Effective Leadership: A Comprehensive Analysis of Traits, Skills, and Practices

This report delves into the multifaceted concept of effective leadership, exploring the essential traits and skills that contribute to success. It examines the distinction between leadership and management, highlighting their unique roles in organizational effectiveness. Drawing upon personal experiences, course learnings, and relevant research, the report analyzes various leadership styles and their implications for organizational performance. The analysis provides a comprehensive understanding of the principles and practices of effective leadership, equipping individuals with valuable insights for personal and professional growth.

BUSINESS LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
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Table of contents:
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Q1....................................................................................................................................................4
Q2....................................................................................................................................................7
Q3....................................................................................................................................................9
Q4..................................................................................................................................................11
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................13
Reference list.................................................................................................................................14
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Introduction:
Effective leadership is an activity, which identifies types of behaviors and enhances the
collective performance of an individual. Over 20 years, psychology emphasizes on the study of
leadership. Apart from that, Effective leadership contributes strong character and exhibits ethics,
trustworthiness, honesty and integrity. Leadership activity emphasizes on two broadly defined
categories of behavior. Those are relations oriented behavior and task oriented behavior. In this
assignment, the concept and practice of effective leadership and reflections of effective
leadership will be analyzed. In order to do that four questions regarding effective leadership,
which involves core aspects in understanding leadership drawing such as past research,
experience of an individual, critical consideration will be discussed. In this four questions right
traits and skills of a successful leader, ability to adapt leadership approach, concepts of
leadership and management and experience of an individual in leadership activity have been
widely elaborated.
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Q1. What is involved in being a successful leader?
A successful leader should have that quality to control crowd. They can easily achieve results by
developing their visions, by an effective communication process and by a strong commitment to
others. Apart from that, those are involved five major qualities in being a successful leader.
Those qualities are:
 Inspire and motivate others: Powerful leaders can create a vision of future which is
vivid and compelling and which motivates colleagues. As a leader, it is the responsibility
to help others and motivates in this process.
 High integrity and honesty: According to the trait theory of Stogdill leadership is the
interaction between an individual and the social situation and based on predefine traits.
One of those traits is honesty. Great leaders are hones and posses a high integrity. They
are bound to find answers of every question and be truthful in this process.
 Problem solving skills: A god leader has been chosen to solve organizational problems
and sustain the position of an organization in marketplace. They are able to sense the
threats, which can effect organizational growth. Therefore, they possess good analytical
skills to rectify the issues and manage team member as well.
 Innovation quality: In the era of globalization, it is important to adapt changes
according to environment. Therefore, good leaders should adapt disruptive innovation
theory. In order to do that, a successful leader should follow great man theory of
leadership. According to this theory, leadership is an inborn quality and they can easily
shape themselves according to the nature. Therefore, it is important to adapt the
innovation according to the nature of marketplace and the environment as well.
 A good vision: Focus is a key factor in order to pursue the vision in mind. A good leader
should have a clear vision and tireless effort to pursuer that vision. They should have the
ability to remove obstacles and proactive in this process. The vision of leadership
permeates the workplace and manifests the values and organizational goals as well. A
good vision can attract every employee in an organization and affects his or her values,
actions and goals as well. According to Diamond and Spillane (2016), a leadership vision
can organize a workplace and a powerful dynamic drive in order to enhance an
employees’ performance.
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 Performance monitoring and feedbacks: Monitoring progress always motivates teams
and rectifies the performance of an employee. Therefore, a successful leader knows the
fact that a clear vision and evaluation process leads to create a better team in this process.
Apart from that, a leader has given feedbacks to encourage or signify the area of
weakness of an employee. It is a process of rectification, not to degrade or criticize an
employee; therefore, they should maintain the decorum of an organization. In order to do
that, they should follow the 3P’s in organizational structure (Diamond and Spillane,
2016). Those are purpose, people and process. Purpose objectifies the purpose of an
objective or a decision. People define the involvement of employees in an activity and
process defines the whole performance management process and ensures the performance
goal of an organization.
 Self management: It is very hard to manage things effectively. Therefore, for that good
leaders should able to manage themselves. They need to prioritize their goals and
responsible to accomplish those goals. An effective leader must aware of their strengths,
weaknesses and potentials while regulating their time.
 Strategic actions: Future thinking and open mind approach are necessary in an effective
leadership. According to Fernández-Muñiz et al., (2016), leaders must prepare their
strategy according to the situation and able to tackle some unexpected challenges. A
leader can cultivate their strategic actions by being interested and curious in
organizational progress, by being flexible in mind, by focusing on operational
conditions of a company and by maintaining the positive environment in an organization.
 Effective communicator: Communication is an ultimate process to mitigate every kind
of problems. A powerful leader should have the ability to create an effective
communication process in order to develop a better working culture in an organization.
An effective communicator is able to explain specific tasks and organizational goals. If
team members are not able to understand the vision of the team leader then their ultimate
performance will fall short and harm the organization as well. Communication is the
process of exchange ideas and thoughts and involves different levels of an organization.
Therefore, a powerful leader needs to communicate on all levels, from lower hierarchy to
upper hierarchy.
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Figure 1: Qualities of a successful leader
(Source: Kyratsis et al., 2016)
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Q2. Can good leadership be developed, and if so, how?
A good leadership is based on two criteria. Those are traits and skills. A god leadership processes
10 core traits those are: Honesty, confidence, Accountability, delegation ability, Commitment,
Decision making ability, communication, creativity, ability to motivate and empathy. It is
difficult for a leader to develop core traits because the leadership quality is based on these core
traits and it is hard to maintain the quality and flow at the same time. By following these traits is
not difficult to develop the leadership skill by their core beliefs and values as well.
Honesty: One of the supreme leadership qualities is maintaining honesty and integrity within the
workplaces. A good leader is successful in their field if they stick to their core beliefs and values
and remain honest in the whole process. This quality motivates the team members and develops
the leadership quality of an individual (Joseph et al., 2015).
Confidence: A leader is the frontline man who commands other team members and they are
following it. Therefore, it is an important factor to be a confident leader during any operation so
that their subordinates are following the commands of the leader. A bonding is being created in
this whole process and confidence can generate the core beliefs of a leader and develop the
leadership quality as well.
Delegation ability: It is not possible to do everything. Therefore, it is important for a successful
leader to maintain the key responsibilities and divide small roles to others. If a leader is always
managing his or her subordinates then it will create lack of trust and the team members are not be
able to identify important matters. The only responsibility of a good leader is to provide
necessary sources in order to manage the work (Black, 2015).
Accountability: Accountability defines the struggle and responsibilities of subordinates. A good
leader should take the responsibility of errors and little share of credit. In order to develop the
leadership quality they are making sure the fact that their subordinates are accountable in for
their works. Leaders should mention team member’s efforts, struggle in this process. Apart from
that, a leader should make them realize their errors and rectifying it (Shah and Pathak, 2015).
Commitment: A team is looking forward to their leaders’ actions. If a team is going forward to
give their all effort therefore, it is the responsibility of a successful leader to being passionate
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about that too. This will develop the leadership quality by taking responsibilities of other team
members and gain respect in the group as well. Lack of passion develop negative point of view
among the team. This will affect their performance as well. Then it will become a difficult to
manage the team properly.
Decision making ability: In order to develop the leadership quality, a leader should make the
right decision at the right time. A decision of a leader is creating a profound impact on the
masses. In order to develop the process, a leader needs to think hard before taking any important
decision. The leader should consult with the team member in order to develop a fruitful way for
a particular problem. This practice will manage the things more easily and will benefit the
organization as well (Sanders, 2017).
Communication: It is very difficult to convey any vision or idea if the communication process
is not clear. A good leader should possess a good communication skill in order to achieve the
organizational goal and any kind of strategy planning. This practice will develop the
communication skill and leadership skills as well. A god communication skill will motivate the
employees and make them do any kind of unapproachable thing very easily.
Creativity: Innovation and creativity will distinguish between a leader and a follower. In the
era of globalization, an effective leader needs to innovative and creative at the same time in order
to develop their leadership quality (Sanders, 2017). Creative thinking will always enhance the
organizational plan and motivates the team members as well.
Ability to motivate: It is most difficult job of a leader motivate other employees in the process.
It is only achievable if a leader is setting out some example for their team members to follow.
This practice will develop the skills and attributes of a leader and a leader’s action will also
motivate other team members in this process.
Empathy: A good leader should develop an empathy with their followers. Many good leaders
are not being able to focus on empathy. Due to this, they have failed to create a good
relationship with their leaders and create negative feedbacks in this process (Sanders, 2017).
Therefore, in order to develop the leadership quality the leader should follow a suitable solution
for every problem and follow the cooperative working process.
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Q3. What distinguishes leadership from management?
Leadership is the quality of influence individuals, so that the visions are attained enthusiastically.
Management is a practice of managing things by best possible way. As opined by Riaz and
Khalili (2014), the main difference between leadership and management is leaders have the skills
and quality to motivate others and they have followers, while managers are working for those
leaders. Apart from that, management is for an organized group of people where a leader
manages the group. Leadership is a skill to lead other while management is an art to organize
things systematically and coordinate in the whole process by an efficient way (Jeon et al. 2017).
Apart from that, management is based on the leadership control while leadership based on trust
of team members. Management is the responsibility to maintain stability in the process and
leadership is encouraging changes in work culture. It can also be said that the main difference
between a leader and a manager is that a leader is followed by the people of the company;
however, on the other hand, a manager is the one that manages the people of a certain company.
In order to ensure that a business is run in a successful manner, the company should ensure that
they have both skillful and talented leaders as well as managers. Every company has a vision of
success that they need to follow and therefore, the role of managers and leaders are of utmost
importance (Weiss and Tappen, 2014). The leaders usually help the people to believe in
themselves so that they can ensure that a certain task is easily completed. However, by managing
people, the managers ensure that all the necessary activities are happening within the company as
they should have taken place.
It is known as a matter of fact that people should instill their trust on the leaders in order to
follow him/her in the long run. However, the manager should ensure that he has complete control
over the people working within the company. The manager will only be able to manage his
people if he executes control over the different operations of the company. With the help of
skillful and talented leaders, the people of the company can be influenced to work towards
achieving the goals of the company (Bolden, 2016). However, leadership mainly depends on
ruling the company in a way that is suitable for the company as a whole. It can be said the
company requires leaders that are ideally foresighted. They need to have long term goals set up
for the company and they should also focus on ensuring that the people are working towards
achieving the goals. However, managers might have a vision that is short ranged. Leaders
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usually guide the people and help them to follow the principles. However, it is the manager that
ensures that different procedures and policies are implemented within the company in a proper
and precise manner. The company has leaders that are considered to be proactive in nature.
However, the management of the company is said to be highly reactive (Dubey et al., 2015).
Most of the changes that take place within the company is said to be brought about by the
leaders. However, the stability of the company is brought by the managers of the company. The
leaders of a company usually develop new ideas and the managers are ideally responsible for
organizing so that the ideas are executed in an appropriate manner. The leader might come up
with a completely new idea and would look to implement it within the company for the growth
and development of the company as a whole. It is more likely to be said that the leader has a
great amount of knowledge of the various trends that exist in the market. The manager however,
takes care of the ideas that have been already implemented by the leaders and they look to
maintain it in a proper manner so that the company can function accordingly. The managers of
the company take care of the workforce of the employees and they should also ensure that the
company is free of any chaos (Bergh et al., 2016).
The leaders of the company ideally ask various questions to the employees based on the issues
and problems that they are facing. The main reason for doing this is that they want the employees
to be free of any kind of queries and issues that they might be facing within the company.
However, the manager takes detailed information from the employees as to what is the exact
issue that they are facing and looks for ways and means so that these issues can be overcome.
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Q4. What have you learnt about leadership from your own experiences, on this course and
elsewhere?
There are many things that I have learned about leadership based on my own experience as well
as from this particular course. They are as follows:
Autocratic Leadership:
This type of leadership is ideally based on the boss of the company. In such a type of leadership,
all the different responsibilities as well as authorities are usually based on the leaders of the
company. The leaders without prior consultation usually make most of the decisions that are
made by the leaders from the members or the subordinates. They are the ones, who usually
communicate these decisions to the members of the company and expect these decisions to be
implemented immediately. Such an environment usually has a very low amount of flexibility in
them. Such a type of leader usually has many procedures as well as policies that are implemented
by them (Choi et al., 2017).
Strategic Leadership:
The person who is ideally the head of the company or the owner usually maintains this type of
leadership. They not usually limited to the people that are at the higher level of the company.
These leaders usually bridge the gap between the need for developing something new and they
also ensure that the set a proper habit within the workplace. It is said that this type of leadership
mainly requires strategic style of thinking.
Transformational Leadership:
This type of leadership is ideally different from other styles of leadership. This is usually used to
bring about or implement change within the company. Such leaders usually motivate people to
work more than what they usually intend to be doing. They are also responsible for setting
various high standard challenges and as a result, of this, they achieve greater quality results. The
followers of these leaders are usually satisfied and committed. The reason is that these leaders
usually inspire their followers largely (Zumitzavan et al., 2014).
Cross-cultural Leadership:
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Based on the different types of cultures within a society, such leadership usually exists amongst
different cultures. People who usually work in the contemporary globalized market are usually
known to be recognized by this type of leadership. Companies nowadays require leaders that are
flexible to any situation and they can adjust themselves to the condition very easily. Cross-
cultural leaderships mainly exist in places that have a varied form of culture.
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Conclusion:
This article is mainly based on management and leadership. With the help of this report, the
learners will have a clear idea about the various types of management skills as well as leadership
skills that usually exist. This report mainly outlines the main key points that are required in a
successful leader and it also discusses its implementation. The report also discusses the major
facts that are required in a manager in order to monitor the successful growth and development
of the company as a whole. It also compares the various points that distinguish leaders from
managers. Besides these, it also discusses the different styles of leadership that are required for
the successful growth and development of the company as a whole.
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