CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
GENERAL IDEA OF LEADERSHIP
Leadership is a process in which a leader attempts to influence his or her followers to establish and accomplish a goal or goals.
LEADERSHIP
The capacity to lead others: command, lead.
An act or instance of guiding: direction, guidance, lead, management. See affect/ineffectiveness.
Leadership is the process through which an individual tries to influence another individual or a group of individuals to accomplish a goal. Leadership is valued in our culture, especially when it helps to achieve goals that are beneficial to the population, such as the enactment of effective preventive health policies. An individual with leadership qualities can also improve an organization and the individuals in it, whether it be a teacher who works to get better teaching materials and after school programs or an employee who develops new ideas and products and influences others to invest in them.
Leadership can be exhibited in a variety of ways and circumstances. Mothers and fathers show leadership in raising their children with good values and
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encouraging them to develop to their potential. Teachers show it in inspiring students to learn and to develop their intellectual capacity. Health care workers can be leaders and develop services that meet the needs of the communities they serve, or work in collaboration with other organizations to create cost effective, prevention oriented programs and services.
Many studies have been done and many books and articles have been published on this subject. Through this work a consistent set of leadership attributes has emerged. An effective leader does most, if not all, of the following:
Challenge the Process—search out challenging opportunities, take risks, and learn from mistakes.
Inspire others to come together and agree on a future direction or goal— create a shared vision by thinking about the future, having a strong positive vision, and encouraging others to participate.
Help others to act—help others to work together, to cooperate and collaborate by developing shared goals and building trust, and help to make others stronger by encouraging them to develop their skills and talents.
Set an example—behave in ways that are consistent with professed values and help others to achieve small gains that keep them motivated, especially when a goal will not be achieved quickly.
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Encourage others—recognize each individual's contributions to the success of a project.
Another way of defining leadership is to acknowledge what people value in individuals that are recognized as leaders. Most people can think of individuals they consider being leaders. Research conducted in the 1980s by James Kouzes and Barry Posner found that a majority of people admire, and willingly follow, people who are honest, forward looking, inspiring, and competent
An individual who would like to develop leadership skills can profit from the knowledge that leadership is not just a set of exceptional skills and attributes possessed by only a few very special people. Rather, leadership is a process and a set of skills that can be learned.
The word leadership can refer to: the process of leading. Those entities that perform one or more acts of leading.
Kouzes (2002) states that "Leadership is not a place, it‘s not a position,and it‘s not a secret code that can‘t be deciphered by ordinary people. Leadership is an observable set of skills and abilities. Of course some people are better at it than others."
In general terms, leadership can be defined as the ability to influence the behaviour of others.
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This definition can be expanded when considering leadership in organizations to include the fact that the leader exerts influence within a working group in order that the group may achieve group tasks or objectives. (T .Lucy 1997) leadership is an everyday art involving the skill of leading and dealing with people. The success in ruling new dominions is contingent upon both his ability to wield power effectively, and the existence of an opportunistic situation. Problems, which result within organizational members, disagree on both the natures of the goals of which people disagree on both the natures of the goals of which people aspire, and the act of leadership. Leadership, as we use the term refers to behaviour, undertaken within the context of an organisational members behave.
It could be observed that leadership and management envisages deeply into what the organization can achieve if the quality of recognition is accorded to them. Leadership has been propounded to include the sources of influence that are built into a position in an organizational hierarchy.
These include organizationally sanctioned rewards, and punishments, authority, as well as referent and expert power katz and kahn 1966, p.32. It could be seen however, that subordinates within the organization, through not all seem to enjoy the influence that exists all over and above the organization.
Leadership is very essential organization and greatly influences the whole organization because achievements and results occur corollary to the traits being projected by the leader. Leadership includes the ultimate source of power but
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has that positive ability in persuading other individuals and to be innovative in decision making. According to Bennis and Nanus, many organizations are over managed and under led. The difference is crucial, managed are people who do things right, but leaders are people who do the right things always.
Problems are bound to occur within every noted organisation and decision making is bound to generate conflicts while initiating policies.
People are expected to coordinate. Whatever they are doing to achieve organizational goals. In this light, the notion of leadership act are those which help a grouping meeting those stated objectives (Bavelas 1960:p491).in general terms the acts of controlling other people consists uncertainty reduction ,which entails making the kind of choice that permits the organization to proceed towards its objective despite various kinds of internal and external variables.
The effectiveness of leadership has some characteristics, which include forceful threats, a complete assertion of authority to the subordinates, and a derived, and situational responsibility.
Note that in the society today, not only the presence of rewards (positive and negative), or the incentive appraisal could induce productivity but the feeling of belongingness.
Improper leadership qualities within the organization have a negative impact on the subordinates as well as the achievement of the organizational objective. An
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organization that has growth and forward looking has a good leadership and vis a vis a bad or deteriorating organization has a bad leadership.
Leadership is always related to the situation. There is a growing awareness that is a continuous interaction between the factors presents in any given situation, including for example, the personal characteristics of the leader, the tasks, the environment, the technology, the attitudes, motivation and behaviour of the followers and so on.