Identifying Leadership Qualities (Part 1) - By Benson O. Agoha

Identifying leadership qualities in individuals is not as easy as it seems. Yet the world is a `class' environment where no matter how equall we are, some of us must emerge to show the way. And others must be obedient enough to follow their lead. Age sometimes does not matter, nor does education always. Neither does physical attributes such as strenght, beauty or might. Instead, a leader would posses the `X'-Factor which makes others respect and obey his directives. Where this is absent leadership sometimes faces more problems than imagined. In this article we will look at those attributes that a leader should posses so that managers can easily identify those worthy of leadership positions.

See the following people: Jonathan Rock oversees a battalion of infantrymen fighting at the war front. Michael Cains wears the armband and walks ahead of his team-mates to football matches. Oklaman Bart is in charge of workmen every night for maintenance and engineering works at the underground and Mickey Barns heads the South East branch of the bank of commerce. Which of these could be described as a leader?

To answer this question, we must look at the role of each of the men and determine whether they provide any form of `inspiration’ to other team-mates because leadership is not complete unless it inspires others to act and to keep acting in a way necessary, which they would otherwise not have been willing to act, to accomplish a set common objective.

Leadership is important for any group activity to succeed as otherwise, the group will be like a herd of sheep without shepherd.This is the reason why this article will try to show what leadership is and how it is important to the success of any group activity, including organisations. More importantly, it will show that for any organisation to succeed, the organisational members must act in consonance with the direction and example displayed by the occupants of the top hierarchy.

It has often been said that `leaders are born’. Maybe this is true, maybe not, but undoubtedly individuals are born with different traits such that some possess noticeable charisma that enables they win the approval of the majority. In this wise the above phrase might be considered correct. Management however, does not always only look for innate character traits or abilities, otherwise it will no longer be `science’. In seeking out a potential `leader’, Managers are concerned with finding that individual who possesses qualities or skills that can consistently be trusted to inspire others, all things being equal, to work towards the common goal. And even when all things are not equal - such as in periods of industrial action, the leader must have the quality to `manage’ the situation and restore order. Whether these traits and qualities have been acquired as a result of exposure to some conditions such as training, which in turn made it `a relatively permanent observable trait’, or simply traits that are inborn and have been residual for long is immaterial. Equally, and perhaps even more interesting, is the fact that leaders can be removed if they fail to, or stopped being an inspiration to the group.

For so long, a simple definition of `a leader’ was disagreeable until the key phrase `to inspire’ was recognised as providing the clearest clue to what leadership constitutes. And no matter what we want to write about leadership, a distinction must be drawn between Political Leadership, as provided by Jonathan Rock above and Managerial Leadership, which Mickey Barns provides for his bank. An important point however is that both men point to the direction their group members must go and provide the actual inspiration that enables them to go that way. It is because leadership provides the vision; strategy and the inspiration needed by organisational members to follow that direction that they must accept responsibility for whatever goes wrong in the process.

Because the `group’ phenomenon is very important to the issue of leadership, it is important to discuss a bit of it.

The Group Defined

A group simply refers to a situation where two or more members come together to interrelate and to be interdependent in other to achieve a common objective. The key words are `two’, `interrelate’ and `interdependent’. For this reason:

· A class of 10 students is a group. But if the teacher splits them into 5 groups of 2 members each, in order to share assignments and eventually produce one outcome, each of the subsets of 2 members also represents a `group’.

· In our example above, the group members must interrelate with each other and the groups with one another.

· The groups must be interdependent such that none of them working independently can achieve the desired results. It is the cooperation and interchange among them that will enable them to attain the desired goal.

The group maybe formed by an outside force or it maybe self-forming. In the same sense, the leader may be appointed by the organiser of the group (the outside force) or nominated by members of the group (the in-group). In some cases, such as where a group is to a great extent democratic, elections are held to choose the leader of the group.

A manager faced with the need to appoint a leader in his organisation, has to watch out for certain attributes, which are identifiable from the study of their behaviour, which include but not limited to the following.

Factors You Must Watch Out For Before Appointing That Next `Leader'

· Considerate: Does he possess traits or skills that mark him out as considerate? When he speaks, how he speaks, does he appear to have feeling for colleagues and the organisation? Being considerate of others enables a leader to treat them with the respect and recognition necessary to avoid rebellion.

· Respectable: Does he attract respect to himself in appearance, conduct and speech? And do his colleagues respect him? A person who is considered respectable by his colleagues stands a good chance of being made a leader without revolt.

· Knowledge: Is he considered knowledgeable and does he possess the technical or commercial skills needed within the group? A leader must be able to display or assess knowledge whenever desirable. Appointing an individual who does not possess known relevant skills for the task can be counterproductive.

· Strength: Does he posses the strength of character? Is he perceived as strong enough to force down mutiny? Strength includes agility. Physical, spiritual, mental and psychological strength are also important.

· Follow: Does he have the right mental attitude not just to lead but also to follow? Can he follow when not leading? A leadership position can be a `tenured’ position. In this wise, a leader must have the ability to follow when he is no longer leading. A leader who cannot follow might not be a good leader. Who needs a dictator for a leader anyway? In any case, an organisation piloted by a dictator will soon be doomed.

Whatever method used to choose the leader, he must posses some or all of the following basic attributes:

Five important attributes of a `Leader'

1. Trust: A leader must have the trust of his teammates which means that he will act in an open transparent manner always and will not act selfishly against them.

2. Intelligence: a leader must have adequate or more knowledge and be able to think fast in case of need. Where he does not have this knowledge, he must have easy access to a source that does and in the even of need, he or this other source must be able to think fast in the case of need. This display helps him to win further trust of his teammates.

3. Power: while a leader should have the ability to `influence’ others to work with him to achieve the common goal, he or his team-mates must have the power to suppress any form of external aggression whenever the group is threatened.

4. Competence/Ability: A leader must be perceived as competent or able or fit as a leader. If it is an intellectually based group, the leader must be competent and perceived as such to leader the group. Imagine a group whose leader is perceived as a square peg in a round hole! Or imagine a person who has no mathematical knowledge being appointed to lead the review of Maths curriculum.

5. Consistency: He must be consistent in speech and action. A leader must also be consistent in his protection and defence of the group and group members. This wins him more trust and support from the in-group as consistency means that the members know how they can expect their leader to behave given challenging situation.