Definitions of leadership

Leadership is needed at all levels in an organization. It is likely, however, that the leadership qualities required by a supervisor or manager are not the same as those required by the chief executive of a company. It is, therefore, difficult to define leadership satisfactory.

A simple definition of leadership is that leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal.

Put even more simply, the leader is the inspiration and director of the action. He or she is the person in the group that possesses the combination of personality and skills that makes others want to follow his or her direction.

In business, leadership is welded to performance. Effective leaders are those who increase their company’s bottom lines.

To further confuse the issue, we tend to use the terms “leadership” and “management” interchangeably (взаимозаменяемо), referring to a company's management structure as its leadership, or to individuals who are actually managers as the “leaders” of various management teams.

I am not saying that this is a bad thing; just pointing out that leadership involves more. To be effective, a leader certainly has to manage the resources at her disposal. But leadership also involves communicating, inspiring and supervising - just to name three more of the main skills a leader has to have to be successful.

Is a leader born or made? While there are people who seem to be naturally endowed (снабжать) with more leadership abilities than others, I believe that people can learn to become leaders by concentrating on improving particular leadership skills.

A typical definition is that the leader ‘provides direction and influences others to achieve common goals’. This is true in the case of supervisors and managers, but is it a good definition of the leader of an organization? A chief executive must indeed give direction but he must do much more than that. He has to create a sense of excitement in the organization and convince staff that he knows where the business is going. In addition he must be a focus for their aspirations. As Peter Drucker, the American writer says “Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations”. It means that leadership is a person who unlimited broadens the mind, develops personal qualities and improves the performance.

Warren Bennis definition of leadership is focused much more on the individual capability of the leader: “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.”

Leadership is a winning combination of personal traits and the ability to think and act as a leader, a person who directs the activities of others for the good of all. Anyone can be a leader, even if the only person they’re leading is themselves.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14