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Social Leadership: Meaning, Nature, Functions and Other Details about Social Leadership!
Leadership has played an important role in the human history since earliest times. The historians have glorified heroes in battle and valued the importance of their deeds for the future generations.
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The role of politicians statesmen and emperors in the development of empires, territories and nations have received considerable attention in the Imperial history.
In modern society, too, there is a great emphasis on leadership. There is a continual search for men with leadership qualities. The present day crisis in India is the crisis of leadership which can give new dimensions to the people’s zeal in accordance with the concepts of democracy and socialism.
I. The Meaning of Leadership:
It is really very difficult to attempt a definition of leadership, or in other words it is difficult to define what makes certain persons ‘leaders’. Bernard has rightly put it, “Indeed, I have never observed any leader who was able to state adequately or intelligently why he was able to be a leader, nor any statement of followers that acceptably expressed why they followed.” Leadership is often regarded as the important modifier of organizational behaviour.
It is regarded as primarily personal in character as being founded upon individual pre-eminence or accomplishment in a particular field of behaviour. Thus superior strength, superior tact, superior intelligence, superior knowledge, superior will-power any or all of these may be the means to the attainment of leadership.
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No one may deny that these personal qualities do pay dividends but leadership is not all personal pre-eminence. It is something more than that and that ‘something more’ is the essence of leadership. It is the capacity to set new goals, to hold forth new and loftier expectations for the group and to show the group its noble potentialities that make man a leader. Leadership has, therefore, double meaning.
The dictionary meaning of the verb ‘to lead’ shows that the term is used in two different senses: (a) “to excel, to be in advance, to be prominent,” and (b) “to guide others, to be head of an organisation, to hold command.” In the former sense leadership is identified with individual pre- eminence and in the latter sense, it is identified with organizational talent. Thus personal leadership may be distinguished from group leadership. A person is born with the talent for personal leadership but he must learn group leadership.
Leadership versus Power:
The concepts of power and leadership have much in common. Certain people are leaders because they exercise power. Indeed it is unthinkable that a leader should not have power. Consequently, the exercise of influence is a central part of most definitions of leadership. According to La-Piere, “Leadership is a behaviour that affects the ‘behaviour of other people more than their behaviour affects that of the leader.” Pigor also says “Leadership is a concept applied to the personality environment relation to describe the situation when a personality is so placed in the environment that it directs the feeling and insight and controls others in pursuit of a common cause.”
According to Mazumdar, H. T., “The leader is one who has power and authority.” But that neither means that leadership and power are the same thing nor does it mean that power and influence are equivalent. Power indicates authority or command and in any group these have to be activated for the accomplishment of certain ends but leadership act represents a choice of these instruments of power. The leader cannot and will not always rely on these instruments, and even if he has to make use of them, he will use them as a last resort. His basic function is to motivate and inspire.
According to Allen, “Leadership is the activity of persuading people to co-operate in the achievement of a common objective”. Terry defines it as “the activity of influencing people to strive willingly for mutual objectives”. “Leadership always involves attempts on the part of a leader to affect the behaviour of a follower or followers in a situation.” In the words of Seckler-Hudson, “Leadership in large organizations may be defined as influencing and energizing of people to work together in a common effort to achieve the purposes of the enterprise.”
According to him, leadership depends on three things:
(1) the individual, (2) the followers, and (3) the conditions. Leadership is affected by conditions or situations to which power is sometime; blind. Power is authority which goes from the leader downward. Leader is scarcely ever a “free agent” in leading the group of which he is a part.
His followers also influence his behaviour. It is a two way affair. In no society do the leaders wield power in a purely arbitrary way. It has been said that he who leads the mob must follow it. Thus in leadership relations the currents go both ways but in power relations the current goes only one way. It is not A C. but D. C. current.
Power is not equivalent with influence or with initiation change in another person’s behaviour without regard to the situation in which it occurs. A new born infant can influence an change the behaviour of his parents, but this influence is no equivalent with power in the family.
Leadership versus Headship:
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Leadership is also not necessarily headship. Gibb has noted that there is “almost general agreement in the literature of the last few years that leadership is to be distinguished, by definition, from domination or headship”.
Headship means a position in the official hierarchy. A person who is the head of an organisation may not have any influence over the members. He may be a head without an influence. But as he gains influence he becomes a leader because leadership basically involves the capacity to influence.
Characteristics of Leadership:
From the above discussion we may deduce the following main elements in the concept of leadership:
(i) Firstly, leadership denotes a mutual behaviour pattern between the leader and his followers.
(ii) Secondly, leadership is a two way affair. The followers influence the behaviour of the leader inasmuch as the leader influences their behaviour.
(iii) Thirdly, the concept of leadership can be understood only in the context of followers. Without followers there can be no leader.
(iv) Fourthly, leadership involves the element of willing and voluntary obedience by the followers. Leadership is based on cooperation and goodwill. Sheer threat and force cannot maintain one a leader for long.
(v) Lastly, leadership is specific to a specific situation. A person cannot be a leader in all the fields.
II. The Nature of Leadership:
There are two main approaches to leadership—traitist and situationist. In the early times leadership was considered to originate from the personal qualities of the leader and insufficient attention was given to the contribution of the group structure and situation.
The early studies focused their attention on certain traits to compare leaders with non-leaders. Later studies, however, revealed the fallacy of the traitist approach. Gibb remarked that the leader traits are relative to a specific social situation and are not exhibited in isolation.
He pointed out that attempts to find a consistent pattern of traits that characterize leaders had failed and said that the attributes of leadership are any or all of those personality characteristics that in any particular situation make it possible for a person either to contribute to achievement of a group, goal or to be seen as doing so by other group members. The person who becomes a leader surpasses others in some qualities required by the goal in the particular situation.
He writes, “Leadership is both a function of these two interactions. An additive concept is inadequate to explain the phenomenon. There is no justification for saying that personality qualities which make for leadership exist in latent form when not being exercised in a social situation.”
The situationist approach to leadership provides a corrective to the traitist approach which regarded leaders as uniquely superior individuals who would lead in whatever situation or time they might find themselves. Helen Jennings writes, ‘The why of leadership appears…not to reside in any personality trait considered singly, nor even a constellation of related traits, but in the interpersonal contribution of which the individual becomes capable in a specific setting eliciting such contributions from him.” The leader is always, in a significant measure, a function of the situation in which he operates.
The situationist approach emphasizes that leadership is specific to a specific situation. It is a way of behaving exhibited by individuals in differing degrees in different situations. A leader in one group is not necessarily a leader in another. A leader in the class may not be a leader in the playground.
Likewise in a school class a leader may be the boy who dared to “pass” the teacher, while in a college class the leader may be the girl who met frankly and frequently her male class fellows. In short, the attributes of leadership are any or all of those personality characteristics that, in any particular situation, make it possible for a person to contribute to the achievement of a group goal and to help hold the group together.
Though leadership may be considered as behaviour specific to a given situation, yet it does not mean that there is no generality of traits on the basis of which certain persons may be rated leaders. Carter noted correctly that if leadership is absolutely specific to a given situation then it cannot be a subject of scientific analysis and generalization.
The writers have made generalisations about the personal qualities of leaders. Thus, intelligence, self-confidence, sociability, initiative, persistence, prominence, persuasiveness, decisiveness, vitality, capacity to judge the people, expressiveness and geniality are some of the qualities which may help a person to become a leader. According to Van Tunglein, the qualities of a leader are that he is (i) interested in the people; Iii) interesting to the people; and (iii) interested with the people in the solution of their problems.
It may also be mentioned that the leader is necessarily a part of a group and leadership is status and role in that group. It is obvious that leadership can occur only in relation to other people. No one can be a leader all by himself. The relationships which the leader bears to other individuals are status and role relationships. He is part of the group structure and as such he carries on reciprocal relationship with other members of the group.
These relationships define his role in the group. When leadership is viewed as a status in a group structure and a role defined by reciprocal relations with others in the particular structure it is easy to understand why there cannot be a generalization of traits characteristic of leaders.
In different groups the leaders have to fulfill different roles and in the same group different members perform different roles. Naturally, therefore, there are wide variations in the traits of the individuals who are leaders in different groups or perform different roles in the same group.
In sum,
(i) Leadership is not a personality trait, it is a way of relating oneself to others. Leadership accrues to those who take account of others in ways that facilitate group life and group cohesion. In other words, leadership is functional in two senses: it is a function of inter-personal relations it has a function in group life.
(ii) Leadership is situational; who the leaders are depends upon the concrete circumstances. A leader in one group is not necessarily a leader in another.
III. Functions of Leadership:
There is no unanimity of opinion as to what the functions of the leadership are. This is because detailing of functions depends on one’s general concept of leadership. Generally speaking, leadership functions are related to goal achievement and to the maintenance and strengthening of the group.
Functions in the former category, instrumental to achieving the goals of the group, include making suggestions for action, evaluating movement towards the goal, preventing activities irrelevant to the goal and offering effective solutions for goal achievement.
Functions in the second category include encouraging the members, releasing tension that builds up and giving everyone a chance to express himself. In other words, the main functions of leadership are to contribute to the achievement of the group goal and to help hold the group together.
According to Bernard, a leader performs four main functions:
(a) The determination of objectives;
(b) The manipulation of means,
(c) The control of the instrumentality of action; and
(d) The stimulation of co-ordinated action.
The most exhaustive effort to attempt at the functions of leadership has been made by the studies at Ohio State University. The Ohio State work was largely concerned with leadership in formal organisations, most particularly in the U. S. Navy and lasted for seven years from 1946 to 1953.
It established nine dimensions, three of which are mentioned below. These are:
(1) Maintenance of membership:
This involves the closeness of the leader to the group, the frequency of his interactions, and his acceptability to the group.
(2) Objective attainment:
The leader has a basic responsibility for seeing that work patterns are stable and understandable. He must also see that the group achieves its goals.
(3) Group interaction facilitation:
The leader works to facilitate effective interaction among organisation members. Communication’ is a particularly important feature of this dimension.
It is very important to note that the leader by himself alone cannot achieve the group goal and help it maintain its solidarity and strength. Leadership is not the activity of an individual alone. In a large scale organisation, it becomes a collective activity for no single individual can meet the tremendous demands of working out the whole organization.
This has led to the view that leadership like power is dispersed throughout the organisation. No one person has all the leadership functions. The functions of an organization are divided and each individual in his respective position provides leadership in so far as he contributes to the attainment of the group goal and the maintenance of the group cohesiveness.
There is no denying the fact that leadership is provided at several levels in the hierarchy, but, at the same time individual leadership is important. The leader is the symbolic spokesman, the co-ordinator supreme, the important participant in decisions as to goals, the primary change content, and the example to the organisation.
We know what a great difference it made to the British Government in substituting Churchill as against Chamberlain during the World War II. Of course, we have to guard ourselves against the ‘personality cult’ and we must give due importance to the role which leadership plays at other levels in the’ organisation.
Thus leadership is a collective activity in which all key persons participate under the overall control of the top leader. As the person at the top of the status hierarchy, he is the most important single member of the group.
The leader enjoys great authority and power in the group. He also enjoys great prestige. He need not be best at everything the group does, but he must have some skill in those pursuits which particularly interest the group and in some respects he must excel. The authority and prestige he enjoys have their counter-parts in responsibilities required and the expectations for his fulfilling them.
The leader is expected to keep his word, to stick by the members, to uphold the group norms or values. If he does not live upto the level expected, he suffers a loss of prestige and even of position in the group structure. Whether or not the leader lives upto his obligations and responsibilities is a key factor in the solidarity and morale of the group.
Why a Person Assumes Leadership?
Whether a person will assume leadership in a group or not depends upon the reward-cost outcomes expected by him and by his followers. The rewards of leadership are two-fold: First are the satisfactions to be gained from successful accomplishment of the tasks; second are the rewards gained from leadership activity in itself. These include satisfaction of needs for achievement and dominance, as well as other social-emotional needs.
Persons who assume leadership incur a number of costs. They have to spend their time and energy. Besides they bear strains, anxiety, rebuffs, loss of status and blame in case of failure. He also faces the cost of losing the friendship of the members who may be adversely affected in their position and prestige by his having assumed the leadership. He also risks his popularity. He also faces the cost of loneliness since he is often avoided because of his power and because he may have also incurred hostility.
Among the rewards of the followers is firstly, the goal achievement. The followers follow the leader because they recognise that without leadership the goals of the group would not be achieved. Secondly, by following the leader the followers escape the burden of making decisions to meet particular situations facing the group. Thirdly, the followers escape the anxiety over the risk of failure and blame when failure occurs.
The cost which the follower has to pay is the lower status in the group. His status is lower to that of the leader. He does not enjoy the same prestige and position. He has also less control over the activities of the other members. He foregoes the emotional satisfaction that one gains from engaging in leadership tasks.
As to who will assume leadership depends on the rewards and costs arising out of the inter-play between the demands of the situation and the characteristics of the individuals. Those who have the required skills to a high degree can respond at low cost. Varying characteristics of the group members affect their reward cost outcomes differently in different situations.
IV. Types of Leadership:
Many attempts have been made to classify leaders. An early effort using role categories was E. B. Godwin’s distinction between the “intellectual” and the “executives”. In the former he included scientists, authors, philosophers and artists; in the latter, corporation presidents, state governors, religious officials and trade union officials. O. L. Schwarz distinguished between “men of thought” and “men of action”. Sir Martin M. Conway discussing crowd behaviour gave a three-fold classification: “crowd- representative”, “crowd-compeller” and “crowd-exponent.” Eugene E. Jenning has come up with a three-way typology of “Princes”, “Heroes”, and “Supermen”. H. D. Lasswell developed a five-fold typology: (i) The bureaucrat, (ii) The boss, (iii) The diplomat, (iv)The agitator, (v) The theorist.
According to H. T. Mazumdar, there are three kinds of leadership (i) traditional, (ii) bureaucratic, and (iii) charismatic. The traditional leader gets his authority through the traditional status ascribed to him. Thus the Brahmin is the traditional leader of Hindu society. The bureaucratic leader gets his authority and power through delegation, i.e., from election or from appointment. The charismatic leader creates his own authority. He may be a party leader, a religious leader, a social leader or a revolutionary leader.
Bogardus has mentioned the following kinds of leadership:
(i) Direct and indirect leadership;
(ii) Social, executive and mental leadership;
(iii) Partisan and scientific leadership;
(iv) Prophets, saints, experts and boss;
(v) Autocratic, charismatic, paternal and democratic leadership.
None of the above classifications of leadership is completely satisfactory. First, we know far too little about the causal sequences in the life course of leaders; second, we have no adequate criterion for determining types; and third, the divergent historical situations in which leaders operate are hard to classify.
It may, however, be said that the three most significant types of leaders today are the administrator, the expert and agitator. With the extension of state activity and political controls the power of governmental bureaucracy has tremendously increased.
The complicated industrial and military systems cannot operate without the expert. The agitator in time of grave economic insecurity and widespread anxiety about the future political order assumes an important role in mass society such as ours.
V. Leadership Techniques:
There are mainly three types of leadership techniques:
(1) authoritarian; (2) democratic; and (3) laissez-faire: Under the authoritarian technique the leader determines the policy procedures and activities in the group. Under the democratic technique the leader encourages participation by members in deciding group matters and behaves in a friendly, helpful manner to the members, giving technical assistance and suggesting alternative procedures.
In the laissez-faire technique the leader allows complete freedom for decisions and activity, keeping his own initiative and suggestions to a minimum. In 19.39 Lewin, Lippitt and White carried on investigations regarding leadership techniques.
Their findings were as follows:
Authoritarian leadership induced greater dependency on the leader, marked inter-member irritability and aggressiveness, low frequencies of suggestions for group action and group policy, dissatisfaction with group activities and high quantity but low quality of productivity.
Under laissez-faire leadership the group showed little dependency on the leader, great irritability and aggressiveness, high frequencies of suggestions for group action and group policy, considerable dissatisfaction with group activities and intermediate productivity.
Democratic leadership produced low dependency on the leader, low incidence of inter-member irritability and aggressiveness, high frequencies of suggestions for group action and group policy, great satisfaction with group activities and an intermediate quality of production of high quality.
There is no denying the fact that the democratic technique is a human relation approach which is in keeping with democratic values. It increases independence for all group members and hence increases their morale. But it cannot be applied whole sole. The advantage of democratic leadership depends upon the demands of the situation, the distribution of skills within the group, and the group’s expectations, as well as other factors.
Unfortunately, these qualifications have been ignored and democratic leadership has been praised in un-qualifying words. Gibb notes, “It is common in our culture at the present time to place negative values on authoritarian leadership. Much of this attitude seems to be due to a prolonged period of ideological opposition to cultures authoritarianly organized. The tendency is to think of authoritarianism in its most extreme form of headship, and denounce all forms of individual authority over others. Studies of group action reveal that in certain circumstances authoritarian leadership is highly valued.”
Under certain situations an authoritarian form of leadership may be more effective. Such situations may be those where the group is faced with a need for emergency action.
In sum, the leadership techniques have to be related to the attitudes of the membership, to the particular form of relation among the members including the leader and functions as a part of the group structure. These are to be “reality-oriented”. Gibb writes, “It is important that we recognize authoritarianism and democracy as poles of a continuum, neither of which is wholly good or wholly bad, but which represent extremes of “variable” leadership techniques “that should be adapted to all the elements of the situation, culture, personality, content, structural, inter-relations, and task.”