What is Leadership?

What is Leadership?

What is leadership? In literature there are a lot of definitions and explanations of the word leadership. But, this is hard to find a single definition available for leadership, which makes it difficult to define the concept.

Leadership is an important phenomenon, but the concept is not clear yet, what leadership actually is and how to define. As mentioned by Bass & Stogdill in their handbook of leadership, ‘there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept’.

Simon Western in his book ‘Leadership’ quoted Andrew J. Dubrin. Dubrin estimates, ‘in academic literature there are 35,000 definitions of leadership’.

You can imagine there are a lot of definitions that makes it very difficult to find a common definition. There are factors that make it difficult to define leadership.

When we talk about leadership, there is variety of images come to mind. Such as, a political leader or leadership, someone leading a business organisation, a civil society leader or leadership, or religious leadership.

In this article, to make it simple and easy to understand we will consider leadership as general, rather than in the context of political, business, religious, or civil society.

Difficulty in Defining Leadership

In this section, we highlighted the fundamental points that make it difficult to define leadership and have a common consensus about the concept:

First; leadership is a complex construct which is open to subjective interpretation. Every one of us has their own intuitive understanding of what leadership is, based on personal experience and learning.

Second; how some people define and understand leadership is strongly influenced by one’s theoretical stance and approach. There are people who view leadership as the result of a set of traits or the leader’s personal characteristics s/he possessed. But, in others’ opinion, leadership as a social process that emerges from group relationships. These different views always result in a difference of opinion about the nature of leadership.

Simon Western in his book ‘Leadership’ mentioned that, ‘leadership can be a certain type of social interaction between people and the term leader refers to a person (or sometimes group or company), who have influence over others’.

In literature, there have been identified other problems that make consensus on a common definition of leadership quite unlikely:

Position; there is lack of agreement on the basis of ‘position’ of a leader. Either a leader in charge with formally allocated authority, or in front with informal influence. There is difference of opinion on these grounds.

Philosophy; philosophy problem means, does the leader force an intentional, causal influence on the behaviour of followers, or their actions are determined by context and situation.

Purity; this is another difficulty about leadership definition. Either leadership is embodied in individuals or groups, or it is a purely human phenomenon?.

Leadership and Management

Many people use management and leadership interchangeably. They both have to work with people. They both involve influencing people. Both have to achieve common goals. But, they are different from each other.

Management involves planning goals for an organisation, hiring staff, organising and managing them, and closely supervising them to implement plans and achieve goals. Managers work with minimal emotional involvement to solve problems.

On the other hand, leadership goes beyond just making plans and supervising staff. It sets vision and gives a new direction to the organisation and followers. It inspires and motivates all followers to work towards common goals and vision. Leaders totally emotionally involve shaping new ideas while considering ideas of other people.

What Leadership is?

What leadership is? We can find a lot of answer to the question. But, the problem with definitions of leadership is, there is lack of consensus on a single definition. A straight forward answer is very hard to find.

When we study the definitions of leadership there are some common elements and ingredients in many of definitions.

In this section we extracted these common elements in order to make it easy and understandable. These are the points that about leadership:

Leadership Creates Vision

Have you heard of visionary leader or leadership? Visionary leadership means when a leadership has a vision. A leadership without a vision may not be a leadership. This is the basic element a leadership possesses.

An effective leadership creates vision for followers, and motivates and directs them to achieve that vision.

Vision means, an idea or mental image of something. It refers where you exactly want to be in future. Leadership sets a vision and directs all financial and people resources to attain that vision.

By setting vision it provides direction, makes priorities and provides meaning to the journey. Creating vision is a fundamental factor for leadership. Leadership is the capacity to set and attain vision.

As mentioned by Warren G. Bennis

‘Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality’.

Richard and Engle well said,

‘Leadership is about articulating visions, embodying values, and creating the environment within which things can be accomplished’.

Leadership Motivates ans Inspires People

Unlike, management leadership goes beyond just managing and supervising people to complete routine tasks.

Leadership to execute plans and achieve vision, builds team and coaches it to arrive at end goal. Effective leadership motivates and inspires followers to follow the directions and instructions gladly and confidently.

This is the leadership’s ability to inspire and motivate people who help to achieve vision. Leadership can motivate people for hard work to achieve success.

‘Leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow’ (Kouzes & Posner, 2002).

Leadership Influential Power

Influence is a basic element leadership possesses. It is a process of influencing followers or group of people to achieve common goals and vision.

The influencing authority either formal or informal makes an important part of leadership. Leadership needs to influence people and it is without influential power will be less effective.

Leadership uses influential power to influence the behaviour of others without using  threat or violence. It influences the followers in a positive way.

‘Leadership is defined as the process of influencing the activities of an organised group toward goal achievement’ (Rauch & Behling).

Leadership Delegates Authority

This is a distinctive quality of leadership that differentiates leadership from management. Leadership delegates authority to the subordinates or group of people.

When the followers see the authority has been delegated to them, they feel positive and increase the level of confidence on the leadership.

Delegating authority to the followers decreases the trust gap between leaders and followers. Then, the people accept responsibility and they already convinced to work for common objectives and goals.

John C. Maxwell mentioned,

‘If you want to do few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate’.

Leadership Focuses Change

Change in organisations and in civil societies is essential. That is the leadership which copes with change.

It motivates the followers to work toward change. Effective leadership adopts a proactive approach to deal with change.

If the change is internal it creates an environment of consensus that is to be accepted by everyone. If the change is external it prepares the followers to deal with it.

John Kotter stated that,

‘Leadership is required to cope with dynamic change’.

Conclusion

As discussed above it is very difficult to find a single definition of leadership. But, in this article we highlighted the common and major grounds from different definitions.

Leadership is a complex phenomenon when it comes to define it. The complex nature of leadership makes it so hard to have consensus on a definition.

Many of us use leadership and management interchangeably and they think these two are synonyms, but they are two different concepts. As we also discussed the difference between these two concepts.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How do you define leadership?

 Simply, leadership means motivating and inspiring a group of people to work for achieving a common goal. In a business setting, it means directing workers or team members to attain organisational goals.

What is the best definition of leadership?

I think the best definition of leadership is, it is the capacity to translate vision into reality, by Warren G. Bennis.

What are the 4 best types of leadership?

The four best types of leadership are;

• Democratic leadership
• Autocratic leadership
• Laisse-Faire leadership (Free Rein)
• Coach Style leadership

What are the 5 qualities of a good leader?

These are the five qualities of a good leader;

• Vision
• Honesty and Integrity
• Inspirational
• Delegation and Empowerment
• Decision Making Capabilities

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