Contents
According to Kelly Services, 51% of Russian employees like to manage people – they dream of building a managerial career. We understand what it means to be an effective leader and what qualities he needs
What is leadership
Leadership is a social influence that unites others and motivates them to do their best to achieve a goal. Leaders are followed not because of formal power and authority, but because of trust and respect. Although these things are not always mutually exclusive.
“The greatest leaders don’t necessarily do great things. They are the ones who push other people to do it.” – Ronald Reagan
The real leaders in history are politicians, commanders and figures who change the way of life and push people to great deeds. For example, you can remember the charismatic king Leonidas and his loyal detachment of 300 Spartan warriors who held the defense against an entire army of Persians. In modern business, such people are visionaries like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. But to become a leader, it is not necessary to launch rockets into space, you can be a leader in a small area of responsibility: a work team, a community of neighbors, or an association of interests.
The difference between a leader and a manager
It is worth distinguishing between formal managers and real leaders. For example, in ancient Rome there were slave managers – slaves who monitored the progress of work and controlled their comrades in misfortune. They led, but they were not leaders capable of leading people. But this was Spartacus – a gladiator slave with leadership qualities. It was he who was able to lead the greatest uprising of antiquity.
In corporations, the role of manager and leader can be played by the same person. But this is not always the case. Here’s how they differ.
Manager:
- makes sure that subordinates work;
- focuses on rationality and control;
- seeks to maintain corporate structures and work within them;
- is a common link in the management hierarchy;
- cares about the welfare of employees.
Leader:
- inspires followers;
- used to taking risks for the sake of innovation;
- does not care about preserving existing structures if the goal requires it;
- can show independence;
- puts the value of the result above the personal problems of the team and his own.
How did leadership come about?
The phenomenon of leadership has worried people since ancient times – is it possible to learn how to lead people in order to change the world around, or is it an innate talent? A powerful surge in research on these issues occurred in the XNUMXth century and continues to this day.
Thomas Carlyle, in his 1841 book On Heroes, Hero Worship, and Heroics in History, formulated the theory of the “great man”. It was developed in Francis Galton’s 1869 work Hereditary Genius. According to their ideas, since only unique outstanding people change the world significantly: Napoleon, Martin Luther, the Prophet Mohammed, then their inherent leadership abilities are innate. So, even a dozen ordinary physicists together will not repeat the genius of Einstein, and several average directors will not replace one Tarkovsky.
Over the past century, this idea has been repeatedly criticized and transformed. Scientists have tried to formulate and generalize the features inherent in real leaders.
Research by Ralph Stogdill in 1948, and later by modern authors such as Stephen Zaccaro, Keri Kemp and Paige Bader in 2004, showed that everything is not so simple. Although inborn characteristics sometimes help to become a leader, much here depends on the qualities and skills that can be developed, as well as on external circumstances.
What are the qualities of leaders
Summarizing the conclusions of Timothy Judge and co-authors in 2002, Brian Hoffman and co-authors in 2011, David McClelland and Richard Boyatzis in 1982, and Bernard Bass in 1990, one comes up with a list of qualities and skills inherent in effective leaders.
- extraversion – sociability and activity, such people experience positive emotions from work and communication with others.
- Consciousness — reliability, conscientiousness and a serious attitude to obligations.
- Openness creativity and non-standard, innovative approaches.
- Decency – the desire to remain honest, impatience of lies, adherence to strong moral and ethical values.
- Charisma – the ability to formulate a compelling vision of the future and form an image of a strong, highly effective person in others.
- Developed intellect in a broad sense: empathy, critical thinking, the ability to build logic, understand, learn, reason and plan.
- Creativity – the ability to think creatively, to go beyond the established competencies and established views.
- motivation – a strong desire to achieve results.
- Need for power — getting pleasure from managing people and processes.
- Communicativeness — Skills for effective written and oral interpersonal communication.
- crisis management – Ability to solve unforeseen problems.
- Decision making skill – the ability to take responsibility and choose the most optimal ways of development.
- Technical Awareness — knowledge of methods, processes and equipment.
- managerial skills, including coordination of work, organization and control of tasks.
Types and styles of leadership
There are several main approaches to defining types of leadership, and each of them has its own management styles.
behavioral leadership
It is how a leader behaves towards followers or subordinates. There are different classifications of behavioral management styles, but the most well-established one was proposed by Kurt Lewin. It includes three directions with their pluses and minuses.
situational leadership
The concept was proposed by Paul Harsey and Kenneth Blanchard. The main postulate is that there is no ideal management style. It needs to be varied depending on the level of development and motivation of employees.
Emotional Leadership
Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee have identified six styles of this type of management. They affect people’s emotions in different ways and are most effective in specific conditions. Therefore, they need to be combined and varied.
How to become a leader
To make people want to follow you, you need to develop a certain behavior pattern. This will require a change in some approaches and attitudes towards everyday challenges. Then the leadership view of things will become systemic for you, and soon it will become noticeable to others.
Take on more responsibility. Take the mistakes and failures of the team as your own – by reporting them to management, you act as an advocate for the entire group. According to a study by the University of Zurich, the willingness to take responsibility for the actions of a team is a hallmark of a leader.
Infect others with your ideas. Try new approaches, share unusual proposals and go beyond the established framework. According to surveys, for 62% of our country’s leaders are inspiring people whose ideas you want to follow.
Become someone who is trusted and relied on. According to PwC, in 83% of cases, internal candidates are appointed to the role of CEO – companies prefer “their own” in leadership positions. To earn this status, play fair, keep promises, and don’t let your colleagues and management down.
Resolve conflicts and maintain a friendly atmosphere within the team. According to Talentsmart, 90% of successful leaders have high emotional intelligence – the ability to understand and manage people’s emotions.
Learn to listen to others and see what others do not notice. This is useful for innovating ideas and creating viable visions for the future that the team will strive for. For example, PwC has a reverse mentoring system for this, when millennial employees become mentors for partners and directors of the company.