Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential(Bennis,1976).Warren Bennis is well known leadership expert who identified 6 qualities of a good leader namely
Creativity
Integrity
Dedication
Magnanimity
Humility
honesty
In todays business environment, leadership is the key to realizing the full potential of intellectual capital which is key to competitive advantage for any organization. I find 2 of Warrens qualities very vital for success of any organization leadership because most leaders who posses the 2 tend to have the other 4 falling into place as discussed below
Integrity
Integrity has to do with alignment of ones words with actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations and outcome. A food leader must be a person of high integrity who can be trusted for sticking to the organizations values by the employees and other stake holders (Bennis 1999). Every organization has a value system that leadership must transmit to each member of the organization. This can be done by example, the leadership has to demonstrate by their actions and then the employees will take ownership of the value system of their organization. A strong sense of shared values motivates people to achieve beyond their expectations as employees feel a genuine commitment to the goals and values of the organization (Bennis, 1976). Most leaders who posses a high level of integrity will tend to be honest and dedicated thus bring passion, perspective, and significance to the process of defining organizational purpose. Such leaders will also be magnanimous which includes crediting the people with success and accepting personal responsibility for failures (Bennis 1989). Leaders of high integrity will also be humble they simply recognize all people as equal in value and are positive influencers in their organizations. From this discussion, its clear that in todays business world, a business that has to maintain a competitive advantage has to have people with high levels of integrity from top to low level management (Drucker, 1992). This will enhance the organizations performance by locking in customers confidence since the organization sticks to its values and thus satisfies its customers.
Creativity
Creativity involves the discovery of new ideas or improving the existing ideas and concepts to create a different view of things. A good leader should be able to think differently and see things that others have not seen thus giving followers a reason to follow (Drucker, 1974). In todays dynamic business world, leaders have to be very creative in order to stand competition. Managers should work at building a culture that encourages and rewards creativity and innovation from the highest to the lowest levels of the organization by providing a leadership model that encourages creativity and innovation, and tune the organizational management and cultural systems to make innovation a way of life to be accepted by everyone at every level in the enterprise (Bennis and Nanus, 1985). Any organization should ensure that it differentiates its products and services from those of its competitors through its leaders being creative and encouraging its workers to be creative and innovative.
Question Identify supportive or conflicting work by three other appropriate authors comments to compare and analyze both support and conflict views with Warren Benniss.
1. The LPC Model (Least Preferred Co-Worker)
This model was developed by Fred E. Fieldler. According to him leaders become leaders not only because of their personality but also because of the various situational factors that they face. He came up with three critical dimensions of leadership situations that affect a leaders style. These were (Fielder, 1967)
Position Powerthe degree to which a position enables a leader to get enough members to comply with his directions.
Task Structuredegree to which tasks are spelled out clearly and people held responsible i.e. how much each person knows his roles.
Leader-Member Relationthe extent to which group members like, and trust a leader and are willing to follow him.
From these situations Fieldler identified two types of leadership style
Task-oriented- Whereby a leader gains satisfaction from seeing tasks performed.
People-oriented- Where the leader aims at achieving good interpersonal relations. Fieldler concluded that Leadership performance depends both on the organization and the situation. One cannot speak of effective leaders but only of leaders who tend to be effective in one situation and ineffective in another situation. Effective leadership requires both training and a conducive organizational climate.
Fieldler sees appropriate behavior as a function of the favorableness of the situation as defined by the three situations (Fielder, 1967).
2. Path-goal theory of leadership
Path-goal approach to leadership effectiveness developed by Martin G Evans and Robert J. House is based on the expectancy or valence model that states that An individuals motivation depends on his or her expectation of the reward and the valence or attractiveness of that reward.
This theory focuses on the leader as the source of rewards (Hill and Jones, 2004).
It attempts to predict how different types of rewards and different leadership styles affect motivation, performance and satisfaction of subordinates. Managers have at their disposal a number of ways to influence subordinates. According to Evans the most important are the managers ability to provide rewards and to clarify what subordinates must do to earn them. Thus managers determine the volubility of goals and make clear the paths to be taken to reach them. Evans suggests that a managers leadership style influences which rewards will be available to subordinates as well as subordinates perceptions of what they have to do to earn those rewards. An employee centered manager for example will offer a wide range of reward to subordinates not only pay and promotions but also support encouragement, security and respect (Stoner and Freeman, 1989).
A task oriented manager on the other hand will offer less set of rewards. However according to Evans such a manager will usually be much better at linking subordinates performance to rewards than an employee centered manager (Pearce, 2003).
3. Peter Drucker
Peter Drucker is a management guru who popularized the idea of Management by Objectives (MBO) which is a process of agreeing upon objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they are in the organization.
According to Drucker, the procedure of setting objectives and monitoring your progress towards them should permeate the entire organization, top to bottom. His other influential contribution was in predicting the importance of what today we would call intellectual capital. He predicted the rise of what he called the knowledge worker and explained the consequences of this for management (Drucker and Bookspan, 1990). He said that knowledge work is non-hierarchical. Work would be carried out in teams with the person most knowledgeable in the task at hand being the temporary leader. Just like Warren Bennis, Drucker tried to instill innovation in every company he was dealing with by focusing on the organizations mission, defining significant results and performing assessments based on the tasks that are being performed while trying to adhere to the mission (Drucker, 1967). A feeling of mutual trust must be established between management and lower level associates in order for non-management personnel to come forward with what they believe is not working during the assessment phase. In Druckers opinion, a company should focus on the employees and how to guide them toward achieving their highest potential. Once this is achieved is when the company has succeeded and is meeting its objective all around, because then in turn, the employees are striving to do their best in meeting the mission in the most effective and efficient manner (Drucker, 1974).
Along with Drucker, Bennis believes in a mission, however the difference is that Bennis believes that the mission must be extremely meaningful. The company or organization must make the mission or vision meaningful enough to touch the very core of each individual so they feel as though it will make a difference to the masses (Drucker, 1995). Once people find meaning in what they do this increases their drive and thus increases productivity. The job of the leader is to make everyone realize just how important the mission is to the outside. Flexibility and skill diversity are the main characteristics of the future leaders according to Bennis (David, 2003). The leaders he foresees must have those two main ingredients if they are to succeed. Flexibility comes into play due to the ever-changing world around us whether it be new governments, skill level of employees, or technology. In addition, leaders must have character integrity, passion about the mission and the future, curiosity that will allow them look for a better way to accomplish the mission, and the ability to see how things will be in the future and guide the group towards that vision. Similar to Drucker need for management to be open to abandoning tasks and or ideas that are not reaching the objective, Bennis leader ability to guide the group may be hindered by management if management is not completely open to change. If the company is just trying to maintain the same ways of operations it has been devoted to for many years and is not fully committed to opening the doors for suggestions and new ideas then the team and the leader become meaningless, as does the mission (Bennis, 1989).Drucker and Bennis agree on the importance of teamwork and groupings, though Drucker emphasizes on forming alliances between firms while Bennis, on the other hand, focuses more on teamwork within an organization( Bennis, 1999).
One concept that both Bennis and Drucker mentioned, when speaking of teamwork, is that realizing the significance of teamwork, work groups, and how they can help a company achieve its goals and be more productive at a reduced cost (Bennis, 1999). The views of both men on teamwork were very similar, and they both agreed that it is a necessity to the prominent future of a company (Drucker, 1974).One must decide with philosophy and approach better suits their organization. What works for one organization may not be the best solution or method for the next company.
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