34 CHAPTER – II THEORY OF LEADERSHIP 2.1 Introduction : Leadership is one of the most critical behavioral processes of all human activities, survival, development and continuity of civilization depending upon the qualities of leadership. It has drawn the scholarly attention, because of its universal and indispensable character. Leadership is inevitable for every society, as no society can be organized, continue, grow and develop without it. The leaders are „Great men „, who through their social vision and dynamic action can change the course of history. Political development, democratic growth and administrative capabilities of a nation greatly depend upon the qualities of its leadership. Leadership paves the way towards „‟ social change” resulting in political modernization and development of a country. Leadership is crucial for emerging nations as they are attempting to build a social economic structure and a strong democratic edifice which needs men of vision, foresight and workmanships.
65
Embed
THEORY OF LEADERSHIP - Shodhgangashodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/57321/4/2 chapter 2 final… · leadership emerges when a personality is so placed in the environmental
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
34
CHAPTER – II
THEORY OF LEADERSHIP
2.1 Introduction :
Leadership is one of the most critical behavioral processes
of all human activities, survival, development and continuity of
civilization depending upon the qualities of leadership. It has drawn
the scholarly attention, because of its universal and indispensable
character. Leadership is inevitable for every society, as no society can
be organized, continue, grow and develop without it. The leaders are
„Great men „, who through their social vision and dynamic action can
change the course of history. Political development, democratic growth
and administrative capabilities of a nation greatly depend upon the
qualities of its leadership. Leadership paves the way towards „‟ social
change” resulting in political modernization and development of a
country. Leadership is crucial for emerging nations as they are
attempting to build a social economic structure and a strong
democratic edifice which needs men of vision, foresight and
workmanships.
35
Generally speaking leadership refers to the act of leading
others in social situation. Like Democracy it may mean many things to
many people. The term is used in two different senses if we look to
the dictionary meaning of the verb “to lead “, in one sense it means “to
excel, to be in advance, to be prominent „‟, in another sense it means
to guide others, to be the head of an organization to hold command. It
may connote different notions when viewed in different prospective.
For example , to call someone a leading doctor , a leading professor , a
leader artist mean that he enjoy greater esteem and superior position
compared with his fellow men in his profession or occupation ; but it
also mean that he is capable of exercising influence on them and
bring about desired change in their behavior and actions .
Therefore, leadership may be perceived or viewed in
diverse ways because there are different ways one individual may
separate himself from others in social situations. Despite such
different notion and lack of unanimity of definition on the concept of
leadership, some important definition and views of scholar may be
presented here so as to discern the general attributes of leadership.
2.2 Definitions and Views On Leadership:
The leadership has been variously defined by different
scholars .Some scholars defined it in term of group activities.
36
According to Adolf Hitler, leadership means ability to move masses of
men. To begin with, according to E. C Lindeman, a leader is “an
individual whose rationalizations, Judgments and feelings are
accepted by the group as the basis of belief and action”.1 Ordway
Tead upheld such view as he observes “ leadership is the activity of
influencing people to co-operate to some goal which they come to
find desirable”.2 According to psychologists and sociologists,
leadership is the characteristics of a group rather than of individuals.
Leadership is a set of function which is to be performing by the Group.
As Cartwright and Zender suggest, “…… stresses the characteristics
of the group and the situation in which it exists………. Seeks to
discover what action is required by groups under various conditions if
they are to achieve their goals or their valued states and how different
group members take part in group action. Leadership is viewed as the
performance of these acts which help the group achieve its‟ preferred
outcomes”. 3 Gibb observed that newly formed groups some degree of
leadership emerged within the first few minutes of interaction. Collins
and Guetzkow confidently stated that “the greater the personal
attraction of other group members to a single individual, the greater
power of that individual”. 4
According to some scholar leadership involves some kind
of outstanding initiative in group activities. Charles. H. Cooley defines
37
it as “leadership is only silent initiative.”5 W. H. Cowley also gave
similar opinion when he adds the idea of fellow – responsiveness and
defines it as “A leader is an individual who is moving in a particular
direction and who succeeds in inducing others to follow after him”.6
Herbert S. Lewis emphasized that initiative as a defining
characteristics and define leadership as ……leaders initiate action and
play central role in group decision-making”.7 Dwight D. Eisenhower
who says that “leadership is the ability to decide what is to be done
and then to get others want to do it.8 Harry S. Truman who says “A
leader is a man who has ability to get other people to do what they do
not want to do, and like it.”9
Personality of the leader that enables him to exercise
influence on others and to bring about intended changes in their
behavior is, however conditioned by the social environment in which
the leader function. Paul Pigour is of the opinion that leadership
involves personality-environment relationship. According to him,
leadership emerges when a personality is so placed in the
environmental that his “will, feeling and insight direct and control
others in the pursuit of a common cause”. 10 John K. Hemphill who
emphasized that the impact of the social environment upon the leader
in conditioning the exercise of his influence for realizing group goals.
He defined leadership as “To lead is to engage in an act which initiates
38
a structure in the interaction of others as part of the process of solving
a mutual problem”. 11 when an individual initiates and decides group
goals and become successful in realizing them through interactions
with other members of the group of the society then he may be said to
have attained the status of a leader. As leadership is a higher social
position in the hierarchical order of the society, it brings power, status
and respect for the leaders then others in the society .As Bernand
Bass points out, “…….we consider leadership an interaction between
members of a group ……it has been equated with any positive
influence act; with behavior required to direct a group …….”12 Bass ,
however , asserts that leadership may be characterized by the degree
to which desired changes in the behavior of others for realizing group
goals take place . Again Lewis states that “whether or not a society has
institutionalized chiefs, rulers, or elected officials, there are always in
any society, leaders who initiate action and play central roles in group
- decision making.”13. He further explained, “There are no known
societies without leadership of at least some aspects of their social life,
even though there are many that lack a single leader to enforce the
decision.”14
E. P. Hollander highlighted the interactive attribute of
leadership and opines that “………leadership is a relationship between
a person exerting influence and those who are influenced, and
39
…….best seen within the framework of group process.”15 According to
him, a leader is required to have social perceptiveness 16 while
exercising influence over the influencee. He is required to be aware of
the group circumstances so that he may take action for designed
structural-functional change in it. For effective group functions, its
stability and viability a leader has to develop congruence between its
structure and functions .The degree of his effectiveness17 can be
determined from his ability to develop co -relationship between group
structure and functions.
Effectiveness of the leader in exercising influence over its
members may also be measured, according to Raymond B. Cattell, the
psychologist in terms of “group syntality.” He defined “group syntality”
“ as the performance of the group as a whole”.18 The idea of group
syntality seems related to the concept of “social facilitation” defined by
W.C. Allee, a student of comparative animal and human “sociology” as
“any increment in frequency , intensity or complexity of behavior of
one individual resulting from the presence of the other”. 19
Cattell suggested that the measure of a leader‟s influence
may be sought not so much on his influence on group members but
in his influence upon total group locomotion or group “syntality” i.e.
characteristics , nature or quality , analogous to individuals
personality , which is Judged from the effectiveness of total
40
performance of the group as group . The extent of leader‟s influence on
the total group performance as a group would reveal the degree of his
effectiveness. Therefore leading may occur only with in groups, and
leader may be seen to occupy a position within a group and fulfill
group role .i.e. high proportion of initiating, decision making or leading
acts .The individual who engages in leadership events becomes a
leader. Thus, the group leader would be the person who engages in
more leadership events than others. So we identified the leadership
only those interactive events in which intended influence are
consummated. So leadership involves the relationship between an
individual‟s group built around some common interest and behaving
in a manner directed and determined by him.
A leadership is always linked with a particular situation as
well as a given point of time and specific set of circumstances.
Distinguished scholar civil A. Gibb has characterized the following
attributes of leadership. Firstly, it is always “relational to the situation
and flourishes only in a problem situation”. Secondly, the nature and
role of the leader is determined by the goal of the people .Thirdly,
leadership is “a process of mutual stimulation, a social interaction
phenomenon in which the attitudes, ideals and aspiration of the
followers play as important and determining role as the individuality
and personality of the leader.”20
41
In defining leadership Report Tannenbaum , Irving R .
Wechsler, and Fred Massanik have emphasized on the criterion of
inter – personal influence. According to them, leadership is “inter
personal influence, exercised in situation and directed through the
communication process, toward the attainment of specified goal or
goals”.21. It involves attempts on the part of a leader (influencer) to
influence the behavior of the follower (influencee) or followers in a
situation. Tannenbaum and his associates are of the opinion that
leadership arts are goal- oriented, goals may be organizational goals,
group goals, personal goals of the leader or personal goals of the
followers which is to be realized by interpersonal influence exercised
through the communication process. In this inter–personal process of
goal attainment, the degree of leadership effectiveness is determined
by influence effect. The leadership effectiveness is the outcome of the
dynamic inters- relationship of the personality characteristics of the
leader, the personality characteristics of the situation in which each
actor is required to play his role. 22According to G. Ram Reddy and
Seshadri elaborate “leadership manifests itself in the total process of
the rise of a leader, the influence he exerts on his followers and the
way and the ways he not only ensure and gather power around him
and seek to ascend still further or the range of the leadership ladder,
but also tries to perpetuate his achieved position. 23 Accordingly,
42
leadership is a process and not a person, involving a leader, followers
and their situation.
The concept of leadership is different from that of a
„leader‟. However, a few authors have used them synonymously.
Ordway Tead defines : “ leadership is the activity of influencing people
to co- operate towards some common goal which they come to find
desirable”.24 The personal relation of leadership has been focused by
Allport when he explains : “leadership according to our present usage,
means the direct, face to face contact between leader and followers; it
is personal social control‟‟,25 the term leader has traditionally implied
a person clearly distinguished from others in power , status , visibility
and in any of a number of character , such as decisiveness , courage ,
integrity and intelligence . But in present time participative approach
to leadership which de-emphasizes status has failed to make
conceptual distinction between leaders and followers. Some scholar
defines it in terms of follower need, “serve the people” –Mao Tse -Tung
.26 Leadership as influence by example. “What a few will do, others will
copy”. 27 “Clean examples have a curious method of multiplying
themselves‟‟28 Gandhi said in this context.
Leadership does not mean Domination. According to
Schmidt, leadership influence must not take the form of coercive
influence but of spontaneous influence. He opines , strictly speaking
43
the relation of leadership anises only where a group follows an
individual from free choice, and not under command or coercion, not
in response to blind drives but on positive and more or less rational
grounds.29 leadership is different from Domination as W. J .W sprott
points out , leadership is a process of mutual stimulation and co-
operation between the leader and the followers for realizing group–
goals but domination is a process of control in which, by assumption
of superiority, a person or group regulates the activities of others
coercively.”30
Therefore, leadership are thus, creators and builders of
the group or society because they are concerned as much with
innovation as with collective stability, and they perform such actions
which “aid in setting group goals , moving the group towards its goals ,
improving the quality of interactions among the members building the
cohesiveness of the group , and making resources available to the
group”.31 Arnold S. Tannenbaum also held the same view and points
out : “leadership defines, initiates and maintains social structure. The
social system is, so to speak, „programmed‟ through leadership.
Understanding leadership, then, should be a simple and parsimonious
approach to understanding the larger social system”.32
44
Also political leadership implies politics and politics
means politician. According to H.D. lasswell, “A fully developed
political personality combines certain motives with certain skills,
emotional capacity to externalize impulses with enough skills to secure
success.”33 in the words of Robert Dhal “politic is unavoidable fact of
human existence ; everyone is involved in some fashion at some time
in some kind of political system34 Administrative leadership is an
essential complement to political leadership .The relationship between
politics and leadership has been well defined by Edinger . He defines
“politics as the competition for control over the distribution of public
benefits and obligations while political leadership involves the direct or
indirect exercise of influence over the distribution of these goods and
services. Thus, the whole question of politics focuses on these who
exercise influence and power and how these are employed for the
purposes of distributing scare resources”.35 The political leaders
interlink the complex social variable and promotes the stability and
equilibrium in the political systems and maintain balance in the
administrative machinery . Hence, political leaders are the wielder of
power, maker of decisions, originator and recipient of messages,
performer of functions, creator and operator of institutions. As one
cannot separate the process of change from the agents of change, any
fruitful analysis of the politics of development must include the
45
political leadership .To speak politics then is to speak of political
leadership, the two phenomena are inseparable. Janada and Friedrich
defined leadership in terms of power. Janada attempts to differentiate
leadership from coercive domination and he defined it as consensual
follower response to legitimate leader initiative. He again states that, it
is a form of consensual, but not coercive, power. He had explained
that leadership is “a particular type of power relationship
characterized by group member‟s perceptions that another group
member has the right to prescribe behavior patterns for the former
regarding his behavior as a member of a particular group.” 36 Friedrich
also defines leadership in terms of power and said that as power itself
is partly „a possession‟ and partly „a relation‟ among men that
manifests itself in the behavior of followers so also leadership can be
either coercive or consensual.37 In his opinion , leaders are “power-
holders”, “power-spenders, “and “power-makers.” 38 Leadership has
three primary roles “initiating, maintaining, and protecting”; followers
have three corresponding pattern of behavior “imitating, obeying and
acclaiming.”39 thus types of power and the type of leadership are all
related and interchangeable.
Downtown made an early effort to link the idea of
leadership with a structural- functional approach to political analysis.
He defines leadership broadly as “the chief coordinating structure of
46
social system.”40 A function is taken as “a task that is relevant to the
system‟s performance of services.”41 Here function refers to
instrumental function i.e. goal setting, communicating and mobilizing
and expressive functions. (Ego-support) Thus, the leader is the central
figure in socio-political system as its stability and viability or
instability and change depends by his leadership acts. Hence, taking
in to account all the above views it can be said that leadership is the
interaction between the leaders and his followers in a particular
situations.
2.3 Elements of Leadership:
A close look in to these definitions provides the fact that
leadership is an inter-individual relationship in which the leader
influences the followers for accomplishment of intended group-goal.
Therefore, it is composed of four elements or variables such as the
leader, the followers, the situation, and the task or goals of the group.
So the interaction among these four elements or variables for
understanding the leadership phenomenon may be analyzed and
comprehend.
2.3.1 The leader:
The leader performs the act of leading which would be
performed for some duration and that leadership position would be
47
occupied for considerable time by the same individual. The leader
enjoys a status that permits him to exercise power and influence over
other individuals in the group. Therefore, the ability of an individual to
undertake influence attempts and to become effectives in realizing the
desired goals or objects becomes central to the concept of leadership.
The ability of the leader can be derived from various sources to which
people considered most valuable. These constitute the sources of his
influence which may be used to secure followers‟ compliance to the
initiatives and decisions of the leader. However compliance is secured
in free inter - change within group context and followers through such
spontaneous compliance, accord a status to the leader by virtue of
which leadership acts are performed by him and influence is exercised
effectively for realizing group goals . Group-consent is, therefore, a
central feature of leader - follower relationship. 43
2.3.2 Follower:
Without followership, leadership cannot be conceived as it
is a two way traffic in which both leader and follower help each other
for realizing the group goals. The leader exercise influence over the
followers and secure their compliance to the initiatives, decisions and
directives of the leader and contrary to this, leadership would become
ineffective. Both leaders and followers stimulate not only the other‟s
needs and goals but also its determination and action. They perform
48
complementary tasks by reinforcing each other‟s strength and
confidence in achieving both individual and common objectives. Again
they are collaborators as there would be no leading without following,
and no following without leading. Therefore, the concept of follower is
a major variable 44 or element in the phenomenon of leadership.
2.3.3 Situation:
The third important element in the process of leadership is
the situation in which the act of leadership is undertaken by the
leader. Leadership is a nexus of need fulfillments that binds
situational demands and group membership. The term situation in its
broad sense include structural and cultural characteristics of the
group , its physical conditions desired goals or need, inter-personal
relationship and cultural context I.e. the leaders and led‟s attitudinal
pattern. The leader- follower relationship takes place in the context of
this situation. Groups are expected to select leaders who diagnose
problems quickly and act decisively during crisis situation. It is the
situation which to a large extent determines effectiveness of the leader
in goal-attainment. 45
2.3.4 Group-goal:
Another important element of the process of leadership is
the group-goal or task. The group-goal or objectives is transmitted by
49
the leader to the followers through the process of communication; and
the leader tries to influence their behavior in the direction of
attainment of group-goal. Hence, the effectiveness of the leader
depends on his ability to realize the group-goal or task.
Thus, the leadership process involves interaction among
the four elements i.e., the leader, the followers the situation and the
tasks or goals to be realized. The leader initiates interpersonal
influence through communication and tries to influence the followers‟
attitude, action, behavior and dispositions for accomplishment of
intended group-goals in the context of a situation .All these elements
together tend to play significant roles in determining leadership
effectiveness. Hence, in order to understand the leadership process, it
is desirable to analyze and comprehend the interaction between the
personality of the leader and followers, group goals characteristics of
the situation in which the leader undertakes the act of leading.
2.4 Leadership Approaches:
There are various approaches for the study of leadership
phenomena. However, two distinct approaches i.e. Trait approach and
the situation Approach can be used for study and analysis of
leadership roles.
50
2.4.1 Trait Approach:
It is the earliest approach adopted by scholar during the
first part of the twentieth century for the study of leadership. It is
concerned with identification of peculiar physical and psychological
characteristics and distinguishing personality traits of the leaders,
which are not generally found among other members in the society.
Due to his superior physical, psychological and intellectual traits he
easily influences the others and he seems to be bigger and brighter
than the rest of the population. Thus this approach focuses exclusively
on the leader and asserts that the effectiveness of the leader may be
explained in terms of psychological and physiological characteristics of
traits which differentiate him from other members of group.
The physical qualities of leadership are strong and
imposing physique, vigor and strength, dramatic expression, a
pleasant voice and self confidence. He is expected to be a strong and
stout man who can successfully tackle a violent situation and provide
his followers with a sense of security. Some of the important
psychological traits of leadership are intelligence, tact, courage,
courtesy, initiative, flexibility impartiality and emotional stability.
According to R.M. stogdill has found traits among successful leader
these characteristics are “Intelligence, Dependability, Responsibility,
scholarship, social participation and socio-economic status.”46
51
According to Ghiseli the following are common traits among successful