Origins of Leadership and Power Essays

Leadership is the process of influencing individuals or a group of individuals by providing purpose, direction with the support of others, and motivating those individuals with the purpose of accomplishing a certain obligation which is helpful to all individual that is involved.

One definition of leadership states that it is a process by which a group is influenced and directed by a particular member of the group to reach a common goal (Northouse 2010). Many other definitions exist, suggesting that it is a concept as fluid and individual as leaders themselves (Curtis et al. 2011).

In leadership, leaders get his power from his group members. He proceeds in this position at the pleasure of members in his group collectively. The position of leadership exists in most settings regardless of group size. For instance, a leader of national or universal standing has vast influence over an expansive number of individuals while the influence of small group in a company is extremely constrained. Both are leaders in their own right and satisfy our definition of

Leadership 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”...

Power, influence, leadership ability, all these intertwine to make an effective leader; yet they are often confused as being able to stand alone to define a leader. Each element is needed to complete the other, thus this paper will look at how power is used as influence. Using Hackman and Johnson’s Personal Power Profile, my preferred method of influence will be examined and how this relates to future leadership will be discussed.

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 the world we live in today the roles of power and leadership are often confused. Although they have similar meanings, they can be distinctly defined between the latter. The key difference between the two is the term of effect. Power is the exercise of leadership, and leadership is only defined if you have power. Leadership always involves attempts on a leader to affect behavior or a follower in a situation, whereas power is not equivalent with influence on another person’s behavior. Although power and leadership have similar meanings, they are certain differences that can point out what makes

Power is defined as the ability to influence and control events. This power is recognized by the social power that stems from the relationships among people. Social philosopher Hannah Arendt (1969) states that “Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only long as the groups keep together.” The reason behind an

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

In addition to power established because of organizational hierarchy or role, power is also established based on the level of influence or status one holds in an organization (Anichich, Fast, Halevy, Galinsky, 2016). “Status is the outcome of an evaluation of attributes that produce differences in respect and prominence” (Ketner et al, 2003 p. 266) They co-exists but are not co-dependent on each other. It’s possible to have status without power and power without status (Ketner et al, 2003). Whether one’s control comes through status or positional power, lauding control or significant influence over another inevitably leads to conflict.

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 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

Over the years, a great deal of time, and research has been dedicate to the study of leadership. Even with extensive data on the topic, many still disagree on what leadership really means. Hence, leadership is a word that has many different meanings and different researched theories associated with it. On a basic level, leadership involves having and establishing a clear vision, sharing that vision with followers, respecting followers, and leading an organization with excellence while ensuring that everyone is part of the team. Leadership is also a method by which a leader uses his or her influence towards getting a group of followers to take ownership or buy into a vision.

The earliest study of leadership, Galton’s (1869) Hereditary Genius underlined a founding concept that evolved into most prevalent ideas about leadership through to the present. Leadership is seen to be distinguished as simply a trait found in extraordinary individuals. Known as the great man theory, the formation of leadership has developed into the study of leadership characteristics, to be supplanted by the theories I will be discussing in my essay. It is necessary to firstly define the term leadership before discussing it. Rost (1993) revealed a total of 221 differing definitions of leadership. Some being unambiguous, whilst others were more broad in their conceptions. Bass (2008) argued that it is trivial to pursue a singular definition of leadership. (Yukl, 2010) simply defines it as “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplishing shared objectives.” This makes leadership a separate ideology to management, which is a process of organisation, planning and controlling resources to reach certain goals set by the higher ups in the organisation. What is a high performing team? The centre for organisational design describes it as “a group of people with harmonising talents and skills in their specific roles, united under one purpose, who consistently show commitment and high levels of motivation, innovation and collaboration, that

In the textbook Leadership is defined as ‘the process of influencing an organized group toward accomplishing its goals’ (Hughes, Ginnet & Curphy 2015, p. 5). Leadership involves leader, followers, and situation.