What makes a good leader?

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

A good leader may be born. He or she was born has certain inherited characteristics or quality traits that a good leader must have. Researchers have identified some correlation between leadership and certain personality traits. They found out that good leaders always have some quality traits that distinguished from non-leaders. (Laurie J Mullins, 1996:252) Good leaders should be self-confident, honest, intelligent, initiative and have cognitive and supervisory ability. Besides, they always desire to lead people. Without these quality traits they can not become good leaders.

However, people who have had these quality traits still might not become good leaders. There are many factors will affect people to become good leaders. One of the factors is whether the function of the leadership can be carried out perfectly. Good leaders are people who can carry out the functions of leadership very well. They usually carry out the functions of leadership by exchanging their roles. Sometimes they act as executives, sometimes they act as planners and sometimes they may act as policy-makers. Thus, good leaders usually need to be trained and learn some skills to cope with the different situations and carry out different functions of leadership.

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After carrying out the functions of the leadership, they can meet the needs of the task and satisfy the team and the individual members of the group. Meeting the needs of the task, team and the individual members involve in many affairs. Task functions involve in achieving the objectives of the work group, defining group tasks, planning the work, allocation of resources, organization of duties and responsibilities, controlling quality and checking performance and reviewing progress. Team functions involve in maintaining morale and building team sprit, making the group as a working unit, setting standards and maintaining discipline, training the group and appointment of sub-leaders. The individual functions involve in meeting the needs of the individual members of the group, attending to personal problems, giving praise and status, reconciling conflicts between group needs and the needs of the individual and training the individual. (Laurie J Mullins, 1996:256) Good leaders usually can satisfy their task, team and individual member in their group by carrying out their functions of leadership. If a leader can not meet the needs of their task, team and individual member in the group he or she can not become a good leader.

In order to carrying out the functions of leadership, a good leader needs to use an appropriate leadership style. The leadership style is the way in which the manager typically behaves towards the members of the group. The style of leadership may be dictatorial, unitary, bureaucratic, benevolent, charismatic, consultative, participative and abdicatorial. (Laurie J Mullins, 1996:259) If a leader wants to improve the effectiveness of the work performance, he or she should be able to change the managerial style to adapt to different situations. For example, some of the subordinates may be like to take the orders from their leaders, they prefer their leaders make decision for her and then they just follow their leaders’ ideas to finish the work. However, some may be want their leaders give them much freedom and space. In this case, it is better that their leaders just give them a guide and directions, and then they complete the task under the leader’s guide. Sometimes the leaders just leave the work to her or his followers without any direction and support. Hence, a good leader should know his or her followers very well and be able to change their managerial style according to different followers and different aspects of the followers’ job.

A right situation is also very important to make a leader successful. A researcher called Fiedler discovered that you could have an excellent leader in one situation but if you moved that person to another situation they may fail as a leader. We can not take someone who is a good leader in one situation and then assume that they will be effective in a different situation. (Julia Claxton, 2000) Leaders will have different performance in different situations. For instance, if a leader worked in a situation where the leader-member relations is quite good and the leader has the real power to hire, fire and reward the followers, it is obviously the leader will performance very well in that situation. While, if a leader worked in a completely different situation where the leader-member relations are very poor and the leader has no real power, the leader will not become a good leader in this situation.

Besides these factors, a number of career patterns and experiences also will make a person become a good leader. If a leader has a number of career patterns and experience, he or she might be have had opportunities during their work actually try to lead, to take a risk, and to learn from both triumphs and failures. Such experience and learning seems essential in developing a wide range of leadership skills and perspectives. It also teaches people something about both the difficulty of leadership and its potential for producing change. (John P. Kotter, 1990:5) These experiences and skills that a person gets from the work are greatly helpful in making a person become a good leader.

In a word, good leaders are not only born, but also made by many factors.

REFERENCES:

1.Julia Claxton, Describe and Discuss What Makes a Good Leader, Lecture notes from School of Management, University of Salford June 2000

2.Laurie J Mullins ‘The Nature of Leadership’ notes taken from Management and Organizational Behavior, Pitman Publish, London,1996

3.John P kotter ‘What Leaders Really Do’ in Paperback Managers as Leaders, Harvard Business Review, May/June, 1990

Vivian

(LI PEI)

Group B