What is meant by the notion that leadership is a processSolu

What is meant by the notion that leadership is a process?

Solution

The success of an organisation largely depends on the capability of its leaders to guide and motivate their teams. Leadership, as a concept, is crucial for organisations to do well and remain competitive in their area of business. Often, leadership is confused with good management capabilities. Truth is that having good managerial skills is just a small function of effective leadership. When we say that leadership is not a position or one person’s role, it is in fact a process, we basically refer to a leader’s role of creating more leaders. An organisation thrives in an environment where each member is seen as a leader. Each of the employee is empowered to take his or her own decisions critical to their assigned roles and are held accountable for their decision making capabilities. It is true that hierarchy and processes in an organisation are also necessary in organising and standardising the way work is conducted, but at the same time, the presence of too many systems and channels also restrict people from working independently and delivering better results.

When leaders try too hard to micro-manage their sub-ordinates and do not give them a free hand by trusting their leadership capabilities, it often leads to the lost motivation and frustration of the employee thereby affecting organisation’s business and satisfaction level of its customers. A true leader is the one who aims to create more leaders instead of followers. When each member of the organisation, irrespective of his or her position in the organisational hierarchy, feels empowered, leadership becomes a contagious process. An organisation is bound to fail where the senior leadership is more interested in dictating things to their sub-ordinates instead of building a culture of leadership. The leadership development process starts right from planning, hiring, promoting and role modelling of employees. Today, most of the successful organisations have well structured leadership management programmes where the new recruits are hired and trained rigorously to prepare them for leadership roles in future.

The difference between the successful and failed organisations is in their capability to build a leadership pipeline right from the beginning. Failed organisations are often over-managed and under-led. No one takes the responsibility of leading the team because everyone is too much engaged in managing them. Failed or failing companies resort to just filling the vacant positions rather than succession planning for the future vacant positions. Therefore, building leaders who have high degree of self-awareness, that is, people who have high emotional quotient, who are good in building relationships, have good business acumen and are good at organisational strategy is a long-term strategy and an ongoing process. Organisations must, therefore, be more structured and dedicated in leadership planning.