Leadership
This article covers meaning, importance & types of Leadership from HRM perspective.
What is Leadership?
Leadership is the skill of an individual or a leader to organize, inspire and guide a set of people to achieve a common goal. Leadership is the quality possessed by a person to influence and inspire a set of individuals to work as a team. A person possessing strong leadership skills is a leader, who motivates individuals to perform and contribute towards the team’s needs.
Importance of Leadership
It is one of the most important traits which are useful for any person to succeed both professionally and personally. Leader is the person people look upto in order to have guidance on what to do next. Ideally, good leadership has a positive influence on most of the people he is leading. It has a very positive and strong correlation with the team’s output & motivation, and helps in the career development of an individual.
It is important in guiding the team, strategizing the business goals, giving the vision, empowering the team and ensuring a positive environment for all. A good leader not only leads team but also helps in leadership development. These qualities are useful not only in a business scenario, but they are present in every field like sports, politics, medicine etc. A good leader must have good skills like team management, time management, decision making, communication management, good governance etc.
Key Leadership Skills
There are several leadership skills which an individual must acquire in order to become a good leader. All these skills need to be developed over a period of time by constantly learning new skills for one self. Some of the important and key skills and qualities of a good leader are discussed below:
1. Guidance: One key skill which team members look upto is guidance & mentorship from a good leader.
2. Motivation: Giving motivation to employees to contribute effectively is an essential skill for any individual.
3. Communication: A good leader is always open for a two-way communication, i.e. he or she is a good orator as well as a good listener, and has good interpersonal skills.
4. Creativity: A good quality ensures that there is room for intelligent discussions, creative ideas and learning of new skills.
5. Positivity: An individual who brings in positive energy and reduces negative thoughts has the qualities of being a strong and influential leader.
6. Feedback: Giving feedback to members is a good sign on leadership as it helps individual improve.
7. Inspiration: A strong leader has skills to inspire and motivate team members, and often leads by example.
8. Teamwork: Apart from leading a group of individual, good skills requires to be a part of the team which can be differently on the basis of region, culture, language etc.
9. Responsibility: A good leadership position demands an individual who can handle responsibility and be accountable for not only progress, but also takes into strides failures.
10. Delegating: A good leader builds trust with employees by delegation of authority and work to them based on their skills.
Types of Leadership
There are several types of leadership based on the approaches taken by leaders. Some important types are discussed below:
• Autocratic: An authoritative leader makes decisions without consulting team members. All the authority and accountability are with the leader.
• Democratic: All subordinates contribute in the decision making democratically.
• Strategic: The leader defines the goals and strategies which need to be followed by the team.
• Transformational: The leader motivates, inspires and transforms employees to deliver.
• Transactional: Leaders reward or punish members based on immediate results delivered.
• Charismatic: Leaders motivate and inspire based on their positive attitude and charisma.
• Team: Making a collective team and working with a sense of direction and purpose.
• Cross-Cultural: The leader needs to work with people from different cultures, regions, religions etc.
• Facilitative: A leader facilitates suggestions, directives etc depending upon the tpe of group.
• Laissez-Faire: Employees have the power and authority to work.
• Coaching: It involves continuous teaching, coaching and supervision of the leader.
• Visionary: Visionary leaders recognize that leadership is obtained with and through people.
Leadership Styles Goleman elaborates on six elements of a leader like visionary, coaching, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting and commanding.
Qualities of Leadership
Based on the personality, attitude, knowledge and approach of individuals, they become good leaders or bad leaders. Some of the important qualities of leadership are as below:
1. Honesty and Integrity
2. Encourage & Motivate Others
3. Commitment & Desire
4. Good Communicator
5. Decision-Making Capabilities
6. Responsibility & Accountability
7. Delegation & Empowerment
8. Creativity and Innovation
Apart from these, good qualities of leadership are seen by the leader’s own commitment to work, acquire new skills, lead by example and helps the team members grow.
Hence, this concludes the definition of Leadership along with its overview.
Browse the definition and meaning of more similar terms. The Management Dictionary covers over 1800 business concepts from 5 categories.
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