THE ENGINEROOM (2022)

Leadership

By Deependra Singh | Roll number 4274 | Class of 1995

FOLLOWERS

“Leaders” & “Leadership”, small words, but have a big impact on any organisation.

• H ow to be an effective leader?

• W hat are the ingredients of a successful leadership?

These are the questions which people have tried to find out over past few centuries, the evidence goes back as early as 500BC to the times of Confucius and Xunxi from east and philosophers like Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes and Locke from west.

The study on successful leadership or effective leaders has been a point of interest for many scholars and out of this interest, many theories on leadership have been proposed.

Leadership is a relationship through which one person influences the behaviour or actions of other people

So, how does a leader with vision & strategic direction will create an influential impact. The prominent leadership theories developed so far are:

• Trait theory

• B ehavioural or style theory

• C ontingency / Situational theory

• Transformational theory

• S ervant leadership theory

• E motional intelligence theory

Other than knowing leadership, critical understanding of the difference between management and leadership is also very important. Not all managers exercise leadership and not all leaders manage.

• W hat is the difference between leader and manager?

• I s leadership better than management or vice versa?

As per Kotter J P, 2001 none of them is better than other, but both are complementary to each other. Management is about coping with complexity, Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change. A successful organisation should have both, strong leaders as well as strong managers.

To explain this, let me relate these theories to our profession of shipping for ease of understanding. To access the leadership abilities of senior management officers onboard and managers ashore, I reviewed few prominent leadership theories and then drew a conclusion for the best form of leadership in our maritime sector.

Trait theory

This is one of the earliest leadership theories, developed around 1920’s. This was an attempt to identify the common traits of effective leaders. The theory states that all effective leaders share common traits.

Trait approach assumes that leaders are born and not made. For an organisation to be successful, the organisational leaders must be chosen with leadership traits. The following six traits of successful leaders were identified:

1. D rive and ambition

2. T he desire to lead (and influence others)

3. H onesty and integrity

4. Se lf-confidence

5. I ntelligence

6. K nowledge

The popularity of this theory could not last later than 1940s. The main drawback of the trait theory is that it does not include situational factors. Secondly as research findings revealed, there are no specific traits common to all effective leaders.

Behavioural/Style theory

Behaviour leadership style is the way in which

• t he functions of leadership are carried out,

• t he managers typically behave towards member of the group

In the context of work, managers can no longer use his position; instead, use his behaviour towards his team so that it shows cooperation & Motivation for team. This theory gains popularity at the FAQ end of trait theory and was being a point of interest between 1940s and 1960s.

However, this theory also has its own limitation and shortcomings:

• I n different situations, different type of role is expected

• T he behaviour of leader is generalised

The way leader behaves in one part of the world with one culture might not be accepted at the other part of the world having varied culture. We all know the essence of shipping lies in its multi-cultural existence.

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership is the process in which leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of morality and motivation.

Visionary leaders transform followers by creating changes in their goals, values, needs, beliefs, and aspirations. They accomplish this by appealing to follower’s self–concepts – namely, their values and personal identity.

The main objective of the transformational leadership is to empower followers with enough motivation so that they can contribute willingly without much supervision.

Such a visionary/charismatic leader can lead people to be fully dependent, but leader influence is unidirectional from leader to follower and there is no exchange from follower to leader. The risk with this type of leadership is that at times:

• T here can be a negative transformational leadership (e.g., like Hitler, who was charismatic, offered a clear vision to people as followers, but his goal led to the ruin rather than uplift of his followers.)

• T he influence of a leader is directly on the individual/ follower but not on organisation or the process

Situational or Contingency Leadership

The assumption of the theory is that no single leadership style is appropriate and effective in all situations. There are some major sub-theories under the contingency leadership:

SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP MODEL Leadership

• F iedler’s Contingency Model

• V room & Yetton contingency Model

• P ath Goal theory

• T he Hersey-Blanchard Model of Leadership

One Contingency theory which has proven popular is Hersey-Blanchard Model and it suggests that the leader should use the styles of Telling, Selling, Supporting, and Delegating depending upon the situation and employee he is dealing with.

The theory recognises the need of behavioural flexibility on part of the leader and its application is truly situational in nature. If we see the leader behaviour is being governed by follower, making follower a key element. Here the leader is influencing as well as working together with follower towards a common organisational goal, thus making it an Ideal leadership model. The leader is expected to train and coach follower so that they gradually move from directing to delegating.

Before coming to the final phase of my conclusion, I would like to emphasise again that leaders are not just born, they can be developed. Every individual has a leadership quality within himself/herself, but how to hone that quality is what a leadership development is. These employees onboard as well as ashore are professional to the highest level, they

have been selected over thousands of other people, so most of the times there is no question of competence. This leadership development should not only be restricted to top level but should be given at all levels including junior ranks.

In my opinion, a Situational leadership model will be most apt in this ever-changing environment of shipping to have the optimum performance from employees.

As per Blanchard (2007, p5), ’Leadership is not something you do to people, but something you do with people.’

By now we know, situational leadership, it is up to the leader to change his style, not the follower to adapt to the leader’s style.

In the present environment of shipping industry, the need for dynamic leaders onboard as well as ashore is very much required. A ship costing USD 60-70 million, with cargo worth USD 100-120 million is being handled by these leaders. We need these leaders to adapt to the changes and still influence followers to achieve the performance excellence towards the common organisational goal of safe and efficient ships. ▄