Human resources literature review and key findings

¶ … Leadership

A leader is an individual who has a vision and is therefore a visionary. The ten core competencies, according to William S. Frank that by and large are associated with great leaders are: visionary, inspirational, strategic, tactical, focused, persuasive, likeable, decisive, ethical, and open to feedback. Good leaders create a vision, inspire people around them, have a strategic goal and are prepared to face challenges, stay focused towards the goal, inspire people by motivation, are people-centric, tend to make quick decisions, follow good ethics, and always have an ear for responses.

Jim Kouzes, who has authored the best-selling management book "The Leadership Challenge," states that there are two definite perspectives that form a competent leader. They are, the qualities of such individuals their followers seek and the findings of researches from the past decade.

Blanchard and Hersey's categorization of leadership styles falls into four behavioral types namely Directing Leaders, Coaching Leaders, Supporting Leaders, and Delegating Leaders. Apart from that, Blanchard and Hersey also categorized the leadership styles further into four development levels based on the follower. According to their theory, the followers fall into four development levels namely Low Competence - High Commitment, Some Competence - Low Commitment, High Competence - Variable Commitment, and High Competence - High Commitment. For an able leader to perform well, Blanchard and Hersey stated that, the leadership style should be consistent with the development level. Their theory also insists that the leader should adapt rather than the follower.

In the book, Leadership and Organization: A Behavioral Science Approach, authors Robert Tannenbaum, Irving R. Weschler, and Fred Massarik after widespread research state that social sensitivity and action flexibility are the two key qualities that lead to effective leadership.

Leaders inspire and challenge us. Also they provide a calm center even at the core of crisis and somehow convey the message that someway, somehow, everything will be o.k. A good leader always has the ability to stay focused. They also have the ability to visualize and see the big picture. It may be the best quality and biggest that a leader demonstrates that they recognize the potential in others and they take it one-step and help those around them realize their potential.

The guidelines developed by renowned management gurus Vroom -- Yetton facilitates the managers to choose suitable leadership styles. These methods are classified as below:

A situational leader takes decision individually based on the information available to him.

After obtaining necessary information from the subordinates, the leader seeks a solution to the problem personally. The purpose of such questions asked by the leader may or may not be revealed.

The leader reveals the problem and asks for ideas from his subordinates on a one-on-one basis. The final decision may or may not be taken based on the views of the subordinate.

The leader seeks suggestions from his subordinates in a meeting convened for the same purpose. After which, the leader takes his own decision, which may or may not be taken on the views of subordinates.

The leader expresses the problem to his subordinates in a gathering, conducts a brainstorming, and arrives at a final decision without influencing the flow of ideas from the subordinates.

However, notwithstanding the above theories, extensive researches on the subject shows that leadership qualities differ from individual to individual. There are exponential resources freely available in the market to enhance the leadership effectiveness of an individual. Not to mention, these resources more often than not fail in the process of instilling leadership qualities in an individual. For apparently, there are certain qualities that can hardly be inculcated, rather they need to be innate. As someone rightly said, leadership evolves in answer to a need and it is complicated to generalize the whole aspect of it.

Essential Personality Traits to Leadership

This leadership can be approached in several different ways. A basic approach is that leaders are always active, effective or ineffective due to their strong personality traits, and are highly effective because of their values, beliefs and ethics. That's the approach towards the personality trait. In fact, some people think that only high moral values are key to success, while others talk about their extroversion or charisma.

In contrast, a different way of looking at good leaders and their effectiveness is not just to see who they are but rather what they do; their skills and their behavior. One consider in this approach what effective and ineffective leaders do differently.

Its like both ways are of real value and balance each other to help us to understand leaders, but at the same time it is very important to understand one important inference, Personality traits, beliefs and values are understood with behavioral sciences as relatively unchanging in the age group of 24 and above. if, then, the leader lacks any required traits, its unlikely that she or he will ever get them. it's possible but at the same time unlikely, that means the development of effective active leaders must rely on Selecting right people, since it's not that so easy to change traits from one time to another.

The focus on behaviors and skills, though, implies that people can become good leaders, just not by changing relatively change resistant personality traits but by observing new behavior and new skills that will mould them to be a better leader.

With most things, the truth simple lies with both cases. It is true that some people are simply not carved out for leadership roles because of their beliefs, personality and values, and that additional training will make them otherwise. The fact is that leaders can improve them over a period of time by acquiring new skills and leadership behavior. Hence, Leadership skill and Selection both are highly important.

Para psychological researchers have long been highly interested in exploring if there are really any factors which might relate to why few people report says that they have more psi experiences in their day-to-day life than others. While most work is performed with volunteer subjects who have not been chosen on the basis of their assumed psi ability, also it is observed that few people appear to do better in experimental psi tests than others. But one approach to examine the possible outcomes for these observed differences has evolved identifying the various psi ability and personality factors.

What makes a good leader why do we need them so much?

Truth is that the qualities that constitute leadership seems to be linked with a person's own sense of self-worth. For instance, a leader is willing to address a situation and trust in his/her own ability to act. While the result may lead to a negative or a positive, the leader is not willing to take chances because of his or her own confidence in the judgment. With this, a good leader additionally develops a trust in other people and gets trust in return from his people. A Good leader always knows how to recognize inborn ability in the people around them. As said earlier, a good leader is not only creates vision but also inspires people around him. Further they nourish and encourage those abilities in others by allowing under their authority to take on jobs that require them to exercise those gifts.

A leader has the supernatural ability to inspire loyalty. Those abound him/her will take risks to support their leader. Another special thing about a good leader is demonstrated in leadership is awareness of those around them. By demonstrating initiative to consider both sides of an issue and making right decisions on the issue facts, the employee is confident that they too will receive good treatment.

Why do we need Good Leaders on the Job?

It is proved that leaders on the job make or break a business. There is a clear relationship between productivity and leadership. While few people are skilled at knowing what should be accomplished and how to do their task, the majority needs some order and structure in the workplace in order to the excel in what they do. It is also known that even the most diligent employee will suffer by working in an environment that does not inspire confidence and that does not provide stability. Moreover, a good employee will grow restless and resentful if they are working with other people who are not self-directed and self-motivated.

A good leader shares his responsibilities and credit for the job performed well. They always create a win-win situation where everyone benefits from a team effort and as a result the team becomes committed to the success of the venture. On the job, a good leader creates all differences in the quality and temperament of the job environment. Without good leaders productivity rate will always be low.

No one can really argue that a good leader can boost an organization's performance and growth in much the same way as a poor leader can run the business into the ground. But what makes a leader effective or ineffective is a more hot concept to pin down.

JIM Kouzes, lecturer and author of nine books of leadership, including the best seller, "The leadership Challenge," qualities that make an effective leader have different perspectives.

There are four things that everyone look for in a good leader. Firstly, people want a leader who is honest to them, trustworthy, and has integrity. Secondly, people want someone who looks forward that is forward looking, who has a vision of the future, and thinks about the long-term, also people want someone who can forecast things in case of crisis. Thirdly, people want someone who is consistent, competitive, expertise and knows what they are doing. Fourth, people want a person who is inspiring, energetic, optimistic and positive about the future.

Research on how leaders execute or put all those attributes into action, or execute those qualities has produced five practices that successful leaders indulge those practices on the job and contribute to the growth of their company.

Five Practices:

First, they set an example to others with their own behavior and they are very clear about what their beliefs and their values are, as well the beliefs and values of the organization. Second, leaders inspire a shared vision. They envision an ennobling future, forward looking and they try to enlist their team members in that. Third, they challenge each and every process what they do. They always search opportunities to grow to change, to improve, and they are experimental and take risks. Fourth, they make others to act, give his/her complete support for individual development. Fifth, as we all know that good leaders encourage others efforts. They recognize and reward individual achievements and also celebrate team accomplishments.