Leadership and Management Attributes

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT ATTRIBUTES 1
Leadership and Management Attributes
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LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT ATTRIBUTES 2
Leadership and Management Attributes
Introduction
The structure of life dictates that we always need to have a leader not only to show us
direction but also to provide solutions to the problems. Leaders also eliminate the confusion of
who is answerable to who in the society (Antonakis &Day (2017 p.45). Organizations are not an
exception to this fact because as the research by Antonakis, and House (2014, p.746) established,
an organization is defined by the type of leaders that it has. This research was supported by
Chemers’ (2014, p.43) study that conducted and found out that many successful organizations
attribute their success to their leaders just like many failed organizations can attribute their
failure to their leaders. This is so because most of the decisions in any organizations are made by
leaders, and those decisions that ordinary employees require the approval of their leaders for
them to be effective. This means that leaders play an integral part in the success or failure of an
organization. However, a study by Dinh, Lord, Gardner, Meuser, Liden, and Hu (2014, p.36)
established that being a good leader does depend on the level of education of a person. This is on
account that there are no “magical combination” of characteristics that can make a leader success
especially given that different circumstances call for different characteristics of a leader. It is
because of this that Dinh, et al. (2014, p.37) in their research proposed that for a leader to be
successful they need to understand different approaches to leadership and how to use the same to
tackle different situations. In this paper, I give an evaluation of the attributes of Vanessa
Mangion who is a leader in the public service. The evaluation follows an interview with her to
know her perception and compare it with my own based on the leadership and management
theories.

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT ATTRIBUTES 3
Body
Our interview with Vanessa commenced with me asking her to explain to me the five
main behaviors that make a good a leader. Vanessa believes that a leader’s behavior is
determined by how he/she interacts with the employees in the organization. That is why she has
been very inclusive in decision making by involving all the employees in every decision-making
process in the organization. This according to her has made the employees feel respected and
part of the organization. From her explanation, I observed what Northouse (2018, p.67) in their
research had established regarding the behavioral theories of leadership which categorized
leaders into three categories that are the autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire leaders.
Autocratic leaders are those types of leaders who do not involve their teams in the decision
making the process. Democratic leaders are the opposite of autocratic leaders because they
involve their teams in the decision-making process by allowing them to provide input in the
decisions made. Laissez leaders are leaders who allow their teams to make all the decisions
without interfering with them. Based on these three categories, I find Vanessa to be a democratic
leader because she allows her employees to provide input to the decisions made. Even though the
level of inclusivity exhibited by Vanessa is good for any leader because it gives employees the
freedom to make important decisions which could lead to innovation in the organization, I still
believe that sometimes autocratic leaders are required in the organization. For example, when
decisions to be made are urgent, consulting every employee is not necessary since this will waste
a lot of time especially given that some employees will be hesitant to allow some decision to be
made. In scenarios like this, Northouse (2018, p.67) in their study established that autocratic
leaders will be necessary because autocratic leaders do not waste a lot of time consulting other
employees before they make any decision. This therefore means that autocratic leaders can also