Yes, you are a manager but not the suitable team leader

By Luke Anami

The need for leadership qualities among employees is important because hierarchies in most organisations are disappearing.

As organisations demand efficient and effective systems, they require leaders who can lead teams.

"When people in organisations are asked which set of competencies they would like to develop, most want effective leadership," Prof Gareth Jones, a visiting professor at INSEAD and a Fellow of the Centre for Management Development at the London Business School says.

Leaders often get the credit when a company is successful, even though they know that much of that credit is due to their employees.

Authentic leadership has become the most prized organisational and individual asset. It is important for employees to develop leadership skills that will drive the business and improve individual careers.

The misconception

Employees need to have a clear picture of their expectations, and managers need to enforce it.

Managers and employees should work together to set specific and challenging goals. If an employee has the necessary abilities to perform a particular job and receives constructive progress reports, then he or she can be held accountable.

"Leadership is not a preserve of high-profile CEO’s, managers, supervisors, or union leaders alone," the don says.

There is need for workers to strive and develop leadership skills. The possession of high levels of emotional intelligence is a necessary attribute of a successful leader.

Managers can help develop their colleagues’ emotional leadership by moderating their own response and observing them.

Every manager in a business has the opportunity to encourage individual self development or stifle it, to direct or to misdirect it.

"Executive ability is something that individuals must develop for them while carrying out their duties," he explains.

"But they will do this much better if they are given encouragement, guidance, and opportunities by their organisations and managers."

He says: "Leadership attribute is high in demand and short in supply".

Given the hunger for leadership qualities, why are leaders in short supply?

The professor observes that although organisations desire leaders, they structure themselves in ways that kill it.

"The misconception that people who occupy senior positions are leaders, has damaged our capacity to understand leadership and blinded us to true nature of leadership," he says.

Job Title

"Being given a particular title — such as team leader, section head, vice president, may confer some hierarchical authority, but does not make you a leader."

Hierarchy alone is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the exercise of leadership.

It could be argued that the qualities that take you to the top of large-scale and highly political organisations are not the ones associated with leadership.

"As people who make it to the top do so for a variety of reasons including political acumen, personal ambition, tribalism, nepotism, rather than real leadership quality," he says.

The common consensus is that to be a leader, you need a vision, purpose and energy.

"Make no mistake, leadership is about results. Great leadership has the potential to excite people to extraordinary levels of achievement," Jones said during the Association of Professional Societies in East Africa leadership Conference in Nairobi.