Summative assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Summative assignment - Essay Example Leadership was broadly defined by Yukl (1989) as "influencing task objectives and strategies, influencing commitment and compliance in task behaviour to achieve these objectives, influencing the culture of an organization." In simpler terms, leaders influence the actions and behaviours of their followers to obtain a shared vision or aim. According to Deming (1992), leadership must come from top management and leaders must possess profound knowledge. By profound knowledge, Deming meant that one must have knowledge of systems, variations (statistical thinking), theory, and psychology. Leadership is quite different from management; leaders grow from mastering their own conflict which arises during their developing years using internal strength to survive. On the other hand, managers tend to perceive issues as positive progressions of events which must be planned, organized, scheduled, and controlled. In order to create the proper thinking perspective, leaders must aggressively investigate and act on the current market to create opportunities. Effective leaders are those that are capable of assisting their organization/country manage change and steer it towards success. Tichy and Devanna (1986) assert that managers engage in very little change but manage what is present and leave things much as they found them when they depart. Transformational leadership, they declared, focuses on change, innovation, and entrepreneurship. They assumed that transformational leaders begin with a social fabric, disrupt that environment, and then recreate the social fabric to better reflect the overall business climate. They argue that there are four suggested personal characteristics of a transformational leader: (a) dominance, (b) self-confidence, (c) need for influence, and (d) conviction of moral righteousness. These leaders are expected to deal with the paradox of predicting the unknown and sometimes the unknowable. These leaders change and