Leadership

The opinions about leadership qualities tend to vary from society to society and from age group to age group.

Qualities

1. Action
2. Commitment
3. Concern
4. Counsel
5. Decisiveness
6. Independence
7. Integrity
8. Intelligence
9. Individuality
10. Justice and judgement
11. Shrewdness and cunning
12. Valor
13. Vigilance
14. Wisdom

Vigilance

Vigilance includes ability to:

• Search for alternatives.
• Develop contingency plans in case risks materialize.
• Evaluate alternatives and personnel without bios.

Leadership Traits

• Drive for task completion
• Persistantly pursues goals
• Takes responsibility - Accepts consequences of actions
• Has original ideas and initiative
• Tolerates frustration, delay and absorbs interpersonal stress.

Can influence others.

Leaders that initiate structure in a workgroup help to increase productivity. This is done through planning, clarification of job information, emphasizing the need to finish work. Consideration leads to satisfied employees. Good leaders must balance consideration with structure.

Leadership Styles

The following styles of leadership exist in varying forms:

• Task or achievement motivated (Directive)
• Relationship motivated (Participative) - Share leadership responsibilities
• Supportive - Provides support to the team to help them perform work.

Other ways of looking at leadership styles include:

• Autocratic - Makes decisions by themself without consulting the team.
• Consultive Autocratic - Consults with members of the team before making decisions.
• Consensus manager - Allows the team to make decisions.

Which style works best depends on the situation. Relationship leadership is best when the situation for the leader to exert influence is moderately favorable or moderately unfavorable. A task motivated leader is effective when the leadership conditions are extremely favorable or extremely poor. Consideration with provision for task descriptions and goals is advised. Obviously, it is important for managers to support their teams with tools and other requirements. How much to involve the whole group in the decision process depends on certain factors such as:

• Time
• Development of subordinate skills.
• The project characteristics such as complexity and size.

Questions to ask to help decide how much the group should be involved with decisions include:

• Does the problem have a quality requirement?
• Do I have enough information to make a high quality decision?
• Is the problem structured?
• Is it important that subordinates accept the decision in order for it to get implemented?
• Will subordinates accept my decision if I make it by myself?
• Do subordinates share organizational goals with regard to the problem?

Style of leadership is affected by organizational and subordinate characteristics which include:

• Whether the organization has some set goals.
• How structured is the organization?
• Whether subordinates accept responsibility for their decisions.
• Whether subordinates like direction.
• Subordinate interest in the problem.
• Subordinate need for independence.
• Subordinate expectations to share in decision making.

Effective Managers

Effective managers must be able to:

• Know where to get information. Key questions are "Who do I ask?" and "Who makes the decision?"
• Delegate - Since one person can only do so much, delegation is required to increase power and effectiveness.

Good managers:

• Encourage honesty and openness by providing a positive atmosphere.
• Listen to others.
• Keep stress from workers by absorbing aggression rather than passing it on.
• Awareness of potential conflict and taking proper measures to head it off.
• Serve as a role model with positive behavior and exhibiting desireable characteristics.
• Counseling employees when required.
• Avoid leadership bios which leads to group think