Role of leadership

Leadership is a process of getting things done through people. More precisely, leadership is
the art or the process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and
enthusiastically towards the achievement of the organization’s purpose. Leadership is a vital
ingredient in developing the purpose and strategy of organizations. The potential that leaders
have for influencing the overall direction of the company is considerable.

There are many types of leaders such as Laissez-faire or “leave it be” leadership, bureaucratic
leader, democratic leader, transactional leader and transformation leader.

Laissez-faire or “leave it be” leadership

Laissez-faire or "leave it be" leadership is the leadership style that gives no continuous
feedback or supervision because the employees are highly experienced and need little
supervision to obtain the expected outcome. Circumstances that suit is would be in industry is
constantly subject to changes, example IT industry. Here the leader simply sets the direction
and instill large degree of flexibility.

Transactional leaders or Task oriented leaders

Task oriented leaders are those who focus on the job, and concentrate in the specific tasks
assigned to each employee to reach goal accomplishment. This leadership style suffers the
same motivational issues as autocratic leadership, showing no involvement in the team's
needs. It requires close supervision and control to achieve expected results.

Transformation leaders

Transformation leader is the one who motivates its team to be effective and efficient. This
leader is highly visible and uses chain of command to get the job done. Transformational
leaders focus on the big picture, needing to be surrounded by people who take care of the
details. The leader is always looking for ideas that move the organization to reach the
company's vision. Jarma Orilva (Nokia), Lee lacocca (Chrysler), Steve Jobs (Apple) and
Anna Mulcahy (Xerox) are good examples.

Democratic leader

Democratic leader means that the leader will hear the team's ideas and study them, but will
make the final decision. Team players contribute to the final decision, thus increasing
employee satisfaction and ownership, feeling their input was considered when the final
decision was taken. A shortcoming of this leadership style is that it has difficulty when
decisions are needed in a short period of time or at the moment itself.

Bureaucratic leader

Bureaucratic leader is very structured and follows the procedures that have been established.
This type of leadership has no space to explore new ways to solve problems and is usually
slow paced to ensure adherence to the ladders stated by the company. Large Japanese
corporations like Sony, Toyota and Matsushita implement this type of leadership to ensure
quality control is at its highest level.

The role of leadership is very important in strategic implementation. Strategies cannot be

formulated and implemented without effective leadership. Strategy implementation
involves leadership through coaching people to use their abilities and skills most effectively
and efficiently to achieve organizational objectives. Without direction, people tend to do their
work accordingly to their personal view of what tasks should be done, how, and in what
order. They may generally approach their work as they have in the past or emphasize those
tasks that they most enjoy, regardless of the corporation’s priorities. Therefore, it is very
important to have strategic leaders who guide the firm in ways that result in forming a vision
and mission.