Leadership As A Position Of Power

What is leadership? Leadership by definition is the ability of an individual or organization to guide other individuals, teams, or organizations. Without leadership many would just follow one another's actions like blind sheep. Many of the powerful shifts in American history were started by men and women who made the decision to guide and instruct one another rather than being a follower.

Our textbook defines leadership as a behavior or communication that influences, guides, directs, or controls a group. Although, some communication scholars argue that leadership in a group may be determined when the group is in a type of struggle or off course. That the group appoints a leader or oneself appoints when there is difficulty setting conditions or lacking cooperation to get things done.

There are many definitions for the term leadership. This term have different meanings to each individual. Leadership is defined as a complex phenomenon involving the leader, the followers, and the situation (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy, 2012). Leadership is a quality that one can gain through employment experience and/or through education and can also be gained through mentorship. There are many different leadership styles that a leader may fall under. Each type of leadership style has its own uniqueness that makes the leader fall under that particular

According to Dictionary.com, leadership is defined as “the position or function of a leader, a person who guides or directs a

Leadership is and has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”[1]. A definition more

According to Stephen, DeCenzo, and Coulter, leadership is the way an individual leads and influences a group to achieve certain goals (p. 337). When looking at being a leader, whether it is in a corporation or on a sports team, certain traits are associated with leadership. In addition, transactional, transformational, and/or charismatic leaders will each see a different outcome of the way they lead.

Leadership is defined as the potential to influence and drive the group efforts towards the accomplishment of

Although there is no universal definition of leadership, most definitions focus on individual traits and characteristics. Yet leadership remains a difficult concept to characterize. If you were to ask me for my personal definition of leadership, it is simply the ability to motivate and inspire a group of individuals toward a common or shared goal. Lussier (2013) define leadership as “a process of a leader communicating ideas, gaining acceptance of the vision and motivating followers to support and implement the ideas through others.” Merriam-Webster provides an assortment of descriptions for the concept. Leadership is defined as “the office or position of a leader; capacity to lead; or the act or an instance of leading”,

According to Business Dictionary.com, leadership is defined as the individuals who are the leaders in an organization, regarded collectively. It also can be define as the activity of leading a group of people or an organization or the ability to do this. Leadership involves the establishing of a clear vision, sharing the vision with other so that they will follow willingly, providing the needed information, knowledge, and methods to realize the vision and coordinating and balancing the conflicts interests of all members and stakeholders.

Leadership is a process which delivers a position of power held by an individual, this authority enables him to mobilise and direct the team efforts towards its goals.

Webster 's Dictionary defines leadership as the power or ability to lead or influence other people (Webster, 2009). Leadership definition varies depending upon the perspective of the person and garners many different responses. Leadership is typically viewed as a process of social influence, in which one or more persons affect one or more followers by clarifying what

Moreover, the trait approach gives a deeper understanding of the leader element in the leadership process by emphasising exclusively on the leader, (Gore et al, 2011). The trait theory does not offer hypotheses about the role of situational variance or characteristic of the followers. Instead, this approach provide information about leaders, and about which traits cause which behaviours and that certain set of traits are central to the leadership process and play an indispensible part of effective leadership.

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.

Research on management and leadership in organizations over the past century shows there are still no clear definitions or answers about what counts as effective and successful leadership; the field remains varied and argued. Actual studies of leadership began in the early twentieth century. The research and studies on leadership have resulted in defining what characters, traits and attitudes are considered to be significant for leaders to possess. The early studies of leadership theories focused on the person and their behaviors, currently known as leadership trait theories and behavioral theories. It is important for organizational leaders and managers to understand what characteristics, traits and actions of an individual mark a great leader when forming a strong diverse workforce.

For a quick review, the definition of leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group or individuals, to achieve a common goal.