Having an effective leadership in an organization whether big or small considered very essential. Leadership is the key constituent that enhances any effective management. All the forms of leadership starting from top management to first-line management are important to the organizations. Where there are leaders who are effective, the employees are always committed, highly and this boosts the overall performance. An effective leader sets direction and influences people to follow that direction. This brings out the characteristics of a strong leadership theory which is related to organizational leadership and gives a hypothesis that is deduced from a testable theory.
Characteristics of a strong leadership theory. In the world, Leaders are the main builders of tomorrow and the successors of the future. A leader needs to accomplish everything that needs to be done and ensures a hundred percent efficiency. He/she needs a lot of trust to build confidence, and confidence allows him or her to lead to the best level. One has the responsibility of being courageous, able to comprehend all the complicated situations and always make the right decisions. Therefore a leader must possess the knowledge that enables him/her to be ready to face any challenging situation (Northouse G. 2009)
The leader must democratic in that he/she allows his/her team to come up with different suggestion on how a certain task should be done. The team should be given the freedom to choose the person who performs a specific task. The democratic leader can be seen in two ways: A good democratic leader should encourage participation and delegate wisely, but never loses sight on the fact that he/she bears the crucial responsibility of the leadership. The leader should value group discussions and inputs from his/her team and can be seen as drawing from a pool of his/her team members’ strong points in order to attain the required performance from the team.
In a strong leadership, a leader should possess good personality traits such as assertive, self-confidence, adaptability and emotional stability. He/she must also have some task-related characteristics including being driven to excel, accepting the responsibility, having initiatives, and being result oriented. The trait theories intended to identify traits to assist in selection of leaders since traits are related to leadership effectiveness. The trait approach matches the characteristics of the applicant to the position. This approach to understanding leadership assumes that some physical, social, and personal characteristics are intrinsic in leaders. Sets of physical trait such as being energetic assist in selecting the right people to become leaders. Also, the social characteristics such as being charismatic, tactful, cooperative, and diplomatic are also vital in effective leadership (Northouse G. 2009)
The successful leaders must be able to identify clues in an environment and adapt their behaviors to meet the needs of their followers and of any particular situation. Even with better diagnostic skills, leaders may not be effective until they adapt their leadership style to meet the demands of the immediate environment because different situations create different leadership style requirements for a leader. For instance, in an environment with repetitive tasks, certain specific leadership style may result into best required performance.
In strong leadership environment, the leaders should reshape the existing environment variables to match their style. A leader should enhance good leader-member relations, task structure, and position power. Leader-member relations constitutes of the amount of loyalty and the support that the leader receives from other employees. It measures how the manager/leader perceives him/her and the group of employees getting together. In an effective relationship the leader always possess a high task structure and is able to give rewards or punishments to the employees without any complications.
