Four Theories Of Understanding Leadership

Understanding Leadership

By Robert Corbett

Instore cleaning manager

Sainsbury,Carrickfergus

01/05/17.

To understand leadership you need to understand that there is no magic combination of characteristics which make you successful and that there are a lot of different types of theories,influences and ideals to choose from. However your choice may not necessarily be a conscious one as a lot of how you manage/lead is common sense.Leadership has been likened to leading people whereas management is about managing things.It is therefore helpful to look at the four core theories of leadership.Beginning with trait theory which helps to identify things such as integrity,assertiveness,empathy,assertiveness,affability and good decision making.Moving on

As an example of good leadership I would cite Gandi who had a democratic style comprising openness,self belief, down to earth and presence. Opposed to this Hitler was a bad leader who had an autocratic style comprising megalomania,instilled fear through force was single minded and didn�t suffer fools gladly.However both these examples of leadership were successful for different reasons and in different times.To make the transition to leader you have to let go of the old skills/things you like doing learn/embrace new skills to enhance your role and achieve success.Among the qualities necessary to be successful are integrity,vision,personality,decisiveness and professionalism.According to The Leadership Challenge(2007)Kouzes&Posner identified five Practices of Exemplary Leadership as Model the way,Inspire a shared vision,Challenge the process,Enable others to act and Encourage the heart.Taking the above model into account numerous surveys were conducted over twenty years asking,What values(personal traits or characteristics)do you look for and admire in your leader? The result was four main characteristics continually receiving over fifty

Therefore it follows that the person fulfilling these needs will be the group leader.So the skill of leadership is not necessarily born into but can be learnt by anyone willing to learn.So a Srategic leader looks to the big picture,Operational leader achieves key objectives and Team leader manages resources to achieve goals.There are many styles and theories surrounding what makes a good leader but what is sure is that there is no single correct way and success will only be achieved if the style adopted completes the task in hand as no two people/situations are the same.This was attested to in Hersey and Blanchard 1969 situational leadership (theory)model.Here they say there is no single best style of leadership.Effective leadership is realising tasks are different and adopt a leadership style to influence a successful outcome.Similarily team members require different situational leadership depending on their level of development.Within the environment in which I work I would put my level of leadership as operational and I employ a democratic style of leadership tinged with autocratic depending on the situation.The team I have around me are experienced and capable,so I can easily delegate tasks/responsibilities.If there is a problem with a team member I can support them to find out what the real problem is and coach them to better/equal performance.However if a team member does