Importance and Contemporary Concepts of Leadership in Managing Human Resources

This essay discusses the importance of leadership in managing human resources and evaluates contemporary concepts of leadership. It also assesses the application of leadership theories in achieving organizational goals and recommends the role of leadership in organizational development.

Running head: MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES
Managing human resources
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES
Introduction
The importance and the essentiality of leadership has been a subject of various debate and
contentious discussion through out the business platform of the world. Leadership is the
procedure that helps in exerting the influence over other people for enriching the factors such as
the inspiration, the motivation and the direction of their activities for helping them towards the
achievement of the organizational or their personal goals (DuBrin, 2015). The roles of the
leadership are some of the pertinent issues for the organizations and the business platform in the
current days. Leaders are generally the individuals who tend to establish direction for the
working group of the individual for the establishment of the directions and motivation of the
members for the achievement of the direction outcomes. The essay illustrates the importance of
the leadership towards the management of the people together with the consideration of various
contemporary concepts of leadership. The essay furthermore evaluates the application and the
implementation of the concepts of the leadership in the development and the achievement of the
organizations goals and recommends regarding the role of the leadership in the development of
the organization.
Body
Importance of leadership
Leadership is one of the essential factors towards the improvement of the performance of
the business organization. Leaders serve as the main decision makers who determine the
development, the acquisition and the deployment of the resources of the organization together
with the delivery of the value to the stakeholders of the organization (Burns, 2016). The
importance of the trait of the leadership deals with the achievement of the sustainability in the

2MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES
changes in the organization. Leadership is an essential function of the management that helps in
the maximization of the efficiency and the targets of the organizational goals (Northouse, 2018).
The importance of leadership includes some of the important factors that includes initiation of
actions for the subordination of the plans in the organization, motivation to the employees with
economic and non economic rewards, providing enough of guidance for the subordinates,
creation of the confidence with regards to the problems and the complaints and effective co-
ordination with the team members highlighting the primary motive behind the leadership.
The importance of the skills and the traits of leadership serve as essential factors towards the
success of an organization. Towards the absence of the effective traits of leadership in an
individual, it is not possible for an organization to work efficiently (Ghasabeh, Soosay &
Reaiche, 2015). The creation and the development of an organization are based with the purpose
of the achievement of the targets and the objectives through the employees or the labor force f
the organization. According to research data by the current census, the employees of the top
multinational business organization tends to spend more than 60% of their abilities or
capabilities without any of the additional efforts with the proper support and the motivation by
the leaders of an organization (Daft, 2014). The research study has furthermore depicts how the
leadership serves as the key towards the success of a business enterprise.
 To summarize, the importance of leadership can be highlighted by the following facts
 Helping in the influencing of the behavior of the people in the organization
 Helping the followers towards the fulfillment of the requirements
 Initiating the introduction of any of the required changes
 Helping in solving workplace conflicts.

3MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES
Contemporary leadership concepts
In this particular section of the essay, two different types of leadership theories will be
discussed in the domain of motivating and empowering people and in managing the teams that
furthermore includes the high performing teams.
Motivating and empowering people
In this particular concept, the most effective leadership theory that will be suitable is the
trait theory of leadership. This is because it includes the personality, the ability, the power and
the needs. Trait can be identified as one of the inherent characteristics of a person towards the
competency that furthermore encircles on the ability of capability of a person.
The achievement motivation theory explains the prediction for the behavior and
performance for the power, achievement and the affiliation (Ford & Harding, 2018). Introduced
by David McClellan, the theory explains that the needs are the requirement based on the
personality and are developed with the environment. The David McClellan described the needs
in his theory as the needs for the achievement, the need for the power and the need for affiliation.
The theory identified powers as neither good nor bad since power can be utilized towards the
gain and the expense of the others and furthermore can be used for the socialized power
(Ghasabeh, Soosay & Reaiche, 2015). According to the theory, effective leadership skills must
include the requirement for all the need stated above since it is an effective way towards the
motivation and the influencing of the people in the organization.
Another theory that can be explained in this context is the Theory X and Theory Y, which
is also classified as belief or attitude system by Douglas McGregor (Arena & Uhl-Bien, 2016).
This theory illustrates and predicts the behavior of the leadership and the performance of the

4MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES
leaders according to the attitude of the leaders towards the motivation and the empowering of the
employees in the organization towards the achievement of the goals and the targets of the
organization together with the development of their personal motivational skills.
Managing teams including high performing teams
In this particular concept, the most effective leadership theory is the behavioral
leadership theory. This because the behavior approaches to leadership attempts to uncover the
behaviors towards the engagement of the leaders and the possession of the traits of the leaders.
The behavioral leadership theory identifies the two categories of the behavior of the leadership
with the consideration and the initiation of the structures (Dinh et al., 2014). These include
consideration that illustrates the extent upon which leaders can be sensitive towards the
subordinated and respect the ideas and the feelings towards the maintenance of the mutual trust.
Furthermore initiating of the structure in the behavioral theory describes the extent upon which a
leader directs the activities of the subordinate work towards the achievement of the goals. The
theory furthermore illustrates the directing of the performance of the subordinated towards
effective working for the activities of the work and the maintenance of rigorous control (Burns,
2016). The behavioral theory of leadership thus depicted the nature and the behavior of the
leaders or the skills of the leaders that plays important role in management of the team in the
organization together with the initiation of the high performance of the teams towards reaching
their targets and goals.
Application of leadership
The style of the leaders tends to differ and the concept of ideal leadership tries to adjust
to the various approaches to the context of leadership. The theories of leadership define the

5MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES
leaders on the basis of their characteristics and their style (Leitch & Volery, 2017). The purpose
and the application of the leadership theory surmise the certain characteristics of the leaders that
are beneficial for the motivation and the influence of the employees together with the enrichment
of the factors like conflict resolutions, emotional intelligence, networking, ethics and leadership
values and setting of the correct strategic decisions.
Assessment and Evaluation
The research result on the trait and the behavioral theories indicated that leaders are
someone who tends to acquire the status through the attainment of active participation and the
demonstration of the ability towards the further facilitation of the employees in the organization
towards achieving its goals and targets. Traits that are relevant to the role of a leaders encircles
around certain factors such as alertness, intelligence, task understanding and occupation of the
position of control and dominance (Bargau, 2015). With implication of the leadership trait
theories in the organization it was evident that leaders tend to differ from the non leaders with
respect to certain traits. It can thus be stated by the implication of trait theory that an individual
does not possess the characteristics or the pattern of the leadership traits by the virtue of the
possession of some of the trait combination. Trait tends to differ consistently from the other
leaders. Some of the list of traits that was assessed for evaluation is as follows.

6MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES
Figure: The leadership traits, Source: (Bolden, 2016)
According to the research study, the figure above illustrates the main factors of traits that
was assessed with the implementation of the leadership theory of traits in the organization. The
evaluation of the implication of the trait theory of the leadership can be furthermore explained as
follows:
The essential or need personal characteristics of leaders
Physical characteristics
Energy
Activities
Social characteristics
Co-operation
Effective communication
Sociability
Interpersonal skills
Social participation
Work related characteristics
Responsibility drive
Pursuit of the goals
Orientation of the task
Desire to excel
Personality
Creativity
Social background
Mobility
Intelligence and ability
Speech fluency

7MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES
Leadership
Originality
Ethical conduct
Self confidence
Knowledge
Decisiveness
Judgment
According to the research study on the implication of the leadership theories in the
organization, the behavioral theory has been considered as the best and effective one in
motivating and inspiring the employees of the business organization. With the implication of the
behavioral theory of leadership in the organization some of the assessment of the results was
increase in the profit range for about four times due to the style and the attitudes of the leaders of
the organization (Amanchukwu, Stanley & Ololube, 2015). The implications furthermore
assessed that the target or the task and the behavior of the relationship tend towards positive
correlation of the leadership with the performance of the subordinates. The contribution thus
derived from the behavioral leadership theory is thus the recognition that the organization
requires for both the production and the leadership of the people. The implication of the
behavioral leadership furthermore recognized that the organization requires performing the
production and the functions elated to the leadership of the people for being effectively
successful. It is thus important for the leaders of the organization to take a note on their
behavioral factors and attitudes for effective management of the team so that the people in the
team can achieve high performance and high end productivity thus accelerating the growth and
the profit of the organization (Thorpe, 2016). The assessment from the implication of the
behavioral theory identified some of the behaviors that affect the nature and the management of
the organization. The evaluation is as follows.

8MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES
Evaluated Behavior required at workplace Explanation
Task-orientated Behavior Concentration on task oriented functions like
planning, scheduling of work, arrangement of the
provisions, and co-ordination of the subordinate
activities, technical assistance and equipments.
Relations-oriented Behavior Supportive behaviors correlated with effective
leadership factors including confidence, trust,
friendly behavior, helping the subordinates,
showing of appreciation and accomplishments
(Meuser et al., 2016).
Participative Leadership Preferred supervision with the facilitation of the
group meetings, improvement of the
communication, decision making, promotion of co-
operation and facilitation of the resolution of
conflict.
Shared Leadership Performance of leadership functions, group
effectiveness, skills related to quality leadership
Conclusion
The resultant theory and the research in relation the evolve of the organization and the
adaptation of the changing environment results in the mix of the required skills for the effective
leadership techniques. It can thus be concluded that the skills required for leading the
organization includes the approaches of the trait and the behavior theories of leadership for the
facilitation of the management of team and the acceleration of the productivity of the team. This

9MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES
furthermore includes the importance of the leadership theories towards the motivation and
influence of the employees of the organization towards their high end productivity. The essay
initiated the explanation regarding the importance of the leadership towards the management of
the people together with the consideration of various contemporary concepts of leadership.

10MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES
Reference
Amanchukwu, R. N., Stanley, G. J., & Ololube, N. P. (2015). A review of leadership theories,
principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management, 5(1), 6-
14.
Arena, M. J., & Uhl-Bien, M. (2016). Complexity leadership theory: Shifting from human capital
to social capital. People and Strategy, 39(2), 22.
Bargau, M. A. (2015). Leadership versus management. Romanian Economic and Business
Review, 10(2), 181-189.
Bolden, R. (2016). Leadership, management and organisational development. In Gower
handbook of leadership and management development (pp. 143-158). Routledge.
Burns, P. (2016). Entrepreneurship and small business. Palgrave Macmillan Limited.
Daft, R. L. (2014). The leadership experience. Cengage Learning.
Dinh, J. E., Lord, R. G., Gardner, W. L., Meuser, J. D., Liden, R. C., & Hu, J. (2014). Leadership
theory and research in the new millennium: Current theoretical trends and changing
perspectives. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), 36-62.
DuBrin, A. J. (2015). Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Nelson Education.
Ford, J., & Harding, N. (2018). Followers in leadership theory: Fiction, fantasy and illusion.
Leadership, 14(1), 3-24.
Ghasabeh, M. S., Soosay, C., & Reaiche, C. (2015). The emerging role of transformational
leadership. The Journal of Developing Areas, 49(6), 459-467.
Leitch, C. M., & Volery, T. (2017). Entrepreneurial leadership: Insights and directions.
International Small Business Journal, 35(2), 147-156.

11MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES
Meuser, J. D., Gardner, W. L., Dinh, J. E., Hu, J., Liden, R. C., & Lord, R. G. (2016). A network
analysis of leadership theory: The infancy of integration. Journal of Management, 42(5),
1374-1403.
Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Thorpe, R. (2016). Gower handbook of leadership and management development. CRC Press.