To summarize this course, a leader is not just a head of group of people but an individual who is able to influence others to follow and achieve a mutual goal. An effective leader is able to share his leadership responsibility, enhance follower's leadership skill, influence follower for continual improvement, set a clear objective and work with other as a team.
Leadership can be differentiate into two theory: Great Man Theory and Trait Theory. Great Man Theory judge a leader by physical appearance like height, physical strength while Trait Theory judge a leader by personality like values and honesty. There is also Theory X and Theory Y which Theory X assume follower are lazy and lead in autocratic style while Theory Y assume follower are motivated and lead in participative style. Many theories are introduced by many researches and most of them are categorized into two dimensions which are relationship and productivity. Leadership is dynamic, it can range from low concern on both dimensions to only concern on one dimension to high concern on both dimensions. There is no best leadership style but the best suited leadership style depend on leader, follower and situation. Such idea is known as contingency leadership. Should the leader focus on productivity or relationship or should the decision making be made by leader or follower, a leader should understand the situation and decide the best leadership style.
In leadership, there is aspect of influencing, power, relationship, network, communication, conflict, negotiation. Influencing is a very major part as it is what bring follower together. Power comes when a leader lead and the use of power is known as politics. Politics should be use in good way which will develop the team and enhance the relationship. Relationship the main things that bond leader and follower together. The relationship between leader and each follower, also known as dyad, should be focused and build up to form a strong bond and understanding. Network is form when there is good relationship within the group, with other group or third party. Communication is a key to conveying information with each other. As communication is the basic skill for human to understand each other, communication plays a very important role in a group. Not all communication leads to common agreement, hence there will be conflict. A leader has to manage the conflict, concern on own needs and other's needs is made to solve the conflict. Negotiation is a skill and also a way to achieve a common agreement with each other.
Crisis is an extra to the aspect of leadership. Every leadership will certainly meet a crisis. A leader should be able to manage the crisis, take charge of it, take responsibility of it and change it into an opportunity.
A good leadership should be a team and the leader and follower work together as a team and strengthen each other. A good leadership should also be charismatic. A high charisma is able to group people together to achieve a common goal. While getting follower by charisma is good, it is important that the goal is focused on organizational good but not own benefit. With that, transformational leadership can be achieved as the group is able to agree to a common vision and make a transformation. Besides being an effective leader, Level 5 Leadership theory suggest that a higher level of leadership should be achieve which the leader is not only in high rank but also think of other, respect other, take responsibility of his own mistake and have a low-ego. Lastly, a good leader should be authentic which one should have self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing and relational transparency. A great leader do not seek revenge but help others.
Throughout this course, many theories is learnt but these are not just a theory. As the name of this course is called Dynamic of Leadership, leadership is dynamic. There is no best way but leadership style is dynamically change depends on situation. To be a great leader, one should be able to apply all the theory dynamically, on the go. Contingency Leadership, Team Leadership, Charismatic Leadership, Transformational Leadership, Level 5 Leadership and Authentic Leadership are not type of leadership style a leader need to choose but are the aspect for a leader to apply, all theories should be applied to make a perfect leadership.
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