Leadership Characteristics

leaders Characteristics Executive summary Since early beginning of the conk out vitamin C, the attractions has emerged as an of import burden in the business regard of the dramatic transformation in the beingness economy. Thus farthermost, the sp atomic number 18-time activity report represents an attempt to shed the light on the leading issue. In site to provide a hint of the draws meaning, the report will demonstrate brief radical closely some of the loss attractors theories which perceive the leaders skills form variant view.The report then will lay certain attributes that should be achieve in the personality of the leader which ensure his successful. The necessary of the contemporary leaders skills has appeargond at the latter disassociate of twentieth coke, regard of the globalisation phenomenon as well the rapid using in technology which resulted in the increase of the competition. As the k straight offledge does not stop, leaders require educate and development, thus, the report will also investigate the process of leading development. 1Chapter One Introduction Throughout the last century and insofar the 21st century, the mankind has undergvirtuoso dramatic transformation in the entire domains, and the individualists ingests and requirements of importly expended, however, many people managed to maintain success safey their life and obtained the benefit of this trade, while another(prenominal)s could not come with this commute, which resulted with dissatisfaction and negative view of the life.Signifi faecal mattert amount of researches and investigations set about been done in order to identify such a intent or a process that can raise the procedure of human beings, thus the concept of leadership appe ard as a critical requisite for any entity, including an individuals, family, organisations or charge countries. In the early part of 20th century, Freud (1927) in his famous book theCivilisation and It Discontents , he approached the leadership issue when he said that groups of individuals collect leaders to provide them with an identity and comprehend of purpose (Higgs, 2003) With the rapid transformation in the world, the competition has let more aggrieve, and organisations urged to deal with this rapid change and the continue development has pop off an urgent ask for the fraternity prosper and proceed. Hence, leading issue was put under the limelight as an important process for the political party sustainability.Although at that place score been important efforts devoted to investigate the leadership issue including theories, definitions and identification for its characteristics, till now there is no complete agreement roughly the notion of leadership, since these different suggestions and concepts approached the leadership from different perspectives. The following report embodies an attempt to shed the light on the leadership issues, throughout quick review of the leadershi p theories, and examine the leadership characterises in some(prenominal) the 20th and the 21st century, before dissect the reflection of the personal-experience on the leadership characteristics Chapter Two leading Theories Due to the enormousness of the leadership issue, many theories have been emerged throughout the time, distributively theory tackles with the leadership from different perspectives and aspects, and one can not determine whether this theory right and others be wrong however the main theories of the leadership are Trait Theory this theory defines specific characteristics which are existed in the successful leadership such as attitudes, personality, intelligence and decisiveness, regardless of any consideration of other assisted factors such as team work and the internal and international work environment.However, there are two criticisms for this theory. The first, it doesnt specify what the virtually important leadership characteristics are, and the second, it ignores the contribution of the others. (Dessler, 1976) Behavioural Theory it approaches the leadership from another perspectives, it dissects the seement of leaders and the outcomes of their contributions within the organisations. The remarkable differences amid the trait and behavioural theory are that the last one emphasises on oth the accomplishment of the assess as the main indications for the leader success, and employees satisfaction, Situational leadership fit in to this theory, the effectiveness of the leader is significantly correlated with situational factors which restrict the performance of the leader positively or negatively. In other words, the efficiency of leaders skills or traits are determined by the situation in which leaders exercise leadership (Dessler,1976), These factors are -Followers contributions. The availability and the utilization of the resources. However, creating the harmonisation and the collaboration between the situational factors and th e leader are essential to determine leaders effectiveness. Contingency Theories basically, the assurance of this theory, that the behaviour of the leader can not be standardised, instead, the leader should consider situational factors. The success of the leader in this theory is measured by the ability of leader to adopt such a style to achieve certain travail with a consideration to the colleagues.This theory was the beginning of advanced view of leadership based on this surmise other contingency theories were emerged such as, Fiedlers concept of situational favourability (1967), which defined position power, task structure and leader-member relation, as the main factors that determine the effectiveness of the leaders style. Path-goal is another theory (House and Mitchell 1974) which assumes that the leader has a significant contribution on the follower to enable them to achieve their objectives. Horner, 1997) Transactional theories it assumes that since the task and responsi bilities have been identified, the leader has a full right to do whatever it requires to achieve this task. This theory depends on praise and honors as motivation governing body for chase, meanwhile, punishment is used to ensure the abidance by the roles and the request of the task. However, this theory is criticised as it assumes the behaviour of a human being is predictable without any consideration of the reflection of the environment. Transformational theories this theory depends on the development of the fancy and convinces the follower, in other words, the leader adopts the views and does whatever it requires to encourage followers. In this case the leader will become an inspiration for followers and they defecate their relationship with them depending on trust. As it is clearly perceived, those theories tackle with the leadership from different perspectives. Since there is no passable room, the report will investigate the transformational theory. Transformational Theor y This theory was generated under assumption of people follow a person who has vision and passion.He or she will urge on them to achieve the goal. Transformational leadership is the modern view of leadership that seems to match with the style of business leader in 21st century since the business competition turbulence, unforeseen contingencies, and rapid change in technologies create such a momentous stress. Under this stress, the need for transformational leaders who are proactive is emerged as an important requisite to help follower to cope with the dramatic change. (Bass, 1997) The characteristic of transformational leaders is mainly embodied by their charisma they animate followers by their innovation and ability to create change.However, the success of charismatic leader is through a intuitive feeling in themselves earlier than others, while transformational leaders fix with other around them such as colleagues and employees. They are not narcissistic as charismatic. This style of leader will create an important transformation to two organisation and employees. Moreover, it may repair the dodging and the structure of the organisation. The power of transformational leader is not derived by the reward system or rules and regulation, to date it is obtained from an intangible value such as their visions and the relationship among others. Draft, 2002) According to Tichy and Devanna (Lussier, 1996), there are three main activities for transformational leadership. Recognition for the need of revitalisation leaders should understand the urgent need of the organisation for transformation, in order to create such a sustainable resource of agonistical reward to maintain the partnership success in such a competitive environment. Creating a new vision by having visualise in innovation and organisation changed, leader will be able to inspire and motivate others to reach the objectives.Institutionalising change it is essential for transformational leaders to put an effort to convince others. Leaders need to advise and create trust among employees in the organisation in order to let them understand the inclination of vision and reach the goal. The style of transformational leadership tends to match with the business world today since it is flexible and innovator. In addition, there are many business articles mentioned that workforce is the most important resource for organisation. Thus, this type of leadership takes into consideration of both business activity and relationship within organisation.These two factors pave the passage of the company success. on that point are several distinctions between those theories nevertheless, they agree that there are certain characteristics should be attained in the leader to ensure the efficiency of his contribution. 3Chapter Three Leadership Characteristics 3. 1Leadership Definition As there are many theories approached the leadership, there are also many definitions have been suggested for the leadership, some authors identify the leadership as a process to achieve groups/ organisations goals, others see the notion of leadership as trait, transformation or even as management.However, the definition of leadership by Rost (1993) can be used to dissect this notion (8). He defines the leadership as an forge relationship among leader and followers who intend real changes that reflect their joint purposes. According to Rost, leadership is Influence Relationship the capture will be in both directions top-bottom and bottom-top. nail down real changes it means leadership intromits substantial development in both leaders and followers. Mutual purposes both leader and followers agree about certain purposes which can be considered as missions or statements. . 2Leadership Characteristics at that place is a view betokens that leaders are born and other say it is a science can be taught, both of those views did not describe leadership accurately, leadership is an art to be studie d, practised, developed and lived. (Scott, 1996) There are certain characteristics that determine the effectiveness of leadership and shape the performance of leaders 1. Communicative the importance of this skill, that it provides the leader with an ability to deliver precisely the ideas, visions and objectives essential to be achieved.However, it is crucial to understand that the communications include the flow of data and information in two sides, top-bottom and bottom-top. Leaders have to consider sharing the ideas and emit the contribution of employees, since occasionally, employees come up with innovative suggestions that might enhance or develop certain objectives. 2. Rewards and recognizes achievement express the appreciation for others efforts, has a vital role as a motivation. Leaders could achieve that by financial rewards or even by praise the follower.Sometime simple gestures such as approving nod, thumbs- up or even quick comment like great job, you are doing well i s enough to encourage followers to improve their performance and productivity. 3. Genuine interest in others it is undeniable fact that financial rewards have a significant influence on followers meanwhile, there are other motivations that should be attained. The leader should recognise the emotional support for followers since it creates loyalty.Genuine interest does not require a circuit of efforts it might be expressed by asking about the personal health or family. For instance, in the company that I used to work, the owner asks employees about their general life before he asked about any other thing related to the work, this simple action was enough to motivate employees to work as they own the company. 4. Team orientation the successful leader takes into account the importance of team-work he gathers the followers and discusses with them the task or the missions.The leader listens to their opinion, stimulates their innovation, and finally creates the harmony required to achiev e the task. This gives employees more responsibility to improve their performance and productivity since they have significant role as decision- makers. 5. Visionary and idea-oriented the long-term objectives are vital issue in the successful leadership agenda he always seeks for new ideas and creativity. They consider the available competitive advantages and establish the stream of substantial competitive advantages.When Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum (Dubais ruler) unveiled the growth strategy of 2015, it was unsurprising for many economists that the city had met its 2010 GDP target two years ago. Many people argue that Dubai is only a bubble and it would diminish after it consumes its oil. However, this completely untrue, nowadays, 74% of emirits GDP derives from real-estate, tourism and sell welkins (Kerr, 2007). The rapid strides of the development of Dubai is referred to the log-term successful visions of it rulers, and his ability to create new competitive advantages for the country instead of the oil.Similar to that in the business world, Henry traverse by his long term vision as well as rational risk calculated he managed to predict the market and customer trend and made Ford on of the most successful organisation. (Grint, 2000) 6. Decisiveness, responsibility and Integrity although, it has been mentioned that followers should be involved in decision-making process, the leader is still the ultimate decision-maker depending on the ability to consider the right decision in the proper time.Since a decision has been made, the leader is completely responsible for the consequences of any possible risk, even if the leader is involved straightway in the execution. Integrity is also very important, leaders do not use followers as means to achieve their purpose in satisfying the shareholder instead, they understand that their contribution should consider the whole stakeholders. (Bowie et al, 2000) 7. Competence the word of competence derives from i nnovation, training and development, accumulated experience, and the ability of the leader to learn.Since the leadership is an art, leaders have to consider the importance of shaping and the development of their skills this should be attained by substantial willing for noesis and self-development. Those characteristics are very important to be attained by the leaders because they have crucial impact on the effectiveness of leadership, moreover, the effective leaders manage to create synergy between their followers, and loyalty required for achieving certain objectives and tasks. 4Chapter Four Leadership in the 21st CenturySince the latter part of twentieth century the world has witnessed dramatic change in the whole domains, due to the rapid strides of technologies development, the spread of the globalisation phenomenon, demographic shifts, migration and the rapid degradation of social and natural capital are creating opposing tensions. (Connor et al, 2003, P. 59). Taking into ac count those challenges, the acquire of leadership has been increased noticeably with an urgent requisite of organisations for framework that tates the new criteria of leadership. Some of these are an intricacy for the previous characteristics of leadership and others are new, however, those could be summarised as Understanding the Culture Diversity although the geographical barriers have been eliminated, the cultural barriers are still an enormous challenge for businesses. Leaders should be aware that doing business is different from nation to nation, and it is completely restricted by the national traditions and habits.For instant In the USA, Innovations and achievements are considered as individual effort, hence, the influence of the individual recognition will be obvious in Human Resource counselling of the American firms, individual reward system, appraisal and even in the job designed. While in chinaware the individual efforts and innovations are referred to the founder of the firm. In Chinese tradition the achievement are always referred to the bodied units such as families, organisations, and the country. (Tsang, 2007) The misunderstanding in the communication is another consequence of the lack of farming appreciation.Many conflicts were occurred, contracts were spurned and negotiations failed at the last stage because of the lack of communication with other culture. Thus far, the comprehensive understanding for influence of the culture on business is vital, because the world has become more united under the umbrella of globalisation. strategicalal mentation An organisation can not be considered as an individual entity, instead it is influenced by external factors, such as competitors, suppliers, customers, critical financers and fluctuation in the market demand.From this view the needs of substantial change in the corporate strategy emerges as an important requisite to enable the company to cope with change of the business environment. Howeve r, the ways-of- sentiment of the leader have continues impact on corporate reorientation. (Hendry et al,1993). However, it is important to understand that strategic thinking is different from the strategic planning, Mintzberg argues that strategic planning derives from strategic thinking (Bonn, 2001, P63). The first aspect of the strategic thinking is observation and company knowledge.The leader observes the company daily life with its complexity and understands the drivers of the organisation performance and the influence of the external factors on this performance. The second aspect of the strategic thinking is creativity it is the core of strategic thinking. The leader seeks the substantial development for his organisation he identifies solutions for the company problems and creates vision which will determine the future of firm. Thereafter, the strategic thinking of the leader establishes the implementation required to achieve the company vision.Sharing vision with others is a nother significant portion for the strategic thinking successful, since it generates loyalty and encourage them because they participate in decision-making process. Jeffery Bezos the founder of Amazon is considered as an important example of a successful leader, in such a high competitive business sector like the online, where other companies struggle to cope with the rapid stride of technology, Amazon imposes itself as the leader of the online industries and especially the e- retailers, there is no doubt that the strategic thinking of Bezos is an ultimate key of the Amazon success.Bezos always has one eye on the future, in order to build the company long term objectives, however, his strategic thinking embodies by creating the Amazon vision and establishing the strategy needed to achieve the company objectives. Innovation is one of most important aspect of Bezos strategic thinking, since Amazon invests huge amount of money to provide the world with surprise technologies such as E lastic Compute Cloud (ECC) to ensure that the company is still the leader of the dot-com race. Hof, 2006) Whenever the world doubts, if Amazon can fulfil its promise to revolutionise retailing, Bezos wonders the people with such an innovative idea to reinforce Amazon position as being the e-retailer leader. With his strategic thinking as well as his creative working-team, Amazon never stops building its substantial competitive advantages. Humanistic awareness as workforce constitutes the most value asset of the firm, the leader has significant responsibility to ensure their satisfaction wide motivation system, training and development, praise, empowerment, participation in decision-making process are samples to obtain employees satisfaction. Since they have impact on employees productivity and innovation. However, employees retention reflects the level of their satisfaction, and appreciation for company leader. Learning and self-awareness the leader has to have a big(a) knowledge about his organisation to be able to recognise its capability in order to create the vision and framework and means needed to achieve this vision, moreover, the successful leader is knowledge seeker to cope with rapid change in the business world. Self-awareness is another issue that leaders should take into consideration they speciate their weaknesses and strengths, and use the last one to eliminate the weaknesses to improve the effectiveness of their leadership.Hence, leaders empower their ability to inspire and unite employees around themselves to maintain the company performance. 5Chapter Five Leadership Development The increase of the competition in the business world urges organisations to search more for competitive advantages in order to be able to survive and conquer their competitors in such a hostile business environment. Nowadays organisations eventually start to concern about leadership development and devote tangible efforts to improve efficiencies of its individuals. However, the leadership development curriculum should be prepared comprehensively in order to attain its purpose. The 360 degree appraisal system is an important measuring stick to initiate this program, since it provides feedback about the employee performance from different resources which helps to determine the improvement required regard to his strengths and weaknesses. (Ladyshewsky, 2007). Thereafter, the priority of the leadership development will be for the higher level managers, regard to their expected contribution on their subordinates, yet the improvement of the subordinate should be in the leadership development agenda.The leadership development program should remain the weakness of the employees that has listed in the 360 degree appraisal meanwhile, it should depend on modern techniques and case studies from other companies, rather than depending on the literatures and theories only. The final step in the leadership development program is the evaluation which derived from many criteria, such as the feedback of the program, the examination of the participants understanding, and the tangible outcomes that the company will acquire which is the decisive for the program evaluation. Leskiw et al, 2007) However, there is another view should be deemed in the issue of leadership development, individuals perseverance is ultimate criteria for development, leader should have enough credibility to admit there weaknesses and finds the appropriate strategy to mitigate the impact of this weakness, moreover, the leader should be knowledge seeker to obtain the benefit of the others experience. 6Chapter Eight Conclusion The leadership an old requisite in the human beings life, nevertheless, it has become a considerable obsession for the organisations, regard to the substantial transformation in the world business.Although the theories of the leadership are different, they agree that there are several characteristic that should be attain by a person in order to be such a successful leader. close of the leadership theories concern about the characteristic needed to reinforce two main things, creating competitive advantages and the workforce. As the workforce is the most important asset for the firm, the leader should consider employee alignment around the company objectives throughout the leader humanistic consideration as followers need inspiration, different kind of motivation in order to enhance their performance.Meanwhile, the leader should eventually find the resource of the competitive advantages. Due to the dissemination of the globalisation phenomenon as well as the rapid development in technology, organisations require new leadership characteristic to cope with change in the business environment. However, the new leadership characteristics have emerged from the need for crossing the culture barriers, since it is an enormous obstacle for organisation. Creating the long-term planning depends on the strategic thinking of the leader to identify new vision for the company.The increase in the world competition is accomplished with raise of the leadership demand, thus far organisations should invest considerably in improving their leadership capability, since the world development will never stop. References Bass, B. M. , (1998), try on and Transactional-Transformational Leadership, Transformational Leadership Industrial, Military, and Educational Impact, London Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Bonn, I. , (2001) Developing Strategic Thinking as a Core Competency, worry Decision, Vol. 39, No. , pp. 63-71 Bowie, N and Elmer, L. , (2000), Kantian Theory of Leadership, Leadership & organisation Development Journal, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 185-193 Connor, R. and Mackenzie-Smith, P. (2003), The Leadership Jigsaw -finding the Missing Piece, Business Strategy Review, Vol. 14, Issue 1, pp 59-66 Dessler, G. , (1976) Leadership and Supervision, presidency and focus Contingency Approach, advanced Jersey Prentice-Hall Publication. Dra ft, R. L. , (2002), Management, 6th Ed. Mason, OH South-Western Publication. Grint, K. (2000), Henry Ford The Blind Business Visionary, The Arts of Leadership, Oxford Oxford University Press Hendry, J (ed) and Johnson, G (ed) with Newton, J (1993), Strategic Thinking Leadership and the Management of Change, England John Wiley Publication Higgs, M. , (2003) How can we make sense of leadership in the 21st century? , Leadership & organisation Development Journal, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 273-284 Hof, R. D. , (13/10/2006), Jeff Bezos Risky Bet, Business week magazine Online. Available from Business week http//www. businessweek. com/magazine/content/06_46/b4009001. tm Accessed (20/04/2007)) Horner, M. , (1997) Leadership Theory Past, Present and Future, Team Performance Management, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 270-287 Kerr, S. , (24/07/2007), Emirate Sets its Sights on Trebled GDP by 2015, The Financial Times. Economy, pp. 2 Ladyshewsky, K. R, () A Strategic Approach for Integrating Theory to Practice in Leadership Development, Leadership & Organisation Development Journal, Vol. 28, No. 5, pp. 426-443 Leskiw, S and Singh, P. , (2007), Leadedrship Development Learning from Best Practices, Leadership & Organisation Development Journal, Vol. 8, No. 5, pp. 444-464 Lussier, R. N. , (1996), Human relations in organizations A skill-building approach. 2nd Ed. Chicago, IL Irwin, Inc Rost, J. C, (1993), Leadership definition, Leadership for the Twenty-First Century, London Praeger Publication. Scott , E. D. and Kleiner, B. H, (1996), Good? Leadership, Management Development Review, Vol. 9, No. 5, pp. 30-33 Tsang, D. , (2007), Leadership, National Culture and Performance Management in The Chinese Software Industry, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 56, No. 4, pp. 270-284