Essay: Effective leadership and creating a vision

Introduction
Leadership manifest in various forms. In politics, a political leader has the ability to rally people behind them in order to shape the course of human history. In business, an executive has the ability to predict future trends, strategize to outcompete other companies, and ensure long-term profits for the company. The previous examples are only some of the images that comes to mind when the word leadership is evoked. However, the similarity that leaders possess is the ability to demonstrate their influence over others to act in a particular way (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241). The effectiveness of a leader can determine whether the organization can meet their objectives or become a detriment to the future of the organization.
What is Leadership?
Managers in all levels have leadership styles that varies in order to adapt to the circumstances and the goals of the organization. Leaders are able to mobilize their followers through direction, encouragement, sensitivity, consideration, and support in order to overcome challenges and achieve goals that are perceived to be difficult to achieve (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241). A leader in the process becomes a conduit for developing growth and a sense of personal achievement among their followers. Being a leader builds a commitment to attain the goals among the followers, as well as a strong desire for them to continue following (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241). Often times, leader and supervisor are frequently used interchangeably, however, they do not mean the same thing. Supervisors are appointed by the organization and have legitimate power that allows them to reward and punish their employees according to their vested positions (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241). In contrast, leaders are either appointed or emerge from within a group, and influence others based on informal authority following (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241).
What is Considered as Effective Leadership?
An effective leader is someone who is able to create an inspiring vision of the future, motivate and inspire others to engage with that vision, manages the actualization of the vision, and ultimately guides and build the team to effectively achieve the vision meet the objectives of the organization (“What Is Leadership?”). An effective leader is also a transformational leader, where they are able to inspire followers to transcend their self-interests for the benefit of the organization and has tremendous impact on the followers.
Creating a Vision
Creating a vision is necessary since it provides a clear idea in how to meet the objectives of the organization by providing a set of direction and priorities for the team. The important qualities of a vision have inspirational possibilities grounded on value-centered, attainable, and well-articulated (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241).
When a common vision is not established and does not align with the objectives of the organization, the outcome will result in failure and will stifle potential growth and innovation (Melnyk, Bernadette Mazurek, and Sandra Davidson 288-295). The vision must be applicable in current times and circumstances and reflect the values of the organization. Visions that can be clearly articulated and induce powerful imagery are easily understood and accepted (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241).
Motivating and Inspiring Others
Effective leaders are defined by being able to motivate and inspire others, through promotion of a positive work environment, perceiving and understanding the emotions of others, and fostering an organizational culture in which people can transform challenging opportunities into successes (Alston). The leaders’ ability to ensure high morale among its followers, result in people more eager to help actualize the vision.
According to Victor Vroom’s Expectancy Theory, individuals analyze the relationships between their effort based on expectancy, instrumentality, and positive valence. Individual believe that through their efforts will lead to an increase of performance. As performance becomes higher individuals believe that it will result to a reward. As rewards are received individuals become satisfy their personal goals.  The theory emphasizes that the payoffs, or rewards an organization offers will align with the desires of the individual (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241).
Managing the Actualization of the Vision
Leaders must be able to properly manage to actualize the vision and ensure that the vision becomes a reality for the organization. According to Henri Fayol, all managers perform four management functions: They plan, organize, lead, and control.
Planning is essential for establishing an overall strategy to meet the goals of the organization. Organizing is used to allocate people and resources in order maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of teams accomplishing their tasks. Leading function is the ability to motivate, delegate tasks, and resolve conflicts between employees. Controlling is monitoring the organization’s performance in comparison to performance of previously set goals in order to measure if the organization is meeting its objectives.
Leaders must ensure that development must be effectively managed so that the vision becomes a reality and that it meets the objectives of the organization.
Guiding and building a Team to Achieve the Vision
The individual and group development are necessary tasks performed by effective leaders. A leader must understand a team’s dynamics in order to develop a team. In order to create an effective team, it must contain a small number of people with complementary skills that shares a common vision (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241).
Having a small size team is more effective in terms of management and increases team effort. Larger number of people in a team becomes difficult to develop a common purpose, goals, approach, and mutual accountability (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241). People may reason that since there are more people in the team, someone will be able to pick up the workload needed to accomplish the objectives resulting in a diffusion of responsibilities. So if a team has a large number of peoples, breaking down the group into subteams would be optimal for team effort (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241).
In order for a team to perform effectively, they must have technical expertise, problem-solving and decision-making skills, and interpersonal skills (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241). The skill problem-solve and decision-making skills is necessary to identify any problems, and be able to generate alternatives and solutions, evaluate those alternates and solutions, and be able to competently make choices (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241).
Finally, a having a common vision provides a team a sense of direction, meaningful purpose, and commitment among its members (Robbins, Stephen P., et al. 241).
What is Considered as Ineffective Leadership?
Ineffective leadership is not only a detriment to their followers but also becomes a hindrance in achieving the desired goals of the organization. Personal behaviors that lead to ineffectiveness include harmful behaviors towards subordinates, which includes intimidation and bullying (McCall and Lombardo). Along with anti-organizational behaviors which include laziness, lack of necessary management skills, and failing to build a team, and failure to create a vision for others to rally behind (McCall and Lombardo). According to Lombardo et al. the following characteristics contributes to the ineffective managers: Failure to create a cohesive team; Improper management; being excessively ambitious; lack of support and too demanding of subordinates; uncontrolled emotions; lack of empathy; unhealthy relations with subordinates; and refusal to entertain other ideas (202).