Leadership, from Inception to Perfection

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Leadership, a more-often-than-not uttered word, but what does this mean? What makes this word special? What is the difference between a leader and a manager? How can I denote myself as an efficacious leader? What are the leadership styles?

A Laconic Meaning:

A leader is a person who has control of a group, country, or situation; who can see how things can be improved and who rallies people to move toward their better vision. Leaders can work toward making their vision a reality while putting people first. Just being able to motivate people is not enough — leaders need to be empathetic and connect with people to be successful. The leader is who influence, motivate, inspire, create, guide, and teach the people working with him. "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader." John Quincy Adams said.

That is dazzling; however, what makes such a word slightly different as against another one like a manager? Devoutly, this question is one of the most recondite ones for a cornucopia of people. Here is the elucidation: the main difference between leaders and managers is that leaders have people who pursue them while managers have people who work for them. Both are paramount for a successful business since its owner needs to be both a strong leader and manager to get their team on board to follow them towards their vision of success. Leadership is about getting people to understand and believe in your vision and to work with you to achieve your goals while managing is more about administering and making sure the day-to-day things are transpiring as they should.

How to be an Effectual Leader?

To be writ large, this is one of the preponderant things that must be taken into cognizance. Successful leadership cries out for a plethora of things; above all lie:


Being a good example and responsible: Setting the right example and role modeling how leaders want their teams to execute is of the essence. All eyes are on you, watching your every move as you set the expectations of employees. If the leadership team is smartly dressed and punctual then this will encourage your staff to replicate this behavior. They will look at your willingness to roll up your sleeves and get stuck in to consummate your team goals; they will look to see how you communicate at all hierarchical levels. Being a good role model for your business is vital if you want your staff members to be as professional as you are.


Ceaseless development in bloc: To vie for catching up with such an era where advancement takes the lion’s share, coming along yourself in your skills, experience, along with being in an always crusade for procuring skills is indispensable.


Make sound and timely decisions: It is imperative that you are in a position to make informed decisions quickly. By ensuring you are up to speed with good problem solving, decision making, and planning tools, you will be in a position of strength to lead your team.


Positive Attitude: A positive environment is more likely to create a more engaged and productive workforce. By displaying enthusiasm and confidence, a good leader will understand the impact that they can have in this working environment.


Keep your team informed: Your team will always look at you for information, ergo endeavor to keep abreast with everything happening in your business and in your sector.


Get to know your team: David Brent, the loveable boss from BBC's 'The Office', wanted to be everybody's chum. His management style was to be an entertainer, the office clown if you like. Unfortunately, this management tactic saw everybody quickly lose veneration for him and he was incapable of managing himself, let alone a team.

Leadership Styles:

Pursuant to each person's abilities, his /her own character, leadership skills, and erudition, they will have their leadership style which can be different from someone else. At first blush, we may couch after rumination that some leadership styles are better than others. The truth is that each leadership style has its place in a leader's toolkit. The wise leader knows to flex from one style to another as the situation requires. Be genuine with any method you employ. Moving from a dominant leadership style to a different one may be challenging at first. Practice the new behaviors until they become natural. In other words, do not use a different leadership style as a "point-and-click" approach. People can smell a fake leadership style a mile away—authenticity rules.

Traditional leadership styles are still relevant in today's workplace, but they may need to be mixed with innovative approaches in line with how leadership is defined for the 21st century. Today's business environments are fraught with challenges by dint of the changing demographics and the employee expectations of a diverse workforce. This may call for a new breed of leader amalgam of a plethora of leadership styles. Taking into cognizance all these en passant noted points to scraping through attaining your mates trust is of the essence. The leader is still part and parcel in his team as any other member.

The styles are:


Being Autocratic: From its name, its meaning is palpable. "Do as I say." This is its method laconically. Generally, an autocratic leader believes that he or she is the smartest person at the table and knows more than others.


Authoritative Style: The phrase most indicative of this style of leadership (also known as "visionary") is "Follow me." The authoritative leadership style is the mark of confident leaders who map the way and set anticipations while engaging and energizing followers along the way.


Pacesetting Style: "Do as I do!" It is a succinctly noted phrase that indicates leaders who utilize the pacesetting style. This style describes a very driven leader who sets the pace as in racing.


Democratic Style: He is who utilize democracy and asking his teammates to reach a final verdict. There are numerous benefits to this participative leadership style. It can engender trust and promote team spirit and cooperation from employees.


Coaching Style: When you having a coaching leadership style, you tend to have a "Consider this" approach. A leader who coaches views of people as a reservoir of talent to be developed.


Affiliative Style: A phrase often used to describe this type of leadership is "People come first." Of all the leadership styles, the affiliative leadership approach is one where the leader gets up close and personal with people.


Last but not least, the Laissez-Faire Style: The laissez-faire leadership style is at the opposite end of the autocratic style.

All of them are important in some situations, and you should be somehow flexible in choosing any method in some situations to be inured to surmount conundrums and riddles.

Concisely, there is a common belief that leadership is vital for effective organizational and societal functioning and success. Leaders create commitment and enthusiasm amongst followers to achieve goals. Leadership is achieved through interaction between leader, follower, and environment.

Written By: Mohammed Ghattas

Edited By: Khushi Prajapati