Leadership and Its Theoretical Perspectives

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Who is a leader?
Theoretical Explanation
Solutions to Resistance to Change
Conclusion
List of References

Introduction

In this essay, the researcher is going to discuss leadership by analyzing the theoretical perspective, as well as how it applies to management. The essay is divided into two major sections. The first section addresses the qualities of a leader. Section 2 gives the theoretical viewpoint of leadership.

The section further analyzes various challenges experienced by leaders and how such challenges can be dealt with. From analysis, it is established that leadership refers to a social process of persuading individuals to carry out certain duties (Parker 2002, p. 12).

In the modern world, conservative meaning of this idiom has changed. An organization has some goals that are both long-term and short-term. To facilitate realization of these goals, the administration employs leaders who have the capacity to form a team and ensure success.

The theory of leadership in the new millennium is not linked to power in any way. Modern leaders believe in working with other employees to achieve desired results. This implies that leaders do not sit back and command employees to work but they get involved in production.

Efficient leadership forms the backbone of a victorious organization because it allows a business to use its resources proficiently. Although it is much more famous in the commercial world, the same strategy is relevant in different quarters, including games and political affairs.

In an organization that leadership is accepted as part of the management principle, workers show a positive mind-set hence increasing the level of performance (Fernando, Dharmage & Almeida 2008, p. 148). Conversely, a firm depicted by poor leadership has a negatively inspired work atmosphere that leads to poor performance.

Who is a leader?

It is factual that outstanding leaders are made not born implying that any individual could turn out to be an effectual leader provided he/she has the aspiration and the determination. High-class leaders develop through a continuous process of self-study, learning, training and acquaintance.

For a manager to accomplish his or her mission, there are three factors that should be comprehended intensely. The first one is developing some virtues meaning that an administrator should be someone who is consistent and successful. Furthermore, a person has to carry out some investigation to know precisely what he/she should do.

At long last, a high-quality administrator should go ahead and implement the tasks or duties allocated to him/her. Conversely, the three things to be observed in headship are ‘be’,’ know’ and ‘do’ (Schwartz 2000, p. 147) These features are not obtained plausibly but are attained through standard work and studies.

Exceptional managers are incessantly working and learning to augment their administrative capacities. This implies that good managers do not relax.

In the contemporary professional world, there are four issues in leadership, which comprise of a leader him/herself, supporters, communication and state of affairs. As a manager, a person should have a truthful understanding as regards to who he/she is.

This is achieved by knowing one’s abilities and precincts. Stakeholders are to evaluate the achievements of a manager not otherwise. Leaders with low sense of worth can harmfully motivate workers resulting to poor performance in the institution. Consequently, a manager can only be victorious if he/she manages to influence employees.

On the side of supporters, a manager should recognize a variety of methods of administration to be used in channelling information to workers. For example, new workers are not to be controlled in the same way as the skilled ones (Jackall 1988, p. 80).

Some workers are very stimulated while others are not, therefore the manager must think about this feature. A high-quality manager should know his/her workers by comprehending their environment such as beliefs, wishes and interests.

In an institution, workers need to adopt interpersonal communication, which must be in form of non-verbal. The manner in which a manager deals with his/her subordinate workers affects work in the organization. Based on this, a manager should be a role model by adopting the most competent communication representation.

In addition, leaders should admit multiplicity and realize the reality that not all conditions are similar. Due to this, a leader must have a skill and special talent to be able to distinguish problems. Each crisis has an exclusive aspect implying that solutions are also dissimilar.

Following this realization, a leader must be well positioned and judicious in order to discern the right time of tackling a member of staff. Researchers of management propose that leaders have to use the Process Theory to resolve the problems of workers other than utilizing the trait theory.

Theoretical Explanation

Bass’ Theory of Leadership

The theory elucidates that there are three major techniques of describing how individuals turn out to be leaders. The theory focuses more on the group implying that it analyzes relationships between small groups of people in the organization. The theory starts by postulating that people posses some special traits that may give them chances to be leaders.

This statement concurs with the findings of trait theory. In this regard, an individual can conclude that leaders are born because the characteristics are intrinsic. The theory posits further that a particular event may force an individual to rise up to an occasion and show leadership.

Leadership qualities may crop up during hard times such as calamities, natural disasters or crises. An event may force an individual to demonstrate extraordinary leadership qualities. These findings are in line with the postulations of Great Events Theory.

Bass’ theory of leadership continues to emphasize that people can decide to be leaders, meaning that they can learn leadership skills. The recent theory referred to as Transformational or process theory supports these findings. Furthermore, it is the most treasured theory. In fact, this paper utilizes the findings of the theory in analyzing major leadership problems.

Leadership Challenges

In the preceding section, change was acknowledged as the major crisis facing the management in the organization. In this part, some reasons that make individuals to oppose change will be investigated. The danger of change is viewed by some stakeholders as being greater to the risk of standing still. This implies that instigating a change calls for willpower and passion.

Change suggests that an organization decides to move in diverse directions, which is extremely uncertain. Organizational leaders only expect for success but there is no guarantee. In an organization, individuals will only admit to abandon their conventional ways of doing things if the circumstances existing are intolerable (Browning 2007, p. 187).

This is generally perceived as one way of dealing with risk. Policy formulators in an organization are therefore demanded to be outspoken and prove that change will advance the working conditions in the organization. In addition, agents of change in the organization are requested to be reasonable and avoid idealistic and false promises as regards to rewards. Upon assessment of risk, an individual is stimulated to make change.

In the organization, individuals appear to be connected to people who are recognized of old techniques. For the reason that human beings are social species, they have a fondness of remaining where they are for a long period. Workers have a trend of following those who trained them how to carry out responsibilities in the organization.

Trustworthiness therefore becomes one of the motives why individuals oppose change. Initiating new ways of performing tasks implies going against the desires of the old guard. Such people could be having a large following in the organization.

People would not consider the consistency of the thought mainly because of emotional connection to those who trained them. Agent of change must respect the accomplishment of the old guard before establishing anything new.

On a dissimilar note, individuals tend to oppose new approaches since they do not have role models. For that reason, agents of change should for no reason underrate the power of observational learning. Individuals supporting change in the organization are compared to an idealist, who utilizes the power of imagination to devise new possibilities that are at present imaginary.

It goes to a point where communication alone would not resolve the crisis (Herman 2007, p. 153). This means that advocates of change ought to get some individuals on board and clarify to them how novel approaches or systems work. Such persons will sequentially come in helpful when it comes to elucidating the novel initiative to others.

This would demand the advocates to carry out a pilot study, whereby the new knowledge is assessed using a small sample of staff members in the bank. Closely associated with the above point is the matter of proficiency. Folks fear that they have little understanding as regards to the new idea or procedure. To such individuals, change signifies loss of jobs.

Individuals anticipate a loss of status or value of life because of instigating new thoughts. Real change reallocates responsibilities to individuals. Restructuring of the human resources can bring winners and losers. Some individuals would possibly be promoted while others might be laid off.

Change is not essentially a zero sum game implying that it can bring more value to individuals than expected (Meindl, Ehrlich & Dukerich 1985, p. 92). Some individuals would be aligned against change given that they will apparently, and in some incidences properly, perceive change as opposing their wishes and desires.

There are numerous approaches for reducing this and for dealing with constant barriers to change in the form of individuals and their wellbeing. This would consist of assisting individuals to adjust accordingly. Change should not support one person in the organization.

Others will of course gain while others will loss awfully. Regardless of what happens, organizational objectives and predetermined goals are more essential. Leaders should appreciate this and move on with their plans of establishing change. The aspiration of leaders is to stabilize the financial base of the organization, not pleasing individual desires and interests.

Solutions to Resistance to Change

Before recommending any project, change agents must give details to stakeholders on how the new knowledge will be implemented and what could be the achievable advantages and disadvantages. This denotes that employees and appropriate stakeholders must be taken through training sessions to sharpen their intelligence as regards to new knowledge.

Leaders must come up with means of influencing the feelings of stakeholders. Change will only be admitted in the organization if the interests of all employees are taken care of. In contrast, change should not be transmitted from one place to another without taking into account the environmental and cultural aspects (Gabriel 1997, p. 315).

Ideas generated in Europe could not be appropriate in the African environment. Techniques and approaches brought in from other places need to be reassessed and tailored to suit local expectations. Finally, change should be launched in stages in order to allow individuals to fine-tune accordingly.

New approaches can be mastered with time instead of rushing individuals to learn them hurriedly. For that reason, Barclays should not compel its subsidiaries in developing world to emulate western organizational cultures. Each country has its own rulings, which differ from one nation to another.

Conclusion

Leadership plays a significant role in institutional management. The organization can never perform well without high-quality leaders. The achievement of Barclays bank is accredited to its outstanding executives who have greater management virtues. Managers in the bank have regularly use leadership theories to resolve executive crises.

The hypothesis proposes that leaders are both born and made. This means that a person can turn out to be a knowledgeable leader through edification. The bank faces one main problem that is linked to adjustment to change. The old members of staff are against introduction of new professional methods.

They apprehend that new techniques could make them redundant. Leadership is a significant feature in the organization meaning that every manager has to struggle to attain it. Execution of new strategies demands cautious re-examination.

Rushing employees through changes would lead to more troubles in the organization. Holding conferences and suitable communication of facts facilitates effectual implementation of new information and methods. It is the task of executives to discover the disposition of the workforce and other stakeholders and develop adequate methods of resolving their disquiets.

Self-centredness is one of the issues that dishearten change mediators in the organization. Other theories that talk about headship in organizations can be utilized together with the process theory to describe leadership in the organization successfully.

List of References

Browning, B 2007, “Leadership in Desperate Times: An Analysis of Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage through the Lens of Leadership Theory”, Advances in Developing Human Resources, Vol. 9, no. 2, pp 183-198.

Fernando, M, Dharmage, S & Almeida, S 2008, “Ethical Ideologies of Senior Australian Managers: An Empirical Study”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 82, no. 1, pp 145–155.

Gabriel, Y1997, “Meeting God: When organizational members come face to face with the supreme Leader”, Human Relations”, Vol. 50, no. 4, pp 315.

Herman, S 2007, Leadership training in a “not-leadership” society”, Journal of Management Education, Vol. 31, no. 2, pp 151-155.

Jackall, R 1988, Moral Maze, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Meindl, J, Ehrlich, S & Dukerich, J 1985, “The Romance of Leadership”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 30, no. 2, pp 78-102.

Parker, M 2002, Against Management Policy: Organization in the age of managerialism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Schwartz, M 2000, “why ethical codes constitute an unconscionable regression”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 23, no. 1, pp 173-184.

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