Thursday 28 April 2011

O.B

Organizational behaviour
Organizational studies, sometimes known as organizational science, encompass the systematic study and careful application of knowledge about how people act within organizations. Organizational studies sometimes is considered a sister field for, or overarching designation that includes, the following disciplines: industrial and organizational psychology, organizational behavior, human resources, and management. However, there is no universally accepted classification system for such subfields.
Whenever people interact in organizations, many factors come into play. Modern organizational studies attempt to understand and model these factors

O.B

Organizational behaviour
Organizational studies, sometimes known as organizational science, encompass the systematic study and careful application of knowledge about how people act within organizations. Organizational studies sometimes is considered a sister field for, or overarching designation that includes, the following disciplines: industrial and organizational psychology, organizational behavior, human resources, and management. However, there is no universally accepted classification system for such subfields.
Whenever people interact in organizations, many factors come into play. Modern organizational studies attempt to understand and model these factors

Leadership Theories

Charismatic Leadership Theory
Charismatic leadership theory, also called great man theory by some, can be traced back to ancient times. Plato’s Republic and Confucius’ Analects dealt with leadership. They provided some insights of leadership. Subsequent studies based on these insights have suggested that ‘a leader is born and is not made.’
A leader has some charisma which acts as influencer. Charisma is a Greek word meaning gift. Thus, charisma is a God-gifted attribute in a person which makes him a leader irrespective of the situations in which he works. Charismatic leaders are those who inspire followers and have a major impact on their organisations through their personal vision and energy. Occasionally, a leader emerges whose high visibility and personal
charisma catch the public consciousness. Robert House, who proposed a relook on charismatic theory,
suggests that charismatic leaders have very high levels of referent power and that some of that power comes from their need to influence others. According to him, “the charismatic leader has extremely high levels of self-confidence, dominance, and a strong conviction in the normal righteousness of his/her beliefs, or at least the ability to convince the followers that he/ she possesses such confidence and conviction.” He suggests
further that charismatic leaders communicate a vision or higherlevel goal (transcendent) that captures the commitment and energy of followers. The basic assumptions and implications of charismatic leadership theory are as follows:
1. Leaders in general, and great leaders in particular, have some exceptional inborn leadership qualities which are bestowed upon them by the divine power.
2. These inborn qualities are sufficient for a leader to be successful.
3. Since these qualities are inborn, these cannot be enhanced through education and training. Further, since these qualities are of personal nature, these cannot be shared by others.
4. These leadership qualities make a leader effective and situational factors do not have any influence.
Implications of the Theory Charismatic leadership theory has re-emerged basically for two
reasons. First, many large companies in USA have embarked on organisational transformation programmes of extensive changes that must be accomplished in short period of time.
Such transformations, it has been argued, require transformational leaders. Second, many feel that by
concentrating on traits, behaviours, and situations, leadership theories have lost sight of the leaders. These theories discuss more about transactional leaders and not about transformational leaders. A transactional leader determines what subordinates need to do to achieve objectives, classifies those requirements, and helps subordinates become confident that they can reach their objectives. A transformational leader
inspires his followers through vision and energy. Trait, behavioural, and situational leadership theories fail to explain the reasons behind the deeds of great political leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Lenin, etc. who transformed their nations, or our great industrialists like JRD Tata, GD Birla, Dhirubhai
Ambani, who created vast industrial empires because of their vision, energy, and entrepreneurship. Charismatic leadership theory does that.
However, there are two basic limitations of this theory. First, if we assume that there are certain inborn qualities of a great leader, it implies that nothing can be done to develop leaders in the organisations. In fact, its opposite is also true. Through various training and development programmes, leaders, though
not the great leaders, can be developed in the organisations.
Second, a charismatic leader may fail in the changed situation. For example, Winston Churchill, the late prime minister of Great Britain, was very effective during the Word War II, but he flopped afterwards. Thus, we can derive that the situational variables play their own role in determining leadership effectiveness.

Trait Theory
The weaknesses of charismatic leadership theory gave way to a more realistic approach to leadership. Under the influence of the behaviouristic psychological thought, researchers accepted the fact that leadership traits are not completely inborn but can also be acquired through learning and experience. Trait is defined as
relatively enduring quality of an individual. The trait approach seeks to determine ‘what makes a successful leader’ from the leader’s own personal characteristics. From the very beginning, people have emphasised that a particular individual was a successful leader because of his certain qualities or characteristics.
Trait approach leadership studies were quite popular between 1930 and 1950. The method of study was to select leaders of eminence and their characteristics were studied. It was the hypothesis that the persons having certain traits could become successful leaders.
Various research studies have given intelligence, attitudes, personality and biological factors as ingredients for effective leaders. A review of various research studies has been presented by Stogdill. According to him, various trait theories have suggested these traits in a successful leader:
i. physical and constitutional factors (height, weight, physique,
energy, health, appearance);
ii. intelligence;
iii. self-confidence;
iv. sociability;
v. will (initiative, persistence, ambition);
vi. dominance; and
vii.surgency (talkative, cheerfulness, geniality, enthusiasm, pressiveness, alertness, and originality).
In a later study, Ghiselli has found supervisory ability, achievement motivation, self actualising, intelligence, selfassurance, and decisiveness as the qualities related with leadership success.
The current research on leadership traits suggests that some factors do help differentiate leaders from non-leaders: The most important traits are a high level personal drive, desire to lead, personal integrity, and self-confidence. Cognitive (analytical) ability, business knowledge, charisma, creativity, flexibility, and personal warmths are also frequently desired.
Anderson Consulting (a management consultancy firm) conducted a study of 90 global chief executives to find out the ablities required for an ideal chief executive in the present era of globalised economy. The study highlighted 14 qualities.
Accordingly, a chief executive thinks globally, anticipates opportunity, creates a shared vision, develops and empowers people, appreciates cultural diversity, builds teamwork and partnership, embraces change, shows technological savvy, encourages constructive challenge, ensures customer satisfaction,
achieves a competitive advantage, demonstrates personal mastery, shares leadership, and lives the values. The various studies show wide variations in leadership traits. The various traits can be classified into innate and acquirable traits, on the basis of their source.
Innate qualities are those which are possessed by various individuals since their birth. These qualities are natural and often known as God-gifted. On the basis of 11 qualities, it is said that ‘leaders are born and not made.’ These qualities cannot acquired by the individuals.

leadership lecture notes

Objectives of the lesson
After studying this lesson, you should understand:
1. The Concept of Ledership
2. Difference between leadership and management
3. Some leadership theories
Introduction
Human beings are the most precious part of the organization and the effective utilisation of the capacity of human resources depends upon management. Management can get the results from the people in the organisation in two ways: (i) by exercise of authority vested in it, or (ii) by winning support of the
people. Out of these, the second method is better as it has a lasting effect over the people’s motivation. However, it is only possible when a manager becomes their leader in the real sense
to influence their behaviour in desired direction. This leadership is an essential ingredient for successful organisation. The successful organisation has one major attribute that sets it apart from unsuccessful organisation that is dynamic and effective leadership. .
Concept of Leadership
Leadership is the process of influencing the behaviour of others to work willingly and enthusiastically for achieving predetermined goals. We have seen in Chapter 14 that the targets’ responses to use of power vary along a continuum ranging from resistance to commitment. Any type of compliance tending towards resistance is unwillingly and that tending towards commitment is willingly and enthusiastically.
The latter type of response is the objective of leadership. Now we can move to a formal definition of leadership. Tennenbaum et al have defined leadership as follows:
“Leadership is interpersonal influence exercised in a situation and directed through communication process,
towards the attainment of a specified goal or goals.
This definition puts emphasis on influencing through communication. However, it does not emphasise the
enthusiasm with which the receiver of the communication will act. Terry has defined leadership in the context of enthusiastic contribution. He says that:
“Leadership is essentially a continuous process of influencing behaviour. A leader breathes life into the
group and motivates it towards goals. The lukewarm desires for achievement are transformed into a burning
passion for accomplishment”.
A more recent definition of leadership is as follows:
“Leadership is the process of influencing and supporting others to work enthusiastically toward achieving
objectives”.

Wednesday 27 April 2011

Secretful success

Life is all about how one manages its relations and situations.
It may be strategy, confidence, perseverance
and hard work and intellect-each of this must be of best quality
in you to optimize good results. At a juncture, when one is at the opening gate of
success, do not lose confidence. Confidence comes from right
thinking. So buddies have a positive attitude and it comes from right
thinking.