Introduction
From the beginning of human history, the need for an individual that could carry more than his share of the weight, while possessing a quality that made others try to imitate them, has been essential for progress and endurance. The definition of leadership is a person who could lead and inspire others. At these times, the tendencies of human naturedemonstrates compassion, community oriented and egotistical individuals. Understanding the concept of cooperation, individuals also discovered the need for an exceptional type of person to lead and guide them, using their expertise to the advantage and benefit of the group.. Strengths, skills and abilities are the deciding factor for an exceptional leader. The introduction of industrialization and technological advancement ushered in a new workplace environment and the need for leaders in the workplace, and our local communities. With changing times, so did the meaning of leader change. From being a strong general with the goal and ambition of decapitating the enemy, to being responsible for organizing and managing employees to function and execute tasks in the best interest of the organization. Because of the uniqueness of individual personalities and character traits, leadership can be very difficult to generalize. Instead, a leader is one who is endowed with a charismatic personality, talented and can influence others to follow them.
Servant Leadership
Finley (2012) concludes that, servant leadership is
The traditional concept of a leader, as being the directing chief at the top of a hierarchy, is now considered to be inadequate to truly lead a modern organisation. Leadership is concerned with people and so anyone, and indeed everybody, has the potential to demonstrate leadership qualities and behaviours.
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.
Leadership can be defined as the ability of a company 's management to make sound decisions and inspire others to perform well (Investopedia, 2014). From the beginning of time, in the middle of all the major changes and historical events there where effective and motivated leaders having a wide sphere of influence and inspiring other groups of people to be creative and efficient. A leader is defined as a person or thing that holds a dominant or superior position within its field, and is able to exercise a high degree of control or influence over others (businessdictionary,2014).Leaders have always played a major role in the evolution of technology as well as in forming the very lifestyle of today’s society. Effective leaders are able to set and achieve challenging goals, to take swift and decisive action even in difficult situations, to outperform their competition, to take calculated risks and to persevere in the face 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”...
Leaders, worldwide are judged by their ability to conduct themselves appropriately as well as manage a team. A leader with vision and passion can positively influence persons by injecting enthusiasm and energy. “Today leaders are expected to guide, motivate,
Leadership is defined as the ability to accomplish a set goal(s) due to the act of inspiring and motivating a group of your peers. Former United States president Dwight D. Eisenhower made famous a quote that stated, “Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.” (Notable-quotes.com). One of the most important aspects of the work area is leadership. Without leadership, there will be no guidance to for teamwork and the percentage of successful goal will be slim to none. Becoming a great leader is no easy feat however. An exceptional leader must lock in on specific attributes such as intellect, moral character, and human
Arguably, there are countless different definitions of leaders in the world, and my experience brought me in contact with countless worthy people who excel as examples of this. Consequently, by utilizing the abundant case studies over the last 28 years of my career, I formed the following definition of what a leader is: A morally grounded individual who meets all challenges with an infectious excitement which others wish to emulate. This drive inspires allegiance to this individual, mostly without a formal request to follow. The members just choose to assist this individual in meeting the desired results without a need for the accolades of a successful result.
With this competency of our understanding of leadership, there has derived endless traits that can define a leader and what one can grasp as asking their selves “am I a leader” or a “follower”. With the plethora of attempted definitions of word leader in diverse cultures around the world, and have stood the test of time across the millennia, Kouzes et al, identifies four traits that emerge as what is possessed by an individual as, being a leader, regardless of what country, culture or walk of life, you individually reflect and identify yourself too. If you are considered a leader, you are most likely to have these skills or traits embedded into your fabric, influencing of fundamental relationships, and interaction between groups or organizational communication. One is said to have leadership ability, skill or trait if the person is of honesty, forward- looking, competent, and inspiring in perception of those whom the leader is influencing.
In today’s competitive world, leadership skills are crucial for both personal and professional development. Leadership is an important function of management which helps an individual or a business to maximize efficiency and to achieve goals. Leadership has different meanings to various authors.Most commonly, leadership is defined as influence, that is, the art of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievement of group goals. (Koontz). Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of either formal or informal group in the task of goal setting and goal achievement. A leader is one whose magnetic personality innervates people for some cause. Not by words, but by their actions is
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
Management in my mind and as the book reinforces the definition to be, to plan, to organize, to staff for the process, and to control the process to the end. These are consider the primary functions of the management role (p.8).
Organizations depend on the management and leadership skills of individuals in order to be successful. Leaders do not have to be managers but are equally important. Leaders are individuals who possess traits, behavior and abilities to influence others to accomplish tasks and other needed objectives for the company. Leadership is defined as “the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organization. . . .” (House et al., 1999, pg. 184).
“Leadership is the ability to take an average team of individuals and transform them into superstars. The best leader is the one who inspires his workers to achieve greatness each and every day”.
If you could in your own words define a leader what would you say a leader was? A leader could be considered many different things depending on who you ask. According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary a leader is a person or thing who leads. That’s a pretty broad definition. Sanjiv Kumar defines leadership as the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of goals (Kumar, 2014). BusinessDictionary.com defines a leader as a person or thing that holds a dominant or superior position within its field, and is able to exercise a high degree of control or influence over others. Leaders can be found in every setting. Examples of leaders include parents, teachers, religious leaders, managers, or even a band director.
For decade’s individuals, companies, and organizations have spent an unprecedented amount of money on researching, molding, modeling and working to define what a leader is and what characteristics make successful leaders. Despite all the research, there is not a quick answer or even full agreement as to what makes an individual an effective leader. The definition of a leader is “someone who can influence others and who has managerial authority.” (Robbins, Decenzo, Coulter, 2015. P.370)