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Leadership
Statement College Paper
Knowing the way, going the way and
showing the way convey a set of conditions that can unleash
tremendous potential for the leader and also for its followers.
Although organizations tend to prefer a ‘status quo’ rather than
a change, but in fact it is change that creates, or in the
context of high performing organizations maintains, excellence.
Almost every organization face such challenges from time to
time. Since moments of change also encounter the leadership,
therefore, leaders should sought after and embrace change rather
than avoiding it.
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Definition
It is important to recognize the skills or techniques pertaining
to leadership. As Jeffrey Glanz (2002), says in his definition
of a leader, “we tend to place more importance on the practical
performance to the exclusion of the characteristics that may be
more important” (p. 12). An educated leader may understand how
to establish a budget, set priorities, and carry out a strategic
plan. But this individual might, for example, exhibit unethical
behaviors or demonstrate lack of empathy for others. The
question we need to ask is, “What kind of leader do we want for
a particular position?”
These are challenging times for leaders. The day-to-day pace has
increased and everything seems to be changing. School leaders
think in terms of pre and post “Columbine”. Leadership practices
are evaluated differently after the incident of “September 11”.
Today’s world is simply different and requires leaders that can
adapt to these changes. Good leaders are those who understand
the importance of the practical performance. They also realize
that with so much going on it helps to take a step back
periodically and focus on the foundation of effective
leadership.
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Traditionally, most leadership studies are dealing with what is
called “leadership paradigms,” with each generating a group of
theories. House & Aditya (1997) outline the two major research
paradigms as:
Leadership Traits: Examining the differences between leaders and
followers while using physical, psychological and mental
characteristics or abilities; Leader Behavior: Studying the way
“leaders” behave, either under controlled laboratory settings or
as described by others in the field.
The universal traits possessed by the leaders are intelligence,
assertiveness in social situations, self-confidence, high levels
of energy, and knowledge aimed more towards task achievement
rather than self-reflection or theory. This needs to be placed
in a social context to work. According to House & Aditya (1997):
“Leadership is embedded in a social context, and the idea of
social intelligence implies that differences in cognitive
abilities between leaders and non-leaders go beyond conventional
IQ measures” (p. 509).
As for Leader Behavior Paradigm, the aim was to pinpoint what
makes a leader through the person’s visible actions. This
research led to the discovery of two major types of
behavior---task-oriented and person-oriented. However, as the
research could not come up with agreed-upon universal leadership
behaviors, a set of “contingency” theories was created (Fiedler,
1971; House & Mitchell, 1974; Hersey & Blanchard, 1982). Several
more modern leadership theories have arisen in the last decade
including:
Leader Member Exchange Theory (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995): The type
of leader-follower relationship can provide more predictive
results of how an organization is doing compared to traits or
behavior studies;
Implicit Leadership Theory (Lord & Maher, 1991): Along with all
the other leadership qualities and behaviors, what makes a
leader, is the fact others perceive the person as a leader;
Neocharismatic Theory (House et al, 1996): This is actually a
group of theories, stretching back into the 1970s, which attempt
to explain how leaders can get their followers to achieve
highly-positive results in the face of overwhelming odds.
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