Importance of Leadership

Leadership is of prime significance in managing roles that help to achieve maximum competence and targets set by the organization. The following points clearly show the need for leadership in a company.

Initiates action: A leader’s task begins by explaining the proposals and strategies set by the organization to the subordinates.

Motivation: A Leader plays an important part in the functioning of an organization. He inspires employees with monetary and non-monetary rewards to achieve the required tasks.

Providing guidance: A leader must monitor and be an inspiration himself to his subordinates. Inspiration meaning giving information to the co-workers about how they can effectively and efficiently achieve their targets set out for them.

Creating confidence: Confidence building is a prime quality that can be achieved by expressing the work laid out to the subordinates, explaining their roles and giving them guidance to achieve targets successfully. It is also necessary to listen to employees concerns with respect to the issues faced by them.

Building morale: Morale implies passion of employees to work in co-operation with each other and taking them into confidence and winning their faith. A leader can pep morale by receiving complete co-operation to get the best possible performance out of his employees to achieve targets.

Builds work environment: The term management means getting people to perform their tasks. A successful work environment helps in stable and sound growth. Hence, human relations should also be considered by a leader. He should have face to face meetings with employees and should listen to their issues and help solve them. He must treat employees as humanely as possible.

Co-ordination: Co-ordination is attained by balancing personal interests with the organization’s targets. This balance can be achieved through effective and correct co-ordination which must be the prime aim of a leader.

Read the text №2: Leadership Styles

Leadership styles vary with the type of people the leader interacts and mingles with. An ideal or standard leadership style is one which helps leaders in achieving the best results from the subordinates.

Autocratic leadership style: This leadership style provides a leader with complete command and hold over his employees or team. The team cannot state their views even if they are in the best interests of the team or the organization. They cannot criticize or evaluate their leader’s way of functioning. The leader is in charge of getting things done. The advantage of this style is faster decision-making and higher productivity rates. The disadvantages of this leadership style are that it leads to higher employee absenteeism and turnover. This leadership style is successful only in cases where the leader is the best man available for the job or when the job is dull, unskillful and routine or for short term projects that are high risk.

The Laissez Faire Leadership Style: In this mode, the leader totally trusts his employees or team members to perform the job themselves. He focuses more on the intellectual or practical aspects of his work and does not concentrate on the management side to his work. The team members or employees are welcome to share their opinions and suggestions which are in the best interests of the organization. This leadership style works well when the employees are dedicated, skilled, experienced and intelligent.

Democrative / Participative leadership style: The leaders encourage and call team members to involve themselves in the decision-making process, though the ultimate decision lies with the leader. The leader directs employees on the tasks to be performed and how to perform them, while the employees relay back their suggestions and knowledge. The advantage of this leadership style is it creates more skilled, motivated and happier employees. A positive work environment is created and creativity is encouraged. The disadvantage is it is time-consuming.

Bureaucratic leadership: In this mode, the leaders strictly follow the organization’s procedures and policies. They also ensure that the employees or team members also strictly follow the rules and guidelines. Appraisals are based on the employee’s abilities to perform in accordance with the organization’s rules. This leadership style develops slowly over time and is suitable when safe work environment and quality are needed. The disadvantages are it does not encourage creativity and does not make employees feel self-satisfied.

Exercise 1. Make sentences with the active vocabulary. Create a sentence for the each word given.

Provide for – make the necessary future arrangements;

Continuity – uninterrupted connection; the fact or quality of being continuous;

Accomplish – succeed in doing, fi nish successfully;

Assign – give as a share or duty; fi x or set aside for a purpose, decide on;

Reduce – make less in size, amount, degree etc.;

Appropriate – correct or suitable for a particular situation or occasion;

Inhibit – prevent or hold back, restrict;

Mismatch – a wrong or unsuitable match, esp. in marriage;

Anticipate – think something likely to happen, expect;

Dissemination – spreading (news, ideas) widely;

Implement – carry out or put into practice;

Liaison – a working association or connection, esp. so that each side is well informed about what the other is doing;

Lateral – something, such as a brunch, which is at or comes from the side;

Ambiguity – having more than one possible meaning or interpretation, being unclear;

Restrict – keep within limit of size or number or to a certain limit;

Competitive – based on or decided by competition; able to compete because it is at least as good, cheap as the competitors;

Prosperity – good fortune or success, esp. in money matters.

Exercise 2. Complete each sentence with one of the words given. Make all the necessary changes.

1. I have been ……………………….. for the job of looking after the new students. 2.The plans …………………………. road traffic increasing to twice its present volume. 3. He won’t ………………………… the rent of our house. 4. She has ………………………………….. a great deal in the last few weeks. 5. We ………………………………………… meeting a certain amount of resistance to our plan. 6. These regulations have ………………………………….. the growth of new businesses. 7. I think this is an …………………………….. moment to raise the question of my promotion. 8. There is no ………………………………… between the three parts of the book. 9. The committee’s suggestions will be …………………………………. immediately. 10. There is a close …………………………………………. between the army and the police. 11.We wish you health, happiness and …………………………………..

Exercise 3. Complete each sentence.

1. He acted as an i___________ in the dispute. 2. Our sales manager has secured several big a________ recently. 3. I bought this from a r_________.

4. The new underground railway will f_______ the journey to the airport.

5. The committee’s suggestions will be i_________ immediately. 6. The promise of a bonus acted as an i_______ to greater effort. 7. They i_______ her suggestions into their plan. 8. We provided ourselves with i__________ of goods in case there are shortages later. 9. North Sea oil a________ a high proportion of our export earnings. 10. his business e________ will be of great help to us.

Exercise 4. Can the information from the text be useful to you? Is it important to convert it to life?

Exercise 5. Imagine that you are a boss. What strategy would you choose to restructure your company? How are you going to make painful decisions, if they are necessary?

Exercise 6. Role play conversations with your group-mates. You are going to discuss the problems of the ineffectiveness of your business and how to solve them.

Project

Exercise 7. Imagine that you are the boss of a company which has just undergone serious reorganization. Give your opinion on the reasons for the restructure. Describe the changes.

Problem issues

Revise the material of the unit and be ready to speak on the following issues. Make use of the new vocabulary you acquired.

Three criteria of a good organizational design:

a) the benefits of the division and specialization of labour

b) stability and continuity of selling efforts

c) effective coordination

Warning signs of inappropriate organizational structure:

a) inability to anticipate problems

b) increase in conflict

c) signs at the individual level

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