Business Leadership - Edited
Business Leadership - Edited
Business Leadership - Edited
Introduction
Leadership is very important for any organization because it provides direction for the attainment
of the goals and objectives of the business. Leadership creates a sense of direction that guide
members to achieve organizational objectives, goals, mission and vision. Leadership approaches
can either be through consideration or initiation structure. Effective leadership will help
employees achieve high performance while increasing job satisfaction. The impact of this is to
reduce high turnover and the overall cost of operation. This paper has been prepared to analyze
central purpose in the behavioural approach, the importance of direction setting and case analysis
of consideration behaviour.
The behavioural approach focuses on the behaviour of the leader as the important determinant on
what they do and how they act. According to this approach, there are two kinds of general
behaviour, relationship behaviour and task behaviour (De Waal, 2013). The approach explains
how leaders use the two approaches to influence the behaviour of their followers in ensuring that
a company attains its goals. The task behaviour in this approach helps in accomplishing goals
and enable members of an organization to achieve their objectives. Relationship behaviour helps
the followers of the leader to feel comfortable with each other and themselves. It also helps them
to feel comfortable in different situations.
According to The Ohio State University Studies, leaders who are concerned with tasks engage in
behaviour referred to as initiation structure. Their approach to leadership is from the task
perspective. An alternative to initiation structure is a consideration which is a leadership
behaviour whose objective is to create mutual trust as well as respect with the leader's followers
(Hughbank and Horn, 2013). When leaders demonstrate high consideration and high initiation
structure, then the followers will achieve high performance, and they will also derive high
satisfaction in their job. It is important to ensure a trade-off when aiming to achieve high
initiation structure and high consideration (Pearce, 2007). High initiation structure can result in
high turnover, absenteeism and grievances. On the other hand, high consideration can result in
lower performance of the employees. Therefore, while high consideration and initiation structure
are important for high performance, it is important to consider situational factors.
Direction setting ensures that all the staff are aware of what is expected of them. Direction
setting ensures that responsibilities and expectations are described for all the employees. How
their work will contribute to the vision of the organization, and the outcomes required to be
successful is also described to employees. It is important to note that employee needs to know
what is expected from them and also want to know that someone is paying attention to the efforts
they put into ensuring that the organization achieve its objectives. Direction plan will outline
how support is offered to different employees, how the organization will respond if one
employee messes and how the organization will recover from the mess. Direction ensures that
the organization provides consistent tools and messages that help address challenges faced by the
organization. With time, direction setting is increasingly becoming important (Davies and Davies
2004). The operational environment for businesses is becoming volatile, and technology is
changing rapidly while new information is being generated first. How business operates is
changing very firs6t, and therefore without direction, organizations will find it difficult to
operate. According to Zaccaro et al. (2008), the first rule of leadership is setting direction.
Shared leadership and empowerment are only effective if there is a direction that will guide
decision making.
Conclusion
Leadership plays a critical role in the success of the organization. Success, in this sense, refers to
the ability to attain organizational goals. Therefore, the right behaviour is important in
determining how effective and efficient employees become.
References
Davies, B.J. and Davies*, B., 2004. Strategic leadership. School leadership &
management, 24(1), pp.29-38.
Hughbank, R.J. and Horn, L.C., 2013. Traits and behavior: Psychological approaches to
Leadership, 20, pp.245-260.
Pearce, C.L., 2007. The future of leadership development: The importance of identity, multi-
Zaccaro, S.J., Heinen, B. and Shuffler, M., 2008. Team leadership and team effectiveness.