BUSINESS ORGANISATIONS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 1

BUSINESS ORGANISATIONS - Essay Example It may be one essential element of an organization that keeps it together and going. It is a process of getting a task done through people. There have been numerous amounts of theories and assumptions that have varied. Although words about leadership have been written by Egyptian and Greek philosophers about five thousand years ago, but the studies about different approaches to leadership did not commence until after World War 1. Since then, there has been a multitude of perspectives and theories produced. The "Personality approach" emphasizes at the individual attributes of leaders, such as self confidence, risk taking, creativity, and persuasiveness. The "Behavior approach" looks at the actual activity performed by any leader that involves assessing regular tasks and behavioral characteristics of leaders. Lastly, the "Situational approach" focuses on leadership in terms of its relationships with factors such as subordinates, and peers. This approach is also referred to as â€Å"Contingency theory† because the situation determines the role of the leader. First time a scientific research was carried out was in the early part of the twentieth century. These scientists’ works with an assumption that leaders were people who had various attributes and personality traits that include physical characteristics, personality, social background, and ability that distinguished them from the rest. Therefore, this consistent philosophical view came to be known as the "Great Man Theory of Leadership." The theory states that some people are ‘born to be leaders’ and not made. Such people possess a special quality that differentiates them as unique from common individual(s). One may say that the great leaders of the world like Julius Caesar or Napoleon would’ve achieved the same leadership role at anyplace or anytime in history. In the Nineteen twenty’s, some of the leadership researchers started taking this hypothetical theory