Leadership

Organization is a group of people working together to achieve a common goal which is profit, now to improve this process there are different posts and different people working in different fields, how to control them which is the question of this research. We are going to tell you about leaders how and what they can do and they do according to different situations, but, being a leader is not enough but another factor which we are going to discuss is motivation how can he employees or followers be motivated in different scenarios and the effective and easy way to motivate them without having to go out of the way for them. Leaders when self-motivated and active will motivate and lead his or her followers to do the same and at the same time will increase the profit and productivity of the organization.

Leadership: “Management means helping people to get the best out of themselves, not organizing things." (Lauren Appley). The saying is enough to tell us that to be leaders it’s not what the leaders want the people to be but how to get the best out of them. Further on people like Steve Jobs and his leadership style will be mentioned and articles from sources mentioning the delicacy of the topic and the extent to which it is necessary and how it can be done. (Source # 1)

Before we get into the details I will start by defining leadership which states that Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. Now this tells us that people are like a flock of sheep helpful to others if and only if they are led by a shepherd. "Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple, learn how to look after them, and pretty soon you have a dozen." (John Steinbeck). Leadership is all about looking after people in the right way and the right time to get the best out of them for ones own or the organizations benefit. (Source # 1&4)

Now there are four factors of leadership. The major factors include Leader, Follower, Communication and Situation. Let us start by Leader, now a leader has two (2) sides one of them is the personal side and the other is the interaction or trust side. A leader should personally know who he/she is, what they know and what they can do. The other important point is that it is the followers and none other than them that determine if the leader is successful or not. If the followers lack confidence or trust they will be uninspired. The leader has to build trust in the followers and it is them that decide if a leader is worth trusting not the leader personally or the superiors that the leader is worthy of being a leader. (Source # 4)

Second, we have followers and as we all know that every human has a different personality so it is the leader’s responsibility to cater for their needs like if a new employee joined the team he needs extra supervision unlike an experienced employee or an employee with low motivation should be approached differently as compared to an employee with high motivation. A leader must know his people and to be a successful leader one aspect the leader should be good in is the human nature as the leader works with employees a lot and everyone has a different nature so a leader should be an understanding one. (Source # 4)

Third and fourth, we have communication and situation, communication is always two-way and varies from individual to individual so it is a delicate point and an important one for leaders as it helps to understand and get the job done whilst most of the communication is non-verbal. Coming to situation this is yet another aspect for leaders and let us take an example of inappropriate behavior or misconduct in workplace by an employee now in this case the leader has to take action to set an example for others, at the same time keep the integrity of the workplace and the status of a leader, the result could be that the action is too late or too early, too harsh or too weak, resulting in the message being ineffective thus the leader should understand the situation and communicate with the employees while keeping their nature in mind. (Source # 4)

There are a few leadership styles which are Visionary a leader who takes everyone together to a shared dream to make it come true. Coaching which is one on one by showing them how to improve performance and to connect their goals to that of the organization. Then we have Affiliative which emphasizes on teamwork and creates a harmony between people in a group by connecting them together. Then we have Democratic in which the leader draws on the knowledge and skills of people and creates a group committed to reaching goals and meeting deadlines. We have Pacesetting in which the leader sets high standards for the employee, the leader is obsessive to get the work done quickly and efficiently and asks everyone to do the same. Last but not least Commanding most often used style also known as military style that is command people to do with less or no appraisal. Visionary, Affiliative and Democratic are the best ways to keep harmony and peace between employees themselves and their interaction with the higher or lower levels in the organization as well as the output is goo in these scenarios. The other three Coaching, Pacesetting and Commanding all have their drawbacks and well an employee may feel weird or unaccepted if coached too much while pacesetting might demotivate the employees as the goals set are high and at times too farfetched leaving us with commanding which is the most widely used strategy and the worst as the employees lack the feeling of appraisal or the ability to speak out their minds which may be beneficial for the organization but the leader is one that does not listen and just commands. (Source # 2)

“My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.” All About Steve Jobs

This statement by Steve jobs tells us that he was an affiliative leader wanting to improve people in a group to achieve the better as well as democratic in which he takes the best of people with knowledge and skills and makes them better. “That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works” – New York Times, The Guts of a New Machine, 2003. This quote shows that he was an innovator or in terms of leadership he was a visionary. Steve Jobs sets an example for us of how a leader should be and act throughout to support and lead an organization to pure success. Some of the things he did were odd but turned out to be good. A few of them will be used to illustrate leadership in an odd manner. (Source # 5&3)