Inclusivity That Defines The Nature Of Modern Leadership

Over the years leadership theories have been developed as philosophers define leadership approaches. There are a variety of leadership theories that have been developed. This paper will focus on an analysis of path-goal, transformational, and servant leadership theorie, and how each theory applies to the challenges of organizational change.

Leadership is, and always has been, a vital aspect of social and economic constructs. It is essential to the survival of societies, industries, organizations, and virtually any group of individuals that come together for a common purpose. However, leadership is difficult to define in a single, definitive sense. As such, theories of leadership, what constitutes a great leader, and how leaders are made have evolved constantly throughout history, and still continue to change today in hopes of improving upon our understanding of leadership, its importance, and how it can be most effective in modern organizational cultures.

For centuries leaders have been analyzed in order to determine what the traits and characteristics of a successful leader are. Leadership, as defined by Koontz and Weihrich (2008) is “the art or a process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievement of group goals” (p. 311). Leadership plays an important role in employee’s participation, creativity, recruitment to an organization, their commitment to the organization, and productivity levels. Over the years, there have been a number of theories surrounding leadership such as the “Great Man” theory, which, according to Riaz and Haider (2010), “assumes that leaders are born and have innate qualities, therefore, leaders

A leader is described in different ways, some are naturally talented to be a good leader, and some obtain their leadership ability from their environments or from their experience, and others get leadership ability from academic, career, and accumulated skills. According to Principles of Business Administration,

This paper will discuss the topic of Leadership and both explore, as well as explain, it’s applicability in today’s work environment. The basis for discussion will be centered on the material provided during instruction of Management 371 and the personal LSA Journal entries of John Brennan. Additionally, there are three referenced articles that further explain and highlight the topic of Leadership. Throughout this paper, Leadership and the traits that make up a great leader will be explained.

Leadership, one of the worlds most observed phenomena (Burns, 1997), has been a widely discussed topic. Tracy (Tracy, 2012) believes you motivate others by continually looking for ways to help them to improve their lives and achieve their goals. Qualities

This paper will focus upon the learner’s personal leadership assessment, and on qualities that are inherent to leadership as a whole. The leadership skill assessment questionnaire produced an overall score of 26. According to the questionnaire, this was above average in all areas. However, the learner is able to identify areas of continued growth needed to achieve future career goals. Subsequently, these areas will be divulged in this paper as well.

According to organisational behaviour by McShane, leadership is defined as influencing, motivating and enabling others to contribute towards the effectiveness and success of the organisation of which they are members (page 382, McShane).Becoming an effective leader depends on the leader’s leadership style. Successful leaders have vision and charisma, also the leader should have an ongoing personality, talkative, careful and self-disciplined. The leader must also have self-concept

Before this class, I had a very primitive and vague definition of leadership. Not only did I define it as per my views and ideologies, but I also said that each individual has their own definition of leadership. My initial belief was that leadership does not have a clear cut definition, but there were well defined leadership traits which made an individual. I also initially believed that personal traits did not translate into leadership traits with no strong correlation. After going through the various modules this class offered, it is safe to say that I have significantly redefined leadership and underwent a strong personal assessment. This paper talks what I took back from each of the class activities, assignments and how my self-assessment compares to the perception of others.

The leaders must understand how the world is changing in relation to the organization and how to relate their desires for success to possible changes (Allen and Strathern, 2003). At times the first intervention must be to shake leadership reality to the possible for change as leaders can get caught in the routine of something that is working, success can build complacency. If leaders are satisfied with the way things are there is no vision for the future and change that could be made to keep the organization relevant may pass by.

Talking about leadership, all the major theories in this field point the attention tend on specific and peculiar characteristics owned by one person who has the capacity to lead a group of people to achieve a specific goal. So that, the researchers are concentered on defining what are the personal element and competences which let a person to succeed as leader without considering aspects related instead to the role of the followers and type and degree of relation necessary to reach the goal as a team.

“Leadership is more ability than job. Moreover, it is all about determination, ability to solve problems, set direction for followers, gather them for common purpose and motivating people to achieve tasks. Furthermore, it is a charisma and the ability to reacting at the right time for a particular competitive situation” (L.Mullins, 2010, P372).

Leadership has been a topic that has been researched for a long time in many disciplines. Leadership as a personality focuses on the characteristics of an individual that gives them power to act as leaders. There is leadership as an attribution this approach views leadership as phenomenon that causes group of followers to have outcomes.(Wu et al, 2010, 90).Researchers have used the following approaches to study leadership; they are mainly trait, behavior, power influence, situation and integrative approaches. Trait approaches focuses on the characteristics, values, skill and personality of leaders. Behavior approaches is focused on the leaders behaviors, differentiating between the behavior of ineffective and effective leaders. Integrative approach combines all the approaches to have a holistic picture of the process, outcomes and determinants of leadership. The approach that this paper uses is situational approach that is not leader centered but more on the significance of the context as an influence of leadership. Leaders should be able to choose the leadership quality appropriate to a particular situation.

This structured abstract will review the topic of ‘leadership’ through the research of, Fiedler, Ahn and Ettner, Muchiri et al and Vimba et al.

For decade’s individuals, companies, and organizations have spent an unprecedented amount of money on researching, molding, modeling and working to define what a leader is and what characteristics make successful leaders. Despite all the research, there is not a quick answer or even full agreement as to what makes an individual an effective leader. The definition of a leader is “someone who can influence others and who has managerial authority.” (Robbins, Decenzo, Coulter, 2015. P.370)