Develop a Definition of Education Leadership
The mention of the term leadership can stir various images in mind. It is a term that is highly utilized, but some people barely comprehend its meaning. The development of leadership tends to entail encouragement, nurturing, mentoring, as well as incubation. When it comes to various firms, the human resource manager recognizes probable leaders with their abilities and makes sure that they are given enough motivation and encouragement. The question is, what exactly is leadership, and what are some of its tenets? This paper intends to define leadership by examining various concepts such as its traits, and how it differs from coercion, power as well as management.
Leadership can be defined as an interpersonal impact, applied in a circumstance, and directed via the communication procedure with the intent of attaining a precise goal (Mujhiyat et al., 2018). It is where one person has the facility to influence others in the accomplishment of an aim as well as directing a firm in an approach that makes it extraordinarily consistent and logical. A leader inspires other people to chase his dream within the limits that he sets such that it becomes a joint effort, vision as well as success. In other words, the efforts of other people are typically maximized for purposes of attaining a precise objective.
Leaders tend to assist themselves and other people in doing appropriate things. Typically, they set the guidelines, create a stirring vision, and come up with new ideas. As such, leadership is more about mapping out the places a person requires to go for reasons of winning as an organization. The procedure tends to be dynamic, inspiring, as well as thrilling. However, despite setting the direction, leaders ought to utilize management skills in guiding people to an accurate destination smoothly and efficiently.
Leadership Traits vs Leadership as a Process
Leadership as a process, and the traits of leadership tend to be comparable. The most crucial features of a leader comprise honesty, accountability, positivity, compassion, flexibility, and power. In process leadership, a person is equipped with the skills of being a leader, but the leadership traits are present in an individual. Through associating with other leaders, a person learns how to conduct himself/herself when leading people, and this is process leadership.
Although leadership is something that people can learn, some of the leadership personalities are inherent. What process leadership does is help in improving the leader through the influence that he gets from other leaders. According to Benson (2015), a transformational leader ought to stimulate the firm into making a paradigm leap together. All organizations tend to resist change, and it is the responsibility of a leader to encourage them to take the step that the executives have given believing that it will work.
The development of leadership tends to be equally about traits just as it is about the experience, and it is here that the duties of mentors reveal. Prevailing senior management leaders can assist possible leaders in performing better. The probable leaders are given tips and intuitions on the approach of operating the business world. This is to equip them with the knowledge of reacting to complex as well as thorny matters. When it comes to the actual world experience, a high number of latent leaders may have the crucial traits and drive but fail to have insights into what creates a successful leader. In this case, the expertise of senior leaders in an organization comes into being as they provide valuable guidance.
Assigned Vs. Emergent Leadership
The discrepancy between emergent leadership and assigned governance tends to be unassuming. Assigned leadership is governance that is predominantly dependent on occupying a position in the firm. According to Northouse (2018), some people are leaders as a result of their official position in an organization, for instance, staff in executive leadership or upper management. Other people are perceived as leaders owing to how members of a group respond to them. On the other hand, emergent leadership typically regards to a prominent member of a collaborative assembly. Initially, they are not assigned a specific position of leadership, but over some time, they tend to emerge as leaders.
An individual who has been assigned a leadership responsibility devoid of strong skills to inspire the subordinates tends to enjoy less respect in comparison to a person without an official position and who persuades people in a particular course. As such, an assigned leader is labelled as a position-based ruler. In the absence of genuine respect from the personnel, he ought to depend on his title. Conversely, an emergent leader, is highly respected by the members of his group. The teammates follow the advice of an emergent leader as a result of the respect that they have for him.
Difference between Leadership and Power
People tend to have the aptitude of influencing, developing as well as enabling even if they are not essentially the leader of a group. In most cases, there is a possibility of exerting influence devoid of being in power. Individuals with authority tend to influence others and, in a way, control their engagements. By observing a group of people working collaboratively, determining the leader of the team can be easy. Power can be described as the facility of an individual to control the actions of other people.
On the other hand, leadership is the capacity to motivate others involuntarily following instructions and managing the accomplishment of a project deprived of any type of force. Conventionally, people believed that power was resultant from leadership (Boyce & Bowers, 2018). Nevertheless, most often, power tends to lead people into governance. Conversely, leadership and power are interconnected and could result in misunderstanding for individuals who are not conversant with the variances. Leadership tends to rely on authority, and a good leader ought to have some type of power. Also, credibility is something that is necessitated in leadership, but it is not needed when it comes to power.
The source of power is a position of authority, while leadership tends to be a personal trait (Mittal & Elias, 2016). Generally, power is controlling as well as forceful as far as making people follow commands is concerned. In leadership, the subordinates are usually inspired towards the completion of jobs. Additionally, to be effective, leadership necessitates power, but power is not dependent on leadership. It is conceivable for an individual to have power even though he/she is not in a leading position.
Difference between Leadership and Coercion
Coercion is a type of leadership style. When a leader is coercive, he/she tends to demand instant compliance with the orders that he gives. The employees have no option but to do what he says. Some of the approaches in which a coercive leader achieves his responsibilities are demeaning the followers and bullying. This type of leadership is best applicable in instances where the employees need a total turnaround effort. It is, for instance, effective in disasters or while dealing with under-achieving workers, and its application ought to be the last resort. In such circumstances, the instantaneous obedience of a given order tends to quicken the recovery road.
Difference between Leadership and Management
Frequently, leadership and management have been mistaken for the same thing. However, in essence, the two are totally unlike. The critical variance between both of them is that leaders tend to have persons who merely work for them. Predominantly, in small enterprises, proprietors ought to be influential leaders as well as managers for the business to be successful. This will help them in getting the team on board with working hard to achieving the vision. Leadership entails getting persons to understand as well as have conviction in the set vision and work collaboratively to attain the desired goals.
On the other hand, management is, to a large extent, about directing and ensuring that the daily activities are occurring just as they are supposed to. Management and leadership ought to blend. The two might not be the same thing, but they are inevitably associated and tend to complement each other. Trying to split them in the organization will probably result in more issues than solutions. The success of any company requires management with the potential to plan, arrange, and direct the employees while at the same time stimulating and encouraging them to work hard and achieve the goals.
Management is more about planning, while leadership is channeled towards inspiring. Leaders tend to applause achievement and motivate people while the managers put a lot of effort in finding errors. The leaders create an image of what they perceive as conceivable for the organization and work towards inspiring and involving their staff in turning the idea into actuality. Instead of seeing people as merely a precise set of abilities, they tend to think past the activities and stimulate them to become part of something much more significant. Conversely, managers tend to concentrate on the setting, measuring, and attaining objectives through the control of circumstances for purposes of reaching or exceeding their aims.
In conclusion, leadership is the aptitude of directing a particular group of persons into recognizing a common objective. Usually, this is achieved by individuals applying their leadership qualities. In the pursuit to attain the set goals, leaders tend to create commitment as well as enthusiasm among the employees. It is through the association of a leader, environment as well as followers that leadership is accomplished. Some of the most critical traits of a leader comprise honesty, accountability, positivity, compassion, flexibility, and power. While leadership is something that people can learn, some of the leadership personalities are inherent. People tend to have the aptitude of influencing, developing as well as enabling even if they are not fundamentally the leader of a group.
References
Benson, D. (2015). Creating your personal leadership philosophy. Physician Leadership Journal, 2(6), 64-67.
Boyce, J., & Bowers, A. J. (2018). Toward an evolving conceptualization of instructional leadership as leadership for learning. Journal of Educational Administration.
Mujhiyat, A., Abdullah, T., & Akbar, M. (2018). The effect of leadership, organization culture, and work motivation on job performance of principal of State Primary School in South Tangerang Banten. In First International Conference on Technology and Educational Science. European Alliance for Innovation (EAI).
Mittal, R., & Elias, S. M. (2016). Social power and leadership in cross-cultural context. Journal of Management Development.
Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.