Leadership Qualities

by Divakar
(Shimla,H.P., India)

Leadership is a process of influencing members in a given situation to achieve common agreed goals. A good leader must possess some traits, which defines his/her leadership qualities.

A leader must adopt an approach where he/she treat people as individuals according to their special needs and avoid favoritism. Secondly a leader must ensure that there is a fair evaluation of performance of the work appraisal of sub-ordinates. This decision-making will also increase leadership effectiveness. Lastly, a leader who is readily available to his sub-ordinates impresses them with his/her interest in their problems, promotes a more effective superior-subordinate relationship. If he is distant, it might give the impression that he does not care for others and would rather like to be left alone.

A number of studies have been conducted. Various authors examined what kind of leadership behavior leads to higher productivity and higher work satisfaction. What has emerged from all these studies is a supervisory attitude marked with easy, open, understanding style; supervisory behavior which is flexible, responsive and considerate of the needs and opinions of sub-ordinates.

Pal and Vasudeva (1989) first identified high task-oriented and high relationship oriented supervisors through a pilot study. The results showed that workers working under relationship-oriented leaders experienced significantly a greater degree of satisfaction than their counterparts working under task oriented leaders.

It is noticed that conflicting orders, discrimination, unnecessary interference in the work of employees, too close a supervision often lead to ineffective leadership behavior. Sub-ordinates see their leaders as a model. When satisfied with the leader they try to follow the leader’s footstep.