Criteria For Leadership And Its Importance For The Firm's Success Essay - 1

Criteria For Leadership And Its Importance For The Firm's Success - Essay Example The presentation of the project to Paul’s boss, Larry, did not have the expected effect. The position of CEO would be offered to another colleague of Paul, probably George since Larry believes that Paul is not tough enough in order to become the firm’s leader. The disappointment of Paul, as noted in the case study, can be explained by referring to the criteria on which the relevant judgment – regarding the ability of Paul – to become a leader was based. The events described in the case study are related to a series of issues, which have been extensively examined in the academic literature. Particular emphasis seems to be given to a) the concept of leadership, which has been related to specific qualities; in accordance with Daft et al. (2010) the leadership can be characterized as ‘a process by which a person exerts influence over other people and inspires, motivates and directs their activities to help achieve group of organizational goals’ (Daft et al. 2010). The above definition makes clear that leadership is not a position; rather it is a process, which has specific phases/ parts. The specific definition helps to understand the decision of Larry regarding the inappropriateness of Paul for the specific role; b) the concept of management, as being differentiated from leadership; the former focuses on practical aspects of the organizational activities; the latter focuses on the promotion of the firm’s vision and spirit; it is at this point that manager is differentiated from the leader; a successful leader needs to be able to promote the organization’s vision without being restricted by personal thoughts or the views of his environment (Millmore 2007), c) also, through the case study, the need of management theory for understanding the firm’s strategic priorities is revealed – reference is made especially to the theory of Kirkpatrick & Locke (1991) who set 6 criteria for identifying the ability of a  person to become a successful leader: ‘ambition and energy, desire to lead, honesty and integrity, self confidence, intelligence and job relevant knowledge’ (Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1991).