BIPASHA BARDHAN

WHAT MAKES EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP

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The research conducted and arguments delivered in this essay to define what
makes effective leadership. An attempt has been made to understand- the good
qualities in an effective leader, emerge from different backgrounds.

For centuries effective leaders are expected to be visionary and charismatic

(Alimo Metcalfe, Alban Metcalfe, 2002). Heroes were only known to be leaders
till early twenties. The people ascribed to distant leader – such as famous
political or religious leaders or successful managers had been worshipped for
their charisma, vision, courage, passion, and rhetoric (Shamir, 1995). But the
concept has been changed drastically in 21 st centuries. The concept of effective
leadership has changed from hero worship to someone familiar and more
approachable. This essay is trying to establish what makes effective leadership
in organizational context.

“Leadership is possibly the most over used, over hyped word in the business
dictionary” (Russel , 2007, cited in Watkins,2007, pp. Feature). In today‟s world
effective leadership describes individuals who has integrity and humility and
who knows to establish a harmony between team members, functions and other
institutions while working jointly towards the achievement (Alimo Metcalfe,
Alban Metcalfe, 2002). Goffy defined in one of his articles that inspirational
leaders normally are approachable human being, who are caring and concerned
about the other team members. They are flexible, extremely dedicated and can
apply their expertise and wisdom to everyone‟s advantage (Goffy, 2002). What
he tries to describe is that Leaders are human being too and like the other fellow
human , they too do have their strengths and weaknesses. An effective leader
never gets nervous to show his/her weaknesses to the team members in order to
earn trust and compatibility. But he/she is clever enough to hold a particular
card close to his or her heart which may create confusion if disclosed. A good
leader knows how to play around with his/her strength and weaknesses and

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turns out to be more empathic than a manager (Goffy, 2002). They can create
any style or statements to put across their distinguish qualities without
distancing themselves from the team members. The more successful leaders
seem to be more emotionally intelligent, intuitive and have higher inter-personal
sensitivity than his or her followers (Dulewicz, Higgs, & Ward, 2002). The
effective leaders are much focused and goal oriented which drives them to
possess highest leadership skills and performances. They know how to induce
humour and fun along with bringing out the best out their team players. Good
leaders help their team members to overcome the stress and relax when
situations are rough and stressful. Blag and Young (2001, cited in Watkins, 2007)
describes managers as one who takes care of budgeting, organizing and
controlling while the leaders are described as charismatic, big picture visionaries
who change the whole system to achieve a better tomorrow.

A case study initiated by Dulewicz , Higgs, & Cranewell-Ward ( 2002 ) to find

out the leadership qualities of the skippers and crews during The BT Global
Challenge 2001. BT Global challenge was an event organized by BT where
twelve yachts each with a professional skipper and seventeen crews were
competing for round the World Yacht Race 2000/2001. They found out from the
research that all the skippers were highly emotionally intelligent compared to
the crew members. The more successful skippers found to be more intuitive and
intelligent apart from a being accommodating and benevolent (Dulewicz,
Malcom Higgs, 2002). The winner tended to be highly self motivated who
knows how to balance between man management and hierarchy in addition to
being highly focussed and disciplined. The most successful leaders appeared to
have some distinguished qualities which includes confidence, credibility,
sensitivity along being candour ,liable, strategist, decisive, innovative and
ambitious(Cranewell- Ward,2002).

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Some interesting observations were made from my past experience in India.
Many business leaders there neither have the charisma, nor they were
visionaries. Many of them not even graduated and they don‟t possess most of
the leadership qualities . But they possess tremendous business acumens and
drives, which seem to make them a leader. Another example is David Ogilvy,
who is known by The Father of The Advertising. He has started his life as a door
to door salesman and eventually established the world‟s largest and most
popular advertising agency „OBM‟ without any formal training. In the light of
all these real life experiences, a hypothesis can be made that an effective leaders
happen to be extremely self motivated and experimental. They are sensitive and
good in people management, possess an x-factor with -tremendous business
acumen and most importantly they dare to take risks.

This research has found out some interesting perspective about leadership.
Every society tends to have two role models in effective leadership. One of them
is charismatic roles with vision and inspirational abilities. The other is the
instrumental roles where a leader changes the organizational behaviour and
patterns while restructuring the entire system to attain the highest
organizational achievement. A paradigm shift has taken place in identifying an
effective leader. The idea of leadership has been changed from charismatic,
visionary and larger than life image. The effective leader in twenty first century
appeared to be a confident, self motivated achiever who is approachable,
humorous, and a motivator. He/she knows how to balance workforce with the
hierarchy and extracts the best out the team members while jointly working
towards achieving organizational goals. The effective leader today doesn‟t need
to be charismatic and distant but could be a self motivated, focused visionary
who is capable of taking the organization to a greater height with the support
of efficient followers. Denver, leadership experts Jim Downey once stated “Good

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 Leaders develop by practising the right behaviours” (Downey, cited in Watkins,
2007, pp. Feature). He says,” It is like Golf. You can spend hours on the driving
range, but if you are not practising the right fundamentals, you will never be a
good golfer” (Downey, cited in Watkins, 2007, pp. Feature).

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Metcalfe, B. & Metcalfe, J. (2002), „The great and the good‟, People Management,
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Shamir, B. (1995), „Social distance and charisma theoretical notes and an
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Russel, T. (2007),cited in Watkins, J. (2007),‟Manager To Leader – Making The
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(2007),‟Manager To Leader – Making The Transition‟, Financial world online, 9
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http://www.financialworld.co.uk/Archive/2007/2007_09sept/Features/ma
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The Transition‟, Financial world online, 9 Sept, p. Features. Available at :

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http://www.financialworld.co.uk/Archive/2007/2007_09sept/Features/ma
nager_to_leader (Accessed: 4 Nov 2007).