Faculty of Law

(FOL)

PGP 0022
Introduction to Politics & Governance

Foundation in Law

ONLINE NOTES

Chapter 2

Fundamental Concepts

FOl , MULTIMEDIA UNIVERSITY (436821-T)

MELAKA CAMPUS, JALAN AYER KEROH LAMA, 75450 MELAKA
MALAYSIA.
PGP0022 Introduction to Politics & Governance Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2: FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS

1) DEFINITION OF LEADERSHIP & ITS CHARACTERISTICS

• DEFINITION OF LEADERSHIP

- Leadership is a social quality.

- Scholars of leadership studies agree, however, in looking at
leadership in terms of a relationship, define leadership as:

“ the reciprocal process of mobilizing, by persons with certain

motives and values, various economic, political and other
resources, in a context of competition ad conflict, in order to
realize goals independently or mutually held by both leaders
and followers”.

- Implied in the above definition is a relationship that involves

power, influence and authority.
- Thus Kenneth F. Janda views leadership as “a particular type of
power relationship”.
- Mac Gregor Burns insists that an understanding of “the nature
of leadership requires understanding of the essence of power,
for leadership is a special form of power”.
- Leadership is a group of phenomenon-there is no leaders
without followers.
- Leadership is a quality by virtue of which an individual can
guide and influence others.
- More specifically, leadership refers to the quality of the
behaviour of an individual whereby he/she can guide people or
their activities in an organized effort.
- A leader creates a pattern of behaviour among the followers.

• CHARACTERISTICS OF LEADERSHIP

- Leaders have several common personality and behavioural

characteristics as listed below:

a) - Leaders are self confident in their own abilities and in the

correctness of their beliefs and actions.
- The leaders high confidence in his or her actions motivates the
followers who the wholeheartedly carry out the leader’s wishes.

b) -Leaders are not merely self confident, they are also very much
enthusiastic about their ideas and actions.
-They would try everything possible to make others believe in
their vision of promoting changes in the organization and in the
society as a whole.
-Leaders are willing to suffer for the sake of their ideas and
actions.

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c) -Leaders are able to communicate their ideas through speeches

and other means of communication to their followers.
-They have developed communication skills that allow them to
convey their ideas, define the mission of their organization or
the party and make it relevant and meaningful to followers.

d) -Leaders are characterized by honesty and integrity.

-Integrity or lack of it, is considered a key factor in leadership.
-Bad leadership often contains elements of lack of trust and
dishonesty on the part of the leaders.
-People complain about leaders who abuse their trust, lie to
them, or mislead them.
-Leaders cannot be effective without having integrity.
-Party leaders who develop relationships based on trust can
improve their party’s performance.
-Studies on leadership suggest that leaders are indeed gifted in
at least some areas.
-However, gifts and talents alone are not enough.
-Experience, correct choices and exposure to the right
situations are also keys to allowing these gifts to bloom.

3) LEADERSHIP FUNCTIONS AND STYLE

• FUNCTIONS

-Although leaders in different cultures may perform different functions and

play different roles, researches have identified a number of functions common
to all.

a) To persuade others to follow.

-Leadership is the process of exercising the influence between a leader
and followers that is necessary to attain group, organizational, and
social goals.
-In the organizational context, training, supervising, delegating, team
building, rewarding are all leadership functions.
-So are active and empathetic listening, evaluating performance,
maintaining effective interpersonal relations and counseling when
mistakes are made.

b) To lead.
-Leading is the process of guiding and motivating people to work
toward organizational goals.
-Leaders that excel at leading are able to influence and motivate
employees through words and actions.
-Motivation is giving employees reason to perform at top quality and
capacity while moving towards the goals.
-Leaders often have effective interpersonal skills and high emotional
quotients like Self-awareness, Self-regulation, Motivation, Empathy
and social skill.

c) Manage to change and build a strong organizational culture.

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-According to one study, about 70% of all change initiatives fail.

-Much of the failure is due to the lack of preparation.
-Change in the workplace scares some employees and meets with
resistance, so it is important to prepare employees for the change.
-Cultivating constant change on a small scale can prepare employees
for larger changes.
-Regular and frequent communication is the key in change
preparation.
-This helps build trust long before major change occurs.

d) Create and develop a culture and climate for their group or

organization.
-The organizational culture, or corporate culture, is a set of shared
values and norms that support the management system and guide
workplace behaviour.
-Corporate culture influences how employees treat and react to one
another.

e) Role model.
-Leaders are role models for other organizational members.
-One of the key behaviour that leaders need to role model is the
acceptance of responbility for one’s action.
-Leaders must also reward those who contribute towards attaining the
organizational goals.

*In addition to the above, leaders are to be mindful about the basic
managerial functions of planning, organizing, staffing, directing and
controlling.

• STYLE

- The way in which the leader carries out his/her leadership

functions differ from place to place and person to person.
- A leader adopts the style he/she is most comfortable with.
- This depends on the person’s values, personality, and comfort
in allowing subordinates to participate in the decision-making
process.
- There are 3 basic leadership styles; authoritarian, democratic
and laissez faire.

a) Authoritarian Leadership Style

- A leader makes all the decisions and passes the directives to

subordinates who are expected to carry these out under very
close supervision.
- Any subordinates attempt at questioning the directives given
are discouraged.
- There is little or no opportunity for subordinates to develop
initiative and creativity.
- This style is based upon the assumption that the leader knows
everything and knows what is best for the organization.

b) Democratic Leadership Style

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- Characterized by a structured but cooperative approach to

decision making.
- The leader believes in group relationships and is sensitive to
the people in the organizations.
- Subordinates are encouraged to express their ideas and make
suggestions.
- The leader sells ideas, and he/she tends to be warm, confident
and friendly.

c) Laissez-faire Leadership Style

- There is the absence of any real leadership and every one is

free to do as they please.
- Usually with no goals or directions, there is a state of confusion,
and lack of confidence in leadership.
- The employees also often doubt their own ability to accomplish
the task at hand, thus productivity is usually very low.

*Each leadership style has its place in an organization and can be

used for different situations, task and the maturity and level of
professionalism of employees.

4) POWER

a) DEFINITION OF POWER

-Though the concept of power is central to politics, it is often poorly defined.

-Sometimes power, influence and authority are used interchangeably, to
mean the same thing.
-Sometimes, imprecise and incorrect distinctions are made among these three
concepts.
-R.H.Tawney defines power as “the capacity of an individual, or group of
individuals, to modify the conduct of other individuals or groups in the
manner in which he (the power holder) desires”.
-This definition can be illustrated through the following manner:
A has power over B if A can get B to do something that B would not otherwise
do.
-Implied in this definition is the notion that A has the ability to influence B’s
behavior, by coercion if necessary.
-An individual wields power to the extent he is capable of changing other’s
behavior according to his wish.
-It is the capacity to get things done from others according to one’s desires.

b) CHARACTERISTICS OF POWER

1) Power in a social context is a form of social relationship between

individuals and groups. It is essentially an ability of a person to make
someone else so (or think) something which he or she otherwise would
not do. The concept of power implies that the actions taken by followers in

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response to the desire of the power holder are not those they would take
it left to their own devices.

2) Power is transitive in nature especially when exercised. This means that it

has a subject (someone applying it) and an object (someone to whom it is
applied). There is no leader if there are no followers who are willing or at
least able to do as he wishes. Power does not exist in a vacuum. Power
can be exercised in relations.

3) Because power (namely control) is transitive when exercised, there must

be two views of power: one seen from the viewpoint of the power holders
or authorities, and another from the perspective of those to whom power
is applied.

4) Power is situational. It depends upon situation, circumstance and position.

A person may have power over his subordinates while he is in office, but
not after he has left the job or retires.

5) POWER vs INFLUENCE

-In what way is influence different from power? Most people talk about politics as
concerned with power and influence.
-Harold D. Laswell & Abraham Kaplan define power as a control backed up by the
actual use or the threat of force. To them, power “is the process of affecting policies
of others with the help of (actual or threatened) severe deprivations for non-
conformity with the policies intended”.
-To them power is a special case of the exercise of influence.
-Daniel Bell argues that “in the place of a threat or a promise, influence involves a
kind of prediction in the form of advice, encouragement, warning and so on…By now
it should be clear that while power rests on the ability to manipulate positive or
negative sanctions, influence does not”.
-There is not much difference between power and influence.
-The difference between the concepts of power and influence is largely linguistic.

6) AUTHORITY

-Authority is closely associated with power. Authority is formal or legal as

distinguished from personal power.
-The word authority is derived from the old Roman notion of “Auctor” or “Auctoritos”
which generally meant counsel or advice.
-Authority can be defined as the legitimate (conforming to established rules and
procedures) exercise of power.
-It is power assigned to a position by the popularly accepted ground rules for the
operation of the political system.
-For example, the Canadian Constitution assigns certain powers to the Prime
Minister. This gives him the authority, the right to command and to be obeyed by
others, when acting as required by the Constitution. By the authority inherent in the
office, the Prime Minister’s actions are accepted voluntarily by the people and his
directives are carried out without the employment of force or sanctions.
-Likewise, a police officer who stops a speeding car on the highway exercises
legitimate power. The officer has the authority to make a driver stop and to issue a
speeding ticket.

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-On the contrary, a hijacker may have power over the crew and the passengers of an
airplane but he has no authority.
-The concept of authority involve: a position/role in an institution and an individual
occupying that position.
-Role means the set of patterned expectations about behavior that the members of
society attach to a position (the Prime Minister, for example) in an institution (the
executive branch of government.
-An institution is a set of interrelated roles designed to organize and coordinate
behavior as to perform a function.
-Authority is attached to these positions.
-A man gains authority simply by occupying that position.
-Authority means the agreed upon enabling rights to control certain people on
certain issues within a political system.
-Authority in this sense, is conferred on the role (or office) of the Prime Minister and
can be exercised by anyone occupying that role.
-Authority, therefore, is “constitutional” in the broader sense i.e. it is recognised and
accepted as the rightful behavior/expectations of any occupant of the role.
-Authority is that power which is popularly or constitutionally recognized as rightful
or legitimate.
-In short, authority is legitimate power, the right to give commands that people have
a moral obligation to obey. No government can function long without some degree of
authority.

• TYPES OF AUTHORITY

-According to Max Weber, there are three types of authority: traditional, charismatic
and legal-rational.

Traditional Authority:
-Based on ancient customs or traditions or conventions.
-Based on the development and persistence of habits of obedience over many
generations.
-People often assume that the political norms and institutions with which they grew
up are the only ones conceivable and therefore obviously right.
-Most societies in which people believe in the divine right of the government or the
King exemplify traditional authority.

Charismatic Authority:
-Refers to people’s following a leader because they believe that he or she has
extraordinary personal qualities that command their obedience such as magical gifts,
heroism, personal charm or exemplary character.
-Usually charismatic leaders emerge only in times of social and political crisis.
-Charismatic authority lasts only as long as the followers’ faith remains strong.
-It is by nature extremely unstable but can have enormous political impact.

Legal-rational Authority:
-Based upon acceptance of publicly articulated, society-wide rules and regulations
issued by duly authorised public officials.
-Obedience is commanded not by custom or tradition but by the law.
-The emphasis is upon the “official processes” and the necessity of going through
“proper channels” rather than governing according to the personal desire of top
leaders.

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-Weber emphasized that no governmental system ever represents a pure type of any
one of these three kinds of authority.
-It is possible to find a mixture of two or all of these types in one regime.
-A King could be charismatic and yet relies upon the bureaucracy for administration.
-Nevertheless, the legal rational type of authority is found in all modern societies.

7) STATE

-A systematic treatment of the nature of state began with the Greek philosophers.
-Aristotle remarked, “Man is by nature a political being, it is his nature to live in a
polis” wherein alone he could attain his highest moral nature.
-For Karl Marx, the state is the product of class contradictions and class struggle and
is controlled by the economically-dominant class.
-To Max Weber, the state is a “human community that (successfully) claims the
monopoly of the legitimate use of physical violence in a given territory”.
-Robert Dahl influenced by Weber, viewed the state as a collection of individuals
occupying role positions (those of governing authority) and acting as a group to
govern.
-Giddens defines a state as “a political organization whose rule is territorially ordered
and which is able to mobilise the means of violence to sustain that rule”.

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