Organizational Leadership Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Organizational Leadership - Term Paper Example The intention of this study is leadership as the ability to influence a group towards the achievement offset goals. In an organization there are leaders who may be vested with formal authority to influence the activities of the other members so that the goals of the organisation can be achieved. On the other hand, the classical approach to leadership loosely refers to a type of conditioning where an individual responds to some stimulus that would not invariably produce such a response. In as far as leadership is concerned, it can be noted that there is need to influence people within an organization to behave in a particular way so that their efforts can be pulled in the same direction towards the attainment of the set goals. However, the success of this strategy mainly depends on the type of the organisation and the leadership style that is used by the leaders. Merton defines a bureaucratic structure as one that is formal and it involves clearly defined patterns of activities and ev ery action is ideally related to the purposes of the organization. Such an organization is hierarchical in structure where power and authority follow a top to down structure. Another very important aspect of this organization is that power is vested in the office not the particular person who performs the official task. The formality of this type of organization suggests that subordinates have to take orders from their superiors and the methods of communication are also formalised where the leaders give orders to the junior employees. In a bureaucratic structure, everything is centralized and this particular type of organization cannot easily change its formalised way of operation. Another important aspect about this structure is that the decision making process is centralised and other ordinary members may not contribute their ideas. In short, the leadership style used by this organization is authoritative where focus is put on the vision of the firm. On the other hand, it can be n oted that some organizations are liberal and they welcome initiative, innovation as well as creativity. Goleman (2000) posits to the effect that the effectiveness of this particular type of organization can be attributed to the leadership style that is used. In this case, the members of the organisation are given the autonomy to contribute towards the decision making process and it can be observed that this kind of firm is flexible since it allows people to learn and adapt to changes that can take place within and outside the organisation. The success of such kind of organisation can also be attributed to the leaders’ ability to encourage the members to learn from others as well as to participate in activities that are crucial to its operation. There is a shared vision among the members and it can be noted that this structure is more flexible compared to a bureaucratic st