1. 2009
Leadership
"Leadership, like swimming, cannot be
learned by reading about it."- Henry
Mintzberg
Principles of Management assignment
By: Maha H

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Serial Topic Page number
number
1. What is Leadership? 3
2. Qualities or Trait approach 4
3. Behavioral approach 5
 Autocratic leadership style
 Democratic Leadership style
 Laissez-faire leadership style
4. Contingency approach 9
5. References 10
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3. "Leadership, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it - Henry Mintzberg''
Leadership is the process of directing and influencing a group of people. Leaders should have the ability to
influence members of an organization to work towards achieving goals, being an effective leader can be
extremely challenging. Leaders are those people who influence others and possess managerial authority. Self-
study, education, training, and experience play a major role in developing good leaders, as they are not born,
but are made.
The leader should be honest and fair in what ever he does in order to gain trust of his employees. The leader
should possess energy and display a contagious positive attitude to get the employees sold on their vision as
employees want a strong vision before following the leader’s directions, thus, making sure that they do not
get stuck in a dead end company which is heading nowhere or is going in the wrong direction. Therefore, for
a leader it’s very important to satisfy his employee’s needs as they play an important role in getting the
organization to achieve its goals.
Leaders are often referred as being charismatic people who have ‘something about them’ that makes them
stand out from the others. Leaders are people, who are able to express themselves fully. They know what
they want, why they want it, and how to communicate what they want to others, in order to gain co-operation
and support to achieve their goals.
There are three types of approaches found by the researchers that play a major role in having a good
leadership within the firm.
 Qualities or traits approach
 Behavior approach
 Contingency approach
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4.  Qualities or traits approach- the trait approach is where it is argued that people are born with certain
character traits that make them exceptional. Traits are distinguishing qualities or characteristics of a
person, while character is the total sum of these traits. There are infinite personality traits, far too many to
be discussed here therefore we will focus on a few that are crucial for a leader.
“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” Marcus Aurelius
Traits can be classified as follows:
 Honesty and trustworthiness – The leader should display sincerity, integrity, and candor in all their
actions as illusory behavior will not inspire trust.
 Competent – The leader should base their actions on reasonable and moral principles but not making
decisions based on childlike emotional desires or feelings.
 Forward-looking -The leader should set goals after having a vision of the future, should be able to sense
changes and then should be able to respond to the changes .Otherwise, when change arises it may result
in ineffective leadership.
 Inspiring – The leader should display confidence in all that he does as positive self image, backed up
with effective aspirations and genuine ability can often result in effective leaders. On the other hand, it is
argued that leaders may fail to lead because they might get hindered in short term activities.
 Intelligent – The leaders should be out of the ordinary, well read, expert in a particular field, informative
and articulate, or else they may not be able to lead the organization effectively.
 Fair-minded – The leader should treat everyone fairly fair treatment thus displaying empathy by being
sensitive to the feelings, values, interests, and well-being of others, as prejudice is the enemy of justice.
 Broad-minded – The leader should be broad minded, thus seeking diversity.
 Courageous – The leader should have the persistence to accomplish a goal, regardless of the seemingly
impossible obstacles. Also, an effective leader should display confidence and calmness even when under
stress.
 Straightforward – The leader must make sound judgment to make good decisions at the exact right time
and moment.
 Imaginative – The leaders should be smart enough to make timely and appropriate changes in their
thinking, plans, and methods. Thus, showing creativity by being innovative i.e. thinking of new and
better goals, ideas, and also devoting to suggest radical solutions, making sure that important things are
done on time to result in the rise of standards.
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5.  Behavioral approach
This approach outlines the different leadership approaches used by the leaders in the organization. A
leadership style is the way the leader acts with his employees. The choice of leadership style is crucial to the
success of a leader. There are different types of leadership styles that the leaders usually follow, some of the
most commonly used ones are listed below:
“You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier. So long as long as I'm the
dictator.”- George Bush
 Autocratic Leadership
Autocratic leadership is one where managers centralize authority, makes all the decisions, set objectives,
allocates tasks and insists on obedience. In other words it is an extreme form of transactional leadership,
where the leader plays a dominating role by not taking employees views into account. The employees are
only given few opportunities at times for making suggestions. This style is actually considered to be an old
fashioned technique but some leaders still follow this technique.
E.g.
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6. Martha Stewart - Martha Stewart Living Omni media, Inc
Martha Stewart is a successful American businesswoman and entrepreneur. Martha Stewart Living Omni
media, Inc (MSLO) is a leading provider of original "how-to" information by inspiring and enchanting
consumers with unique lifestyle content and with exquisitely designed high-quality products. MSLO is
comprised of four businesses mainly like publishing, internet, broadcasting and merchandising, and the blend
of it allows us to cross-promote their content and products. Martha Stewart built her empire by paying
personal attention to the depth of the details. She was conscientious, demanding and also very successful in
most of her attempts by using her autocratic management style. There are certain advantages that Martha
benefits from using style like:
 Reduced stress due to increased control- as she makes all the decisions and have a say ,situations can
be less stressful for her as she herself have significant legal and personal responsibility for the projects
and she do not have to rely on anyone else but her own self to get the job done as a person can trust his
own integrity better than those of the others. Therefore, Martha does not have to face such worries about
work not being got done on time. .
 Improved logistics of operations- having a single leader like Martha with deep involvement in many
areas makes it more likely to have problems spotted in advance ,getting complicated work get done and
also meeting deadlines.
 Faster decision making. When only a solo person such as Martha makes decisions then minimal
consultation is required and decisions are tend to be made much quicker. As a result, management team
can respond to changes in the business environment much more efficiently.
Some industry analysts argue that it was Martha's autocratically demanding style which allowed her to
flourish in such a competitive environment like the entertainment industry where as on the other hand others
argue that she might have become more successful if she hadn’t relied on the autocratic management style.
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7. “I'm not a banner. I am an encourager and a persuader and an advocate.” -John Howard
 Democratic or participative Leadership
A Democratic Leadership style encourages employee’s participation to contribute into the decision making
process, promotes sharing and delegating of responsibilities and continual consultation. The democratic
leadership style is also called the participative style. Leaders following this leadership style keep their
employees well informed about everything that affects their work like the decision making process and
problem solving responsibilities or techniques. The employees’ morale level increases and because of the
trust they receive. As a result, they respond with cooperation and team spirit. For long periods of time,
democratic leadership can produce high quality and high quantity work. The leaders also welcome feedback
on the results of initiatives and the work environment. They also encourage others to become leaders and be
involved in the leadership development.
E.g
Toyota Industries Corporation
Company overview:
It was founded by Sakichi Toyoda a Japanese man in 1926 to manufacture and sell automobiles and to
provide financial services. The Group mainly operates through the Automotive, Financial Services and other
segments. The Automotive segment designs, manufactures, assembles and sells passenger cars and light
commercial vehicles and also other related accessories. The finance segments do the financing of the dealers
and their customers for the purchase or lease of Toyota vehicles. Other services segment provides intelligent
transport systems, encompassing car multimedia systems, information technology-based systems, on-board
intelligent systems, advanced transportation systems, transportation infrastructure and logistics systems. They
market their vehicles in around 170 countries or more. Their success proves their commitment to the further
development of their businesses and the firm quest of sustained innovation and creativity. Therefore, Toyota
aims to be an ecologically sensitive car manufacturer.
The leadership style that the Toyota Industries Corporation follows is Democratic. Following such type of
leadership style the company might benefit from:
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8.  Positive work environment- A culture where the leaders delegate junior employees with a fair amount
of responsibility in making decisions and doing tasks. As a result, employees are more contended,
enthused to work and motivated.
 Successful initiatives. The process of having discussions with employees and feedback naturally results
in better decision making and often proves to productive as operations can be performed more
effectively. The company tends to make fewer grave mistakes and do not run into catastrophes. As the
employees have close relationship with the leader, they might not get scared to report the leaders about
crucial situations like for e.g. Informing the democratic leader when something is going badly wrong,
while employees may not report about such situations to the autocratic leader.
 Creative thinking.-The free flow of ideas and an optimistic work environment gives birth to creative
thinking and innovative ideas. Creative thinking is required to solve problems of any organization no
matter what its nature is like.
Starbucks Corporation
Company overview:
Starbucks Coffee Company was founded in 1971 by three businessmen in Seattle, who had passion for
coffee. It is based originally in Seattle, Washington, United States and has 16,120 stores in 49 countries. It is
considered as one of the largest coffee house companies in the world which sells rich brewed coffee,
espresso-based hot drinks, other hot and cold drinks, snacks, pastries and other coffee related accessories and
equipments. Additionally, Starbucks produces and sells bottled Frappuccino® coffee drink and a line of
premium ice creams through its joint venture partnerships and offers a line of innovative premium teas
produced by its wholly owned subsidiary, the Tazo Tea Company. The Company's objective is to establish
Starbucks as the most recognized and respected brand in the world.
The type of leadership style followed by the Starbucks Corporation is Democratic. The company benefits in a
number of ways by using this style like:
 Increased morale level- The morale of the employees increase as they have a ‘say’ in making decisions.
They feel more loyal to the organization and committed to work.As a result, they work better, effectively
and efficiently.
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9.  Reduced employee turnover-When employees feel empowered through leadership development, the
employee turnover will eventually get the work to be done at time. The employees appreciate when the
company invests in its leadership development plans as it is actually investing in their future.
 Reduction of friction and office politics.-By allowing the employees to use their ideas and getting
praised for them, the company is actually reducing the amount of tension that the employees usually
generate with their manager. When autocratic leaders refuse to listen to their employees, ignore their
ideas and not letting them participate in other activities of the firm, they therefore invite people to
grapevine and talk behind their back and attempt to undermine or supersede them.
“A leader has to appear consistent. That doesn't mean he has to be consistent.”
 Laissez faire or free reign leadership style
Laissez faire is French word it means ‘leave to be’ and is used by the leader who allows his employees to
carry out activities freely within the broad limit. The leader leaves the workforce to freely set objectives and
work procedures. It has a quite relaxed atmosphere but one where there are only few guidelines and
directions. The leader who follows this leadership wants their employees to develop their own skills and
talents by accepting responsibility. It can also have an adverse effect i.e. it can result in poor productivity and
lack of motivation as they have little incentive to work hard.
 Contingency or situational approach
This leadership approach focuses on variables and circumstances that are related to the environment and also
those which would determine which leadership style is appropriate for a particular situation. It says that it is
unfeasible to determine which leadership style will be appropriate for a particular situation. Success depends
on qualities of followers and other variables.
Therefore, choosing an appropriate leadership style may depend on certain factors like:
 Nature of the task
 Organizational climate
 Manager’s past experience
 Expectations of superiors
 Manager’s past experience
 Subordinates characteristics
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10. References:
Business studies third edition by Dave Hall, Rob Jones and Carlo Raffo
Business studies Karen Borrington and Peter Stimpson
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_84.htm
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