Leadership, manager motivation: equal opportunity.

Byline: Nazir Ahmed Shaikh

Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It's about impact, influence and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, influence is about spreading the passion for work, and inspire team members - Steve Jobs

Leadership is the ability to persuade others to seek defined objectives enthusiastically. It is also defined as the capacity to influence a group towards the realization of a goal. Leaders are required to develop future visions and to motivate the organizational members want to achieve the visions. In corporate world, leadership is a process by which an executive can direct, guide and influence the behavior and work of others towards accomplishment of specific goals in a given situation. Leadership is the ability of a manager to induce the subordinates to work with confidence and zeal.

Are some people born to lead? Looking at the great leaders of the past, it looks like that they do seem to differ from ordinary human beings in several aspects. They definitely possess high levels of ambition coupled with clear visions of precisely where they want to go. These leaders are cited as naturally great leaders, born with a set of personal qualities that made them effective leaders. Even today, they belief that truly great leaders are born is common. Top executives, sports personalities, and even politicians often seem to possess an aura that sets them apart from others.

According to Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish philosopher of 19th century, "the history of the world is but the biography of great men". The great man theory of leadership states that some people are born with the necessary attributes that set them apart from others and that these traits are responsible for their assuming positions of power and authority. A leader is a hero who accomplishes goals against all odds for his followers. The theory implies that those in power deserve to be there because of their special endowment. It suggests that all great leaders share these characteristic regardless of when and where they lived or the precise role in the history they fulfilled.

A leader has got multidimensional traits which makes appealing and effective in behavior. Precisely, the basic ingredients for a good leader are, but not limited to:

* Physical appearance

* Vision and foresight

* Sense of responsibility

* Self-confidence and will-power

* Empathy

* Knowledge of work

* Humanist

* Intelligence

* Communicative skills

Leadership and management are the terms that are often considered synonymous. It is essential to understand that leadership is an essential part of effective management. As a crucial component of management, remarkable leadership behavior stresses upon building an environment in which each and every employee develops and excels. This influence may originate from formal sources, such as that provided by acquisition of managerial position in an organization. A manager must have traits of a leader, i.e., he must possess leadership qualities. Leaders develop and begin strategies that build and sustain competitive advantage. Organizations require robust leadership and robust management for optimal organizational efficiency.

Leadership versus managers

* Managers lay down the structure and delegate authority and responsibility; Leaders provide direction by developing the organizational vision and communicating it to the employees and inspiring them to achieve it.

* Managers focuses on planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling; Leaders focus on listening, building relationships, teamwork, inspiring, motivating and persuading the followers.

* Managers gets authority by virtue of position in the organization; Leaders gets authority from followers.

* Managers follow the organization's policies and procedure; Leaders follow their own instinct.

* Management is more of science; Leadership is an art.

* Managers deal with the technical dimension in an organization or the job content; Leaders deals with the people aspect.

* Managers evaluate people by their name, past...