Leadership and Character: The Notion, Nature, and Attributes of Effective Leadership

This document explores the concept of leadership and character, discussing the different attributes that make a good leader. It also delves into the various leadership styles and theories, including autocratic, participative, and laissez-faire leadership, and how they impact organizations and employees. The importance of ethics, values, and beliefs in leadership is also discussed, along with practical examples of effective leadership.

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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................1
Notion and nature of character in Leadership..............................................................................................2
Attributes of leadership characters..............................................................................................................3
Leadership theories:.....................................................................................................................................4
Trait theory of leadership:.......................................................................................................................5
Autocratic leadership styles:....................................................................................................................5
Participative leadership styles:................................................................................................................5
Laissez-faire Leadership:..........................................................................................................................5
Contingency Theories:.............................................................................................................................6
Transactional leadership style:................................................................................................................6
Transformational leadership:..................................................................................................................6
Practical examples of leadership:................................................................................................................6
Role and Impact of philosophical Paradigm................................................................................................7
Conclusion:.................................................................................................................................................7
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Introduction
Leadership is capability of the management to achieve and set challenging goals, make sound
decisions and motivate others to perform well in an efficient and effective way. It provides
direction for an organization or company. Every employee in a company needs direction to
follow and reach the destination. Person with good leadership skills often rise to higher positions
like chairman, Chief operating officer, Chief executive officer, Chief financial officer and
president in a business world (Sarros & Cooper, 2008). It directs the personnel or employee of
the company to achieve common objectives and goals. They show employees hoe to work
productively and perform their roles and responsibilities effectively and managing and
controlling their work regularly. It also sets a positive example for the employees to follow, by
helping them when thy need help, by being motivated to work and learn new things, being
punctual and excited about the work (Anon., 2016).
Effective leadership involves strong characteristics and clear communication skills. Leaders
generally exhibit integrity, ethics, honesty and trustworthiness. A good leader always listens to
and speak to his employees and respond to their concerns and questions and have an ability to
share and understand others feelings. To move company forward and to achieve new goals they
use effective communication skills which is a characteristic of strong leadership. Similarly, true
leadership always plans and sees where the organization is headed. they visualize about the
possibilities, taking risks to grow the company and follows trends in the industry. Productive
leadership provides positive energy and always shows optimism for staff (Doyle, 2018).
The responsibility of leadership in current situation is very complex so they have to be highly
flexible while following leadership style and should be open to adapt change according to the
changing condition. Ethics, values, character, and beliefs are the basic support of leadership on
which it stands. These pillars show the true its true essence. Leaders recognize the significance
of the ethics in their business conduct, they understand what they value and develop value
system of the leadership style they follow (Anatasia, 2017). They should always show high level
of belief, character, ethics and values in their leadership style to lead the company effectively by
motivating and influencing employees in the organization.
Notion and nature of character in Leadership
Leaders help to shape communities, nation and organization, so it is important to have leaders
with good characters who will guide employees or workers and make crucial decision for the
development. There are several characteristics of a good leader that include, communication
skills, confidence, positive attitude, creativity, intuition, honesty, sense of humor etc. character is
a very important factor in decision making process (Crossan, et al., 2012). A good leader should
have good characters. Commitment, competencies count and character matters to the role of
leader is very important to the success of leader. There is no exact definition to define character
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of leadership. Characters in the leaders can be described on the basis of values, virtues and
personal traits.
Traits:
It can be described as a habitual pattern of emotion, thoughts and behavior which are known to
be moderately stable in person over time and across circumstances. There are too many traits to
describe personality. The five traits are: openness to experiences, conscientiousness,
extroversion, neuroticism and agreeableness.
There are some other important traits like ambition, dominance, persistence, impulsivity, self-
confidence, perfectionism and rigidity. some of the traits can be genetic or acquired from the
environment people live in.
Values:
Values are beliefs or principle that person has about the things that are important to them. It
influences behavior as people desire things that they value most. It is a guidepost for individual’s
behaviors. Social environment where person live and grow, plays important role in a person’s
values. For example: in western culture people mostly value liberty, pursuit of happiness and
life. People who have been brought u in a strong religious value religion the most. Ethics or
social dimensions like integrity, fairness, compassion, honesty etc. is subset of values. These
moral values weakly or strongly influence the behavior of person (A.Wright, 2011).
Virtues:
There are 10 virtues of cross- enterprise leaders which are as follows:
 Integrity is important to build trust and encourage people to collaborate.
 Humility important to learn and become a good leader.
 Justice produces decisions which are considered as legitimate and are reasonable by
others.
 Collaboration helps to enable teamwork.
 Temperance makes sure that the leaders can take risks.
 Courage assists leaders to make tough challenges and decisions.
 Accountability makes sure that leaders commit and own to the choices they made and
motivates the same in other people as well.
 Transcendence prepare the leader wit the sense of purpose and optimism.
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 Humanity shapes understanding and empathy of others.
 Judgement helps leaders to integrate and balance these virtues which serve the
requirements of multiple investor outside and inside the organization.
There are basic factors that helps leader to develop strong character which are moral courage and
self-discipline; core value; sense of true identity and integrity.
Moral courage and sense of integrity is an act of performing everything right despite of the
significances. Moral courage is the capability of a leader to face challenges, danger, risks and
fears. Core values helps leaders to resonate with. It can be compassion, harmony, respect, caring
etc. Similarly sense of integrity is the real understanding of a person about themselves and to
value their own belief. Integrity is a practice of arranging one’s thoughts, feelings and actions
with values.
Ethics:
Leadership is a capacity to develop a relationship among people, that is the capability of people
to influence other ethically (Mihelič, et al., 2010). It is one of the most important factors for
effective leadership. Ethics has a major role in defining and shaping the character of a leader. It
is not always about doing right thing all the time but it is a characteristic of an individual to take
decision and perform in accordance to the situation.
Attributes of leadership characters
1.Universalism
It is the external expression of a character of leadership which is displayed through the
actions fairness, compassion, humility, spiritual respect, respectfulness for others and
cooperativeness. Respectfulness is a subgroup of universalism which describes the significance
of leaders involving and respecting the needs of his workers and giving it a high priority by
providing a favorable environment for them to work which directly enhances the productivity.
For example:
The former MD (managing director) Juliana Chugg of General Mills demonstrated respect for
her employees by changing time of her employees required to spend at office by shutting the
door at 1 pm on Fridays. Though this decision was against the board’s advice, it was
implemented at office which made workers of factory happy and enjoy their weekends longer.
This decision of her resulted in no salary reduction or any job loss, increased productivity etc.
Fairness means providing equal treatment to everyone without discriminating irrespective of
benefits or challenges available in the company or externally.
For example: Max De Pree the former CEO and co-founder of company called Herman Miller
showed the significance of implementing fairness in organization. Implementing fairness to his
workers and prioritizing their interest was one of the reason for the success of his company.
Similarly, other factors like humility, compassion, spiritual respect are the important factors in
universalism.
2. Transformation
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It is the way leaders gain benevolent and universal outcomes. leaders have characters like
passion, competency, wisdom, courage, self-discipline in their leadership qualities.
Example in context to passion: The CEO John McFarlane of the ANZ bank, believes that
choosing to make changes or difference must reflect passion in the particular area (Cavazotte &
Moreno, 2013). Passion of leader can make a huge difference and inspires and provides
motivation for the company.
Another example is can be taken in the context of competence: Founder and CEO of FedEx, Fred
Smith believes in the compassion. According to him education and continuous learning and
finally having discipline to implement to the operation is a quality of leader. He suggests to make
an effort and time to learn about the history.
3. Benevolence
It is an internal factor of leadership character. It is associated with selflessness,
loyalty, honesty, and integrity of the organization. Leaders are supposed to be selfless and
should see the interests and desires of their workers above their wish it can be explained by
taking an example of Founder of Raindrop Geomagic Ping Fu. Fu is the leader who display the
character of selflessness (Anon., 2013). Fu became the CEO of the company when it’s viability
was threatened. Company had shortage of money and venture capital was also in vulnerable
condition. But her constant effort and strategy of various cost cutting initiatives by laying most
of her workers. She even did not accept pay check from the company until the crisis situation.
with the act of selfless and constant effort she took company out of such crisis. Integrity is
practice here person aligns his or thoughts or emotions with their values or principle. Roger
Corbett a managing director and CEO of the company called Woolworths is a leader with
integrity.
Honesty is also important factor of leadership. People respect and value leader who are honest
and who they can trust. Best example for this is the CEO of Netball Lindsay Cane. Her integrity
and views on honesty plays important role in developing leadership character.
Leadership theories:
There are several theories on leadership styles that exists in the organization or company. the
leadership styles are selected according to the goals and culture of the organization. Some
organization have more than one leadership styles that they implement according to the specific
project or task (Amanchukwu, et al., 2015).
Trait theory of leadership:
It is the first theory to describe why some leaders have good qualities and why others are considered as
bad leaders (Anon., 2016). It is constructed on the basis of both successful and unsuccessful leaders
which is used to determine effectiveness of leader. So, the resulting characters are compared to the
possible leaders to determine whether they will be a successful leader or unsuccessful one. There are
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several common traits of leaders are: initiative energy, flexibility, charisma, confidence, emotional
intelligence, initiative etc.
Theories of leaderships styles characterized on the basis of behavior are discussed below:
Autocratic leadership styles:
It is also known as authoritarian style. It is a boss centered leadership style where only boss or manager
is allowed to make decision without involving others. In this leadership styles boss or manager holds all
the responsibility and authority (Bhatti & Maitlo, 2012). They make decisions themselves without
consulting to any employees. They make decisions and subordinates has to follow them. This leadership
styles have no flexibility or is very less flexible.
Leaders who supports such leadership style are Donald Trump in Trump Organization and Albert J
Dunlap of Sunbeam Corporation.
Participative leadership styles:
It is also called as democratic leadership style. Employees or subordinates in this leadership styles are
involved in the decision-making process as it is a subordinate centered leadership style. It gives
importance to the input of peers and team members though the final decision is in the hand of the
participative leader. It motivates employees and team members as they are the part of the decision-
making process. It is one of the most favored leadership as it entails creativity, competence, fairness,
courage, honesty and intelligence. As they involve subordinates in decision making process, employees
accept the change easily (Bell, et al., 2014).
Laissez-faire Leadership:
This leadership styles gives authority to workers or employees. They allow employees to work according
to their will with no or interference. This is the least effective and least satisfying management style.
These leaders do not directly control workers and fails to deliver updates to those who are under his
control. Trained employees and highly experienced employees with low requirement of supervision only
fall in this leadership style. But this is not appropriate for every employees because most of them
require supervision. This does not implement any supervision or leadership efforts from managers,
which leads to poor production increasing costs and lacks control (Yang, 2015).
Contingency Theories:
It is based on the philosophy that leadership style is flexible and leaders should have capability to adapt
according to the changing conditions in order to ensure success of their organization. This style suggests
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that which leadership style is the most appropriate one for the particular circumstances and according
to this, leader implement the most relevant and appropriate style for the situation. these leaders are
highly flexible and adaptive (Anon., 2017).
Transactional leadership style:
It follows the concept of punishment and reward. These leaders trust that that the performance of
employees depends on these factors. When employees are motivated, they put their full effort and they
are rewarded with bonus i.e. mostly in monetary terms. But when they fail to accomplish the goal or
target they are punished by giving negative appraisal. These leaders pay attention to security and
physical requirements of the workers. This leadership is not much efficient to build relationship with the
subordinates or employees. It is generally characterized by factors like passionate towards work, being
practical and having strong value for work (Ingram, 2018).
Transformational leadership:
Perception of the employees are affected by this leadership styles. These leaders encourage
others to perform more than they usually intend to do. they gain higher benefits from their
employees by developing interpersonal communication among workers, providing knowledge
management processes and developing healthy culture in the organization (Anon., n.d.). It
creates participative culture or environment to flourish innovation of organization. It supports a
culture where their workers have freedom to share knowledge and talk about their experiences.
These leaders are more very innovative and have more satisfied and committed follower because
it empowers followers.
Practical examples of leadership:
Jack Welch:
Jack Welch was a CEO who exhibited as a leader from 1981 to 2001 of General Electric
Corporation followed transformational and participative style of leadership. He played an
important role in 600 acquisitions in developing markets and he increased the market value of
General Electric from 12 billion dollars to 505 billion dollars. As the market keeps changing
constantly, he suggested everyone in the company to adapt or embrace change. In order to
develop company productivity and operations, employees and managers had to reinvent their
work and themselves continuously. Welch hired managers who were high in energy, encouraged
and motivated his employees and shared same vision of GE. He sorted managers who developed,
refined and created ideas for the future and implement them in the reality. He also suggested his
managers to work side by side with the workers or subordinators in order to understand the way
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employees work and why they do what they do (Anon., 2015). His leadership was very effective
where his employees and manages were highly motivated, gained more productivity with higher
quality, profits increased and highly satisfied customers.
Bill Gates:
He retired in 2008 from Microsoft. He was considered as a demanding but sometime acted as
abrasive boss. Still he motivated and encouraged innovation, creativity from workers. He used to
interrupt his employees frequently in developmental meetings. he relied on authoritarian
leadership style (Chris, 2017). He used to take control and let everyone know about it. Like
many other successful leaders, he also used to blend few other leadership styles as he knew that
authoritarian style does not favor innovation. But it is very effective style in rapidly changing
circumstances where decisions should be taken immediately. So, most of the success of
Microsoft can be credited to his quick decision-making process.
Role and Impact of philosophical Paradigm
Critical management is the initial stage of the leadership which states that current day leadership
styles is susceptible to excess problems and changes, that affects the capability to make decision
in critical conditions. It is evolved by the classical Greek, modern and Medieval social scientific
thoughts that are the main features of the leadership before and currently also. Though in the
present day, it has been altered to modernism leadership in which the leaders use current values
and character traits, to develop success in the company (Anon., n.d.).
Modernism in the leadership style as developed in 19th and 20th century. It is a philosophical
movement which along with changes, cultural trends, arose from far reaching and wide scale
transformation during that time. These leaders are categorized by modern characters, values,
sympathies, traits and follow what is significant. Sometimes they tend to manage ethical
considerations in this leadership so that it is better for the society. For example, of this: Steve
jobs ex- CEO of Apple Inc was one of the great examples of modern leader. He acquired the
potentials of the contemporary leader and made his company one of the most successful
company in the world. For modern leader it is important to concentrate on sustained innovation
as well, as nowadays innovations are rising day by day (Shannon, 2016). Thus, the role of these
leaders is very demanding and challenging in the context of current situation.
Conclusion:
It is apparent that, the leadership style over the period of time has changed and has adopted the
traits of modern day society. In this competitive world, the leaders have to be flexible, fast
decision maker and adaptive according to the changing needs of the world. The true character of
a leader appears at the time of crisis and how he bails out his people and organisation out of that
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situation. The leaders can come out of those situations only by the virtue of its standard ethical,
moral, code of conduct and by demonstrating strong character. The beliefs and values in a leader
varies with the type of leadership style. The transformational leaders tend to have a character
which is considered to the reflection of his own vision, trust and respect towards the workers and
stands tall on the pillar of sustained innovation. The leaders of Plethora have shown such
character which has tremendously helped his organisation towards sustained growth. Thus, it is
evident that strong social and moral values, beliefs, character, confidence are the traits of a
successful leader and is prerequisite of effectiveness and efficiency of leadership ability.
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