EU 224 - Leadership

Leadership

There are times when in spite of great difficulties, jobs are needed to be done,
projects are needed to be finished on time, and services are needed to be provided.
Employees in the production lines tend to be irritated by delays in the arrival of
necessary production materials and supplies. Workers complain when difficult jobs are
assigned to their units. When calamities strike, employees of public works agencies
need more than wages to complete assigned tasks as quickly as possible. These and
other difficulties found in the workplaces provided sufficient reasons for poor
productivity. The situations cited require managers with effective leadership.

There are many instances, however, when the ill effects of whatever
shortcomings happen. They seriously affect the performance of workers. Effective
leadership tends to neutralize such difficulties. Good working conditions, however,
cannot overcome the disadvantages of bad leadership. These are proven by many
cases which occurred in the past and even in modern times.

Successful firms regard the leadership skill requirement as a high priority

concern. Big companies like Warner Lambert Philippines, Shell, Fuji-Xerox, and
Daewoo are seriously involved in training their managers to become effective leaders.

Engineer managers, in whatever management level they happen to be, are not
exempted from the problem of effective leadership. If this is really so, then they must be
concerned with the management function of leading.

WHAT IS LEADING?
Leading is that management function which “involves influencing others to
engage in the work behaviors necessary to reach organizational goals.” The definition
indicated that a person or group of persons tasked with managing a group must assume
the role performed by leaders.
While leading refers to the function, leadership refers to the process.

HOW LEADERS INFLUENCE OTHERS

Engineer managers are expected to maintain effective work forces. To be able to
do so, they are required to perform leadership roles. Leaders are said to be able to
influence others because of the power they possess. Power refers to the ability of a
leader to exert force on another.

BASES OF POWER
 The power possessed by leaders may be classified according to various bases.
They are as follows:
1. legitimate power
2. reward power
3. coercive power
4. referent power
5. expert power

Legitimate Power
A person who occupies a higher position has legitimate power over persons in
lower positions within the organization. A supervisor, for instance, can issue orders to
the workers on his unit. Compliance can be expected.

Reward Power
When a person has the ability to give rewards to anybody who follows orders or
requests, he is said to have reward power. Rewards may be classified into two forms:
material and psychic.
Material rewards refer to money or other tangible benefits like cars, house and
lot, etc. Psychic rewards consist of recognition, praises, etc.

Coercive Power
When a person compels another to comply with orders through threats or
punishment, he is said to possess coercive power. Punishment may take the form of
demotion, dismissal, withholding of promotion, etc.

Referent Power
When a person can get compliance from another because the latter would want
to be identified with the former, that person is said to have referent power.

Expert Power
Experts provide specialized information regarding their specific lines of expertise.
The influence, called expert power, is possessed by people with great skills in
technology.
The expert power exercised by environmental scientists was enough to force
governments throughout the world to pass legislations favorable to environmental
protection.