Qualities Of Good Leadership Management Assignment

Qualities Of Good Leadership Management Assignment With the advent of networking, collectivization and team working, leadership has become a widely discussed topic in the world at the present time. No matter in the field of politics or economy, enterprises or small business, or south or north, leadership has already been accepted as a core quality, individually and generally. This essay is expected to analyze the qualities of good leadership, aims to identify and account for the most important two qualities of good leadership, comparing different type of leaders and illustrating some successful examples. The definition of leadership in the prior research is varied. For example, some people argue that, leadership is ‘a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal’ (Northouse, cited in Grint, 2005:21), while some recognize the leadership is a kind of personal ability. Nevertheless, the term of ‘leadership’ used in this essay will be built upon on the definition given by Hogan and Kaiser (2005:172) ‘the ability to build and maintain a group that performs well compared to its competition.’ Charismatic leadership and strategic leadership are considered to be the most important two qualities of leadership in this essay. Charismatic leadership has outstanding performance in attracting followers while the strategic leadership could guard the further development of the business and the group in the right direction. It is a tough way to become a successful leader, although, theoretically, everyone has the possibility of being a leader. According to Dick Nettell, the new executive officer of Bank of Americas Consumer Call Center in Concord, California, â€Å"everybody wants to win. Everybody wants to be successful. Everybody comes to work trying to make a difference† (cited in James and Barry, 2007:4). However, the numerous people that can be labeled as ‘leaders’, but only a few of them could become a successful leader. That is because only those minority leaders have the qualities of good leadership. Therefore, it is vital to identify and analyze what kinds of qualities of good leadership are indispensable. To some extent, these qualities can be summarized in two points. Firstly, charismatic leadership is essential for a successful leader. That means a successful leader should be charismatic. On the one hand, internally, the relationship between leaders and other team members is quite influential, though it is invisible. There is a vivid saying in ancient China, the relationship between leaders and their fellows is like a metaphor, the boat and the water, and water could support the boat, also could overturn it. In the west, it is believed that, the leaders should ‘attract and inspire his followers’ (Gill, 2006: 54-55). If there is no follower, the leader could not be called a leader. On the other hand, leadership not only have to deal with the troubles from inside, but also, have to face the pressure and difficulties from outside, especially in the network society. Leaders have to built a very good networking with their partners, investors, customers, public, and sometimes, even with their counterworkers. An interesting study of senior managers in Fortune 500 companies in the US by David Waldman et al., shows that, under some conditions, ‘charismatic leadership is associated with net profit margin’ (cited in Gill, 2006:54). Thus, to some extent, charismatic leadership can bring benefit into business, even the world. In fact, it can be seen that there were many charismatic leaders in political field, such as Chairman Mao, who was the first leader of Peoples Republic of China, successfully led the revolutions in China and established the Peoples Republic of China, and Martin Luther King, who had a famous speech I have a dream in 1963, became the president of US during the American Civil Rights Act. In sort, charismatic leadership can help to establish good relationship with both inside and outside the organization, and it can benefit the world and organization itself. However, the charismatic is not the only impact in this research, there is another aspect for a good leader, that is to say, strategic leadership. Johnson and Scholes ‘define strategic leadership as encapsulating entrepreneurial processes and strategic vision’ (cited in Gill, 2006:59). That means the leader should be the core decision maker in a group, and the main conductor in carrying out the decisions. In Johnson and Scholess words, strategic leadership is ‘concerned with strategy development and change’ (cited in Gill, 2006, p: 59). Gill states that main point of strategic leadership is to decide about ‘whether and when to act’ (2006, p: 60). Significantly, strategic leadership is closely related to the personal background of the leader himself, such as the education background and the professional experience. Compare to charismatic leadership, strategic leadership gives more attentions to the practical experience, instead of personalities. Thus, strategic leadership is much easier to be developed by the leaders who would like to be successful but lack personal qualities. Furthermore, it is also worth to be pointed out that the achievement of a group, a company or a business activity could be guaranteed or lost simply by a leaders decision. For example, Kmart, Tyco and ATT were beset by ‘acquisition lust’ and were virtually destroyed because of wrong strategy they followed by (Charan and Useem, cited in Gill, 2006:19). On the other hand, the organization is highly likely to be successful if the leader has good strategic leadership. Take Marks Spencer (Gill, 2006: 197-198) for an example. Marks Spencer suffered from decline during 1990s because of poor strategic management. However, Luc Vandevelde, the chairman and CEO of MarksSpencer in 2000, made his three famous strategies, which were ‘to focus on the heart of the business’, ‘to stop all activities which were non- core or making a lo ss’, and ‘to achieve the right capital structure to make the balance sheet more efficient and to generate greater value for shareholders’, in order to cross the crisis. Resulting from these three strategies, Vandevelde ensured the success of his business for years. In a word, strategic leadership can not only bring success to leaders themselves, but also to the organizations. Although there are many others qualities of leadership, these two qualities are considered to be the most important two for being a successful leader: charismatic leadership and strategic leadership. Charismatic leadership can attract followers and get support from both inside and outside of the organization; meanwhile, Strategic leadership can guarantee the achievement of the whole business and the whole group, and benefits the organizations. If a leader lacks these two qualities of leadership, he might not achieve success in his career life.