Outline
This journal project discusses about different qualities of a leader like creativity, credibility, and the ability to handle conflicts in an organization. For the success of any organization it needs a good leadership. A good leader should have the ability to communicate with his followers and understand their feelings and problems.
Introduction
A leader should have the ability to manage the conflicts arising in an organization. To find out the reasons behind the conflicts and to solve those problems, he may have to negotiate with his followers. So he should have a good negotiating skills. Identifying the internal and external problems and finding right solution for the problems is the responsibility or a quality of leadership. A leader should understand his followers’ problems. Creativity is a plus point of good leadership. A creative leader can easily find or identify the building blocks of any newly started project. It helps to move them with proper planning and scheduling. Credibility is another plus point of leadership. A leader should be a coach and he should give inspiration to his followers. It means he should give physical as well as mental support to his followers. It leads to success.
Significance of creativity in leadership
There is a close relationship between leadership and creativity. The reason behind the relationship is that a leader should have the ability to give new directions to his followers. He should also have the ability to provide championing change to them. For the success of any organization or business sector creative thinking and innovation are essential. (Leadership and creativity 2008). So creativity is a good qualification for leadership. Few people get it by birth. Others learn it through their hard work. The creative nature of the leader will encourage his followers to deliver new ideas and reduce the aggressive or uncooperative mentality of the team members. For that, leader must give support to his followers’ creativity with rewards. It encourages them to take risks without reluctance. (Leadership Skills, 683)
“The need to actively support followers’ creativity may be especially important for leaders in bureaucratic organizations, such as organizations tend to be inflexible, formalized and centralized as to make many people in them feel relatively powerless.” (Part Four Leadership Skills, 684)
According to investment theory of creativity a person who has creative nature is same like a good investor. A good investor buy at low price and sell at a high price, but here the transactions of ideas are done. (Riggio, Murphy & Pirozzolo 2001, p.16).
A good leader should have this kind of investing power. That means the power of creativity.
Credibility; a good leadership trust
Leadership exists on the basis of credibility. The most important quality of a leader is unquestionable honesty. In any organization or any team the leader’s credibility indicates the credibility of the firm or the team. Two aspects influence the credibility in leadership – they are trust and equity. Building a trust is a difficult task. Trust is delicate and easily broken. So everyone should handle this factor carefully. Trust may be broken with a single breach. Like trust, equality is also an important factor for getting support from the followers. People show their commitments to trusted and credible leaders. (Mills 2009).
There are many features to the leadership credibility. They are :
- Lead the followers with impeccable integrity.
- Acquire more and more knowledge at least in the field in which one has leadership.
- Give support to the followers.
- Lead the followers by confidence.
- Try to become a role model. It means leader should show to his followers what they do.
(April Fools, Machiavelli, and Five Keys to Leadership Credibility 2009).
Dealing with conflicts
Handling of conflicts is also the responsibility of the leader. Conflict occurs when there is a disagreement between people in an organization or team. It may affect the unity and the success of the organization. So a leader should have the ability to manage the conflicts arising in his organization. Major reasons for occurring conflicts are lack of communication, lack of frankness, and poor leadership. Conflict may arise due to some other reasons like frustration in the leadership. Any type of conflict occurring in an organization will negatively affect the performance. For the efficient working, leader must take care to avoid conflict in his organization. And if any type of conflict occurs, then the leader must take necessary steps as early as possible. All types of conflicts may not be solvable. But a good leader can manage any conflict with his intelligent interaction. For solving conflicts first he/she should study the reason for the clash. Some kind of conflicts may be constructive. A good leader can direct those types of conflicts in a positive way. It may create an effective communication and understanding between members in an organization. (Leadership in dealing with conflict 2009).
Some guidelines for leaders to handle conflicts are :
- Try to focus on the subject of the problem not to the person.
- Find the basic factor behind the conflict.
- Take the responsibility of the conflict. It will help to improve the respect of the followers to the leader and the followers show more responsibility in their own roles.
- Never avoid conflict. Handle the conflicts directly.
Tips on Handling Conflicts
(Leadership in dealing with conflict 2009).
Personal experience
As I was a member of a youth club near my home I understand the necessity of creativity as a leader. As a part of Christmas celebration we decided to create a Christmas crib. Many people gave many suggestions about the preparation of the crib. At that situation our team leader called a meeting of all members of the team and collected different ideas from all of us. He also had an idea about the crib. He accepted some good ideas from us and adding his own idea he created a plan for the crib. Based on this plan we created the Christmas crib. It was excellent. The basic idea for the structure of the crib was from our leader. We were sure that he has a nice idea about the crib. So all of us gave support to his plan.
Reference
April Fools, Machiavelli, and Five Keys to Leadership Credibility 2009, The Michael Corner, Web.
Leadership in dealing with conflict 2009, Leadership Expert.
Leadership and creativity: what is the relation between creativity and leadership 2008, Web.
Mills, Steve 2009, credibility, We Build People, Web.
Part Four Leadership Skills: Using Power Constructively (provided by customer).
Riggio, Ronald E, Murphy, Susan E, & Pirozzolo, Francis J 2001, Multiple intelligence and leadership, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.