Leadership is a new concept which requires people to influence others to achieve goals. Leadership concerns about doing the right things. This implies that leadership should be practiced through attitude and actions rather than words. Leadership should be taken as a process of influencing others to achieve organizational goals.
In this context, a true leader is the one who has the capability to influence a given group towards achievement of group targets and mission. Some people regard a good leader as a person who embraces the best leadership style and has the desirable qualities of leadership.
For instance, an individual can be regarded an excellent leader if he or she embraces transformational leadership and possesses traits such as charisma, honesty, integrity, magnanimity, trustworthy, or considerate. According to Drouillard and Kleiner (1996), strong leadership can be defined in terms of morality and goodness.
It involves influencing others through reason and inclusion to achieve long term interests for the well-being of the organization, individuals, groups or society. Management and leadership cannot be interchangeable.
For instance, leaders and managers should influence the thoughts and actions of the followers or subordinates through commitment, creativity, concern for others, and embracing experiments or changes. At the same time, exemplary leadership should recognize self and potential mistakes and take appropriate measures to minimize them (Drouillard & Kleiner, 1996).
Business governance is concerned with how a business should be efficiently managed. The major purpose of governance is to ensure efficient allocation of resources.
This creates stakeholders’ value from the business. Good corporate governance enables firms to generate adequate revenues for sustainability of the business. Corporate governance has a net impact on the performance of a business and should be applied efficiently (Strange, Filatotchev, Buck & Wright, 2009).
Efficient and effective leadership are the key drivers in efficient and effective corporate governance. Managers should embrace change in the organization if the organization has to achieve goals. Mistakes at the corporate governance level can be fatal to the organization.
Change in the organization should be reasoned out and should be viewed as a continuum from incremental to transformational. The business managers should have a starting point for driving the change and should be aware of the difficulties to be encountered during change periods and devise means of overcoming the difficulties (Strange, Filatotchev, Buck & Wright, 2009).
The most difficult change situations are individual beliefs, political power and culture. It requires strong leadership at the corporate level to initiate change for all these dimensions. For instance, a change in corporate culture requires management to focus on the result of such a change (Mason, 2006).
At the same time, change process should focus on how change should be executed and the relationships between the subordinates. Managing change at this level also calls for maximum and appropriate involvement of groups and individuals within an organization.
Another example of how managers can manage change is through facilitation of discussion through prioritization and polling. The management can design a pathway to action, share and inspire the subordinates and groups towards achievement of change purpose.
The management should lead in developing new ideas and forcing the pace of change in an organization. There is no distinction between management and leadership since management is action oriented. Through the involvement of subordinates, the obstacles and resistances to changes are surmountable, and business goals and objectives are achieved efficiently (Mason, 2006).
Reference List
Drouillard, E. S., & Kleiner, H. B 1996, ““Good” leadership”, Management Development Review, vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 30 – 33.
Mason, C 2006, ‘What makes a good leader? (Cover story)’, Primary Health Care, vol. 16, No. 10, pp. 18-20.
Strange, R., Filatotchev, I., Buck, T., & Wright, M 2009, “Corporate Governance and International Business”, Management International Review, vol. 49 no. 4, pp. 395-407.