About Leadership

Influencing people to work toward the same objective is a key component of leadership. In order to study leadership in the Air Force, it will be necessary to examine theories and methods that have been developed over time. The idea that outstanding leaders are born is a common one in leadership. Although this adage has been the subject of numerous debates, it is true to some extent. Nevertheless, anyone can achieve leadership success by developing the necessary skills. This is due to the fact that everyone can learn and exercise leadership. While there are many exceptional leaders with innate leadership qualities, other people less gifted in leadership can also acquire skills and become effective leaders. Indeed, studies in leadership have indicated that leadership is not for the chosen few. Rather, the willingness and devotion of individuals to work with other people makes the big difference in a far as leadership is concerned. While majority of the leaders are leaders because their positions requires them to lead, goof leaders are those who draw followership from the people they lead. There are various ways through which individuals can become effective leaders.
Leadership theories are helpful because they give system of ideas to guide leaders to increase their productivity. This essay is the application of transformational leadership theory within Air Force and how it has managed to help it. The essay will first give brief overview of the five theories. Transformational leadership theory is needed in Air Force because they needed to change to match the needed standards in the work environment.

Brief Overview of Leadership Theories
Leadership theories have helped in differentiation of ways of leading. They enable a differentiation of true leaders among others. The approaches taken by various leaders in solving these issues will determine or have an impact on the progress of the business. An example of a challenge that faces many companies is fact it struggles to inspire and motivate its work force and maintain this culture within the working environment. This has some positive impact on her staff and the public at large by raising team morale, it spurs others to action, and team success is see directly connected to the leaders' presence. Leaders have an impact on others by just how they carry themselves.

Trait Theory
This was proposed in years between 1930's and 1940s. The theory holds the view that people are born with or possess certain leadership attributes which make them succeed in their leadership duties. A good leader is regarded as the one with attributes such as; sense of responsibility, intelligence, creativity and other related values. The trait theory emphasizes on analyzing mental, physical and social attributes. Many firms and organizations search for those personal traits in an individual that would enable him/ her guide and control the rest.

Behavioral Theories
The behavioral theory of leadership suggests that people learn leading skills from others. The leading traits are skills that a person can emulate and practice. Any person has the abilities of becoming an effective leader.


Contingency Leadership Theory
This theory argues that there is one method of leading people or organization hence every leadership styles needs to be in line with the situations. Certain people can perform different as environment changes hence it is good to adapt to the conditions. Leaders in Air Forces need to change their style in line with the changes in the operating environment.

Application of Transformational Leadership Theory
All organizations worldwide are faced with numerous challenges that cut across irrespective of which industry and size of the company. In order to address them, good leadership is quite important. There are attributes that are expected from a leader who is able to help an organization achieve its objectives. An important attribute of leaders is to be ethical in which they live morally acceptable life. This will ensure that they are widely acceptable within the organization. Ethical leaders are servants of their people as they value their followers and put them above their own personal interest.
Using trait theory, it is important for leaders of groups to match the correct leadership skills with the environment of the environment. This implies that leadership is contextual and in line with the needs of the people. For example, one of the common challenge that faces many companies is inability inspire and motivate its work force and maintain this culture within the working environment. A leader should be able to deal with these challenges through the power of his personality, he acts energetically which motivates others to move forward, she inspire passion and self believe. Leaders need good negotiation / communication skills can learn a lot of things by just understanding the background of the followers who may have a different opinion from theirs. Leadership skills that are relevant to the current administration includes active problem-solving ability that when applied generates extra information and experience in solving a similar problem in the future. In fact, leaders have to be well organized to manage their affairs effectively efficiently and timely (Crevani et al, 2010).

Applications of different ethical Theories in Leadership
Since the earliest time human consciousness was recorded, there the ethical discipline is made of four important approaches, usually referred to as frame-works for decision making. These are utilitarian ethics or outcome based approach, virtual ethics or one based on virtue, deontological ethics which is based on duty and communitarian ethics which is based on community. Each of these frameworks has a way of undertaking ethical task and bringing out the value. Depending on one's believes and conviction, each of the different ethical framework guides. All the four frameworks are similar in that they encourage the believer to act ethically by taking into considerations the needs of others (Moreland, 2009).
Utilitarian ethics also called consequentialists because they consider the consequences of one action in order to determine whether a certain action is justified or not. This is based on the motto of doing the greatest good to the greatest number. In practicing utilitarian ethics, it is important to undertake cost benefits analysis which will involve analyzing each action by the benefits it bring to the people. Based on this approach, the best choice of action entails the ones that bring the largest benefit to the largest numbers.
Deontology is the duty ethics and compares one's action against some imperative or duty. For example, within Kant's Deontology, all people must be within ends in and of themselves. This put more emphasizes on the nature of the actions (Santa Clara University, 2016).
In virtue ethics, the determiner of morality is the character.one of the important incarnation were the Aristotelian ethics where the top moral good was having particular characteristics traits. Today we call his way to deal with morals ideals morals. For Aristotle and other Greek scholars, uprightness implied the fabulousness of a thing. The goodness of a blade is to cut; the righteousness of a doctor is to recuperate; the ideals of a legal counselor are to look for equity. In this sense, Ethics turns into the way of finding and honing goodness.

The role and effectiveness of transformational and transactional leadership in the organization
Transformational type of leadership is held on the tenet that leaders are able to motivate the workers in order to deliver more than they had planned to. This kind of leadership is founded on four ideas of effect, inspirational motivation, intellectual simulation and individual consideration. Servant leadership is based on the belief that the activities of the leader should enrich the lives of individuals, builds great organizations and thus leads to more just and caring world. Leaders should not only be working to meet organizational targets; they need to cater for the needs of the people they lead. There have been different arguments on which of the two leadership styles should an organization practice in order to maximize its goals.


The traits and characteristics of an effective team leader within the organization
If leaders embrace innovation, this would permit employees from various foundations to adopt amicable working relationship thus enhancing working aptitudes and work abilities. Notwithstanding, the current leaders need to instill clear information of innovation regarding administration like the capacity to incorporate and utilize the different advancements accessible. Be that as it may, the key concern ought to involve their ability to comprehend and figure out which type of projects to consolidate in their working environments and therefore acknowledge hierarchical achievement.

Leadership Styles of Transformative Leader

The four major leadership styles that have been agreed upon but with given different names are, Delegate, Coaching, directing and supporting.

Supportive leader
This leadership style is focused towards establishing good relation with human being. This type of leadership style aims at treating employees with dignity and changing the workplace from strict authoritarian control over human beings to a more collegial team concept. These tend to bring a family atmosphere in the work place and create respect. On the other side of things, this leader is less focused on the achieving and delivering goals for the company. This will result to an imbalance in the various roles played the leader. Herb Kelleher, the cofounder of southwest airlines used this leadership style by, putting service to others before self, provided tools to others for the job to be done and included the whole team in decision making. This resulted in creating a positive culture and high work place morale (Aviolo, 2007).

Coaching leader
This type of leader is focused on achieving the main goals for the company he/she is working for and offering support to the employees through motivating and inspiring. There is a balance in this type of leadership style since in as much as leader is working towards achieving the goals of the company, they do it while also taking looking after the interest of the employee and creating a conducive working environment. The personal needs of the employees are taken care of. Out of the four leadership styles, this is the best since a state of balance is achieved and none of the parties is shortchanged. It is a win-win situation. Richard Branson of Virgin Group used this technique by creating a climate for others to apply innovative thinking to solve problems. The employees eventually got job satisfaction and failure did not impede progress

Delegating Leader
The focus of this leader is ensuring work is done through delegating his or her duties. They initiate structures and allocate the necessary resources to those whom work is delegated upon. The leader has less concern for the feeling of the employees and his top most priority is just getting things done and working towards achieving the overall goals of the company.

Developing leadership capacity
Leaders need to know that they are not only responsible for the companies they work for but also developing other leaders. They therefore must hold their people accountable not only for delivering results but for also how they accomplished them. Current leaders need to train and offer leadership skills techniques to those they are leading so that when they are not available, other people can step in and offer guidance (Ames & Flynn, 2007).

Valuing and effectively utilizing diversity
A shift from the traditional approach of solving problem is necessary. Aspiring leaders need to know they are leading people from all lifestyles whether in gender, race, age, nationality, and economic status. A smart leader will capitalize on the diversity in order to lead effectively. He/she should not segregate any individual but embrace all and look beyond one's background.

Driving profits through values and principles
The overall goal of companies is to achieve profits and provide or add value to the shareholders. The goals are achieved through people in the organization and for this to be successful; leaders need to influence those values to their fellow employees the various values they wish in the employees. The leaders must also lead by example so that the other employees may follow suit.

Challenges facing leadership
Challenges define who leaders are since it is out of those demanding challenges that a leader is defined. Without these challenges, we would have little leaders. All leaders face numerous challenges that they must go through in order to realize their vision. These challenges vary from one organization to another but the most common type of challenges faced by most leaders is.

Different personalities
Not all leaders are liked this may be because of their personality, what they believe in and stand among others. People may have varying views that are contrary to those of the leaders. There is a collusion of ideas and opinions regarding a particular issue hence the reason for disrespect.
Balancing the need of the company and those of the people
The challenge of meeting the company's goals while still addressing the needs of the people is a tough balancing act. If the leader fails to meet the needs of the company, he or she may be fired and if they fail to address the needs of the people, they in charge of they risk facing noncooperation and lose of trust with the employees. Balancing this two need require tact and skills in order to meet the needs of these two groups.

Staying motivated
While leaders are tasked with responsibility of motivating their followers, they themselves have no one to turn to or go to for motivation. Life hands us various set back that lowers our morale and the leaders are not immune to these setbacks hence staying motivated every day is hard work.

Conclusion
All of us irrespective of our background are leaders. Various situations that we are faced with require us to show our leadership skills and guidance as to address the matter at hand. Be it at home, school, office or in church. The only difference on our worldview on leadership is that others perform it on a global stage while others perform it at a much lower lesser stage. Those performing it on bigger stage have a duty, responsibility, and mandate to the public to whom they are accountable.

References
Ames, F., & Flynn, F. (2007). What breaks a leader: The curvilinear relation between assertiveness and leadership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(2), 307-324.
Aviolo, B. (2007). Promoting more integrative strategies for leadership theory-building. American Psychologist, 62(1), 25-33.

Crevani, L., Lindgren, M., & Packendorff, J. (2010). Leadership, not leaders: on the study of leadership as practices and interactions. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 26(1), 77-86
Moreland, J., (2009). Ethics Theories: Utilitarianism Vs. Deontological Ethics. Retrieved from http://www.equip.org/article/ethics-theories-utilitarianism-vs-deontological-ethics/
Santa Clara University., (2016). How do People and Organizations Inspire Trust? Retrieved from https://www.scu.edu/ethics/