Leadership Assignment Help

Leadership is the quality of behaviour an individual poses in order to guide people or their activities in organising efforts (Selznick, 2011). Leadership can be defined as an ability of a superior to boost up their followers to undertake their operation with greater confidence and zeal (Schein, 2010). It is seen to be a process by which a leader guides, influences and directs the work of their followers for achieving specified goals of the enterprise. Leaders has got a combination of several qualities that includes flexibility, skilled, confidence, sincerity, proficient and always have been an example for their followers to be followed in coming years (Carroll, Levy and Richmond, 2008). This essay has been undertaken in order to study the leadership style and its influences within the organisation. The essay will be laying out discussion in relation to the characteristic of a leader. In the business there are various kinds of leadership style. This essay is going to shed lights on the statement that "Every team needs one leader and the rest must be followers".In this study support has been laid down to this statement by laying down focus on team leadership and shared leadership by laying down focus towards theories with real time examples in  present business scenario.

DISCUSSION

Authoritarian leadership style

"Every team needs one leader and the rest must be followers"points out towards authoritarian leadership style. Like every coin has two sides the statement also has got two sides. The study would present argument in favour of the statement by focusing on the benefits of authoritarian leadership style as well as oppose the statement by focusing on the benefits of shared leadership. The statement entails that leaders have an important role inguiding and monitoringtheir team membersas per the tasksthat they are required to be performed.(Adeyemi, 2010).The main advantage that can be drawn out of the authoritarian leadership style is that leaders are able to attain a distinction in their activities by leading the people as per the needs.The major role of a leader is to undertakean appropriate decision and ask employees to follow idea and his particular perspective (John.et.al, 2014).This approach initiated by leader is important in meeting the organisational goals and objectives as the approach will direct the team members in achieving the targets and objectives.

In the context of favouring of statement it could be said that leaders are the sole decision makers for achieving the goals and objectives of the business. Thus, showing that within a team there must only be one leader and rest are the followers.

The example that can be drawn in the support of this statement is concerning Late Steve Jobs CEO of Apple who can be seen as an exceptional example of team leadership. The company was not doing well when Job took over as an Apple Interim CEO (Isaacson, 2012). At that time in a conference it has been asked by Michael Dell that “What he would have done had he been in Job’s shoes”. In this regard Dell answered that he would have sold Apple and gave back the money to shareholders. However, after that it could be seen that market capitalization of Dell remain stagnant $28.9 billion from $28.1 billion but for the apple it has reached up to $568.8 billion from $3.1 billion and it is seen to be the most valuable company in the present time (Sharma and Grant, 2011). This has been possible all because of tyrannical leadership style that was fire and force at will. It was all because of the special leadership of Steve Jobs as a leader who dominated the organisation followers and guided them with his authoritarian leadership style and unmatchable vision (Rigby.et.al, 2009).Here, it can be said that Steve has undergone a team leadership by laying down his ideas to be followed by followers for achieving the goals and objectives of the business. It has been believed by Steve Jobs that “One man with one vision will make Apple to be an iconic brand and business”. Even this belief has been proved materialised by Steve Jobs.

The example of Steve Jobs leadership style i.e. the authoritarian leadership has shown that a team needs a leader and the rest needs to follow them. However the argument against the statement is that the shared or distributed leadership style can also produce the desired results for an organisation. Following section would present a discussion on shared leadership style.

Shared leadership style

In this regard Shared leadership could be defined as “A dynamic process of influencing individuals or a team in order to achieve goals and objectives of the business”(Bhatti.et.al, 2012). In the present era it has been believed that it is important for a business to make their employees feel like a leader and allow them to lay down their views for carrying out appropriate decision making process(Schoel.et.al, 2011).This shared leadership helps out business in achieving their goals and objective in a most efficient and effective manner. Further, it is crucial for the organisation to look after the factors that lay down impact on the effectiveness of shared leadership style like culture, gender, organisational structure and even the environment (McCarthy.et.al, 2010).

An appropriate example that challenges the statement would be that of Mark ZuckerbergCEO of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg initiated with the organisation with the intention to connect widespread population providing uniformity in a well structured manner.Zuckerberg started with a small team and gave everybody the freedom to give suggestions and worked on the principles of shared leadership. Within a year of launching the Facebook, the platform became successful and the employees also increased. With more team members, he persuaded the concept and empowered the team members to be the leader and explore and suggest new ideas to the organisation. With this purpose,Zuckerberg had encouraged shared leadership among its management so as to accomplish the responsibilities in an effective manner. Shared leadership is not an easy task for any of the CEO as it requires having skilled and effective leaders to come up with the responsibilities and achieve the desired objectives (Gill, 2012).For promoting the concept of shared leadership Zuckerberg asked his managers to give more decision making capabilities to their team members and promote the concept of shared leadership.

The team members from different teams gave him recommendation for improving the operations of business. The new suggestions were innovative and have helped in transforming the product “Facebook”. The platform has evolved considerably from its time of inception (Stahl and Brannen, 2013). The success of Facebook can thus be attributed to the shared leadership of Zuckerberg. Even it can be said that Zuckerberg has taken the shared leadership to the next level as he has also involved the online followers of Facebook to participate in several online polls which are further used for decision making. Thus it can be said that in the today’s globalised world, the concept of shared leadership can work well and could further contribute in meeting the organisational objectives.

My personal experience concerning the statement that “Every team needs one leader and the rest must be followers” I believe it to be true. It is because I have seen that if in a team there is more than one leader then it becomes difficult for a follower to understand or follow a particular leader. Even it has been seen by me in my team that if there will more leader than it is going too laid down affect on the operational activity of the followers. Further, similar sort of difficulties I have undergone while being a follower in a team and was not able to understand the guidance laid down by two leaders within the business. However, at my professional level being a leader, I have always tried being one leader and rest being the followers. It has helped me in achieving my task in a most appropriate manner without any hassle. But in certain circumstances I have realised that there must more than one leader in a team as it helps in undertaking appropriate decision making.

CONCLUSION

After undergoing this essay it could be said that both shared leadership and team leadership has their individual benefits and issues. In the present era it has been seen that followers enjoy their working if business provide them with shared leadership and opportunities for deciding the way they want to undertake their activities for enhancing their overall performance. For a leader it will not be possible to reach at every place in simultaneous manner. Thus, in order to reduce the work load it is important for a leader to delegate the task among the followers. Even it has been seen that shared leadership is a more of distributive kind of leadership where member of a team work together for achieving the objectives of the enterprise. Further, it could be said that in future there is requirement of laying down both team leadership and shared leadership for combing and transforming the knowledgeable work.