In discussing leadership, we must first define leadership. Business Basics: Organisational Behaviour (2000, pp 248) defines leadership as, “Direction or leadership is the process of influencing others to work willingly towards an organisation’s goals, and to the best of their ability.” So the objective for the leader is to help the organisation to achieve it’s goals, but how do leaders become leaders? This will be discussed in reference to the question throughout this essay.

It would be advantageous for us to firstly look at what does make a good leader a good leader. Leaders must have certain characteristics to be a successful manager, but most important of all is adaptation. This is mainly due to the fact that every organisation is different. If we look at what type of a leader there is, we can then look into more detail about what characteristics are needed. There four types of leader according to the studies of The Research Unit of Ashridge Management College (1966). These are; Autocratic Style, or tells style, where the manager/leader tells his or her subordinates what to do (one-way communication); Persuasive Style, or

So taking that into account, we can fairly, at this moment, say leadership skills are a skill that pretty much anyone can learn and successfully apply, but on the other hand, not absolutely everybody can become a leader, there is a possibility that to successfully apply leadership skills and make the team effective and organisation effective, that leaders should also have one or two certain traits. One being decisiveness, in the end, a manager or a leader must a decision and those decisions must be for the good of the organisation, and, the second one being the ability to command respect from the work force. This is a very dangerous area to comment upon, as is it not the commanding respect, it is the way in which you command that respect. For instance, if a leader demands respect from a team or organisation, like calling the leader “Sir” or “Boss”, it could have a negative effect on the end product of the organisational goals. But, however, if a manager or leader earns the respect of his or her subordinates, he is more likely to get the team or organisation working effectively and efficiently, especially if he or she uses one of the more democratic styles to leadership.

The most relevant theory here is the theory of transformational leaders. These are people who have charisma, but go beyond that of just a charismatic leader, and learn techniques to deal with certain aspects of business, appraisals, meetings, formal conduct, etc. Indeed charismatic leadership was the preferred term, but transformational can be distinguished against transactional leadership, where the leader offers rewards or threats for compliance to what he or she is asking. Greenberg & Baron (1997, pp 447) states that, “…charisma alone is insufficient for changing the way an organisation operates.” Which suggests that the leader will have to possess extra skills and techniques needed to achieve those organisational goals. Greenberg and Baron also remark on the need for intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration by giving the workers some thought, attention and support, and, transformational leaders are also asked to provide inspirational stimulation, by communicating with the work force. These skills cannot be acquired with the beginning of a life, they must be learned, albeit some leaders are blessed with this amazing natural gift of being a transformational, charismatic leader, such as Dr. Martin Luther King and William Wallace, but these are natural occurrences and there are not enough of those types of people to fill all the management jobs.

In my personal exp

Some topics in this essay:
Baron Greenberg, Organisational Behaviour, Democratic Style, Blake Mouton, Greenberg Baron, World War, William Wallace, Persuasive Style, , Consults Style, manager leader, learn successfully, skill learn successfully, learn successfully apply”, organisational goals, organisational behaviour, basics organisational, business basics, leadership styles, behaviour 2000, basics organisational behaviour, business basics organisational, successfully apply”, organisational behaviour 2000, skill learn,