UNIT: IV

Leadership – Leadership Theories - Organisational Conflict – Conflict

Management – Group Dynamics

Leadership: Leadership is the skill of an individual or a leader to organize, inspire and guide a
set of people to achieve a common goal. Leadership is the quality possessed by a person to
influence and inspire a set of individuals to work as a team. A person possessing strong
leadership skills is a leader, who motivates individuals to perform and contribute towards the
team’s needs.

Key Leadership Skills

There are several leadership skills which an individual must acquire in order to become a good
leader. All these skills need to be developed over a period of time by constantly learning new
skills for one self. Some of the important and key skills and qualities of a good leader are
discussed below:
1. Guidance: One key skill which team members look upto is guidance & mentorship from a
good leader.
2. Motivation: Giving motivation to employees to contribute effectively is an essential skill for
any individual.
3. Communication: A good leader is always open for a two-way communication, i.e. he or she
is a good orator as well as a good listener, and has good interpersonal skills.
4. Creativity: A good quality ensures that there is room for intelligent discussions, creative ideas
and learning of new skills.
5. Positivity: An individual who brings in positive energy and reduces negative thoughts has the
qualities of being a strong and influential leader.
6. Feedback: Giving feedback to members is a good sign on leadership as it helps individual
improve.
7. Inspiration: A strong leader has skills to inspire and motivate team members, and often leads
by example.
8. Teamwork: Apart from leading a group of individual, good skills requires to be a part of the
team which can be differently on the basis of region, culture, language etc.
9. Responsibility: A good leadership position demands an individual who can handle
responsibility and be accountable for not only progress, but also takes into strides failures.
10. Delegating: A good leader builds trust with employees by delegation of authority and work
to them based on their skills.
Importance of Leadership
Leadership is an important function of management which helps to maximize efficiency and to
achieve organizational goals.
The following points justify the importance of leadership in a concern.
Initiates action- Leader is a person who starts the work by communicating the policies and plans
to the subordinates from where the work actually starts.
Motivation- A leader proves to be playing an incentive role in the concern’s working. He
motivates the employees with economic and non-economic rewards and thereby gets the work
from the subordinates.
Providing guidance- A leader has to not only supervise but also play a guiding role for the
subordinates. Guidance here means instructing the subordinates the way they have to perform
their work effectively and efficiently.
Creating confidence- Confidence is an important factor which can be achieved through
expressing the work efforts to the subordinates, explaining them clearly their role and giving
them guidelines to achieve the goals effectively. It is also important to hear the employees with
regards to their complaints and problems.
Building morale- Morale denotes willing co-operation of the employees towards their work and
getting them into confidence and winning their trust. A leader can be a morale booster by
achieving full co-operation so that they perform with best of their abilities as they work to
achieve goals.
Builds work environment- Management is getting things done from people. An efficient work
environment helps in sound and stable growth. Therefore, human relations should be kept into
mind by a leader. He should have personal contacts with employees and should listen to their
problems and solve them. He should treat employees on humanitarian terms.
Co-ordination- Co-ordination can be achieved through reconciling personal interests with
organizational goals. This synchronization can be achieved through proper and effective co-
ordination which should be primary motive of a leader.
Types of Leadership:
There are several types of leadership based on the approaches taken by leaders. Some important
types are discussed below:
Autocratic: An authoritative leader makes decisions without consulting team members. All the
authority and accountability are with the leader.
Democratic: All subordinates contribute in the decision making democratically.
Strategic: The leader defines the goals and strategies which need to be followed by the team.
Transformational: The leader motivates, inspires and transforms employees to deliver.
Transactional: Leaders reward or punish members based on immediate results delivered.
Charismatic: Leaders motivate and inspire based on their positive attitude and charisma.
Team: Making a collective team and working with a sense of direction and purpose.
Cross-Cultural: The leader needs to work with people from different cultures, regions, religions
etc.
Facilitative: A leader facilitates suggestions, directives etc depending upon the tpe of group.
Laissez-Faire: Employees have the power and authority to work.
Coaching: It involves continuous teaching, coaching and supervision of the leader.
Visionary: Visionary leaders recognize that leadership is obtained with and through people.
Qualities of a Good Leader:
Any professional who becomes a leader must know what is leadership in terms of the traits they
must possess. Here are some of the necessary qualities of a good leader:
1. Integrity: Leaders value virtuousness and honesty. Furthermore, they also surround
themselves with like-minded people who believe in them and their vision.
2. Inspiration: Leaders are self-motivating, and this makes them great influencers. They are a
good inspiration to their team members and help others to understand their roles in a bigger
context.
3. Communication Skills: Leaders must possess great communication skills to enable their team
members to understand their vision. They are also transparent with their team and share failures
and successes with them.
4. Vision: What is leadership without the vision for company growth? Leaders, therefore, need
to be visionaries. They must have a clear idea of what they want and how to achieve it. This is
essential to steer their organization to the path of success.
5. Resilience: Leaders challenge the status quo. Hence, they never give up easily. They also have
unique ways to solve a problem.
6. Intuition: Leadership coach Hortense le Gentil believes that leaders should rely on intuition
for making hard decisions. Intuition heavily relies on a person’s existing knowledge and life
learning, especially useful in complex situations.
7. Empathy: A leader should be an emotional and empathetic fellow because it will help them
develop a strong bond with their team. Empathy, in fact, will help a leader address the problems,
complaints, and aspirations of their team members.
8. Fairness: Although empathy is an important quality a leader must imbibe, getting clouded by
emotions while making an important business decision can be potentially problematic. Hence, a
good leader should balance empathy with fairness.
9. Intelligence: A good leader must be intelligent enough to arrive at business solutions to
difficult problems. Furthermore, a leader should be analytical and should weigh the pros and
cons before making a decision. This quality can be polished with an all-inclusive leadership
training program.
10. Creativity: An effective leader is also someone open to new ideas, possibilities, and
perspectives. They are always ready to listen, observe, and willing to change. They are also out-
of-the-box thinkers and encourage their teams to do so.
11. Patience: Successful leaders understand that a business strategy takes time to develop and
bear results. Additionally, they believe that continuous improvement and patience are the key to
growth.
12. Flexible: Leaders understand the concept of continuous improvement but they also know that
adaptability will lead them to success. Nothing goes as planned. Hence, being flexible and
intuitive helps a manager to hold his ground during complex situations.
Types of Leadership Theories
What is leadership if not the ability to pivot in crunch situations? It is in these situations
that leadership theories come to the aid of leaders. Let’s look at some important theories:
1. Trait Theories: These theories identify the inherent characteristics that make someone a great
leader. For example, traits such as intelligence, confidence, charisma, and determination are
particularly dissected in this approach.
2. Behavioral Theories: These theories concern the actions and behaviors of leaders rather than
their innate traits. They examine the behaviors exhibited by effective leaders and how they
impact group dynamics and performance eventually.
3. Contingency Theories: Contingency theories argue that effective leadership depends upon
various situational factors. A single leadership style is not suitable for every situation. In short, it
is important to adapt one’s leadership approach based on the context and the needs of the
employees.
Organisational Conflicts: Organisational conflicts occur when people or groups within an
organisation have disagreements or differences that make it difficult for them to work together.
These conflicts can happen because of things like different opinions, values, or goals.
Factors Influencing Organizational Conflict:
Unclear Responsibility: If there is lack of clarity, regarding who is responsible for which
section of a task or project, conflict takes place. And, to avoid this situation, the roles and
responsibility of the team members should be stated clearly and also agreed upon by all.
Interpersonal Relationship: Every member of an organization, possesses different personality,
which plays a crucial role in resolving conflict in an organization. Conflicts at the workplace, are
often caused by interpersonal issues between the members of the organization.
Scarcity of Resources: One of the main reason for occurence of conflict in an organization is
the inadequacy of resources like time, money, materials etc. due to which members of the
organization compete with each other, leading to conflict between them.
Conflict of Interest: When there is a disorientation between the personal goals of the individual
and the goals of the organization, conflict of interest arises, as the individual may fight for his
personal goals, which hinders the overall success of the project.
Conflicts alleviate at the workplace due to individual and inter-individual factors. Individual
related causes entails attitudes, beliefs, personality orientation and human-frailties. Inter-
individual conflicts arises when a manager breaches norms of the organization.
Process of Organisational Conflict: The process of organisational conflict is a dynamic
sequence of events that unfolds in a particular manner. It involves various stages, including
antecedent conditions, cognition, personalization, conflictive behaviour, conflict management
behaviour, and aftermath:
Antecedent Conditions: Conflict arises when certain conditions create opportunities for
conflict. These conditions can include scarcity of resources, diverse goals, and differences in
values. However, the presence of these conditions doesn’t automatically mean conflict will
occur.
Perception and Personalization: Whether conflict develops or not depends on how
individuals perceive the situation. If they see it as highly threatening, conflict may arise. At
this stage, conflict may remain hidden or become personal when individuals start feeling
threatened, hostile, mistrustful, or fearful.
Conflict Behavior and Management: In this stage, one party consciously tries to block the
other party’s goals. This behaviour is called manifest behaviour and can range from subtle
interference to more aggressive actions, like strikes. Conflict management styles, such as
resignation, compromise, or collaboration, also come into play, depending on how people
choose to handle the conflict.
Aftermath: The consequences of conflict depend on how people behave and manage the
conflict. These consequences can affect satisfaction levels, relationships, and group
performance, and even lead to changes in structure and policies. The aftermath can also
influence the likelihood of future conflicts, as it may plant the seeds for new conflicts to arise.
Causes of Organizational Confict
Managerial Expectations: Every employee is expected to meet the targets, imposed by his/her
superior and when these expectations are misunderstood or not fulfilled within the stipulated
time, conflicts arises.
Communication Disruption: One of the major cause of conflict at the workplace is disruption
in the communication, i.e. if one employee requires certain information from another, who does
not respond properly, conflict sparks in the organization.
Misunderstanding: Misunderstanding of information, can also alleviate dispute in organization,
in the sense that if one person misinterpret some information, it can lead to series of conflicts.
Lack of accounhtability: If in a project, responsibilities are not clear and some mistake has
arisen, of which no member of the team wants to take responsibility can also become a cause of
conflict in the organization.
The causes of organizational conflict are to be known, to resolve them as early as possible,
because it hinders the efficiency, effectiveness and productivity of the employees and the
organization as well, which ultimately hampers its success.
Ways to Manage Conflicts in Organization:
 Handle the conflict positively.
 Formation of official grievance procedure for all members
 Concentrate on the causes rather than their effect, to assess conflicts.
 Parties to conflicts should be given an equal voice, irrespective of their position, term or
political influence.
 Active participation of all the parties to conflict can also help to counter it.
 In an organization, conflict is inevitable and so various means are to be discovered to
resolve them or use them in a way that can help the organization to increase its
productivity.

Conflict Management: Conflict management is a process by which organizations seek to

solve conflicts or negative situations in the workplace while promoting employee
engagement. Conflict management encourages learning in a safe, supportive environment and
leads to decisions that improve the situation. It also maintains trusting relationships with
customers, improves the effectiveness of groups and ensures employees feel comfortable
reporting ideas for improvement.
Types of Conflict Management
Competing: The competing conflict type puts a high value on assertiveness and a low value
on cooperation. Adopting this type at work could mean you are unwilling to compromise or
listen to other points of view.
Compromising : Compromising is an effective way to resolve conflicts. It demands moderate
assertiveness and cooperation from all parties involved, who then reach an agreement that
works for everyone involved. The compromise allows time constraints to work in your favor
by addressing issues quickly and effectively while satisfying all parties equally.
Accommodating: The accommodating conflict resolution style attempts to resolve
disagreements without imposing one party’s needs or desires. This mode is characterized by
high levels of cooperation and low levels of assertiveness so that you might sacrifice your
own needs to meet those of the other person.
Avoiding: Avoidance of conflict type does not seek their opinions nor willing to listen to the
other person’s opinion. They will evade conversations, cancel meetings, and change the
subject to avoid conflicts altogether.
Collaborating: Collaborating is a conflict management style that requires all parties to work
together to come up with a resolution that benefits everyone. Collaborating is most effective
when you have ample time and the ability to discuss issues openly and honestly.
The most effective strategies for dealing with conflicts:
Listening: In order to communicate effectively with others, one must first listen carefully to
all sides of an argument. This contrasts with prioritizing a response before hearing other
points of view.
Humor: Humor can diffuse tension, making conflict resolution more likely.
Emotional Intelligence: This technique promotes rationality to remain calm when dealing
with others’ arguments.
Empathy: This skill enables you to solve problems rather than win an argument by putting
yourself in someone else’s position.
Group Dynamics: Group dynamics refers to the individual setting, behavior, dynamics, skills,
and attitudes of members within a group, that is driven by a common identity and shared
objectives.
A Group Consists of the following:
Name: Provides a distinct identity, like law administrators.
Members: Skilled individuals like police officers.
Purpose: A goal behind the group, like improving law-and-order administration.
Dynamics: It involves the actions, interactions, and reactions of the group within itself and with
the surroundings.
Group dynamics is a unique blend of these interactions that shape the groups’ identity and
distinct behavioral pattern.
The Types of Group Dynamics
Groups can be classified under many heads. But the most common way of classifying groups is
based on norms and rules:
Formal Groups: They are usually formed on the basis of specific norms, rules, and values. The
most common example of this kind is the army and school.
Informal Groups: The nature of this group is not strictly defined. While the rules and
regulations are quite flexible. Common examples are social clubs and play groups.
Organized Groups: These groups are formed for a specific purpose and after careful planning.
Examples of these groups are family and school.
Spontaneous Groups: They are usually formed suddenly and without any prior planning.
Examples include audiences at music concerts and sports spectators.
Task Groups: They consist of a group of people gathered together to achieve a common task
within a limited time frame. One common example is a special task force.
Functional Groups: They are created when a group of people join together to accomplish a
specific task within unlimited time. Unlike task groups, they continue to exist even after the
achievement of the goals.
The five stages of Group Dynamics
The five identified stages are:
Forming: The first stage of development, where members are trying to familiarize themselves
with each other and the end goals to be achieved. The members show reliance on external factors
for expertise and guidance for job definition.
The common features of this stage are:
 Little agreement
 Unclear purpose
 External guidance and direction
Storming: The second stage of development, here the members criticize and confront each other
on the approach and the direction the group is following. The most common issues are
specification of roles and responsibilities, recognition of individual capabilities, and approved set
of rules and regulations.
The common features of this stage are:
 Conflict
 Increase in the clarity of purpose
 Power struggles
Norming: The third stage of development, where the members resolve their internal conflicts
and create social agreements. The group develops cohesion and agrees on common norms by
recognizing individuality. This helps them to work more efficiently.
The common features are:
 Agreement and consensus
 Clear roles and responsibilities
 Facilitation
Performing: The fourth stage of development, where the group moves towards accomplishing
their goals by sorting out the differences and understanding the individual tasks. The group now
begins to lessen its dependence on external resources as they attain maturity and rely on their
own resources.
The common features are:
 Clear vision and purpose
 Focus on goal achievement
 Delegation
Adjourning: The fifth and the last stage of the development, where the group resorts to closure
like social gatherings and parties, or ceremonial rituals. It helps in exhibiting emotional support
and celebration of their success.
The common features are:
 Task completion
 Feeling of satisfaction after achievement
 Recognition and rewards
In a nutshell, understanding group dynamics helps organizations in fulfilling their employee’s
basic need for companionship. It also aids in accomplishing challenging tasks within a shorter
time frame.