Leadership is defined as an organizational behavior that involves influencing the behavior of other team members and other staffs to work on the pre-determines goals and objectives. Contingency theory states that there is no theory which is permanent, rather a person acts according to the situation. Contemporary theory includes transformational theory of leadership. There are various drivers of innovation like enhancing flexibility, improving quality, cost reduction, and reduction of energy expenditure, and transformational theory helps in it. There are two types of leadership styles, and these are transactional and transformational leadership. Transactional leadership focuses on clarifying the roles of the employees and providing them the instructions. Transformational leadership builds trust among employees, and motivates them to do work by their own, and there are certain behaviors of the transformational leaders like intellectual stimulation, individual consideration, idealized influence, and inspirational motivation.

Steve Jobs is known throughout the world as the former head of Apple, the company that has revolutionized the technology world. Steve Jobs was an ethical leader as he was considered to be the transformational leader who has certain characteristics like intellectual stimulation, individual consideration, idealized influence, and inspirational motivation. He displayed high ethical standards of work. There were some incidents in Apple that led to start following some ethical principles in leadership style. There were ethical leadership training programs that include the following of moral and ethical issues, using mentoring and coaching programs, developing guideposts and frameworks for the ethical dilemmas, and giving the counselling to the employees whenever there is a problem. He had so many strengths that helped in shadowing the failings. According to Steve Jobs, “Whatever strengths I have are just that strengths and have taken care of themselves”. “The way to get better is to fix my things”. He always thought of corporate social responsibility as a leader and implemented it effectively.

Response:

Interesting example using Jobs - although I would suspect some would argue that he was transformation in many ways - but very transactional in others. In either case, we'll examine both models throughout the course. Other thoughts regarding leadership characteristics.

Organizations, especially here in the U.S. are very heterogeneous with respect to all those characteristics, which are always in a constant state of flux. Yet, if we look in the business section or almost any bookstore, we find row upon row of books on the general subject of "How To Become A More Effective Manager/Leader"; many of which promote concepts that are supported by rigorous academic research.

Since each such book offers a somewhat different idea for mastering leadership, which is correct and which is not? A lot of us buy and read books like those, and in addition, you as students, are exposed to a wide variety of management/leadership concepts and theories in courses such as this one.

Question:

How does all that acquired knowledge, some of which is conflicting, influence the way in which YOU will manage people, i.e. your own management "style".........or does it?