MN3041QA: A Comprehensive Literature Review of Leadership Development

This literature review examines the concept of leadership and its critical role in fostering business success. It synthesizes various perspectives from different authors, highlighting how effective leadership enhances employee engagement, boosts productivity, and bridges performance gaps within organizations. The review emphasizes the importance of adaptability in leadership styles to navigate volatile market conditions, advocating for continuous development through training and mentorship programs. It also explores diverse viewpoints on leadership approaches, including the balance between guiding teams and maintaining professional distance. The review concludes that investing in leadership development is essential for sustaining competitive advantage and achieving long-term organizational success. Desklib offers a platform for students to access this and many other solved assignments.

Development for Success in
Business

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Literature Review.........................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Leadership is an idea and an initiative that supports the company to perform better. A
leader is involved for making better decisions and strategies in the favour of the business that
helps organization to grow. When any firm has good leadership in it, this impacts the business
positively. Leader leads their teams motivates them and inform them about new developments in
their work and enhance the quality of their work. For developing business, it is important to
develop leadership in the business. It helps the company in many ways. An effective leadership
helps the company to develop and enhance. As the leaders in the company motivate their
employees and in result it boosts employee engagement. This helps to increase the productivity
of the company that helps them reach their goals. Leadership helps the company to fill the gaps
between the expected performance and the current performances. Over the time the market is
also changing so it is required to develop leadership with some changes in the business. This
report is focusing on literature review for leadership, in which different view of authors are
included. Also the review explains about the need of development in leadership to enhance the
business.
Literature Review
Leadership
Crosby and Bryson (2018) explained that leadership is linked with the performance of the
team. Profit of the company is not directly linked with the leadership. But leaders with the
effective approach are viewed as those who help the company to increase their profits. A leader
motivates the team and directs them and extracts the maximum output from their efforts. An
effective leader has critical thinking and good management skills.

Role of Leader for effective leadership
According to Daniëls, Hondeghem and Dochy (2019) a leader provides vision to their
team. The leaders also define the organization structure to the employees with proper rule and
protocols and chain of commands. The leader must direct their team with giving them proper
inputs. However as per the views of Oc (2018), a leader must not only give the commands to
their but also guide and inspire them so the team is self-motivated and give the best outputs. Also
the leaders must have skill of managing time. If the leader is spends more time on the complaints
by the teams that means the leadership of that particular leader is not effective enough.
As per the views of Rudolph, Rauvola and Zacher (2018) the leadership in any company
or business must be very flexible so that the team would be comfortable with them and the
problem solving of any issue will be more effective. A leader must know how to utilize their
intelligence and experience this helps them in guiding the teams efficiently.
Rudolph, Rauvola and Zacher (2018) stated that a leader can guide the staff by
monitoring and communicating the plan and the policies also the way of working with the
employees to achieve better results. A good leader also plays a role of counsellor by counselling
them, the leader can listen to their employee's problems and try to solve those problems. Also the
team leader can work with team. However Holt, Hall and Gilley (2018)stated that the leader
should keep a professional distance from their team. With this approach the leader can manage
the team in more effective manner. Also Holt, Hall and Gilley (2018) explained that this
approach will improve the productivity of the employees.
Leadership development
According to Miles and Scott (2019) to survive in the market that is volatile, uncertain
and complex, the companies require new leadership skills also the improvement is required in

traditional ways of leadership techniques. It is stated that in such fast changing environment, the
development of leadership techniques must not be restricted.
Subramony and et.al. (2018) conducted a study and it is analysed that to gain a significant
competitive advantage development in leadership is required. Also they described that leadership
leads to maintain the success of the business, and with effective leadership approaches it helps
the business to improve their success rates. Leadership development will increase employee
engagements and supports the organization to deal with gaps. They also stated that providing the
existing leaders with proper mentoring and training will be an effective and less expensive way
instead of hiring new candidate.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the literature review that leadership is the most effective way of
managing teams. By proper leadership a company can increase the productivity of their
employees. As a result the company makes better output and on the path to achieve success. An
effective leadership builds the capacity to reduce the costs and improves the performance of the
employees. Good leaders attract, hire and inspire the teams in most effective ways. This report
concludes that a good leader empowers their teams in shaping and changing the culture in the
company and develops strategy for the benefits of business.
The literature review also explains the role of the leadership in the company. A good
leader creates structure and they are accountable for creating job role, decision-making and they
also help and support their team to perform well and provide high quality work outputs. Good
leaders also learns from their followers and they build trust among the team. The leaders make
sure that their team knows about the confidence leader have in them. They also try make good

relationships with their team and encourage them to do efficient work. They must have a
problem solving approach and critical thinking that helps them to solve the problems and help
their staff members. Leaders also inspire hope and they are optimistic toward the critical
situations.
Also it can be analysed from the literature review that the companies must organize
different training sessions for developing the leadership. These training programs must cover the
aspects like future leadership responsibilities, handling leadership challenges also for improving
the management capabilities. The literature review explains the scope of leadership development
for sustaining in the market for longer period of time. Leadership development must be done in
right ways because leadership deliver major impact on the performance of the company.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Crosby, B.C. and Bryson, J.M., 2018. Why leadership of public leadership research matters: and
what to do about it. Public Management Review. 20(9). pp.1265-1286.
Daniëls, E., Hondeghem, A. and Dochy, F., 2019. A review on leadership and leadership
development in educational settings. Educational research review. 27. pp.110-125.
Holt, S., Hall, A. and Gilley, A., 2018. Essential components of leadership development
programs. Journal of Managerial Issues. 30(2). pp.214-153.
Miles, J.M. and Scott, E.S., 2019. A new leadership development model for nursing
education. Journal of Professional Nursing. 35(1). pp.5-11.
Oc, B., 2018. Contextual leadership: A systematic review of how contextual factors shape
leadership and its outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly. 29(1). pp.218-235.
Rudolph, C.W., Rauvola, R.S. and Zacher, H., 2018. Leadership and generations at work: A
critical review. The Leadership Quarterly. 29(1). pp.44-57.
Subramony, M. and et.al., 2018. Leadership development practice bundles and organizational
performance: The mediating role of human capital and social capital. Journal of
business research. 83. pp.120-129.
Online references
4 Reasons to Invest in Leadership Development. 2021. [Online]. Available through
<https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/why-leadership-development-
is-important-4-reasons-to-invest/>. [Accessed on 1st September 2021].