Successful Leadership: Theories, Traits, and Criticisms

This article discusses the importance of effective leadership in an organization and its various theories, traits, and criticisms. It highlights the significance of leadership styles and how they can be applied in different situations. The article also provides examples of successful leaders and their leadership styles.

Running Head: MANAGING PEOPLE 0
successful leadership
AUGUST 9, 2018

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Leadership is the process of influencing behaviour of others, leading them to create a clear
vision, and sharing the vision towards the goal achievement. Strong leadership is essential for
the success and growth of an organisation. It is the ability to influence the people in a group,
to influence and motivate them in an order to higher their level of performance. Leadership is
the key to the organisational performance and must be performed at all the levels. A good
leader creates a positive environment, which encourages the members of the team to enhance
their skills and imagination (Silva, 2016).
An effective leader manages people, takes risks, guides, motivates them, and seeks
continuous improvement in the long-term. There are various forms of leadership or
leadership styles, which vary with the nature of the organisation. Some people are born as
leaders, and some acquire the traits of leadership later on. Therefore, the effective leadership
is thus described with the help of the theories of leadership. Thus, the report brings about the
description of successful leadership and the various associated models or theories. In
addition, there is a further analysis of the pros and cons (issues) of the leadership in this
context (Behrendt, Matz and Göritz, 2017).
The success of a leader or leadership depends upon the effectiveness and the outcome, in the
form of goal achievement in an organisation. In an organisation, there are two forms of
leadership such as influential and authoritative; under influential style committed employees
will be willing to work and give their discretionary time to solve the problems. On the other
side, in the case of Authoritative leadership, employees will be working towards what is
asked to them and will be ignorant towards solving problems on their own. Effective or
successful leadership is the key element in the success of a group or an organisation. For
leaders to be effective in delivering value, require essential skills and abilities. These skills
are technical skills, interpersonal skills, communication skills, ability to delegate tasks and
authorities, understanding the employee grievances and issues, and the ability to analyse the
information and decision-making (Igbaekemen, 2014).
A leader should also meet the deadlines on time, encourage, or motivate the team building or
promoting teamwork. For organisation to be successful and stay competitive in the long-term,
they require the leaders who are innovative and easily adapt to the changes. In a broader
sense, a successful leader has the self-managing ability, sets clear goals and objectives for the
organisation, with a vision for the future by fostering creativity and innovation. Successful
leaders are the power or intellect behind any organisation’s success. These leaders have

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transcended the authority of managers or boss, in an organisation. Such leaders are the
effective combination of charisma, enthusiasm, confidence, and self-assurance. There are
some of the traits or qualities of effective or successful leaders; these can be described as
below (Chen and Hou, 2016).
‘Self-managing’ is one of the important traits or the ability of a leader and it defines the
ability to prioritize on their own goals or objectives, and devising methods to accomplish
them. An effective leader manages at his own the time, goals, and objectives with respect to
his strengths and weaknesses (Lanaj and Hollenbeck, 2015).
Trait of effective leaders includes the ability to recognise and analyse the situation i.e. when
to talk and when to listen. It includes effectively communicating the goals or tasks to their
employees on each level, or department via any medium (mail, phone, and social media).
This defines the attribute of powerful and effective communicator in the organisation. In
addition, to ensure effective communication, a leader has to include people from all levels,
following an open chain of communication. This includes the verbal and non-verbal
exchange of information (Charlier, et.al, 2016).
There are some top leadership behaviours in every successful organisation, building trust and
confidence among employees or team members. It states that bringing and ensuring trust
among employees is essential to build long-term healthy relationship. These kinds of leaders
go beyond their own self-interest, just to fulfil the interests of other members, and they act
with integrity. They communicate the most important values and beliefs to the team
members. Another significant feature of the effective leader is that they inspire people in the
group and talk optimistically about the future (Patel, et.al, 2016).
Leaders who are an important part of the organisation, effectively spends time on teaching
and coaching people, and most significantly treat the individuals as members rather than just
the members of the group. Apart from the above-mentioned attributes or the behavioural
characteristics of a leader, they should review the performance of the employees or team
members. They communicate about what individuals are expected to perform and rewarding
them in exchange. Building sound relationship with the team members and establishing
coordination and collaboration in the organisation are some of the necessary traits or
behaviour of successful leaders. Some examples of the powerful or successful leaders are Jeff
Bezos, Mahatma Gandhi, Adolf Hitler, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy. These are
some of the great and successful leaders in their time (Northouse, 2017).

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The role and effectiveness of the leaders or leadership is described with the help of leadership
theories. Effective leaders have to work, ceaselessly, and with the efficiency to communicate
with their team members in a manner that facilitates in attaining goals. Numerous theories or
models are established with respect to the nature of leadership in an organisation. These
theories include trait theory of leadership and several others (McCleskey, 2014).
Trait theory of leadership defines about what are those characteristics or features that makes a
person a good leader. The theory argues that there are some common traits that the effective
leaders share among them. The trait theory helps to identify the essential traits to leadership
(integrity, honesty, empathy, trust, assertiveness and effective decision-making skills). These
traits are acquired so, not common to all the leaders. For example, an american psychologist
who followed the trait theory of leadership is Gordon Allport. Therefore, one should not rely
only on the traits of a person. As these are the external skills or behaviour obtained during
different stages of life (Arnold, et. al., 2015).
Behaviour theory of leadership, seeks to identify a set of behaviour that leads them to become
effective leaders. It means these theories focus on how the leaders behave in a particular
situation. The pattern of their behaviour may be categorised into two heads such as, some
leaders may have task oriented behaviour or people-oriented behaviour. The behavioural
theory of leadership further include democratic leaders, autocratic, and the laissez-faire
leaders (Gonos and Gallo, 2013).
Democratic leadership is the most effective style which aims at involving the employees and
ensuring that feel satisfied with the organisational rules and policies. An example of
democratic leadership is Carlos Ghos, the chairman and the CEO of Renault, believed the fact
that every level of management should have right in the decision-making of the organisation.
They should not be forced upon by the top management i.e employees must be empowered
(Khan, et.al., 2015).
Contingency theories of leadership includes the application of theory according to the aspects
of the situation. This theory predicts which style is best in which circumstance and it consist
the application of several models such as Path-goal theory and Fielder’s Contingency model.
Transformational leadership is considered one of the best form of leadership and the theory
employs empathy and use of rapport to involve their followers. Example, of transformational
leadership is Steve Jobs, who is iconic of the transformational leadership, one who worked

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hard and always inspired his employees to work hard and enhance their thinking capacity
(Fiedler, 2015).
Trait theory of leadership assumes that there are certain characteristics which are unique to
leaders and those leaders possess some qualities to an extent. Despite the qualities, there are
some criticism of the theory which can be enlisted as follows.Trait theory of leadership, is not
based on any research or principle, therefore it lack the practical application. It is more a
descriptive theory, and has few explanatory and predictive properties. Also, it is not possible
to separate some of the traits which can be consistenly used in similar situations. Some of the
traits does not reveal the personality of an individual therefore they do not reveal fully about
the attitudes, beliefs, values, and aspirations.Moreover, the trait theory is inward-looking , it
excludes the group of followers which are in fact more important for analysing the
effectiveness of leader (Meuser, et.al., 2016).
The pros and cons of the Participative/Democratic leadership theory are as follows.
Democratic leadership boosts up the morale of their team members, and considers their
contribution and make them feel valued. Also, democratic leaders focus on enhancing the
employees willingness to accept change in the organisation, by empowering and involving
them in the decision-making process. Along with the positives of the theory, there are some
of the negative aspects, employee engagement in the decision making process of the
organisation slows down the process and can affect the efficiency. Also, the team members
may not be efficient or expert in this respect. The examples here can be given for Abraham
Lincoln (Foss, 2017).
The contingency theories of leadership also faced some of the criticisms, the models of the
theory were criticised, i.e Fielder contingency model has been criticised, as it was the rigid
model, and it neglected the dependency on changing circumstances. Fielder, was of the view
that natural leadership would be best and the most suitable style of leadership. He ignored the
fact that the natural leadership cannot be applied to every situation every time (Arnold, et.al,
2015).
Tranformational theory employed by the business organisations, also have some positives and
negatives. These are described as below.
Positive Aspects Negative Aspects
They not only expect best from their
employees , but also work hard with
The tranformational leadership or the leaders
who follow this theory of leadership often,

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efficiency to become best at every level.
Leaders at this level are well-known and
facilitate easy communication of innovative
ideas in the organisation (Potential, 2017).
The theory and the leaders mainly emphasize
on increasing employee engagement and
inspiring them to increase their contribution,
by enhancing their productivity in the
organisation.
require assistance from their staff and
employees and they lack the managerial
skills at the practical level. Therefore, this
kind of leadership faces criticism (Noel,
2016).
The leaders under this kind of system,
follows the employee favouritism approach,
that means they favour employees who aim
towards achieving bigger goals.
They also encounters the problems of bad
decisions and failure within organisational
context.
The criticism of the transformational leadership can be exemplified, by discussing the
decisions taken by Steve Jobs. Although he was very successful but refused to council and
take consultations even from his closest stakeholders in ‘Apple’. This act of him led him
being fired out of his own company after some time. This is an example of transformational
leadership, depicting how a transformational leader can push a bit too far and lead to the
failures in future (Hawkins, 2017).
It is suggested for every organisation or leaders to consider the nature of organisation, and the
prevailing situations to apply the leadership style. Criticism is a natural part of leadership; it
is effective to face some loopholes too in order to bring more efficiency in future. Some
leaders over-leverage the authority which often impacts their followers or employees.
Leaders should stay focused and should not react impulsively to the conflicting situations.
Rather they should convert criticism into opportunities.
To conclude the above analysis of the significance of leadership in an organisation and the
different styles, it is stated that the leaders play an important role in shaping the success of an
organisation. The success of a leader or leadership depends on the effectiveness of the
practices in an organisational context. Successful leaders have some unique attributes or
characteristics which lead to effective leadership. There are some theories of leadership
which faced some criticisms, which should be assessed and improved for enhancing
organisational efficiency and attainment of the goals and objectives.

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