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Leaders and Leadership in Organizations

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Leaders and Leadership in Organizations

Abstract
The success of an organization is dependent upon the leadership. Leadership is essential in providing vision, direction, and motivation. The purpose of this paper is to identify the importance of leadership in organizations by exploring leadership theories, styles, traits, and behaviors of effective leaders as well as challenges organizations face in developing and identifying effective leadership.

Importance of Leadership

Ultimately, the success and failure of an organization is dependent upon leadership. Although there are a number of factors impacting the performance of organizations, the quality of leadership remains at the key focal point. Effective leadership casts vision, provides direction, and influences organizational behavior, good or bad. Leadership academic studies agree leaders possess common qualities and attributes. Leadership styles may differ, but qualities and attributes remain consistent. The role of a leader is critical to the evolving dynamics of an organizational structure. Organizations are more aware of the role leadership has in their organization and are seeking leaders with the style, qualities and attributes needed (Yukl & Lepsinger 2008).

An organizations understanding of leadership is often limited to assessing a leader’s ability to motivate others to go beyond what is expected, benefiting from subordinates full potential efforts. Influencing the group of an organization is a much needed quality, but insufficient to explain the overall financial performance. Top management must understand individual professional abilities and key personal traits required in the selection process. Leaders can be described as individuals that can generate breakthrough performances such as, introducing new products, entering a new market, or obtaining better operational performance

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