Leadership in the Twenty-first Century

The qualities of great leadership are integrity, respect, and responsibility. These core qualities are what others would see in a person having leadership character.

As Myles Munroe has written in his book Becoming A Leader, Everyone Can Do It, “True leadership is born out of a guiding vision and a passion to accomplish a noble task, and to inspire others to develop and release their potential. It derives its fulfillment from the success of others.” It can be said to have the skill of influencing people to work enthusiastically toward goals identified as being for the common good. Very simply put, a leader is interpreted as someone who sets direction in an effort and influences people to follow that direction.

Leadership reflects a wide spectrum of traits and as the study of leadership in an ongoing one, there will never be full agreement on what constitutes leadership traits. But there are certain characteristics that all leaders seem to possess.

Courage: Leaders who dare to do something are prepared for opposition. Leaders have the courage of their convictions and are ready to be ridiculed, opposed, and ultimately agreed with.
Pride: Not only does the leader take pride in his accomplishments, he also creates an atmosphere that allows others to do the same.
Sincerity: Leaders manage to convey sincere concern for other people, genuine interest in subjects other than themselves.
Adaptability: The leader is able to see both sides of the picture, to maintain a balanced perspective of the complexity.
Influence: Leaders know how to influence others, to persuade them to a higher calling. If you intend to lead others, you can’t depend on the authority of your managerial position.
Vision: A vision is the leader’s ideas and plans for the organization’s future. It gives a sense of the differences between the present and future states of an organization and builds a sense of bonding in the process of a shared vision.

To some degree we have all of them -- some more so than others. We must work to strengthen these qualities in ourselves to become effective leaders.
Moreover the position of the leader also has three key functions:
Authority: the right to make decisions.
Responsibility: assignment for achieving a goal.
Accountability: acceptance of success or failure.

Normally it is perceived that it is enough for a manger to have authority for the success of an enterprise without considering any other aspects of the enterprise.

A person in the leadership position is faced with the dichotomy between power and authority. Power is the ability to force or coerce someone to do your will because of your position of might. At the same time, authority is getting to do so willingly due to your personal influence.

The role of leadership in management is largely determined by the organizational culture of the company. It can be stated that managers' beliefs, experience values and assumptions are of critical importance to the overall style of leadership that they adopt.

While there are several different leadership styles that been identified. We consider the prominent styles of functioning of managers. Each technique has its own set of good and not-so-good characteristics, and each uses leadership in a different way.
The Autocrat: he dominates the team-members, using unilateralism to achieve a singular objective. This approach to leadership generally results in passive resistance from team-members and requires continual pressure and direction from the leader in order to get things done. Generally, an authoritarian approach is not a good way to get the best performance from a team.
The Laissez-Faire Manager: exercises little control over his group, leaving them to sort out their roles and tackle their work, without participating in this process himself. This approach leaves the team floundering with little direction or motivation.
The Democrat: The democratic leader makes decisions by consulting his team, whilst still maintaining control of the group. The democratic leader allows his team to decide how the task will be tackled and who will perform which task. A good democratic leader encourages participation and delegates wisely, but never loses sight of the fact that he bears the crucial responsibility of leadership. He values group discussion and input from his team and can be seen as drawing from a pool of his team members' strong points in order to obtain the best performance from his team. He motivates his team by empowering them to direct themselves.

Leadership is about behavior first, skills second. Good leaders are followed primarily because people trust and respect them, rather than the skills they possess. Leadership is different to management. Management relies more on planning, organizational and communications skills. Leadership relies on management skills too, but more on qualities like integrity, honesty, courage, commitment, sincerity, confidence, empathy, wisdom, determination and compassion. Some people being good managers are also effective leaders, which all managers can’t claim to be.

By G Ravi