Effective Leadership in an Organisation. Image Management, Resource Essay

Effective Leadership in an Organisation. Image Management, Resource Deployment And Relationship Development - Essay Example To effectively analyse leadership, it would be critical to decipher its meaning. There has been no standard definition of leadership with Northouse observing that â€Å"there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people who have tried to define it† (2004, p.2). The author perceives leadership from a social influence perspective referring to it as a process through which one influences a group of persons, referred to as followers, so as to attain common goals. Keller (2008) defines it as a critical dynamic force which motivates and coordinates an organisation towards accomplishing its objectives. The scholar views it as less of a science but as more of an art which influences by persuasion or example to induce a desired action. Whereas in an organisational setting the term subordinates would be used in place of followers, the term followers indicates that a leader could hold any position or role with bureaucracy not necessarily being implied (Zacca ro & Klimoski 2007). Organisational leadership in particular refers to the management’s ability to acquire and protect the organisation’s benefits by being sensitive to the needs of employees and the targets of the company, bringing them together in a better environment so as to realise common goals (Abbas & Asghar 2010; Sosik, Kahai & Piovoso 2009). Nonetheless, leadership should not be used interchangeably with management. Adopting Kotter’s approach, Packard (2009) and Shapiro and Leigh (2007) noted that management would produce order, consistency and predictability with regard to key results including budgeting, planning, staffing, organizing, problem solving and controlling. On the other hand, leadership would yield change and would encompass establishment of direction through development of a vision, aligning people to the vision and strategies and inspiring and motivating the staff. Leadership encompasses visioning, management of change, development of str ategy, organisation design, management of culture and community collaboration as contrasted to management which includes financial management, program design, human resource management, information systems, project management and program evaluation (Boal & Schulz 2007; Empson 2007; Gill 2006; LePine, Piccolo, Jackson, Mathieu & Saul 2008). For management functions to be executed effectively, leadership would be a key ingredient. Effective leadership According to Keller (2008) and Pearce, Locke and Conger (2007), effective leadership would entail the development of clear objectives, strategies and beliefs and identification of crucial processes and encouraging participation of employees. But various scholars (Avolio, Walumbwa & Weber 2009; DiLiello & Houghton 2006; Yukl 2006) have argued against a particular leadership style considered as effective. Even so, various building blocks to the realisation of effective leadership have been widely accepted. Image management Avolio, Walumbwa and Weber (2009) and Chong and Wolf (2010) appreciate image management for establishment of credibility, borrowing from leadership as a social influence process described by Packard (2009). For leadership to cause any influence, the followers should accept the leader’s persuasion and appropriately respond to it. Followers would be the ones to make the decision as to whether one deserves the leadership status through comparison of the image or characteristics presented by the leader against their assumption of what constitutes a leader. This postulation has been supported by Gregersen