Critically evaluate the statement that 'leadership can make a Essay

Critically evaluate the statement that 'leadership can make a difference to organisational performance' - Essay Example The renewed interest in interest in leadership has come from the constantly changing environment in which organisations began facing from the later part of the last century. The new challenges have brought out the importance of leadership in organisations as executive jobs become more a leadership job rather than a management job. In general the concept of leadership is very powerful and "capable of conveying much more than can be contained within a concise definition". (Sadler 2003 p, 2)The definition of leadership can be viewed from two angles; one as a process in an organisation where persons at various levels exert non-coercive influence to direct and coordinate various members of organisation towards its goals and the other from the point of view of property of individuals i.e. as a set of behavior characteristics, personal qualities by which an individual successfully exerts influence, again, to direct and coordinate (Moorhead 2000, p, 352). The word coercive is what distinguishes between the act of a manager who (could if necessary) exerts influence by virtue of the power and position he holds and the leader who does it without. A good manager necessarily need not mean a good leader and vice versa. In the organizational contest, a good leader will have to be a good manager, if he were to be successful. There are many ways in which the difference between managerial way of seeing and doing things and leader ways of doing and seeing things can be distinguished. "Managers does things right, the leader does the right things. "(Bennis 1989, p4). A manager's role in an organisation is described in terms of goal setting, planning organizing and controlling. Very often he gets people to do things by virtue of authority of his office, his dealings with people (customers, employees) is based on contractual aspects and position. The leader's role is to create and articulate vision and create directions; communicate and persuade all stakeholders to work towards it; empower, energize, facilitate, align and motivate people to work in a way that organisations and the individual goals are met. However an ideal leader in terms of domain knowledge, technical competence, conceptual skills etc. will be as good as the manager. Describing the performance of Jell Barad as CEO of Mattel, Moorehead (2000, p 354) shows her to be an ideal combination of manager and leader. These differences are somewhat derived from the transactional and transformational theories of leadership. The manager way of doing things is attributed to the transactional theory of leadership, whereas leader ways of doing things is related to transformational theory of leadership. Lee Iacocca's turnaround of Chrysler motors is shown as a typical case of transformational leadership. Typically a manger kind of role for executives is described as one that is suitable in an environment that is stable, orderly and predictable and the leader role as one most important in a changing and dynamic environment, a situation of constant change such as one organisations face today. Leadership theories There are several theories of leadership based on property. Early theories tried to identify traits and behavior which were the hallmark of good leaders, based on a historical study. Initially studies tried to