Leadership: Charismatic Individuals or Contingent Characteristics?
Assignment Title:
Leadership: Charismatic Individuals or Contingent Characteristics?
Leadership: Charismatic Individuals or Contingent Characteristics?
An organisation regardless of its size, business environment, industry or structure relies on the ability of its leaders to motivate and influence the workforce to achieve common goals, deal with complex challenges and deliver sustainable results. The study made by Bass (1990), one of the foremost scholars on leadership, showed that the decisions made by a leader on different factors can impact on up to 65% on the success or failure of an organisation.
Stogdill (1974, p. 259) noted that there are as many definitions of leadership as people who have tried to explain this concept. Stogdill (1950, p. 3) considered leadership ‘as the process (act) of influencing the activities of an organised group in its efforts toward goal setting and goal achievement’. Rauch & Behling (1984, p. 46) stated that ‘leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an organised group toward goal achievement’. Bass (1990, p. 19), defined leadership as ‘an interaction between two or more members of a group that often involves a structuring or restructuring of the situation and the perceptions and expectations of the members’. Later, Northouse (2007, p. 3) described leadership as ‘a process by which an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal’.
Despite the previous leadership definitions being different, they all argue that leaders through their actions help to facilitate the movement of a group of people toward a common goal. Therefore, these definitions imply that leadership is the result from the interaction between individuals with the same purpose or mission. (Greenberg, 2003, p. 47)
Currently, there are differing leadership styles that can be exhibited by leaders in sports, business,