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An Introduction to the Concept of Influence Processes, Research Paper Example

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Leadership has been defined by management gurus like Henry Fayol as the process by which a person (the leader) influences the behavior of others towards the achievement of certain goals and objectives and direct the organization in a cohesive and coherent way (Northouse’s, 2007), p3). In Process Leadership; leaders use their leadership skills and knowledge to influence their followers. Leaders execute this process with the use of leadership knowledge as well as skills, (Jago, 1982). However, in trait leadership, the leaders apply their traits in managing their followers, this follows the age long adage that leaders are born and not made.

Leadership in general is purpose driven and usually results in a vision inspired change. The concept of strategic leadership is actually the process of thinking, acting, and influencing the followers in order to advance the overall competitive advantages of an organization

The Conceptual Frame Work of Leadership Styles

In their book, ‘the road to great leadership,” Kouzes & Posner, (1987) stated that it is very common to note that most successful leaders:

Do not believe in the status quo and will always be found trying to challenge the processes within their organizations. They will always look for areas in the organization that needs improvement
Inspire a collective vision – the leaders will also show tendencies of sharing their inspiration within the organization, this they try to communicate to his followers his vision in ways that they can easily understand
Empower others to act – a good leader must be able to empower the followers to act by providing them with proper tools and methods to solve the any rising problem
Model the way – it is important for a leader to show employees or followers how to do things. A leader must be humble enough to roll up his leaves whenever difficult situations arise within the company that requires him to actually prove to his followers.
Encourage the heart – a good manager shares his glory with the followers while baring the pains alone.

Leadership has also been proven to be a learned process. however, the skill and knowledge can also be influenced by the traits of a person, these traits or attributes include the leaders’ beliefs, ethics , values and characters, knowledge and skill also have a direct bearing on the process of leadership assumed by a leader while the unique character of the leader is modified by his other attributes “” (Jago, 1982, para. 5).

Factors That Affect Leadership Process

Leader

A leader must always have a very honest understanding of his character; the success of a leadership process is usually determined by the followers in a leadership situation. For a leader to be successful in his Leadership role, the leader must prove that he is worthy of being followed through inspirations, honesty, and respect.

Followers

Leadership has also been said as a situational concept as different situations requires different leadership process and style. It is also safe to say that different type of people prefer certain styles of leadership. For example, whenever there is anew employee in the organization, they will be awarded many hours of supervision than an experienced worker working in the same organization. It is imperative for each and every leader to know his employees well as it is the only way he can know the followers who need to be motivated, rewarded or promoted” (Mischel, 1968, para. 16). Once a leader has a better understanding of the human character like need, motivations and emotions, he will be in a position to determine the followers’ be , know and do attributes.

Communication

Communication is also another factor that affects ;leadership, in as much as the two way communication between the leader and the followers is mainly non verbal (usually by setting an example), the followers will definitely know that in case they decide to down their tools it is them who are going to loose. A leader can build or destroy the relationship between himself and his followers by his chosen way of communication and the contents he communicates to his followers.

Situation

All situations are not the same, what might have worked for a leader in one situation may not work in a different situation, a leader must be able to properly apply his judgments in choosing the best possible solution for a particular problem, the course of action that can produce the optimal solution. The course of action should be appropriate so as not to embarrass employees in his span of control. Situations also have great impacts on a leader’s action. Process theory of leadership is viewed as more accurate than the other theories of leadership because traits have limited consistencies across situations “” (Newstrom, & Davis, , 1993, p. 212).

There are various forces that affects the factor of leadership above , the most powerful ones are ; the relationship of the leader with his seniors, the level of knowledge of the followers, the level of organization of the company as well as the number of informal leaders within the organization

Leadership revolves around capabilities, which need enough dedication. Some persons have purely ingrained leadership characteristics while others may hold a sure magnetism on top of the poise to permit themselves to be planned as a role model for other people to follow. For the role models, their leadership capabilities readily integrate the areas of leadership and human developments into a positive leadership style; thus, the leaders should have a clear understanding on how these areas will affect their life and leadership styles: Intellectual or cognitive development is concern with how individuals start to understand their environment, developing skills of concentration, and reasoning and to gain knowledge. Far from being a procedure to learn, leadership process is a set of life experience melded by intense heat.

During the leadership formation which always begins with a painful experience, leaders manage to overcome all the painful experiences and emerge as heroes in the end. Most leaders never agonize over the elements with full engagement of their mind and emotions. Over and over throughout their tenure, leaders face conflicting realities of many sorts. According to Hsieh, (2005), the theories of intellectual development involve schematic and thematic perspectives. Under schematic perspective cognitive abilities such as reflective thinking, intuitive thinking, concrete thinking and critical thinking are practiced for the success of the leadership process, “” (Northouse, , 2007, p. 125)

The Processes in Which Leaders in Addition to Top Management Team (TMT) Apply to Change Organization

Influence Method	Andrea Jung	Indra Nooyi	Brenda Barnes
Direct decisions	Andrea Jung uses Executive Information System (EIS) to track the essential data of the company on daily basis to aid in decision making	Indra Nooyi relies on surveys and opinion polls to make direct decision	Brenda Barnes uses consensus and collective decision making
Allocation of resources	Andrea Jung uses budgets that are created and follows these budgets religiously for resource allocation	Indra Nooyi uses the most acceptable financial risk system to allocate resources in his organization by doing a cost benefit analysis	Applies the concept of all inclusive to decide on the optimal way to allocate resources in the organization, mostly she relies on the bottom up approach
Reward system	The reward system used by Andrea Jung ensures that members have the chance of learning from their own experience. At times Andrea Jung uses promotions discussion and performance appraisals, to decide on the best possible reward for achieved the set targets	Gain-sharing programs are implemented by this individual as a reward system of choice. The incremental economic gains are shared on a pro rata basis amongst the employees of the company	Offers professional training based on the training need assessment within the organization, some employees are given the option of owning the company’s stock
Selection and promotion of other leaders	Selects other leaders from outside the organization through executive search firms	Promotion of employees within the company	Scouting and Recruitment of new talent
Role modeling	Involving all departmental head sin mentoring programs to coach employees	Uses the workforce diversity to create role models within the company.	Teaching and coaching
An analysis of processes applied by the 3 leaders: Andrea Jung, Indra Nooyi, and Brenda Barnes