Leadership Theory Every Organization Goes

Leadership Theory Every organization goes through a period in which they initiate and manage change within the company. In order for change to go smoothly the leaders in a company must be effectual and ethical in nature. They must know how to lead change in a way that gets everyone one board and the end goal is ultimately reached. This is not always an easy process but is one that can be done if the right people are leading the way.

Leadership is a social influence procedure that is essential for the achievement of societal and organizational goals. Leadership is both obvious in its absence and inexplicable in its presence. It is often recognizable but yet hard to define. Leadership takes place within the power and authority structures of organizations. Leadership is a vital part of the accomplishment of social and organizational goals. The need for effective leadership permeates our social process from the election of political representatives to the education of our children.

People anticipate leadership from our presidents, our principals and our preachers. It is contradictory; consequently, that leadership is both frequently understood and yet hard to define (Sheard & Kakabadse, 2007). Effective leaders have a vision and share that vision with members of the organization. A vision is not something exact.

Rather, it supplies the person who assumes a high-level position with the occasion to share his or her ideas about what the organization should become, what it should do, how it should perform, and, perhaps most significant, what the role and responsibilities of members of the organization should be. A vision is conceptual; it is broader than objectives and it is more extensive than just a mission statement (Straussman, n.d.).

When trying to make a decision as to which of multiple alternatives is the right thing to get done, a leader faces the collective challenges of initially gathering, and then interpreting data on which to base a decision. Leaders frequently develop a network of relationships within an organization, and then draw upon that network when making decisions about how organizational resources will be used. Networks of relationships are measured from the perspective of group working, and also groups working with other groups.

There are a lot of implications for a leader and their network of relationships, as they operate in a connected and dependent organizational system. There are a lot of issues that are linked with managing oneself when trying to build work-based relationships and engage positively in the organizational decision making procedure (Sheard & Kakabadse, 2007). In order for a person to be a successful leader they must know the difference between power and influence and how to apply these concepts effectively in the workplace.

Having power and using power are two different notions. Power is merely the capability to get things done the way one wants them to be done. Power distribution is usually visible within organizations. Leaders often have the power to reward or punish workers. When a leader makes a request, he or she will almost certainly be obeyed even though the manager does not in fact reward the worker. The fact that the manager has the capability to give rewards and punishments will be enough for workers to follow the request.

Researchers have identified six sources of power, which include legitimate, reward, coercive, expert, information, and referent. One might earn power from one source or all six depending on the circumstances (Bauer, n.d.). At its most basic level, leadership is a social influence process. Leadership researchers have found that leaders employ a diversity of strategies to influence the behavior of others. The use of these devices is a function of several conditions, including sources of power, lines of authority, nature of the task and desired outcome.

Power and authority are closely related but theoretically distinct constructs. The exercise of power is legitimated by way of authority. Authority is derived from real or implied observations of the leader's position in the organization or from the leader's knowledge and expertise. As particular beliefs, perceptions and positions become accepted within a group or organization, those within that group are united in a common perspective and come to expect and value certain patterns of influence (Faeth, 2004). Authority may be either formal or informal.

Formal authority is derived from a recognized organizational structure with delineated lines of responsibility and influence. Informal authority may exist outside of discernible organizational role definitions. Authority is granted by subordinates and noted the conditions that increased or decreased subordinates' compliance. Followers will comply with authority if the orders are understood, are consistent with the objectives of the organization, are compatible with the interests of the subordinate and are within the physical and mental capabilities of the subordinate.

Under these criteria, authority may be granted to those whose knowledge or experience equips them for leadership, even if they are not formally designated within the organizational structure (Faeth, 2004). Authority is power that has been legitimated by the consent of followers, not by coercion or force. Tradition, religion and social contracts are often the sources of legitimate authority. In formal organizations, the degree of authority granted to a leader coincides with their legitimate power.

Research in the field of legitimization theory demonstrates that power and prestige are initially conveyed through cultural expectations but must be reinforced through the consensual validation of followers (Faeth, 2004). High performing organizations need both effective managers and effective leaders. If both leadership and management are nonexistent, labors to change will go nowhere.

When leadership is strong but not backed up by effective management arrangements, efforts to undergo major change may show some early progress, but will soon be thwarted by the lack of core management functions that must support the change. When management is strong but leadership is lacking, short-term affirmative results are probable to occur, but significant organizational change will not take place. When management and leadership are both strong, the organization is likely to be victorious in undergoing large size change.

The last combination is not only wanted but also achievable (Straussman, n.d.). In addition to power and influence a good leader must also be ethical in order to be successful. Leaders today face the challenge of earning the trust and commitment of staff members if they want to steer their companies to success in a highly aggressive international framework. Interpersonal trustworthiness is a personal evaluation of the probability that another person can be trusted to respect responsibilities intrinsic within an apparent social contract.

The connection amid leader behavior and leader trustworthiness becomes a function of each person's theoretical thinking as followers infer the understood and explicit elements of the social contract and the values that social contracts include. More and more, scholars have recognized the leader -- follower connection as a chain of psychological contracts that increase to the level of a binding association (Caldwell, Hayes & Long, 2010). Leaders earn the trust and followership of people by being trustworthy and responsible.

By honoring the promises owed to incorporate goals and values, both instrumental and normative, trustworthy leaders display an ethically good commitment that others are willing to follow. By way of honoring their duties to others, leaders exhibit their dedication to the binding nature of the association between people. Corporate governance has conventionally concerned the responsibilities of those who own a company and those who serve as its chosen managerial leaders and agents (Caldwell, Hayes & Long, 2010).

Therefore, corporate governance imposes on businesses and their leaders an influential obligation to make the most of long-term wealth creation to benefit all of the stakeholders involved. This long-term importance means that leaders will keep away from self-defeating short-term choices that increase market value but that damage the company's basic mission.

At the normative level, ethical stewardship is also dedicated to the well-being, expansion, and completeness of stakeholders, increasing to the level of honoring transformational compulsions that create new occasions and reframe conventional authority and control ideas of leadership (Caldwell & Hansen, (2010). According to Tanner, Brugger, van Schie, & Lebherz, (2010), given that leadership is unavoidably value loaded, leadership scholars have highlighted the role of moral development and values for the materialization of ethical leadership and have called for research to look at such issues.

Consequently, discussions in many arenas have centered on values and on the questions of which personal values are significant and how they affect actions. Ethical values fundamentally involve devotion to standards of morally right or good behaviors, as opposed to morally wrong or bad behaviors. Nevertheless, leaders' values only matter to organizations and followers if they express those beliefs and values by way of their actions. At times leaders can be seen having a lack of capability or moral bravery to act on what they know is right.

Ethical leadership entails promoting suitable behavior through role modeling and interpersonal associations. Ethical leaders are seen as trustworthy, fair, and concerned about others, that they set obvious ethical standards and use rewards and punishments to encourage ethical behavior (Tanner, Brugger, van Schie, & Lebherz, 2010). Ethical leadership also entails role modeling through noticeable actions. Trustworthiness is seen as a result of ethical behavior rather than an attribute of ethical leaders themselves.

Authentic leaders maintain that people have to act in concert with their deep personal and moral values and beliefs, but instead of centering on intrapersonal courses like self-awareness and self-regulation, the chase of ethical values on a normal basis is professed as morally authentic by followers (Tanner, Brugger, van Schie, & Lebherz, 2010). Trust is made up of the acceptance of risk and susceptibility deriving from the action of others and anticipation that the other will not take advantage of this vulnerability.

Trust can be usefully divided into competence trust and goodwill trust. Competence trust refers to trusting that the other person or organization has the ability to control risk by meeting their promises, whereas goodwill has an emotional recognition of the moral commitment of the other not to take advantage of vulnerability. Trust is often seen as synonymous with openness, honesty, respect and the avoidance of using power unfairly (Purdue, 2001). Relationship development behaviors reflect people focused on leadership that entails creating personal relations with others to augment shared ownership and commitment.

It has been found that leaders who formed close dyadic relationships augmented the likelihood of producing enhanced long-term dedication and developing long-term trust. McAllister (1995) found that affective association was an important factor in building trust at the interpersonal level, and that leadership relied greatly upon the leader's capability to persuade others (Caldwell, Hayes, & Long, 2010). Executive leaders are thought to set the ethical attitude at the top of organizations and form their official and informal ethical cultures.

Executive leaders have been found to play a significant role in communicating ethical standards and utilizing rewards and punishments to support suitable behavior. Additionally, senior management's concern for ethics has been shown to influence an organization's values or compliance oriented approach to ethics management and its incorporation of ethics into everyday activities such as performance appraisals. Leaders have also been found to influence workers' ethical behavior.

For instance, employees' observation that executives and supervisors genuinely care about ethics has been linked with the quantity of unethical conduct observed in the company. Yet, despite this evidence suggesting that leaders matter when it comes to company ethics, the exact role of leadership in persuading unethical behavior in the workplace has yet to be completely explicated (Trevino & Brown, 2004). Caldwell & Hansen (2010) suggest that insights about the trustworthiness of leaders and the company are directly tied to long-term wealth creation.

They noted that transaction expenses are recognized to be a necessary alternative for a lack of trustworthiness in organizational associations. Confirming the nature of the relationship between trustworthiness and wealth formation provides a significant occasion for understanding the managerial and strategic roles in companies. The connection between trustworthiness and competitive advantage is strengthened by expounding how trustworthiness affects trust actions. In the end, sustainable competitive advantage is a consequence of the actions of employees cooperating jointly and developing organizational assets that cannot be easily duplicated or replaced.

It is by way of establishing a competitive advantage and supporting that advantage through the efforts and commitment of workers that wealth is fashioned, that profits are earned and that society eventually benefits. Workers that are on the front line of many companies rely heavily on the leaders of their company to lead them in a way that is trustworthy and ethical in nature. It is the building of said trust that facilitates the company to be successful.

Leaders that are not trustworthy and do not make good ethical decisions will eventually loose the following of the people within the organization. These types of leaders often bring down the moral of all employees which them results in lower productivity due to worker dissatisfaction. In the end.