Leadership / Strategy

Importance of Leading in Management

by Faizul Haque

Leading is the third element of management, one of the management core functions. Here, a manager spends time connecting with his/her employees. Leadership skills include inspiring, communicating, motivating, and influencing employees for efficient output. All managers are not leaders, but all leaders are managers. An employee follows all the directions a manager gives because they have to, because managers have all the legitimate powers. But an employee voluntarily follows the direction of a leader because they have believed in him\her.

Leading function has three basic components:

Motivating Employees: They motivate their employees and subordinates.

Influencing Employees: They influence their employees and subordinates to reach the desired goals of the organization.

Forming Effective Groups: They form effective groups in the organization.

The leading function helps any organization go forward to attain its goals and objectives.

Importance of Leading in Management

To maximize efficiency and to achieve organizational goals, leading to business management plays a key role. Guiding the subordinates towards the goal and to ensure their growth is one of the many functions leading covers. To justify the importance of leading in a concern of business management, the following points are discussed.

Guidance and Development

Leading in business management is to initiate the project according to plan, but to ensure its success the employees must be effective and efficient at their work. It is a leaders’ responsibility to ensure that the workforce is doing their part of the job properly with full knowledge. If needed, leaders might have to help the employee in their respective tasks. Leading a subordinated and providing real-time support helps the employee grow and ensure the best performance in their working area.

Motivating Employees

Motivating employees and bringing the best out of them is one of the prime aspects of leading in an organization.  If employees are motivated according to their needs, they try to be more efficient with their work and they work more effectively. A leader leads the employees by keeping them motivated so that they can do their part of the job properly. Motivation can be either authoritarian or participative and a leader has to decide which one to choose according to organizational culture and employee’s cooperative behavior history.

Initiating the first step

Planning a structure that will be followed to achieve the organization’s goal and leading the employees towards it, is an important aspect. Leading the employees properly plays the most important role in the organization. An ideal leader has to decide whether the steps that are taking are necessary or not. The leader can lead their employee towards the organizational goal then the business will simply collapse. Good communication, enough knowledge, and a clear view of the organizational goal can help a leader initiate the first step of planning but leading them the whole time and ensuring success is more important. A leader decides what needs to be done, by whom it is going to be done, and what tasks are included in the plan and leads them. A skilled workforce can only help to achieve only if they are being led properly.

Building Morale and satisfaction

Being confident and having a sense of satisfaction in the back of the mind helps the employees to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. It will lead to the organizational goal and an ideal leader will use this by leading them. A leader should try to build a sense of satisfaction that the employees are missing and building morale within them will turn them into assets for the organization. And a leaders’ job is to use those assets and lead the employee to the betterment of the company. But the employees can get frustrated by the workload and new challenges. Leading the employees and helping them through that by building confidence in them and ensuring the business goal is an important aspect.

Ensuring Proper Work Environment

For a stable and sound growth of the organization, a proper work environment plays a vital role. Leading the subordinates in an environment where the workforce is comfortable can help achieve business goals. To ensure the best results, proper leading has to be implied. A proper work environment can help with the comfortability of the employees and leading them efficiently is more essential. A great leader is a person who listens to their workforce’s struggles and leads them to a close to a perfect solution for that particular problem. The employees must be treated with proper respect and having a work-friendly environment where their voice can be heard intrigues employees and puts more effort into the organization’s goal and growth.

Coordination Among All

An organizational goal can only be achieved if the whole workforce and management are on the same page. Being clear about the words, conveying the right message, and holding confidential information away from the workforce are some of the most important aspects. While leading, this must be made sure that proper coordination among the workforce is being ensured. A proper synchronization among the organization can be achieved only if effective coordination is present within the organizational structure.

In Conclusion

Leading is a very important function of management. It always helps to minimize deficiency and achieve organizational objectives. The above points justified the importance of leading in an organization.

Related:

References:

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading
  • http://www.managementstudyguide.com/importance_of_leadership.htm
  • http://www.ceoinstitute.com/leadership-training/business-leadership/