Chapter 8: Leadership in Management

Leadership Qualities

Managing and Leading Others

$Leadership$ means taking a company and its employees in a direction based upon a vision.
Leaders also make sure that the basic operations of an organization are running smoothly.
Being a good leader takes several qualities. * Motivation, confidence, communication skills, and integrity are among them.
Motivation has three different components. * One involves inspiring others. * Another component is initiative. * $Initiative$ is the ability to act and make decisions without the help or advice of others. * A true leader is motivated by a vision and uses it to inspire others
Leaders also need self-confidence. * Being self-confident means knowing what to do and taking action
A leader must be good at human relations. * $Human relations$ is the study of how people interact in the workplace and how communication can be improved.
Good communication also involves mentoring.
A mentor is a trusted counselor or guide.
$Integrity$ is an adherence to a code of ethical values such as honesty, loyalty, and fairness. * Integrity is the most highly valued quality in a leader.

Developing Leadership Skills

To manage activities successfully, you must draw on a specific set of skills. * These include human relations, communication, networking, problem solving, and decision-making skills.
Leadership qualities are learned through knowledge and experience.
Skills can be developed in a number of ways, such as * through reading books, watching videos, and taking courses on leadership. * by working with someone who has leadership ability and studying what he or she does. * by joining a club, a team, a drama group, or a community organization. * by taking initiative at school, at work, or in club activities.

Leadership Styles

Types of Leadership

An $autocratic leadership$ style is one in which one person runs everything and makes all decisions without consulting others. * Autocratic leadership is useful in situations in which it is important to obey orders without question.
Democratic leadership is a style in which managers work with employees to make decisions. * A democratic leader assumes that people have ideas and are inclined to contribute.
$Free-rein leadership$ requires the leader to set goals for managers and employees and then leave them alone to get the job done. * Another name for this type of leadership style is hands-off leadership
Giving managers and employees the power to run things and make decisions is called delegating.

There are several reasons for a leader to delegate: * The managers do not have time to do everything. * The managers can focus on more important work. * Employees have more ownership of the production process. * Employees have a chance to develop their own potential.

Leadership in Teams

Many companies have been putting workers in self-managed teams. * Self-managed teams are work groups that supervise themselves.
With these teams, the manager’s role is replaced by the team leader’s role.
In a self-managed team, the leader is a team player rather than a boss.
Self-managed teams are organized in two ways: * (1) the team selects one team leader, or * (2) each team member employs specialized skills, but there is no team leader.
Self-managed teams have many advantages: * They are more goal-oriented than task-oriented. * Team members have a chance to learn each other’s job and \n obtain new skills. * Team members learn to participate and cooperate. * Self-managed teams learn to solve their own problems.
The disadvantage of self-managed teams is that some people do not have the skills and initiative to work together productively.