UNIV 1213: Leadership and Teamwork
Dr. Runna Alghazo
Section 201
Name: Areej Mubarak Al-Sayari
ID: 201200424
Major: Interior Design
Assignment 1: Leadership in Organizations (10%)
Assessment Criteria
CRITERIA
Assessment Rubric for Individual Written Report
SCORES
Introduction
Contains thesis statement, states why assignment is important, a
reference to justify assignment, outlines the body topics (R)
3%
Leadership
Definition, importance, difference to management (R)
2%
Leadership qualities
Six qualities of effective leaders with explanations (R)
2%
Leadership styles
Four styles with organization types and famous examples (R)
4%
Conclusion
Restate the thesis statement, include a summary of the key points
from the body paragraphs, and say how these key points answer
the assignment.
3%
Mechanics
Punctuation and spelling and capitalization are correct, words are
well chosen, writer uses own words, no cut and pasting, use of
headings, third person, full sentences, no bullet points
3%
References
Contains 3 relevant references, references in text of report, correct
referencing rules
3%
TOTAL
20%
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TOTAL SCORE (OUT OF 10):__________________________________________________
Leadership in Organizations
Introduction:
As an instinct of human beings, people have always searched for a leader to guide them, to show
them the path they should walk in, to search deep down their souls to find their treasures of
talents, and to pick them up and walk ahead them toward success. Success has always been
associated with the need of setting a leader. Generally, a leader is someone who is capable of
selecting, training, equipping, and influencing the followers to focus on the objective, goals, and
intended missions of an organization due to his diverse abilities, gifts, and skills which in turn
impacts followers to expand physical, emotional, spiritual energy that leads to interpreting the
intended mission (Winston, n.d.). Leadership is about influencing others’ behavior and actions
and it cannot be classified as an effective leadership when it’s isolated from teamwork (Riley,
2012). It’s important to understand what leadership is about, to be familiar with the qualities of a
leader and the different styles of leaders since leaders have strong impact on segments of society.
Leadership:
Leadership has been defined with so many different definitions. Stogdill (1950) defined
leadership by emphasizing on the fact that it’s an (act) of influencing the activities of a group of
people in a movement toward achieving their goal. Hosking (1988) stated that leaders are
members who make effective consistently contributions to social groups and they’re expected to
do so while Batten (1989) focused on the fact that it’s a complete system of expectations that
aims to use the strength of all resources in an organization and most important to use people.
Cohen (1990) had a very interesting definition which included describing leadership as the (art)
of influencing others to perform to their maximum capability to accomplish a task, a project, or a
goal. It’s recognized that all different definitions of leadership have agreed that a leader is the
member of a team that communicate effectively with team members to help them in benefiting
from their skills to accomplish a common goal. Concerning the definition of leadership in
organizations, it’s the leader’s ability to obtain and protect the organization benefits by creating a
harmonic balance between the employees’ need and the organization target to create a better
environment in order to achieve the aimed goal (Abbas & Asghar, 2010). A strategic leadership
is composed of four stages: command, vision, decision making, and symbolic (Riley, 2012). The
process starts with leaders receiving the rein of direct control of an organization, set the vision of
future goals, weighing up the available options and deciding by choosing the suitable one, and
finally the leader embodiment the strategy which leads him not to involve in this strategy day by
day (Riley, 2012). The importance of leadership underlies the need of good planning. A leader is
able to determine the individual action to create a course of actions that leads to implement the
aimed goal of an organization with the consideration of usage of minimal cash cost, time, labor,
and accomplish effectiveness without sacrificing ethical and legal standards (Alan, n.d.). A
leader is capable of maintaining organization by determining the needed resources which
includes human labor, cash, and equipment by taking in consideration choosing those the right
quantities and finally choose the process of actions that can use all these resources effectively
and efficiently (Alan, n.d.). The most recognizable role of a leader is directing. Directing can be
summarized as the ability to determine what is needed to be done in order to accomplish
organization goal and then marshaling the available resources that are needed to accomplish this
goal (Alan, n.d.). One thing a good leader is able to accomplish regarding directing is the ability
to read circumstances with no errors, determine what need to be done under those circumstances,
and then direct the available resources to perform effectively and efficiently (Alan, n.d.). Finally
the importance of a leader assimilate in the need of setting up measurements that measures the
performance of the organization in order to identify the errors that hinder the organization and
correct them. A leader is able to search the deficiencies in the organization by testing it processes
to improve the outcomes before any other error arises (Alan, n.d.). Not to confuse management
with leadership, there’re some main differences that distinct them from each other’s regarding
values, power, and the main behavior the determines the type of relationship between employees
and leader or manager. A leader is a value creator so are his followers while a manager counts
value and sometimes disables employees who add values (Nayar, 2013). Regarding power, a
leader creates a circle of influences which obtain him followers while a manager creates a circle
of power which obtain him subordinates (Nayar, 2013). A manager controls a set of people to
accomplish a common goal by using power while a leader influences, motivates, and inspires
others to make them contribute to reach organization success (Nayar, 2013).
Leadership Qualities:
A leader must possess some of personality traits in order to be able to influence and inspire the
followers toward achieving the common goal. A leader must maintain high level of confidence
for followers to find the inner conviction to obey and to depend and trust their leader’s decisions
and commands (Prive, 2012). Good communication skills is another trait in a leader to be able to
convey his vision to share it with his team members aside to training new members and creating
productive work environment all depend on healthy communication (Prive, 2012). As mentioned
previously that a leader doesn’t create a circle of power but a circle of influences which leads to
the third trait of possessing positive attitude. Positive energy must be generated from a leader to
motivate and inspire followers to perform their best (Prive, 2012). Leaders are often classified as
role models for their followers which demands from them to make serious commitment toward
their work in order to lead by example (Prive, 2012). A committed leader doesn’t only win their
respect but also generates the same hardworking energy all among employees. A leader must
possess a good sense of natural intuition and creativity in order to be able to make good reliable
decisions when something unexpected occurs (Prive,2012). Making day by day decisions seems
easy to everyone but when facing extraordinary problems, thinking out of the box while relying
on past experiences is a trait that leaders possess. A leader must be able to delegate by
identifying the team strength and emphasizing them through setting the right tasks to every team
member (Prive, 2012). In other words, a leader is able to trust his team members and knows
exactly how to delegate a task to the suitable department.
Leadership Styles:
Leaders fall into many categories and as true as they’re different but they all possess the same
personality traits that promote them to be classified as leaders. Charismatic leaders influence
others by the power of their personalities (Blanken, 2013). They’re capable of motivating and
inspiring others by their passions, energetic actions, and personality’s attractiveness. Usually,
charismatic leaders are found in marketing field due to their abilities to attract customers and
influence them in a way that benefit them as sellers, art projects, sport related tasks, and drama
assignments (Blanken, 2013). A very famous example of a charismatic leader is Oprah Winfrey
due to her ability to move social issues toward the best by only using words. She is also capable
of moving market toward her own good without the usage of power or social position (Blanken,
2013). Laissez-Faire leaders lack direct supervision of employees and fail to provide them
regular feedback (Johnson, n.d.). Usually highly trained and experienced employee suit this type
of leaders due to their independency and the absence of need of regular feedback. This type of
leaders is most suitable to be placed as monitors, supervisors, and as public administrations in
qualified companies and institution (Blanken, 2013). Donna Karan, who is the founder of
DKNY, can represent this type of leaders due to the fact she spent less time in designing which
prevented her from supervising other designers who are working for her but her inspiring visions
kept them producing (Blanken, 2013). Another style of leadership is Transformational leaders
who mainly focus on the big picture leaving the team members with smaller tasks to achieve
certain goals (Johnson, 2013). This type of leaders depends mainly on high communication and
visibility to motivate team members to produce efficiently and effectively aside to focusing on
managing while signing smaller task to team to achieve common goal (Johnson, n.d.). Leaders of
this type are found as project manager and executive coordinator. Icons that represent this type of
leadership are Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who created a business model out of an ice
cream making investment, represent this type of leadership due to their ability on counting on
other team members to give their best and their expectations from team members to change even
when it’s uncomfortable (Blanken, 2013). Finally, there’s command and control leadership style
in which leaders follow the rules and expect from other team members to do so (Blanken, 2013).
This type of leaders is capable of taking right decisions in urgent situations, dealing with
inflexible deadlines, and expects direct compliance (Blanken, 2013). Best work fields they
occupy are human resource, financial and legal positions (Blanken, 2013). Tom Coughlin,
Controversial head coach of the New York Giants, represent this type of leadership due to his
strict and direct behavior with other team members (Blanken, 2013).
Conclusion:
Leadership is a very powerful ability that influences human beings, inspires, and motivates them
to give their best. It’s the lying secret behind every success. The confidence, communication
skills, positive energy, committing, intuition, and the ability to delegate are all traits that build a
leader for others to follow and consider a lead by example. Leaders own different characters with
different styles and no matter how different they are they are capable to lead in different fields
that require their special character style. The instinct need deep down human beings to be led,
inspired and motivated oblige the need of understanding what leadership is about, the traits that
compose the personality of a leader, and the different styles of leadership.
References:
1. Winston, B. E. (n.d.). An Integrative Definition of Leadership, 1 (2). Retrieved on
September 27th
from:
http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/ijls/new/vol1iss2/winston_patterson.doc/winston_
patterson.htm
2. Riley, J. (23rd September, 2012). Leadership: Introduction. Retrieved on September
27th
from: http://www.tutor2u.net/business/strategy/leadership-introduction.html
3. Hadhazy, A. (20th November, 2011). Life’s Extremes: Leaders vs. Followers.
Retrieved on September 27th
from: http://www.livescience.com/17116-life-extremes-leaders-followers.html
4. Bass, B. M. (1981). Stodgill’s handbook of leadership: A survey of theory and
research. New York: Free Press
5. Hosking, D. M. (1988). Organizing, leadership, and skilful process. Journal of
Management Studies, 25, pp. 147-166.
6. Batten, J. D. (1989). Tough-minded leadership. New York: AMACOM.
7. Cohen, W. A. (1990). The art of a leader. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Jossey-Bass.
8. Abbas,W & Asghar, I. (June, 2010). The role of leadership in organizational change:
relating the successful organizational change to visionary and innovative leadership.
Retrieved on September 28th
From: http://hig.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:326289/FULLTEXT01.pdf
9. Alan, Li. (n.d.). Leadership and how it affects the effectiveness of an organization.
Retrieved on September 28th
From: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/leadership-affects-effectiveness-organization-33429.html
10. Nayar, V. (2nd August, 2013). Three Differences between Managers and Leaders.
Retrieved on September 28th
From: http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/08/tests-of-a-leadership-transiti/
11. Prive, T. (19th December, 2012). Top 10 Qualities that Make a Great Leader.
Retrieved on September 28th
From:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaprive/2012/12/19/top-10-qualities-that-make-a-great-leader/
12. Blanken, R. (January, 2013). 8 Common Leadership Styles. Retrieved on September
28th
From: http://www.asaecenter.org/Resources/ANowDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=241962
13. Johnson, R. (n.d.). 5 Different Types of Leadership Styles. Retrieved on September
28th
From: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/5-different-types-leadership-styles-17584.html