Meaning and Nature:

In every field of social, political, and other areas there is an immense

importance of leadership. Naturally, leadership is also a very important part of
the administrative process. Henry says: Leadership is a big subject, and
perhaps no aspect of organisational behaviour has had more written about it
than leadership.
No organisation, big or small, can run without a leader. Hence, like other
processes, leadership is also an important process. Talking about leadership,
Nicolas Henry makes the following observation: Leaders were those who
coalesced and moulded elements of the society at an institutional level, and
were rather grandiose figures. Leadership may also be defined as capacity to
influence others or to make other persons to do a work or to follow something
according to certain principles or to do a work in accordance with rules framed
by the authority.
Henry thinks that there is a difference between leader or leadership and
administrator. According to Henry, Administrators performed the mundane but
necessary chores of a bureaucratic and technical nature that kept the
organisation running on a day-to-day basis An administrator helps the day-today management of public administration but coalesces the various elements
of an organisation.
A leader is not confined within the everyday functioning. An administrator is
welt-versed in the administrative processes and rules. But a leader is a man of
great personality and positional authority. His duty is to supervise the functions
and management of the whole organisation or all the departments of public

administration. Generally, a leader is not concerned with any specific duty. He

is the supervisor of the whole body of organisation.
A threadbare analysis of leadership reveals the following aspects of the nature
of this concept. According to Nicholas Henry, leadership is a very important
aspect of quality with the help of which a person provides all-round development stimulus to an organisation. It implies that everybody cannot be leader
though many can become administrator or efficient officer. In other words
leadership is an inborn quality.
There may be an exaggeration in this assessment, but it is a fact leadership is
not a common quality. An organisation generally works within the framework of
certain rules. But leadership is never confined within the boundary of these
rules. Sometimes it works beyond the specific rules.
There is a wide gap between an administrator and person who provides bold
and effective leadership. Leadership means a type of creativity but
administrator does not or may not have this particular quality. He will have the
capability to manage an organisation in the best possible way.
Leadership will have another quality which an administrator may not possess.
In the field of management, an organisation may face problems or may be in
great crises. An administrator may not be in a position to solve it. Only a bold
leadership can show the path to solution and soon the organisation may be on
a solid foundation and it will resume normal work.
It has been claimed that there must be sufficient transparency and coherence
in the work of leadership. This quality will post a leader above all sorts of
squabbles and criticisms. The leader must be above all types of orthodox

behaviour and attitude. This is essential on the ground that narrowmindedness deters the forward movement of the organisation.

Functions of Leadership:
Let us focus our attention to the functions of leadership. It is believed (and of
course wrongly) that leadership is a different concept and not associated with
the day-to-day management of the organisation. But Henry says: Increasingly
it is becoming recognised that leadership and administration are of equal
importance to the success of organisations Leadership is seen as dealing
with change whereas administration is viewed as coping with complexity.
The above observation of Henry makes it clear that the leadership has a very
crucial role to play in the organisation. For the betterment or further improvement of the organisation the leadership introduces new changes and it is the
duty of the administrator to implement those changes. Hence we find that both
leadership and administration are part and parcel of an organisation. The
farsightedness and imagination of leadership provide a vision for the
organisation and this requires to be executed-which is done by the
administration.
It is the primary duty of the leadership to fix the objectives of the organisation
and this requires imagination, thorough knowledge of related issues and,
above all, farsightedness. In todays world situation the functions of an
organisation are not confined within the narrow geographical boundary. The
events of the outside world in various ways influence the functions of an
organisation and it is the duty of the leadership to show the way to the

organisation. It is believed that a bold and proper leadership can provide such
a way.
A researcher gives a new definition of leadership: Leadership is an important
relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect
their mutual proposes. This definition of leadership contains the hints of
certain important functions. A leader influences the management in noncoercive ways. In other words, a leader never imposes his decision in a
coercive manner. There is a cordial relationship between the leader and other
employees and the proposals of the leader is cordially received by the
executives or other employees. The mutual relationship is a factor for the
furtherance of the organisation.
Leadership has another crucial role to play. The prevalence of cordial relation
among all sections of employees is a strong precondition of the development
of the organisation and the maintenance of this relation falls upon the
leadership. The overall supervision of the organisation falls on the shoulder of
the leader and he sees that this is maintained in the proper way.
The rise and growth of an organisation is a time and energy consuming affair
and the leadership will have to perform it with all earnestness. This is
regarded as a very important quality or qualification of a leader. A study of the
histories of various organisations of many countries reveals that behind the
rise and fall of many organisations there is a special role (Which is also
negative) of leadership.
Globalisation and liberalisation have considerably influenced the role and
function of the leadership. A leader must be well-versed with the latest picture

of the organisational world. The leader will take bold steps for the overhauling
of the organisation so that it can efficiently cope with the change and provide
strong fillip for the advancement of the organisation in the modern world.