What is leadership? What are some practical ways to improve leadership? 4 point explanation

At work, there is always a sense of mystery for leaders. They have their own offices, receive customers from time to time, chat with colleagues, talk freely in conference rooms, arrange work, and are respected by everyone. As for leaders, some people think that because he is a leader, everyone should listen to him, while some people think that following him has a promising future and listen to him, and some people think that this leader is very powerful, and I want to learn from him. Where did it come from?

What is leadership? What are some practical ways to improve leadership? 4 point explanation

1 Where does leadership come from?

The process of entitlement permeates all aspects of society, and French and Raven's Bases of Social Power theory identifies five aspects of the social power base.

1. Formal empowerment: Legal power refers to the behavioral power obtained by taking up a certain position through election or appointment, also known as organizational authority or normative power. This right is only valid for subordinates.

2. Reward power, the power to reward, based on the power of giving positive favorable results, or removing negative unfavorable results, this power is only valid for subordinates.

3. The power of punishment or coercion, the power to punish those who violate the will, this power is only valid for subordinates.

4. Referential power, due to being the power possessed by others to learn from reference models, through suggestion, based on the relationship between one's own position and those with higher positions, has the effect of falsifying the tiger's prestige; This right is valid for any. Jobs has such magic power. He has a great temper and almost unreasonable demands on employees, but he can make people willing to work for him and be able to create first-class products.

5. Expert power, derived from the expertise, know-how and special skills possessed by an individual, as a technical or managerial expert, this right is valid for any person.

Zhang Zhidong, one of the founders of Tencent, is in charge of Tencent's technology and is worthy of respect. First, his technical prowess, even his opponents, are full of admiration for this. The architecture design of QQ originated in 1998. As of August 2009, the number of QQ users has increased from one million to hundreds of millions, and the entire architecture is still applicable. With this kind of technology, managing a group of technical staff under him has weight.

Among these types of rights, different rights have different functions and have different effects on subordinates. Expert rights are the most acceptable to subordinates, followed by reward rights, formal rights, referential rights, and the worst rights. the power of punishment or coercion.

Of course, as society develops, there are other types of rights, such as: information power, control over the collection and distribution of information; charisma power, Jobs' "reality distortion field"; guilt power, imposed obligations or responsibilities, etc. Wait.

Therefore, we see that the source of rights is not only the authorization of the organization, as long as there is a goal, as a leader actively and with a clear purpose, actively seek the required rights and powers within the scope of the organization's policies, agreements and procedures, rather than waiting for the organization to authorize.

As a leader, with the power base, the things he does include managing and governing. Although it is done by the same person, there are still differences.

What is leadership? What are some practical ways to improve leadership? 4 point explanation

2 Differences between leadership and management

The main things of leadership can be divided into directors and management. For directors, you can plan rationally and use management methods. For management, people can count skills, but not just numbers, not just tools, but only leadership. ,influences.

For the difference between management and leadership, Harvard Business School professor John Cotter, the father of leadership change, believes, "What is leadership used for? It is used to construct a vision and strategy, it is used to coordinate, formulate strategies and In coordinating relevant people, he must remove obstacles and improve the ability of employees to realize the vision. What is management? Management is not only the above things, management is the use of planning, budgeting, organization, personnel, control and problems to solve, Maintain the existing system."

What is the specific difference?

1. The focus is different, managers focus on the present and the short-term future, they focus on performance, maintaining the status quo and stability, while leaders focus on the future, long-term development, and cause change.

2. In terms of influence on subordinates, managers have front-line functions in the organization, and their rights come from the authority of their positions. They are cold-eyed, objective and fair to their subordinates, and can be delegated to others, while leaders come from the authority recognized by their followers. This kind of authority is not sublicensable without having to go through a formal chain of command to create emotional scuffles with followers.

3. The goals to be accomplished are different. Management must do things correctly, implement policies and procedures, be responsible to the organization, and achieve organizational goals; while leaders must do the right thing, be responsible to followers, achieve the goals of followers, and create a common sense. culture of values.

Although management and leadership are different, they are actually two sides of the same body. Leaders focus on planning, while management focuses on implementation and efficiency. Each leader has aspects of management and leadership, but the emphasis is different. Only management, that person is prone to rigidity and indifference, and only leadership may be rhetorical, floating in the clouds and unable to land.

In the company, with the promotion of positions, from grass-roots managers, middle managers to senior managers, there are fewer and fewer managers and more and more leaders.

For management, how to improve team execution, you can read Abu's article "How to improve team execution in the workplace? Do these 5 points, the team screams"

And for leadership, there needs to be leadership, and only then can it be brought to the team.

What is leadership? What are some practical ways to improve leadership? 4 point explanation

3 For managing people, leadership is needed

There are many aspects of people, there is a rational side, which can be used to do things, do it by yourself, and an emotional side, which can be happy and excited, and a lazy side, which needs guidance rather than coercion. This requires leadership.

Leadership skills include the ability to coach, motivate and lead a team. Includes basic skills such as negotiation, stress resistance, communication, problem solving, critical thinking and interpersonal skills.

What qualities and skills do leaders need: vision, integrity, optimism, praise, lifelong learning, willingness to collaborate, focus on matters, systems thinking, effective management of relationships and conflicts, effective communication, critical thinking, ethical awareness , Create efficient teams.

In the book "Leadership", in the Kouzes leadership model, leaders have five habits:

1. A shared vision

A team needs to have a common vision. This vision is to look to the future and imagine exciting and lofty possibilities. Leaders need to inspire everyone to strive for a common vision.

Jack Ma once sighed in an internal speech: "When I went to New York to attend the World Economic Forum, the CEOs of Fortune 500 talked about mission and values ​​the most. Chinese entrepreneurs rarely talk about mission and values. If you talk about them, they will think You are too vain to talk to you. Today, what Chinese companies lack is mission and values, so our company will only grow old, not bigger... Enterprises must have unified values. Our employees come from 11 Countries and regions, with different cultures, are the values ​​that unite us and strive for tomorrow.”

This is commonly known as painting cakes, allowing the team to form a common goal and have a consistent idea, which can stimulate the enthusiasm of employees and make things more efficient, but if it only stops at this step, it will become empty talk.

2. Lead by example

With a shared vision, clear values, you need to find your voice and lead by example. Vision and values ​​should not be hanging on the wall, but should be embodied in practice.

Leaders act in accordance with shared values, set an example for others, and lead people only if they believe in and follow their own set of values.

3. Challenge the status quo

Leaders hunt for opportunities for improvement by capturing ideas and sourcing innovative approaches from the outside, teams experiment and take risks, consistently achieve small successes, and learn by doing.

Leadership is to know what will happen, to be keen to identify opportunities, so as to bring opportunities to team members, rather than waiting for opportunities to come.

4. Make people walk

Leaders need to foster cooperation by building trust and fostering relationships, and empowering others by building a sense of autonomy and developing capabilities. First, to improve the ability of team members, and second, to improve the efficiency of teamwork, so that team performance can go up.

5. Inspirational

Leaders recognize the contributions of others by recognizing individual excellence and celebrate the achievement and triumph of values ​​by creating a spirit of collectivism.

Many companies emphasize team spirit, but when motivating, it is to reward individuals, which becomes encouraging individualism. Therefore, when motivating, it is necessary to not only emphasize the individual, but also link the performance of the individual to the team.

Improve your leadership skills with these five habits.

What is leadership? What are some practical ways to improve leadership? 4 point explanation

4 leadership styles

For leaders, different people have different ways, which determines that there are different leadership styles. Kurt Lewin's leadership style theory divides leadership styles into three categories:

1. Dictatorship, this method makes decisions quickly, but it is easy to make a statement. Once mistakes are made, the risk is high. It is suitable for projects with poor team ability and willingness to obey, and is suitable for projects with low risk and clear scope.

2. Democracy, this method makes collective decisions, but the decision-making process is long and takes a long time. Once unification cannot be reached, it will delay time. It is suitable for teams with strong team ability and the desire to participate. It is suitable for most projects. In the current agile development, it is Everyone is doing things and exerting their own subjective initiative.

3. Laissez-faire style, this method gives full play to the creativity of employees, but it is easy to lose control. It is suitable for employees with strong ability and strong consciousness, and is suitable for highly creative projects such as scientific research. Google adopted this method in the early days, and every employee 20% of the week is devoted to various innovative projects, and that's where Gmail came from.

For leadership styles, there is no absolute good or bad, only the suitable ones are the best. At the same time, the team is also a process of development. When the team starts to form, it is suitable for the authoritarian style, let the team integrate first, and then slowly transition to the democratic style or Laissez-faire.

What is leadership? What are some practical ways to improve leadership? 4 point explanation

5 at the end

The ultimate goal of leadership and management is to do things well, management is to manage things, to plan things well, track progress, and deliver results, while leadership is to manage people, let employees do things efficiently, to be a good leader, we must pay attention to Interpersonal communication, study people's behavior and motivation, improve their own leadership.

James Kouzes: Leadership is not the preserve of the privileged, nor is it just the right of managers, everyone has leadership. Leadership is the art of influencing others. Leading and following are opposites. Only when there are followers and being led can there be leaders.

To improve your own leadership, you need to open the vision on the team, lead by example, challenge the scene, find opportunities, make people act, and inspire people at the same time.