The success of any organization depends upon leadership skills in the organization.
Introduction
Leadership is defined as the ability to inspire, modify, and regulate others’ behaviors, specifically in a group setting. Leadership is not just restricted to any one field of life; rather, it influences many industries and companies and plays a significant role in their success. In an organization setting, the leader creates a clear vision and then shares it so that others can follow it willingly. Apart from vision creation and sharing, leaders also create the path and impart knowledge to its follower in order to apprehend the vision.
Leaders’ significance in organizational development and success has become immanent because leaders lead all essential activities and functionalities. Leadership is considered an important part of management as it assists in enhancing the overall productivity and attainment of the organizational goals. When an organization fails to achieve its vision or objectives, leadership or senior manager carries the burden, and when an organization success, the main factor is strong leadership.
Leadership is not restricted to wealth, social power, and political influences in the new technological world; rather, it is the personal attribute that can create a positive environment or group to achieve specific organizational targets (Furnham, 2015). The leadership traits cannot be enforced on an individual centered on their position or status quo in an organization; rather, it’s an individual’s internal longing to inspire others to achieve the organizational and personal goal (Salahuddin, 2010). The significance of leaders in organizational success plays a major role as leaders influence the following factors
The behavior of Subordinates:
The leader’s leadership traits inspire the subordinates to work with their best abilities to achieve the organizational goals. An effective leader with an inspiring leadership style is translated into effective and sustainable organizational performance.
Realize the desires of the subordinates:
By building strong attachments, leaders achieve greater command over their subordinates and help fulfill their desires. Leaders are followed as they offer security, opportunity to earn better, and fulfill needs, making the subordinate loyal and enthusiastic workers.
Introduce the change:
With technological and environmental changes, business and organization dynamics are also rapidly changing, and to implement the changes effectively, and organizations require leaders. Leaders allow a smooth transition of the organization through the loyal subordinate following and diminish the chances of resistance.
Solve Organizational Conflict:
Conflicts are the major hindrance in organizational success, and to efficiently manage it, leaders’ role can’t be neglected. The influence of the leader can solve any type of conflict with minimum damage to the company. Leaders are good listeners and allow their subordinates to freely express their views, which creates an environment of trust and allow better negotiation.
Training and Development:
Leaders help their subordinates grow in their strengths by offering continuous training and development opportunities. Furthermore, a leader not just built the strengths of subordinates but also transform them into future leaders.
Imparting Clear Vision:
A leader creates the vision of the organization and influences the employee to comprehend and accept it. Leaders allow the employee to recognize their significance in achieving the vision, so they can understand their role and perform efficiently.
Build Morale:
Leaders build strong morale by the interconnecting personal achievement of subordinates with organizational achievements. Leaders maintain a positive behavior by admiring and acknowledging the work of their workers. A team builds with strong moral help in achieving high and sustainable organizational performance in every operation.
Leadership Style for Successful Organization:
There are many leadership styles which can be opted to achieve organizational success, but the most talked-about leadership style in organizational development are
Transformative leadership style
Transformative leadership is the most widely employed leadership style in organizational development. In this style, leaders motivate followers to rise above their self-interest for the organization (Vincent‐Höper, 2012). In this leadership style, followers are inspired to innovate and generate change that leads to positive growth in the organization and help in the company’s future success. Transformative leadership improves employees’ job performance by linking employee sense of identity and their self with that of a project. Moreover, such leaders also link followers with the organization’s collective identity by being a role model. In this style, followers are encouraged to take responsibility for their work and innovate ideas that can benefit the organization in the longer-run. In this style, the focus is on attaining long-term organizational goals rather than on short-term personal goals. A real-life example of such leadership style is Brain Chesky, who is an American entrepreneur and the Co-founder, CEO of Airbnb (Cohen, 2015). Brain Chesky follows transformative leadership as he has shared his vision with his followers and inspired them to fulfill it as a collective team. Chesky exhibit all the dimensions of transformative leadership, which are flawless influence, Encouraging motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual deliberation (Bass, 2006). He has built an unconventional business structure through his leadership, which has revolutionized the online rental world.
Transactional Leadership:
A transactional leadership style is an approach in which leaders promote subordinates’ support by following reward and punishment. In this leadership style, the main focus is on compliance, administration, organization, and performance. The rewards system enhances the morale of the employees and motivates them to perform better. The most well-known and successful example of a transactional leadership style is Bill Gates. Bill Gates use to visit the product development teams and ask tough questions about the product and systems. If he gets a satisfied response only then, Bill Gates would acknowledge the teamwork and reward them in accordance with the company policy.
This leadership style is best suited for organizations where there is hierarchy and structure are important. This leadership style promotes short-term goal attainment and is best for crisis management; however, if the organization wants to implement changes or encourage creativity, it is best to opt for a transformational leadership style.