Tag Archives: Northouse

Leadership Involves Influence

johnquincyadamsLeadership_If youractions

Influence is the indispensable, fundamental ingredient required for leadership to occur. Without influence, leadership could not exist (Northouse, 2013). Webster’s Dictionary defines influence as, ‘the power to change or affect someone (or something) in an important way without using force’.

According to Hughes and Beatty (2005), leaders use influence   to:

  • Get people on the same page regarding goals
  • To win people’s commitment to an effort, not just their compliance
  • Prioritize the way resources (staff, talent, time, money, materials, etc.) are used and invested
  • Share insights and observations that will enhance the quality of interactions and increase the probability of achieving desired results

Bacon (2012) states that positive effects of influencing are compliance, commitment or leadership. Compliance is usually a result of success in logical persuading, legitimizing or offering exchanges or incentives, while commitment is typically garnered through socialization of a matter, using power of relationships, building alliances or consulting.

Leadership, cited as the height of positive influence outcomes, results in others carrying out the influencers’ aims – achieving feats well beyond what an individual influencer could accomplish alone. To achieve this, influencers appeal to individual, team or organizational values or establish themselves as the models for the behaviors they want to see in others (Bacon, 2012).

As leaders who want to influence effectively, we must confidently live and act according to reasoned, well-informed, strong  values and be the examples, and models for the actions we want to see in others. The most effective place to lead is from the front!

References:

Bacon, T. (2012). Elements of Influence: The Art of Getting Others To Follow Your Lead. New York: American Management Association.

Hughes, R. L. & Beatty, K. C. (2005). Becoming a Strategic Leader: Your Role In Your Organization’s Enduring Success. San Francisco, CA:   Jossey-Bass.

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, Inc.

Why Are There So Many Dimensions of Leadership? And How Do I Make Leadship Work For Me?

Thinking Figure

There is Authentic Leadership, Transformational Leadership, Situational Leadership, Team Leadership, Servant Leadership – there are leadership traits and leadership skills and 70+ prominent leadership theories – and the list goes on and on. But how does a leader know which is the best leadership approach for them and which is most effective for the many leadership situations they will find themselves in?

Kuhn (2012) offers one popular explanation of why there are so many areas of focus, noting that during the developmental stages of Leadership Theory there was an absence of a paradigm and all assertions seemed plausible. The author also suggested that due to the absence of a widely accepted and practiced scientific method, many concepts were evaluated and tested inconsistently, making it even harder for researchers to confidently dismiss any relative line of thinking.

Winston and Patterson (2006) arrived at a similar finding related to the large number of leadership dimensions. In their study, they identified 90+ dimensions of leadership, yet noted there was not one dimension that was widely accepted by the leadership research, education and practitioner communities .

Which brings us to the question – how is a leader to know what to do, and if they are leading well and doing the right things?

To answer this, Northouse (2013) recommends that leaders start by grasping a working definition of what leadership is – suggesting that the 4 basic components of leadership are:

  • Leadership is a process
  • Leadership involves influence
  • Leadership can only occur in groups
  • Leadership involves common goals

Over the next week, we will explore these components in greater detail and outline a process for leaders to develop their own framework and working approach that is the best fit for them. This will place them in a better position to determine which leadership areas of focus hold the greatest benefits for them.

References:

Kuhn, T. (2012).The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition. University Of Chicago Press.

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.

Winston, B., & Patterson, K. (2006). An integrative definition of leadership. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 1(2), pp. 6 – 66.