Introduction
Leadership is an essential aspect for the success of any organization in the world. This concept has been in existence for thousands of years. All through the history of humanity, we have read about great leaders, the influence they had on people and the success that has was accrued from their leadership. In modern history, the concept of leadership has been integrated in the management of various firms and organizations.
These firms have discovered that strong leadership is an essential factor to their success. As a result, organizations have been looking for individuals with desired leadership skills to lead their organizations (Rowe, 2007).
Leadership is therefore the process through which an individual gathers and earns support of others through social enlistment so that they can work together to attain certain goals and objectives that have been set (Stogdill, 1989).
The achievement of these goals and objectives ensures that the organization becomes cohesive and coherent. As a result, it will be much easier for the organization to achieve its long-term mission, vision, goals and objectives.
However, for an organization to achieve all these, it must have a good leader with desirable leadership qualities. This is due to the fact that it is the leader who initiates directs and controls the growth and development of an organization. Therefore, the success of an organization depends on the effectiveness and efficiency of the leader.
To inspire his/her followers, the leader has to be, know and do certain things that will enable his followers to work together as a team to achieve the specific goals and objectives of the organization. This can only be acquired through experience and study.
With respect to all this, the question as to whether leadership is a transformational process or a form of control always arises. Although they may seem similar in theory, their concept and application is very different.
To understand these concepts, this paper will critically analyze leadership, its requirements, roles and objectives. The discussions and conclusions that will be made shall be used to determine whether leadership is a transformational process or a form of control.
The Process of Leadership
The process of leadership is applied by putting into practice the knowledge and skills that the leaders have learned through time. This is what is called the process of leadership (Northouse, 2007). It has been disputed for a long time that leadership is an inborn character.
However, from the studies that have been conducted, it has been proved that leadership is a quality that can be leaned through practice and experience. However, for an individual to be a leader, he/she has to posses traits and qualities that influence his/her thoughts or actions. This is what scholars refer to as the trait of leadership (Jago, 1982). These include the beliefs, values, cultures and ethics of an individual.
These factors affect the manner in which an individual looks at a situation, the judgement that they will make out of it and the possible solutions that they may come up with. With regards to this, there are factors that contribute to the growth and development of strong leadership qualities in an individual. These include personal values, followers support, communication and situational analysis.
A leader must contain strong personal values. These values are essential since they portray the kind of leader an individual is, the relationship he has with his colleagues and other stakeholders, his ability to work and achieve the goals and objectives of an organization and the chances of him/her being successful in his career. A leader therefore must have a strong personality, be able to interact with people and be rational.
At the same time, a leader must earn the trust and support of his followers. To be a successful leader, one needs to understand the needs and requirements of all his employees, act as a mentor, motivate and reward hard working employees, be honest and fair. In addition, a leader needs to ensure that his employees have a conducive working environment.
This increases the chances of them achieving the goals and objectives of the organization (Lamb and McKee, 2004). All these factors will ensure that a leader has the trust and support of his employees. This will guarantee the success of an individual as a leader (Mischel, 2008).
Communication is an essential aspect for the success of an organization and an individual as a leader. It is the role of the leader to ensure that his organization has proper channels for communication. To achieve this, a leader has to ensure that information flows in all directions.
This ensures that information flows through all the levels of the organization without being distorted. At the same time, the leader will be able to know the requirements and needs of his employees. This will therefore boost the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization and the leader in particular.
Finally, a leader must be able to critically analyze each situation and come up with favourable solutions to them. To achieve this, the leader should treat each situation differently. He/she must have good judgement and analysis skills. This will assist in the identification of the problem and formulation of long lasting solutions (Newstrom and Davis, 2003).
At the same time, a leader needs to be consistent in the manner in which he/she looks at situations. This will ensure that there is uniformity in the manner in which he/she conducts his activities. As such, the organization will grow and develop in a definite manner (Bass, 2010).
All these factors are essential in the making or identification of a good leader. These factors are very essential in any organization. It is the goal and objectives of all the organizations to achieve their goals and objectives. To achieve this, they need to develop, grow and expand their services.
This objective can only be realised by having a good leader with desired qualities. Therefore, it is the role of the leader to transform an organization so that it can realize its goals and objectives.
There is a factor in any complex system that has the power and authority to control the entire system. Usually, this factor is manpower. Over time, man has had the opportunity to influence many systems in the world. In this day and age, man still has the same influence over many systems and subjects. This rule is referred to as the Ashby rule of requisite variety (Bateson, 2008).
To put this theory into practice, authority in an aeroplane is under the pilot, in a car is the driver and in organizations, it is the management. This law therefore shows that in every system, there has to be an individual who runs and controls how a system works and operates. This individual is the leader and is responsible for leading a system in a desired direction.
The nature of leadership is has been changing drastically with time. Leadership has been in existence for many centuries. To carter for the changing needs of individuals, organizations and societies, leadership models have been transformed. As a result, the leadership models that were in practice several decades ago have become outdated hence cannot produce the desired results in the modern day societies.
Due to this fact, several studies have been conducted to come up with means of developing individuals with leadership qualities to meet the demand for leaders in the modern world. This concept has gained a lot of popularity after the assumption that leadership is an inborn quality was found not to be true (Burns, 2009).
The assumption that leadership is an inborn quality made it difficult to select individuals who have the desired qualities to run various organizations. This is because, different organizations have different goals and objectives and as a result, they require individuals who posses different qualities to run and manage them.
Due to this fact, researchers concentrated on developing individuals who contained specific qualities that are required to lead in a given situation (Liontos, 2010). This therefore ensured that organizations will be run effectively and efficiently and thus, they will be able to achieve their goals and objectives. However, organizations are dynamic in nature and the situations tend to change.
This therefore means that a new leader has to be put in place because of the change in the situation. To solve this problem, scholars and researchers came up with a concept that made leaders to be flexible in the work and operation. To achieve this, leaders must contain a mix of desired characteristics and qualities that will enable them to work under any situation and in any environment.
A given organization is composed of several employees who work to attain the goals and objectives of the organization that they are a part of. They work at the different levels and departments of the organization. To ensure that they operate efficiently, they require an individual who will oversee their actions and ensure that all their activities and operations lead to the achievement of the goals and objective of the organization.
John Adair, a researcher in the field of management stated that the needs of the followers are the main reasons behind the essence of leadership (Adair, 1989).
Due to the needs of the employees, coupled with the overall goals and objectives of an organization, it is essential to have an individual in place who will brief, plan, control, monitor and evaluate the performance of an organization (Adair, 1989). It is the role of this individual to produce a specific outcome within a specified time period.
Leadership is therefore essential in the administration and management of any organization (Reisner, 2002). For efficiency, the leadership process is operational at various levels of an organization depending on its structure and human system. On one extreme end, there is strategic leadership that requires the attainment of the vision, mission and objectives of an organization (Rodman, 2006).
Here, high quality leadership is required to achieve the specific outcomes of the organization. The leader thus works hard together with his staff to bring the mission and vision of the organization into reality. The leader should therefore focus on creating a working culture that will enable his employees to work together. This will ensure that there are smooth operations of activities within organization.
To achieve this, a leader needs to coordinate the available human effort that is at his disposal to achieve the specific goals and outcomes. He/she should therefore work on maximizing on the strengths of the organization and improving on its weaknesses (Evetts, 2000). Simple leadership models are thus the most effective tools for achieving these objectives.
The style of leadership that an individual employs is also essential in ensuring that an organization achieve its goals and objectives. There has been a lot of debate in determining which leadership style is the most suitable for running organization. During the 1960s, Americans came up with a strategy that efficiently analysed the effectiveness of leadership styles (Kanter, 2006).
This strategy used the relationship between task and behaviour. According to the strategy, the most efficient leadership style is the one that has a moderation of task and behaviour. This style ensures that the operations and activities of an organization are sustainable in the short-run and in the long run.
Another method that was used to determine the efficiency of a leadership style focused on the communication patterns that are present in an organization. Different organizations have different communication patterns. Autocratic, one-way, laissez-faire and multi-faceted are some of communication systems that an organization can adopt.
According to this method, an organization with the most efficient leadership style has to have a communication system that allows free flow of information among all the members of staff and embraces democracy. The last method is referred to as the expectation method. According to this method, managers normally contain some expectations from the people whom they lead.
In the first theory, managers believe that their employees are not hard working. Due to this fact, they require close monitoring, control and punishment as motivational factors. The other theory states that each individual employee has the potential of performing well. To reach their greatness, they require coaching, training, education and empowerment (Jovanovic, 2011).
In practice, both theories are true. It is therefore the role of the leader to determine what type of followers he has so that he can decide on the most effective leadership style that he will use to run the organization.
Over the years, there has been a great confusion between leadership and management (Kurtz, 2011). People have been using these terms interchangeably since they do not understand the difference that lies between them. From practice, it is evident that there is a huge relationship between leadership and management.
Scholars normally refer to leaders as individuals who show a mix of characters that inspire and emotionally build their followers (Kaplan and Norton, 2006). Managers on the other hand are defined as individuals who obey rules and follow procedures and regulations to achieve set targets or goals while operating systems and exercising control over their subjects (Kaplan and Norton, 2006).
At higher levels of an organization, the concept of leadership and management are normally interrelated. This might be the cause of the confusion where people normally confuse these two terms.
To differentiate them, management normally focuses on the process of organising, planning and controlling activities of an organization while leadership concentrates on instilling direction, emotional alignment, change and motivation in an organization (Kaplan and Norton, 2006).
As a result, leadership is the process that maintains the viability of an organization by ensuring that it is on the track of achieving its short-term and long-term goals and objectives. In addition, proper leadership is a key factor that guarantees the sustainability of an organization in the short-term and long-term.
It is therefore a dynamic process that aims at brining change in an organization through transformation so that it can grow and become viable.
Leadership is therefore the process that influences the followers by guiding and motivating them. To fully explore on this idea, the impact of leadership on followers has been divided into three levels (Kurtz, 2011).
The lowest level of leadership is purely professional. Here individuals perform their professional roles individually or as a team. Emotional involvement at this level is minimal as the only relationship that individuals have is that of working as a team.
Due to this fact, this level can be said to be purely managerial as it entails the co-ordination of the efforts of an individual with that of his other team members to achieve the goals and objectives of an organization. At this level, the desired ability of an individual can be achieved through education and training.
Effective leadership falls at the second level of the hierarchy. This level is much more emotional as compared to the first one. Ability at this level is not learned or trained but rather it is developed through exposure and examination of various leadership models that improve on individual processes and applications. The last level is that of a visionary leader.
Here, the leadership process is entirely emotional and entails virtues and qualities such as honesty, trust and discipline. Leadership at this level aims at developing great performance of the followers rather than transforming their hidden abilities. This aims at producing, leading and guiding a group of focused, industrious and talented followers to achieve the set goals and objectives of an organization.
Leadership is therefore a transformational process when applied in its most effective way. There is a close link between change and leadership. This link has developed due to the dynamic world that organizations operate in. The needs and requirements of any organization keep on changing with time. These changes normally come about due to shifts in demand and requirements of an organization.
To ensure that an organization remain on the track of achieving its long-term goals and objectives, strong leadership is required to ensure that the organization embraces this change and transforms its activities and operations to take advantage of the situation at hand.
Leaders therefore need to act as role models, motivate, inspire and gain the support and trust of their followers in order for them to be successful in achieving the goals and objectives of an organization. From this discussion, leadership has been proven to be a transformational process rather than a form of control.
Conclusion
From the above discussions, due to its nature, leadership has been proven to be a transformational process rather than a form of control. This is because it aims at offering direction, inspiration and motivation to followers. This maximizes their performance hence making it easier for an organization to achieve its vision, mission, goals and objectives.
With this realization, organizations have worked hard to ensure that they employ leadership styles that will guarantee the achievement of their short terms and long terms goals and objectives. Leadership is also essential as it is used to embrace change within an organization.
During the process of change, strong leadership is essential since it leads to the empowerment of the employees and the business as a whole to keep up with the changes that are taking place in the business environment. Changes that can take place in an organization may include missionary changes, operational changes, strategic changes, technological changes and changes in the attitude and perceptions of the employees.
Control on the other hand falls under the managerial umbrella that concentrates on organization, planning and control of an organization. It is the role of managers to ensure that employees work according to the standards and requirements of the organization to meet the goals and objectives of the organization. To achieve this, they work within strict rules and guidelines. Therefore, leadership is ultimately a transformational process.
References
Adair, J. (1989) Great Leaders. Talbort: Adiar Press
Bass, B. (2010) From transactional to transformational leadership: learning to
share the vision. Organizational Dynamics, 18, (3), p. 19-31.
Bateson, G. (2008) Steps to the ecology of the mind. London: Paladin
Burns, J. (2009). Leadership. N.Y.: Harper and Row.
Evetts, J. (2000) Analysing change in women’s careers: Culture, structure and Action dimensions. New York: Blackwell Publishers
Jago, A. G. (1982) Leadership: Perspectives in theory and research. Management Science, 28(3), p. 315-336.
Jovanovic, M. (2011) International Handbook on the Economics of Integration: Competition, Spatial Location of Economic Activity and Financial Issues. Sacramento: Edward Elgar Publishing
Kanter, R. (2006) Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books.
Kaplan, R.S. and Norton D.P. (2006) How to Implement a New Strategy without Disrupting Your Organization. Harvard Business Review 84 (3), 100-109.
Kurtz, D.L. (2010) Contemporary Management 2011. New York: Sage Publications
Lamb, L. F. and McKee, K. B. (2004) Applied Public Relations: Cases in Stakeholder Management. New Jersey: Routledge.
Liontos, L. (2010) Transformational Leadership. London: Sage
Mischel, W. (2008) Personality and Assessment. New York: Wiley. Newstrom, J. and Davis, K. (1993) Organization Behavior: Human Behavior at Work. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Northouse, G. (2007) Leadership theory and practice. London: Sage Publications, Inc.
Reisner,R. (2002) When a Turnaround Stalls. Harvard Business Review, 45 (1), p. 15- 18
Rodman, T. (2006) Market Planning and Analysis. New York: Sage
Rowe, W. G. (2007) Cases in Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications
Stogdill, R. M. (1989) Stogdills Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and Research. New York: Free Press.