‘Leaders are born, not made’.

“Are leaders born or made?” it is an age-old question that has been on the minds of many
throughout history.

What is Leader?
A Leader is a person who influences a group of people towards the achievement of a goal. A
leader leads group of persons in the direction in which there is common benefit of all. People
get motivated and influenced by the leader. , A true leader will not lose the confidence of his,
or her, followers. People seek out leaders unconsciously, and leaders step to the forefront
almost instinctively. Leaders are recognized, not chosen. In short, leaders have something
within that the others just don't have. It is an intangible characteristic that can't be explained.

What is Leadership?

Leadership is concerned with influencing the activities of an individual or a group for the
achievement of the goal in a given situation. The leadership involves a process by which a
manager guides and influences the work of its subordinates. The main task of leadership is
to direct and unite the efforts and inclination of the individuals or of a group towards the
achievements of common goal. An executive, as an effective leader, should consult its
subordinates while deciding any line of action to ensure their voluntary co-operation.
According to the data we’ve collected over 70 percent of working professionals
expect a leader to be forward-looking. And being forward-looking, we have
learned, is the quality that most differentiates a leader from individual
contributors. What all this means is that leadership development is self-
development

Characteristics that define a Leader

 (Gupta 2004)

• One who has an excellent and admirable character. A leader has to be trustworthy
and must fulfill promises made. He must also take responsibility for his own actions.

• One who takes work seriously. A good leader is one who takes his work and role as
a leader seriously. He motivates his followers towards a common objective.

• One who is confident and calm in crisis.

There are six important things that all leaders do:
 (ICFAI 2003)

Principles of Leadership
 (Aswathappa 2004)

A good leader needs following points

• A good leader needs to set example for his team members and become a role
model for them. If he is lazy, dishonest and shirks from responsibilities, how can he
expect others to be meticulous and sincere!
• A leader should be totally unbiased. He should not have personal favorites in his
team, to whom he gives more authority or less work. All the members in a team
should be treated equally.
• Patience is one of the most essential qualities needed in a leader. Since he has to
guide his team, he must have the patience to make them learn what they need to and
get the work done from them.
• Constructive feedback is one of the skills that a leader should possess. He should
always praise his team members if they perform well. At the same time, if they do
wrong, he should be there to tell them where they went wrong and how can they put
things back in order! However, the criticism should always be constructive and not
demeaning.
• A leader needs to motivate his team, so that they happily contribute towards the team
work. He should be aware of the stimuli of different members and make judicious use
of them.

Different styles of Leadership

Leaders styles are not just a template of roles ,trails or competencies possessed by the
individual isolated from the situation. We will discuss each individual has present a
leadership style that fits his or her intrinsic motivations and characteristics. The individual
style of workplace leadership is the need to adopt an approach consistent with what will
motivate and encourage individual and team members.

leadership and communication leadership styles could be stored into Autocratic,

Benevolent Autocratic, Consultative, participative, Consensus and Laissez-faire. different
styles are in leadership:

• Autocratic
• Laissez-faire
• Paternalistic
• Democratic
• charismatic

Above different leadership styles are very helpful and useful for leaders if the leaders
adopted leadership styles these are very useful to do the work in the organization and
leaders adopted a adequate method for effective leadership.

Leadership Theories (Approaches)

The focus on leadership theories shifted from one dimension of leadership to another. Early
leadership research focused on the leader himself to the virtual exclusion of other variables.

Trait Approach
The Trait approach of leadership focus on the individual characteristics of successful
leaders. According to trait theory the successful leaders tend to have the following qualities:

1. A strong desire for accomplishment.

2. Persistent pursuit of goals.

3. Creativity and intelligence used to solve problems.

4. Initiative applied to social situations.

5. Self assumed personality.

6. Willingness to accept behavioral consequences.

7. Low susceptibility to interpersonal stress.

8. High tolerance of ambiguity.

9. Ability to influence other people.

10. Ability to structure social interactions.

Criticism of the Trait Approach

Though very simple, but still this factory fails to produce clear cut results. Jenning has
concluded “fifty years of study has failed to produce a one personality trait or set of qualities
that can be used to discriminate on the following grounds:

1. Various studies prove that the trait theory cannot hold good for all sets of
circumstances.

2. The list of traits is not uniform and different authors have given different lists of traits.

3. It fails to take into account influence of other factors on leadership.

4. The theory fails to indicate the comparative importance of different traits.

5. There have been many persons who have been outstanding leaders in business
although they have been humorless, narrow minded, unjust and authoritarian. In the
same manner there have been many persons who were not good leaders although
they had the above specified traits.

6. No evidence has been given about the degree of the various traits because people
have the various traits with different degrees.

7. There is no definite test for the measurement of these traits and hence no
conclusions can be drawn.

This theory, however, provides that leaders should have certain personal characteristics.
Some of these qualities are inborn, others can be developed by the management through
proper training programs.

Behavioral Theory
Assumptions

Leaders can be made, rather than are born.

Successful leadership is based in definable, learnable behavior.

Description

Behavioral theories of leadership do not seek inborn traits or capabilities. Rather, they look
at what leaders actually do.

If success can be defined in terms of describable actions, then it should be relatively easy
for other people to act in the same way. This is easier to teach and learn then to adopt the
more ephemeral 'traits' or 'capabilities'

Criticism of Behavioral approach

 1. This approach does not take into considerations the situational variables. A particular
leadership style may be effective in one situation, but it may not be so effective or
ineffective in another situation. In fact, the situation determines the effectiveness of a
particular leadership style.

2. This approach does not consider the time factor also. A particular behavior or action
of the leader may be effective at one point of time while the same may be ineffective
at some other point of time.

Several theories where developed during 1950s and 1960s that approached leadership from
the standpoint of actual behavior of leaders.

Participative Leadership

The Participative Leadership

1. People are more committed to actions where they have involved in the relevant
decision-making.
2. When people make decisions together, the social commitment to one another is
greater and thus increases their commitment to the decision.
3. Several people deciding together make better decisions than one person alone.

Style

A Participative Leader, seeks to involve other people in the process, possibly including
subordinates, peers, superiors and other stakeholders. Often, however, as it is within the
managers' whim to give or deny control to his or her subordinates, most participative
activity is within the immediate team. The question of how much influence others are given
thus may vary on the manager's preferences and beliefs, and a whole spectrum of
participation is possible, as in the table below.

< Not participative Highly participative >

Autocratic Leader Team Joint Full
decision proposes proposes decision delegation
by leader decision, decision, with team of decision
listens to leader has as equals to team
feedback, final
then decision
decides

There are many varieties on this spectrum, including stages where the leader sells the
idea to the team. Another variant is for the leader to describe the 'what' of objectives or
goals and let the team or individuals decide the 'how' of the process by which the 'how' will
be achieved (this is often called 'Management by Objectives').
The level of participation may also depend on the type of decision being made. Decisions
on how to implement goals may be highly participative, whilst decisions during subordinate
performance evaluations are more likely to be taken by the manager.

Situational Leadership

The use of the trait and behavioral approaches to leadership showed that effective
leadership depended on many variables, such as organizational culture and the nature of
tasks. No one trait was common to all effective leaders. No one style was effective in all
situations. Researches, therefore, began trying to identify those factors in each situation
that influenced the effectiveness of a particular leadership style. They started looking at
and studying different situations in the belief that lenders are the products of given
situations. A large number of studies have been made on the premise that leadership is
strongly affected by the situations in which the leader emerges, and in which he or she
operates. Taken together, the theories resulting from this type of study constitute the
situational approach to leadership.
Situational or contingency approaches obviously are of great relevance to managerial
theory and practice. They are important for practicing managers, who must consider the
situation when they design an environment for performance. The contingency theories
focus on the following factors.

1. Task requirements.
2. Peers’ expectations and behavior.
3. Organizational culture and policies.

There are four popular situational theories of leadership

1. Fielder’s continhency approach

2. The path-goal theory.
3. The vroom-yetton model.
4. Hersey and Blanchard’s model.

Contingency Theory

The leader's ability to lead is contingent upon various situational factors, including the
leader's preferred style, the capabilities and behaviors of followers and also various other
situational factors.

Description

Contingency theories are a class of behavioral theory that contend that there is no one
best way of leading and that a leadership style that is effective in some situations may not
be successful in others.

An effect of this is that leaders who are very effective at one place and time may become
unsuccessful either when transplanted to another situation or when the factors around
them change.

This helps to explain how some leaders who seem for a while to have the 'Midas touch'
suddenly appear to go off the boil and make very unsuccessful decisions.
 PRIVATE SECTOR LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORKS
(Bolden 2003)
Lufthansa Leadership Compass

The Lufthansa Leadership Compass sets out a framework for effective leadership that is
used by the Lufthansa School of Business in its leadership development education. It
includes the following six key categories, which set out a range of skills and behaviours
including: vision, decisiveness, concern for people, self-reflection and professional know-
how:
• Entrepreneurial leadership
• Breakthrough problem solving
• Winning others
• Leading people
• Attitude and drive
• International business competencies

Development Centers based on this framework are used to help “high potential” employees
define their current position and determine the next steps for their professional career. This
involves a self assessment exercise, development centre (comprising individual and group
exercises) and a post DC process whereby the participant develops an individual
development plan with the support and coaching of their superior. It is intended that this
process should occur about 1 year before moving into a C grade post.

Shell Leadership Framework

The Leadership Framework used by Shell includes nine key elements as indicated below:

• Builds Shared Vision

• Champions Customer Focus
• Maximizes Business Opportunities
• Demonstrates Professional Mastery
• Displays Personal Effectiveness
• Demonstrates Courage
• Motivates, Coaches & Develops
• Values Differences
• Delivers Results

Federal Express Leadership Qualities

FedEx has a system for rating aspiring leaders according to 9 attributes:

• Charisma
• Individual consideration
 • Intellectual stimulation
• Courage
• Dependability
• Flexibility
• Integrity
• Judgments
• Respect for others

Philips Leadership Competencies

Six Leadership Competencies define the behaviour that is required to achieve business
success in Phillips. The competencies are as follows:
• Shows determination to achieve excellent results
• Focuses on the market
• Finds better ways
• Demands top performance
• Inspires commitment
• Develops self and others

Vodafone Global Leadership Competencies

The Vodafone leadership competencies underlying their Global Leadership Programme are
divided into five categories:

• Values communication
• International team development
• Strategic vision
• Building organisational capability
• Commercial drive.

In many ways a leadership competencies or standards framework is like a psychometric

profile –useful for illuminating current practice in comparison to a norm but dangerous and
potentially damaging if misused.

Bibliography
Aswathappa 2004, 'Leadership', in Organisatinal Behaviour, 5th edn, Himalaya
Publishing House.

Bolden 2003, 'LEADERSHIP THEORY AND COMPETENCY FRAMEWORK'.

Gupta, RS 2004, 'Leadership', in Principles and practices of Management, Kalyani

Publishers.

ICFAI 2003, 'Leadership', in Introduction to Management, ICFAI center for

management research.
M, GJ&A 2005, 'Understanding and Managing Life at work', in Organisational
Behaviour, 6th edn, Pearson Education, inc - Prentice Hall, Scarborough.