Analysis of “Understanding Leadership”

Leadership has been explored from different perspectives due to its broad nature to increase understanding and since it covers the foundation of systems as organizations, companies, business, schools, families, governments among others (Fairholm & Fairholm, 2008).

The field has attracted researchers who have sought to explore it for better understanding with application in their respective fields. It is worth noting that in order to understand concepts, definition is crucial. The definition of leadership is founded on the application areas. It is ironical that the term is used daily yet it is difficult to truly define it objectively.

Summary of Assertion by Avery

Avery, a keen researcher of the field of entrepreneurship, asserts that comprehending leadership is a big challenge due to the lack of consensus about the meaning of the term and the focus on narrow elements of the concept by researchers (Avery, 2004). It is agreeable that defining leadership would foster better understanding.

The definitions of leadership are very diverse just as the scope it covers. These definitions normally vary to a great extent creating lack of clear understanding of the subject. The issues that come up in the definitions of leadership include the place and perspectives of followers, interpretation of influence, ethics in leadership, values, inspirations, motivation, personality traits, behavioural attributes, cultural orientations, approaches, purpose of such leadership among others (Ghoshall & Bartlett, 1998).

In evaluating the definition of leadership, the questions of what attributes to look for differ from one context to another. In justification of the assertion by Avery, leadership requires different attributes in different contexts.

For example, in entrepreneurship, leadership is perceived as motivation of the followers as well as care for customers, yet in other fields as military, leadership is about power and influence (Ebner, 2006). The lack of a generally accepted definition of leadership hinders the analysis of leadership from different facets (Fairholm & Fairholm, 2008).

However, as Griffin and Moorhead (2009) point out, majority of researchers focus on the narrow field of evaluation critical to them. This is true of research so as to allow effective analysis of the aspect. The narrowing down of research field in leadership is justifiable to the extent that this allows for adequate analysis of the field and increasing the understanding of leadership to that field.

However, this limits the understanding of leadership and definition since the researches elicit new dimensions of leadership. This is also evident in the lack of the review of researches on leadership in different field to come up with the clear definition of leadership. It is worth arguing that this is increased by the ignorance of the need for definition with the assumption that leadership has a definition that fits to the respective field (Keller, 2006).

The research done also makes leadership complex as some researchers assert that it is not possible to define leadership, yet leadership is recognizable from different perspectives (Fairholm & Fairholm, 2008). Avery (2004) suggests several paradigms for the establishment of the common understanding while integrating the theories into the concept of leadership.

Avery, Bell and Hilb (2004) suggest that styles of leadership fall into broad categories that include: authoritarian involving power, influence, goal achievement and doing tasks; and democratic leadership which involves considering the followers, consulting, decision making and facilitated interactions while authority and power is shared.

Entrepreneurial Leadership

The field of entrepreneurship has been characterized with innovations and the identification of needs in the society and their fulfilment. It has attracted individuals of different fields of specializations because of its merits and the fact that it is universally applicable to all fields so long as through feasibility there is a need to be met (Swercz & Lydon, 2006).

Darling, Keeffe and Ross (2006) assert that entrepreneurship leadership has different strategies which apply to the issues of vision as well as dealing with the opportunities and accounting and financial control. They suggest that the strategies include attention through vision, where entrepreneurs do seek for opportunities and for problems to solve with emphasis on creativity and innovation.

They further suggest that meaning and communication is part of the strategy for entrepreneurship leadership so as enable the other members that are part of the organization to be able to fit in the organization goals for their accomplishment. The other strategies are trust through positioning where this is based on enhancing the integrity of the entrepreneur through being reliable, accountable and predictable to the people they deal with.

The last strategy is confidence through respect where they recognize the abilities of their colleagues and employees and motivate them use their abilities for the overall good through bringing out their best skills (Nicholson, 1998). Swercz and Lydon (2002) support entrepreneurship leadership on the basis of the high tech industries.

Darling and Beebe (2007) emphasize that entrepreneur leadership requires communication due to the critical role it plays for the entrepreneurs.

Such communication strategies for effective entrepreneur leadership include paradoxical thinking to be able to create more understanding, relational being by enhancing the positive interactions, inclusive behaving to enable the entrepreneur include the people involved in the organization, focusing intentionally to be able to identify the priorities available and trying to meet them, trusting purposefully through placing events through placing confidence in the processes they delegate and optimism, and reflecting controllably through self analysis to ensure the entrepreneur is able to rethink and reorganize themselves.

Gupta, Macmillan and Surie (2002) assert that entrepreneurship leadership should not be based on behavioural theories and as such carry out a research on the entrepreneurship leadership through a cross cultural approach. Entrepreneurs as the researches on entrepreneurship leadership provide, are individually different yet have some similar characteristic that reflect their leadership styles (Ebner, 2006).

Unlike other types of approaches to leadership, entrepreneurship leadership applies to various field of entrepreneurship. The analysis of leadership for entrepreneurs is however is faced with the challenges of limiting the extent of management as well as differentiating the two. The issues of entrepreneurs being more likely to engage in management to exceeding extents limit the effectiveness of such leadership.

While Avery (2004) suggests that leadership falls either into the classifications of authoritarianism and democracy, entrepreneurship leadership uses both the authoritarian, democratic and delegation styles depending on the circumstances and the situation they face.

Understanding entrepreneurial leadership

The understanding of entrepreneurial leadership stems from the research theories and paradigms of entrepreneurship. The definition of entrepreneurship and its application to different contexts increases the understanding of such leadership. Several researchers in the field of the entrepreneurship have suggested different theories for evaluating such leadership (Griffin & Moorhead, 2009).

Avery (2004) suggests several theories and paradigms for the classification of leadership. The entrepreneurship leadership researchers emphasize on building up on the past research and theories. Researchers are faced with challenges of establishing theories due to the lack of an agreeable definition of leadership (Avery et al., 2004).

However, in the field of entrepreneurship though designed for general leadership, analysis can be applied in the context of entrepreneurship. Further, the notion of treating the followers as one would like to be treated does not apply to the individual treatment of each follower.

The entrepreneur has to engage with the employees at personal level to ensure that she/he motivates them and is able to bring out their best outcome. The entrepreneur leader has to make sure that respect is maintained with employees and other people involved to ensure that there is no change of perspective (Avery, 2004).

Application of leadership theories and paradigms in entrepreneurship field

The paradigms of leadership as suggested by Avery (2004) represent the different ideas regarding leadership. They include classical, organic, visionary and transactional paradigms which are applicable in the field of entrepreneurship leadership.

Transactional Leadership

In this paradigm, Avery (2004) suggests that the leader views the followers as individuals and interacts with them as such. The leader focuses more on the skills the individual follower possess, their different individual needs and their motivations. In this type of leadership, the leader enters into agreements and negotiations in which they reward their employees for their skills and influence.

This type of leadership applies to the entrepreneur in engaging with the employees at an individual level. Additionally, the aspects of vision and trust through positioning, meaning through communication and confidence through respect are embedded on being able to relate with the employees personally (Darling et al., 2007).

The field of entrepreneurship is also faced with the need for motivating the employees and since they are the originator of ideas, they have to be able to communicate the organizational goals to the employees to ensure that they feel part of the organization and for him to be able to know how to assign rules and obligations. Darling and Beebe (2007) suggest that communication is very important for the entrepreneur.

Transactional leadership consists of two types. One type suggests that the leader seeks to achieve their own personal needs and still be able to serve the interests of the followers (Avery, 2004). This is applied to entrepreneur leadership to the extent the leader seeks to achieve the vision they usually have of their organization.

The other type is concerned with the welfare of their followers and hence emphasize on teamwork. This does not apply mostly to the entrepreneur since being concern for the followers would limit the overall goal of the entrepreneur.

Visionary Leadership

This leadership focuses on having a vision with the need to motivate the followers and influence them to positively be part of the vision. Visionary leadership is about being effective in guiding the followers. This paradigm focuses on times of unpredictable future trends and hence requires a leader that is charismatic enough to strengthen and assure the followers of the uncertain future and ensure they are motivated enough (Keller, 2006).

This fits in the field of entrepreneurship leadership especially since it is normally faced with the issues of an uncertain future. Entrepreneurs forge into new fields of business when they identify the opportunities and take advantage of them in areas that have not been ventured into. Additionally, it involves great innovations which sometimes they are the initiators. This thus requires charisma to be able to ensure that the followers are confident of the entrepreneurs with a build up of trust (Darling et al., 2007).

Organic Leadership

This type of leadership is based on a central group vision with the leadership just emerging from the group. In this category, leadership is charismatic, but the followers contribute to the vision as a group and hence it is not central to the entrepreneur. It applies in modern times with the acknowledgement of the place and relevance of group appreciation with the organization founded on the facet of vision as part of its culture (Pech & Cameron, 2006).

The leadership is also self determined and applies in the context of various sectors of leadership. This paradigm is the one that best fits in entrepreneurship leadership since the entrepreneur is able to accommodate the followers and allows them to be included with suggestions which add up to the vision. This is applied further in the context where the leader is focused on the vision, and wise enough to allow the contributions of the followers.

Modern times entrepreneurship requires this type of leadership because of its ability to not only harness the potential, but it also avoid the bottlenecks of bureaucracy while the entrepreneur does not become authoritative but accommodates the followers and increases the opportunities and the chances for improvement (Ebner, 2006). Further, due to the risks involved in entrepreneurship, they are able to improve their preparedness to harness them.

Classical Leadership

This type of leadership paradigm as Avery (2004) points out is founded on the traditional modes and concepts of leadership where the leader builds an empire of power and influence. The leader dominates and controls the organization while the followers are compelled to show respect out of the fear for the leader. This is applied rarely in entrepreneurship since it discourages creativity and innovation.

Conclusion

The concept of leadership though broad and widely applied, lacks a universal definition which limits its understanding. This paper has reviewed this concept together with research in leadership which is perceived to hinder the understanding of leadership. Emphasis has been laid on the field of entrepreneurship which has been explored and the paradigms of leadership in the field analyzed with the recommendation of organic paradigm.

Reference List

Avery, G. C. (2004). Understanding leadership: Paradigms and cases. London: SAGE Publications.

Avery, G., Bell, A., & Hilb, M. (2004). Understanding Leadership: Paradigms and Cases. London: Sage publishers.

Darling, J., & Beebe, S. (2007). Enhancing Entrepreneur Leadership: A Focus on Key communication Priorities. Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 20(2), 151–168.

Darling, J., Keeffe, M., & Ross, J. (2007). Entrepreneurial Leadership Strategies and Values: Keys to Operational Excellence. Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 20(1), 41–54.

Ebner, A. (2006). Entrepreneurship and Economic development: From classical political economy to economic sociology. Journal of Economic Studies, 32(3), 266-274.

Fairholm, M., & Fairholm, G. (2008). Understanding Leadership Perspectives: Theoretical and Practical Approaches. London: Routledge.

Ghoshal, S., & Bartlett, C. (1995). Changing the role of top management. Harvard Business Review, 1(1), 1-12.

Griffin, R., & Moorhead, G. (2009). Organizational Behaviour: Managing People and Organizations. Boston: Cengage Learning.

Gupta, V., Macmillan, I., & Surie, G. (2004). Entrepreneurship Leadership: developing and measuring a cross-cultural construct. Journal of Business Venturing, 19(1), 241-260.

Keller, R. (2006). Transformational Leadership, Initiating Structure, and Substitutes for Leadership: A Longitudinal Study of Research and Development Project Team Performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(1), 201-210.

Nicholson, N. (1998). Personality and Entrepreneurial Leadership: A Study of the Heads of the UK’s Most Successful Independent Companies. European Management Journal, 16(5), 529–539.

Pech, R., & Cameron, A. (2006). An entrepreneurial decision process model describing Opportunity recognition. European Journal of Innovation Management, 9(1), 61-78.

Swercz, M., & Lydon, S. (2002). Entrepreneurship Leadership in high-tech firms: A field study. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 23(7), 380–389.

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Analysis of “Understanding Leadership”

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Introduction