Mastering Leadership

Leadership can be defined as the art of guiding an individual, a group or an organization towards predefined goals. Leadership is generally touted as an art, meaning that it is largely a reflection of the character and style of its possessors. However it must also be remembered that every leader or manager does use a combination of theory and practice in guiding the organization towards achieving its goals. In that context, leadership reflects the leader’s values, experience and capabilities in dealing with situations where the outcome is unpredictable and dependent on a host of changing factors and circumstances. Success as a leader would therefore depend on individual responses to a situation that may be novel for the organization. Effective leadership would therefore be a combination of the intellect, energy, courage, temperament and other core values of the leader. However it would be foolish to ignore the distilled wisdom and thoughts of management scientists and practitioners of the discipline in our culture. Leadership is not static but dynamic- it must continually evolve, as the world must keep learning.

The business organizations of today are increasingly affected by the rapid pace of technological, commercial and managerial changes, hitherto incomparable in terms of pace, magnitude, complexity and the absence of certainty. Effective leadership requires a paradigm shift in thinking-