Leadership entails the systematic guidance of a team or organization to a specific goal through authority, control, and influence. Leaders play the essential role of providing direction, purpose, and motivation. Leaders take risks and challenges and motivate others to achieve outlined goals and objectives. Successful leaders understand how to motivate people and consider people’s needs and interests and how they align with the team’s purpose (Vender, 2017) (Leadership and Components of Leadership).
In organizations, leadership involves a combination of responsibilities, position, attitude, skills, and behavior that allow people to generate or bring out the best in others and the organization sustainably. Hence, leaders should demonstrate specific traits and skills, including drive, willpower, talent, loyalty, ethical conduct, integrity, practical wisdom, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and resilience.
These attributes enable leaders to fulfill the primary functions they should accomplish in an organization, including articulating the vision and mission, serving as the organization’s public face, choosing and developing the right people, developing a decision-making process, and being responsible and available 24/7 (Vender, 2017). Successful leaders develop the people, culture, and processes required to address challenging and changing business environments. The components of leadership include leadership as a process; leadership entails influence; leadership typically occurs in group contexts; and leadership entails goal attainment (Leadership and Components of Leadership).
Leadership is a Process
Leadership is a process in which people influence a group to attain a specific or common goal. However, Leadership is not a leader’s trait but a process or a transactional event between leaders and followers (Northouse, 2018). It impacts both the leader and the followers in the interaction process. Furthermore, it involves identifying and anticipating the need for change and influencing and facilitating individuals’ and teams’ efforts using non-coercive strategies to achieve the goal.
The leadership process elements include the leader, the follower, and the situation. Therefore, the relationship between leadership, followership, and situational context constitutes the leadership process. Just like teachers are meaningless without students, leaders are meaningless without followers and a situation. Furthermore, leadership cannot exist in isolation (Leadership and Components of Leadership).
Leadership Entails Influence (Leadership and Components of Leadership)
Leadership involves an individual’s ability to influence a group to achieve specific goals. Consequently, leaders need influence to gain followers. Furthermore, leaders need convincing power to have followers follow instructions and requirements. Subsequently, influence is a condition of leadership without which leadership cannot exist (Leadership and Components of Leadership).
The ability to influence others depends on particular skills and traits, including integrity, honesty, and trustworthiness. Influence also concerns how a leader affects followers (Gankhuyag, 2021). In organizations, leaders should be able to induce and persuade team members and employees to contribute to the organization’s goals to the best of their ability and capacity. Constant interaction with followers to engage in collective decision-making is critical in bolstering influence (Leadership and Components of Leadership).
Leadership takes place in a Group Context
Leaders lead a group of people or a team. Consequently, Leadership involves influencing a group to attain common goals. The existence of leadership implies the presence of followers. Moreover, followers are critical in determining whether a leader is successful (Gankhuyag, 2021). Consequently, followers offer support by completing their assigned tasks. Moreover, a commonality of interest between leaders and followers helps achieve organizational goals. Leaders and followers are involved together in the process, but leaders take the initiative and convince the group that they are worth being followed. Generally, a single person cannot observe leadership.
Leadership entails Goal Attainment
Organizations link leadership to performance. Organizations have missions, visions, goals, and objectives to achieve that dictate success. Leaders help organizations achieve them. Effective leaders help improve a business or organization’s bottom lines. Consequently,Leaders must understand what the organization desires to achieve and how and communicate them to followers (Gankhuyag, 2021) (Leadership and Components of Leadership).
Leaders focus on the future, which needs goal setting. Furthermore, Leaders collaborate with others to establish strategies to achieve objectives and goals. The leadership process cannot exist without targets. Goals or targets help measure the effectiveness of the leader and the organization. Leaders should develop people who share a commonality of goals to achieve.
References
Gankhuyag, I. (2021, September 13). What is leadership? https://sites.psu.edu/leadership/2021/09/13/what-is-leadership-4/
Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership. Theory and practice (8th Ed.). SAGE Publications.
Vender R. J. (2017). Leadership: an overview. The American journal of gastroenterology, 110(3), 362–367. https://doi.org/10.1038/ajg.2016.199