just one of the many assets a successful manager must possess. The main aim of a manager is to maximize the output of the organization through administrative implementation. To achieve this managers must undertake the four functions of management: planning, organization, leading and controlling. In some cases leadership is just one important component of the leading function. Predpall (1994) said, "Leaders must let vision, strategies, goals, and values be the guide-post for action and behavior rather than attempting to control others". In some circumstances, leadership is not required. For example, self-motivated groups may not require a single leader and may find leaders dominating. The fact that a leader is not always required proves that leadership is just an asset and is not essential.

In taking command of an organization, the commander needs to understand how the entire organization works; the synergistic effect of all its parts. Unlike the staff officer who may focus on the part of a problem relevant to his/her function and the efficiency of his/her section, the commander must have a holistic perception of the issue. The commander’s thinking must now shift more focus to the conceptual level of

Quoted by Ronald Reagan “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” A manager gets things done via planning and delegation. Tasks are usually assigned and results are obtained by other efforts. A leader gets things done by holding a vision, modeling behaviors and usually have very inspiring actions. A manager is defined as, “An individual who is in charge of a certain group or tasks” (Business Dictionary). A leader is defined as “The person who leads or commands a group, organizations” (Business Dictionary).

Leadership at times can be a complex topic to delve into and may appear to be a simple and graspable concept for a certain few. Leadership skills are not simply acquired through position, seniority, pay scale, or the amount of titles an individual holds but is a characteristic acquired or is an innate trait for the fortunate few who possess it. Leadership can be misconstrued with management; a manager “manages” the daily operations of a company’s work while a leader envisions, influences, and empowers the individuals around them.

In Band of Brothers Episode 5, Crossroads, the audience is introduced in the first scene to Captain Winters running across an open field and coming to an embankment at the end of the field. On the other side of the embankment sits a German soldier scrounging for something on the ground. Winters squeezes the trigger and then the screen goes black. This scene as short as it is I believe is a very powerful way to start the entire episode. If one were to break this scene down there is several traces of leadership that can be found.

Leadership entails guiding others to realize particular goals using a variety of skills (Sullivan & Garland, 2011); Weihrich & Koontz, 2008). Likewise, Spector (2006) defined leadership as the art of influencing others to readily and actively endeavour towards achieving goals set by the team. Additionally, Spector (2006) emphasized that there is a shared theme that leadership comprises influencing individual belief systems, behaviours and feelings. As such, the smooth running of an organization requires effective leadership.

Terrorism is a difficult issue to understand and grasp for many people. What is even more difficult to understand is what drives an individual to become radicalized to the point of joining a terrorist organization and committing terrorist acts. While there is not specific criteria or a “cookie cutter” approach to understanding what motivates and radicalizes an individual to participate in such atrocities, there are however, several psychological and behavioral factors that have been common among these individuals. The following paper will outline some of the psychological and behavioral factors that attribute to an individual’s radicalization and eventual willingness and even perhaps

Classical organisational theorist defined leadership in terms of achieving a group’s objectives R.C Davies (1942) referred to leadership as “the principle dynamic forces that motivates and coordinates the organisation in the accomplishment of its objectives.” Similarly, Urwick (1953) stated that the leader is “the personification of common purpose not only to all who work under taking, but to everyone outside it.” K. Davies (1962) defined leadership as “the human factor which binds a group together and motivates it towards goals.” Cattell (1951) took the extreme position that leadership is whatever or whoever contributes to the group’s performance. To measure each members Leadership, Cattell noted, removed him or her from the group, one at a time, and observe what happens to the group’s performance. Calder (1977) and Pfeffer (1977) “stated that leadership is mainly influence and is even attributed to participants after the fact.

In today’s competitive world, leadership skills are crucial for both personal and professional development. Leadership is an important function of management which helps an individual or a business to maximize efficiency and to achieve goals. Leadership has different meanings to various authors.Most commonly, leadership is defined as influence, that is, the art of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievement of group goals. (Koontz). Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of either formal or informal group in the task of goal setting and goal achievement. A leader is one whose magnetic personality innervates people for some cause. Not by words, but by their actions is

Leadership is a process of influencing activities of a particular group of people with the aim of attaining certain stipulated goals. In defining leadership there is need to consider a particular group, the common goals and the duties that are allocated to specific members of the group depending on their abilities (Fiedler 1976). Leadership therefore cannot successfully occur unless members of the group are given different considerations in terms of personality, traits and responsibilities. In considering leadership, it is important to look at the leader, the group or organization they are leading, the members as individuals and the situation; these are

Leadership is about creating a vision for that function and gaining peoples commitment by strategic direction.

Leadership has been studied extensively and many varying definitions exist. Hughes, Ginnett and Curphy (2015, p.4) review many of these definitions and consequently describe leadership as ‘the process of influencing an organised group towards its goals’. Leadership involves the interplay of a range of different factors, not least the leader themselves, the followers and the situation. For

Organizations depend on the management and leadership skills of individuals in order to be successful. Leaders do not have to be managers but are equally important. Leaders are individuals who possess traits, behavior and abilities to influence others to accomplish tasks and other needed objectives for the company. Leadership is defined as “the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organization. . . .” (House et al., 1999, pg. 184).

A leader performs five basic functions: Planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. At all the levels of being a leader the leader have to be able to perform one or more of these leadership functions. Most leaders’ main role is to achieve effective utilization of resources in an organization. He/she achieves so through coordinated human efforts. A leader has a very important role to play in achieving organizational objectives. Everyone is responsible for aligning the individual's objectives with the organizational objectives. This is very essential for achieving long-term organizational success. Most U.S. leaders feel as if effective leadership is a personal role that requires the blending of

As Alan Murray write in his essay “Guide to Management” “The manager’s job is to plan, organize and coordinate. The leader’s job is to inspire and motivate”.