CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION TO LEADERSHIP

Objectives of the Chapter:

At the end of this chapter, you will be able:

 Define leadership

 Differentiate leadership and management

 Identify the characteristics of effective leaders

 Identify the contribution of leadership for good governance

1.1. Overview of Leadership
People are the most important source in an organization. To achieve organizational objectives HR should be
directed towards the accomplishment of goals. Hence, the successful achievement of organizational objectives is
greatly the manifestation of the managers’ ability to lead employees. To inspire your workers into higher levels
of teamwork, there are certain things you must be, know, and, do. These do not come naturally, but are acquired
through continual work and study. Good leaders are continually working and studying to improve their
leadership skills; they are NOT resting on their laurels. Although your position as a manager, supervisor, leader,
etc. gives you the authority to accomplish certain tasks and objectives in the organization, this power does not
make you a leader, it simply makes you the boss. Leadership differs in that it makes the followers want to
achieve high goals, rather than simply bossing people around.
Definition of leadership
There are almost as many definitions of leadership. Some define leadership as an integral part of the group
process. Others define it primarily as an influence process. Still others see leadership as the initiation of structure
and the instrument of goal achievement. There are almost as many definitions of leadership. Dictionaries define
leading as "guiding and directing on a course" and as "serving as a channel." A leader is someone with
commanding authority or influence. Several even consider leaders to be servants of their followers.
Leadership is a relationship between the individual and the group depending mainly on a certain situation and is
very much dynamic in nature.
“Leadership is the process of making sense of what people are doing together so that people will understand and
be committed.” (Drath & Palus, 1994, p. 4)
Leadership is about influence-the ability to influence your subordinates, your peers, and your bosses in a work or
organizational context. Without influence, it is impossible to be a leader. Of course, having influence means that
there is a greater need on the part of leaders to exercise their influence ethically.
Leadership, then, is the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of goals.
Leadership may be defined as a process of influencing the action of individuals as members of a group to
achieve the desired goal in a given situation use of power by the leader.
Leadership is “the process of influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal achievement.” (Rauch
& Behling, 1984, pg. 46).

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Leadership is “the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward
the effectiveness and success of the organization” (House et al., 1999, pg. 184).
“Leadership is the art or process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and
enthusiastically toward the achievement of organizational or group goals.” (Hemphill & Coons, 1957, pg.
7).
“Leadership is about articulating visions, embodying values, and creating the environment within which
things can be accomplished.” (Richards & Engle, 1986, pg. 206)
“Leadership is a process of giving purpose (meaningful direction) to collective effort, and causing willing
effort to be expended to achieve purpose.” (Jacobs & Jaques, 1990, pg. 281)
According to Koontz et al (1985), leadership is generally defined simply as the
art of influencing people so that they will strive willingly towards the
achievement of group goals.
According to Lawal (1993) Leadership is the process of influencing others to work willingly toward an
organizational goal with confidence. Leadership is generally defined as the process of influencing people
to direct their efforts toward achievement of some particular goal or goals.
Leaders carry out this process by applying their leadership attributes, such as beliefs, values, ethics,
character, knowledge, and skills.
Leadership is a process of influencing other people to mobilize and direct their efforts towards certain
goals and to accomplish these goals through them.
Leadership is a process and not a position. This important process has three important
components/ingredients 1) Leader, 2) Followers and 3) Situation; these are the three components play
very important role on the process of leadership.
Effective leadership is the ability to inspire, influence, and guide others to achieve a common goal or
vision. It involves traits such as strong communication, empathy, integrity, and the ability to make
strategic decisions. Effective leaders empower their team members, foster a positive work environment,
and lead by example.
1.2. LEADERSHIP vs. MANAGEMENT
Leadership is similar to, and different from, management. They both involve influencing people. They
both require working with people. Both are concerned with the achievement of common goals. However,
leadership and management are different on more dimensions than they are similar. Because leadership is
used to describe both a process and a position, it is useful to remember that the distinction is between
leadership and management, not leaders and managers. While some may excel at one more than the other,
most persons in positions of responsibility within an organization, whether described as ‘leaders’ or
‘managers’, exercise both leadership and management in their roles.
Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common
goal. The definition of management is to exercise executive, administrative, and supervisory direction of a
group or organization. Leadership and management share many similarities. Both leadership and
management involve influence, working with people, and working with effective goal management.
However, the fields of leadership and management can also be considered very different.
Management means setting objectives and focusing on consistently producing key results through
planning and budgeting, organizing and staffing, and controlling and problem-solving.

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 Leadership focuses on potential - creating and supporting change to vitalize the organization by
establishing direction, aligning people, and motivating and inspiring.
Leadership always focuses on people, inspire them and develop them to achieve the organizational
mission. They use personality powers to influence others and act as coach and facilitators for followers.
With their charismatic personality leaders create a dynamic environment within the organization. They
also encourage the creativity and focuses on the dynamic environment changes.
While Management focuses on objective and are mainly concern with outputs, reports and mechanics of
the organizations. To influence others, management depends on the position powers and use control rather
than motivation.
Leadership always focuses on vision, reshapes the organizational culture, motivates the employees and
believes on long term focus.
Whereas, Management depends on detailed plan/schedule, allocation of resources, improve the
efficiency and focuses short term goals.
Leaders focus more on enterprise wide, strategic, long-term, eventful, and value-added roles and
competencies.
Whereas Managers are concerned more with implementation-oriented, routine, short-to mid-term
predictable tasks, and technical detail.
Table 1.2. Summary of difference between leadership and management

Leadership Management
Create a vision Concentrate on doing things Efficiently
Leaders have followers Managers have subordinates
Leaders are inspirational &
Managers are productive and Effective
Charismatic
Manage the changes, external or
Manage the complexity of tasks & the organization structure.
internal.
Leaders empower followers Managers control subordinates
People are lead Projects are managed
Organize teams, allocate resources, build & execute plans to
Align the organization to the Vision
achieve the objectives.
Synthesis, put together all the issues
Analyzes the issues by breaking them into smaller problems
and solve them holistically (bottom-up
and then solve each of them (top-down approach)
approach)
1.3. What Makes Effective Leader?
1.3.1. Qualities of Leaders
Real leaders have certain qualities which make them different from rest of the team members / followers.
Few of those qualities are given in the following manner:
1. Vision: A leader has to have some ideas about his/her organization, about how the future could be
different. A leader requires strong sense of purpose and should be clear in concept of collective Vision
(Organization) and recognizes what must be done and how to makes strategies for the accomplishment

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 of their vision. Clear concepts about vision can make a leader more focused and effective. Vision about
what is happening, what needs to be done and what is coming in future.
2. Ability: Leaders must know about his or her Job and keep knowledge updated and have ability to
understand information, formulate strategies, and make the decisions. If leader fails to do all these,
employees do not respect him/her, and ultimately leader loses faith and trust. That will be failure of a
leader. Followers always look toward leaders when making decision, when they are in problem, or stuck
or when things are not working. They will look toward leaders. Even for technical issues, they will look
toward leaders for solution. So a leader must have the ability to handle all such issues. Strong
communication skills to effectively convey ideas, provide feedback, and listen to others.
3. Enthusiasm: This is also an important trait of leaders. Leaders always create excitements, which
causes others to become interested and willing to accept the challenges. Leaders always generate
enthusiasm in followers so that this excitement can trigger the goal oriented actions and ultimately
followers get motivated and involved in the achievement of the organizational goals.
4. Stability: Stability is another important quality of leaders. Leaders need to be emotionally stable in
handling challenges, in decision making and during the time of pressures. During the process of
leadership plus and minuses do come and leaders need to face them with courage and unless they have
stability in their personality, this will become very difficult. Leaders should possess objectivity, should
not bring personal problems to work and be emotionally stable.
5. Concern for Others: Leaders must be concerned always for their followers, with their welfares and
don’t treat them as machines. It is always the responsibility of the leaders to think about the welfare of
the employees. A leader must have a humble and caring attitude towards employee/followers. So that
if he/she always puts the interest of others first the loyalty will be built, and ultimately the employees
will work with more devotion and commitment.
6. Self – Confidence: Self-confidence is very important quality one should have. For leaders this will
become even more important. All we discussed different leaders qualities above, these are all linked
with the self-concept. With self-confidence, leaders can manage and handle even difficult situations.
That is the trait/quality which is appreciated by all concerns. Successful leaders stay calm and
confident and show confidence in their actions.
7. Persistence: Determination of a leader is also very important for business success. So, a leader should
have the devotion and commitment for business and continuously motivate the employees for
achieving the organizational goals. The outgoing approach and persistence approach is always paying
and pushing the followers for the accomplishment of goals.

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8. Vitality: Leaders need strength/energy and stamina. Effective leaders are electric, vigorous, active, and
full of life, regardless of age or disability. These qualities energize followers too. To achieve goals,
leaders need stamina, energy, health, and vigor. Same is true for followers.
9. Charisma: A Personality Trait, a quality that generates others’ interest and creates followers. To
influence others, charisma plays very important role.
10. Integrity: The most important quality of leader is honesty, strength of character, and courage. Leaders
need to have strong integrity. So leader must have loyal, honest with his/her work and also with his/her
team too. It will also lead to trust and respect. Honesty, strength of character, and courage will always
lead to trust building, creating loyalty.
11. Trust: Trust among leader and followers is the key to success of this leadership process. A trust
between the leader and followers is very essential. When trust exists, individuals are more likely to
enter into the relationships necessary for goal attainment. Trust is The Foundation of Leadership:
Leader’s integrity, competency, consistency, loyalty and openness are the key ingredients to build
trust.
12. Freedom of Expression: All employees must be able to talk with one another, share ideas, critique
proposals, view issues critically, and obtain information that assists them in being effective and
creative. A leader must create an environment where everyone can share his/her ideas and create the
awareness that individuals must feel free to seek new approaches, take independent decision and take
risks.
13. Collaboration: Fostering a collaborative work environment where team members feel valued and
empowered.
1.3.2. Power as a Source of Leadership Influence
How leaders influence others?
Why do people accept the influence of a leader? One major reason is that leaders have power. Power is
the ability to affect the behavior of others or power is the ability to exert influence on others, or the
ability to do something. A successful leader should have an ability to use power successfully. In an
organizational setting, there are different sources of power. Some of them are:
Legitimate power
Legitimate power is authority given to a leader based on their title or position through organizational
hierarchy or structure. i.e. power due to position. The managers have legitimate power over their
subordinates and can assign subordinates tasks. But some subordinates only follow orders that are
strictly within the letter of organizational rules and policies. If asked to do something not in their job
description, they refuse or do a poor job so Subordinate who refuses to do them can be reprimanded or
even fired.
Reward power

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 Reward power is the Power to give /withhold rewards. Reward power in leadership is the power of a manager
to confer rewards on employees to influence their behavior. Rewards that a manager may control include
salary increases, bonuses, praise, recognition, and interesting job assignments.
Coercive Power
Coercive Power is a Power to force compliance via psychological, emotional or physical threat. In the
past physical coercion in organizations was relatively common. In most organizations today, however,
coercion is limited to verbal reprimands, written reprimands, disciplinary layoffs, demotion and
termination. Coercive power entails using force or threat of punishment to encourage individuals to act
against their wishes to follow instructions or orders.
Reference power/ Charismatic power
Referent power is a type of power that stems from a leader’s ability to inspire and influence others. It is the
power based on identification, imitation or charisma i.e. followers may react favorably because they identify in
some way with a leader, who may be like them in personality, background, or attitudes. In other situations,
followers might choose to imitate a leader with referent power by wearing the same clothes, working the same
hours, or espousing the same management philosophy. Thus, a manager might have referent power, but it is
more likely to be associated with leadership.
Expert power/informational
Expert power is the power derived from information & expertise. It is the power resulting from a leader’s
special knowledge or skill regarding the tasks performed by followers. When the leader is a true expert,
subordinates go along with recommendations because of his/her superior knowledge. Informational power is
the capacity to influence others that is based on one’s knowledge of facts relevant to the situation or based
on controlling information needed by others in order to reach an important goals.
1.3.3. Importance of Leadership
Leadership is an important function of management which helps to maximize efficiency and to achieve
organizational goals. The following points justify the importance of leadership in a concern:
1. Initiates Action: Leader is a person who starts the work by communicating the policies and plans to
the subordinates from where the work actually starts.
2. Motivation: A leader proves to be playing an incentive role in the concern’s working. He motivates
the employees with economic and non-economic rewards and thereby gets the work from the
subordinates.
3. Providing Guidance: A leader has to not only supervise but also play a guiding role for the
subordinates. Guidance here means instructing the subordinates the way they have to perform their
work effectively and efficiently.
4. Creating Confidence: Confidence is an important factor which can be achieved through expressing
the work efforts to the subordinates, explaining them clearly their role and giving them guidelines to
achieve the goals effectively. It is also important to hear the employees with regards to their
complaints and problems.

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 5. Building Morale: Morale denotes willing co-operation of the employees towards their work and
getting them into confidence and winning their trust. A leader can be a morale booster by achieving
full co-operation so that they perform with best of their abilities as they work to achieve goals.
6. Builds Work Environment: Management is getting things done from people. An efficient work
environment helps in sound and stable growth. Therefore, human relations should be kept in mind by
a leader. He should have personal contacts with employees and should listen to their problems and
solve them. He should treat employees on humanitarian terms.
7. Coordination: Co-ordination can be achieved through reconciling personal interests with
organizational goals. This synchronization can be achieved through proper and effective co-
ordination which should be primary motive of a leader.
Importance of leadership for good governance and development
The concept of "governance" is not new. It is as old as human civilization. Simply put "governance"
means: the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented (or not
implemented).
Social order necessitated the emergence of leadership and governance as a basic component of human life.
Leadership is a process that requires people to accept a person as their leader, characterized by influence
between the leaders and the followers and occurs in a given context to accomplish shared goals.
Governance implies the interaction between formal institutions and people, among the people themselves
and the manner in which decisions are made and implemented in an environmental setting.
Good governance entails creating an environment that is inclusive, sensitive and responsive to the needs
of the people and effective to the many challenges it encounters. Leadership is instrumental in the course
of enhancing the life of the people and realizing the goals of good governance. It is the ability to influence
others to achieve objectives, protects and ensures the highest quality of life while providing the much
needed direction for good governance.
Leadership encompasses all these qualities; honesty, patience, teamwork, decisiveness, and empathy.
Governance is a responsibility where these leadership qualities are vital to maintaining that well-
oiled machinery, with every part in the coordination of the other. Without these, any company or
country is most certainly is doomed to fail.
Governance is the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented, an
analysis of governance focuses on the formal and informal actors involved in decision-making and
implementing the decisions made and the formal and informal structures that have been set in place to
arrive at and implement the decision.

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Government is one of the actors in governance. Other actors involved in governance vary depending on
the level of government that is under discussion. In rural areas, for example, other actors may include
influential land lords, associations of peasant farmers, cooperatives, NGOs, research institutes, religious
leaders, finance institutions political parties, the military etc. At the national level, in addition to the above
actors, media, lobbyists, international donors, multi-national corporations, etc. may play a role in decision-
making or in influencing the decision-making process.
All actors other than government and the military are grouped together as part of the "civil society." In
some countries in addition to the civil society, organized crime syndicates also influence decision-making,
particularly in urban areas and at the national level. The important role that leaders play in supporting
effective governance, by promoting interagency collaboration and focusing on local issues and outcomes,
is identified in both the literature and case studies.
A key element in good governance is the quality of leadership as measured by the degree of commitment,
vision, transparency, efficiency and accountability in discharging the responsibilities of an organization.
Effective leadership contributes to effective governance by encouraging cooperation. Good governance
needs leadership. Leadership is about having a clear sense of the right direction for an organization and
being able to guide others towards it. Therefore, Leadership is not about power or control.
Good leaders are enablers and consensus builders who serve the interests of others, whether it’s the
members of a business or the citizens of a country. Leaders need to earn confidence and trust if they are to
win support for the direction they want to set. We call this leadership by consent. In this manner,
leadership and good governance are inseparable in all respects of human life.
Effective leadership and good governance determines the development of organizations and nations at
large. Now, a good leader or governor will not disappoint his followers, he must have the interest of his
people at heart, he must be passionate, feel the pains of the poor, hear the cry of the helpless and come for
help, create job opportunities for jobless people. A good leader must be able to render selfless service and
desist from selfishness, he must make provision for training and empowering his people and encourage
self-employment, he must be serious with issues that concerns the youths as they are the future leaders and
should not look down on the adults.

At all costs, good governance and leadership promotes education, agriculture, ensure stability of power,
construct good roads for safe and easy transportation and make the cost of transportation affordable
especially for people in rural areas, provide good water, good security system, and make the cost of living
affordable for the masses, ensure peace, unity and maintain transparency. In business organizations also,
good leadership plays a pivotal role in that it makes sustainable and socially responsible business.

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