What Is a Leader?

Richard M. Cyert, president of Carnegie-Mellon University and author of books and articles on organizational theory, has divided leadership into two dimensions:
1. The Consideration Dimension is characterized by an emphasis on good relations. The leader is friendly, approachable and a good listener. Leadership behavior can be described as open and enlisting mental trust.
2. The Initiating Structure represents the leadership behavior involved in directing the organization, helping it to define its goals and structure for execution – including the ability to understand the actions others can act upon.

From these two dimensions, it is possible to generalize three basic functions that a leader performs:
1. Organizational function
The organizational function involves the organizational structure and the selection of people who operate within this structure. It involves various units or segments and the control of internal and external communication flows. The leader has to make certain that the participants in the organization and related groups external to the organization are knowledge and working well together.
2. Interpersonal function
The interpersonal function involves the morale of the organization. It reflects the degree of concern about the humanness of the organization. It requires that the leader pay attention to individual concerns.
3. Decision function
The decisional function involves the making of decisions that must be made in order for the organization to achieve its goals. This traditional function has been associated with leadership.
Although there is no single definition of leadership, these three functions are clearly part of any definition of leadership. Moreover, more to this point, creating a compelling vision that can be constantly reshaped is the hard task of a leader. The leader is the captain of the ship and the vision is the means by which the leader steers the organization. However, there are many people on the ship and if this ship is to reach its final destination, it depends on the behavior of these people.

Warren Bennis, which called as “the father of modern leadership” by Fortune Magazine, had observed several observations about leaders:
• Leaders pull rather than push
• Leaders empower and trust others to act
• Leaders have a clear vision and communicate that vision
• Leaders work through teams and not through hierarchies
• Leaders possess a strong doss of self-esteem and positive attitude
Leaders have a good grasp of self – they realize their strengths, develop their skills, and identify how to use their talents to meet organizational needs. Even more so, leaders evoke positive feelings in others, in which Bennis refers to this as an “attitude of positive other regard.” This gives leaders creditability in the eyes of the follower.

Bennis described four essential qualities of leaders – Vision, Trust, Communication, and Management of Self. These qualities apply to everyone throughout the entire organization. Therefore, leadership does not reside in isolated places, but is infused and threaded everywhere – everyone must become a leader. Bennis also argues that leaders have a responsibility for making sure people get a kick out of what they are doing – people believe in the cause and purpose set forth.