Leaders and leadership 1|Page

Leadership, Innovation and Technology for Tourism, Hospitality and

Events

Student name

Matriculation number
Leaders and leadership 2|Page

Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................3

Characteristics of effective leaders........................................................................................................3

Leadership theories and styles...............................................................................................................5

Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................6

References.............................................................................................................................................7
Leaders and leadership 3|Page

Introduction
Leaders and their leadership play a vital role in the organisational success that makes it
necessary to adopt appropriate leadership style and portray effective leadership skills. The
effectiveness of leaderships comprise of several factors like leadership style, capabilities, and
theories. Leadership methods define the influence of leaders on others. Leadership theories
help in defining how an individual can become a great leader in an organisation. In this essay
a brief discussion of different leadership styles and their benefits will be represented along
with a few real-life examples in the global corporate world like Bill Gates and Elon Musk. It
will help the learner to understand the differences and benefits of various leadership styles on
the basis of leadership theories and company’s success.

Characteristics of effective leaders

Depending on the experiences, knowledge, upbringings, education and environment, people
have different set of skills and capabilities, behaviour, personality traits and more. Some of
the major characteristics demonstrated by the leaders are:

Influencing ability

Influencers are great leaders as they can influence decisions and perceptions of others. There
are several examples of leaders who are capable of influencing others. Bill Gates, the CEO of
Microsoft, has the power to influence people in his organisation (Sadikova, 2020). He
empowers people and help by offering new opportunities that make him a great leader.
People follow him as an inspiration because of his charisma. They started following him
because he follows several leadership styles to lead the company more effectively. Similarly,
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla motors is a great influencer because of his unique approach
towards the problems and their innovative solutions (Shaw, 2020). Elon Musk envisions
replacing the conventional fuel engine vehicles by introducing electric vehicles on which the
customers can rely for their commutation needs.

Transparency and Analytic skills

In the organisation each employee is important and equal, and it is necessary to treat them
well and same. It is possible only if the leaders are transparent towards the employees in
terms of decisions, recognition and rewarding them individually (Harrison, 2017). Being
transparent helps the leaders to build trust and establish an effective communication with the
Leaders and leadership 4|Page

team members. Leaders are expected to evaluate performance and dedication of each
employee on the basis of quality of their work so that they can judge the employees to define
deservingness.

Risk management

Threats or risk are an important part of business world which cannot be avoided. For the
smooth operations and uninterrupted productivity it is essential to identify the risk before
they harm the system. Hence, the leaders need to be skilled to understand the risks present in
the system so that they can formulate appropriate strategies and implement them to mitigate
the risk. Depending on the severity of a risk its handling strategy can be different and it has to
be managed effectively. Risk management is the process or concept that is necessary to be
followed by the leaders. Since the leaders play a vital role in managing the organisational
challenges risk management capability can make an individual a great leader. Elon musk is
an example of an effective risk manager as Tesla works in technology segment it is full of
uncertainties and the degree of risk is always high and it is his responsibility to manage the
risk (Shaw, 2020).

Innovativeness

In the world of business, innovation is one of the main growth drivers. It is an important
characteristic of a leader or manager that can define the vision of an organisation. For
example, Elon Musk handles difficult situations with ease, prioritization of things according
to their severities, positive energy, clear vision, and more but innovation is the main growth
factor of Tesla as the company’s business is based on developing technically advanced
vehicles that can overcome the issues that generally challenges the electric vehicles like
efficiency, reliability and more (Lang, Handley & Jablokow, 2018). Adopting an innovative
approach can help the leader to find attractive and effective solutions for the problems.

Ethics and honesty

Ethics or morale is the base of individuals’ personality that defines their nature and behaviour
with other people. Great ethics and core values can make an individual a great leader because
ethics and honesty help in building trust that is an important factor in the company growth.
On the other hand, strategic direction and entrepreneurial spirit make a positive impact on
followers and help in becoming a great leader (Shaw, 2020). As an organisation is supported
by several investors or stakeholders, strong core values of a leader can attract a lot of
Leaders and leadership 5|Page

investors to invest more in the organisation and influence employees to work with their full
potential that will ultimately help the business.

Leadership theories and styles

Leadership styles or theories describe how an individual leads and becomes a great leader.
These theories mainly focus on behaviour and personality traits that are adopted by leaders
for enhancing their leadership abilities (Harrison, 2017). Depending on upbringings,
knowledge and behaviour different leaders choose different leadership style and the ultimate
aim is to lead the team and get the best possible outcomes from any operation or assigned
task. For example, some of the most successful leaders like Elon Musk and Bill Gates portray
a combination of Transformational style, Path-Goal theory, and Behavioural theory
(Sadikova, 2020).

Transformational leadership style or theory is based on the idea of changing and transforming
people or individuals in a team. It reflects the capability of a leader to encourage, improve
and change. This leadership style focuses on values, needs, and reasons of the subordinates to
work. This leadership style is helpful in majority of organisations in terms motivation and
appropriate guidance to the employees (Wiltshire, Malhotra & Axelsen, 2018). Since the
employees are an important asset for an organisation and play a vital role in the
organisational success it is necessary to understand their strengths and weaknesses to identify
the areas of improvement to make them a better version of themselves by enhancing their
skills and capabilities to perform certain duties or responsibilities. Transformational
leadership style helps in identifying the areas to improvement, developing a clear vision,
supervising the team members with motivation, and implementing the desired changes.

Path-goal Theory is based on the fact that leaders are conscious for subordinate’s problems. It
describes the way for achieving the objectives or goals with an emotional support to all the
members of an organization. The fundamental of this leadership theory is to guide the
workforce to achieve their professional goals by using best possible path. It helps in their
individual personality development as well as achieving organisational goals (Olowoselu, bin
Mohamad & Mohamed Farag Mohamed Aboudahr, 2019). Bill Gates always keeps the
record of team members and always encourages them in tough situations (Renzi, 2020).
Similarly, Elon Musk believes that team work and innovativeness of team members can help
an organisation to achieve its organisational goals without getting impacted by the physical
conditions (Lang, Handley & Jablokow, 2018).
Leaders and leadership 6|Page

Behavioural leadership theory helps in understanding the behaviour of a leader and also
shows that personality traits that are portrayed by others. Skills such as decision-making,
problem solving, risk taking and ownership are perceived by them because they are capable
of making appropriate decisions (Harrison, 2017). They make decisions on the basis of
available data and their experience without getting influenced by any external factor and
being accountable for the results of decisions made by them. For example, Elon Musk takes
all the responsibilities for the operations performed by his company (Shaw, 2020).
Irrespective to the failure or success, taking ownership of the results help a leader to build
trust among the subordinates that encourages them to work with their full potential and
contribute to the organisational success. This theory also states that it is not necessary that
leaders are born successful but it is possible to develop leadership by observing the behaviour
of other leaders. It supports that an individual can be a great leader just by following the
successful leaders in terms of approach and learning styles.

Democratic leadership style is also known as participative leadership style as the group
members play a more participative role in the decision making process of the company. This
style can be implemented in any type of organisation whether it is public, private or
governmental. According to this theory great leaders always consider the ideas of people in
their team as it helps them establishing an effective communication between them (Parés,
Ospina & Subirats, 2017). It is beneficial for the companies as participation encourages the
employees to work hard and think innovative at the same time. However, it is necessary to
ensure that the increase of participation should not make the situation complex as it can
create conflicts between the participants as everyone will feel superior.

Conclusion
The above essay concludes that leadership helps in leading, motivating, influencing, and
guiding individuals. Great leader like Elon Musk and Bill Gates are skilled entrepreneurs and
they follow several leadership styles to lead their respective organisations. It has been
concluded that leaders have several skills and personality traits that helps them becoming a
great leader like innovativeness, transparency, analytics, risk management and decision-
making. The essay also concludes that the main agenda of leadership is to achieve
organisational goals by means of motivating, punishing, rewarding and helping the
employees on the basis of various leadership styles like democratic, transformational, and
more.
Leaders and leadership 7|Page

References
Harrison, C. (2017). Leadership theory and research: A critical approach to new and existing
paradigms. Springer.

Lang, D. H., Handley, M., & Jablokow, K. (2018). The competencies of innovation
leaders. Innovation Leadership, 15-28.

Olowoselu, A., bin Mohamad, M. A., & Mohamed Farag Mohamed Aboudahr, S. (2019).
Path-Goal Theory and the Application in Educational Management and
Leadership. Education Quarterly Reviews, 2(2).

Parés, M., Ospina, S. M., & Subirats, J. (Eds.). (2017). Social innovation and democratic
leadership: communities and social change from below. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Renzi, T. M. (2020). The Effect of Leadership Styles on Project Implementation. Open

Journal of Leadership, 9(04), 198.

Sadikova, M. (2020). The leadership style in banking system. Ways of increasing the
effectiveness of companies in corporate governance. Архив научных исследований, (3).

Shaw, R. B. (2020). All in: How Obsessive Leaders Achieve the Extraordinary.

HarperCollins Leadership.

Wiltshire, K., Malhotra, A., & Axelsen, M. (Eds.). (2018). Transformational leadership and
not for profits and social enterprises. Routledge.