The Individual and Leadership

Introduction In organizations, effective leadership is important in ensuring that achievement of objectives is realized. Leadership facilitates the attainment of a explicit goal or objective. The goal is common among all the people. To be an effective leader, it is imperative that all objectives are clear and every member understands his or her role.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on The Individual and Leadership specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Various theoretical frameworks and explanations provide insights on various ways that objectives become achievable through effective leadership. Besides, ways of exercising leadership differ across the board. This expository essay illuminates on the broader concept of organizational leadership. The paper will utilize various standpoints held by critical thinkers who have been pivotal throughout this course. Theoretical Frameworks of Leadership There are various the ories that explore the concept of leadership especially in organizational context. Ciulla (2003) explicates that leaders ought to adopt a style that suits their situation. While that is so, leaders have to exhibit specific traits that make them stand out in a group. Trait theories articulate that leaders have intrinsic ability to influence others. This implies that leaders are inborn and not everyone in the society is able to assume a position of leadership. Another theory that explains the concept of leadership involves cognition and learning. The theorists assert that people acquire leadership traits through experience and being in a position of followership. Thus, everyone can assume a position of leadership as long as they have acquired enough experience to lead a group towards its goals and objectives. These are among many theories that explain leadership in the context of organization. Further, it is important to notice that exercise of leadership is dependent on the strategy that a leader assumes. Ellis Harper (1997) says that transformative leaders will employ a style that is convincing to people and use their charisma to enhance the achievement of organizational goals. This is contrary to dictatorial and authoritative leaders who not only use their authority to decide the course that a group takes but also dismiss teamwork. Situational leaders on the other hand will always attempt to handle every matter as it arises (Yukl, 2006). They are also synonymous to contingent leaders who respond to different situation as they crop up. Indeed, they do not have any prior plans that anticipate situations.Advertising Looking for research paper on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More In the contemporary world, the need for supportive leaders is increasing. This is in lieu of the fact that leaders will be the focal point of every organization in ensuring that members achieve their goals as pl anned. They support and encourage their members without any form of discrimination. In addition, they allow members to participate meaningfully when working towards a common goal. This way, members are able to contribute important insights that lead to improvement of the organization. Ciulla (2003) says that organizations should be able to ensure that all members are able to give their opinions. She further says that effective communication where information flows from the staff members to the management is the best way to enhance ethical and effective leadership (Ciulla, 2003). This way, a leader is able to understand the emotional intelligence of all members and make sure that they do not cross the line when issuing instructions (Ellis Harper, 1997). To this end, members become committed to the organization making it easy for the leaders to achieve effectiveness. Nonetheless, it is upon the leader to adopt a leadership style that he or she feels will be able to motivate the group towards the objectives. Individual and Organizational Leadership Spence et al. (2004) articulate that organizations are composed of different individuals who fulfill their roles and responsibilities to achieve its objectives. As such, various individuals perform their duties at different capacities. Of particular interest are leaders of departments and other functions of the organization. As a leader, it is important to ensure that the members are able to comprehend their roles in a clear manner (Ellis Harper, 1997). This is possible through effective communication and support. The leaders should be in a position to form a team through which various abilities, talents and skills become apparent. In addition, the leader should be able to inculcate an element of trust among his followers. This way, members will open up and give the leader a chance to understand their emotional intelligence.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on The Individual and Leadership specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More While some members respond to a specific situation in a calm way, others may react in an opposite way. As such, emotional intelligence is the key to unraveling the character that every member possesses. Ciulla (2003) explains that an individual who occupies leadership position in an organization ought to understand the aforementioned aspects of group members. According to Hobbes, a leader has power. Power within an organization is positional. It ought to propel an individual to ensuring that the organization achieves its mandate, which to large extents, involves influencing others. To this end, a leader should be able to comprehend the aspects of power that could impede the achievement of goals. Effect of Ethical Leadership in Organizations In the modern business environment, the concept of ethical leadership has become a norm. Corporations are seeking to control their activities and limit them to onl y those that yield benefits for all stakeholders. Ethics are guidelines of acting in a way that does not injure humanness of people in the pretext of increasing profit margins. While it is true that many organizations have entrenched ethical frameworks in their decision-making processes, sometimes they experience ethical dilemmas. This is when the interests of the organization are at stake for taking ethical standpoints. For instance, McDonald’s fast food company embarks on an aggressive social responsibility regardless of its financial performance. The company has suffered immensely from health practitioners’ articulations that junk food is unhealthy for people. Nonetheless, the fast food giant continues to make substantial amounts of revenues notwithstanding the health issues raised regarding fries and junk. Should a company bear the social obligation to meet the demands of the society despite making profits from hazardous goods to consumers? Apparently, the major ob jective of any corporate organization is to maximize on profits and increase the wealth of the shareholders. This case presents two moral dilemmas for an organization. First, despite profiting from unhealthy products, the company continues to direct substantial proportion for the revenues to corporate social responsibility. Is it worthwhile? Second, to what extents are companies morally obligated to assume moral standpoints yet the main objective of a company is to increase its profit margin and increase the value for its shareholders.Advertising Looking for research paper on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Corporate social responsibility reflects reward power to the society where the company reaps benefits from sales and rewards the society through the initiative (Spence et al., 2004). The use of reward power by McDonald’s has helped the organization to meet its objectives amidst calls for a paradigm shifts in eating habits. Yukl (2006) explicates that the most important aspect of an organization that the leaders ought to understand entails dealing with stakeholders in a manner that does not lower their value. According to Yukl, does the company have the moral obligation of helping the society? Leaders ought to be the representatives of organizations and as such, they act in line with the organization’s objectives (Yukl, 2006). By embarking on the aggressive social responsibility strategy, the leaders are just acting in line with the objective of making unprecedented profits and the strategy reflects use power influence. Further, the concept of power and self-interests e lucidated by Plato could infer that McDonald’s has centralized power of influencing both the employees as well as the society. Plato sees no rationale for embarking on such strategy since it would imply that people have power. He distances himself from ‘people power’ and argues that the company, which in this case represents the ‘Republic’, should not bear any moral obligation for the society (Bostock, 2000). In essence, the society has no mandate to demand any source of help from the company. The wielder of power, in this case, McDonalds bear the mandate of distributing power in any manner it feels best address the interests of the people without coercion. Due to the power of self-interests, McDonald’s should focus on its objectives, which is to increase the wealth of its owners rather than distributing its revenues to people (Annas, 1981). The self-interests of the shareholders should prevail as opposed to the need to address society’ s issues, which is in itself contradicts the essence of the ‘Republic’. Annas (1981) points out that leaders of the organization who are the shareholders and management should concentrate power for the sake of achieving individually motivated goals and objectives. Contrary to the views of Plato, Hobbes could judge the dilemma from different perspectives. His perspective of power, which in this case is wielded by McDonalds, should be in relation to other people. In his masterpiece, The Leviathan, Hobbes says that power is relational to other people without whom there would be no any phenomenon referred to as power (Ellis Harper, 1997). Hence, McDonalds has wielded relative power given that the consumers continue to have faith in the company. To that end, the exercise of power should be with the aim of ensuring that the organization’s stakeholders have the satisfaction with the organization. This way, the company will continue making profits and achieve it financi al and organizational goal. This raises the next question, to what extents are companies obligated to have a social responsibility initiative? Hobbes argues that there is a minimum standard power that people should possess. In what he referred to as ceding power, McDonalds’ aggressive corporate social responsibility should be seen as a way of showing that people hold this type of power. It is therefore important for the company to act devoid of self-interests and provide healthy foods to the consumer as a show of ceding power (Zaccaro et al., 2001). Niccollo Machiavelli would argue in line with his premise that human nature is typical of endless competition. In fact, the essence of life is to ensure that every person gets an edge over others. Applying this argument to the context of an organization, McDonalds should not relent on its current strategy whether or not the food they serve are healthy. Antonakis et al. (2009) assert that the company should focus on ensuring that i t maximizes on profits without considering the consequences of its operations on the society or consumer. This is in lieu of the fact that an organization should aim at posing the increased competition with other food industry despite the means it uses. Owing to this nature of human beings, the revenues of the company should not fund corporate social responsibility since it negates human nature (Ciulla, 2003). Machiavelli infers that an organization should act selfishly and amass wealth for the stakeholders who ultimately should understand that life is short, nasty and brutal (Davis Blomstrom, 1975). Despite such radical standpoint held by Machiavelli, all organizations are selfish because competition is a reality in business environment. As such, all companies aim at having an edge over others in order to increase their earnings and enrich the stockholders as opposed to the stakeholders. To the contrary, Rand conceptualizes the concept of power by elucidating that practical power is important and inherent aspect of human beings (Carroll Buchholtz, 2006). Therefore, McDonald’s consumers should be able to question the motives of the organization and demand the company to give back to the society through corporate social responsibility. Conclusion In essence, leadership is an important aspect of organizations. Various theories attempt to explain leadership from different standpoints. They include cognition, behavioral and traits among many others. These theories attempt to unravel the reasons behind successful leaders in organizations and amplify the role of individuals in an organization. Further, it is important to emphasize the importance of ethical leadership and dilemmas. The aforementioned case of McDonald’s gives an illustration of various ways that an organization can face ethical dilemmas despite adopting ethical decisions. References Annas, J. (1981). An introduction to Plato’s Republic. Oxford: Clarendon Press Antonakis, J., Ash kanasy, N. Dasborough, M. (2009). Does leadership need emotional intelligence? The Leadership Quarterly, 20 (2), 247–261. Bostock, D. (2000). Aristotle’s Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press. Carroll, A. Buchholtz, A. (2006). Business and Society: Ethics and Stakeholder Management. Mason, Ohio: Thomson/South-Western. Ciulla, B. (2003).The Ethics of Leadership. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Thompson-Wadsworth Publishers. Davis, K. Blomstrom, R. (1975). Business and Society: Environment and Responsibility. New York: McGraw-Hill. Ellis, A. Harper, R. (1997). A Guide to Rational Living. Hollywood, California: Wilshire. Spence, L., Habisch, A. Schmidpeter, R. (2004). Responsibility and Social Capital. The World of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises. New York: Palgrave. Yukl, G. (2006). Leadership in Organizations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Zaccaro, J., Rittman, L., Marks, A. (2001). Team leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 12(4), 451-483. This research paper on The Individual and Leadership was written and submitted by user Elsie Chase to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

South Africa Geography and History

South Africa Geography and History South Africa is the southernmost country on the African continent. It has a long history of conflict and human rights issues but it has always been one of the most economically prosperous nations in southern Africa due to its coastal location and the presence of gold, diamonds and natural resources. Population: 49,052,489 (July 2009 est.)Capital: Pretoria (administrative capital), Bloemfontein (judiciary), and Cape Town (legislative)Area: 470,693 square miles (1,219,090 sq km)Coastline: 1,738 miles (2,798 km)Highest Point: Njesuthi at 11,181 feet (3,408 m) History of South Africa By the 14th century C.E, the region was settled by the Bantu people who migrated from central Africa. South Africa was first inhabited by Europeans in 1488 when the Portuguese arrived at the Cape of Good Hope. However, permanent settlement didnt occur until 1652 when the Dutch East India Company established a small station for provisions on the Cape. In the following years, French, Dutch and German settlers began to arrive in the region. By the late 1700s, European settlements were spread throughout the Cape and by the end of the 18th century the British controlled the entire Cape of Good Hope region. In the early 1800s, in an effort to escape British rule, many native farmers called Boers migrated north, and in 1852 and 1854, the Boers created the independent Republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. After the discovery of diamonds and gold in the late 1800s, more European immigrants arrived in South Africa and this eventually led to the Anglo-Boer Wars, which the British won, causing the republics to become part of the British Empire. In May 1910, though, the two republics and Britain formed the Union of South Africa, a self-governing territory of the British Empire, and in 1912, the South African Native National Congress (eventually called the African National Congress or ANC) was founded with the goal of providing blacks in the region with more freedom. Despite the ANC in an election in 1948, the National Party won and began passing laws enforcing a policy of racial separation called apartheid. In the early 1960s, the ANC was banned and Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid leaders were convicted of treason and imprisoned. In 1961, South Africa became a republic after it withdrew from the British Commonwealth because of international protests against apartheid and in 1984 a constitution was put into effect. In February 1990, President F.W. de Klerk, unbanned the ANC after years of protest and two weeks later Mandela was released from prison. Four years later on May 10, 1994, Mandela was elected as South Africas first black president and during his time in office he was committed to reforming race-relations in the country and strengthening its economy and place in the world. This has remained the goal of subsequent governmental leaders. Government of South Africa Today, South Africa is a republic with two legislative bodies. Its executive branch is its Chief of State and Head of Government- both of which are filled by the president who is elected for five year terms by the National Assembly. The legislative branch is a bicameral Parliament composed of the National Council of the Provinces and the National Assembly. South Africas judicial branch is made up of its Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court of Appeals, High Courts and Magistrate Courts. South Africas Economy South Africa has a growing market economy with a plethora of natural resources. Gold, platinum and precious stones such as diamonds account for nearly half of South Africas exports. Auto assembly, textiles, iron, steel, chemicals and commercial ship repair also play a role in the countrys economy. In addition agriculture and agricultural exports are significant to South Africa. Geography of South Africa South Africa is divided into three major geographic regions. The first is the African Plateau in the countrys interior. It forms a portion of the Kalahari Basin and is semiarid and sparsely populated. It slopes gradually in the north and west but rises to 6,500 feet (2,000 meters) in the east. The second region is the Great Escarpment. Its terrain varies but its highest peaks are in the Drakensberg Mountains along the border with Lesotho. The third region are the narrow, fertile valleys along the coastal plains. The climate of South Africa is mostly semiarid; but, its eastern coast regions are subtropical with mainly sunny days and cool nights. South Africas west coast is arid because the cold ocean current Benguela, removes moisture from the region which has formed the Namib Desert that extends into Namibia. In addition to its varied topography, South Africa is famous for its biodiversity. South Africa currently has eight wildlife reserves, the most famous of which is Kruger National Park along the border with Mozambique. This park is home to lions, leopards, giraffes, elephants and hippopotamus. The Cape Floristic Region along South Africas west coast is also important as it is considered a world biodiversity hotspot which is home to endemic plants, mammals and amphibians. More Facts about South Africa South Africas population estimates must account for excess mortality due to AIDS and its affect on life expectancy, infant mortality and population growth rates.South Africa divides its governmental power among three capitals. Bloemfontein is the capital of the judiciary, Cape Town is the legislative capital, and Pretoria is the administrative capital. Resources and Further Reading Centrail Intelligence Agency. (2010, April 22). CIA - The World Factbook South Africa. Retrieved from: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sf.htmlInfoplease.com. (n.d.) South Africa: History, Geography, Government, and Culture - Infoplease.com. Retrieved from: infoplease.com/ipa/A0107983.htmlUnited States Department of State. (2010, February). South Africa (02/10). Retrieved from: state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2898.htm