Leadership is a process of using human communication skills
to help a group achieve its goal. Leadership is the process by which
influence
is exercised, and the leader is a person who has been appointed, elected,
or has emerged to fill the group leader position (or role).
Someone’s power to influence may stem from reward, punishment,
legitimate, referent, or expert sources. Coercion is not considered an
appropriate source of power in a group.
Leadership emergence can be captured in a three-stage
model depicting how some members fall out of contention for leadership
and others
garner support.
Several approaches to the study of leadership were examined.
Early traits approaches, which assumed that leaders were born rather than
made, have been discredited. Styles approaches examine the effect of democratic,
autocratic, and laissez-faire styles on such outcomes as productivity and
satisfaction.
Current contingency approaches assume that the style needed depends on
the group and its situation.
Most contemporary researchers accept the contingency
view of leadership. Important contingency theories include Fiedler’s, Hersey
and
Blanchard’s, the functions approach, and the communicative competencies
approach.
Nine essential communicative competencies of effective
group leaders were described.
Leadership is the property of the group because
the behavior of the leader and the members constrains and shapes the behavior of
the other.
The Leader-Member Exchange model was presented as an example of how leaders
and members affect each other.
A distributed leadership model suggests that in an ideal
and mature group members are as responsible for the productivity and effectiveness
of the group as is the designated leader.
