Importance of Leadership

Effective leadership forms the backbone of a successful business, as it allows the firms utilize their resources efficiently. Though it is much more prominent in the corporate world, the same is applicable to various other sectors, including sports and politics. In an organization with able leadership, employees demonstrate a positive attitude, which reflects on the organization's performance. On the other hand, an organization characterized by lack of leadership has a negatively influenced work environment, which, in turn, results in poor performance from the employees.

What is Leadership?

The term leadership is used to refer to the process of socially influencing people to accomplish a particular task. In the fast paced world where we thrive today, the conventional definition of this term has been left far behind. An organization has both long term and short term goals. In order to attain these goals, the management appoints leaders who have the ability of creating a team and guiding it towards success. The concept of leadership in the 21st century is not even remotely related to the belief that leadership is synonymous with power. The leaders of today believe in working with the team to achieve set goals, rather than making the team work to achieve the same.

Importance of Leadership in Management

When it comes to business management, leadership plays an effective role in accomplishing the set objectives of an organization. The onus is on people working as the top brass to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the human resources management and utilize them effectively to achieve the goals set by the organization. In most of the cases, the failure of a business firm can be attributed to the failure of leadership which holds its reins. Inability of the leaders to develop an effective strategy and more importantly, implement it, can only lead to diminishing returns as far as investment in human resource is concerned.

Other than decision making, the leader also has to motivate and guide his team towards success. As a CEO of an organization, the individual on that post is also expected to boost the morale of his employees by understanding their strengths, weaknesses, problems they are subjected to, etc. Lack of coordination between two departments in a company is a perfect recipe for disaster, and therefore, the leadership has to shoulder the responsibility of coordinating between two or more departments in a said company. In order to get things done from employees, the management has to create a work friendly environment and this can only be done when people at the leadership level know its importance.

The soaring popularity of numerous leadership development programs, offered by some of the most reputed institutes the world over, highlights the importance of this concept in corporate world today. Contrary to popular belief that some people are born leaders, everybody has to inculcate leadership traits in themselves. Some opt for management courses to inculcate these leadership skills in themselves, while others learn from their experiences. One has to understand that effective leadership is not just restricted to giving orders. It also includes various other leadership qualities including diplomacy, understanding, futuristic approach, patience and a bit of ruthlessness as well. A good leader doesn't just give orders but creates a vision for his team members, and leads them towards the goal.

Irrespective of whether it is a company with ten individuals or a company with ten departments with hundred individuals in each, success is bound to be elusive without a highly-skilled person at the helm. But obviously, leadership skills play a crucial role in maximizing the efficiency of available resources of an organization and achieving set goals.