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Top1 Introduction
Leadership is a complex subject that has captured the attention of many scholars and practitioners. Protagonists of leadership have defined it in various ways and there is no accepted definition so far (Zhang, Zhang, Sun, Lytras, de Pablos and He, 2018, p.1966). In their view, Ennis, Gong and Okpozo (2018, p.1) defined leadership as a dynamic factor that influences the behaviour and attitudes of the employees at the workplace. Leadership in this case plays a crucial role to manage, integrate and motivate the employees through effective utilisation of the resources that are available to meet the organisational objectives.
Lussier and Achua (2010, p.6) purports that the widespread proposed definition of leadership is: “the influencing process of leaders and followers to achieve organisational objectives through change.” Leadership is regarded as a function of management that is directed at influencing the followers to achieve the desired organisational objectives. Northouse (2017, p.27) adds that leadership is an activity of influencing the subordinates to achieve the desired organisational objectives. Leadership entails influencing, participative involvement and provision of direction with the view to initiate the needed change to all the players within the organisation (Yukl and Yukl, 2009, p.247).
Leadership is capability to influence and motivate the subordinates. A successful leader has the ability to challenge the behaviour and attitudes of the employees. Leadership involves the capacity to create a conducive working atmosphere and encourage the subordinates to go beyond the expected and achieve the desired objectives (Dalakoura, 2010, p.244).
According to Dalakoura (2010, p.244) the qualities of a good leader are:
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Ability to communicate - a strategic leader should be an effective communicator with the ability to communicate the vision of what needs to be accomplished;
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Innovativeness – An effective leader should be real and practical with the ability to be innovative towards the implementation of the organisational vision;
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Honesty – a strategic leader should be honesty, be able to embrace successes and failures. Be in a position to select some strategies over others and provide the reasons for taking such actions;
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Diplomacy – a strategic leader should acquire diplomat skills in order to be able to effectively manage conflicts through the application of negotiation skills to solve organisational problems; and
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Humility – a leader should be humble. Humility is one of the most desired attributes which a strategic leader should have. A humble leader will apologise when he/she has made a mistake and should always share the credit with others (Dalakoura, 2010, p.244).
It is critical for leadership to adopt a strategic leadership style that is ideal for the organisation. The adopted leadership style should have the capacity to develop the employees’ skills, instill employee positive self-image, bring employee confidence and improve the well-being of the employees (Fiaz and Sadiw, 2017, p.145).
Top2. Literature Review
Leadership is a broad subject that embraces a variety of leadership styles. This paper is however going to deal with the transactional, charismatic, laissez-faire and transactional leadership styles.