What is leadership?

Introduction

Leadership had become very important topic in now days. In modern world people are very keen on leadership & also interested in improving their leadership skills. Hence organizations & individuals spend more resources to do researches about leadership. Leadership is a topic that is being developed through decades & in different decades leadership has defined in different ways. Based on needs & wants of the people generations to generation leadership has defined in many ways.

1900 – 1929

During this period leadership was very much equal to the power & respect. At that time leadership is about the ability to influence. (Moore, 1927)

According to the definition those days’ people who had power were considered as leaders. Those leaders had delegated power & because of that public accepted them as leaders.

1930s

In 1930s leadership was about the characteristics & the personality of a person. Someone who had the ability to change the attitude & the activities of many was considered as a leader. (Northhouse 2016)

As per the definition in 1930s a leader was recognized by looking at the qualities of a person & also the personality.

1940s

In this decade leadership was defined as the behavior of an individual to guide a group. (Copeland, 1942)

Definition describes that in 1940 leadership was about only guiding a group.

1950s

Leadership was defined under three themes.

1.      What leaders do in a group

2.      Leadership defined as developing of shared goals, this was done based on the behavior of the leader.

3.      Leadership was defined by measuring the influence of leader to group effectiveness.

(Northhouse, 2016)

In 1950 leadership was defined in bit comprehensive way & it has considered what leaders do, about group goals & also about the effectiveness.

1960s

Leadership was defined as the ability of one person to change the common direction of other person. (Seeman, 1960)

This definition also little bit similar to the definition in 1940, this also discuss about the influencing a group & guiding a group.

1970s

A person who handle group to achieve the goals of an organization was described as a leader. (Rost, 1991)

In 1970 again the achieving a goals of a group were discussed under leadership.

21^st century

Leadership is defined under four emerging approaches.

Authentic leadership – Artlessness of the leader & his leadership is emphasized.

Spiritual leadership – How leader influence to motivate others

Servant leadership – A leader who is more concern about the followers

Adaptive leader – Leader motivate followers to adapt by represent & solving problems, challenges & changes.

(Northhouse, 2016)

This definition can be considered as the latest definition for the leadership & in addition to theories mentioned in above about leadership, it is also discussed in several approaches in modern world. Those are trait approach, skills approach, behavioral approach & situational approach. (Northouse,2016)

After having several definitions over decades it was decided that leadership cannot be given a one clear definition. Leadership will have different definitions depending on global influences & generational differences. It will have different meaning for different people. (Northhouse, 2016)

References

Copeland, N. (1942) Psychology and the soldier. Harrisburg.

Moore, B. V. (1927) The May conference on leadership. Personnel Journal, 6, pp. 124–128

Northouse P.G (2016) Leadership theory & Practice 7^th edition, London

Rost, J. C. (1991) Leadership for the twenty-first century, New York.

Seeman, M. (1960) Social status and leadership. Columbus: Ohio State University, Bureau of Educational Research.