Sanaa Musa

The leadership styles of women may not be the same as those of men but they achieve success with their “different” styles. It is generally seen that men follow the command and control style of leadership. Not all men follow this style. Some follow the interactive style of leadership, which is followed my most women according to Judy B. Rosener in Ways Women Lead.

In Ways Women Lead, Rosener talks about the choices women make in regards to leadership styles. The first generation of women leaders followed the leadership style of men because it was a proven way to success. “The first female executives, because they were breaking new ground, adhered to many of the “rules of conduct” that spelled success for men” (Rosener, 1990, p.149). Now women are leading based on their skills and knowledge from their experiences.

Women leaders generally follow, what Rosener calls, “interactive leadership.” They try to interact with everyone involved. They try to make their subordinates feel like they are a part of the company by involving them in decisions, asking their opinions, sharing ideas and information.

They appreciate and acknowledge good work. They ask for opinions and suggestions before making a decision. It is not necessary to include the suggestions but it helps them look at it from different perspectives. This style of leadership is followed by men also. In this style of leadership, communication and flow of information between leader and followers is important.

This should be a two-way flow. Information is very important to leaders. The economy changes very rapidly and to keep up with it, the leader needs to be fully informed. If the followers can provide some information the leader is unaware of, it would only help not harm. This is also important for competitive intelligence.

The interactive style of leadership is good. It helps a lot when the followers know their leader. But it is also important that the followers do not know everything about their leader. A leader like his followers is also human. He also has his strengths and weaknesses. There may be sometimes when the leader might be scared, may be unsure of the success. But he should not let his followers know it. If the followers know the weakness of their leader, it might falter their trust and confidence in their leader.

There are various styles of leadership. There is no set rule or method that needs to be followed. The goals are similar but the way they lead their followers to achieve that goal is different. Gary Wills wrote in Certain Trumpets, “Different types of leaders should be distinguished more by their goals than by the personality of the leader (the most common practice)” (Wills, 1994, p.19). Leadership is a vast subject. To study it, we need to consider leaders, followers, the situation, goals the leaders wanted to achieve and the approach taken to achieve them.

Posted by smusa at 02:55 PM | Permalink

Defining Leadership
There have been numerous attempts to define leadership as a result of which we have leadership defined in different ways. There are some similarities among the definitions while there are some differences.

In the book, The Leader’s Companion, Hughes et all give the leadership definition given by some researchers like Munson, Bennis and Fiedler (Wren, 1995, p.41). Munson defines Leadership as “The creative and directive force of morale” while Bennis defines it as “The process by which an agent induces a subordinate to behave in a desired manner.” There is a difference between these definitions. One definition says that the leader tries to boost the morale of his people and helps them improve their work by encouraging them. He encourages the followers and directs their efforts in the right direction to produce outcomes. But the second definition talks about a relationship between a leader and his subordinate. It talks about how a leader makes his subordinate work in a desired manner. This is not always the case with subordinates. There might be a leadership relationship among peers.
There are many attributes that define leadership. The qualities of the leader, the context of his .leadership, the actions he takes, the decisions made are some of the attributes. Many consider that leadership qualities are not developed. According to them people are born with such qualities. This might not be completely true. People develop these qualities and work on them to be a good leader. People might have some qualities that make them assume leadership. Sometimes, they assume leadership in times of crisis. In such cases, they take the courage to lead and help the people to come out of the crisis. Some people want to be leaders. They develop the skills by learning from others or practicing the skills and making them better. Some of the leadership qualities we discussed are as follows:
• A leader should be courageous
• He should encourage his people or followers.
• He should develop trust and confidence among them.
• He should be confident.
• He should understand his people, should understand that all his people are not on the same skill level.
• He should have personal respect.
• He should be responsible
• He should know the goals and values of his organization.
• He should be able to execute decisions
• H should be flexible rather than judgmental.
• He should set an example.
• He should be creative.
• He should be dynamic
• He should have a vision.

Leadership and Management

We might find some characteristics of a leader similar to a manager. Some think that there are some similarities between a leader and a manager while some say they are completely different and cannot be compared. When we discussed the characteristics of a leader and a manager, we had some similar characteristics like flexible, respected, easy to approach and motivating. Some say that a manager is more concerned with rules and enforcing them while a leader is not so strict about rules. A manager works with deadlines while a leader does not. That might not be entirely true. A leader also deals with deadlines. For example, a leader will have to make sure he has enough money by the end of the month so that he can pay his people.
There are differences between a leader and a manager as well. The followers of a leader choose to follow a leader while the people working under a manager do not choose him. They work under him because they are assigned to him. A leader might not have to work hard with his followers to gain understanding, trust and confidence. He needs to work on these before the followers choose him as a leader because unless people are not sure if they can trust a person, they will not choose to follow him. In the case of a manger, when people are assigned to him he needs to understand his people and instead know their skill levels so that he can manage them and successfully finish a project. He should be detail oriented while leaders are supposed to see the big picture.
The question is can managers be good leaders and vice versa. It is considered easy to train a manager when compared to training a leader. The argument is that a leader might not be a good manager because then he will have rules and deadlines to follow. He might not be good at taking care of details. Similarly, a manager might be good at looking at the big picture. There can be a balance of both but a person is either a better manager or a better leader.
Is management completely different from leadership? Are they two completely different concepts? In his book “Thriving on Chaos”, Tom Peters includes leadership as one of the prescriptions to be a good manager. He gives ten principles of leadership that would help to be a leader in this ever changing economy which are L-1 through L-10
L-1. Master Paradox
L-2. Develop an Inspiring Vision
L-3. Manage by Example
L-4. Practice Visible Management
L-5. Pay Attention! (More Listening)
L-6. Defer to Front Line
L-7. Delegate
L-8. Pursue Horizontal Management by Bashing Bureaucracy
L-9. Evaluate Everyone on His or Her Love of Change
L-10. Create a Sense of Urgency (Peters, 1987, p.470)
Most of these principles need to be followed by a manager also, like listening, delegating, creating a sense of urgency.

Factors of Leadership

According to an online article called The Concepts of Leadership, there are four factors in leadership which is depicted through a picture
The four factors are follower, leader, communication and situation. A leader should know his followers and know how to lead them depending on their talents. People are different and hence they require leadership in different styles and at different levels. A leader should know his capabilities and should develop trust and confidence among his people because his followers decide how good a leader he is. There should be good communication between a leader and his followers. A leader can communicate to his followers by setting an example. Situation is also an important factor because decisions may vary depending upon the situations. A decision taken in one situation might not be right for another. These four factors are very important for Leadership. A leader needs followers to lead. To be able to lead effectively, he needs to have proper communication between himself and his followers. It should not be one-way but a two-way communication. Analyzing the situation and making decisions will help to be a good leader.

Conclusion:

Leadership is an interesting concept to study. It is not a modern idea but it has been around for a long time. We have learned about many leaders, both men and women, in different countries and their leadership styles. I would like to study women leadership styles and the problems women have faced and are facing now in their path to leadership and in their leadership positions

Posted by smusa at 02:19 PM | Permalink