Leadership is the process of influencing others

NAXFRA · 2021-07-23T19:10:47+00:00

“…leadership is a complex phenomenon that touches on many other important organizational, social and personal processes. It depends on a process of influence, whereby people are inspired to work towards group goals, not through coercion, but through personal motivation.” (Bolden, 2004, p. 5) “Leadership over human beings is exercised when persons with certain motives and purposes mobilize, in competition or conflict with others, institutional, political, psychological, and other resources so as to arouse, engage, and satisfy the motives of followers.” (Burns, 1978, p. 18). Gary Yukl (2010), defines leadership as “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” (p. 8). Peter Northouse (2010) defines leadership as “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (p. 3). These definitions suggest several components central to the phenomenon of leadership. Some of them are as follows: (a) Leadership is a process, (b) leadership involves influencing others, (c) leadership happens within the context of a group, (d) leadership involves goal attainment, and (e) these goals are shared by leaders and their followers. Leadership as a process of influencing activities of an organized group, the initiation, and maintenance of leaders and followers, a process of influencing a group toward goal achievement, the development of a system of expectations toward usage human and other resources (Batten, 1989), and a form of art in mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations. According to the definition from the question to be discussed, it is true that “leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree what needs to be done and how to do it” due to the following arguments: Viewing leadership as a process means that leaders affect and are affected by their followers either positively or negatively. It stresses that leadership is a two-way, interactive event between leaders and followers rather than a linear, one-way event in which the leader only affects the followers. Defining leadership as a process makes it available to everyone—not just a select few who are born with it. More important, it means that leadership is not restricted to just the one person in a group who has formal position power (i.e., the formally appointed leader). Leadership is about influence—the ability to influence subordinates, peers, and bosses in work or organizational context. Without influence, it is impossible to be a leader. Of course, having influence means that there is a greater need on the part of leaders to exercise their influence ethically. Hence, a leader should have a strong power to convince his/her follower in anyhow. Leadership operates in groups. This means that leadership is about influencing a group of people who are engaged in a common goal or purpose. In this, leadership precludes the inclusion of leadership training programs that teach people to lead themselves. Here, a leader should be capable to direct and lead followers on what they are supposed to do. Leadership includes the achievement of goals. Therefore, leadership is about directing a group of people toward the accomplishment of a task or the reaching of an endpoint through various ethically based means. Leaders direct their energies and the energies of their followers to the achievement of something together. Thus, leadership occurs in, as well as affects, contexts where people are moving in the direction of a goal. A leader should be direct about what is needed to be done by subordinates. Leaders and followers share objectives. Leadership means that leaders work with their followers to achieve objectives that they all share. Establishing shared objectives that leaders and followers can coalesce around is difficult but worth the effort. Leaders who are willing to expend time and effort in determining appropriate goals will find these goals achieved more effectively and easily if followers and leaders work together. Leader-imposed goals are generally harder and less effectively achieved than goals developed together. Hence, leadership is an integration between followers and leaders and a leader should know how to winning his/her followers. Leadership and followership: Leadership determines the quality of the followers; leadership determines the morality of followers; leadership determines the mentality of followers; leadership determines the attitude of followers, leadership determines the commitment of the followers; leadership determines the destiny of followers. Hence, a leader should be understood and agreed upon by his/her followers. All in all, those who exercise leadership will be referred to as leaders, while those toward whom leadership is exercised will be referred to as followers. Both are required for there to be a leadership process. Within this process, both leaders and followers have an ethical responsibility to attend to the needs and concerns of each other. It is said that leaders are not better than followers, nor are they above followers. On the contrary, leaders and followers are intertwined in a way that requires them to be understood in their relationship with each other and as a collective body of two or more people (Burns, 1978; Dubrin, 2007; Hollander, 1992).

Thread starter NAXFRA
Start date Jul 23, 2021
Tags

influence leader leadership politics

NAXFRA

JamiiForums uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.

Accept Learn more…

Back

Top Bottom

Forums

New posts

Leadership is the process of influencing others

NAXFRA

JF-Expert Member

Our Community

Regional Communities