Leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act toward achieving a common goal. In an organisation setting, this can mean directing workers and colleagues with a strategy to meet the organisation’s needs.
Leadership is an important and important variable that leads to improved management capacity, as well as organisational performance.
W.C.H. Prentice defined leadership as “the accomplishment of a goal through the direction of human assistants” and a successful leader as one who can understand people’s motivations and enlist employee participation in a way that marries individual needs and interests to the group’s purpose.
Leadership and management teams likely to use interchangeably, but they’re not the same. Leadership needs traits that extend beyond management duties.
Leaders and managers have to manage the assets at their disposal, but true leadership needs more. For example, managers may described as inspiring by the people working under them, but a leader must inspire those who follow them.
Extra difference between leaders and managers is that leaders highlight innovation above all else.
While a manager seeks to inspire their team to meet goals while following company rules, a leader may more concerned with setting and achieving high goals. As a worker has a radical new idea on how to tackle an issue, a leader is likely to encourage that person to continue the idea.
It is clear the ability to lead effectively relies on several key skills, but also that different leaders have different characteristics and styles.
One of the main characteristics of good leaders is their flexibility and ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Leadership skills much sought after by employers as they involve dealing with people in such a way to motivate, encourage and build respect.
Leadership in the civil service is especially important; it not only influences the job performance and satisfaction of employees, but also how government and public agencies perform. Leadership is critical to good public governance, including good planning, efficiency, transparency, and accountability.
Civil service leadership involves dealing with complex stakeholder relationships with significant constraints in resources and ethical responsibilities, combined with all other factors that influence leadership.
This suggest that strong positive relations, a clear sense of direction underpinned by a clear set of values and ethics are likely to be important considerations for civil service leadership.
