Leadership, Governance & Ethics

DBM 631

Chapter 2
Leadership

Unit Content
1) Theories of Leadership
2) Characteristics of a leader
3) Leadership Vs Management
4) Role of the constitution in leadership - Chapter 6 of the constitution
5) Professional Bodies
6) Challenges of leadership

Characteristics of a Leader

Leaders play a major role of providing the direction in the organization or in any institution.
Some of their characteristics include the following:

 Integrity  Influence
 Ability to delegate  Empathy
 Communicator  Vision
 Self-awareness  Courage
 Gratitude  Humility
 Learning agility  Strategic Planning
 Positive attitude  Focus
 Strategic Planners  Cooperation

Vision:

“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and
relentlessly drive it to completion. Great leaders have a vision; they can see into the future.
While a manager gets the job done, great leaders tap into the emotions of their employees.

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Courage

One of the more important qualities of a good leader is courage. Having the quality of courage
means that you are willing to take risks in the achievement of your goals with no assurance of
success. Because there is no certainty in life or business, every commitment you make and
every action you take entails a risk of some kind.

Integrity

Integrity requires that you always tell the truth, to all people, in every situation. Truthfulness
is the foundation quality of the trust that is necessary for the success of any business.

Humility

“The more you can contain your ego, the more realistic you are about your problems. Humility
allows one to acknowledge their mistakes, and learn how to listen, and admitting that a
leader doesn’t know all the answers. This exhibits the attitude that one can learn from
anyone at any time.

Strategic Planner

Leaders have the ability to anticipate trends, well in advance of their competitors. They
continually ask, “Based on what is happening today, where is the market going? Where is it
likely to be in three months, six months, one year, and two years?” They do this through
thoughtful strategic planning.

Focus

Leaders always focus on the needs of the company and the situation. Leaders focus on results,
on what must be achieved by themselves, by others, and by the company. Great leaders focus
on strengths, in themselves and in others.

Strong Communicators

Another important trait that the best leaders strive to perfect is the ability to speak effectively
and persuasively.

Characteristics of Leadership

Leadership is a process of directing, controlling, organizing and controlling people in an

institution.

 It is an inter-personal process in which a manager guiding workers towards attainment of

goals.
 It denotes a few qualities to be present in a person which includes intelligence, maturity
and personality.
 It is a group process. It involves two or more people interacting with each other.
 A leader is involved in shaping and molding the behaviour of the group towards
accomplishment of organizational goals.

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 Leadership is situation bound. There is no best style of leadership. It all depends upon
tackling with the situations.

Qualities of a Leader

A leader has got multidimensional traits in him which makes him appealing and effective in
behavior. The following are the requisites to be present in a good leader:

 Physical appearance- A leader must have appearance. Physique and health are very
important for a good leader.
 Vision and foresight- A leader cannot maintain influence unless he exhibits that he is
forward looking. He has to visualize situations and thereby has to frame logical programmes.
 Intelligence- A leader should be intelligent enough to examine problems and difficult
situations. He should be analytical who weighs pros and cons and then summarizes the
situation. Therefore, a positive bent of mind and mature outlook is very important.
 Communicative skills- A leader must be able to communicate the policies and procedures
clearly, precisely and effectively. This can be helpful in persuasion and stimulation.
 Objective- A leader has to be having a fair outlook which is free from bias and which does
not reflect his willingness towards a particular individual. He should develop his own opinion
and should base his judgement on facts and logic.
 Knowledge of work- A leader should be very precisely knowing the nature of work of his
subordinates because it is then he can win the trust and confidence of his subordinates.
 Sense of responsibility- Responsibility and accountability towards an individual’s work is
very important to bring a sense of influence. A leader must have a sense of responsibility
towards organizational goals because only then he can get maximum of capabilities
exploited in a real sense. For this, he has to motivate himself and arouse and urge to give
best of his abilities. Only then he can motivate the subordinates to the best.
 Self-confidence and will-power- Confidence in himself is important to earn the confidence
of the subordinates. He should be trustworthy and should handle the situations with full will
power.
 Humanist-This trait to be present in a leader is essential because he deals with human
beings and is in personal contact with them. He has to handle the personal problems of his
subordinates with great care and attention. Therefore, treating the human beings on
humanitarian grounds is essential for building a congenial environment.
 Empathy-“Stepping into the shoes of others”. This is very important because fair judgement
and objectivity comes only then. A leader should understand the problems and complaints
of employees and should also have a complete view of the needs and aspirations of the
employees. This helps in improving human relations and personal contacts with the
employees.

Leadership and Management - Relationship & Differences

Leadership and management are the terms that are often considered synonymous. It is essential
to understand that leadership is an essential part of effective management. As a crucial

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component of management, remarkable leadership behaviour stresses upon building an
environment in which each and every employee develops and excels.

Leadership is defined as the potential to influence and drive the group efforts towards the
accomplishment of goals. This influence may originate from formal sources, such as that
provided by acquisition of managerial position in an organization.

A manager must have traits of a leader, i.e., he must possess leadership qualities. Leaders
develop and begin strategies that build and sustain competitive advantage. Organizations
require robust leadership and robust management for optimal organizational efficiency.

Differences between Leadership and Management

Leadership differs from management in a sense that:

 While managers lay down the structure and delegates authority and responsibility, leaders
provides direction by developing the organizational vision and communicating it to the
employees and inspiring them to achieve it.
 While management includes focus on planning, organizing, staffing, directing and
controlling; leadership is mainly a part of directing function of management. Leaders focus
on listening, building relationships, teamwork, inspiring, motivating and persuading the
followers.
 While a leader gets his authority from his followers, a manager gets his authority by virtue
of his position in the organization.
 While managers follow the organization’s policies and procedure, the leaders follow their
own instinct.
 Management is more of science as the managers are exact, planned, standard, logical and
more of mind. Leadership, on the other hand, is an art. In an organization, if the managers
are required, then leaders are a must/essential.
 While management deals with the technical dimension in an organization or the job content;
leadership deals with the people aspect in an organization.
 While management measures/evaluates people by their name, past records, present
performance; leadership sees and evaluates individuals as having potential for things that
can’t be measured, i.e., it deals with future and the performance of people if their
potential is fully extracted.
 If management is reactive, leadership is proactive.
 Management is based more on written communication, while leadership is based more on
verbal communication. The organizations which are over managed and under-led do not
perform up to the benchmark. Leadership accompanied by management sets a new
direction and makes efficient use of resources to achieve it.

Both leadership and management are essential for individual as well as organizational success.

Leadership Theories

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Leadership is a science as well as an art. As a science it is based on leadership theories.
Leadership theories are schools of thought brought forward to explain how and why certain
individuals become leaders. The theories emphasize the traits and behaviors that individuals
can adopt to boost their own leadership abilities. The theories include the following:

a) Great Man Theory (1840s)

The Great Man theory evolved around the mid-19th century. Even though no one was able to
identify with any scientific certainty, which human characteristic or combination of, were
responsible for identifying great leaders. Everyone recognized that just as the name suggests;
only a man could have the characteristic (s) of a great leader. The Great Man theory assumes
that the traits of leadership are intrinsic. That simply means that great leaders are born... They
are not made. This theory sees great leaders as those who are destined by birth to become a
leader. Furthermore, the belief was that great leaders will rise when confronted with the
appropriate situation. The theory was popularized by Thomas Carlyle, a writer and teacher.
Just like him, the Great Man theory was inspired by the study of influential heroes. In his book
"On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History", he compared a wide array of heroes. In
1860, Herbert Spencer, an English philosopher disputed the great man theory by affirming that
these heroes are simply the product of their times and their actions the results of social
conditions.

b) Trait Theory (1930's - 1940's)

The trait leadership theory believes that people are either born or are made with certain
qualities that will make them excel in leadership roles. That is, certain qualities such as
intelligence, sense of responsibility, creativity and other values puts anyone in the shoes of a
good leader. In fact, Gordon Allport, an American psychologist,"...identified almost 18,000
English personality-relevant terms" (Matthews, Deary& Whiteman, 2003, p. 3). The trait theory
of leadership focused on analyzing mental, physical and social characteristic in order to gain
more understanding of what is the characteristic or the combination of characteristics that are
common among leaders. There were many shortfalls with the trait leadership theory. However,
from a psychology of personalities approach, Gordon Allport's studies are among the first ones
and have brought, for the study of leadership, the behavioral approach.

 In the 1930s the field of Psychometrics was in its early years.

 Personality traits measurement weren't reliable across studies.
 Study samples were of low level managers
 Explanations weren't offered as to the relation between each characteristic and its impact
on leadership.
 The context of the leader wasn't considered.

Many studies have analyzed the traits among existing leaders in the hope of uncovering those
responsible for one’s leadership abilities! In vain, the only characteristics that were identified
among these individuals were those that were slightly taller and slightly more intelligent!

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c) Behavioral Theories (1940's - 1950's)

In reaction to the trait leadership theory, the behavioral theories are offering a new
perspective, one that focuses on the behaviors of the leaders as opposed to their mental,
physical or social characteristics. Thus, with the evolutions in psychometrics, notably the factor
analysis, researchers were able to measure the cause an effects relationship of specific human
behaviors from leaders. From this point forward anyone with the right conditioning could have
access to the once before elite club of naturally gifted leaders. In other words, leaders are
made not born. The behavioral theories first divided leaders in two categories. Those that were
concerned with the tasks and those concerned with the people. Throughout the literature these
are referred to as different names, but the essence are identical.

d) Contingency Theories (1960's)

Contingency theories are based on the belief that there is no single style of leadership
appropriate in all situations. Major contingency models of leadership include:

 Fiedler’s contingency model – Favorability of leadership situation

 Vroom and Yetton, and Vroom and Jago – Quality and acceptance of leader’s decision
 Path-goal theory – House and Dessler
 Maturity of followers – Hersey and Blanchard, and Nicholls

Fiedler’s Contingency Model

This was one of the first leader-situation model and was based on studies of a wide range of
group situations, and concentrated on the relationship between leadership and organizational
performance. In order to measure the attitudes of the leader, Fielder developed a “least
preferred co-worker’ (LPC) scale. This measures the rating given by leaders about the person
with whom they could work least well. The Contingency Leadership theory argues that there is
no single way of leading and that every leadership style should be based on certain situations,
which signifies that there are certain people who perform at the maximum level in certain
places; but at minimal performance when taken out of their element. To a certain extent
contingency leadership theories are an extension of the trait theory, in the sense that human
traits are related to the situation in which the leaders exercise their leadership. It is generally
accepted within the contingency theories that leader is more likely to express their leadership
when they feel that their followers will be responsive.

e) Functional leadership theory

(Hackman & Walton, 1986; McGrath, 1962) is a particularly useful theory for addressing specific
leader behaviours expected to contribute to organizational or unit effectiveness. Functional
leadership theory (Hackman & Walton, 1986; McGrath, 1962) is a particularly useful theory for
addressing specific leader behaviors expected to contribute to organizational or unit
effectiveness. This theory argues that the leader’s main job is to see that whatever is necessary

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to group needs is taken care of; thus, a leader can be said to have done their job well when
they have contributed to group effectiveness and cohesion. Functional types of leadership
models focus on what the leader has to do. Unlike the Behavioural Ideals approach, Functional
leadership models do not suggest ideal ways of behaving, nor do they match behaviours to
circumstances like Situational/Contingency theory. Instead, Functional focus on the action
areas that a leader must address to be effective. The most notable Functional models are John
Adair's Action-centered Leadership, and Kouzes & Posner's Five Leadership Practices. The
functional model encourages a leader to think about what they need to do to be successful in
their role, simply focusing on the functions that every leader must address.

An example of a functional leadership model is Action centered Leadership which can also be
applied to management as well as leadership. John Adair has written extensively about this
concept, where his thinking emerged from group dynamics and how they form and evolve in
the work place. This model provides a blueprint for leadership of any team, group or
organization and is an easy model to remember and apply to your own situation.

There are three main areas of Action centered Leadership; Task, Team and Individual

Task

Completing the task or challenge faced by the group. This is one of the most commonly
associated tasks with leadership but it is important to realize that this should not be a priority,
all three are as important as the next.

Team

Creating and maintaining a sense of team or group unity and collective responsibility where the
team supports each other in achieving goals and the leader puts the group’s goals ahead of
their own priorities.

Individual

Ensuring that each individual in the group is able to meet his or her own individual psychological
needs and if appropriate physical too. So although leaders have to ensure the group has a
collective identity, they also have to help members satisfy their individual needs.

Role of the constitution in leadership - Chapter 6 of the constitution

The Chapter 6 of the Kenyan constitution deals with Leadership and Integrity. It contains the
following eight parts all based on the leadership:
1) Responsibilities of leadership
2) Oath of office of State officers
3) Conduct of State officers
4) Financial probity of State officers (integrity)
5) Restriction on activities of State officers

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 6) Citizenship and leadership
7) Legislation to establish the ethics and anti-corruption commission
8) Legislation on leadership
Challenges of Leadership:
There are different levels of leadership and in each of these levels the leadership challenges
experienced may vary from one level to another and they can be internal or external.
Corporate Level:
At the Corporate level, the challenges may be more strategic in nature and they may include
the following:
 Lack of a clear vision where the top leaders are not able to lead the team through to the
attainment of the business goals.
 Organizational Culture – the culture comprises of the norms, values and beliefs that hold
people together. It can either make or break the organization. The responsibility lies with
the top leadership to manage the culture of the organization which at times can be an uphill
task.
 Insufficient resources to manage the organization thus leading to non-accomplishment of
the set goal
 External challenges PESTEL i.e. the Political, Environmental, Social/culture, Technological,
Economical and Legal which may have an impact on the running of the organization.
 Communication challenges, if there is breakdown of communication in the organization,
this affects the entire system. The complexity of today’s business world requires top
leadership who are to be able to communicate on multiple levels.
 Lack of Accountability in some of the processes possess a threat to top leadership and a
leader has to do what it takes to enhance accountability in the organization.
 Organizations politics which derail the running of the organization in terms of decision
making.
 Lack of Alignment where the key leaders are not all on the same page.
Other challenges in other leadership levels include:

 Lack of decisiveness
 Public criticism, especially uninformed criticism, from group members.
 Flare-ups of others' interpersonal issues, either within the group or outside it.
 Crises, which could be tied to finances, program, politics, public relations (scandals),
legal concerns (lawsuits), even spiritual issues (loss of enthusiasm, low morale).
 Giving in to self-doubt.
 Disasters - These are different from crises, in that, in a crisis, something important
(usually negative, but not always) seems to be happening, and you're trying to control
the situation. In a disaster, the worst has already happened, and you're trying to deal
with that in some way.
 Not doing the right thing.
 Relying on unclear messages to make decisions
 Trying to persuade the people without inspiring them.

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  Refusing to delegate.
 Opposition and/or hostility from powerful forces (business groups, local government, an
influential organization, etc.)
 A financial or political windfall. Sometimes an unexpected benefit can be harder to
handle than a calamity.
 Collaboration with another group or organization may call upon a leader to define clearly
the boundaries within which he can operate, and to balance the needs of his own group
with those of the collaborative initiative as a whole.
 Job Insecurity especially where a leader’s position is under threat.

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