Leadership Skills Needed for Success Industry in Difficult Times

Introduction

Many CEOs and managers of corporations have led their companies successfully through highly uncertain, even chaotic industries and in difficult times (Hansen, 2011). This paper summarizes the article written by Morten T. Hansen that addresses three leadership skills that count in order to achieve success even in difficult industries and times. The paper identifies the concept of management (leadership) and describes how it is used in this particular case. There are numerous and diverse definitions of leadership but the most fitting definition would be that leadership is the ability to influence the behavior of juniors/subordinates and persuade them into following a particular course of action (Winston and Patterson, 2006).

Management and leadership are not far apart since managers are leaders who rely on their leadership skills to lead their organizations. According to Kotter, managers are assigned to management and they achieve their desired goals through the key functions of planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, problem solving and controlling, while leaders on the other hand set a direction, align, motivate and inspire people (2001). A good manager should therefore be a good leader for his/her organization to prosper, but a good leader must not necessarily be a manager. Hansen in his article begins by stating that him and Jim Collins in their book “Great by Choice” they pondered the question “How do you lead successfully in an uncertain, disruptive, even chaotic world?” (Hansen, 2011). He states that they had to get some empirically derived answers by studying leaders of companies that grew to become great in highly uncertain, even chaotic, industries (Hansen, 2011). The leaders all worked in diverse indust...

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...are well documented in numerous articles, books and journals, but it is the duty of a manager who wishes to be a good leader to understand these characteristics and use them accordingly. A great leader is born from understanding oneself and trying to better his/her leadership traits. The leadership characteristics discussed in the article are not the only characteristics that a great leader should have, but in recent times and according to the research undertaken by Hansen and Collins, these characteristics play a vital role in ensuring the success of a leader (Kotter, 2001).

For an organization to be successive, it requires a mix of leaders and managers with Kotterman suggesting that a well balanced organization is that which has a few great leaders and many first-class managers (2006). Leaders will lead the managers in achieving the objectives of the organization.