Self Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Self Leadership - Essay Example In today's dynamic world, we need leaders to challenge the status-quo, to create vision of the future, and to inspire organizational members to want to achieve the visions. There are many models and theories that have come into existence high lightening the different facets of leadership. There are many who still believe that leadership is a born talent, leadership is only for top management and one should have an inbuilt charismatic personality to be a leader. The media has long been a believer in trait theories of leadership differentiating leaders from non leaders by focusing on personal qualities and characteristics. The media identify people like Margaret Thatcher, Nelson Mandela, Richard Branson and Rudolph Giuliani etc., and then describe them in terms such as charismatic, enthusiastic and courageous. However, in addition, more recent research provides strong evidence that people who are high self monitors that is highly flexible in adjusting their behaviour in different situa tions are much more likely to emerge as leaders in groups then low self-moni6ors (Dobbins et al., 1990; Zaccaro et al., 1991). Overall the cumulative findings from more than half a century of research leads us to conclude that some traits increase the likelihood of success as a leader, but none of the traits guarantee success (Yukl & Fleet, 1992). The inability to strike gold in the traits 'mines' led researchers to look at the behaviours exhibited by specific leaders. The difference between trait and behavioural theories, in terms of application, lies in their underlying assumptions. If trait theories are valid then leadership are borne rather than made. On the other hand, if there were specific behaviour that identified leaders then we could teach leadership-we could design leadership programmes that implemented these behavioural patterns in individuals who desire to be effective leaders. Other model like contingency theory also been discussed as the understanding of leadership in creased. Attention turned to the study of situations and the belief that leaders are the product of given situation. This approach to leadership recognizes that there exists an interaction between the group and the leader. Fred F. Fielder (1995) has suggested a contingency theory of leadership in which he told that the people become leaders not only because of the attributes of their personalities but also because of various situational factors and the interactions between leaders and group members. The path-goal theory suggests that the main function of the leadership is to clarify and set goals with subordinates, help them to find the best path for achieving the goals and remove obstacles. The theory builds on various motivational and leadership theories of others. More recently, Fiedler and an associate Jeo Garcia (1987) focused on a theory of leadership that states that stress unfavorably affects a situation and that intelligence and experience can lessen the influence of stress on leader. They named the theory as Cognitive Resource Theory. Basically it's the capability or quality of leader who perform under stress. Inspite of its newness cognitive resource theory is developing a solid body of research support (Fiedler, 2002). Paul Hersey, Ken Blanchard and Johnson (2001) have developed a leadership model that has gain a strong following among management development specialists. This model is called situational leadership theory. Situational