Leadership concepts and applications

Leadership Discussion

Leadership is everyone's business it is for women, men and even children. We therefore need leadership now in everything that we do be it in our homes, organizations we work in, in church and many more Ares (Leadership Now, 2014). This means that understanding leadership is a vital thing for everyone. Many treatments of leadership have their focus on high-impact leaders but fascinating as these people are they operate in unique environments that most people will never see .the limitation about getting our leadership principle from carrying out studies on the group of the elite is that they are not so many and each and every one of them is in an extremely different situation. Therefore studies on leadership mainly focus on middle and lower level leaders in organizations (American Psychological Association, pg. 474).This paper will look at two different modern leadership approaches with examples of where they are currently being utilized.

One of the modern leadership approaches is authentic leadership. This is a notion that is derived from transformational leadership which refers to leaders that lead with integrity and geniuses' as opposed to projecting an artificial persona.an authentic leader is one whose driving force is their moral values .An authentic leader is described as one that has an emotional intelligence, positive self-concept, the desire to learn, integrity, high self-esteem continual self-monitoring and also a history of having positive leader-follower relationships. A safe prediction in this leadership approach is the fact that there is a desire by partners, citizens and even subordinates always want to uncover the trust and authentic nature of a leader, partner or even an official who has ben elected. Authenticity is something that is hard to gain but very hard to loose but once it is lost it becomes very difficult to be regained. Authenticity leadership is often associated with high performance and organizational citizenship behaviors found among followers (American Psychological Association, pg. 499-500).

The second modern leadership approach is charismatic leadership. This is a notion derived from transformational leadership whereby a leader has personal magnetism, attractiveness or a charm that is compelling which acts as an inspiration towards administration and also compliance from other people.it can also be defined as a personal attribute that a leader has which almost hypnotizes their followers to an extent of compelling them to identify and emulate them.it also leads to an increase in organizational citizenship behaviors that are exhibited among members.an example of such leadership is what was demonstrated by president Bill Clinton; who was seen by many as being charismatic. This leadership approach is a combination of personal characteristics and behaviors of an individual coupled with the beliefs held by their followers. Those who follow charismatic leaders are normally attached to them emotionally and they do not even question their actions and beliefs and they view themselves as being an integral part of accomplishing the goals of these leaders. They set good example to their followers through their behavior and they can end up loosing their appeal incase their less attractive behavior comes out to the limelight just as it was for Bill Clinton (American Psychological Association, pg. 500).