Leadership...

I have now become paranoid about my MBA exams. I want to clear the Exam at any cost. Of course, the fact that I have taken correspondence course makes the matter a little more difficult. On top of that I am having a very demanding Job, a Job that is full of mental pressure and also requires me to move “on field” now and then make the matter a little more complicated.

But the fact that I have always loved to read and immensely enjoy being a student has helped me a lot. I thought how I can make my preparation and revision interesting. I got a very brilliant idea. I decided I will play by my strengths. This is how I am tackling it.

I love being a student, so I have drawn up a strict time table for studying even after a hard days work. I have always loved reading, so reading the courseware is in fact an enjoyable experience – once a strict time table is set. I also like to write down my thoughts. I decided, instead of being philosophical, I will write about what I have read on that day, there by effectively revising what I read – Hobby and study both accomplished. Last but not the least; I love to post my blog with relevant photos. I will browse the net and find some photos/articles that are relevant to what ever I have read on that particular day and pot it in my blog. Today will be first of these series of posts.

Well, today I learned about leadership in an organizational setup. I learned about the various theories of leadership and how communication skills are very important for an effective leader.

Leadership, by the way is the art of influencing the behavior of your collogues/subordinates in a positive way so that the goals and objectives of the organization are met. Many scientists have done a lot of study to understand this “art”. The various studies can be broadly classified into Trait theory, behavioral, Situational/contingency theory and finally transformational theory.

Trait theory says that leaders are born and not made. This theory says that leaders are a gifted lot. It tries to describe the various traits that leaders somehow acquired. But, the crux here was that many successful leaders had contradictory traits. This theory was hence not successful. The next theory propounded was behavioral theory. This theory says that leaders can be developed. They have certain set of behavior’s that make them an effective leader. Any person who consciously learns and adapts himself to these set of behavior, will become a leader (like consideration for employees, consideration for achieving the goals etc. Based on the behavior the manager himself they can be classified as an autocrat, Benevolent, consultative or participative leader. One particular theory I liked was the “Management Grid” theory. In this the consideration for the employee is on the x axes and the productivity on the Y axes. Value of these axes can range from 1 through nine. Based on this grid the leader can be classified as impoverished leader, Autocratic leader, Country club leader, middle of the road leader and finally Team leader. A person should always aim to be a team oriented leader (High consideration for employees and productivity). But this again failed to give a permanent solution to the question. So, situational theory was proposed. This theory says that a leader must always change his leadership style depending on the situation. He should ask himself certain basic questions before adopting a particular style. Or, he could use the path goal approach in which he defines the goal for the subordinate and depending on the personality of the subordinate lay out the path to achieve the goal. Finally the Transformational theory was proposed. Transformational leaders are the ones who inspire phenomenal output out of their subordinates. Nobody till date has been able to pin point the way transformational leaders are developed.

Finally, today I read about the various communications that flows in an organization (Downward, upward, horizontal and crosswise), Model of communication process, barriers of communication and finally the ways to overcome communication barrier.

Hmmmm….a lot of stuff read. Personally I have some opposing views on what ever I read – but about that later. For now, I am pretty paranoid about my exam and “I want to do well” :-)