Leadership
People leadership is both a field of study and a practical skill that encompasses the ability of an individual, group, or organization to "lead," influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. In human ethics, it is the reasoned attempt by a leader to exert a controlling and directive influence on his or her own actions and those of others using appropriate leadership techniques in order to realize a vision of leadership goals. Leadership is a method to motivate "led" people for the set goals and to take them along on the way of fulfilling the goals, for the common success. The leadership process is a "constant accompaniment" of the led. Individual persons, but also groups of persons can be named as guided in the context of individual leadership. In the case of working groups, groups of pupils, the more specific term team leadership is also used. If the leadership refers to the entirety of all employees, then we speak of personnel leadership or employee leadership. These forms of leadership are referred to as "leadership" in the English-speaking world.
Leadership takes place against the background of various social contexts such as family, school, university, politics, business, military and sport within or outside an institution or organisation. Leadership is considered mandatory in the military, due to the special objective of forcibly enforcing goals in the face of an existing acute threat. At the same time, military leadership is moderated by modern insights into people management and by insights into the effectiveness of motivation. However, the leader principle, much strained in the 20th century, has been replaced in principle everywhere else since mid-century because of its implicit claim to absolute power in society.
In modern industrial society, the leadership principle of an organisation is particularly prominent. It introduces the person of the leader as a (leading) knowledge, (initial) mission and (accompanying) motivation mediating member of a group with defined decision-making power. Depending on the intellectual and social competence of the leaders, the prominent position in the self-image of the leader or also in the understanding of those led as "group" or "personnel" changes from leader to manager.
Especially in the consistent application of humane ethics, the task of leadership has a special weight. Not only the factual leadership of a group and its maxims of action, but an exemplary leadership of the leader himself and the leadership of the people he leads according to ethical guidelines establishes the leadership of people. From this the person leading the people gains a legitimation which not only tolerates the consistent leading influence on the actions of the group members in the sense of an ethical norm, but also authorizes it on the basis of ethical authority. In this context, leadership also means management, power and role model function.
In world history there are also other views on the legitimacy of leadership. In a fascist worldview, leadership was grounded in "providence." In Stalinism, leadership sees itself as a legitimate ruling elite, and anarchists totally reject rule by self-appointed elites.
Rationale for the management of human beings
Attribution theory in psychology provides explanatory models for recurrent strategies of simplistic description of complex social contexts in industry and society. The anthropological attempt at justification claims that
- people have to be led and that
- People want to be led.
This first justification excludes people who do not want to be led and who also express themselves in this way. It overlooks the fact that individual self-determination in no way implies striving or even having to strive towards a superior goal declared by third parties.
The second attempt to explain the emergence of the leadership phenomenon is functional. It is first assumed that many problem solutions require joint action. In the context of such an interaction, however, a need for coordination arises which increases with the number of people involved in the joint problem-solving. In addition to the possibility of cooperation through action coordination with discussion and consensus building, "leadership" as action coordination is offered to cope with the given need for coordination. The functional justification attempt consists in leadership from a given coordination need of people in the context of common problem solving attempts. However, this overlooks the differentiation of motivation theory into leadership and guidance.
Acceptance of leadership
Especially when it comes to people management in organisations, a more precise understanding of leadership is of central importance. Leadership is different from a managerial position. The supervisor (or leader) has rights and responsibilities simply by virtue of his position as opposed to a leader. This requires recognition and acceptance by those being led. Leadership only exists when the attempt made by the leader to influence those to be influenced is accepted by them and is reflected in their behaviour. Leadership is not the attempt to influence itself, but must be expressed as an "accepted attempt to influence" in the behaviour of those to be influenced.
The criterion of recognition and acceptance is what makes it possible to distinguish between a headship and a leadership. Any person can formally be the superior of another person, but does not necessarily have to be accepted as a leader. Acceptance can result from a corresponding charisma or be earned through performance.
