Leadership and Performance Management: Theories, Issues and Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive overview of leadership and performance management. It begins by defining leadership and highlighting its significance within organizations, emphasizing the leader's role in establishing vision, motivating followers, and coordinating interests. The report then delves into the importance of performance management, focusing on employee development and skill enhancement. Different leadership theories are explored, including trait, behavioral, contingency, transactional, and transformational leadership, along with an examination of authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire leadership styles. Furthermore, the report addresses current issues such as multicultural challenges, competition, and gender diversity, offering insights into how leaders can navigate these complexities. It underscores the role of leaders in fostering cultural awareness, promoting innovation, and ensuring equitable treatment, ultimately contributing to organizational sustainability and goal achievement. The report concludes by reiterating the critical role of effective leadership in driving organizational success and managing employee performance.

Running head: LEADERSHIP AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
LEADERSHIP AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
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Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Leadership and its importance:........................................................................................................2
Performance management:..............................................................................................................3
Different leadership theories:..........................................................................................................4
Leadership and current issues:.........................................................................................................5
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................7
References:......................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction:
Leadership may be defined as the attribute, which is possessed by an individual who has
the strength to lead teams in organizations and other arenas to meet missions and visions of the
organization. Leadership mainly involves establishing a clear vision to the followers and then
sharing the vision with them in ways so that they follow the leaders willingly (D’Innocenzo,
Mathieu and Kukenberger 2016). At the same time, they should be providing proper information,
methods and knowledge to the followers so that they can realize the importance of the vision and
remain aligned towards the goals. Leaders also play the important role of coordinating and
balancing the conflicting interests of all the members and stakeholders. They step up in times of
crisis, thinks, and cats creatively so that members can overcome the difficult situations in stable
ways. Researchers are of the opinion that unlike management, leadership cannot be taught
(Bergh et al. 2016). However, it can be enhanced through proper coaching and mentoring
procedures. A very good example is Bill Gates who is the founder of Microsoft. Although he had
failed previously in his earlier days, he had been successful in driving and software industry
towards success due to his continuous passion and innovation. This assignment will mainly
contain the importance of leadership, different theories of leadership, and their effects on
performance management. It will also show how leaders can handle different issues faced by
organizations
Leadership and its importance:
Leadership has huge importance in the organization. Leaders are the persons who initiate
action by starting with communicating the policies and plans to the subordinates from where the
work starts. They also motivate followers with the economic and non-economic rewards, which
helps in getting the work from the subordinates. They also provide guidance by supervising and

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the followers. They instruct the followers about what they have to perform and how they have to
perform. Leaders also help in creating confidence among the subordinates explaining them their
roles clearly and making them confident in achieving their roles (Wang et al. 2014). They also
help in building morale and developing a suitable working environment. This helps in sound and
stable growth where human relations are nurtured in proper ways. Proper personal contacts
among everyone and listening to their problems and solving them are also another importance of
leadership. They help to maintain co-ordination by properly reconciling personal interests with
organization goals (Gioloito and Van Dierendock 2015).
Performance management:
Performance management mainly focuses on developing organizations and competencies
of the employees. It aims at continuous improvement of the skills and knowledge of the
employees. The leaders mainly take the initiatives of offering a variety of learning methods and
putting high emphasis on job learning by providing formal training. These in turn help in
developing the performance of the employees and meeting the short comings in ways by which
the employees can meet the productivity goal. The leaders by managing the performance of the
employees help in developing teams that can easily align with the goals of the organization
(Wang, waldman and Zhang 2014). The employees find themselves working together with the
right set of skills to meet the duties and responsibilities assigned to them. Leaders can undertake
different type of programs for performance management of the employees. This may include
professional and leadership skills development programs. It also involves personal development
discussions and even regular personnel surveys. All these ensure the leaders that they develop all
the important attributes required by employees to provide high-level performance. Improving

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employee competencies and developing strong leadership are extremely important for the leaders
to ensure proper performance management of the employees (Pulakos et al 2015).
Different leadership theories:
The trait leadership theory mainly takes into account the fact that people either are born
or are made with a particular set of qualities that mainly help in excelling leadership roles. Often
different attributes such as creativity, sense of responsibility, intelligence and many other values
are important for making a person a good leader. Famous man like Gordon Allport who was an
American psychologist established this theory in 1930. It focused on the importance of analyzing
mental, physical and social characteristics in order to understand the common characteristics
among leaders. Another is the behavioral theory that focuses on the importance of the different
types of behaviors portrayed by leaders unlike the physical, mental or social characteristics of
the trait theory (Devilard et al. 2014). The main point established by this theory is that leaders
are established not born. This theory divided leaders in two categories- one that is concerned
with tasks and others that is concerned with people. The next is the contingency theories that
state that there is not one perfect way of leading. It believes that certain people perform better at
maximum level in certain places but at minimal performance when they are taken out of their
element (Keune, Mayhew and Schimdt 2015). The next is the transactional leadership theory.
This theory mainly is based on the leaders believing on the concept of rewards as well as
punishments and these remain based on the performance shown by the followers. This type of
leaders is mainly task and outcome oriented. The next theory is the transformational leadership.
The leaders following this theory mainly inspire the followers with their vision and personality
(Van der moeit 2014). These help to change expectations as well as motivations towards
pursuing for common goals. There are four important characteristics of these leaders. These are

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intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation, consideration for individuals and idealized
influence. There are also authoritarian leadership styles where negative reinforcements and
punishments are used to enforce rules. No feedbacks are entertained. Democratic leadership style
however is complete opposite to the previous style and encourages open communication and
participation of the staffs in decision-making. Laissez Faire leadership style where leaders
provide a hands off approach where little or no direction or supervision is provided. They allow
employees to do things on their own trusting them and do not provide guidance.
Leadership and current issues:
In the recent days, multicultural issues often come up which act as an important barrier.
The need to communicate overseas with different culture or among different team members with
different cultural backgrounds has resulted in different types of issues among employees.
Cultural insensitivity, cultural incompetence, cultural miscommunication, ego clashes and many
others destroy smooth flow of work and interrupts productivity. Therefore, in such situation, it
becomes important for the leaders to help the employees develop cultural awareness and
sensitivity through proper counseling, training, workshops, internet surfing and many others
(Hornstein 2015). The employees need to develop bonds with each other overcoming their
cultural biasness so that teamwork takes place in proper ways. Overcoming cross-cultural issues
is one of the most important attribute for multinational companies to ensure uninterrupted flow
of work.
Leaders also help organizations to overcome competitions faced by them in the markets
by providing innovative and creative ideas to the teams. Choosing the proper competitive
advantage and aligning the skills of the team-members in creative and innovative ways to

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overcome competitions is a skill of leaders. The ideas selected by the leaders help the employees
to face the competitions in effective ways and continuously boosts the confidence of the
employees. Continuous motivation and inspiration helps them to align with new innovative ideas
to face competition and thereby makes them try their best to handle the issues successfully
ensuring the meeting of organizational mission (Lussier and Achua 2015).
Gender diversity is one of the most important issues that should be focused in the area.
It is mostly said that women with equal skills with men are treated differently than their
male counterparts. They do not often get the chance to serve in higher roles even if they deserve
to do so according to their skills and prior achievements. Researchers are of the opinion that the
females get very less acknowledgement of the males even when they achieve success. 19% of
males do not agree of women reaching the top management, as they doubt the contribution and
dedication of such women in the top roles (Meuser et al. 2016). All these affect the emotions and
enthusiasm. These result in loss of productivity of an entire team, which needs to be looked after
by the leaders. Leaders need to handle the condition effectively. They need to inspire both the
male and female team members to overcome the biasness and improper attitudes towards each
other. They need to develop proper relationship building among themselves. The leaders need to
empower the females to continue working with their best effort and manage their performance to
an extent where they can try for higher roles. Not only that, the leaders should counsel the males
and females in ways where they could value the diversity of gender and look on them as their
strength rather than weakness of the team.
Besides, leaders are the main agents of change, sustainability and future of the
organizational activities and decisions taken for the betterment of the firms. It is very important
for the leaders to look over each of the aspects of the change with care so that team members can

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properly align with new changes, solve their clarifications and prepare them for new job roles
effectively. This would ensure meeting of the new goals set by organization (Roueche, Baker and
Rose 2014).
Conclusion:
Leadership is one of the most important aspects of an organization or teams working
within it. An effective leader can not only provide proper guidance to ensure smooth work flow
from the employees but also can ensure proper management of performance in ways which help
to increase the productivity of the organization. Different sorts of leadership theories like
transformational leadership, democratic leadership and similar others have gained fame in the
recent decades. An effective leader can help in solving gender diversity issues, multicultural
issues, and handle competition. They also act as agents for change and hence they help to ensure
sustainability and future of the organization and their goals.

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References:
Bergh, D.D., Aguinis, H., Heavey, C., Ketchen, D.J., Boyd, B.K., Su, P., Lau, C.L. and Joo, H.,
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Devillard, S., Sancier-Sultan, S. and Werner, C., 2014. Why gender diversity at the top remains a
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Giolito, V. and Van Dierendonck, D., 2015, January. Servant leadership: influence on financial
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Keune, M.B., Mayhew, B.W. and Schmidt, J.J., 2015. Non-Big 4 local market leadership and its
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Lussier, R.N. and Achua, C.F., 2015. Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development.
Nelson Education.

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Meuser, J.D., Gardner, W.L., Dinh, J.E., Hu, J., Liden, R.C. and Lord, R.G., 2016. A network
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