BUS603: Managing People

The interest in the topic of leadership has been renewed with an expressive set of studies that correlate leadership to the most diverse themes, as they show frequent meta-analysis. Leadership has an effect on the organization's performance, on the processes of change, on the commitment, satisfaction, and well-being of employees. Leadership theories began in the theory of traits, and successive other theories were being developed, such as behavioral theories, contingency or situational theories, and procedural theories. A review of the main theories about the phenomenon (from trace-based theory to procedural theories, which are predominant in current research).

This diversity of theories has led to many styles of leadership and a varied nomenclature, for example, charismatic/bureaucratic leadership, transactional/transformational leadership, autocratic/democratic/visionary-inspirational leadership/laissez-faire, supportive leadership, ethical leadership, Leader-Member Exchange (LMX). Each of these styles has specific characteristics, although some styles are derived from others.

This variety of theories and styles is also accompanied by a set of definitions for leadership. But in spite of this conceptual plurality, the process of influence and the involvement of people are often frequent in definitions of leadership. Thus, we consider as a parameter the definition of Managerial leadership is a complex and multifaceted construct that influences organizational tasks, strategies, and cultures, as well as the commitment and identification of teams.

This definition Managerial leadership focuses on the process of influence and interaction of leadership that is also present in the perspective of  The Key to Leadership Excellence in terms of the transformation of the leader, from processes of change based on learning and knowledge. In this sense, although the current leadership theories are very focused on the processes, such processes include the exchanges between leaders and subordinates, being more prevalent the more integrative approaches of leadership theories.

Thus, leadership can be characterized as a process of social influence, since it establishes the relationship between groups of people around individual, group, or institutional goals. Therefore, leadership involves influencing other people's attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and feelings toward achieving a goal in a given situation. In a similar vein, authors point out that the main components of leadership are interpersonal influence, leadership in a situation, communication process, and achievement of goals. These goals can be from the organization, the group, the follower, and/or the leader. In this sense, the leader would influence the subordinate's behavior through communication.

Among the various leadership styles, the so-called visionary leadership and transformational leadership are the ones that make the greatest contribution to highlighting the role of leaders in the professional development of subordinates. The concept of visionary leadership involves strategic management in a process of interaction of repetition, representation, and assistance. According to the process, content, and context, there are various types of visionary leadership: the creator - product focus; the proselytizer - market focus; the idealist - ideal focus; the bricoleur - product and organization focus; and the diviner - service focus. The kind of visionary leader associated with the professional development of subordinates is the diviner, whose target group is the employees and whose salient capacities are insight, sagacity, and inspiration.

Visionary leadership has been defined as a process with three specific steps: (1) vision (idea), (2) communication (word), and (3) empowerment (action). An alternative image of visionary leadership might be that of a drama with action and communication occurring simultaneously. So, the visionary leader acts as follow: repetition (idea), representation (vision), and assistance (emotion and action). So, the visionary leaders act as follows: repetition (idea), representation (vision), and assistance (emotion and action). By repeating an idea, creating the representation of a certain vision for the future, and acting in an inspiring way for the subordinates, simultaneously in terms of emotion and action, the visionary leader creates an environment conducive to professional development. More specifically, it has been argued that visionary leaders mobilize follower action by linking organizational goals and activities with followers' self-concept and value hierarchies, as well as by connecting followers to the collective such that their interests become fused with those of the organization. The importance of leader vision communication is pointed in both visionary leadership and transformational leadership theories.

Thus, the transformational leader also has great ability to contribute to the professional development of his subordinates. The leader acts in the creation of shared goals and encourages the experimentation of solutions, making concessions of power and maintaining a systemic communication that leads to collective engagement. The transformational leader therefore acts in different types of management, namely: attention management, meaning management, trust management, and management of the individual. Each of these dimensions is associated with one of the four Bass' dimensions - Charisma, Inspiration, Intellectual stimulation, and Individual consideration - as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Expected actions of a transformational leader according to its four dimensions.

Thus, in the logic of the transformational leader, there is collective engagement around shared goals. This favors professional development because subordinates feel the importance of their participation in building something meaningful, which increases individual commitment.