The Most Important Trait Of Leadership

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.

The next question posed to Rene inquired about essential characteristics of a leader. After giving the question some thought she responded by saying that a leader must be able to remain objective and prioritize. “Prioritizing in my job is essential,” Rene stated, “with so many issues to deal with some nights it can be difficult to determine which to tackle first. However, remaining calm and objective in your decision making can help a leader prioritize properly, which can improve patient outcomes.” Additionally, Rene emphasized that the best leaders lead by example. By displaying desired attitudes and behaviors, a nursing leader may inspire their staff to act in a similar manner. Another area Rene stressed when posed this question was a leader’s ability to support learning. She went on to state that “it is necessary to focus on learning, not chastising. Placing the blame on someone rather than stepping back and looking at the details of a problem, deters the team from achieving the overall goal. Incident reports remain vital to the process of learning.” Rene continued to emphasis that by filling out incident reports individuals can analyze a situation or process and determine where the flaws or errors remain present. Without incident reports and learning from mistakes, growth remains difficult. Diana S. Contino (2011), author of “Leadership Competencies: Knowledge, Skills, and Aptitudes Nurses Need to Lead Organizations Effectively,” believes that organizational and

Leaders are some of the most influential individuals in any society. They have the ability to influence those around them with various leadership styles including coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and coaching. Effective leaders consistently adapt to the environment around them to either enhance or correct any situation facing them. Within these leadership styles the most effective style has been considered that of the authoritative style. This style brings individuals together, builds self-confidence, and easily adapts to the environment around it.

Leadership is the most discussed topic when it comes to business. There has been much research into leadership and it the effect it has on the followers. Leadership research has included various attributes that show the difference between leaders and non-leaders and the effect it has on the followers. Leadership is a process using socially acceptable behavior, including personality traits used to inspire individuals to reach a goal or objective. There have been many studies that shown individual characteristics including skills and abilities can predict leader effectiveness. This paper is designed to discuss the persuasive forms of leadership and how the persuasion can facilitate change.

Over the course of Module 7, I found the most important topic to be referent power. In my eyes, referent power is the rarest form of leadership. In many ways, it is what people consider the “it” factor. The development of referent power is started the second people meet you, and judge you, and it continues to develop as people get to know you. If the people you meet deem you a unique individual and competent they will follow you. Referent power is rather obscure, it is a purposeful and strategic development of who you are, mixed with how people perceive you. You can foster the ability to have referent power by going above and beyond. I tend to build rapport with my immediate social sphere by choosing others needs over mine, and I deliver when they most need

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.

The role of leadership is an important position within an organization or group, since this position may influence an environment, both, the individual, and the climate. In the event of concentrating on how influential leadership may be, some leaders have transformed the views or perspectives of individuals within a society. Therefore, it’s possible for leadership traits to motivate, persuade, or stimulate visions, rather they are appropriate or unethical.

Leadership is something that we are all born with because we are all born. Therefore, who is a leader and who is not depends on who really wants to be a leader and who does not. Leadership is a skill and so it can be learned. As anything that is learned it demands practice and practice to be the best. It would not be something that will happen in a matter of a day. There are multiple elements that make a leader. Collaboration is a key element for successful teamwork. Therefore, a leader must always be in the look for ways to foster collaboration. Creating trust within the team, support face-to-face collaboration, transfer responsibilities when making decisions, and ultimately teach other how to be leaders. All of this is not done if it is not done from the bottom of your own heart.

Knowledge is power and with great power comes great responsibility (Anonymous). This writer had attended seminars for leadership and management in the course of her career. However, the course presented this writer the opportunity to acquire deeper knowledge and understanding of leadership principles which will prepare her for future opportunities in a much

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

In Real Communication by O’Hair et. al., leadership is defined as “the ability to direct or influence others’ behaviors and thoughts toward a productive end” (274). Power is typically correlated with leadership, due to the fact that the ability to influence others frequently involves possessing power over others. In chapter 10, O’Hair et. al. explain that “researchers have identified five types of power–legitimate, coercive, reward, expert, and referent” (274). Acquiring the knowledge of not only the existence of these powers, but also the meaning of these powers has provided useful insights into my own communication behaviors.

It is important for managers to understand the sources of power and influence as they must rely upon the cooperation of subordinates in order to be successful. Strong managers rely upon more than just authority they also use leadership skills and power to obtain the most productivity from their staff. According to French and Raven (1959) there are five sources of power. Referent power seems to be the most influential and the least affected by change. To quote Paul Argenti,

A leader is defined as a person with responsibility to influence one or more followers and directing them to achieve a set objective (Sethuraman, 2014). In order to achieve that set of objectives effortlessly, effectively, and efficiently, the most important and valued trait of a leader is an effective leadership styles. Effective leadership styles are required in every organization at every level to be successful. The success or failure of an organization depends on the quality of leadership particularly on the part of top management. An effective leadership style can be developed on the basis of understanding of the situations (Sethuraman, 2014). Top management should know which leadership style is needed based on the situation to be most effective to gain trust and respect from their employee. There is no single method of influencing the behavior of employees for every situation. The employee’s level of knowledge on the task and can determine which leadership style that will be most effective for the situation. Preparing leaders to lead

“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.